The Dem Cabal That Kept Feinstein’s Dying Hands on the Vote Button, Media & US Govt Already Exploiting “Russian Disinfo” for 2024, & Politico Embraces Nazis After Canada Scandal | SYSTEM UPDATE #155
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, the term elder abuse is a somewhat recent phrase that emerged as human beings started living longer and longer lives.
While their bodies endure for more years though, their mental capacities often do not keep up and that has left many people in extremely vulnerable positions as they age.
Vulnerable to others who seek to exploit their mental incapacity and to use them and their assets for their own personal benefit.
While sometimes the perpetrators of elder abuse are healthcare providers in nursing homes, they are more often one's own family members, closest friends and colleagues.
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California died at the age of 90 last week while serving her sixth consecutive term in the Senate.
Each Senate term is six years.
That's 36 years she won to serve in the Senate.
But, tragically, she spent the last two years of her life barely knowing who or where she was.
Leading Democrats, led by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, propped up Feinstein in that Senate chair.
Pelosi used her own daughter to control Feinstein and her votes for the crassest of all purposes.
At the same time that Pelosi was using Feinstein's body in the Senate to advance her own political agenda, Feinstein's children and those of her third husband, the oligarchical military contractor Richard Bloom, have been waging war over Feinstein's fortune in excess of $100 million.
And Feinstein's daughter even obtained a power of attorney to manage her affairs for her As she ostensibly served in the Senate.
In other words, her daughter represented that Feinstein couldn't even manage her own personal affairs and therefore her daughter had to do it for her at the same time that she was casting votes on matters of war and peace and trillion dollar budgets.
Now, I have no sympathy for Dianne Feinstein as a politician.
I reported often on why she was one of the sleaziest warmongers and servants of the U.S.
security state.
There you see an article from Salon.com in 2007 Where I wrote she was the quote, symbol of the worthless Beltway Democrat.
But this entire CB episode is really worth examining to see what kinds of soulless lowly ghouls really occupy and rule Washington.
Then, we've spent weeks on this program documenting how the fear of Russian disinformation occupies so much of neoliberal discourse in the West.
American and Western elites have not only made Russian disinformation their all-purpose boogeyman for shielding themselves from blame and keeping the population in fear, but they also use that warning to justify everything they do, from mass spying and censorship to propaganda campaigns and election manipulation.
An article this week from the New York Times, which like so many articles in that newspaper, does nothing more than quote anonymous quote U.S.
officials, warns that Russian disinformation is coming again.
They blame it for why Americans are turning against the war in Ukraine, as well as warning that it may again be used to interfere in our presidential election in 2024.
It is really vital to understand and to be alert to how cynically and effectively this specific fear-mongering campaign operates, this one that constantly alleges Russian disinformation is around the corner and lurking under your bed, and therefore you need to do everything to give them the power to protect you from it.
And then finally, several days ago, Politico published an article that has to be seen to be believed, so we're going to show it to you.
It is the single most explicit, unflinching, and unapologetic defense of Nazism and the Nazi SS that I have ever read in a mainstream news outlet, perhaps ever read anywhere.
Yes, you heard that right.
Politico really did publish an article that explicitly argues that not everyone who fought in the Nazi SS or who professes allegiance to it are bad.
The reason for all of this, needless to say, is that the author of this screed wants to justify why Ukrainian President Zelensky stood at the side of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week as they, along with the entire Canadian Parliament, gave a standing, rousing ovation to a Ukrainian-Canadian gentleman who fought in World War II as a soldier for the Nazi SS.
Over and over and over again, Westerners have found themselves applauding Nazism and actual Nazis.
Not the kind who wear red MAGA hats in the United States, but the real deal kind over in Eastern Europe, all because they want to venerate Ukraine.
These are not coincidental or meaningless events, but quite meaningful and revealing ones when it comes to Ukraine, and we'll examine this new defense of Nazism in Politico to show you why that is.
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For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
The term elder abuse has become a frequently used term that gets thrown around a lot now in American politics as very powerful politicians, in fact, seemingly most of them, start to become very old, right before our eyes.
In fact, so old that they often seem cognitively incapacitated.
The leading example, of course, is Joe Biden.
We also had some very uncomfortable episodes with the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell.
Obviously, although he's not old, there have been real questions about John Fetterman's cognitive ability to have run for the Senate and now to serve in the Senate.
But perhaps one of the most disturbing of all instances of what you could actually call elder abuse.
And I say that in these other cases, elder abuse gets thrown around and it might be kind of metaphorical or figurative, kind of expressive.
Because it's not really clear that, for example, anyone's forcing Mitch McConnell to stay in that seat, that anyone forced Joe Biden to run, even though it seems clear that their capacity to do that job is at least questionable, if not, in Biden's case, far worse.
But I think in the case of Dianne Feinstein, the senator who just died at the age of 90 in her sixth term in the Senate, The term elder abuse is literal.
It is genuinely true.
I don't mean it as an insult.
I don't mean it to be dramatic.
I think she really was the victim of elder abuse, both at the hands of her own children and the children of her third husband, which becomes relevant.
If it were just a family matter, I probably wouldn't comment on it, but I think it becomes relevant to how she served in the Senate.
But she definitely was victimized.
by Nancy Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi's daughter in the entire establishment wing of the Democratic Party that really wanted Dianne Feinstein to stay in that seat and cling to the Judiciary Committee seat that she held and the voting button that she had access to until her last dying day And they probably wanted it to even continue beyond that.
They just couldn't find a way to make it happen.
I think now that the dust has settled on Dianne Feinstein's death, people have had their little mourning period to talk about how inspiring she was, for whatever reasons.
Imagine finding Dianne Feinstein inspiring.
I think it's time to actually take a look at what actually happened here, because I find it Grotesque and creepy and disturbing and it sheds a lot of light into the kind of people who really do run Washington.
So let's start with this term elder abuse.
It really is a term that Only became popularized within the last three or four decades.
And I think the reason for that is because as people live longer, they often outlive their mental capacities.
We can keep the body alive for a lot longer with modern medicine, but oftentimes the body outlives the brain's ability to continue to function in any kind of a meaningful way.
That means that a lot of people in their elderly years are mentally incapacitated.
They're not able, they're not in control of their faculties.
They don't know really who they are or where they are.
And it's sad.
It's not something that I think is worthy of mockery.
We probably have people in our family who are nearing that point, who are at that point.
We ourselves very well may get to that point because of the realities of modern medicine.
And so along with medicine, extending lives often past the point where the brain can keep up, you have a lot of instances where people close to this person who is vulnerable because they don't have their mental faculty any longer start exploiting this person in all sorts of different ways, start abusing them you have a lot of instances where people close to this person who is vulnerable because they don't have their mental faculty any longer start exploiting this person in all sorts of different ways, start abusing them and taking advantage
And elder abuse has now become a recognized legal term.
It's a crime in a lot of jurisdictions.
It's often considered something that the CDC warns about because it's a health risk.
So here you see the official fast facts from the Center for Disease Control, the official U.S.
government statement on elder abuse.
And they ask, what is elder abuse?
Quote, elder abuse is an intentional act or failure to act that causes or creates a risk of harm to an older adult.
An older adult is someone aged 60 or older.
I don't know about you, but that sentence hurts.
I don't qualify for elder abuse, but I'm a lot closer to being someone who qualifies than I thought I was, and you might find that as well.
In any event, I don't think most people 60 or older start losing their mental faculties, but according to the CDC, you can be You are eligible for elder abuse if you're 60 years or older.
Obviously, Dianne Feinstein at 90 was quite older than that, so she certainly qualifies.
The abuse occurs at the hands of a caregiver or a person the elder trusts.
Common types of elder abuse include emotional or physical abuse, which refers to verbal or nonverbal behaviors that inflict anguish, mental pain, fear, or distress on an older adult.
Examples include humiliation or disrespect, verbal and nonverbal threats, harassment, and geographic or interpersonal isolation.
Another kind of elder abuse is financial abuse, which is the illegal, unauthorized, or improper use of an elder's money, benefits, belongings, property, or assets for the benefit of someone other than the older adult.
I don't think there's any question that Dianne Feinstein qualifies as a long-term victim of elder abuse.
Remember, she was the senator, one of only two, for the largest state in the country, California.
And she kept that seat until the day she died.
In fact, they got her to vote on the day that she died.
She voted on the day that she died.
So, let's eliminate right away any questions about was Dianne Feinstein really mentally competent, mentally capable, mentally aware?
Either not only to serve in that seat, but to fend off people who are trying to exploit her.
Let's watch, for example, from May of this year when Dianne Feinstein was away from the Senate for months because she had shingles and because she's 90 and had all kinds of other ailments.
And Democrats were getting enraged because they couldn't get any judicial nominees confirmed because her vote on the Judiciary Committee wasn't able to be cast because she wasn't physically present in the Senate and she was the majority, that her vote was needed for a majority, so they couldn't confirm any of Biden's judicial nominees, which is one of the main reasons why the two parties crave the White House.
And they finally got her to the point where she could be wheeled back in.
I mean wheeled, like in an actual wheelchair.
And when she was coming back in, she was asked by a reporter, Hey, Senator Feinstein, what was it like being away?
And this is what happened.
What has the response from your colleagues been like?
The well wishes?
What have you heard?
What have I heard about what?
About your return, have you heard?
I love how she answers their thing.
Say, what's your response?
What have you heard?
And she gives this really angry answer.
Because a lot of times, people with dementia, people who are suffering from various kinds of age-based Alzheimer's or something else, get very aggressive and very angry.
She sounds like Joan Crawford in some kind of like over-the-top campy role that she played in her 70s or 80s or like Bette Davis or something.
Listen to how she responded.
What have I heard about what?
About your return.
How have they felt about your return?
No, I haven't been gone.
Okay.
You should follow me.
I haven't been gone.
I've been working.
You've been working from home is what you're saying?
- No, I've been here.
I've been voting.
Please, either no or don't know. - What do you say to Californians, like Roe Connelly would say you should resign? - Honestly, that was scary.
You know what?
On second thought, maybe I do wonder whether she was capable of being abused.
I would not get near Dianne Feinstein.
She was incredibly angry there.
But she, obviously, it's very sad.
Again, I don't want to mock this at all because I really do regard her as a victim.
And you saw that reporter like not knowing what to say because she really was gone.
She wasn't at the Senate for months.
She was like not there, physically not present.
And so when he said to her, Hey, welcome back, Dianne Feinstein, Senator Feinstein.
It's great to have you back.
What was it like to be gone?
She was like, what do you mean gone?
And then she said, I wasn't gone.
So she's like, I've been working.
So he said, oh, like you mean at home?
And she said, no, I've been here.
She thought she was at the Senate.
She thought, she didn't realize she hadn't been at the Senate.
This is in May.
She didn't know where she was.
They kept her in that seat for as long as they could prop her up.
Here in July, they had to have her vote.
And she had no idea what she was voting on.
And in fact, she thought she was voting on something completely different.
And then she had to get told what to vote.
Here is what happened here.
A moment that just happened in a committee meeting today, where she seems to need help to vote in that committee meeting.
Here is that moment.
Senator Feinstein.
Um, say hi.
Pardon me?
Hi.
Yeah.
I would like to support a yes vote on this.
It provides $823 billion.
That's an increase of $26 billion for the Department of Defense.
and it funds priorities submitted.
- Yeah, just say aye.
- Okay, just aye.
- Aye.
- So that's a part in that committee meeting where they vote on various measures of legislation.
You saw what looks like a male staff member go over to the Senator, because instead of voting, the Senator begins what appear to be prepared remarks, and then Patty Murray, a fellow Democrat and the chair of that committee, tells Senator Feinstein to just say aye, and that's what the Senator does.
So another concerning moment for a lawmaker here, caught on camera.
It's not so much a concerning moment, it's a repulsive moment.
I mean, it's right out in the open.
And I think it's so ironic, too, that what she was voting on there was whether to spend another $830 billion on the military budget.
Maybe you're for the military budget.
Maybe you want the United States to spend close to a trillion dollars a year, even though that's more than the next 12 countries combined.
Maybe you don't want that.
But I assume we can all agree that we want somebody who knows their name and knows who or where they are to be the one making the decision.
And Chevy said, no clue.
And everyone in the Senate knows that.
You see, it wasn't like a small room.
It was a gigantic room.
They had other senators, Patty Murray, telling her to vote.
Vote yes.
Vote yes.
Then you have that male staff member keep interrupting her and saying, just say yes, just say yes.
Now, I think it is ironic.
That Dianne Feinstein basically devoted her entire adult life as a senator to serving the U.S.
security state, to serving the military-industrial complex.
And so she wanted, there was like a part of her brain, like a little part that was still kind of creaking along, that wanted to give a speech about the importance of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military budget.
And she was trying to do that, even as they kept saying, say yes.
So, anyway, I don't really think there's any doubt about the fact that she was completely incapacitated.
Everybody knew it.
And yet no one removed her.
The Democratic Party insisted she remain there.
Now the question becomes, well, Dianne Feinstein is the senator for a obviously blue state.
If a senator dies in office or resigns, the Rules are that the governor of that state appoints the successor until the next election.
And obviously, if you have a Democratic governor, as California does, Gavin Newsom, he's obviously going to appoint a Democrat to take her place.
Why did they care?
Why did they want Dianne Feinstein in that seat?
The reason, one of the reasons they wanted Dianne Feinstein in that seat is really repulsive.
It's because Gavin Newsom, being a slimy little politician in the Democratic Party, announced That he was going to appoint a black woman to that seat if she resigned before her term ended.
I don't know, I find that kind of insulting.
He just said like, yeah, I'm going to appoint a black woman.
I have no idea which black woman.
It's just going to be a black woman.
I'm going to pick a black woman.
Nobody else, just a black woman for that seat.
On March 15th of 2021, here you see Politico, Newsom says he'll name a black woman to the Senate if Feinstein resigns.
Quote, California Governor Gavin Newsom committed Monday to nominating a black woman for the U.S.
Senate should Dianne Feinstein resign from the seat she's held for more than two decades.
Newsom made the comments to MSNBC host Joy Reid in an appearance on her show, saying he has multiple names in mind for the spot.
Why even do that?
Why say that you're committed in advance to appointing a black woman?
Just appoint a black woman if you want.
But this is how the Democratic Party thinks about people.
They put them into little categories and boxes and then they give out little awards based on the group to which they belong.
It's just so condescending.
Oh look!
We're doing something for black people.
We're holding this seat for a black woman.
Many women's groups and black leaders including San Francisco Mayor London Breed expressed disappointment when Newsom picked Alex Padilla.
The seat opened up a couple of years ago when Kamala Harris was sitting in that seat.
She became vice president and they wanted Gavin Newsom to replace Kamala Harris, the black woman, instead he picked a Latino.
Alex Padilla to satisfy that constituency.
And so then he promised, oh, next time I'll name a black woman.
Among those whose names considered in the mix for the Harris seat were Congresswoman Karen Bass of Los Angeles, Congresswoman Barbara Lee of Oakland, and Breed.
So those are the three black women who were considered qualified and eligible.
The problem was that Karen Bass ended up being elected to become the mayor of Los Angeles.
She was just elected mayor of Los Angeles last year.
So I don't think she wanted the seat.
It would have looked odd to run this big mayoral campaign and win the mayor's seat and then suddenly abandon it.
London Breed, same thing.
She's serving as the mayor of San Francisco.
So the only person left on that list was Barbara Lee, who has been in the House for 20 plus years.
I think she's most notable for having been the only vote against authorizing the use of military force in Afghanistan.
She stood up on September 14, 2001 in the House floor and gave a very stirring impression speech about how she doesn't think we should go to Afghanistan because we're going to end up stuck there forever and we're not going to accomplish anything.
And she ended up being proven right.
That was a long time ago, but her competition is Adam Schiff for that Senate seat.
and also Katie Porter.
So it's not like any of them are really different from one another.
So the question then became, well, why doesn't he just appoint Barbara Lee?
And the answer is that that's what Gavin Newsom would have done, and that was the reason they needed to keep Barbara Lee, to keep Dianne Feinstein in that seat, because they were petrified that if Dianne Feinstein resigned, based on what Gavin Newsom had told everybody, that he was going to appoint Barbara Lee to the seat, and next that he was going to appoint Barbara Lee to the seat, and next year there's an open Senate seat, which is Dianne Feinstein's seat, and the entire Democratic establishment is behind Adam Schiff, and they were worried that if Barbara Lee
She would have a huge advantage and be able to beat Adam Schiff.
And Nancy Pelosi and everybody else loves Adam Schiff because he's a pathological liar.
He's a fanatical loyalist of the Democratic Party.
He was the leading Russiagator.
He was on the January 6th committee.
He led the impeachment hearings.
He's perfect for the MSNBC crowd.
I mean, think about how ironic it is, too, that Gavin Newsom is pretending, oh, don't worry, we're going to put a black woman in this seat.
But in reality, the entire Democratic Party is working to ensure that a white man, Adam Schiff, gets that seat instead.
Do you see how just crass their game-playing is with race and how condescending they are to the people of color who they believe they own?
Here's Politico in February of this year.
Nancy Pelosi endorses Adam Schiff in the California Senate race if Feinstein doesn't run.
That's who they all want in that seat, Adam Schiff.
Quote, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi on Thursday endorsed Representative Adam Schiff in California's high-profile Senate primary, backing the former House Intelligence Committee chair, but only on the condition that Senator Dianne Feinstein opts not to run again.
Quote, if Senator Feinstein decides to seek re-election for the seventh term, this is what Pelosi says, she has my wholehearted support.
This was back in February when everyone knew that Feinstein was completely incapacitated.
If she decides not to run, I will be supporting House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who knows well the nexus between a strong democracy and a strong economy, Pelosi said.
In his service in the House, he has focused on strengthening our democracy with justice and on building an economy that works for all.
So, they're all lined up behind Adam Schiff, and that was why they didn't want Dianne Feinstein to lead.
That was one of the reasons.
Now, In order to make sure they could control Dianne Feinstein, control her votes, control her behavior, try and get her over the finish line so that Barbara Lee doesn't get that seat and Adam Schiff can safely run for the primary, which is held in just a few months, look at what Nancy Pelosi did.
Politico reported in May of this year that Dianne Feinstein's primary caregiver has become Nancy Pelosi's daughter.
Nancy Pelosi took her daughter And basically put her at Dianne Feinstein's side to control Dianne Feinstein.
That she's been wheeling Dianne Feinstein around and telling her how to vote and telling her what to do, telling her she can't quit, keeping her popped up in that Sarah even though we just showed you she had no idea who she even is.
And the reason Nancy Pelosi did that was because she wants to make sure that Adam Schiff, her loyalist, her protege, gets that Senate seat.
She kept Dianne Feinstein sitting there voting.
They were also claiming that if Dianne Feinstein resigned, the Republicans could prevent the empanelment of a new Democratic replacement onto the Judiciary Committee.
We'll see now if that's true, now that Gavin Newsom has named her successor.
But they just wanted Feinstein there for their own political purposes, keeping this 90-year-old woman just working in the Senate, even though she had shingles and had to be wheeled around.
Quote, a quiet caretaking arrangement has raised questions about whether Nancy Pelosi has the ailing senator's personal interest at heart.
Oh, do you think there's doubts about whether Nancy Pelosi had the ailing senator's personal interest at heart?
When Senator Dianne Feinstein walked into the Capitol last week, ending a month-long medical absence, she was accompanied by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a small entourage of aides, and a close personal confidant with a storied political pedigree.
Nancy Corrine Prouda blended into the swarm around the legendary California Democrat.
The San Francisco Chronicle made note of her presence but left unreported amid the spectacle was the larger role that Proudha, the eldest child of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has come to play in Feinstein's life as the 89-year-old has dealt with the absence of her deceased husband, the departure of trusted staffers, a nasty case of shingles, And spiraling concerns about her fitness for office.
Not only did Prouda, Pelosi's daughter, escort Feinstein around Capitol Hill last week, she was again at her side yesterday, helping aides surround the senator in a Capitol hallway as a reporter tried to speak to her.
Multiple people familiar with the arrangement say it's only the most visible part of a quiet but critical role the Pelosi family has played in helping to take care of the ailing senator, both in Washington and San Francisco.
Now, that might sound charitable, like the Pelosi's are so deeply concerned with Dianne Feinstein and taking care of her when she's in Washington and in San Francisco.
But then the article goes on, quote, the intrigue surrounds the future of Feinstein's seat.
Pelosi has endorsed Congressman Adam Schiff, her longtime protege and former handpicked House Intelligence Committee chair, to succeed Feinstein after her sixth and final term ends next year.
Schiff is a household name in California and already has $15 million campaign cash advantage over his nearest competitor.
But if Feinstein were to bow to pressure and retire early, Schiff's advantage could disappear.
Governor Gavin Newsom has pledged to support a black woman to serve out her term in one of Schiff's declared opponents, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, would fit the bill.
Quote, if Feinstein resigns right now, there is an enormous probability that Barbara Lee gets appointed.
Thus, it makes it harder for Schiff, one Pelosi family confidant told Playbook, adding that the relationship between Pelosi, her daughter, and the senator is, quote, being kept under wraps.
So they admitted Pelosi's family did.
That the reason they were so intent on controlling Dianne Feinstein and wheeling her around and keeping her in that Senate seat was because they were very concerned, petrified in fact, that Gavin Newsom would appoint Barbaralee and that would... Do you see the sick games these people play over political power?
The way they were willing to just treat Dianne Feinstein like some slab of meat who had to stay in that seat?
And live the last stage of her life, being wheeled around the Senate, being told what to do, dressing her up, putting makeup on her, all so that they could keep that Senate seat in California and ensure that Joe Biden's Judiciary Committee nominees were confirmed.
At the very same time that she was being abused by Nancy Pelosi and her family and the Democratic Party, Dianne Feinstein was also being abused by her own family.
In August, just a couple months ago, CBS News reported that Dianne Feinstein gave up her power of attorney to her daughter, and that's raising questions.
Here's what it means.
Quote, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the 90-year-old lawmaker from California, has given power of attorney to her daughter, according to a document posted by Insider, a step that is raising questions from some corners.
Providing power of attorney to another person, typically a trust and family member or associate, isn't uncommon and is often used as a way to accomplish certain legal or financial transactions.
But the report of Feinstein's daughter, Catherine Feinstein, 66, being given power of attorney for her mother, comes after a moment of confusion for the Democratic senator last month when she began launching into remarks during a vote on the military budget.
Colleagues prompted her multiple times simply to say, aye.
Yes, it is not uncommon to give power of attorney for limited transactions to people, especially when you're older.
But you don't just hand over power of attorney to your daughter over your entire life unless you cannot manage your own life even though she was staying in the Senate.
Now, when Dianne Feinstein died, obviously it was not a surprise.
She was 90, she was obviously ailing, and yet they got her to vote on the very last day.
The day that she died, she voted.
Here from Yahoo News, they actually did a fact check on that claim because I think people were shocked.
Even those jaded about who runs Washington and the ghoulish, sociopathic nature of who they are would be shocked that they would actually have Dianne Steintein vote on the last day of her life.
And yet, there you see the fact check.
Did Dianne Feinstein cast a final Senate vote the day she died?
Yes, that is true.
She did actually do that.
Now I just want to show you what was going on inside Dianne Feinstein's family at the same time that the Pelosi's were keeping her in that Senate seat, controlling her, making sure she didn't resign, getting her to vote, telling her what to do even though her brain was shut off.
The New York Times in August In this headline, for an ailing Feinstein, a fight over the family fortune.
Dianne Feinstein was an extremely wealthy individual.
She died with over $100 million in assets.
Many, many vacation mansions in Utah, a sprawling mansion in San Francisco, another one in Washington.
She's an extremely wealthy woman, in part because she just was born rich, and in part because her husband was a military contractor, Richard Bloom, Who saw his fortune skyrocket with his wife's Senate career.
She was central to the military budget.
That's why I say it was so ironic that on that day they wanted her to just vote yes.
She was giving a speech almost like a reflex about the importance of military spending because her husband and she benefited so directly, so Profitably from the kind of spending that the Pentagon does.
They got extremely wealthy from that.
She was over here in Washington controlling the military budget.
He was over here feeding at the trough like the military contractor pig that he was.
And so you have this family, this couple in Washington of immense wealth.
These are the people who run Washington.
They're worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
They have vacation homes all over the place.
They feed at the trove of these budgets that they then go on the Sunday shows and say are so necessary to keep you safe, while they're just enriching themselves even more.
And even though Dianne Feinstein and her husband died with tens of millions of dollars stacked on top of each other, inside the family, while she was being controlled by the Pelosi's, they were at war.
Over her money.
They couldn't even wait until she died.
Her stepchildren and her children were fighting over her silverware and her homes and her money.
These are the lowest level people who are running this country.
This is the culture, the kind of sludge and sleaze out of which they emerge.
Quote, as Dianne Feinstein 90 struggles to function in the Senate, A dispute with her family over control of her late husband's estate is another difficult chapter at the end of a long career.
For years, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California has been engaged in a long and painful public drama about her health and ability to do her job, as she winds down a storied career as a lawmaker and a former mayor of San Francisco.
Now, Senator Feinstein is also navigating an increasingly bitter legal and financial conflict that pits her and her daughter, Katherine Feinstein, Against the three daughters of her late husband Richard C. Bloom, who was a wealthy financier.
In one legal dispute, the family is fighting over what's described as Senator Feinstein's desire to sell a beach house in an exclusive neighborhood in Stinson Beach, north of San Francisco.
In another disagreement, the two factions are at odds over access to the proceeds of Mr. Bloom's life insurance, which Senator Feinstein says she needs to pay for her growing medical expenses.
For those close to Senator Feinstein, the struggle over Mr. Bloom's estate has exacerbated a recent and regrettable chapter that has marred the twilight of a long and successful public life and that has raised concerns about her ability to manage her own affairs.
Raised in affluence, Senator Feinstein has long been among the wealthiest members of Congress.
She was rich in her own right in 1980 when she married Mr. Bloom.
After she entered the Senate, she placed securities into a blind trust that was valued at between $5 and $25 million.
Combined, the couple's fortunes flourished.
This was back in the 1980s when she was worth $5 to $25 million.
She put that into a blind trust.
Combined, the couple's fortunes flourished.
To an extent that eclipsed even the Senator's prior standard of living, her main residence is a 9,500-square-foot mansion in the upscale San Francisco neighborhood of Pacific Heights.
Their vacation homes until recently included the 36-acre Bear Paw Ranch in Aspen, Colorado, which sold in March for more than $25 million, and a seven-bedroom Lake Tahoe compound that sold in late 2021 for a reported $36 million.
Current holdings included a property on the Hawaii island of Kauai and a home in Washington, D.C.
So that's how Dianne Feinstein lived.
That's how so many of these people live.
And they go around on these shows talking about their empathy for the working class.
These people, these are monsters.
It's like Versailles.
It is really like Versailles.
They live behind these walled communities and these palaces and castles.
Outside there's all kinds of suffering and distress and malaise going on, people growing with rage and resentment, believing more and more that the ruling class is illegitimate and these people are just dining on their own wealth.
And you just see how Dianne Feinstein was treated In the last couple of years of her life when all she was was a gigantic pile of money and a vote and a Senate chair to keep warm and they just like vultures descended upon her and just gnawed on her with their teeth.
These are the people running this country.
This is the culture in which they're immersed.
Now, here, by the way, is the Washington Post, is the Wall Street Journal, by the way, in case you want to see her.
One of her homes, there it is.
It looks very nice.
That's the one that sold for $25.25 million in 2021.
By the way, these people are claiming that they need the insurance proceeds to pay for her medical expenses.
This is what was going on around her.
Now, in case you want to feel out of sympathy for Dianne Feinstein, don't.
In some ways it was kind of a fitting end.
She was somebody who supported every single war that the United States has fought over the last 25 years and I don't think that is just kind of a policy dispute that people in good faith have.
Like if you're supporting every single American War, dropping bombs on people all over the planet, killing innocent people.
That is actually a reflection of your character.
But most certainly, too, is the fact that her wealth was built based on what she did in the Senate.
Here is the San Francisco gate in April of 2003.
This is all the way back in the War on Terror when she was one of the most loyal advocates for the War on Terror and for the Iraq War.
Right as the Iraq War had just started, her local newspaper reported, War brings business to Feinstein's spouse.
Bloom's firms win multi-million dollar contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan.
When it comes to scoring mega-military related contracts, Senator Dianne Feinstein's multi-million dollar husband, Richard Bloom, is right in the sick of things.
And it then goes on to detail the contract, which could grow to up to $600 million, is to help with troop mobilization, weapon system training, and anti-terrorism methods.
That's on top of the $3.1 billion Army contract that URS, that's his company, snared back in February for a weapon system and homeland defense, and very, very, very closely held.
In 2007, there you see from the hilt, Dianne Feinstein, it argued, violated the rules in awarding military contracts because she was directly involved in auctions and in contract processes that directly redounded the benefit of her husband and herself, which is what kept them in such lavish luxury for all these years.
Jumping all the way to 2021, here's Fox Business News.
Diane Feinstein prepared to pay a fine after failing to properly disclose her husband's stock purchase.
She's been questioned in the past over her husband's stock and investment transactions.
Do you see what these people are?
Now, Gavin Newsom chose a black woman to replace her, as he promised he would.
He did not, though, pick Barbara Lee.
Just a couple of weeks ago, when they knew Feinstein was on her way out, and they started kind of plotting, Gavin Newsom said, I'm not going to involve myself in the primary.
I'm not going to pick somebody who's running, who's already announced, because that would give them an unfair advantage.
So we had to look for a different black woman.
And although he claimed, oh, there's so many black women in California who are qualified, and there was Barbara Lee in particular, He wasn't allowed to pick her because doing so would contravene Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, who also has endorsed that.
They've all endorsed Adam Schiff.
You know what Adam Schiff is.
So they went to Maryland.
They picked a Maryland resident.
Lafonza Butler.
So that's who Gavin Newsom chose to serve as Dianne Feinstein's replacement.
She's registered to vote in Maryland, but now she'll switch her registration to California, given that she's now going to be the Senator from California.
And what she is is also just part of the sleazy DC swamp.
He picked her right out of there.
She's so perfect to advance Gavin Newsom's political career.
Here is my friend, the great independent journalist, Lee Fong, who did some work on the new senator from California.
Lee is based in California and so has a lot of interest in that.
On October 2nd, there you see his Substack article, Governor Newsom Selects Political Operative Lafonza Butler to Replace Senator Feinstein.
And he writes, quote, Governor Gavin Newsom is appointing Emily's List.
firm that elected Gavin Newsom as governor and served corporate clients such as Airbnb, Uber, and PG&E.
Governor Gavin Newsom is appointing Emily's List.
She's the president of Emily's List, which is the massive fundraising machine that allegedly raises money for women.
Of course, it's just a Democratic Party arm that will serve Gavin Newsom very well in the event that he wants to run for president.
The fact that Emily's List, one of the biggest and most efficient fundraising machines in the country, is now indebted to him.
He picked her to fill the seat of Dianne Feinstein, who passed away last Friday.
She has worked for various political interests, including as a senior advisor to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, and for nearly a decade as leader of the SEIU in Los Angeles and statewide.
But her direct ties to Newsom include years as a consultant at SSCRB Strategies, the consulting firm that has long managed Gavin Newsom's political campaigns.
It's now known as Bear Star Strategies.
It's the most influential among the small number of operatives that dominate California politics.
During their time there, the firm was tapped by Uber to help defeat efforts to allow drivers to win legal status, to make them eligible for the minimum wage, and to join labor unions.
Lobbying disclosures show Uber paid the firm over $185,000.
So, I can't think of anything that illustrates better what the Democratic Party is than exploiting Dianne Feinstein as she was dying, as she was mentally debilitated, while her family fought viciously while she was still alive over her money just to get their greedy hands on her money.
She and her wealth were due to the fact that she spent all those years being a cheerleader for the Pentagon, which enriched her husband.
And then, when she dies, Gavin Newsom has to fulfill this incredibly patronizing promise to just pick some random black woman.
And he doesn't choose Barbara Lee, by far the most qualified one, because he wants to ensure, in reality, that a white man, Adam Schiff, gets the job.
And instead, he chooses a Uber Lobbyist, who was in charge of a vast fundraising machine, who spent her time making sure that Uber drivers have no legal status and therefore can be exploited.
As always, what they pretend to be is exactly the opposite of what they in fact are.
And I think what they really are, clearly, are perpetrators of elder abuse, at least figuratively, if not In terms of the clear language of the criminal statute.
As we've been telling you, we are thrilled that we have so many new sponsors that are sponsors who have been with us from the beginning, have stuck with us, even with this war that is being waged on Rumble.
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So if you are somebody who watches the show at all, let alone regularly, there's one thing you know for sure.
And that is that Western elites and Washington in particular rely on the threat of Russian disinformation for pretty much everything.
everything.
They use it to blame all their failures on, they use it to distract attention from the corrupt acts in which they're engaged.
And most importantly of all, it's the new enemy.
They always need an enemy to keep you scared so that anything they demand of you, any powers that they claim, people will acquiesce to on the grounds that they're afraid of whatever villain they've gotten people afraid of.
And as you know, the villain right now is Russia, and in particular, Russian disinformation.
It played a critical role in 2016.
It's what the Democratic Party said is the reason that Donald Trump won and Hillary Clinton lost.
It played a crucial role in the 2020 election.
As you probably recall, because I talk about it almost every day, when reporting emerged right before the 2020 election that incriminated Joe Biden, the way they decided to deal with it, by they I mean the US security state, the CIA, the corporate media is to claim That you should ignore this reporting because the documents on which it was based were not authentic but instead were, quote, Russian disinformation.
It is their all-purpose, go-to villain for everything they want to do and it should not surprise you that they are now gearing up to warn everybody and to set the foundation for claiming that Russian disinformation is here again.
It's here both because It is what's causing Americans to turn against the war in Ukraine and because the 2024 election is imminent and they're about to, the Russians are, use the weapon of disinformation to influence our sacred election.
So here's an article from the New York Times and you're going to see so many of these articles.
We've already seen so many of them.
There are going to come one after the next.
But this is a particularly vivid one that I think is really worth looking at, because it's just so flagrant in terms of how it functions, in terms of the manipulative and deceitful nature of what this instrument is.
Here's the New York Times.
Look at this headline.
Putin's next target, US support for Ukraine, officials say.
So right away, let's just observe the fact that the entire article is based on this phrase.
Officials say.
So what that means is you have people inside the United States government who work in the White House, who work at the Pentagon, who work at the NSA, who work at the CIA, who work at the FBI.
Officials.
And they're saying something.
What are they saying?
Putin's next target is US support for Ukraine.
That the Kremlin is going to start to target America with Russian disinformation in order to erode support for the war in Ukraine.
And the entire article, newspapers are supposed to report events in the world.
This is not an event in the world.
This is a message that the New York Times was dispatched to deliver that came from US officials.
So the headline itself The only real verb here is say.
U.S.
officials say.
That's the only thing that has happened is that CIA or FBI or national security officials came and told the New York Times something and the New York Times is telling you what they want you to know.
That's it.
That's the whole article.
And if you go and look here in the sub-headline as well, Russian spy agencies and new technologies could be used to push conspiracy theories, U.S.
officials say.
So even in the sub-headline, you see exactly the same formulation because this is what the New York Times exists to do.
Imagine if you had state media, state media that was Not like the New York Times or CNN, but state media that admitted it was state media, that it was there to be the propaganda arm of the government.
What state media would do if they would go on TV every day or go into their pages of their newspapers every day and they would say, the government today proclaims the following.
The government today announces this.
The government today has decreed that they want you to know the following.
That's what the New York Times is.
That's what the New York Times does.
Look at this.
Just writing the headline twice.
It's all about what U.S.
officials want you to believe, and what they want you to believe is that if you're feeling as though you're starting to question the war in Ukraine, as most Americans are, it's only because you're a victim of Russian disinformation.
And we face a danger as a country, namely that Putin is targeting, he's targeting our country with this scary thing called Russian disinformation.
And as a result, you need your government to protect you from that because he's pushing conspiracy theories in order to manipulate public opinion.
And how do you get protected from Russian disinformation?
You get the government to censor on your behalf to keep you safe from it.
That's what all of this is about.
Now, let's look at the article itself because it gets even more obvious.
I think it's so important, even though this article is such a skeletal example, a model, it's not even an article.
It's not a news article.
It's an announcement by the CIA through the pages of the New York Times.
Explicitly so.
It's just so important that everybody stay alert to how this functions.
Quote, Russia's strategy to win the war in Ukraine is to outlast the West.
But how does Vladimir Putin plan to do that?
How does Vladimir Putin plan to do that?
What is the answer?
How do we know what Vladimir Putin plans to do?
American officials said.
So here we have that again.
Let me just get my little pens working.
American officials said just over and over, that's what this whole article is about.
American officials said they are convinced that Mr. Putin intends to try and end U.S.
and European support for Ukraine by using his spy agencies to push propaganda supporting pro-Russian political parties and by stoking new conspiracy theories with new technologies.
Everything is a conspiracy theory except for the things that the New York Times say.
Imagine working for the New York Times.
And having been the newspaper that convinced Americans that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam Hussein was in an alliance with Al Qaeda, that gave itself a Pulitzer for claiming that Russia had taken over the levers of power of the United States through using sexual blackmail over Donald Trump, that watches the entire media claim that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.
These are real conspiracy theories.
Lies.
And then you go back a little bit further and the New York Times was disseminating the claim that the North Vietnamese had attacked the United States in the Gulf of Tonkin.
These are the real conspiracy theories that cause wars and that swing elections with lies.
That's what the New York Times does.
And then they have the audacity to claim that our population is in danger because of Russian disinformation because American officials say so.
The Russian disinformation aims to increase support for candidates opposing Ukraine aid with the ultimate goal of stopping international military assistance to Kiev.
Russia has been frustrated that the United States and Europe have largely remained united on continued military and economic support for Ukraine, American officials said.
That is what I think is amazing about this article.
What did you learn from this article?
The only thing you learned from this article is that the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security want you to think something.
What they want you to think is the reason public opinion is turning against the war in Ukraine is not because Americans are finally asking, why am I spending $100 billion for this war?
Why am I subjecting myself to the risk of escalation when we can't keep our own country safe, when we can't keep our economy running when I can't afford basic groceries?
They want you to think that the real reason that's happening is not because Americans are turning against it, but because Russian disinformation is manipulating American public opinion, and US officials say that is the entire purpose of this highly promoted New York Times article, and you're gonna have so many of these.
Whenever they want you to think something is untrue, they're going to tell you the reason people believe it is because of Russian disinformation.
Now, last week we ran through this series of events.
This was from our show on September 26th.
Just to illustrate, I want to just go through this one more time quickly, just to show you how often Western elites blame Russian disinformation for everything and how they use it as an all-purpose excuse.
This was all from a one-week period.
Let me just go through this video and show you how constantly and how diverse Its use is.
So here is Justin Trudeau after arguably the most humiliating moment of his career when he stood next to President Zelensky and applauded a Nazi SS soldier blaming, you'll never guess, Russia for what happened in warning about Russian disinformation.
Obviously, it's extremely upsetting that this happened.
The speaker has acknowledged his mistake and has apologized, but this is something that is deeply embarrassing to the Parliament of Canada and by extension to all Canadians.
I think particularly of Jewish MPs and all members of the Jewish community across the country who are Celebrating Yom Kippur today.
I think it's going to be really important that all of us push back against Russian propaganda, Russian disinformation, and continue our steadfast and unequivocal support for Ukraine, as we did last week with announcing further measures to stand with.
Okay, so somehow he started talking about applauding a Nazi SS soldier and he ended babbling about Russian disinformation.
Here was the pioneer of this tactic, Hillary Clinton.
She was on with Jen Psaki.
I'll just give you a little taste of what she said.
Warren, do you think we should be talking about it more?
Well, I think we should be talking about it more because I don't think, despite all of the, you know, deniers, there's any doubt that he interfered in our election or that he has interfered... And now look at the...
She's, of course, babbling.
She's like, I think we should be talking more about Russian disinformation because we don't talk about Russia enough.
And there you see the graphic on the screen.
Clinton, we should be talking more about potential Russian election interference in 2024.
Do you see what's coming?
They're preparing in advance to control the election, to censor information that is threatening to Joe Biden, to engage in all kinds of propaganda by telling you that you're being manipulated by Russian disinformation, that we're being attacked by Russian disinformation, just like we were in 2016 and 2020.
And they planned on responding in the same way.
So, there you see Hillary Clinton.
Alright, we went through all that.
She's claiming that the Russians interfere in our country by funding political parties.
These are conspiracy theories.
That the Russians are lurking under every bed in the United States.
That they're responsible for every change of public opinion.
That they're behind everyone who dislikes Hillary Clinton.
Everybody is a Kremlin agent.
This is classic.
Crazy conspiracy theories that these people spew every day, all day.
So there you have Justin Trudeau, then you have Hillary Clinton.
Here is Fox News talking about why it is that so many people have turned against the war in Ukraine and watch what they say about why so many Americans are now against Joe Biden's war policies.
Explain to the American.
I don't understand the hostility toward Ukraine, the American public lawyer.
I do try to understand the other side.
I do not understand the hostility toward Ukraine.
The little Zulinski calling it Ukraine's war against Russia.
Have I missed something?
Trey, I think the only way to understand that is that Russian disinformation has been able to mold some aspects of the information flow into our country as well as into some European countries.
They've been laying the groundwork for this.
Putin's been laying the groundwork for this for a long time and been seeding the ground with that sort of notion that Ukraine is a corrupt country and that Isn't that amazing?
That's Fox News saying, hey, we don't understand.
Why are people turning against the war in Ukraine that Joe Biden is fighting?
And Jennifer Griffin says, it's because of Russian disinformation.
They're manipulating people to believe all sorts of bad things about Ukraine, and that's the reason why people are turning against it.
This is Fox News sounding just like Hillary Clinton, sounding just like Justin Trudeau.
And then the last example was from The Economist.
Which is about the fact that Niger kicked out France, expelled French troops, saying we don't want France here anymore.
At the same time, a lot of countries in Africa are developing positive relations with both Russia as well as the broader BRICS alliance.
And so the economists wanted to explain to you why the people of Niger did something like kick France out, and why they're starting to think better about Russia.
And here was their explanation.
Yep, the French decision to quit Niger is about much more than this.
It is partly a pragmatic recognition that the Junta was not going to budge, and that regional countries, despite their threats, were unlikely to try to dislodge it from power.
The decision also marks a reluctant and painful realization in Paris that its influence on the continent has taken a severe knock.
In the eyes of a generation of young Nigerians, and partly thanks to the efficiency of Russian disinformation campaigns, France is now regarded as the problem, not the solution.
So a country decides, we've suffered decades of this foreign power exploiting our resources, and raping our country, and exploiting us in all sorts of ways, and we want them gone, and the economist jumps in and says, oh, the reason they really think that is because of Russian disinformation.
Now, none of these people ever bother to say, what is Russian disinformation?
We showed you before that Washington Post article that warned, based on an EU study, that Twitter and Facebook and Google were allowing too much Russian disinformation to flow by not censoring enough.
And this study, if you dig into it as we did, essentially says that Russian disinformation means anything that aligns with the Pentagon's interests.
So if you're opposed to the war in Ukraine, if you're opposed to NATO and US support for the war in Ukraine for the end of time, you align with the Kremlin's interests and automatically that gets counted as pro-Russian propaganda.
That's what they mean by this.
But just look at how they use it for everything.
And now they're using it to say that in the 2024 election, Russian disinformation is coming and we need to prepare for it.
Mark Zuckerberg, in an interview he did with Lex Friedman in June of this year, was asked about the fact that Facebook ended up censoring so much information from that platform because the US government demanded it.
And here's what he said about why that happened.
So misinformation, I think, is Has been a really tricky one, because there are things that are kind of obviously false, right, that are maybe factual, but may not be harmful.
So it's like, all right, are you gonna censor someone for just being wrong?
It's, you know, if there's no kind of harm implication of what they're doing, I think that that's, there's a bunch of real kind of issues and challenges there.
And then he goes on to say essentially that what happened With COVID is that they ended up censoring a lot of things that ended up being debatable or even correct at the request of the US government.
There's another Mark Zuckerberg interview where he was being asked about why Facebook ended up censoring the reporting about Hunter Biden.
And what Mark Zuckerberg said is something that we now know from the Twitter files is true, which is that all throughout 2020, as we headed into the 2020 election, where Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden, The FBI was issuing constant warnings saying, look, the Russians are going to interfere in our election in 2020, just like they interfered in 2016.
And you need to be ready for that.
And they were priming these social media companies to say, if there's some kind of new reporting about Joe Biden that appears that might threaten his interest or threaten his campaign, you should know it's probably Russian disinformation.
You should be ready to stop it.
And that was the reason why Yoel Roth has said this, Twitter executives have said it, Mark Zuckerberg said it in a different interview, that the reason that happened is because the FBI kept warning them that Russian disinformation was going to influence the 2020 election just like it did 2016, and they needed to be ready for it.
Now, one of the things that happened in the lead up to the 2020 election that I think has gotten way too little attention
Is that just like it's happening now, and this is why I'm showing it to you, this is why I think it's so important, the way they're now saying, and I showed you that graphic from the Hillary Clinton interview with Jen Psaki, 2024 the Russians are planning again to interfere in our election with Russian disinformation, you need to be prepared for it, is leading up into 2020, the media outlets that had reported on Hillary Clinton's emails in 2016 that were released by WikiLeaks,
Felt as though they had helped Donald Trump win and they were determined not to make that mistake again, which is what they considered it, a mistake.
I heard it at the Intercept all the time.
I remember the night that Donald Trump won and Hillary Clinton lost, people were crying in the Slack rooms that we were having and they were saying, I think we need to apologize for the role that we played in helping Donald Trump win because we did a lot of reporting.
About what those emails revealed about Hillary Clinton, the ones that were given to WikiLeaks that WikiLeaks published, because of course we were going to report on those emails.
Those are authentic emails.
Those are in the public interest and about somebody who was running for president.
And most media outlets reported on those emails.
But leading into 2020, they felt like they had done something wrong by doing their job as journalists.
Because that reporting helped Donald Trump, and in their minds, even though that was just basic journalism, it was morally unjustified to do anything to help Donald Trump, even if what you're doing is just basically your basic job as a journalist, which is reporting on relevant materials.
And so leading into the 2020 election, with all these warnings about how Russian disinformation was coming, major media outlets changed their policies that had existed forever That said, if in 2020 this time we get hacked information, this time we're not going to report it the way we did in 2016.
They changed their policies.
All of journalism changed their defining core ethos.
To ensure that there'd be no reporting that would help elect Donald Trump again or help defeat Joe Biden.
So, here from Vanity Fair in September of 2020, right before the election, a couple months before the 2020 election, you see the headline, Marty Baron, who was the editor-in-chief of the Washington Post, warns the Washington Post staff about covering hacked materials.
And the article says, quote, nearly four years since the Podesta email dump blew up the 2016 race, the Post's top editor urges his newsroom to slow down in handling leaks and beware of echoing propaganda.
And there was all kinds of reports about how the media outlets were going to look at this information.
And even if the information were true, even if it were authentic, even if it were in the public interest, the way the Hillary Clinton emails were, they were going to change how they report and perhaps not report at this time.
And it sounds like it's kind of an inside baseball question about journalistic ethics, but what it really showed me, and I was screaming about it at the time when I read it because I knew what this meant, Was that these journalistic outlets were explicitly saying they're no longer going to do journalism.
They weren't going to report information that incriminated Joe Biden the way they reported on the information that Wikileaks published about Hillary Clinton because they decided their overarching duty was to ensure Donald Trump lost and Joe Biden won, even if it meant abdicating their responsibilities as journalists.
And it isn't just that they threatened to do that, as that Vanity Fair article just reported, Marty Baron, the head of the Washington Post, was saying he would do.
They did it!
That's exactly what they did.
In 2020, right before the 2020 election, when that material became available from Hunter Biden's laptop, and there was all these stories to report, about the financial and ethical misconduct in which not just Hunter Biden had engaged, but Joe Biden had engaged, or at least a lot of questions to ask.
Instead of reporting on that, instead of asking those questions, they said, we're going to ignore that story because it's Russian disinformation.
I find that to be the greatest scandal in journalism in decades, if not ever.
And the reason why I'm delving into this is because this is what they're saying they're going to do again.
This is why they're warning that Russian disinformation is coming again in 2024.
Now, just to illustrate what a corruption of journalism it is to say, we're not going to report on certain material if it's hacked, if it comes from a foreign source.
The foundational principle of journalism has always been very simple.
It is.
If a journalist, a journalist when deciding whether to report something asks only two questions.
Two questions and only two.
Number one, is the material authentic?
Can you confirm that it's authentic?
And number two, is it in the public interest to report?
And if it's authentic and if it's in the public interest to report, you automatically report it.
It doesn't matter where it came from.
It doesn't matter who the source was.
It doesn't matter the source's motives.
You don't have the right as a journalist to say, oh, well, if the election is approaching and these are hacked materials that I get my hands on and they happen to reflect poorly on Joe Biden, I'm not going to report it, even though that's what these media outlets did.
They said, we're not going to make the same mistake they made in 2016, which is doing reporting that helped Donald Trump win.
And just to demonstrate to you how obvious this principle is as a journalist, That all you do is ask, is it authentic?
Is it in the public interest?
And the answer is yes.
You publish it, and that's the end of the inquiry.
In 2016, I think a lot of people have forgotten this, just a month or so before the elections, the New York Times got their hands on Donald Trump's tax returns, or at least certain tax records.
Remember, they were obsessed with Donald Trump's tax returns.
They thought that if Donald Trump's tax returns were produced, there was going to be a line that said, $80 million from Vladimir Putin.
Liberals were obsessed with Donald Trump's tax returns.
Remember when Rachel Maddow got Donald Trump's tax returns?
And she did this huge build up and it turned out there was nothing there?
In 2016, the New York Times got Donald Trump's tax returns and they wrote about it.
Here you see the headline.
Donald Trump's tax records show he could have avoided taxes for nearly two decades, the Times found.
Look at how slimy that is.
He could have avoided taxes.
But what was so interesting was how the New York Times got these materials.
How did the New York Times get Donald Trump's tax returns?
This is what they said.
The article said, quote, "The documents examined by the Times represent a small fraction of the voluminous tax records Mr. Trump would have filed in 1995.
The documents consisted of three pages from what appeared to be Mr. Trump's 1995 tax returns.
The pages were mailed last month to Suzanne Craig, that's a New York Times reporter.
The three documents arrived by mail at the Times with a postmark indicating they had been sent from New York City.
The return address claimed the envelope had been sent from Trump Tower.
So the New York Times got these tax returns because someone, whose identity to this day they do not know, mailed it to them.
It could have been Russia.
It could have been Venezuela that hacked Donald Trump's account.
They have no idea who gave them the tax returns.
And therefore they obviously don't know what means that person used to obtain them, nor do they know the motive of the source.
And yet they published them anyway.
They reported on them anyway.
And they should have.
Because the only relevant question that a journalist asks is, is this information Verifiable.
Is it authentic?
And they were able to authenticate it.
And is it in the public interest?
And obviously documents about Donald Trump when he's running for president are in the public interest.
And then they reported it.
So one of the journalists who reported that story, David Barstow, went on NPR after that story was published.
And NPR asked him that question.
They said, you got these documents from a source whose identity you don't know.
How is it possibly justified that you would publish this?
You have no idea what this person did.
Maybe they committed a crime to get these documents.
Maybe they hate Donald Trump and that's the reason that they sent these documents to you.
How can you publish documents without knowing who the source is and therefore what the motives are?
And David Barstow gave the answer I just gave that every journalist before 2016 would have given.
Here's what he told NPR.
You know, it's funny.
People often, when there are conversations about whistleblowers, the conversation's often framed around did they have noble intentions or did they have some, you know, was this score settling or some less than noble motive.
I, from the years of doing this, I've found that sometimes whistleblowers with terrible motives I come forward with incredible documents, and I've also had times when whistleblowers with just the most perfect, pristine motives come forward and the documents are worthless.
What really matters to me is, is this information real?
And if so, is it newsworthy?
One of the most important whistleblowers in American history is a man named Merrill Williams.
He worked for the tobacco industry.
The first time I met him many years ago, his first words to me, I remember, were, you know, I'm a born liar.
This is a man with multiple marriages, bankruptcy.
He was a drunk.
He was this.
But what he was also was he was a paralegal at Brown and Williamson.
And his job was to go through tobacco industry documents.
And filter out documents that might be handed over in litigation that would get the tobacco industry in trouble.
And instead what he did is every day when he found really bad documents, he'd stuff them into a rubber girdle and he would take them out on his lunch break and he would go to a Kinko's, he'd make copies, and ultimately he amassed the largest trove of internal tobacco industry documents.
His motives were as bad as they get.
He wanted to cash in.
He wanted money.
His documents changed the history of smoking in America.
That is how a journalist thought and always thought before 2016.
I don't care where these documents came from.
I don't care what the motive is, the person who furnished them, as long as they're authentic and in the public interest, I publish them.
All of journalism changed how journalism functions.
Not just in this way, in every way.
But this is a perfect example.
Because heading into the 2020 election, they adopted formal policies that said, we reserve the right not to publish and report on information.
They didn't say if it helps Donald Trump, but that was the obvious goal they were trying to avoid 2016.
And what they said instead was, even if it's relevant, even if it's authentic, even if it's in the public interest, we still may not report it.
And the reason now they're warning about Russian disinformation coming into 2024 is because they want to reserve the right to do what they did in 2020.
To suppress information like they did with the Hunter Biden laptop, to claim that information that emerges that hurts Joe Biden is Russian disinformation, and most of all to claim that the reason they need to censor the internet is because Russian disinformation is everywhere.
This is a theme we're going to continue to cover, that we've been covering, in this New York Times article.
is amazing in part because it shows you how journalism works.
If you start watching for that formulation when NBC News or the Washington Post publish reports and trumpet reports that in reality are about nothing other than what quote US officials say, you will see the state media that we really have in this country.
You will see what their real function is, which is to come forward and deliver the message that the CIA and Homeland Security and the Pentagon want you to hear.
That's the function of these media corporations.
They deliver messages that are delivered to them.
But the real reason this Russian disinformation warning is going to keep coming is because it allows them to do everything from lying to censoring the internet and I know sometimes we cover this a lot, but it's because there's no topic more important.
All right, so as our last topic, I would really feel remiss if we did not cover the story of such a remarkable thing that happened in American media.
I mean, I just actually cannot believe it.
People have been talking about it for a day or two, maybe we're a day or two late to it, which is fine.
The way that I saw it is that there is a lifelong CIA agent named John Siffer.
He really, he's worked as a clandestine CIA operative for his entire life.
And now he's on Twitter and he hates Donald Trump.
He is basically a resistance liberal.
He sits all day on Twitter tweeting about Donald Trump and he's become a liberal media star.
And right in his Twitter bio it says CIA clandestine operative or whatever his actual title is.
He's a lifelong CIA goon.
And liberals love him the way they love the CIA.
And he tweeted this article yesterday, the title of which was, Fighting against the USSR didn't necessarily make you a Nazi.
And it's a political article.
And you can see at the bottom here, it's about the scandal in Canada, where the Canadian Parliament, with Zelensky there and Trudeau there, applauded a Canadian Nazi SS soldier.
And I made a mental note, oh, I should really go read this article.
The CIA goon is promoting it.
And it seems kind of bizarre.
It sounds like what they're saying is a lot of people who fought the USSR in World War II weren't really Nazis.
And because it was about Canada, I thought, it seems like this might be a defense of this Nazi SS Ukrainian that they just all stood up and applauded.
But I said, I'm sure it's not that.
It can't be that.
And then I started seeing people talking about it and saying that that's what it was.
It was a defense of the Nazi SS.
Saying that the Nazi SS wasn't really that bad.
A lot of them just wanted to fight against Soviet Communism.
And then I went and read the article and it really is that.
It is a defense of the SS.
The Nazi SS.
And people like this person in Canada who just got applauded.
There you see the tweet got a community note added to it and it says the Ukrainian question Yaroslav Hunka, that's the person that was celebrated by the Canadian Parliament that this article is defending, volunteered to join the Nazis 14th Waffen Division of the SS.
And it cites a Forward article and all kinds of Jewish groups and Nazi hunting groups said that this unit that this guy joined was a pure vintage Nazi unit.
But because this is so important to Ukraine to be able to praise the Azov battalion and to justify feeding weapons to a country that has all kinds of officials that worship Stepan Bandera, an actual Nazi collaborator, we are now starting to see, and we will continue to see, apology for Nazism.
Oh, maybe Nazism isn't really that bad.
Let me just show you the article first because I know if I were you, I'd be like, oh, you must be exaggerating.
There's no way a media outlet like Politico would actually publish an article saying that the Nazi SS isn't really that bad.
Here is the political article.
It's by, we'll get you the author's name in a second.
Actually, here it is.
It's Keir Giles.
And he says he is a striving to drive forward progressive devoted to social change.
So he's apparently claiming he's a someone devoted to progressive social change.
He's passionate about diversity, equality and inclusion.
He's a pronoun advocate, and he says, when woke just isn't enough.
So he's saying, I'm not just woke, I'm whatever is beyond woke.
That's the person who just wrote this pro.
Nazi SS article or at least this apology for Nazism in Politico.
And there you see the headline.
Fighting against the USSR didn't necessarily make you a Nazi.
Canada's hunker, that's the person they stood and applauded.
Remember the Canadian Speaker of the Parliament resigned in disgrace over having arranged this.
Canada's hunker scandal is a demonstration of how when history is complicated, it can be a gift to propagandists who exploit the appeal of simplicity.
Do you believe that he's saying that the issue of whether the Nazi SS and people who go join the Nazi SS are people we shouldn't respect and cheer and applaud is a complicated question?
Let me just tell you the rules of people like this.
If you are an American citizen and you wear a MAGA hat or you vote for Donald Trump, you're a Nazi.
A literal Nazi.
And you ought to be surveilled, and silenced, and maybe even imprisoned.
If you're a Ukrainian, however, and you have a swastika tattoo, or SS insignia, or you revered Nazi collaborators, or you even fought, volunteered, and went to fight for the Waffen-SS during World War II, it's complicated.
And you should be armed and funded and revered.
That is the foundational view of liberal discourse.
A MAGA hat-wearing American is a Nazi, a Ukrainian with a swastika tattoo and a history of pledging allegiance to the Wiesel Battalion.
It's complicated.
Here's what he wrote.
Quote, in the case of Hurka, the mass outrage stems from his enlistment with one of the foreign legions of the Waffen-SS.
Fighting Soviet forces on Germany's Eastern Front, and it's a demonstration of how when history is complicated, it can be a gift of propaganda to exploit the appeal of simplicity.
This history is complicated because fighting against the USSR at the time didn't necessarily make you a Nazi, just someone who had an excruciating choice over which of these two terror regimes to resist.
I mean, if that's what World War II is now, a deep moral dilemma, over whether to fight against Nazism or whether to fight against communism.
Obviously, the United States made the choice that the Soviet Union was infinitely better than Nazi Germany by fighting alongside Stalin as the British and the other allies.
But if now we're rewriting history to say that these are two equally valid choices, either to fight for and with the Russians against the Nazis or to fight with the Nazis against the Russians, That is some pretty radical historical revisionism to say that actually we're no longer going to think that people who volunteered to fight for the Nazi SS were really the bad guys.
Because we hate Russia now so much that we're willing to say maybe the Nazis were on the right side.
He goes on, quote, however the idea that foreign volunteers and conscripts were being allocated to the Waffen-SS rather than the Wehrmacht on administrative rather than ideological grounds is a hard sell for audiences conditioned to believe the SS primary task was genocide.
Yes, the Western populations have been conditioned to believe the SS and the Nazis were primarily about genocide.
That is true.
Because in general, We want to kind of create the idea that those who volunteer to fight for the Nazi army and the SS were people who made a bad choice.
But he's here to, in his level of diversity and inclusion and equity, argue that the Nazis and their perspective should be honored.
He goes on, quote, and simplistic narratives or simple narratives like, quote, everybody in the SS was guilty of war crimes.
are much more pervasive because they're much simpler to grasp.
Russia feels comfortable shouting about Nazis, real or imaginary in Ukraine or elsewhere, because unlike Nazi Germany, leaders and soldiers of the Soviet Union were never put on trial for their war crimes.
Russia clings to the Nuremberg trials as a benchmark of legitimacy because as a victorious power, it was never subjected to the same reckoning.
I just am amazed that this article got published on the one hand, Remember when Trump said as part of the Charlottesville protests, oh there's good people on both sides and everybody was so horrified by that?
That's what this article is saying.
There are good people on both sides of World War II.
And just because someone went and volunteered for the Nazi SS, especially the Ukrainians, doesn't make them a bad person.
No, as I said, we were a little bit late.
There have been a couple people who have done great jobs writing about this.
One of them is Caitlin Johnston, so I just wanted to read a little bit of what she said about this article.
It's entitled, When Even the Nazis Aren't Nazis.
And she wrote, quote, Last year, liberals were calling their political opponents Nazis and comparing Putin to Hitler.
This year they're defending Nazis and saying you can't hate someone just because he swore allegiance to Hitler.
For generations the U.S.
Empire has been manufacturing a cultural obsession with the Second World War in order to frame all subsequent wars as quote, good guys versus Hitler guys.
Then the millisecond that framework becomes inconvenient, actually the Nazis weren't all that bad if you think about it.
And that's exactly what is being done here.
This has been what's being done since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
Remember, the Azov battalion was on the official list that Facebook maintained of hate groups you were not allowed to praise.
If you praised them, you would be kicked off the platform.
The minute that war began, Facebook exempted The Azov Battalion and said, actually, you're not allowed to praise it.
In other words, this group that until three seconds ago was a Nazi group and a hate group that you're not allowed to praise, they're good to go.
And over and over, people in the West who, when they went to venerate Ukraine or herald Ukraine, ended up praising Nazis, which is what happened in Canada.
It's not because the majority of people in Ukraine are Nazis.
They're not.
It's because there is a faction in Ukraine, particularly the people who are doing most of the fighting, who continue to maintain an allegiance to the collaborators of the Nazi regime and even to Nazi ideology.
And instead of having that conversation about the presence of Nazism in Ukraine the way we did right before the war, when war propaganda starts, the truth dies.
And we are now at the point in the name of the war in Ukraine of reading articles saying that actually there were two sides in World War II and just because somebody went and fought for the Nazi SS doesn't mean they're a bad person.
That is the way in which this war in Ukraine is.
engulfing everything.
And the fact that we are now at the point where we're getting Nazi apology from mainstream outlets like Politico reveals just how warped and deranged this war has made the West.
So that concludes our show for this evening.
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