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Sept. 21, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show

51:00

The Greatest Scam in Modern America

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	Alrighty, folks, so you remember Ibram X. Kendi.
	This guy is a genius.
	How do I know that he's a genius?
	He's such a genius that he actually won a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2021.
	That was a $625,000 nose-strings-attached fellowship honoring his exceptional creativity, scholarly achievements, gift for communicating his anti-racist work and ideas with diverse audiences, and promise for further benefiting society.
	That is Boston University that gave him this anti-racist grant.
	That is super, Inspiring stuff.
	Now, for those who have not followed the prodigious career of Ibram X. Kendi, the founder of the BU Center for Antiracist Research, he is the author of a bunch of really not very good books, and he speaks nonsense for a living.
	The nonsense that he speaks is all about how America is deeply and irrevocably racist, He wrote, most famously, a book called Stamp from the Beginning, the definitive history of racist ideas in America about how America was literally racist in all of its iterations from the very beginning.
	That is up to and including all of the constitutional protections of the Bill of Rights.
	He also wrote a book called How to Be an Antiracist, and he now has a podcast called Be an Antiracist.
	So what exactly does this genius say about racism?
	Well, he can't really define the term.
	He just knows that racism exists wherever there is a disparity.
	The direct quote from him, as an antiracist, when I see racial disparities, I see racism, which is unbelievably stupid.
	And you might think that it's genius.
	It's really, really stupid.
	Let me give you an example of how stupid that is.
	The vast majority of the NBA is black.
	That is a massive racial disparity.
	Only 13% of the American population is black.
	The vast majority of the NBA players are black.
	Does this mean that there has been some sort of deep and abiding racism in the NBA to make all of that happen?
	Conversely, in hockey, virtually all the players are white.
	Does that mean there is a deep and abiding racism that exists at the root of hockey?
	And that is why there are just not that many black hockey players playing at the NHL level?
	Of course not.
	It's incredibly silly.
	If you see, for example, that 99% of people in prison for violent crime are men, Less than 2% are women.
	Is that because of some deeply sexist root in society?
	That if we were a non-sexist society, 50% of the people going to prison for a violent crime would be women, presumably?
	The truth is, disparities exist across virtually every industry, across virtually every metric, in society, for all of time.
	They're tied to everything from geography to environment.
	The idea that if two groups by race do not stack up identically in any particular area, this is because of systemic and abiding racism is nonsense.
	It's absolute nonsense.
	In fact, it's unfalsifiable nonsense because, again, literally every arena of life is going to include group disparities.
	Age disparities.
	Height disparities.
	Weight disparities.
	These disparities exist literally everywhere.
	But, Ibram X. Kendi's entire proposal, which was built up on the back of the BLM movement in 2020, is that he doesn't need to prove that racism is actually at the root of anything.
	All he has to show is a disparity.
	Which, again, is incredibly stupid.
	It makes his job really easy, because I, too, can point to disparities in every arena of life.
	But, unless I actually prove that the reason behind the disparity is some sort of evil, I've not proved anything.
	But, Kendi, because in 2020 we decided as a society that you no longer had to prove that racism was at the root of, for example, crime statistics.
	Instead, you could just simply claim that it was, and then everyone who said that it wasn't was deemed to be racist.
	This is the magic of Kendi.
	Kendi waved his magic wand, and suddenly everybody who was not racist before was racist.
	He says that colorblindness is racist.
	If you think That race shouldn't matter.
	That's because you're a racist.
	Race does matter.
	And the way we know race matters is because of disparities.
	And those disparities are evidence of racism.
	And if you say, well, that's why race shouldn't matter, that's because you're a racist.
	Don't you see?
	Well, famously, Ibram X. Kendi, MacArthur Genius Grant Award winner.
	Famously, Ibram X. Kendi was asked just a couple of years ago about how to define racism.
	Here was this genius's definition.
	So racism, I would define it as a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas.
	Um, wait.
	So, the way that he just defined racism is racist policies that lead to racial inequity.
	You can't define a term by using the term.
	That is not a possibility.
	You can't do that.
	I mean, you can try, but it doesn't work.
	Again, just to read you the quote so you understand how dumb this is, quote, I would define it as a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas.
	The audience, by the way, watching this actually laughed out loud.
	And then he reiterated his definition and he added, quote, an anti-racism is pretty simple using the same terms.
	Anti-racism is a collection of anti-racist policies leading to racial equity that are substantiated
	by anti-racist ideas.
	Now, again, as I say, just textbook logic.
	You cannot define a term by using the term.
	If someone asks you to define an elephant, and you quickly explain that an elephant is an animal known as an elephant, that would not add any new information to the discourse.
	If you said an elephant is an animal that looks exactly like an elephant and acts exactly like an elephant, people would laugh at you because it's ridiculous.
	That's exactly what Ibram X. Kendi is saying so that he doesn't actually have to define the term.
	Now remember, he was richly rewarded for all of this crap in the middle of the BLM scam that was happening in 2020.
	Again, it was a scam.
	The lie that American society rests in unidentifiable but ever-present racism is a lie.
	The notion that disparities in crime statistics are caused by racist policing is a lie.
	But that idea was very prominent.
	It was particularly prominent among liberal white folks who felt that if they signed Ibram X. Kendi a check the same way that they would have back in the 1980s to Al Sharpton, then they could give basically Al Sharpton with a patina of intellectual legitimacy.
	Some sort.
	He would give a dispensation to them.
	You sign a Mexican to get a check, and now you are an anti-racist.
	It's magic how anti-racism works.
	How do you show you're an anti-racist?
	You become an anti-racist.
	It's not enough to not be racist.
	This is what Kennedy says.
	If you say, I'm not a racist, I don't think that people should be judged on the basis of their race.
	He says that's not enough.
	You need to be actively anti-racist.
	And the only way to be anti-racist is to fight racist policies, namely any policies that end in some sort of disparity.
	And some sort of racial disparity.
	And the best way to fight those policies is to give to Ibram X. Kendi.
	How magical!
	Which presumably is why Jack Dorsey in 2020 gave Kendi's new Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University $10 million.
	The Vertex Foundation of Vertex Pharmaceuticals gave the Center $1.5 million over three years.
	Bank of America brought in Kendi to deliver his message.
	And the Boston Globe teamed with Kendi's Center to create a new media platform.
	The Center for Antiracist Research has generated precisely zero research at this point, so far as anyone is aware.
	So, why are we discussing Ibram X. Kendi today?
	Because, hilariously, after BU set up an entire center in ode to this idiot, that after BU set up, with the Boston Globe, a media enterprise with Ibram X. Kendi, After all of this happened, it turns out that Boston University is now announcing an inquiry into the Ibram X. Kendi's Anti-Racist Center.
	It turns out the whole thing is a scam.
	Oh, no, you don't say.
	Oh, that is a shock.
	You mean a person who can't find the word racism, but was being paid not to define the word racism, and then the way that you actually become not racist, you mean that was a scam?
	You mean just like any other cult, if the cult leader can't define the terms, but the terms involve you having sex with the cult leader, it's a cult?
	Yeah, that's this.
	That's this.
	He'll get some more of this in just once.
	If I'm a little bit gleeful about this is because idiocy that is clearly obvious to the human eye.
	Ignored and metastasized will eventually take root and then come back to kill the host.
	And that's precisely what has happened with regard to Ibram X. Kendi's version of anti-racism.
	Everyone could see this as a scam, that it was idiocy, that it was emperor's new clothes garbage.
	Everyone knew this at the time.
	Anti-racism is a collection of anti-racist policies that target racist disparities backed by racist ideas.
	Everyone could tell this is gobbledygook nonsense, but we all had to pretend not because black lives matter.
	Now, how it protected black lives beyond anybody, no proof it does, but in fact, precisely the opposite.
	It turns out the best way to alleviate disparities is to actually focus in on human behavior and focus in on the behavior that leads to those disparities.
	But, Ibram X. Kendi got away with a lot of money for a long time.
	We'll get into the details in just one second.
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	Alrighty, so, Evermax Kendi, his center is now being investigated.
	The predicate for this is that they laid off some 20% of their entire staff
	following the fact that they had millions and millions and millions of dollars,
	and it just randomly went for, it's just gone now.
	Philippe Copeland is a former employee of the Boston University Ibram X. Kendi Center for Grift.
	And here is what he posted recently on his social media, quote, I love it.
	Oh, man.
	It's an Ouroboros.
	One of its premier senators ended up in this situation and how mass layoffs are anti-racist.
	This act of employment violence and trauma is not just about individual leaders.
	It's about the culture and systems that allow it to occur.
	I love it.
	Oh man, it's an Ouroboros.
	It's a snake eating its own tail here.
	So you see, Ibram X. Kendi preaches the grift.
	And then when he actually uses the grift to fire his own people, creating a disparity in outcome,
	this means he is now violating his own anti-racist precepts.
	It turns out if you hire a bunch of black people at the Boston University Center for Ibram X. Kendi's Grift, and then you fire a bunch of black people, and you now have created a disparity, then who's the anti-racist and who's the racist, Ibram X. Kendi?
	Anti-racism is not a branding exercise, PR campaign, or path to self-promotion.
	It is a life-and-death matter, says Philippe Copeland.
	Too much of higher education responded to the so-called racial reckoning with theater, therapy, and marketing masquerading as institutional commitment.
	Wherever this has occurred, it needs to be exposed for the obscenity it is.
	There is too much at stake.
	Those of us who believe in real anti-racism need to demand more from our colleges and universities.
	Our students are watching.
	To those of you laboring in institutions, the commitment to anti-racism is cosmetic and hypocritical.
	I see you, I hear you, I am with you, says Philippe Copeland.
	He says he has a story to tell.
	During my time at the Center, I proposed and developed a new fellowship program called Designing Anti-Racist Curriculum.
	This was a collaboration with the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
	All professional useless people.
	We successfully launched this new program.
	I decided I could no longer work at the Center due to the mismanagement I witnessed.
	I was subsequently told I could no longer be part of the leadership of the fellowship I created.
	The excuse for this was that I was leaving the Center and would be replaced by someone else.
	This was in spite of the fact I said I was willing to continue serving without a course buyout or compensation.
	The excuse made no sense.
	There's already a faculty member serving on the leadership team with no affiliation with the center.
	Taking a program from the black faculty member that created it is apparently what BU considers anti-racism.
	So they fired a black guy.
	This means that they are the true racists.
	So now BU has launched a full-scale inquiry into the Ibram X. Kendi Center for Anti-Racist Research and Grift.
	The assessment comes the week after Kendi Toll laid off more than half of the center's staff, not 20%,
	50%, I'm sorry, the complaints, a BU spokesperson said, focused on the center's culture and
	grant management practices.
	The inquiry announced Wednesday represents a broadening of a previous examination of
	the center's grant management practices, according to the spokesperson, Rachel LaPaul Cavaliero.
	Kendi takes strong exceptions to the allegations made in recent complaints and media reports,
	she said.
	Since its announced launch in June of 2020, just days after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Center has raised tens of millions of dollars from tech entrepreneurs, Boston-area corporations, and thousands of small donors, according to the Boston Globe, which is one of the institutions that sponsored Kendi.
	The money was meant to finance a range of ambitious projects, a database to track racial disparities nationwide, a graduate degree program, a media enterprise, and research teams studying the effects of systemic racism on health and society.
	Some of those projects have come to fruition, including The Emancipator, a digital publication launched with the Boston Globe's opinion staff in 2021.
	So in other words, the Boston Globe did its part, but nothing else happened with the money.
	There is no racial data tracker.
	That was supposedly the centerpiece of their research.
	There is, in fact, no research.
	What exactly is the list of the center's achievements?
	Funding for numerous research projects, collaboration in a project launched by journalists at The Atlantic magazine.
	So they paid The Atlantic to do what The Atlantic does.
	And organizing two policy convenings.
	Ooh, policy convenings.
	So, where's the money?
	It's just kind of gone, apparently.
	So, Kendi has completed a number of personal projects since 2020, but in recent months he's been on leave from the Center.
	He returned last week and in a series of Zoom meetings told approximately 20 of the Center's staffers they would be laid off, according to Spencer Piston, a BU professor and leader in the Center's policy conference.
	The layoffs were initiated by Dr. Kendi, and they represented a strategic pivot, according to BU.
	The sensor will now pursue a fellowship model, rather than its research-based approach.
	There was no research!
	Hard to have a research-based approach when you got no research.
	So, again, y'all got scammed.
	Y'all got scammed.
	And that is the message here.
	If you can't articulate why it is that somebody should give you money to do a thing, all you can do is threaten them that you will call them a racist or a bigot.
	If they do not do the thing, this means that you are a cult leader and a scam artist.
	And that is what happened right here with the Center for Anti-Racist Bigotry.
	And this is indeed the greatest scam in modern America.
	The DEI scam, the woke scam, it is a scam.
	Wokeness, by the way, has an actual definition.
	Wokeness springs from the writings of critical legal theory, It springs from the writings of Kimberlé Crenshaw.
	The basic idea is Kennedy's idea that America is rife with institutional racism, that that institutional racism serves the purposes of white supremacy, and that any disparity is evidence of that racism.
	That's Kennedy in a nutshell, and it's a scam.
	Because the only way that you can escape this bind that they have created, this unfalsifiable, etheric racism that you're a part of, is to give them money.
	And then they waste the money.
	They spend it on themselves.
	How many scams have to be uncovered before people realize it's a scam?
	How many BLM leaders have to buy themselves houses like Patrisse Cullors with the cash before you realize that it is a scam?
	Truly, it is an amazing, amazing thing.
	It's like every other day, one of these scams is exposed for the scam that it is, and then people just keep on parroting the scam.
	DEI is a scam.
	It has been a scam for as long as it has been a major part of American life, and it continues to be a scam today.
	Okay, in a second, we're going to get to the latest on Russell Brand.
	Again, there's really no new information that has emerged about Russell Brand and the allegations against him yet.
	But that's not stopping people from attempting to remove any livelihood you might have.
	We'll get to that momentarily.
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	Okay, meanwhile.
	On the Russell Brand affront, I gotta say that we will see what happens with the allegations against Russell Brand.
	The Metropolitan Police are soliciting accounts and evidence of the allegations that are made against Russell Brand for the possibility of prosecution of him if it turns out that these can be substantiated.
	And we're gonna find out.
	But that is not stopping people in the British government from immediately going after any ad revenue that Brand could be receiving from any outlets.
	We talked yesterday about the fact that YouTube has now demonetized all of Russell Brand's videos.
	On YouTube.
	So allegations are tantamount to conviction in the world of YouTube.
	Which is weird, because Cardi B literally has admitted to drugging and robbing men, but I see that her videos are earning tons and tons of cash.
	Elijah Schaffer pointed that one out, by the way.
	It's a good point, and it happens to be an obvious double standard.
	Well now, the British government is literally sending letters to Rumble.
	So Rumble is a video site that hosts Russell's show.
	In the UK Parliament, they had a committee that sent a letter to the CEO of Rumble.
	That letter, from Dame Carolyn Deninage?
	The chair of the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee wrote this letter to Rumble saying,
	quote, I'm writing concerning the serious allegations regarding Russell Brand in the
	context of his being a content provider on Rumble with more than 1.4 million followers.
	The Culture, Media, and Sport Committee is raising questions with the broadcasters and
	production companies who previously employed Brand to examine both the culture of the industry in the
	past and whether that culture still prevails today. However, we are also looking at his use
	of social media, including on Rumble, where he issued his preemptive response to accusations
	made against him by the Sunday Times and Channel 4's dispatches. While we recognize that Rumble is
	not the creator of the content, we are concerned he may be able to profit from the content
	We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Bran is able to monetize his content, including his videos related to serious accusations against him.
	If so, we would like to know whether Rumble intends to join YouTube in suspending Bran's ability to earn money on the platform.
	We would also like to know what Rumble is doing to ensure creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behavior.
	So you got the British government basically tacitly threatening Rumble with some sort of unspecified consequences for not demonetizing Russell Brain.
	Now the government's working to push social media platforms to demonetize people on the basis of allegations that the British government has so far not yet prosecuted.
	That's amazing.
	Well, Chris Pavlovsky, who's the CEO of Rumble, issued a response, quote, While Rumble obviously deplores sexual assault, rape, and all serious crimes, and believes that both alleged victims and the accused are entitled to a full and serious investigation, it's vital to note recent allegations against Bran have nothing to do with content on Rumble's platform.
	We regard it as deeply inappropriate and dangerous that the UK Parliament would attempt to control who is allowed to speak on our platform or to earn a living from doing so.
	Singling out an individual demanding his ban is even more disturbing given the absence of any connection between the allegations and his content on Rumble.
	We don't agree with the behavior of many of Rumble's creators.
	We refuse to penalize them for actions that have nothing to do with our platform.
	I mean, that should be patently obvious to anybody, but the fact that the UK Parliament is now unleashing committees to try to pressure social media companies to remove monetary compensation from Russell Brand's videos is totally crazy.
	I mean, that is in fact a violation of every free speech principle.
	If the government... I mean, understand what's happening here.
	The government has not charged Russell Brand with a crime.
	And yet they are now pressuring social media to remove monetary compensation from all of his videos.
	They're writing open letters to places like Rumble about all of this.
	That's wild.
	That's wild stuff.
	You want to talk about a true tyrannical kind of threats?
	That's a tyrannical threat.
	Let's assume that you got accused of something, not in court, not by the police.
	You were accused publicly of a thing.
	And the government then went to your employer and tried to get you fired on the basis of an allegation that has not yet been substantiated by the police.
	That's scary stuff, and it's obviously ending around due process.
	But, you know, this is the world in which we live, and that is a scary, scary world.
	Okay, one second, we're gonna get to Merrick Garland.
	Speaking of lawlessness, Merrick Garland, the Attorney General of the United States, appeared on the Hill yesterday.
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	Okay, meanwhile, Republicans had Merrick Garland to the hill at the Judiciary Committee, and it didn't go amazing for Merrick Garland.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, he stressed the independence of the DOJ's criminal case against Hunter Biden as Republicans accused him during a combative congressional hearing of showing leniency toward the son of the president who appointed him.
	It was a six-hour hearing.
	Republicans are ramping up their impeachment inquiry into President Biden, but it's not just targeting Hunter and Joe.
	That inquiry obviously targets Garland as well, because Garland was presiding over a DOJ that attempted to cut an obvious sweetheart deal with Joe Biden's son, while Joe Biden is President of the United States.
	Now Merrick Garland is denying having anything to do with this.
	He's like, well, you know, it wasn't me.
	I'm completely independent from Joe.
	And then David Weiss, the prosecutor in this case, was completely independent from me.
	But here is the magic of being a member of the DOJ.
	It's very much like Henry III, will no one rid me of this troublesome priest, with regard to Thomas Beckett.
	You don't have to say anything.
	The President of the United States can basically say, I'm very sad that my son is being targeted, blah, blah, blah.
	And Merrick Garland's like, oh, you don't even have to tell me what to do.
	I know what to do.
	I'll help quash that case.
	And you know what?
	I don't even have to act in order to quash that case.
	All I have to do is not give David Weiss special counsel abilities.
	I just won't give it to him.
	Now, he claims, well, David Weiss never asked for it.
	David Weiss doesn't have to ask for it.
	You're supposed to give it, obviously.
	It is up to you to give him that.
	So all Merrick Garland had to do in order to effectuate this sweetheart deal, which had to have signed off at the DOJ for sure, is nothing.
	That's all he had to do.
	Just do nothing.
	Don't intervene.
	Don't give him special counsel status to David Weiss.
	Don't do anything.
	And then magically, a sweetheart deal would be cut.
	That's the problem.
	So Merrick Garland's like, I didn't actually... Yeah, we know.
	We know you didn't actually have to do anything.
	That's the beauty of being the head of the Justice Department.
	So, he got grilled yesterday on the hill by a bunch of Republicans.
	Here are a bunch of House Republicans peppering Garland with questions about Hunter Biden.
	Mr. Weiss has been the lead prosecutor on the Hunter Biden case since 2018.
	Now, here's the question.
	He's been the lead prosecutor since he was appointed by President Trump.
	Okay, why, let me ask you, why has the Justice Department dragged this investigation out for so long?
	Does it really take years to determine if Hunter Biden lied on a federal form related to purchasing a firearm?
	Mr. Weiss, You're not answering the question.
	Is that standard procedure?
	Should it take that long to make such a simple determination?
	I'm answering the question.
	Give me an opportunity to do so.
	Okay.
	He was charged with that investigation under the previous administration.
	He's continued.
	He knows how to conduct investigations, and I have not intruded or attempted to evaluate that because that was the promise I made He's been truly independent is what we've heard.
	But again, here's the point.
	He doesn't have to do anything.
	All he has to do is come into office and not give David Weiss additional special counsel abilities.
	Now, you can say David Weiss is appointed by Trump.
	That's true.
	It is also true that if you're looking for independence from a justice department run by the suspect's father, then maybe when you come in, you say, okay, well, yeah, I understand that the other party was in charge of the justice department.
	Well, now I'm in charge of the justice department.
	And that's kind of awkward since, you know, my boss is the dad of the guy that we're looking to prosecute.
	So maybe I should give some semblance of independence to the special prosecutor.
	That'd been the way to go about this.
	Representative Jim Jordan went after Merrick Garland as well.
	Here he was yesterday.
	Quote, Mr. Weiss has full authority to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it's necessary.
	That was your response, Attorney General, to Senator Grassley's question on March 1st, 2023.
	He just referenced it when Mr. Bishop was questioning you.
	Only problem is he'd already been turned down by the U.S.
	Attorney in the District of Columbia, Mr. Graves.
	So he didn't have full authority, did he?
	I had an extended conversation with Senator Grassley at the time.
	We briefly touched on the Section 515 question and how that process went.
	My point's real simple, Mr. Garland.
	You said he had complete authority, but he'd already been turned down.
	He wanted to bring an action in the District of Columbia, and the U.S.
	Attorney there said, no, you can't.
	And then you go tell the United States Senate under oath that he has complete authority.
	I'm going to say again that no one had the authority to turn him down.
	They could refuse to partner with him.
	They could not.
	You can use whatever language.
	Refuse to partner is turning down.
	I mean, that clearly is true.
	If you refuse to partner with somebody in prosecuting a case, that obviously is saying no to them, clearly.
	So, again, what Merrick Garland is saying is, I'll intervene.
	I didn't have to say anything.
	Well, yeah, but if the message goes out that all of these other district attorneys all over the country They're better off not partnering with David Weiss in prosecuting these cases, then what do you think is going to happen?
	Precisely.
	Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky, he's saying the same thing.
	When I said how many agents or assets of the government were present on January 5th and January 6th and agitating in the crowd to go into the Capitol and how many went into the Capitol, can you answer that now?
	I don't know the answer to that question.
	Last time, you don't know how many there were or there were none?
	I don't know the answer to either of those questions.
	If there were any, I don't know how many.
	I don't know whether there are any.
	I think you may have just perjured yourself that you don't know that there were any.
	You want to say that again?
	That you don't know that there were any?
	I have no personal knowledge of this matter.
	I think what I said the last time... You've had two years to find out, and the day... By the way, that was in reference to Ray Epps, and yesterday you indicted him!
	Okay, so, again, that's about January 6th, but this is the whole point, is that Merrick Garland, as always, the accuser is so often the person who is doing the thing.
	And that's particularly true when it comes to the DOJ.
	For years, all we heard is that Bill Barr was somehow a tool of Donald Trump doing all the bidding of Donald Trump, which is weird because Bill Barr was at direct odds with Donald Trump over, for example, January 6th and all the election stuff that Trump was doing between the election and January 6th, to the point that Trump was starting to fire him, Barr was threatening to walk, and all the rest of this sort of stuff.
	Meanwhile, you had Eric Holder, who's the Attorney General under Barack Obama, openly saying he was Barack Obama's wingman.
	You had Loretta Lynch on the tarmac with the Clintons.
	And meanwhile, you have now Merrick Garland doing the exact bidding of Joe Biden.
	And we're supposed to believe that it's completely apolitical.
	Garland did testify that he wouldn't even say if he had discussed the Hunter Biden probe with David Weiss.
	Here he was.
	This is a very weird answer.
	This is Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana-Grillingham.
	Can you tell us about any briefings or discussions that you personally have had with Mr. Weiss Regarding any and all federal investigations of Hunter Biden.
	I'm going to say again, I promised the Senate that I would not interfere with Mr. Weiss.
	So you have not, under oath today, your testimony is you have not had any discussions with Mr. Weiss about this matter?
	Under oath, my testimony today is that I promised the Senate I would not intrude in his investigation.
	I do not intend to discuss internal Justice Department deliberations, whether or not I had them.
	Oh, okay, so your testimony today is you're not going to tell us whether you've had discussions with Mr. Weiss.
	My testimony today is I told the committee that I would not interfere.
	I made clear that Mr. Weiss would have the authority to bring cases that he thought were appropriate.
	Okay, but he won't answer any specific questions about, you know, the exact content of conversations with David Weiss, which is weird.
	And then Garland was asked, well, did you talk to anybody about the Hunter probe?
	He's like, I don't remember.
	I don't think this is true.
	Do you think that's true?
	That he doesn't remember if he had any conversations with anybody about the Hunter probe?
	Have you had personal contact with anyone at FBI headquarters about the Hunter Biden investigation?
	Uh, I don't, I don't, I don't recollect the answer to that question, but the FBI
	works for the Justice Department.
	I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
	You don't recollect whether you've talked with anybody at FBI headquarters about an investigation of the President's son?
	I don't believe that I did.
	Okay, sure, sure.
	Again, Merrick Garland, one of the most obviously corrupt bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., and thanks to Mitch McConnell for not putting that guy on the Supreme Court of the United States.
	Also, Merrick Garland was rigged over the coals about the DOJ's bizarre decisions over the course of his tenure, including multiple FBI field offices coordinating to prepare an anti-Catholic memo that happened, you'll recall, back in August.
	When House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government Chairman Mike Johnson sent a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray revealing that the FBI Richmond Field Office coordinated with multiple FBI offices across the country to produce a memo targeting traditional Catholics as potential terrorists.
	Well, Mayor Garland was asked about this and he denied that there was any religious discrimination at the DOJ, which I'm sure.
	Through the Chair, I ask you, do you agree that traditional Catholics are violent extremists?
	I have no idea what the traditional means here.
	Catholics!
	Catholics!
	Go to church!
	May I answer your question?
	Yes, you may.
	The idea that someone with my family background To discriminate against any religion is so outrageous, so absurd.
	Mr. Attorney General, it was your FBI that did this.
	It was your FBI that was sending, and we have the memos, we have the emails, we're sending undercover agents into Catholic churches.
	Okay, now, what Merrick Garland is referring to there is the fact that he's of Jewish backgrounds.
	The idea that he would never, ever engage in religious discrimination is crazy.
	Well, that really isn't the question.
	It's his religious background.
	It's a question of perception.
	If he believes... This is why he hesitated when he said, what are traditional Catholics?
	What are we talking about here?
	Because the reality is that it is very easy to believe that you are the good guy and that you are not engaged in a form of discrimination, even if your FBI field offices are engaging in discrimination against, for example, traditional Catholics.
	Because you just say, well, they're not actually traditional Catholics.
	Are they really traditional?
	How are we defining traditional here?
	And well, the Democrats came out in full scale defense of Merrick Garland, of course,
	Jerry Nadler in particular went after Jim Jordan, suggesting that everything that Jim Jordan is
	saying about Merrick Garland has already been refuted, which is weird because the whistleblowers
	accusations that the independence that was sought by David Weiss was not granted by Merrick Garland
	that has not been refuted in any serious way. At the outset, let me make two comments. One,
	just about every assertion you made in your opening statement has been completely refuted
	by witnesses who have testified before this committee.
	Two, far from being favored, many commentators have noted that people accused of simple gun possession while under the influence of a drug, when that gun was not used in the commission of a crime, are rarely, if ever, prosecuted.
	The way Hunter Biden is being prosecuted.
	Hunter Biden is being persecuted, you see, according to Democrats.
	And Merrick Garland, there are a bunch of administration officials who really should be on the table for impeachment, probably before Joe Biden.
	Because if the idea of impeaching Joe Biden is based on some sort of connection of dots that supposedly has yet to take place, it's not too hard to connect the dots with regard to Merrick Garland's malfeasance.
	We have whistleblowers.
	Testifying to it.
	Or with regard to, for example, Alejandro Mayorkas not doing anything remotely like his job at the Department of Homeland Security.
	In one second, we're going to get to the UN, which hosted the Iranian president,
	a genocidal, would-be genocidal president of a theocracy, of an Islamic theocracy.
	We'll get there in just one second.
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	Okay, meanwhile, over at the United Nations, which, as I always say, is the most isolated of international politics, a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
	The United States allowed President Ibrahim Raisi, who is the leader of that terror state, to actually travel across the world, land in New York, and then yell about how terrible America is.
	According to the UK Guardian, in a lengthy set piece to the UN General Assembly, he accused America of fanning the flames of violence in Ukraine, prompting protests from Israel's representative to the UN.
	He claimed any Iranian-made drones hitting Ukrainian cities had been sold before the war started, and said he was in favor of peace in Ukraine.
	That was on the same day that Tehran hosted a Russian defense delegation led by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, He said that the world is transitioning into a novel international order and the project to Americanize the world has failed.
	He said the West was facing a crisis of identity and functionality and sees the world as a forest and itself as a beautiful garden.
	He also accused America of stoking the war in Ukraine in order to weaken Europe.
	Well, this caused the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who I know personally, to walk out.
	He accused the UN of rolling out the red carpet for the butcher of Tehran, which of course is exactly right.
	And he held up a picture of Mahsa Amini, who's a Kurdish woman who died in police custody in Iran for not wearing hijab correctly.
	He was then ejected, was the Israeli ambassador.
	See, the rule is that you're allowed to be a terrorist dictator, but if you hold up a picture of a person that the terrorist dictator has helped to murder, then apparently you get kicked out of the UN.
	Apparently, according to The Independent in the UK, there was indeed an incident when the permanent representative of Israel walked down the aisle and unfurled a photo during a speech by the President of Iran in the General Assembly.
	UN Security spoke to him.
	At no time was the ambassador detained in any way, shape, or form.
	As far as we are concerned, the incident is closed.
	Apparently, the caption on the photo said, Iranian women deserve freedom now.
	And he wrote, did Erdan on X. When President Raisi of Iran, the butcher of Tehran, began his speech, I waved a picture of Masa Amini, the innocent Iranian woman who was brutally murdered by the regime one year ago for not wearing hijab properly.
	Meanwhile, outside the UN, hundreds of Iranians were protesting, begging for help from the international community.
	I'll never stop fighting for the truth.
	I'll always expose the UN's moral distortions.
	By the way, I'll just point out here that the media coverage of the number of protesters who are protesting, the Iranian dictator being in the United States and just speaking nonsense and garbage, That was dwarfed, the media coverage of that, by the coverage of like a few dozen protesters in the United States who are very anti-Benjamin Netanyahu, who's also visiting the United States and is having a sidebar with Joe Biden at this point.
	Just again, the UN continues to be not only a useless, but a counterproductive organization.
	Okay, meanwhile, speaking of useless and counterproductive organizations, you would imagine that the UN, these international organizations, these would be the places where negotiations would happen over, for example, Nagorno-Karabakh.
	This is a very little noticed and little watched region of the world except by people who are sort of in the know.
	It's a hotspot.
	There are certain hotspots in the world.
	Kashmir is a hotspot.
	Say, the Gaza Strip is a hotspot.
	areas of Jordan, Samaria are hotspot and Nagorno-Karabakh is a is a hotspot. The reason it's a
	hotspot is because it is largely ethnically Armenian, but it is controlled by Azerbaijan.
	And so for years and years and years, there has been an Armenian separatist attempt to take
	Nagorno-Karabakh from the rule of Azerbaijan. Well, now Azerbaijani forces have assaulted the area.
	They apparently report suggest that there are a lot of civilian deaths.
	The Azerbaijani forces are suggesting they're telling people to get out in advance of their advance.
	But apparently, according to the Wall Street Journal, Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed on Wednesday to disarm and discuss reintegration with Azerbaijan following a swift but deadly assault by Azerbaijani forces, a capitulation signaling the end of decades of ethnic Armenian rule in the enclave and the rapid decline of Russian influence in the former Soviet Union territories.
	It's a very complicated situation because Both Iran and Russia are supporters of the separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh.
	Meanwhile, Turkey and Israel are supporters of the Azerbaijani forces.
	The terms of the ceasefire lay groundwork that could bring to a close the autonomous rule by the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was won from Baku in a bloody years-long war after the fall of the Soviet Empire.
	Fighting appeared to continue in parts of the enclave hours after the signing of the ceasefire.
	The speed at which the Armenian separatists agreed to abandon their armed struggle underscores Moscow's waning power over events in the region as its forces are stretched in Ukraine.
	It's been a frozen conflict.
	And the Kremlin has used this as a lever to maintain over both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, over the years, Moscow sent both weapons and peacekeepers to the region while using diplomacy to retain its position as the ultimate arbiter over geopolitics there.
	This obviously is another piece of evidence that Russia is weakening internationally, which is generally a good thing.
	Russia's been a very powerful and aggressive force in the world, obviously, particularly along its old Soviet borders.
	According to Thomas Duall, expert on Nagorno-Karabakh and senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, quote, Russia's leverage is much weakened by what's happening in Ukraine.
	We see the Armenians moving away from Russia and Azerbaijan, having a relationship with Russia that is more on its own terms.
	Nagorno-Karabakh said it lost 24 civilians and soldiers in the day-long conflict that began on Tuesday with artillery assaults on what Azerbaijan said were Armenian military targets in the breakaway region.
	Locals posting on social media reported strikes on residential neighborhoods in the territory's main city of Stepanakert.
	Russia's defense ministry said peacekeepers had come under fire and died during the violence.
	They didn't specify how many were killed.
	Azerbaijan says it plans to take back the enclave.
	It's inside the borders of Azerbaijan.
	It's populated almost entirely by ethnic Armenians who have ruled since the 1990s under the terms of a peace deal brokered by Russia.
	Skirmishes erupted into conflict in 2020 when Azerbaijan reclaimed areas around the territory.
	That battle ended, guaranteeing Armenian separatists control over that particular area.
	But peace has remained shaky.
	Armenia's leaders complained Russia wasn't able to enforce the deal.
	Again, a complicated conflict in which the UN has been entirely absent.
	The US, Russia, and EU all said they had made last-ditch efforts to dissuade Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev from attacking the territory.
	Nagorno-Karabakh has relied almost solely on Armenia for links to the outside world.
	Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to express his concern over the escalation.
	Again, one of the things that is amazing about these sorts of conflicts is that nobody notices them until they break into violence, and after that, like five minutes later, nobody notices otherwise.
	This is why when it comes to American foreign policy, the amount of focus that actually is placed on American foreign policy around the world is actually fairly low by Americans.
	It kind of bursts into the national consciousness for a hot second, and then it is just gone.
	Okay, meanwhile, The Feds continue to debate the interest rates because our economy continues to stagnate.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, Federal Reserve officials are set to hold interest rates steady at their meeting on Wednesday while debating what it would take for them to lift borrowing costs again this year.
	Their anticipated decision would mark the second time in six policy meetings this year the Fed has not raised rates.
	The Fed has signaled it will hold rates steady and make no substantive changes to its post-meeting policy statement.
	That doesn't mean that inflation has actually been solved.
	Because, again, inflation in the United States remains almost double what we are supposed to be looking for right now.
	Rate projections suggest the many Fed officials see a rising neutral rate, which keeps inflation and unemployment stable in the long run.
	It just means that it's already baked into the cake.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, Federal Reserve officials surprised markets by signaling that interest rates will not fall as much as previously planned.
	That tweak might be more important than it looks.
	In their projections and commentary, some officials hint that rates might be higher, not just for longer, but forever.
	For a very long time in the United States, you get a mortgage at 3-4%.
	That is not going to be the case for a long time to come.
	And that is because of the inflation that has been baked into the cake by the loose monetary and fiscal policy of the United States over the course of years.
	One of the big problems here, and one of the things that creates inflation, is lack of labor productivity.
	One of the things that brings down prices is additional labor productivity.
	As Greg Ip writes for the Wall Street Journal, For the United Auto Workers, it makes perfect sense to demand more pay and better work-life balance from Detroit's three automakers.
	After all, workers throughout this historically tight labor market are getting exactly that.
	But what makes sense to striking factory workers makes no sense for manufacturing as a whole.
	Pay is ultimately tied to productivity, the quantity and quality of products a company's workforce churns out.
	And here, American manufacturing companies and workers are in trouble.
	The issue is not with labor-intensive products like clothing and furniture, which offshored a long time ago.
	It's in the most advanced products, electric cars and batteries, power generation equipment, commercial aircraft, semiconductors.
	American companies still lead the world in design and innovation, but the resulting products increasingly are made abroad, especially in Asia.
	Joe Biden, like Donald Trump, wants to reverse that through tariff subsidies and other government interventions.
	But the problem is really not about that.
	It's that Asian manufacturers have basically decreased cost, increased quality, and American counterparts have slipped.
	When you look at manufacturing productivity growth from 2009 to 2022, Taiwan has had a
	productivity growth annual average 4%, the UK 1.7%, Germany 1.4%, the US 0.2%.
	In motor vehicle manufacturing, the picture is especially bad.
	From 2012 through last year, productivity plummeted 32%.
	That's not the fault of American workers.
	As Greg points out, productivity depends on a bunch of factors, including management decisions, supply chain, public infrastructure, regulation.
	For example, American manufacturers use far fewer robots than their competitors.
	But it doesn't matter.
	If you're not bringing up the productivity, that means that you are not going to be competitive on the world markets.
	And so the UAW is striking for temporary gains in the face of what are going to be significant future losses.
	Right now, the attempt to transition to electric vehicles by the big three, that's a very risky move considering that Ford is set to apparently lose $4.5 billion on electric vehicles this year.
	That is not a good number, voting ill for the future of this UAW strike.
	We'll get to more on all that in just one second.
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	USAFacts.org. That's USAFacts.org today.
	Well, despite the fact that the American car industry is about to face some very hard times
	to do specifically to all these regulations and restrictions put on them by the Biden
	administration, their push for electric vehicles, for example.
	The UAW continues forward with its strike and Democrats are signaling their support.
	Why?
	Because again, the most corrupt bargain in American politics is union support for Democrats.
	The way that this works... By the way, not all unions are bad.
	There are unions that do good.
	Go back to the coal miners unions.
	There are plenty of unions that do good.
	The point is that you're not supposed to kneecap workers as long as a union is just a voluntary association of men negotiating for pay.
	Men and women, obviously.
	Negotiating for pay?
	No problem.
	It's when you start kneecapping people or relying on the federal government to cram down solutions that you are now engaged in corporatism, which is a form of financial fascism, economic fascism.
	Well, the Democratic Party knows this.
	It's no wonder.
	Whenever people talk about money in politics, they always neglect union money in politics because that might implicate the Democrats.
	What is amazing is how the unions are now holding the Democrats to the wall.
	Back in September, early September, Joe Biden said he thought that a UAW strike was unlikely.
	Now, of course, we're in the middle of the end of week one of this thing.
	When asked by CNN's Betsy Klein whether he believed a strike could happen in just less than two weeks time when the contract of the United Auto Workers expires, President Biden said he didn't think so.
	He said, I'm not worried about a strike until it happens.
	I don't think it's going to happen.
	As always, Joe Biden is incredible at this.
	Of course, the unions are holding him to the wall.
	Why not?
	They know that they own him.
	Meanwhile, the governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, he is saying also that he stands with the UAW, because why not?
	If you're a Democrat, what cost does it have to you to stand with the union, even if it ends up bankrupting the car industry a couple of years in the future?
	You just blame capitalism.
	After you regulate those car companies into the ground and then cram down crappy union deals on them, when the companies go under, well, that's when you blame capitalism, obviously.
	Here's Josh Shapiro.
	Bernie Sanders, though, says, you know, if the bosses are going to benefit from this better technology, the workers should, too.
	They should have more time with their families, more time at home.
	What do you think?
	Look, I stand with the striking UAW workers.
	They deserve to share in these record profits that the executives are taking home.
	I think what we have seen is just a greater gap between what the executives are making in companies and what the workers who are putting the product and the services out in the field are earning.
	We need to shrink that gap and I stand with the UAW striking workers.
	Of course the Democrats are all in hock.
	Meanwhile, they're helping to cram down all the regulations that are gonna make these car companies go bankrupt.
	One of the things that's so irritating about watching politics is very often, it is government interventionism that skews the incentive structure for all these major companies, crams down bad contracts on them.
	Then, when the companies go bankrupt, they blame capitalism for the failure, and then they bail out the companies, blaming capitalism all the while and saying, what we really need here is more government regulation.
	That's the story of the 2007-2008 economic crash.
	The government created incentive structures in which it was very obvious to everybody
	that all of these companies were going to get bailed out, and so they took all sorts
	of crazy risks.
	The risks went south.
	The government bailed them out and then blamed capitalism for that.
	That's not capitalism.
	That's corporatism, pretty obviously.
	But again, the same time that they are now pressuring the car companies to capitulate
	to the UAW.
	Carbon disclosure rules are coming for U.S.
	companies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
	Many big U.S.
	companies have been fighting in Washington to block rules requiring them to disclose greenhouse gas emissions.
	They picked the wrong fight.
	Both California and the EU are poised to approve rules that require companies that do business to disclose their emissions.
	The rules would apply to private as well as public companies and require businesses to calculate and disclose emissions from their suppliers and their customers, which goes beyond what was expected out of Washington.
	This means that pretty much every major company in America is now going to be expected to disclose their carbon emissions, which is going to have some predictable downstream economic effect.
	So, things are going incredibly, incredibly well.
	Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
	So, John Fetterman hates pants.
	I don't know why.
	I'm confused why he hates pants, but apparently he really, really hates pants.
	So much so, that the Senate of the United States, in order to apparently concede to this brain-damaged person, and I say that with, again, that's not an insult, that's just a reality, this person had a massive stroke.
	So this apparently means that John Fetterman must be allowed to preside over the Senate Like my seven year old son going to going to camp or something like that.
	That's what the Senate of the United States is.
	So all the staffers still have to wear suits.
	John Fetterman, however, he literally presided over the Senate wearing gym shorts and like a short-sleeve button-down shirt, looking as though he just emerged from a homeless shelter.
	According to the Daily Wire, the senator from Pennsylvania took his turn sitting as the presiding officer, while some of his GOP colleagues, including Senators John Thune and Rand Paul and John Cornyn, delivered remarks on the Senate floor.
	He said, This is what we deserve.
	What we deserve is a country of absolute fools wearing garbage clothing onto the floor of the United States Senate.
	I mean, honestly, why not?
	At this point, why not?
	Our standards for our politicians are so unbelievably low that we will elect the brain damage to high office.
	Why shouldn't they be able to dress as though they're attending a preschool, as opposed to the Senate of the United States?
	Chuck Schumer said in a statement to Axios, Senators are able to choose what they wear on the Senate floor.
	I will continue to wear a suit.
	So, I am declaring that all Republicans in honor of John Fetterman should declare Hawaiian Shirt Day at the U.S.
	Senate.
	It sounds more like the ugliest Hawaiian shirt that you could possibly find, along with cargo shorts, as well as socks with sandals.
	That is what everyone should wear in the... Why not?
	How about some flip-flops?
	They should wear flip-flops, sunglasses... Susan Collins, by the way, is threatening to wear a bikini.
	That's his joke.
	By her, by the way, she actually is not going to do that, but...
	Why not?
	I mean, after all, if John Fetterman can wear whatever he wants because we have to make sure that we concede to the not qualified senator from Pennsylvania, why not at this point?
	I suppose that it makes some sense.
	The good news is, I guess, that the mask is off.
	If the United States Senate is going to be a joke, I suppose that we can get rid of all the rules, pretending that it's not a joke.
	Alrighty, guys, the rest of the show continues right now.
	You're not going to want to miss it.
	We'll be getting into some of the allegations that are now being made against Rudy Giuliani by Cassidy Hutchinson.
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