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May 21, 2025 - Jim Fetzer
01:57:56
The Raw Deal (21 May 2025) "Fearsome Threesome" Edition with Russ Winter and Joachim Hagopian
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This is Jim Fetzer, your host on The Raw Deal, right here on Revolution Radio, Studio B, for a fearsome threesome edition with Russ Winter and Joaquin Agovian.
I'm not hearing the break, but I assume we're going to be out on the air today, unlike Monday.
Where the situation was very difficult.
I want to begin with a story from the Daily Mail.
Fierce for Ukraine peace talks is Russian TV broadcast Putin warning Donald Trump to stop trying to dictate terms.
This photo shoot has one big problem.
You could see my snow pants peeking from underneath my dress in every single photo.
But let me show you how I used Adobe Photoshop to make my dress long and flowy.
I took the other photos where I liked the movement of my dress and layered them on top.
Not what we wanted.
Here we go.
Russian state TV.
He aired a video of Vladimir Putin warning Donald Trump to stop trying to dictate the terms of a ceasefire with Ukraine.
I see him trying to do that.
He's trying to make himself to be the guy who made it happen.
Putin stressed that he plans to finish what he started three years ago and warned that Trump should not push him into a U.S. blueprint for stopping the war.
The Russian ruler...
The message was released on the eve of a scheduled Monday phone call between Trump and Putin.
Putin's words were recorded in late March with broadcasts today.
After Trump made clear he wants a Russian leader to concede a ceasefire in their upcoming telephone talk, we have enough strength and resources to bring what was started in 2022 to its logical conclusion with the result that Russia needs, according to Putin.
Now, gentlemen, I'm...
I think that Putin's got it exactly right.
Russ, well, Joaquin, let me stop with you.
This is geopolitical war.
Your thoughts?
Yeah, this was America's war all along, and they lost from the very beginning.
It was never a war to be won by American and their NATO friends.
So...
They have no terms to be able to even negotiate with Putin because they don't have the cards.
Just like Trump is telling Zelensky he doesn't have the cards.
Well, neither does Trump.
So, you know, he needs to butt out.
And take his big ego with him, because he's not going to have it his way.
It's ultimately going to probably end up Putin's way, and he's probably going to have to go all the way to Kiev, because Zelensky's not probably even going to cooperate.
And, you know, being prodded and pushed and bullied by Trump, it isn't going to work.
He doesn't have any kind of leverage.
So yeah, it's doomed from the start as far as Trump trying to push something, make it happen on his terms.
It ain't going to happen.
So it's only going to be on Putin's terms, it looks like now.
You make an excellent point, I think, regarding Trump's ego.
Remember, of course, he campaigned as a peace president.
He was going to stop all these stupid wars in his terms.
But now he's sent more weapons to Zelenskyy, making the Ukraine conflict with Russia Trump's war, and of course he's backing Bibi in Israel, notwithstanding what appears to be purely a feigned separation division of interest, by providing him with ongoing weapons.
Frankly, I think Trump has turned out to be the Pied Piper of Israel, leading America right over the cliff.
Russ, your thoughts?
It seems that Zelensky has dug in on the exact same position that he had in the White House when Vance and Trump worked him over.
He's saying, I'm not going to give up any territory, no territorial concessions.
The Russians are asking for four obelisks, you know, the Donbass region.
And it pretty much said, now we're gunning for a fifth.
So they kind of keep raising the stakes.
But they actually said, no, not a fifth, but eight.
Eight, okay.
Up to eight.
That's a damn shame, because I would like to see the Ukraine survive in some capacity, because there is a Ukrainian people in the West.
They're a distinct ethnic group, kind of a distinct culture.
They're not Russian.
So it would be a damn shame to just see them end up with some kind of tiny little rump state or nothing left, just totally dominated by Russia.
I do have some sympathy for Ukraine, but my God, they have to save what they can.
At this stage, you can't be negotiating with Russia and saying, no, not one inch of territory.
That's not going to work.
I can't believe that here we are in late May and that's still their position.
And then the Russians just escalate on them.
Okay, eight obelisks.
Very unfortunate.
This is really bad.
I'm very disappointed.
I kind of actually thought, much as I disliked Trump, I thought that maybe he could bring these parties together on some kind of a compromise solution.
But, you know, we're not flies on the wall.
We don't really know what's going on.
But it seems like Zelensky's a big part of the problem.
Oh, there's no doubt about that.
Joaquin, would you agree that my hyperimage, I'm sorry to say, Trump seems to me to have been the original con man, that this whole thing was a swindle, that he tried to convince us he was going to put America first, but it's always been Israel.
Yeah.
Well, I was never fooled by him.
I always saw him as a con man, a showman, an orange face.
Not to be trustworthy.
And he's proving that point.
Yeah, it's a no-win situation.
He's not going to be able to leverage anything with Putin.
And Putin's been very flexible, actually.
He's been the guy that's actually been kind of like conceding on a couple of points, you know, that they would come up with some kind of agreement.
You know, at least be working on one anyway.
But it looks like Trump and his pretty much Warhawk administration is really going to push this where it looks like the whole thing could blow up where Russia has to go all the way to the Polish border.
I hate that it would happen that way.
But I don't see any kind of concessions on Trump and the West.
I don't see it.
Yes, yes, yes.
Meanwhile, here we have one of Ukraine's brigade battalion commanders resigning, slamming the military leadership over a stupid objective.
This is from the Kiev Independent.
This is from a Ukrainian newspaper.
Let's check this out.
Wow, no censorship on this, huh?
Surprising.
Alexander Sharishin, battalion commander of the 47th Sabra Mechanized Brigade, has submitted his resignation.
Sharply criticizing Ukraine's military leadership by what he describes as senseless orders and unnecessary casualties.
I have never received more stupid objectives.
Then in the current direction, Shershan wrote in a blunt Facebook post announcing his decision on May 16th, someday I'll tell you the details, but the stupid loss of people, trembling in front of us stupid generals lead to nothing but failures.
I hope your children will also serve in the infantry and carry out your orders.
I think he must have meant not.
served in the infantry.
The Ukraine General Staff, tagged in Shuritshan's post, had not commented on the matter at the time of publication.
The Kiev Independent reported in 2023 that the brigade, which was formed from scratch in 2022 and is often known by the name of Magurov, was prepared with the summer of 2023.
country counteroffensive in mind.
Its soldiers trained in NATO countries and equipped with superior New Western equipment.
In 2024, the brigade was engaged in combat operation within the Kursk-Oblast.
Tell me your thoughts.
Joaquin, I mean, that's pretty remarkable to have a battalion commander resigned in the middle of a war.
Your thoughts?
Yeah, and not get fired first, you know, or killed.
Yeah, I think we're seeing the disintegration of the Ukraine army.
There's just not much of it left now, and they really don't even have much of a defense.
I think that the Russian forces are making greater gains now than ever before in the over three-year-long war now.
You know, it's just a matter of time before they cross the Dnieper River and head towards Kiev.
I mean, you know, it's going to happen very soon, I think.
The AWOLs of the Ukraine army are just, you know, off the chart.
Who wants to die, you know?
And it's a no-win situation.
So they're not going to be following orders.
If the general is saying, screw this, you know, you're going to go all the way down the ranks.
And they're all going to feel the same way.
Ross, your thoughts?
Was he a general or a colonel?
General?
General.
The clue to a statement is he's talking about Kursk, and Kursk was really a bad operation.
They sent a lot of their top troops in there, got them chewed up, eventually surrounded.
That's what he's talking about.
He's talking about that whole campaign of just wasting sort of the...
It almost kind of sounds like the Battle of Kursk in 1943, where the Germans just threw kind of almost like suicide attacks into the Kursk.
Corridor.
And it's kind of like a repeat of that.
So that's what he's criticizing, the waste of their equipment and soldiers in that ridiculous Kursk excursion that did not work.
Yes.
And they're now moving into the Sumi region or across the border from Kursk into Ukraine, the Russians are.
So, you know, it hasn't worked out at all.
I thought Sumi would be a good veteran for us.
Russ, your last thought?
Oh, yeah.
I thought that Sumi was going to be the fifth obelisk that the Russians are after.
That's where this current offensive is.
But you're saying they're going after eight, so that means they're not going to stop at Sumi.
They're going to keep pushing on.
You know what the other obelisks are?
I know Odessa's included.
Yeah.
Here we go.
It's Colonel McGregor.
Do this ozone trick every morning and watch your vision.
I'm so impressed by McGregor.
And I'm sure that someone somewhere has tried to explain this to the president.
We have no leverage.
You know, whatever we've done has been a terrible mistake.
We've destroyed relations with Russia.
We should normalize relations with Russia.
But to do that, we've got to end our connection to this Ukrainian regime, stop funding and supporting the war.
That has to happen.
We have to admit that ultimately what happens in eastern Ukraine is a matter for Russian decision, not ours.
It's never been an area of vital strategic interest to us, and it's not likely to become an area of vital strategic interest anytime soon.
In fact, You know, during World War II, as we got into the war and we were fighting and we approached the sort of middle to end of 1944, the truth was that we wanted to ensure that we overran Germany, not the Russians, not the Soviets at that point.
Germany is what counted.
Who controlled Poland was largely irrelevant to us.
There was nothing in Poland except nice Polish people.
But Germany was different.
We ended up with a little more than half of what was there.
And that was an unsatisfactory outcome, and that led to the Cold War.
Well, the problem for us is that, you know, we were too slow to pick up.
Our forces moved too slowly.
We lost the opportunity for a clear-cut victory.
Well, this time around, the people with the real interest are the Russians, not us.
We just don't have any interest in that part of the world.
President Trump knows that.
He will probably say what any American would say, I hope these people can just get along.
Well, that may or may not happen, but the point is, it's not our affair.
He just needs to get out.
And that much, I think, Vice President Vance gets right.
But otherwise, if we continue to stick our nose into this, we'll make it worse.
We need to get out of it.
I think that President Trump has unrealistic expectations.
He doesn't seem to understand that we can't mediate because we're part of it.
Now, the second part is that I think President Putin has tried very hard to be polite and to the extent that he can be flexible to be flexible.
But he's restated his preconditions for any sort of ceasefire from the beginning.
And those preconditions require the acceptance of neutrality for Ukraine.
Of the oblasts that the Russians took, that are Russian-speaking oblasts, that they're not going to surrender.
And then to any further discussion about Crimea, which is Russian.
And then, obviously, some discussion about denazification, which we should have absolutely no objections to.
And what sort of Ukraine emerges from that, with elections and so forth and so on.
Those things are all areas where there is some flexibility, except for the denazification.
President Trump doesn't seem to have understood that.
And so he seems to think that if he can't persuade President Putin to adopt his position, which is let's have a ceasefire and talk, then he's just going to pick up his toys and go away.
I don't think President Trump understands that his toys are still in the game.
And as long as they're in the game, his credibility is almost zero.
I think that's really excellent commentary.
I mean, the United States is arming Ukraine.
How can the United States negotiate a settlement between Ukraine and Russia?
It's absurd on its face.
But how do you salvage Ukraine?
I mean, salvage a realistic Ukraine, say, west of the Dnieper or minus the Five Oblis or whatever.
How do you salvage that?
You stop sending weapons.
Well, if you stop sending weapons, then you might get a situation where the Russians just do overrun the whole country.
So I'm just trying to put myself in the hands and the shoes of Ukrainians that might want to have a country emerge from all this with a little bit of independence, with a little bit of sovereignty.
I think they need to have a standing army.
They don't have to be involved with...
NATO, necessarily, but they probably will want to be involved with NATO.
They want to have strong ties with Europe.
So some of the goals of Ukraine are not unrealistic.
They can be done.
It doesn't seem like that's what they're talking about.
It doesn't seem like that's what the issues are here.
I'm really confused by it.
Putin doesn't want Ukraine.
He only wants those territories where they're Russian-friendly.
The Russians scattered throughout Ukraine.
But there cannot be a NATO on the border there.
Right.
In any way, shape, or form.
What kind of relationship does Ukraine have with NATO?
They have to have some relationship with Europe and NATO.
What does that look like?
They are to be neutral.
All they need to do is...
Is put a president in there that is neutral or even friendly to Russia.
Like they had the one that they kicked out.
Yeah, Russia's got to go.
That's a given.
I'm just trying to figure out a way out for Ukraine.
I'm really getting kind of disturbed by all this because I kind of thought maybe...
The way out for Ukraine is to accept Russia's term.
They fought a war and they lost.
Russia's the victor.
Russia, as the victor, dictates the terms.
Just do it.
Zelensky is just a tool.
He's got himself unbelievably rich by grift after all this money being sent to Ukraine.
They've been reselling weapons of war to make more money.
It's just the most corrupt nation on the face of Earth.
Yeah, even before the war, you know, when they would rate the nations on corruption, Ukraine was right at the top, you know?
It was notorious.
And yet, you know, America wanted that, you know...
NATO country on the border, you know, like they always want, you know, let's weaken Russia, you know, put all the enemies on their border and weaken Russia, you know.
Well, it backfired, you know, and so, yeah, but Putin's a very fair man, I believe, and he has no interest in...
He wants good relations with Europe and America.
Now, it is going to come because there's some buttheads in Europe that are so obstinate, but maybe, and at least there can be some kind of friendly relations perhaps with Trump, but then again, the ego and the belligerence might totally undermine it.
So, yeah, I mean, there's so much at stake here.
The whole thing about pushing for a ceasefire is really tricky.
I mean, I think that's...
That's pretty sleazy because that just takes away any offensive capability that Russia has this summer to go on the offensive.
So that's kind of a phony starting point right there.
That's right.
Putin won't consider it.
No, but then they just get stuck and they can't deal with these territorial issues because Zelensky is just so hardcore.
So, I mean, I...
I think maybe Trump needs to be a little bit more honest with what he's dealing with, what the issues are.
We're not hearing very much about that.
They're kind of bombastic and act like everything's going great.
What are they talking about?
What are the issues?
There doesn't seem to be much transparency on that.
Well, I think Trump is promoting the Israeli agenda that even extends to Ukraine.
Remember, they want Ukraine to be the new Israel.
That was part and parcel of the whole plan.
Yeah, business deals, right.
Jewish business deals, exactly.
Black rock.
Yeah.
Poor Ukraine.
Trump initially cut off weapons to Ukraine.
He should have stood pat.
He had that right off the bat.
He did the right thing.
We were all applauding him.
We thought maybe he was going to be true to his word to stop these stupid wars.
And then, Lord behold, he resumes sending weapons and arms.
What the F?
What's going on, Donald Trump, peace president?
You know, there's a lot of Ukraine fatigue in Europe now.
In the Czech Republic, there's like 300,000 or 400,000 Ukrainians in the country.
And when they first started coming in two years ago, they were kind of welcome.
Everybody had the flags out.
Everybody was pro-Ukraine.
And that is all gone, the fatigue.
A lot of suffering.
Well, some of the countries want to send them back to Ukraine now.
Right.
And there's no more money rolling in for relief or charity or anything.
They're just being thrown under the bus.
Yeah.
Well, McGregor, as usual, has it right.
Meanwhile...
Russia's drones are more deadly.
Okay.
Hegseth reported the order of Ukraine aid was without Trump's knowledge.
That's very curious.
Let's take a look at that.
This is again from the Kiev Independent.
U.S. Defense Secretary beat Hegseth's officer at a temporary halt of military aid applied to Ukraine in early February.
Well, is this the one we were praising Trump for?
Was it actually Hegseth?
Notifying the White House, without notifying the White House, Reuters reported on May 6, citing unnamed sources, the suspension reportedly affected 11 shipments of artillery shells and weapons from Dover Air Force Base and a U.S. base in the United Arab Emirates.
An order issued about a week after President Trump began his second term, caused immediate concern in Kiev and among officials in Poland who contacted Washington for answers.
Top national security officials at the White House, Pentagon and State were unaware of the decision and could not respond to inquiries.
The flights resumed February 5th after a three-day pause following an alleged intervention from U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Walz.
Well, of course, it's now been demoted, made UN's ambassador to the UN.
Writers are born in February.
The US briefly halted weapons shipments while the White House debated its policy toward Kiev.
I find that kind of fascinating.
In other words, even what I was giving Trump credit for, doing the right thing, may not have been Trump at all, but Hegseth.
Yeah, and same with Israel.
Seems like Hexfeth has actually turned out to be kind of a voice of reason.
All this stuff is just shocking.
Yeah, that was the only bright spot recently was when they stopped all weapon shipments and they had to concede a lot of territory at the time.
You know, we just got to pray that Trump makes the right decision and stops all assistance and the war will end.
I mean, it's that simple.
That's what makes it so crazy.
Everybody in the world wants it to end, you know, but, you know, there's powers that control presidents and so we have war.
The question is, why hasn't Zelensky been tossed out?
Because we were kind of speculating on that two months ago.
And he's somehow been able to survive and build up his support within the Ukrainian establishment.
It's flabbergasting.
I mean, there should be an assassination attempt on the guy.
Something's got to happen to the guy, you know?
He can't last too much longer.
He just can't.
Of course, we've been saying that for a while, as you say.
Yeah, we're just going back over all our predictions, how this thing would unfold, and I think we were all much more optimistic that we would be further along than we are right now.
That's because we believe Trump.
We didn't realize he was a con man.
I'm really, really upset.
Now, it turns out they're laying a little bit of food into...
Into Gaza, except the U.N. says none of it has arrived yet.
Here we have from antiwar.com that Yahoo announces Israel will be allowed a basic amount of food to enter Gaza.
What does that mean, a basic amount?
Yahoo announced Sunday Israel would allow a basic amount of food to enter Gaza after a more than 70-day total blockade on the Palestinian territory.
On the recommendation of the IDF, And out of operational need to enable the expansion of the intense fighting to defeat Hamas, Israel will introduce a basic amount of food to the population in order to ensure that a famine crisis does not develop in the Gaza Strip.
Too late!
Too late!
That used Ava said in a statement.
But get this, what Smolkrich says, allowing minimal aid into Gaza.
We'll ensure Israel can destroy the Strip.
Israeli Finance Minister Benzel Smoltrich said Monday, allowing minimal aid in Gaza will ensure Israel has continued support from its friends to continue with its goal of destroying the Palestinian territory.
That means the onslaught.
That means killing or removing every one of them.
Smoltrich comments.
Came after more than 70 days of Israel total blockade on Gaza, and a day after PM Netanyahu said Israel would allow a basic amount of food to enter the country, and five aid trucks reportedly entered Gaza Monday, the first since March 2nd.
Now I gotta tell ya, I have a more recent UN report that says none of it is Come into Gaza!
So I think this is another phony claim.
But, you know, the whole world sees through it by now.
Israel is at the rock bottom in terms of contempt.
You know, the world is incensed justifiably.
Joaquin, your thoughts?
Yeah.
I mean, even Britain and France and Germany are...
Basically saying, hey, you've got to do the humanitarian thing and bring in the relief.
But my understanding is small churches saying, you know, we just put minimum amount to placate our allies.
In other words, Europe and America will be appeased by 1% of the stuff getting in.
It's just so...
Inhumane, and the whole world knows it.
Israel is a pariah nation, and by association and U.S. bombs, we are too.
Hang on.
We're not hearing it, but maybe the break music is playing and so forth.
I've heard before that those who are listening couldn't understand us because of both, and some left.
So let's just take a temporary pause.
I'm going to grab some ice water.
Let's give about two minutes and let it play out, and then we'll resume.
Stand by.
Well, I don't know if that mattered or not, but I will say that this new Teams, which has been used to replay Skype, in my opinion, is a disaster.
It's not easy to use.
It's not easy to record.
Everything about it is bad.
But get this, in furtherance of my observations about Trump in relation to Net Yahoo.
The president, John, is a humanitarian.
And I think that everyone is concerned about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
That said, it is a very complicated situation there.
Logistically, I don't think there's any daylight between President Trump's position and Prime Minister Netanyahu's position.
The issue now is...
I think the issue now is how do we logistically get all of those trucks into Gaza?
How do we set up the aid stations?
There are many initiatives that we're working on to address this.
The President, John, is a humanitarian, and I think that everyone is concerned about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
That said, it is a very complicated situation there, logistically.
Very complicated.
Very complicated.
Ridiculous.
There's anything complicated about it.
You bring it to the food and you give it to the starving people.
Yeah, what a bunch of Janice faces.
The guy's a big humanitarian, but it's complicated.
I haven't seen a single sign of it.
It's been going on for two years.
No, there's no excuse.
No excuse for this.
You know, it's so disgusting.
Beyond words.
You know, in Europe, the politics of Europe might really be changing, because I was talking to some Germans that I know, and they were telling me that this whole Holocaust shit has been going on for all these years, and Germany is wearing off, and they're just, a lot of Germans had it with Israelis.
Yeah, I think it's worldwide.
They're really having it with the suppression of any kind of discussion and this kind of stuff and being called anti-Semites for vocalizing.
A genocide that makes you an anti-Semite and be an anti-Semite.
Genocide is totally unacceptable.
Grotesque.
So the message we're getting from the radicals in Israel is that we're just going to starve these people.
Minimally, what is that?
What else does that mean other than starve you?
Puts you on a starvation diet.
Well, they know that none of the neighbors are going to accept the Arab Palestinians in their countries.
You know, so, yeah, it looks like they're going to starve people.
That's their end goal now.
That is the agenda.
There's no doubt about it.
Meanwhile, we know all the usual.
Is Israel continuing to kill hundreds of Palestinians?
There's nothing new there.
Yeah, it looks like they're running over 100 a day in just indiscriminate bombings.
Yeah.
72 hours, 300.
And that's what they can count.
Yeah, here are further confirmation.
UK, France, and Canada say something like Gaza is intolerable.
Threatening to sanction Israel.
Why are they only doing this now, for crying out loud?
Exactly.
Years ago.
Threatening to sanction.
Just do it.
Just do it.
Italy, the same thing.
Basically, the Italian parliament just erupted.
They were kind of going after the, what's the prime minister's name?
Maloney.
Maloney, just sitting there sheepishly, kind of.
As they just castigated her.
They had several members of that parliament just castigating Maloney, and she's just sitting there almost in shame, you know, like there's no way that she can defend her position anymore.
She can't.
I mean, that's just a brutal fact of the matter.
It's grotesque.
Three major Western governments issued a statement condemning the Israeli-created starvation in Gaza and settlement expansion in the West Bank.
The UK, France, and Canada said they are considering sanctions on Israel in response to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel's military operations in Gaza.
The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable.
The joint statement from London, Paris, and Ottawa said, "We call on the Israeli government to stop its military operations in Gaza and immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter." The statement was released following an announcement from Tel Aviv that a basic amount of food would be allowed to enter the Strip.
The three countries called the Israeli plan "Holy and But, of course, that's by design.
It's supposed to be wholly inadequate.
Then we have tens of thousands marching in the Netherlands to protest against the Gaza genocide.
Tens of thousands of red-clad protesters have marched through The Hague to call on the Netherlands government to do more to halt Israel's onslaught in Gaza.
Organizers that was the country's biggest demonstration in two decades as rally participants press the Dutch government Sunday To take action against Israel's genocide in Gaza.
The crowd that gathered outside the government seat was estimated to number more than 100,000, according to organizers.
Police did not give estimates.
I would bet it was even larger.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protesters rally around the world to mark Napka Day.
Tens of thousands staged mass protests worldwide to mark 77 years of Palestinian dispossession.
Tens of thousands have rallied across the world in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel's brutal war on Gaza, and to mark the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Jewish militias remembered as the Napka or Catastrophe.
The napka resulted in the permanent mass displacement of Palestinians after the creation of Israel in 1948.
Activists say history is repeating itself today in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
In Stockholm, thousands assembled at Otoblan Square, responding to calls from various civil society organizations to protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Participants wave Palestinian flags.
Displayed photographs of children killed and carried banners stating, Stop the Zionist regime genocide in Palestine.
And one more.
Top genocide scholars unanimous.
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
A growing number of the world's leading genocide scholars believe that Israel's action in Gaza constitutes genocide.
According to an investigation by the Judge newspaper, NRCE, the paper interviewed seven renowned genocide and Holocaust researchers from six countries, including Israel, all of whom described the Israeli campaign in Gaza as genocidal.
Many said their peers in the field shared this assessment.
Can I name someone whose work I respect who does not think it is genocide?
No.
There is no counterargument that takes into account all the evidence.
Israeli researcher Raz Siegel told NRC.
Professor Uyghur Umut Ungar of the University of Amsterdam and Nyad Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies said that while there were certainly researchers who say it's not genocide, I don't know them.
The Dutch paper reviewed it.
25 recent academic articles published in the Journal of Genocide Research, the field's leading journal, have found that all eight academics from the field of genocide say genocide, or at least genocidal violence in Gaza, to which I must say, how could they not?
How could they not?
How could they not?
Joaquin.
Well, I love to see all this anti-Israel sentiment.
We are not anti-Semitic.
We are anti-genocide.
So stop it.
The whole world is now behind the Palestinians, except for U.S. government and Israel.
So it's going to come to some kind of climax.
It has to, because it can't go on.
As it has been for the last, now, what, over a year and a half now of total slaughter every day.
It can't go on.
But we know it may be the butcher things.
It will end when every Palestinian is dead or no longer at the borders of Israel.
Isn't it that straightforward, Ross?
Well, the Zionist media...
Controlled or influenced by Zionists.
They're even starting to use the term genocide.
More and more.
Long overdue.
I've noticed that Pierce Morgan is really getting strident.
He's kind of pissed off about the humanitarian side of it.
He was challenging some Israeli official, I think it was yesterday, about the complete lack of journalistic coverage in Gaza.
He says, you know, why come you're not letting people in there to observe?
We can confirm or deny your side of the story about what's going on.
You won't even do that.
So he's getting to be very outspoken.
But the question I have, who are they going to get rid of first, Pierce Morgan or Netanyahu?
That's my question.
Because I'd ask the same question about Netanyahu as I am Zelensky.
Why is he still there?
Yeah.
Yeah, well, he has more political lives than a cat.
It's astonishing, his career.
Absolutely astonishing.
Meanwhile, Israel is in moral meltdown.
They don't believe how toxic this is.
He's with Judge Napolitano, who is, in my opinion, a great guy.
Let's see what we got here.
While the markets are giving us whiplash, keep buying!
Minister Netanyahu eventually bowed to US pressure to agree to a substantial, verifiable, non- or invoilable ceasefire.
I doubt it.
I don't think there's any intention of that.
We've seen what is clearly happening.
We called it in a paper that we wrote on the Conflict Forum Substack, the moral meltdown in Israel.
And I just want to underline, because people may not really sort of understand this because they're not following it so closely.
This is a real pivot point that is taking place, not just in Israel, but for the West as a whole.
And what it is is essentially, I mean, let's not go get tangled up in...
The details.
But essentially, Israel is completely divided.
On the one hand, you have, if you like, those who see themselves as European Jews that have come from Europe and are Europeanized.
And they, on the other hand, you have the messianic people.
of Ben-Gavir and the Prime Minister and the right who are looking to Amalek, to, if you like, removing the Palestinians from Gaza altogether, either killing them by bombing them or either sending them somewhere else.
Libya has been mentioned, but I don't know if that's going to work at all.
But this is a moral divide now.
Long ago, someone warned the West very clearly.
They said what will happen is, in due course, under pressure, the West would turn on its own moral values and then start consuming itself like an Osoboros.
And this is what's happening in Israel.
It is now becoming violent.
The police are attacking.
The demonstrators who are demonstrating for the release of hostages.
So half of Israel is doing that.
And you find editorials, you find other pieces in the Hebrew press, in the English-language press, like Harad's editorial, that say, "We can't go on with this, just killing Palestinians, bombing tents." Seeing children burnt alive.
We can't do this.
And what's happened?
I mean, we are supposed to have...
You remember that Hamas released the American dual citizen, Eden Alexander, the other day, and it was understood from the American mediators, Witkoff and his colleagues, that that would result in food and resources coming into Gaza.
They're not coming into Gaza.
They are still in a line outside of Gaza.
And there are people, as the UN Human Rights Representative says, there are children starving to death.
And Netanyahu had to admit this just the other day, and he said, "Listen, look..." I have senators coming to me, friendly, people who've never been more friendly to Israel.
And they're saying, "Look, we will give you what you want.
You want weapons.
We will give you protection in the Security Council.
But listen, we just cannot endure seeing children starve to death.
You've got to do something about it." Well, that still hasn't happened.
And where's Witkoff?
He played a very important part to begin with.
He went to Netanyahu on Shabbat and he said, "Listen, you had a deal.
Stick with it.
Do it." There's no sign of that today.
And so we have to wait till the 25th when Netanyahu is saying that.
And Netanyahu hopes to get through this period with a short ceasefire.
Agreed with Hamas and then some introduction of limited resources, food and water going in.
And the last few days, every day, it's been 70, 90, 100, 120 Palestinians killed at night in the bombing raids of this new...
But I want to move to the second fracture, which is opening out, which is just as important, because it's in the United States and in Europe.
In the United States, as you know, about 80% of the Jews living in the United States are Reform Jews.
And many of them are finding the same moral dilemma that I've just described in Israel.
They don't like.
And when those senators spoke to Netanyahu in that way and said, listen, we just can't go on like this.
We can't see children burnt alive in tents.
It's not acceptable.
It's not acceptable in the US and it's not acceptable to half of the Israeli population.
This is the pivot, the crucial point, where, if you like, the West turns on its own moral values and starts to, if you like, destroy itself.
In this process.
Same in Europe.
There's videos going around about Maloney being attacked strongly about Gaza and others, too, across Europe.
This is the moral dilemma that is coming.
And we see it in other ways.
And this is facing Trump now very much, which what to do.
And we hear very clearly, I'm told, that now there is this moral divide taking place within his team.
On the one hand, Witkoff and Vance on one side, but Rubio totally at odds with Witkoff and trying to remove him from the process.
Perhaps that's why Witkoff is not there.
Why isn't there an American official down there at Gaza and saying, "Look, just open those gates.
Open them.
Let the code in." Of course it would happen, but there's none.
So we have to draw our conclusions from that, what that means.
And then there's a third fracture.
And this is a very important fracture too, I think, which is with Iran.
Because you've probably seen on ABC in the last day, Witkoff has said the absolute red line for Trump is no enrichment, not ever.
In Iran.
That is the red line and that's what we're seeking.
And on that I wrote that actually what has happened is almost the entire Senate Republicans have written a letter to Trump saying one thing: that they will not accept an agreement which allows the infrastructure of Enrichment to stay in Iran,
and 177 of the House have been even more explicit, I think, in one of the parallel letters that has gone to Trump, which is saying exactly no enrichment at all.
Even though they know, they must know, Iran will never accept that.
Do you recall I was in Iran about a week or 10 days ago?
To many people that they won't accept that.
And then I contrasted, what do you see in the Maryland polling that has just come out?
It shows that 70% of Americans as a whole want to deal with Iran.
And that is true both of the majority in the Republican and the Democrats.
And only something, I don't have the figures in front of me, but only something like 25% of Republicans are in favor of military action.
So you have this divide too.
The popular sentiment, of course, which will probably be ignored, but the popular sentiment wants a deal, doesn't want a war with Iran.
I don't think the populists, I don't think the side of Vance and the others.
It's Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
Well, let's pick it up from there, Joaquin, your thoughts.
I mean, I think those divides are very real.
I think the world has turned against Israel.
I don't think they will ever.
Regain any stature in world affairs again.
They have disgraced themselves, discredited themselves, incriminated themselves, exposed themselves.
It's a catastrophe, in my opinion, from the point of view of politics.
For Israel, your thoughts?
Well, I agree.
And this makes it even scarier because Netanyahu knows his back is up against the wall with the whole world coming down on him.
And he may figure, well, I'm not going to be in power much longer unless I expand this war.
And we're hearing intelligence reports again coming out saying they're contemplating bombing the nuclear sites in Iran.
You know, and it could happen at any time.
We're hearing that again.
And he may just decide to do it because he thinks that that's the only way America will be able to continue to support Israel.
Ross?
Well, you know, if there was truly this big divide, and according to Alistair, it's like half.
If Israelis are no longer on board this aggressive messianic stuff, then Netanyahu would be gone.
So I just don't believe it.
I think it's probably like 75% of these assholes, to use the proper term, are basically supporting these policies and would like to attack Iran and get into a war.
It's like end times messianic stuff.
It's religion to them.
So yeah, they have blackmailed the entire world.
Clearly, Europe's starting to move against them, large elements in the United States, but they still have control of these Zog governments.
They still run the show.
So even these sanctions that we're talking about, why are we even talking about sanctions?
Why isn't there a big flotilla going offshore of Gaza and ships landing troops?
And just taking the place over.
Europeans!
You know, is there any discussion of that?
Somebody to break down the gates?
You know, this is not part of Israel.
This is not a sovereign part of Israel to close the gates to humanitarian aid.
You know, probably would have to be the Europeans.
But then they're just talking about sanctions.
Are you kidding me?
What are they going to do?
Sanction some settlers?
Hammer on a few settlers.
So it's a joke.
Unlike the population, the European politicians seem just as much under the thumb of Israel as Donald Trump and American Congress.
Don't you agree, Joaquin?
Yeah.
Basically, America is doing sanctions.
Against the settlers in the West Bank.
That's how far it goes.
They won't go beyond that.
It's just absurd.
Well, just pathetic because when good men do nothing, evil reigns and it's reached a catastrophic situation now.
I thought Alistair was good.
Those who wonder, by the way, about the nature of morality, I have a relatively recent piece evaluating moral theories that some may find illuminating on my blog at jameshfetzer.org.
Meanwhile, Whitcoff says, and this is, of course, completely absurd, the red line for rent is no enrichment, not even one percent, which everyone...
who's followed the issue for 15 years now as a complete non-starter.
It's also a position of the Senate Republicans.
Are these people complete ignoramuses?
Are we in fact being governed by morons?
Well, the President has been very clear.
He wants to solve this conflict diplomatically.
We've heard that before.
Meanwhile, Preston, unrealistic demands.
These guys...
The Iranian Foreign Minister has reacted to U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff's recent remarks, stressing, "Teyron will continue its uranium enrichment." He is being completely unrealistic when it comes to negotiations.
Iran will continue its uranium enrichment.
Abbas Arachita Smith-Witt calls claim that U.S. will not allow even a 1% enrichment capability.
He called these statements completely detached from the reality of negotiations.
I actually also added if the US wants to ensure no nuclear weapons are produced, then Iran is prepared to do that, but unrealistic demands will not be met.
The foreign minister said that time and place of the next round of indirect talks with the U.S. will be determined soon by the Omani foreign minister.
Until now, U.S. and Iran have held four rounds of indirect talks on the nuclear issue and sanctions relief.
It's not just absurd.
I mean, denying a great nation like Iran the opportunity for peaceful...
Nuclear energy, just ridiculous.
It all originated with the U.S. The Addams for Peace program just about, I don't know, 70, 60, 60 years ago.
It's just incredible.
Joaquin, your thoughts?
Well, it's confirmation that evil rules this earth.
For them to be able to continue to get away with the aggression and the death, You know, there's no other explanation when the forces for good cannot stop the forces of evil just destroying everything.
And this inflexibility where, you know, they've allowed Israel to have nuclear weapons all these years for, what, 60 years now, and Iran cannot have any nuclear.
I mean, it's insane.
You know, I mean, the people of the earth need to rise up against the evil.
That's all I can say.
We're at another break point.
Russ, I've given you a host.
While you set up, we'll take a couple of minutes here of silence, presuming that there's been a broadcast during the break time, and then we'll resume.
Go right ahead and set up, Russ.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Well, let's resume it with a hopefully happy compromise here in terms of what's being broadcast where we cannot hear the breaks.
Russ, go right ahead with Winter Watch.
Tell us.
Okay, meme of the day is Forrest Gump and his little girlfriend on the bus.
And Forrest says, looks like the FBI is back on our side.
And his little girlfriend looks at him.
Are you stupid or something?
That's, of course, referring to the FBI guys all of a sudden declaring that Epstein killed himself and committed suicide.
And, you know, that Bob Geno guy, he was just gagging when he made his comments.
It just looked to me like somebody had to talk with him.
Yeah, he knew.
He knew he was lying through his teeth and he didn't like it.
No, that's my impression, too.
Yeah.
Okay, so we already covered this.
CNN reports that Israel has plans.
I think it's more than plans.
It's actually they're going to attack these Iranian nuclear facilities.
We haven't yet.
We haven't covered it yet, Russ.
Go ahead.
Into it.
Go into it.
Oh, the story is oil prices surged above $64.
Reports that Israel has plans to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.
So just all over this morning when I got out of bed, I just saw one story after another relating to this.
So we might be very, very close to an attack.
I think they're going to be a big surprise for Israel militarily because Iran, in my opinion, can shellack them.
So if you go to the credit default markets, it's like another market on a credit that's maybe a little bit more speculative, but it's kind of more an aggressive market.
So a lot of the players in the swap market are currently pricing in six-level credit downgrade for the U.S. to triple B. Wow!
Six.
That is huge!
That is staggering!
The credit default swap market derived...
Signal score.
There it is right there.
BB BBB.
Pathetic.
And that big, beautiful bill that Trump's trying to get past.
Yeah.
What is this lunacy?
He doesn't even understand economics of business?
I mean, my God.
Yeah, and he's very weird.
He's saying things to Amazon and Walmart.
You need to eat the tariffs.
Yeah.
I mean, the guy's not exactly a free-market guy.
He's making an enemy of everybody, basically.
It's an executive-directed economy with him just sort of pontificating whatever he feels like at the moment, which is usually just big-brain nonsense.
This is interesting.
I think this sort of...
Describes our world today.
Okay, so here's this gal, this Mexican ship that ran into the Brooklyn Bridge.
You guys saw that, didn't you?
Yeah.
Watch what happens here.
This is not it, of course, is it?
That's the ship.
Look at this girl.
It's a bridge?
Yeah.
Yeah, three masks went down.
It's a tourist ship then, huh?
No, Navy.
There it is.
Unbelievable!
We've seen this one before, basically.
Everybody's laughing.
I mean, remember the bridge in Virginia, in D.C.?
You know, these are all staged.
There's something really weird about this, because this girl is just sitting there, and I'm sure she's kind of caught by surprise, but the situational awareness of people is really low.
They don't even realize what's going on.
Here's a better view of it.
Here's the ship.
And people are going, there's people up there.
They came in under the bridge, rammed into the bridge on the top, and there's guys up there.
Yeah, they're all in the mass.
Unbelievable.
What are they doing there?
And then a bunch of them fell over.
There's people up there.
Oh, Mike, look at that.
Look at that.
Terrible.
How stupid!
It's crashing!
They didn't know the height of their mass was greater than the height of the bridge?
The ship was in reverse for a long time to go into the bridge.
It was another maybe remote control.
I write, it's hard not to laugh.
I could see a meteor heading right towards us and it would just be like, oh well, L-M-A-O-A-O, laughing my ass off.
I don't care.
Magical thinking.
Very strange indeed.
But it seems like the perfect event for our times.
You know, the girl sitting there, totally oblivious.
No situational awareness at all.
Okay, we covered the UK, Canada, and France.
Last warning for Israel.
We'll see about that.
People can go and look at this.
People want a little bit more on the economy.
Apollo just released.
We covered the Apollo charts before.
And this one is a 121-page deck on U.S. real estate and housing.
And a few little interesting factoids in there.
We don't have time to go through the whole deck, but people can get it.
The median age of homeowners is now 56 years old compared to 31 years old in 1981.
Wow!
That's huge!
All young people can't afford it anymore.
That's right.
That's what it means.
Unreal.
It is unreal.
So there's a whole bunch of them like that.
Forget a talk of the American dream.
You're never going to be a homeowner today.
Unless you've got parents that are going to pass their houses on to you.
I don't know.
I suppose that could happen.
When the baby boomers die off, there's going to be a lot of wealth transfers.
Big brain Trump and Bruce Springsteen are engaged in a big smackdown.
What is that about?
I know the boss was speaking out against Trump.
Here you go.
Here's what Trump says.
Here's Bruce Springsteen.
He's basically got a problem with the genocide.
That's what he's speaking to.
Totally reasonable.
Totally reasonable.
But he's also a hardcore Democrat.
We can't hear it.
We can't hear it, Roz.
Can't hear it?
Okay.
He's basically saying we're dealing with fascism.
And Trump says, I see the highly overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a foreign country to speak badly about the President of the United States.
Never liked him, never liked his music or his radical left politics.
Importantly, he's not a talented guy.
Just a pushy, obnoxious jerk.
Who fervently supported crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent fool, and our worst ever president, who came close to destroying our country.
If I wasn't elected, it would have been gone by now.
Sleepy Joe didn't have a clue as to what he was doing, but Springsteen is as dumb as a rock and couldn't see what was going on.
Or could he...
Which is even worse.
This dried-out prune of a rocker, his skin is all atrophied.
Ought to keep his mouth shut until he gets back into the country.
That's just standard fare.
Then we'll see how...
And then his last sentence is a little bit of a threat.
Then we'll all see how it goes for him.
Yeah.
I think he's implying his fans will abandon him because of their greater loyalty to Trump.
But I'm not so sure that's going to play out that way.
I think Trump's losing a hell of a lot of support, even among those of us who really were enthusiastic about him.
He's proving to be a phony, a fraud, unprincipled, not living up to his campaign promises.
A war guy, not a peace guy.
I don't like it.
But he continues to feel he needs to feud with people like this in the public.
Domain.
Same mean-spirited things about him.
He was reinstalled by the power structure to basically polarize the world and bring America down.
So here we have Moody's downgraded U.S. credit after the close on Friday.
You know, I love this NYU guy.
Yeah, let's just listen to what he had to say.
They got an investigation into the guy and they withheld his diploma.
Let's just hear what he had to say.
He's totally reasonable.
It's understated.
Listen to this.
Hello, graduates.
Can you hear it?
Maybe you can turn up the sound.
I don't know why.
I think maybe you didn't hit the sound thing when you went on, you know.
Zoom.
You know, you gotta click those two boxes.
Try to get it if you can.
I mean, I think this guy's wonderful.
He's a hero in my book.
Um...
I've been freaking out a lot about this speech, honestly.
And as I...
Can you read over it?
Can you guys hear it or can you read over them?
You can hear it.
Okay.
Go ahead.
...my part today in addressing you all.
My moral and political commitments guide me to say that the only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine.
The audience just goes wild.
I don't know why we can't hear it.
They were wild.
I mean, they're hooting, hollering, yelling, calling out, clapping, clapping, clapping.
They love it.
They agree.
They agree.
I want to say that the genocide currently occurring Is supported politically and militarily by the United States, is paid for by our tax dollars, and has been live-streamed to our phones for the past 18 months.
And that I do not wish to speak only to my own politics today, but to speak for all people of conscience, and all people who feel the moral injury of this atrocity.
Again, more enthusiastic.
I want to say that I condemn this genocide and complicity in this genocide.
Again, there's so much response from the audience.
He's doing a long pause, but it's there and it's wild.
It's a pretty ass ache.
Thank you to the class of 2025.
Anyway, so anywho, he withheld his diploma.
Yeah, on the ground, the speech he gave wasn't the one that they'd approved.
That's pathetic.
Under these circumstances, they ought to be congratulating him, awarding him, recognizing him.
This is a courageous act.
Yeah, it's kind of a typical...
Yeah, you know, when I listened to it, I thought I was going to hear something real controversial.
Yeah, see how mild he was?
I mean, I totally understand it.
Tell us about big brain trauma.
Listen to him.
We're also doing very heavy on submarines.
We have a lead on submarines that I don't think, unless you have a really, really stupid group of people, including the president, I don't think anybody can catch us on submarines.
We have our submarine, in particular, the late model.
We're 15 years advanced on the submarine.
Nobody can even come close.
Stay underwater for 30 years.
Only has to come up for food.
Come up for air for 30 years.
Because they have, you know, they have their system of water, which is, they can stay forever.
The only reason it has to come up is for food.
Can you imagine?
It could stay on the ground underwater for years, going at fast speeds, to very fast speeds.
It has to come up once every couple of months for food.
There's something about that.
I don't know if we're going to be able to solve that problem, but hopefully it's not going to be a problem we have to worry about.
But the submarine, we are so far advanced in the submarine.
So that's Trump's world.
That's his little fantasy world that he lives in.
He's treating it like a toy.
Yeah, Big Brain explains the term groceries.
This is to the president of the UAE.
I sure need that.
It's because, to me, the most important jobs.
I want jobs.
And we have costs are way down.
Groceries, where they have a term, grocery, it's an old term, but it means basically what you're buying, food.
It's a pretty accurate term, but it's an old-fashioned sound.
But groceries are down, costs are down, eggs are down.
The first week they were hitting me with eggs were up 200%, and now they're down to...
A number that is amazing.
We're down 97, 98% from where they were.
And everybody, they said, you won't have eggs for Easter.
Well, everybody had eggs for Easter at a very reasonable price.
At the White House, we had our little Easter egg roll, and we had hundreds of thousands of eggs purchased.
They said, you have to go out and buy plastic eggs.
That didn't work out.
Let's see.
Can I even talk about that?
Saudi Arabia giving $25 million, Qatar, all of these countries.
You talk about women and women's rights.
So these are people that push gays off buildings.
These are people that kill women and treat women horribly, and yet you take their money.
So I'd like to ask you right now, why don't you give back the money that you've taken from certain countries that treat certain groups of people so horribly?
Why don't you give back the money?
I think it would be a great...
She's talking about Qatar that just gave him the $400 million plane.
Oh, an aircraft, yeah.
That was in the 2016 debate.
Deeply creepy, enormous, brooding manner of Trump now hangs next to Lincoln outside the Department of Agriculture.
Look at that.
Look at this.
That doesn't even look like him.
I think that's a Trump double, actually.
There's some more silver hair.
That's a Trump novel.
Very Orwell-in looking.
That's not Donald Trump.
That's one of his doubles, I guarantee you.
Remand is something to do.
Go ahead, read it.
Apparently things like an eighth grader, and we all thought that geriatric was an embarrassment.
God help us.
We went from Dementia to a moron.
Wow.
That kind of brings us to the Biden story.
So he's got stage 9 prostate cancer and that hasn't been around for a while.
He's just all of a sudden just boom.
He was diagnosed three years ago.
He even admitted it.
He even let it slip out.
Yeah.
This is old news.
This was to soften the cushion of her release of the interviews that were so embarrassing.
So trying to, you know, have a story that sort of smothers or pushes aside the real story, which was the interviews that showed he was incompetent.
And now the question becomes, who the hell was writing the government for the last four years?
The Otto Pent scandal.
You got that in your...
List here, Russ, the auto-pen scandal?
No.
No, yeah, the auto-pen scandal.
They're kind of talking about maybe that Obama, you know, Obama was set up a block and a half away when it's kind of running the government secret delivery.
It puts into question everything that he signed.
It may not even be lawful now.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree with all that.
Well, the whole thing on the prostate cancer, I mean, you can have prostate cancer for years.
My dad had it.
My dad got it when he was, I think he was diagnosed when he was 83. And he never died of it because, you know, most prostate cancer never really gets out of hand.
So he may have had prostate cancer.
No, really not that big of a deal if it was kind of a low-grade cancer.
But now they're saying it's spreading to his bones.
Yeah.
All right.
Major invasion buildup on the Gaza border.
We kind of covered that.
The genocide is a tendency.
So you got Iran and Gaza almost simultaneously with the entire world basically threading sanctions.
Kind of an interesting point in time.
Big brain Trump pontificates on Zionist plant Jolani.
He says, I'm meeting the former Al Qaeda leader.
He says, Jolani is a young, attractive guy with a very strong past.
As a terrorist!
A strong terrorist!
Up to $10 million reward.
Issued by some government, the United States government.
How many women he raped, how many children he slaughtered.
That guy has an impressive resume.
Now he's an attractive man.
Wow.
All right, we haven't seen any resistance combat footage for a while, so let's watch a little of that.
So they're getting back into the fighting.
This is in Rafa.
Hello?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Russ, if you want to add any commentary, it would be welcome because we're not here.
Yeah, here comes some Israelis that got them in sight.
There's about five of them, six of them.
Totally unaware they're being observed.
Pay their head a little distance.
I'm not a black man.
I'm not a black man.
I'm a black man.
So it looks like they're going to use an RPG on him.
Yeah.
You're not going to use them.
They're going to use them.
Allah will be.
Allah will be.
These RPGs are amazing weapons.
Look at the punch that they have.
Look at the punch.
Look at the punch.
Five more Israelis on patrol.
It looks like they have a mine set up for them.
Allah!
Thank you.
Comes a tank.
The tank's turning around.
It looks like encounters an IUD.
It looks like encounters an IUD.
All right.
Stop share.
So, yeah, the Israelis are going to go right back into this cesspool, start fighting again.
And I've got to believe that Hamas has probably been reconfigured and rearmed and organized to resist.
Listen, we got another break point.
So let's just pause for a couple of minutes here and then we'll resume.
Boom.
Thank you.
We'll give it about 30 seconds more.
Thank you.
Here's Bernie Sanders saying U.S. Democrats are silent on the Gaza genocide because of fear of AIPAC.
Fear of AIPAC.
Wow.
U.S. veteran politician Bernie Sanders accused pro-Israel lobby groups, especially AIPAC, of forcibly silencing U.S. Democrats.
Using financial and political tactics to prevent them from supporting anti-war efforts, opposing Israel's horrific war on Gaza.
Sanders, 83, said in an interview with talk show host Stephen Colbert, Friday's episode of The Late Show, that his Democratic colleagues were dissuaded from speaking out on the Gaza genocide.
But it killed at least 53,119 Palestinians, and that number is just ridiculously low.
Due to threats, that pro-Israel group would fund their challengers.
The Vermont senator also compared to AIPAC's influence to Elon Musk's sway over Republicans.
I happen to believe what's going on in Gaza is horrific.
We're seeing children, now as we speak, starving to death, Sanders told Colbert.
But why do you think more Democrats are not speaking up on the issue, he asked.
If you speak on the issue, you'll have super PACs like AIPAC going after you the same way Elon Musk goes after Republicans, referencing the GOP lawmakers facing pressure.
From billionaire Musk for defying the party line, especially on issues like health care.
Musk, of course, was President Trump's largest donor in the 2024 campaign and has played a key role in his admins since the election.
Sanders also doubled down.
This is a party trying to call in, but I can't.
We'll be cut off from the studio, if I allow it.
Sanders also doubled down on his warnings about oligarchy following Trump's re-election, arguing such influence has made the government unresponsive to the needs of ordinary people.
Yes.
Bernie, I do think you got that right.
And here's more.
America is...
Very soon, I'll be closing the doors to...
Let's check this out.
You want to know why America's cooked?
It's not China.
It's not Russia.
It's this.
It's your first floor and you're walking with the kangaroo swapping.
Yes.
Oh my gosh, please.
Well, thank you so much for your community service.
Can I ask you a question?
Yeah.
I was wondering, with our community, we're going to be talking about the community.
All the support of Republicans and people who are anti-choice and people who are working to disrupt our election systems that AIPAC is doing right now.
I'm wondering why you're accepting your support.
I'm a Jew and my family lives here in this community.
Yeah.
And I really think that those kinds of candidates are making the Jewish people less safe.
I'm wondering why you're accepting that.
Well, thank you so much for coming and bringing your kiddo.
It's so nice to meet with you.
It's nice to meet you too.
I'm just wondering, I want to make life and this country a safe place for him to grow up in.
Why you would want to accept it.
I have $100,000 in ads this year.
You are a great representative and we really appreciate your support.
I'm just hoping to see you guys.
I have so many endorsements everywhere.
Bye!
Yeah, a congresswoman who purports to care about Jewish safety, but won't answer any questions from her own constituents voicing concerns about their safety.
That was Representative Haley Stevens, Democrat from Michigan's 11th District.
And this may sound like a crazy conspiracy theory, but she was placed in that seat specifically to represent Israel.
That's right.
Back in 2022, the pro-Israel lobby donated $3 million to her campaign in a safe Democrat district because they wanted to oust the incumbent, Andy Levin, an actual Jewish representative, because they deemed him not pro-Israel enough.
"APAC has targeted Levin for defeat because while he comes from a well-known Jewish political family and has voiced support for Israel's existence, he has also been sharply critical of that nation's policy towards Palestinians living in Israeli-controlled territories." "I'm really Jewish, but APAC can't stand the idea that I am the clearest, strongest Jewish voice in Congress, standing for a simple proposition."
That there's no way to have a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people unless we achieve the political and human rights of the Palestinian people.
That is all it takes, folks.
The mildest form of criticism, and you're out.
To serve in the United States Congress, you must pledge 100% allegiance to Israel.
Hence why Haley Stevens, who supposedly cares a lot about Jewish lives, can act with such disdain towards her own...
Jewish constituents.
Once again, to put it bluntly, she is not there to serve the people of Michigan.
She's there to serve Israel.
And if AIPAC and the rest of the pro-Israel lobbying apparatus even catches wind of a slight waiver in your support of Israel, you better watch out.
Here are the top 20 recipients in Congress, the House and the Senate, of APEC money in the 2022 midterm cycle, according to Open Secrets.
They're members of both parties.
They come from every corner of the country with varying levels of experience in Congress.
The Democrat Glenn Ivey of Maryland tops the list.
He beat out fellow Democrat Donna Edwards in Maryland's House primary after APEC poured millions into pro-Ivey advertisements and mailers.
Edwards was running for a second stint in Congress after serving during the Obama administration where she voted present.
Not even a no on a number of pro-Israel resolutions.
So the money poured in against her.
And next on the list is Thomas Massey of Kentucky to punish him for exposing that every Republican member of Congress has a, quote, "APAC handler."
The last thing I'll say, because I want to leave it on a positive note, a note of action, is to say that for people who maybe don't care to pay attention to politics because it's so depressing, it's a cesspool, I have a tip, a heuristic, and that is the easiest way to decide who to vote for is whichever candidate has raised the least amount of money, because that means they are more beholden to the people who vote for them and not for the people who fund them.
My name is James Lee.
This is The 5149 Show.
Thank you so much for watching.
Please subscribe for more.
I'd like that.
I'd like that.
Vote for the person who's received the less money.
Your thoughts, Russ, beginning with you.
Well, you know, when I watched something, I said, I mean, it's great that the Jewish lady went up there and challenged her.
Don't get me wrong.
I mean, it's good that you did that.
But why don't they just show the goyim doing that?
I mean, you know, you never see...
It's like the goyim can't, it's just like a little mouse over in the corner can't say a friggin' thing.
But the Jewish dissidents can.
I mean, they can step up to the plate and get publicity and get their word in.
But let's say you and I, let's say you and I had confronted that Congresswoman.
Wouldn't have gone anywhere.
You're saying, from the way they present it, the body politic consists of the...
Pro-Israel and even more pro-Israel.
And that's the only debate.
How can we be sufficiently supportive of Israel?
They're really only challenging her on the idea that she accepted money from AIPAC.
But what if you and I had asked that question?
We can't.
We wouldn't have seen the light of day.
That's the problem.
That's my big complaint.
I mean, it's nice the lady did that.
Fine.
I mean, don't take me wrong.
I'm not really criticizing her.
I just kind of want to have my shot at it, too.
Yeah, Joaquin, your thoughts?
Well, you know, the bottom line is, unless you have the money from Israel, AIPAC, you're not going to...
Get elected.
I mean, and, you know, a couple months ago, I think Trump was singling out Massey for basically, you know, going against and admitting, you know, he admitted with Tucker Carlson now about six months ago that they all have handlers and, you know, if you go against it, you're out.
So, yeah.
You basically have a better chance if the person takes the least amount.
I think that's a pretty logical point.
That's probably true.
And they are more representative of their constituents than those they get paid off the most by Israel.
That's a fascinating rule of thumb when in doubt.
Financial support, because it would be more beholden to the constituents who voted for it, more likely to act on your behalf.
You know, on X, there's an APEC tracker.
I don't know if you've seen it on APEC, the APEC tracker.
And they put up the guys that are accepting the money regularly.
So you can easily find out on APEC tracker who's taking the money.
Yeah, they come out every day on X with the latest figures on all the politicians.
Listen, here we got United States ranked 57th in world press freedom.
Can you believe that?
How awful.
Story there with the headline.
Meanwhile, Larry Johnson asked, My friends laughed at me for buying this, and now they ask me.
That's a hell of a good question.
I'm not at all sure we do.
My dear friend, thank you for joining us, accommodating my schedule.
You wrote a fascinating piece.
You write a great piece each day at Sonar 21. But you wrote a fascinating piece the other day, the essence of which is, do we still have a constitution?
Which, of course, is my other field.
And I do want to talk to you about that.
But before we get there...
This issue of the firing of two senior CIA analysts was raised over the weekend.
Again, you and Ray and I talked about it on Monday.
These two senior people, after an exhaustive study, concluded that the gang Trende-Aragua is not controlled by or affiliated with the Venezuelan government, and they were given permission to reveal their finding.
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, fired them and ordered another evaluation.
Then, this is what happened over the weekend, Secretary Rubio, without citing any source, said Trendy Aragua is controlled by the Venezuelan government.
Now, I don't know if he was saying that because that's a part of President Trump's narrative which seeps into...
His efforts to use the Enemy Alien Act or if Rubio's State Department conducted its own analysis.
But my question to you is, I guess CIA or intelligence analysis is corruptible and can be corrupted by politicians.
Oh, newsflash.
Go talk to George Allen, not the former football coach.
George Allen was in charge of the analysis during the Vietnam War and the political pressure that he encountered.
I was just recounting to someone else earlier today the story of John Reed and Bob Gates at the CIA.
So when Bob Gates was the director of intelligence, you know, headed the director of intelligence, DI, The Reagan administration was in power, and Reagan wanted to know, is Nelson Mandela a communist?
And so John Reed, the analyst, covered South Africa.
He wrote, and his bottom line was this.
Although Nelson Mandela has had associations and relationships with people who are known communists, Nelson Mandela is not a communist.
Judge, can you...
Guess which word Bob Gates changed in that assessment.
Oh, good God.
He dropped the word not?
Took not out.
Wow.
So, you know, if that's happening, you know, so yes, the intelligence is highly politicized, unfortunately.
It got worse under Biden.
So I don't, you know, I really don't know what the ground truth is right now because...
So much of the media is going to try to manufacture something to indict Trump when they're actually maybe trying to clean it up.
But on the other hand, it may be taking place.
I don't know.
A year or two ago, when Biden started funding the genocide in...
Gaza and the war in Ukraine.
You and Ray and Phil Giraldi and all of your colleagues on this show have made it crystal clear that the analysts on the ground produce raw data as best they can, as truthful as they can, as accurate as they can.
Sometimes they risk their lives to get it.
And then it's the Bob Gateses, some mid or higher level management person, that twists it so that the ultimate listener, the president, I gather that still goes on today.
How does Donald Trump know if he's getting accurate information from the intelligence community or if he's hearing what Tulsi Gabbard thinks he wants to hear?
And if the latter is the case, what has changed?
Okay, there are two filters that you have to deal with.
Filter one is the case officers in the field.
When they're collecting raw intelligence from human sources and reporting that back up the chain of command, sometimes that chain of command, what was known as the Directorate of Operations in my day, will prevent that information from getting out.
I saw that firsthand with what was going on in Central America with the war we were waging against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
A couple of analysts from the Nicaragua side went down to Honduras, and they were accosted by angry case officers saying, why aren't you putting this information out?
And they showed them all the reports that they had been generating that were pointing out that the weakness is on the side of the contrast.
Well, it turned out that their chain of command, one guy that you've had on your show, you know, Jack Devine, We're covering it up.
We're not releasing it to the Directorate of Intelligence.
So that's one filter where the DO can self-filter, prevent information from coming in that's accurate.
Then when you get to the analytical side, taking what's available and drawing conclusions and presenting that to the White House, there's also the pressure to say, oh, you can't say that.
So the prime example right now is this notion that Russia suffered terrible casualties because the Directorate of Operations is relying exclusively on information.
That's coming out of the Ukrainian sources instead of accurately reporting what's going on and using a whole variety of methods that could be used to track, such as following obituaries in Russia, looking at the size and expanse of cemeteries that are in Russia as compared to Ukraine.
A number of ways that you could tell that it's Ukraine that's suffering the overwhelming number of fatalities, not Russia.
When Donald Trump says the Russians have lost a million people, a number we know is grossly, grossly inaccurate, do you think he thinks it's true?
Do you think some intel source has told him that, whether the intel source knew it was inaccurate or not?
Yeah, yeah.
I think that's highly likely.
You know, we've got the Russians and Ukrainians have been exchanging corpses of soldiers.
And over the last three months, For each Russian body that's turned over to Russia, Russia is giving Ukraine 25 to 27 bodies each month.
In other words, it's a 27 to 1 ratio.
Now, some would argue, say, well, that's just because Russia's advancing and Ukraine's not ever able to recover the bodies of those that the Russians are killing.
And I said, okay, if that's the case, Then so much for this claim that the war is a stalemate, because it's not a stalemate, because Russia is continually moving forward.
But you've also got the disparity between the amount of artillery that Russia can fire and the limit that...
This is the quickest way to clear out stuck poop.
I have to...
That's a crazy ad.
Sneak them in.
Most casualties in war are caused by artillery.
And the 27 to 1 ratio is extraordinarily telling.
But I think what was most important is why Trump may be in a state of false belief.
That's what he's been told by his sources on whom he's relying.
Joaquin, your thoughts?
Well, he's either stupid Or he's getting misinformation, and it's probably a combination of both.
He's pig-headed and extremely stubborn and egotistical, and he filters everything through that brain.
But, you know, he isn't getting the true information either.
Everything is so politicized now.
That they're not willing to concede that they're losing the war.
It's so lopsided.
It used to be a ratio of like 1 to 10. 10 Ukrainian soldiers for 1 Russian, but now it's just wide open.
Russ?
Yeah, well, Trump's going to be completely incapable of processing anything on any issue.
It's whatever his big brain comes up with, whatever he wants to pontificate, He doesn't have any intelligence.
First of all, he doesn't have any real intelligence anyway, even if he relied on it.
And secondly, he probably doesn't rely on it and just kind of pulls it out of his ass.
So that's how he governs.
That's apparent.
We've covered that over and over and over again on our shows.
I think his senior moments are catching up to him too.
Yeah.
You want to expand?
He's just running out of gas mentally, cognitively.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, what is he?
He's pushing 79 or 8. Is he 79?
Yeah.
You know, yeah, I think he's slowing down.
And he's totally, everything's ego-driven, you know?
His defenses are aroused all the time if he thinks that he's not getting the due respect.
You know, everything is petty with him.
Yeah, like the Bruce Springsteen.
And his misjudgment.
Yeah, Bruce Springsteen examples.
I mean, that's not how a classy person interacts, even with their enemies.
I agree.
And he made a threat at the end.
He made a threat.
Well, when you come home, we'll see about that, like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gentlemen, we're approaching the conclusion of our conversation today.
Give me some final thoughts.
Russ, yours first.
The Gaza offensive is getting underway.
There's a possible attack on Iran underway.
There's probably no big offensive starting in Ukraine soon enough.
A lot of conflict going on in the world.
On the economic side, it's just kind of like running out the sand.
It's a lot of convergences of events.
Something's going to happen.
Something is going to happen.
It's just like that picture of that ship going into the bridge.
People just don't think.
They're not really steeped in reality.
Shit does happen.
Things do happen.
I hate the fact that NYU is withholding the diploma of the student who condemned the genocide.
He deserves our admiration, our applause, our congratulations.
He had the integrity, the intelligence, the courage to speak out.
In the latest example of escalating repression against Palestinian solidarity activism on U.S. campuses, NYU, has withheld the diploma of student speaker Logan Rozo after he used his commitment address to denounce Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza and U.S. complicity.
Rozo, graduating from NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, told his fellow students on Wednesday, The only thing appropriate to say at this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine.
And would you believe for that very mild statement, the university is punishing him severely and investigating him?
Joaquin, what has happened to this once great country?
Well, the same thing is happening all over.
I mean, look at our...
X now closest allies.
Here's three quick headlines.
British school kids are being taught Negroes built Stonehenge.
Canada moves to begin euthanizing children without parental consent.
80% of French women want the army deployed in French cities to protect them.
I mean, this is where we're at, folks.
It's unbelievable.
Absolutely unbelievable.
Russ, any further thoughts?
No, that last one is pretty hard to beat.
Eighty percent of these women want the army deployed.
They can't depend on the police.
The gang rapes in the UK are totally out of control.
These Pakistani gangs have been raping some 20,000 British schoolgirls and the press won't report about it.
The police won't do anything about it.
How horrific can it get?
Thank you, gentlemen.
Both of you are just excellent.
Everyone, spend as much time with your family, your friend, the people you love and care about.
We do not know how much time we have left.
Use it wisely.
Thanks for being here.
Back on Friday.
See you then.
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