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Feb. 3, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show
59:58
Coward Biden Lets China Send Spy Balloon Over America | Ep. 1661
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Time Text
China flies a spy balloon over American soil and the Biden administration does nothing.
Anti-Semitic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar loses her Foreign Affairs Committee spot as Democrats' caterwaul.
And 86 Democrats vote against condemning the horrors of socialism.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Bench Bureau Show.
All right, so late yesterday afternoon, the news broke that a Chinese spy balloon was found over the northern United States.
It is a giant spy balloon.
It looks as though the Wizard of Oz is going to descend in this balloon or as the balloon boy may be found in this balloon.
Went through a wormhole in the past somehow emerged here, but actually it is a Chinese spy satellite.
Apparently, according to NBC News, U.S.
military has been monitoring a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been hovering over the northern United States for the past few days, and military and defense leaders have discussed shooting it out of the sky, according to U.S.
officials and a senior defense official.
Pentagon spokesperson, Brigadier General Pat Ryder told NBC News, The United States government has detected and is tracking a high altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now. We continue to track and monitor it closely.
Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against collection of sensitive information. Apparently, the high altitude balloon was spotted over Billings, Montana on Wednesday at It flew over the Aleutian Islands, through Canada and into Montana as well.
This apparently is not the only spy balloon that China has sent out there.
Apparently now the Canadians are suggesting that there may be a second spy balloon that was flying over Canada.
And apparently the new rule is that China gets to do pretty much whatever it wants in this space and we will do nothing.
Now, there are a bunch of unanswered questions here.
Unanswered question number one, why are you flying a spy balloon?
What does it actually accomplish?
See, China has satellites.
Those satellites are perfectly capable of taking pictures from space of things in Montana, for example.
Presumably, one of the things that they're attempting to monitor is America's nuclear arsenal, much of which is located in Montana.
If things go with satellites, why are they sending a balloon?
Well, there are really only two possible answers to this question.
Possible answer number one is that the balloon has capabilities for some odd reason that their satellites do not.
Maybe a satellite went offline, they had to send a balloon instead.
Maybe the balloon is more sophisticated for some reason than the satellites are getting better pictures.
And one is that the balloon is actually more effective than the satellites.
In which case, we should shoot it out of the sky because we shouldn't allow the Chinese to float a balloon over American soil.
I don't know why this is difficult at all.
By the way, you know who used to know this?
Like, the Soviets knew this.
The Chinese knew this.
And very famously, in 1960, the United States had a U-2 surveillance flight shot down by the Soviet Union.
It led to the actual imprisonment of an American pilot.
Famously, the Chinese in 2001 knocked an American jet out of the sky.
There were two jets that came into conflict.
Over China.
And that ended up with a major negotiation between the United States and China.
So foreign countries have no problem, apparently, knocking American surveillance out of the sky.
But apparently the Biden administration does not want to knock a balloon out of the sky.
And then there's the second possibility, which is China is doing this as a deliberate provocation.
But the reason they are sending the balloon is because they know that we will notice a balloon.
It turns out they are large and slow moving.
And so it'd be kind of hard for us not to notice the spy balloon.
What are they going to say?
It's a weather satellite?
And so we probably should knock it out of the sky.
In other words, we shouldn't allow a giant balloon to float over American soil unanswered.
All it would take is a well-placed piece of ordinance to knock the balloon out of the sky.
The Biden administration instead decided to do nothing.
It's almost beyond reason.
I don't understand what exactly the rationale would be for both the United States and Canada allowing China to do this sort of thing.
In a brief statement late on Thursday, the Canadian Department of National Defense said a high-altitude surveillance balloon had been detected and was being actively tracked by a North American Aerospace Defense Command, a U.S.-Canadian military organization, and didn't provide any details about that balloon or say whether it was the same balloon that was detected inside the United States.
What in the actual hell?
Like seriously, why is it that the Chinese get to float a balloon over American soil?
Do you feel safe in the administration that allows the Chinese to float?
Again, this is not a fast moving projectile that is moving over the United States.
This is not some sort of stealth surveillance plane that the United States just missed.
It's not a satellite.
It is a balloon.
We should be shooting those things down, just as a sign to everybody else that you don't get to do this sort of thing over American soil.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration, which had nothing to say about any of this yesterday, they did have certain things to say about, for example, the use of Russian anthems in international events.
I gotta say, I feel like your priorities are a little misplaced, guys.
Chinese balloon surveilling America's nuclear sites in Montana.
Let it go.
International organizations having athletes play their national anthem very bad.
Here's Karine Jean-Pierre trying to make this case yesterday.
In cases where sports organizations and event organizers, such as the International Olympic Committee, choose to permit athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in supporting events, it should be absolutely clear that they are not representing the Russian or Belarusian states.
And so that's the stance that we are providing, and the use of official state Russian-Belarusian flags, emblems, and anthems should be prohibited as well.
OK, so the use of Russian anthems in international sporting competition.
That should be prohibited.
Chinese flying balloons over American soil.
You know, that sort of stuff happens.
What are the priorities of this administration?
It's just it's cowardice.
I mean, there's no other way to actually look at this unless there is something we do not know.
This looks like cowardice.
It looks like the Biden administration does not want to come to grips with the Chinese.
And so they are allowing them to do things that no sovereign country should allow to happen to itself.
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Okay, so meanwhile, the other big story of the day, another big story yesterday, was that Ilhan Omar was booted off the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And apparently, this is the worst act of legislative usurpation in American history.
I mean, if you're judged by the Democratic reaction to the thing that they actually did to Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene last time around, if you do it to Ilhan Omar, it's super bad.
So remember, there was a precedent.
The precedent was that parties get to pick the members of the committee that are members of their party.
So if you're in the minority and you're the Republican Party, you get to pick which members go on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats, they decided they didn't like this because they don't like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And they didn't like Paul Gosar.
And so they decided they were just going to kick them off committees.
And so now the Republicans have taken the House and they say, well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
F around and find out.
In other words, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
If this is the new way that we play this game, then those rules apply to you also.
And that means that we can kick your vicious Jew hater off of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Now, by the way, Ilhan Omar was elected.
I don't know what that says for the people of her district, but she has been elected multiple times to her seat in Minnesota.
She is a vicious Jew hater.
That is evident from all of her record, which we'll go through in a moment.
Because remember, this is the person that Democrats are defending.
They're trying to pretend that this is about Ilhan Omar's race or her religion, which really is amazing because what they're effectively suggesting is that intersectionality is a cover for hating Jews.
That if you're a woman of color who is Muslim and comes from a foreign country, you can hate Jews as much as you damn well please.
And we will defend you because the only thing that matters about you is those intersectional characteristics that make you a victim rather than a victimizer.
But Ilhan Omar's record of being Very untethered toward the Jews is widely available.
And so if Republicans come into office and they're like, OK, you guys booted our people off committees.
Now we're going to find the worst of you and we're going to boot you off committees from Adam Schiff being booted off Intel to Eric Swalwell, who was being honeypotted by a Chinese spy.
We'll kick them off Intel and we'll kick Ilhan Omar off the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Democrats starting to scream about this right now really have no leg to stand on.
So to understand just how small a leg they have to stand on, we need to go through exactly what Ilhan Omar has said about the jurors.
She really doesn't like them.
So we can go all the way back.
And remember, she hasn't apologized for these comments, really.
She's never suggested that she was wrong.
She suggested she just didn't understand what she was saying.
It was just ignorance, of course.
So in November of 2012, she tweeted, Israel has hypnotized the world.
May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.
Hashtag Gaza, hashtag Palestine, hashtag Israel.
That was in the middle of Hamas firing rockets into Israel.
But Israel, the Jews, the Jews, they hypnotized the world.
Fast forward to 2016, and you'll recall that Ilhan Omar actually asked a judge for compassion for ISIS recruits.
So there are people in her community who had been recruited to ISIS, and she sent letters to the judge encouraging leniency for the people who had been recruited to ISIS.
And the reason, supposedly, that there should have been some sort of mercy for these people is because they, in fact, are victims.
She says.
This is in her letter at the time.
The best deterrent to fanaticism is a system of compassion.
We must alter our attitude and approach.
If we truly want to affect change, we should refocus our efforts on inclusion and rehabilitation.
The desire to commit violence is not inherent to people.
It is the consequences of systemic alienation.
People seek violent solutions when the process established for enacting change is inaccessible to them.
Fueled by disaffection turned to malice, if the guilty were willing to kill and be killed fighting perceived injustice, imagine the consequence of them hearing, I believe you can be rehabilitated.
I want you to become part of my community.
Together we will thrive.
So, the idea is that you are a victim if you're trying to join ISIS.
A victim of systemic alienation.
And so we have to decriminalize trying to join ISIS, and we have to treat them as though society is responsible for their activities.
This is Ilhan Omar back in 2016.
Again, this is part and parcel of her anti-American view, which is that American foreign policy is egregious and evil and wrong.
It's a very Noam Chomsky view of the world.
And therefore, everybody who hates the United States and tries to join a terrorist group is actually, they may be doing something wrong, but they are a victim of American foreign policy.
And we have to have sympathy for them.
Then in 2019, March of 2019, she had a spate of wonderful tweets in 2019.
So she was tweeting against Nita Lowey.
Nita Lowey, by the way, was a Democrat.
from the state of New York.
Anita Lowey had tweeted that she didn't like that Ilhan Omar was mischaracterizing support for Israel as somehow dual loyalty.
And she then tweeted out, quote, Our democracy is built on debate, Congresswoman.
I should not be expected to have allegiance or pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on a committee.
So no one expects Ilhan Omar to declare support for A foreign country like allegiance to Israel in order to serve on a committee.
If you want to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee, I mean, obviously, in the past, the Democrats could appoint you to that.
But if you want to make a moral case, you should serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
It seems like a baseline thing that you probably should not sympathize with the terrorists who are trying to destroy a democratic ally of the United States.
That's a very different thing from declaring that you are somehow.
Allegiant to the state of Israel, which, of course, another anti-Semitic trope is the only reason why people would support Israel is because Israel bought them off or they have dual loyalty.
This, of course, followed hard on another tweet from hers, the famous All About the Benjamins tweet, in October of 2019.
It's all about the Benjamins.
So Kevin McCarthy in 2019, he'd threatened punishment for Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib over their criticisms of Israel, according to Glenn Greenwald, right?
Glenn Greenwald is very left-wing when it comes to Israel.
And Ilhan Omar said, it's all about the Benjamins.
It's all about the Benjamins, right?
It's the Jews who bought off Kevin McCarthy and the rest of the Republican Party.
And remember, her hatred of the Jews in Israel is not confined to that.
She also believes that America is really bad.
By the way, she compared BDS, Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, from Israel, which is a State Department-defined act of anti-Semitism, right?
The idea that Israel should be cut off from the world economy because they are the Jewish state.
Here she was suggesting that BDS is basically supporting the Tea Party in the United States.
We must support efforts to end the occupation and achieve a two-state solution.
We should condemn in the strongest terms violence that perpetuates the occupation, whether it is perpetuated by Israel, Hamas or individuals.
But if we are going to condemn violent means of resisting the occupation, we cannot also condemn non-violent means.
This week I introduced a resolution We're civil rights leader, our colleague, John Lewis and Rashida Tlaib.
Who know the importance of non-violence movements.
It recognizes the proud history of boycott movements in this country dating back to the Boston Tea Party.
Yeah, but boycotting a Democratic ally of the United States is basically the same thing as the Boston Tea Party according to Ilhan Omar.
This of course was the same year that she declared that Israel was very much akin to the Nazis.
Essentially.
She suggested also that the United States and Israel are kind of like the Taliban.
That was a solid one.
She tweeted this out.
She tweeted out, quote, We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity.
This is in 2021.
We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan and the Taliban.
Well, I mean, I wish that for Ilhan Omar they were because she seems to have significantly more sympathy for Hamas than she does for Israel.
And she seems to have significantly more sympathy for particular regimes in the Middle East than she does for the United States when it comes to their human rights records.
And she has a lot to say about the United States' human rights record and virtually nothing to say.
about particular countries in the Middle East.
And again, this is Samuel Haen Omar, who downplayed 9-11 very famously.
Here she was doing that.
CARE was founded after 9-11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.
Some people did something.
That's why CARE was founded.
It's because some people did something.
You remember that one.
And then she said, well, it's taken out of context.
No, I mean, what you meant is what you meant, which is that a thing happened and then people all over started to lose civil.
But the thing that happened is sort of the issue.
So Ilhan Omar, terrible person, Jew hater, hates Israel, very anti-American in her perspective about the United States also.
Very good reasons to kick her off foreign affairs.
By the way, Democrats used to acknowledge that she was a real problem, like five seconds ago.
We'll get to that in just one second.
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The Democrats used to acknowledge that Ilhan Omar was a real problem.
They always downplayed it, obviously.
The Democrats refused a resolution to specifically condemn Ilhan Omar's antisemitism back in 2019.
Instead, they decided to pass a resolution condemning all hate.
This is all part of the Democratic rubric of Islamophobia is the same thing as antisemitism, is the same thing as racism, and so we can ignore antisemitism.
Back in 2019, Nancy Pelosi, in one of the most, I think, kind of degrading statements ever made in Congress, she suggested that the real problem here is that Ilhan Omar just doesn't understand how words work.
You want to talk about the soft bigotry of law expectations.
If I suggested that a woman of color who is Muslim just doesn't understand how the English language works, that would be considered rather bigoted.
Nancy Pelosi said it at the time, and this was a defense.
The incident that happened was, I don't think our colleague is anti-Semitic.
I think she Has a different experience in the use of words, doesn't understand that some of them are fraught with meaning that she didn't realize.
Didn't realize didn't different experience in the use of words.
Then it was like a couple weeks later, she said more anti-Semitic stuff.
Adam Schiff, back in February of 2019, he put out a statement saying, quote, I was deeply dismayed to see Representative Omar's comments on Twitter yesterday in which he echoed longstanding anti-Semitic tropes about Jews obtaining influence through money.
By the way, the way that this usually works is that an anti-Semitic trope is when a left winger says something anti-Semitic.
Then it's just a trope.
If a right-winger says it, then it's just anti-Semitism.
If a left-winger says it, it's a trope.
Anti-Semitism has no place in the halls of Congress or civil society, said Adam Schiff back in 2019.
Now he's appearing on national television next to Ilhan Omar and looking awkward while she explains that she just doesn't understand words.
You'll remember that Ilhan Omar was actually condemned by members of her own party.
Well now, of course, she's been kicked off the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
It is hilarious how transparent the Democrats are.
So the Democrats put out a resolution this week.
It was a resolution, quote, They did it this week because they wanted Ilhan Omar to sign it.
So Ilhan Omar signed it so that she can now claim that she's not anti-Israel.
I don't believe you, lady.
I don't.
And there is literally no reason to believe you.
At all.
As in none.
Okay, so the reaction by the Democrats to Ilhan Omar being kicked off of Foreign Affairs is so telling.
Instead of the Democrats basically saying, okay, we understand what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
We should be able to pick our own members and that was a mistake.
They can't do that because they're the ones who started this fight.
Instead of doing that, they are now claiming, of course, that the American people are being deserved by not having a person who hates America's foreign policy and place in the world, a person who despises America's ally Israel, and a person who hates Jews.
Instead of, you know, suggesting any reason why this person might want to change their viewpoint, instead it's a disservice to the American people not to have this person on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, according to the world's worst press secretary, Corinne Jean-Pierre.
She has apologized for her comments she made in the past.
I think she most recently did an extensive interview about this on Sunday, I believe on CNN, and has been vocal about condemning anti-Semitism as well as affirming our strong alliance and important partnership with Israel.
Look, the way that we see this, it's a political stunt, much like House Republicans' unjust removal of other leading Democrats from key committees in recent weeks, and it is a disservice to the American people.
Disservice to the American people.
She apologized.
My ass she apologized.
She went on national TV and she said she just didn't understand that there were quote unquote tropes about Jews and money.
Really?
Did you not understand that?
Is that the case?
You have a degree in political science from university.
Do you not?
You serve in Congress, do you not?
I have serious doubts about that.
Like, real doubts.
As in, you're a liar.
Congenitally, about these particular issues.
And you just lie consistently.
And never-endingly.
Okay, so, the people who are really mad were the members of the squad.
And their excuse, of course, the members of the squad, is that everybody is targeting Ilhan Omar because she's black.
Which screams of the soft bigotry of low expectations once again.
Over and over, it's the same sort of thing.
You're allowed to be as anti-Semitic and Jew-hating as you want, so long as you support Black Lives Matter.
You're allowed to be as anti-Semitic and Jew-hating as you want, so long as you are a Marxist a la Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders.
You're allowed to scream about how the Jews are like the Nazis, so long as you are a Muslim who comes from Somalia.
So here is Rashida Tlaib getting very, very mad.
The GOP is now doing what it is best at.
Weaponizing hate against a black, beautiful Muslim woman.
Congresswoman Omar's lived experience as a refugee and a childhood survivor of war should be welcomed on this committee.
It is needed.
When you can't pass any bills that actually improve the people's lives, they turn Congress into a place of fear-mongering hate.
I know Congressman Omar will not be silenced!
And to Congressman Omar, I am so sorry, Seth, that our country has failed you today!
That lady has a Palestinian flag right outside of her office, and she had a map in her office that literally got rid of Israel.
It just had a giant post-it that said Palestine on Israel.
That is Rashida Tlaib, another flaming anti-Semite inside the squad, which seems to be filled with flaming anti-Semites.
It's about it.
She's a black, beautiful woman.
Oh, really?
Is that what it's about?
That she's a black, beautiful woman?
Is that really what it's about?
Because I noticed that there are a lot of other black Congress people who didn't get kicked off their committees yesterday.
Many of them are female.
Maxine Waters, who is maybe the most corrupt person in Congress, was not kicked off of her committee.
But Rashida Tlaib, it's about these black, you know.
Intersectionality is not a defense to being a garbage human.
It is not a defense.
But for the left, it is.
It is because the intersectionality is the only thing that matters.
And of course, they agree with the fact that Ilhan Omar hates Israel and hates the Jews and is anti-American in her foreign policy.
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I mean, AOC went into, like, a full dance.
Like, she's literally di- It's amazing.
We'll get to that in just one second first.
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The most dramatic, it was kind of an audition, I guess, for a part, for a lot of the Democrats who were getting up and defending Ilhan Omar yesterday.
They're auditioning for, they're all theater kids, so they're all auditioning for a part in Annie or something.
And that meant the star theater kid, of all theater kids, you know, a woman who holds her hands behind her back to suggest that she's being arrested and detained.
A woman who goes to an empty parking lot and then Looks into a camera wearing an all-white outfit and weeps.
She got very into this.
If you watch this clip with the sound off, it appears as though she is performing either Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory I want the world.
I want the whole world.
Or she's performing.
And I'm telling you, I'm not going from Dreamgirls.
Either one is a possibility.
And I am telling you, I'm not going.
OK, so here is AOC, theater kid, dancing, jumping up and down, slamming her notepad on the podium because her friend Ilhan Omar will still be serving in Congress, but will not have access to as much classified information on the Foreign Affairs Committee because she's a terrible person.
And in the background, you'll see Cori Bush.
Just nodding along, man.
Nodding along.
By the way, this would also be deemed, if this were a white Republican congressperson doing this, this would be deemed cultural appropriation.
There's no question about it, given the stylistic choices that AOC is making during the speech.
Here is AOC, theater child, getting ready to perform her greatest number yet.
I think one of the things that we should talk about here is also one of the disgusting legacies after 9-11 has been the targeting and racism against Muslim Americans throughout the United States of America.
And this is an extension of that legacy.
Consistency?
There is nothing consistent.
With the Republican Party's continued attack, except for the racism and incitement of violence against women of color in this body.
I had a member of the Republican caucus threaten my life and you all and the Republican caucus rewarded him.
This is about targeting women of color in the United States of America.
Don't tell me because I didn't get a single apology.
Time has expired.
My life was threatened.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Whoops.
Oh, man.
What?
Amazing work there from AOC.
Amazing.
She didn't get the part.
The part unfortunately went to Cori Bush, but AOC is She's amazing.
She's slamming her... I've never seen AOC quite so animated over anything except for defending her friend, the rabid anti-Semite.
She makes a habit of defending rabid anti-Semites quite a lot, doesn't she?
From Jeremy Corbyn to Ilhan Omar to Rashida Tlaib.
If we can judge you to a certain extent by the friends you keep, if all of your friends have a particular ilk, it does suggest something about maybe your own feelings on a particular subject.
And then there was Cori Bush.
So Cori Bush, the BLM congresswoman from Missouri, I call her a BLM congresswoman because that's literally how she became a congressperson.
She was a very active member of BLM.
She was a lead activist in the Black Lives Matter movement.
She also suggests that this is all about Ilhan Omar being a black woman of Somali origin who is a Muslim.
And again, the rule here is that you get, as long as you are all those things, you can basically just hate on the Jews, which is convenient.
Republicans are waging a blatantly Islamophobic and racist attack on Congresswoman Omar.
And I've said it before, I will say it again.
The white supremacy happening is unbelievable.
This is despicable.
It is Congresswoman Omar who has been harassed at her job for simply existing as a Muslim woman in Congress.
It is she who has been attacked by a member of this body, ridiculing her as a potential terrorist for simply existing.
as a Muslim woman in this Congress.
You know what's weird is that there's another Muslim congressperson.
He's Andre Carson, he's from Indiana.
Have you ever heard of him?
You have not, have you?
Maybe the reason you haven't heard of that Muslim congressperson is because he doesn't spend all day, every day being an anti-Semitic jackass.
Maybe that would be the reason.
He's not featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine doing that sort of stuff.
Maybe that's it.
But again, points to Cori Bush.
That's a much more subtle performance.
AOC is extremely loud.
I mean, she's chewing the scenery, man.
And she's Patti LuPone out there.
And then you got Cori Bush.
And Cori Bush, you know, I don't want to say it's the most amazing performance, but she comes in a little more subtle.
If you have to cast the part, it goes to Cori Bush.
There's a little bit more soul there.
And a little bit more heart.
That's really what you're looking for in a theater kid.
Representative Gregory Meeks, he tried to do the same thing.
He says they're removing her because she's black and a Muslim.
That's really what this is about.
Again, no, they're removing her because she is a vicious anti-Semite.
This is not all that difficult.
A blatant double standard is being applied here.
Something just doesn't add up.
And what is the difference between Rep Omar and these members?
Could it be the way that you look?
Could it be her religious practices?
Okay, what I love about this particular argument, and it's an argument you're going to hear in a second made by Hakeem Jeffries, which is that why are the Republicans using turnabout as fair play?
If they really opposed anti-Semitism, wouldn't they keep MTG off of the committees?
So first of all, MTG said a dumb thing about Jewish space lasers.
She hasn't made it like the defining characteristic of her career to hate Jews.
When she went to an event like a moron with Nick Fuentes, she immediately denounced Nick Fuentes and moved away from it.
She hasn't been anti-Israel rabid Anti-Semite her entire career.
That's been Ilhan Omar's defining characteristic in politics.
Hey, so that is not a justification for MTG's comments.
Also, it is worth noting here that the Democrats were like, it's a double standard.
It's a double standard.
They're leaving MTG and Paul Gosar and some of the worst people in Congress on these committees, and they're removing Ilhan Omar.
It's because she's black.
I have a question.
I have a question.
You're now equating them, right?
You are equating them.
You're saying that Ilhan Omar is akin to Paul Gosar and MTG.
You removed Paul Gosar and MTG from the committees when you were in charge.
Why didn't you remove Ilhan Omar?
Why?
Could it be because she's a Democrat?
And because you actually agree with those things?
And it was a convenient bugbear for you?
It was a convenient club for you to hit Republicans and try to suggest that anti-Semitism was exclusive to the Republican Party while the biggest anti-Semite in Congress, the two biggest, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, sit in your caucus?
Here's Hakeem Jeffries trying to do this routine.
Ilhan Omar has apologized.
She has indicated that she'll learn Okay, fine.
Let's say that it is.
is working to build bridges because we believe in building bridges, not walls.
Oh, give me a break.
Building bridges with the Jewish community, including leaders right here in the United States Congress.
Is Ilhan Omar perfect?
No, none of us are.
So this is not about accountability.
It's about political revenge.
Oh, it's about political revenge.
OK, fine.
Let's say that it is.
Who brought that upon you?
Weren't you the guys who started this fight?
Weren't you the ones who did this?
It was you, was it not?
And also, again, if you're claiming the Republicans are hypocrites for not taking their worst members off their committees.
First of all, Republicans have actually taken members off their committees.
Steve King comes to mind from Iowa.
When is the last time Democrats took a member off a committee?
Cynthia McKinney in like 2003.
So there's that.
But I noticed that your complaint is not that Republicans aren't taking MTG and Paul Gosar off their committees.
Your complaint is that they are taking Ilhan Omar off her committee.
So you're not concerned about anti-Semitism at all.
You just want to defend your girl.
All right, that's your prerogative, but stop pretending it's high-minded.
I think maybe the best thing yesterday was the audio of Democrats screaming in pain.
The sound of a million voices suddenly going silent as Alderaan is destroyed here.
On adoption of the resolution, those in favor say aye.
Those in favor say no.
It's the opinion of the chair that the ayes have it and the resolution is agreed to.
Overflowing.
It is only the magic of the cap of this leftist Sears tumbler that keeps the tears contained there.
No!
There's nothing more delicious than you guys screaming no at the moon.
And by the way, a fairly minor thing.
I'm sorry, Ilhan Omar was not kicked out of Congress.
She was not impeached.
She still gets to have her say.
She's going to be there annoying everyone for quite a while, it appears.
We'll get to more of that in just one second plus Democrats rejecting a resolution to condemn like the worst excesses of socialism up to and including mass murder.
Get to that in a moment.
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Well, Ilhan Omar, she's been kicked off her foreign affairs committee, but that actually allows for more of a platform in a certain way.
So for all the talk about she's being deplatformed, the reality is that she's getting a lot of attention and she loves it.
You can see that she's kind of enjoying it.
So yesterday she gave a speech in which she said, I will continue to speak up because representation matters!
Oh, more intersectionality.
This little girl was me.
Look at look at look at who I am intersectionally.
OK, so I'm of the view we shouldn't look at your skin color or your religion.
We should look at the fact that you're a flaming Jew hater.
That's the thing we should probably look at.
But she she she's a representative.
She represents intersectionally with the intersectionalism with so much intersectionality.
Here we go.
We say there is nothing objective about policymaking.
We all inject our perspective, our point of views, our lived experiences, and the voices of our constituents.
That's what democracy is about.
So I will continue to speak up.
Because representation matters.
I will continue to speak up for little kids who wonder who's speaking up for them.
I will continue to speak up for families around the world who are seeking justice.
She's going to speak up for families around the world who are seeking justice.
I thought that she was an American representative.
Which is kind of fascinating.
Also, she's right.
Many around the world are going to be sad that this is happening to her.
She actually says, my leadership will be celebrated around.
I'm sure it will be celebrated in very specific places around the world.
The places that tend not to like the Jews so much.
Here is Ilhan Omar.
I didn't come to Congress to be silent.
I came to Congress to be their voice.
And my leadership and voice will not be diminished if I am not on this committee for one term.
My voice will get louder and stronger and my leadership will be celebrated around the world as it has been.
My leadership will be celebrated around the world.
She sounds like an evil dictator from a movie.
And my leadership will be celebrated around the world!
As it has been.
So how do you still...
Celebrate around the world.
Who's celebrating your leadership?
Well, actually, I do know the answer to this one.
Who's celebrating Ilhan Omar's leadership around the world?
I noticed it's Iran.
They put out a statement today, quote, Parliamentary tyranny in America to boycott the voice of the critical female representative.
The dismissal of Ilhan Omar, a black Muslim critic of Israel's apartheid regime from the Congress Foreign Relations Committee, is an indicator of the practical commitment of the American regime to the slogan of women, life, freedom, a slogan for interfering in Iran's internal affairs.
So she does have her defenders.
They just happen to be terror regimes like Iran.
Oh, yeah.
And members of the squad.
So there's that.
Speaking of Democrats showing their true colors.
So yesterday in a rather clever piece of legislation, Representative Maria Salazar from Florida, she announced a resolution announcing the horrors of socialism.
This resolution says the following quote, whereas socialist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has time and time again collapsed into communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships.
Whereas socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murder and the killing of over 100 million people worldwide. Whereas many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues including Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Nicolas Maduro.
Whereas tens of millions died in the Bolshevik Revolution.
Whereas between 15 million and 55 million people starved to death in the wake of famine and devastation launched by the Great Leap Forward in China.
Whereas the socialist experiment in Cambodia led to the killing field, etc.
And it just goes on and on about all the evils of socialism.
And then it concludes, resolved, the Congress denounces socialism in all its forms and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States.
And this thing did pass with 328 votes.
86 Democrats voted no.
86 Democrats voted no on this thing.
By the way, Hakeem Jeffries voted yes, because he's not an idiot.
Nancy Pelosi voted yes.
Now, Hakeem Jeffries did say that this resolution is bad.
He said, it's bad because it might undermine the democratic agenda.
Yeah, you're telling on yourself, dude.
They're bringing to the floor of the House of Representatives today a resolution on socialism.
To condemn some dictators that we all condemn.
Okay.
But understand.
What's the problem?
The goal of this phony, fake, and fraudulent resolution It's just to somehow provide cover for extreme MAGA Republicans to try to undermine an agenda that is designed to lift up the health, safety, and well-being of the American people.
You guys are telling on yourselves.
You can't condemn socialism because it might undermine your agenda.
Yeah, that's exactly Representative Salazar's point.
It's clever stuff because, and one of the reasons why Democrats did poorly in the last couple of election cycles is because Democrats kept saying the word progressive.
Progressive in Spanish.
My understanding is when translated is involved with socialism, essentially.
And so when those ads ran in Spanish in places like Florida, a lot of people who are expatriates from socialistic, communistic countries are like, no, don't want any part of that.
Not interested in that at all.
Maxine Waters condemned the resolution as well, which is weird.
She's one of the greatest beneficiaries of capitalism there is.
She's been doing great under capitalism, mainly because she's unbelievably corrupt.
So Maxine Waters said, quote, this resolution is instead as divisive as it is insulting to the American people.
It's trying to suggest Social Security, Medicare, even fire departments are anti-American.
I didn't realize that those are socialist.
Social Security, Medicare and the fire department.
So usually the definition of a public good is something that is non-rivalrous and non-excludable.
That is the definition of a public good.
That doesn't mean it's socialism.
Fire departments are non-rivalrous and non-excludable.
Social Security, Medicare, they're supposed to be you pay in, you get out, right?
That is the basic idea of these things.
But, you know, again, lumping that stuff in with socialism, you guys are the ones doing that, which is why you're condemning the resolution.
You could just say, we condemn socialism, also we're in favor of Medicare.
It's not that hard, which is why many Democrats voted in favor of this thing, but it shows you where their heads are at.
This very often, by the way, is how Democrats are doing policy these days.
And the way that Democrats seem to be doing policies is that they propose a bunch of policy, and then the minute that the consequences of the policy become clear, they run screaming from it.
So, to take another example, Democrats keep talking about reforming the police, right?
First, it was defunding the police.
Now, they're no longer defunding.
Now, they want to reform the police.
But they have a problem.
If they talk about reforming the police, Republicans might actually take them up on it and then propose legislation they don't actually like.
So, one of the lead headlines at Politico last night was, quote, Dems fret policing talks will be tangled with Tim Scott's presidential hopes.
They care so much about you that they need to reform the police, but if that helps Tim Scott, man, they are out.
They are out.
According to Politico, Democrats are signaling they're willing to work with Republicans on a new policing bill after the death of Tyree Nichols.
Who their GOP partners might be is a trickier question.
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, his party's past lead policing negotiator, is now a possible presidential contender in 2024, adding new potential political risk to an issue already riddled with pitfalls.
Wait, I thought that they wanted solutions.
I thought they wanted to work across the aisle.
I thought it shouldn't matter who you're negotiating with so long as the deal that gets done is good.
Or maybe you're political hacked and everything is an opportunity for political benefit for you.
Democrats are still eyeing Scott as a partner, indicating they might be open to amending a sweeping enforcement bill named after George Floyd, but they're wary of the effect Scott's aspirations will have on cross-party talks.
So, they are not inviting Scott to take part in the negotiations.
They are very much afraid that Tim Scott might actually be able to benefit from those negotiations, and so I guess they're going to put forward a worse bill.
Slow clap once again for the altruistic, forward-thinking Democrats.
Okay, meanwhile, the Democrats have some good news on the economy and some bad news on the economy.
The good news on the economy is the jobs report came in super hot.
According to the Labor Department, the employment picture started off 2023 on a stunningly strong note, with nonfarm payrolls posting their strongest gains since July of 2022.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 517,000 for January.
That's above the Dow Jones estimate of 187,000.
So it basically tripled it.
The unemployment rate fell to 3.4% versus the estimate for 3.6%.
Some of that is going to be a lot of people who are going back into the workforce.
We've known for a while that there are a lot of job openings, like way more job openings than there were job seekers.
The fact that the hiring is now happening means that people are feeling the pinch in their pockets and now they're going back to work.
And so they're rushing back to work while the jobs are still out there and while they can get them.
What I would imagine is that this is going to be sort of an overcorrection, that what you're going to see in the next few months is that economic stagnation that everybody is sort of talking about.
Mohammed El-Erian of Aliantis has a stunning U.S.
jobs report highlighting the strength of the labor market and its complexities.
Jobs rose by 517,000 for January, compared to the consensus forecast of 189,000.
The puzzle, wage growth, came in, as expected, 0.3%.
Presumably, this means if the job market is still coming in this hot, that the inflation rate is still a little too high and you're going to see the Federal Reserve get a little bit more aggressive with regard to all of this.
With all of that said, obviously this very much helps Joe Biden going into his State of the Union address.
The bad news for Joe Biden is that the American people are still pretty glum about the economy because they're not seeing the impact of this as broadly as they'd like to see it, and they're very worried about the future.
As money runs out and as these companies start to see a dip in consumer confidence, what exactly is going to happen?
Are some of these new hires going to be unemployed in three months, in other words?
According to New Gallup polls, the overall quality of life in the country, 65% of people say that they are content.
An opportunity for a person to get ahead by working hard, that 61% say that they are satisfied with that.
But those are well below the record highs of 89% for quality of life in 2001 and 77% for opportunity in 2002.
of life in 2001 and 77% for opportunity in 2002. When it comes to the size and power of the federal government, only 33% approve. When it comes to the size and influence of major corporations, only 27% approve.
When it comes to the way income and wealth are distributed in the United States, only 24% approve.
So a lot of economic dissatisfaction right now in the nation.
And when it comes to many specific areas, it seems as though the numbers are going down, not the other way around, for Joe Biden.
That is particularly true when it comes to federal taxes.
Only 26% of Americans are in favor of the way that federal taxes are being done right now.
Only 25% of Americans say that they are satisfied with the state of the economy right now.
And these are not amazing numbers for Joe Biden.
So what that means is that there is a lot of room for a dip, still, if the economy starts to go the other way.
Now, obviously, you want to root for a good economy.
It helps a lot of people if the economy is good.
But what this is really going to do is it's going to embolden Joe Biden and the Democrats to push for broke.
And for Joe Biden to continue to push things like student loan relief, meaning like just Breaking the law and trying to release student loans or spending trillions of more dollars or all of the rest.
You know, trying to negotiate hardball with the debt ceiling instead of negotiating some sort of deal so he can blame Republicans.
The problem for Joe Biden continues to be that the man is just not good at speaking.
I mean, he never was any great shakes on it, but now he's just not even he's not with us anymore.
Here was Joe Biden yesterday saying the most transphobic thing I've ever heard, frankly, from the president of the United States.
I'll assume he did it by accident, but yeah, it's weird.
More than half the women in my cabinet, more than half the people in my cabinet, more than half the women in my administration are women.
More than half of the women in his administration are women?
That's so transphobic.
That means some of the women in his administration are not women.
I assume he means the biological men.
Like his assistant secretary of health and human services is actually a man.
More than half the women in his administration are not women.
One of the things I like best about the Biden administration is that it's basically just grumpy old men.
He brings back in Bill Clinton yesterday, and they get confused about their notes.
It's a weird clip, but I have a bit of news on this one.
Somewhere I'm supposed to have some notes here.
These are the President Biden's notes.
Why don't you just deliver mine?
Why don't I just give your speech here?
And you can get mine.
I found it!
Exciting stuff.
Old men getting confused over overnotes.
I should point out here, you know how old Bill Clinton looks, right?
I mean, he looks pretty bad, Bill Clinton.
He's aging pretty rapidly here.
Bill Clinton is four years younger than the current president of the United States.
He left office in 2000.
He left office 23 years ago, and he is four years younger than the current president of the United States.
Yes, we may be ruled by the Aged boomers forever.
And it's gonna be just great.
Okay, time for some things I like, and then some things that I hate.
So I was looking through the best picture nominees this year, and I haven't seen all of them yet.
I have yet to see everywhere, everything, all at once, all the time.
Whatever that movie is called.
I haven't seen that one yet.
I haven't seen some of the kind of smaller movies.
Of the movies that I have seen, however, I think probably the best picture that I've seen this year That is not Top Gun Maverick, which should win Best Picture because it's not the most interesting, but most enjoyable.
The Best Picture this year was the All Quiet on the Western Front remake.
It really is quite good.
From Netflix, it's really well produced.
The footage is quite beautiful.
The acting is really good.
It takes on some complex issues about war and negotiation and how people sort of get set in their ways and then can't change.
Here's a little bit of the trailer.
Thanks for watching! Please like and subscribe!
Paul Bäumer?
I don't want to start yet.
And your world!
We're at the restaurant now.
The footage is great.
I mean, it's a great-looking film.
It's really effective.
And you can see that on Netflix.
Very effective film.
So if you're looking for a film to watch this weekend that is highly depressing but also a great film, All Quiet on the Western Front truly is a great film.
And it is worth the look.
Other things I like.
So there's a new study out that is basically directly from the Babylon Bee.
And it is really, really funny.
Here is the study, quote, from the UK Daily Mail.
So, I mean, that answers the question as to why Jimmy Kimmel's audience is still all masked up.
Why, when they pan the audience of The View, everybody is still wearing a mask.
I suppose that is one reason.
I mean, it's either pathological fear of life, which has now been embedded in the minds of millions of Americans who believe that they ought to be safe from literally everything in life up to and including the common cold.
Or it's people actually like covering their face because they aren't particularly good looking.
According to the UK Daily Mail, attractive people are less likely to keep wearing face masks.
In the post-COVID era, a study suggests researchers conducted three questionnaires asking people about self-perceived attractiveness and mask-wearing intentions in various scenarios.
They conclude that young and middle-aged Americans who view themselves as attractive, quote, believe wearing a mask hinders the opportunity to deliver a favorable impression to others.
On the other hand, people who don't view themselves as attractive buy into the mask-attractiveness belief, the face-covering notion that it actually enhances their looks.
Not inaccurate.
And there are some people who wear the mask looks a lot better.
Did you have that experience during COVID, by the way?
That experience where you met somebody and you dealt with them for like a lot of it.
I was in California.
Everybody was masking up for a long, for a long time.
You remember you'd be dealing with people like on a regular basis and they were all wearing masks.
And then they would remove the mask and you're like, oh, because your brain fills in the parts of the face that, by the way, this is actually one reason why people look cool in sunglasses, because your brain fills in sort of the most attractive version of the person under the sunglasses.
Maybe that, I assume that's the case for Kanye West's Balenciaga head covering or something.
And I guess if you look like a racer head and like your entire head is covered in a thing, then we can all fill in the gap or something.
But yeah, I find this one of the least actually controversial studies is that if you think that you are not that attractive, you are very much happy to be wearing a bag over your head or a mask over your face.
Not a shocker at all there.
So well done on science for now confirming common sense.
Okay, time for some things that I hate.
All right, so I have been made aware of a video on YouTube that apparently is part of kind of an online trend on the TikToks and the YouTubes and it's what the kids are doing.
And there is a suggestion out there by a plastic surgery doctor that I have had lip filler, but not only lip filler, bad lip filler.
Which, I mean, again, you want to make the case that I don't look good?
I'm totally here for it.
Fine with me.
Uh, what though?
So here is, um, here is a plastic surgeon.
This video on YouTube has like two million hits.
So apparently that a lot of people are very eager to believe that I got a bad lip filler as opposed to that a particular shot of me isn't at a very flattering angle.
So apparently they think that I got lip filler.
By the way, most of the people who would be very pleased and upset that I got lip filler, I did not.
But most of the people would be very pleased are also perfectly in line with the idea that if a man gets a bunch of surgery, she's now a woman.
In any case, here is this person who isn't a very good doctor, I guess, because he can't actually identify when someone has had lip filler or not.
Here we go.
Has Ben Shapiro had filler migrate in his lower lip?
A lot of people tagged me in this video showing what they believe is migrated filler.
Take a look at this video though.
This is the beautiful Cher and you can see her lower lip looks kind of like Ben's lower lip.
Now supposedly she had an implant that migrated causing this appearance.
So is that the same with Ben?
Well, it's possible.
Uh, it isn't.
It isn't.
It's just not a very good shot of me.
I will admit, I don't think I look great in that video.
I don't think I look great in most videos, by the way.
But, um, yeah.
I'm here for the full denial.
I do not have lip filler.
I have never had lip filler.
I have no intention of having lip filler.
I'm amused that people are apparently interested in the question of whether I've had lip filler.
So for the record, I have not had Botox.
I have not had lip filler.
I am five foot nine and I weigh 158 pounds.
And no matter how many people out there tell you that I'm 5'4", I'm not.
And no matter how many people tell you that I have lip filler, I do not.
And frankly, eyes up here, guys.
Stop objectifying me.
Stop treating me like an assemblage of body parts.
I'm a human with a soul.
I'm a human with feelings.
So you stop that.
Right now, internet.
You and your lip filler obsessions.
Okay, other things that I hate today.
So, there is a trend now, and it's really been driven by the fact that the Biden administration hired essentially a fat activist in order to push bad medicine.
There is now a trend of pieces in our mainstream legacy media suggesting that medicine is fatphobic.
And that when people come into the office and they are overweight, and you tell them they need to lose weight, that this is somehow an aspect of you hating people who are obese or overweight.
No, it isn't.
Being overweight is bad for you.
The way that you reduce being overweight, unless you have a genetic condition, the way that you reduce being overweight is with caloric deficit.
Again, this is not particularly difficult stuff in concept.
It's very difficult to achieve as somebody who's had to lose weight before, you know, because I wanted to look a little bit better.
As somebody who's put on weight to gain some muscle, right?
I mean, people do this all the time.
It's not fun, right?
Going on a restrictive diet where you can't have as much sugar and as much fat is not fun.
But it is doable.
The fact that it is doable, however, is what the left really objects to.
You notice that there is a real political gloss to all of this.
You see a lot of, I don't see a lot of right-wingers who are like, yeah, man, the fat phobia thing's a real problem.
You see a lot of left-wingers doing this, and this ties into a broader rubric, which is that people are never responsible for their own problems.
It must be some sort of external factor in the universe.
So there's a piece in the Washington Post by a doctor named Charlene Obwobie.
Called, yes, doctors can fat shame.
Here's what to do about it.
Quote, my patient is in her early 30s, soft-spoken, soft-bodied, and determined.
She was diagnosed with prediabetes at a work health screening.
Diabetes and hypertension run in her family.
Her father died in his 50s from heart disease.
As her primary care physician, my role is to help her avoid a similar fate.
We talk about her goals.
She would like to avoid medications and she wants to lose weight.
I counsel her on a diet and exercise, and then schedule her for a follow-up appointment in three months.
At her next appointment, she has crestfallen and withdrawn.
She has gained seven pounds.
I print out packets with information on the Mediterranean diet, and she glances at them, defeated.
Sensing her hesitation, I suggest we start her on Metformin, a medication used to treat prediabetes, but she declines.
Weight loss is hard, I say.
She doesn't return to my clinic after that.
I think often about how I failed that patient.
How physicians fail patients like her all the time.
I have a question.
What did this physician do wrong?
The woman said, I want to lose weight and I want to do so without taking drugs.
And you recommended to her a diet that would help her lose weight.
When she came back in, knowing her priorities, you then offered her another diet to help her lose weight.
And then when she appeared hesitant, you offered her a medication that would help her lose weight.
But you did it wrong, apparently.
Why did you do it wrong?
Apparently because you're just supposed to say that it's not possible for people to lose weight.
Quote, the truth is doctors aren't taught much about nutrition or weight management.
And the lack of education means the fat phobia that persists outside the clinic is amplified within it.
One of the things that you're noticing is not the prevalence of genetic conditions that are leading to obesity in the West.
What you're noticing is that people eat a lot of crap.
That's what's actually happening in the West.
There's been a consistent uptick in the amount of obesity in American society for the past several decades.
It's not particularly a recent development.
It's been going on since basically the 1960s.
Higher caloric intake.
It's been happening in other countries as well, so it's not unique to the United States.
The answer to that is lower caloric intake.
And the suggestion that we de-stigmatize being overweight, that really is the answer.
The answer is fat positivity.
It's precisely the wrong approach.
Basic human logic.
If you wish to make things less common, you stigmatize them.
If you wish to make things more common, you de-stigmatize them.
This doesn't mean be mean to people who are overweight.
It doesn't mean that you can't be nice and comforting and sympathetic to people who want to lose weight.
It does mean that encouraging them to lose weight is not an act of evil.
It's not an act of fat phobia.
It's an act of good.
It's the same thing as somebody is smoking and you tell them that it would be really good because you want them to live for them to stop smoking.
By the way, I've had this conversation with friends of mine.
Friend of mine who lives in the neighborhood, he's an overweight dude, and he and I had this conversation.
I actually offered with him, I was like, I'll go to the gym with you.
And you know what?
He actually got active.
He took off a bunch of pounds.
Good for him.
This sort of stuff can be done, but our culture suggests that this bizarre notion of what love is, this is really what it comes down to, what love is, what good treatment is, is I love you just the way you are.
Well, what if I love you and so I want you to change the things about you that need change?
That seems like a thing.
Is it not?
And the people you are closest to, are you just always satisfied with what they do?
Or do you try to shape their behavior and give them good advice?
That's what a friend does.
Our society's focus on acceptance above all else is actually having some pretty dire side effects.
Alrighty, coming up, we'll get into the vaunted Ben Shapiro Show Mailbag Plus.
We'll be joined by a guest who actually is doing something unique.
She is stopping her birth control not because she wishes to get pregnant per se, but because she's looking into the side effects of birth control and she's skeptical about them.
We'll be getting into it.
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