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Dec. 9, 2020 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters
01:16:13
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #7
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*Music* Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Seaters for Wednesday the 18th I believe it's Wednesday the 18th of November 2020.
I'm joined by Hugo, and today we're going to be talking about whether the BBC should be state-funded, Obama's recent revelations on his book tour, and of course, we're going to begin with some US election updates because...
There's a lot going on, as you might imagine.
So I guess we'll start with the cybersecurity agency, CISA, which I can't remember actually what that stands for, but it's the cybersecurity agency that told us that the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.
There are some genuine questions to be raised about this.
They published this joint statement on their website on Thursday, which said there was no evidence of any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.
The joint statement was authored by specific members of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council's Executive Committee and members of the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council, who are named on the page.
But apparently, the Voting Machine Company members of the Sector Coordinating Council, which includes people from Dominion and Smartmatic, were nowhere to be seen on that page.
However, they can be found on CISA's Charters and Membership page.
Fox News host Lou Dobbs, who also noted that people with ties to Big Tech Secretary on the council, asked his team to ask Dominion and Smart Mask in their role, and they obviously said, we had no input, we categorically deny, and referred him back to that statement.
So it's rather circular, but, I mean, they're not exactly going to admit to have been secret contributors to this statement.
But the reason that this is interesting is because Trump has yesterday fired the head of cybersecurity.
The statement from him...
In a recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling stations, glitches in voting machines and changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.
Therefore, effective that immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as the Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
That's pretty bold, in my opinion.
But the thing is, everything Trump says there appears to have evidence that backs it.
And I assume that Chris Krebs is the guy who's ultimately responsible for that statement.
Pretty mad, to be honest.
This is...
Like, Trump's making strong moves.
The next thing that we can go on to talk about very quickly is Nevada's Clark County throws out an entire local election after a bunch of discrepancies were found.
And Trump picked up on this, but this isn't actually very relevant to Trump because this was about a local election, and so it doesn't have much effect on the presidential election, and so Trump really was kind of wrong to puff this up again on Twitter.
But there are genuine concerns about Nevada.
A lawsuit filed by former Attorney General Adam Laxalat says the Nevada Republican Party is filing a lawsuit that claims around 15,000 people voted in Nevada and other states.
He also claimed that the machine used to verify the signatures on mail-in ballots and Clark County had an integrity unit to check on it.
Previous lawsuits in Nevada have been thrown out for lack of evidence.
Let's hope they've got evidence for this one, I suppose, if you are a Trump supporter like I am, just to be clear.
I've actually seen some other info about this.
It turns out that in Nevada, you have to have been a resident for like a month or two, something like that, to be able to vote.
And if you're not, you still should vote in the old state where you used to live.
But that it wasn't really clear in some offices or something like that.
This was the problem with the rules and this is what they're alleging is that the proper procedures were not being followed because people were moving around and that might be up to 15,000 people.
Again, looks quite speculative, really, though, doesn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, so far it's been just, like, lawsuits filed, but nothing conclusive.
Yeah, nothing concrete here.
Then we can go to Michigan, which is Wayne County, which is, I believe, an outlying area near Detroit.
Which, yesterday, refused to certify electors.
And this got quite gruesome, to be honest.
According to Janet Ellis Esquire, which is part of Trump's legal council, she said, breaking this evening, they refused to certify the electors.
Huge win for Donald Trump.
So Trump obviously started tweeting about it, saying, wow, Michigan just refused to certify the election results.
Having courage is a beautiful thing.
USA stands proud.
Was there something in regards to this you wanted to bring up?
Right.
I've seen responses to this, which mentioned that, yes, it's true that they didn't certify that, but that doesn't mean that the state legislature will nominate the electors.
That means that it's going through another process.
I'm not exactly sure about that process because...
It's very bureaucratic and drawn out.
But yeah, people have been arguing that Trump is rushing ahead.
He is, yeah.
And this was like with Nevada's local Clark County elections.
I get the feeling that Trump is just amplifying anything in hopes that it causes stirs.
But this one is more interesting because after the Wayne County Board of Canvases met on Tuesday and the panel split in a 2-2 vote with two Republicans voting against and two Democrats voting for.
And then it appears that all hell broke loose.
So, Monica Palmer, one of the Republicans, said the poll books in certain precincts in Detroit and AP, the Associated Press say, a majority black city.
Thanks for telling us that, AP. Irrelevant.
Yeah.
Were out of balance.
And so, okay, fine, the poll books don't balance.
This is a reasonable thing to have concern about.
Jonathan Kinloch, a Democrat on the panel, said the discrepancies were a result of human error and called it reckless and irresponsible not to certify the results.
So...
That's weird, isn't it?
So you agree that there are errors, there are human errors, let's say the Dominion voting systems were totally above board for argument's sake, but why would we just automatically certify if you admit that there are errors?
But this line of defence seems pretty weak to me, and I think that it must seem pretty weak to the Democrats, because then you got the response from the local Detroit Democrats, and Honestly, I can only describe it as insane, frothing nonsense.
This clip that we're about to play is a part, sort of, most of a Zoom stream that they were doing, and he is furious.
He's called Ned Black Lives Matter Stabler.
That's his Twitter name.
Ned, quote, Black Lives Matter Stabler.
He's a Wayne County board member of Canvases, and let's hear what he has to say.
Thank you.
I mean...
Wrong side of history.
Yeah.
Tell us how you really feel, Ned.
That was insane.
And what I found funny about it is that the word racist didn't seem to carry the weight that he wanted it to.
You know, you'll be known as racist and then it's like, right, I have to add to that because that's just not that strong anymore.
It's not 2016 anymore.
No, it's not.
It's also interesting that he's willing to talk like that to a person that's also on the call.
I mean, I thought he was, when it started, I thought he was talking about someone else.
Like, nope.
Directly to her face.
It was incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah, so the fact that there appears to be human error, as Jonathan Kinloch put it, is enough to declare the Republicans as racist for all time that will go to hell with this stain on their conscience.
Very sane.
So he thinks not certifying the vote at the moment means disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of people?
Black people.
Yeah.
But it's just a delay, if I understand it correctly, right?
Yeah, and it's just to presumably audit whatever ballots they have there to make sure that the books balance, like a responsible board member would do.
I mean, the thing I find funny about this is that talking about, like, conscience and how their soul is going to burn in hellfire, it's like, okay, hang on, hang on, Ned.
You're really coming at this very, very hard, and to me, as an outsider, it just looks like a fairly normal bureaucratic procedure to follow if you've got this kind of inaccuracy.
So what are you trying to hide?
That's the thing that I have to ask myself.
This all sounds a bit like projection.
Also, the funny thing about it is that since the actual election night, it's been the democratic states and the swing states that have been stalling, let's say, and putting off the final count and things like that, which has been suspicious that had been pointed out by the BBC in the article before as well.
And now that it's, now that the stalling, quote unquote, is in Trump's favor, now like, see this guy reacting like this, which, yeah, that's a bit of a double standard, I'd say.
I love that this is the full force of progressive morality being flung at them here.
You know, you are being a racist for all time.
I can tell he's sincere.
Yeah, well, that's the thing.
I mean, he's definitely speaking at the sort of volume that is meant to appear that's sincere.
He sounded like he had a lot to lose.
But Kea Rubel, a Michigan reporter, tweeted out,"...in a late-night twist, the Wayne County Board of Canvassers unanimously agrees to certify the results on the condition that the Secretary of State's office conduct a comprehensive audit of the unexplained out-of-balance precincts across the county." Why would you agree to certify it before the audit has been done?
Because the audit is being done to show that it can be certified legitimately.
Jack Sobiek had been following this and just tweeted this out.
Take note of what happened tonight.
Two Republican officials in Michigan stood up to the machine.
Within minutes they were doxed, threatened, and CNN slash Polisco labelled them as racists.
Where does this behaviour lead?
Well, this appears to be just straight-up intimidation.
And it's not unusual to see left-wing activists do this.
I've had this done to me.
I've been doxed, threatened, labelled all sorts of things.
And this happens to everyone.
And I'm not too surprised that the two Republicans in Michigan, like near Detroit, would cave into this.
It's disappointing, obviously, but...
I mean, it's an area that is very, very tightly controlled by what looks kind of like a democratic mob, like the sort of party machine, and I can imagine that their lives would be living hell if, you know, I mean, they've been doxxed and threatened, and I can only imagine that it would have got worse.
So I can understand why they capitulated, but I think that this is something that has a rabbit hole that you can fall down, and I think there probably is something going on here.
Okay.
I mean, obviously, none of us support harassment on any side, but it's also good that the media and the biggest media in the US, apart from Fox News, skews left and so-so, they do a pretty good job in weeding out any kind of conservative or right-wing harassment that might be happening.
They do a great job of reporting on that, making sure that everything's followed, sometimes maybe too zealously.
But it's often the case that it's the other way around, right?
That Republicans or conservatives get harassed like that.
And this is often couched in different languages.
It's not harassment anymore.
It's community organizing, voicing opinion, protesting or something like that.
That's fine.
Those are legitimate things, but it depends on the way you do it.
If you do it in an intimidating way, if you do the things that Jake Posobiec mentioned, then that's not the way to do it on either side.
Well, of course, but it seems that it very much tends to go one way.
Yeah, that's what I wanted to point out as well.
And as someone who has been on the receiving end of it, I can tell you it's not pleasant when you've got a mob of people on the internet, like, searching around everything they can about your family and, you know, all the information's out there.
It's not fun.
But anyway, so some good news for Donald Trump in Georgia, though, as the Daily Wire report...
Thousands more votes have been discovered.
You may remember yesterday we covered how 2,600 ballots were discovered in Georgia just on a memory stick that they just forgot to upload, which was just...
How are they using memory sticks?
I don't know.
I don't...
I just...
I just...
Okay, yep.
So it's just on a memory stick.
You just forgot to upload it.
Just...
Oops.
Just a mistake.
Well, another memory stick full of ballots have been found.
This time 2,755.
Previously uncounted ones in Fayette County.
And, of course, the majority of these are for Trump.
1,577 of these are for Trump.
1,128 of them for Biden, which whittles down Biden's lead to a mere 12,929.
Georgia is going to be counting until Friday, I believe.
They've got about 5 million ballots to count.
So who knows how many more memory sticks of missing votes will turn up, and who knows what that will do to the count.
You know, when you first mentioned the pottery shards, I was kind of sceptical, but as time goes on...
As time goes on, pottery shards are the only secure way.
Like physical items, they have to be.
And there's another thing that popped up in Georgia, which is Twitter was trending this, allegations against Lindsey Graham, the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who has been under great pressure from the Democrats regarding the recount,
or the audit in Georgia, said that people on my side of the aisle had sent threatening messages saying he better not botch the state's recount of presidential ballots, implying, and he said that it was an implication, that he should be getting rid of legitimate ones.
Now, this comes against Lindsey Graham.
I watched Lindsey Graham's defense of himself on Fox News, and to be honest, it's just the kind of he said, she said, like case.
They're both making allegations.
I suppose it depends on how charitably or uncharitably you want to interpret these things.
But, I mean, I wouldn't put it past Lindsey Graham to be kind of like, you know, in the frenzy of what's going on, saying, no, just do it, man, just do it.
You know, I wouldn't put it past him.
Was that before or after he was fist-bumping with Kamala Harris?
Well, that's, yeah, I don't know.
And that's another point, isn't it?
You know, fist-bumping Kamala Harris.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's weird.
COVID, you know.
Sure, but...
How dare you not social distance, Kamala?
But, I mean, it might be nothing, obviously.
But at the same time, it might also show how...
Like, you can have politicians being very adversarial towards each other if they're facing the public, but in private they're being very amiable.
And this is something that happens in British politics a lot.
So I wouldn't be surprised if there is a kind of understanding that they are supposed to all be on the same team.
But yeah, so no particular conclusion on that one, I'm afraid.
And I suppose we should probably do a regular segment called Today in Voter Fraud in the United States?
Because again, I'm just very sick of...
The term that is used, and this is consistent throughout every media report that I've read, is...
Allegations of widespread voter fraud.
And it's the word widespread that's doing all the heavy lifting here, because what the logical inference from this is, if it's not widespread, then it's not really a problem, and it's not really happening, and therefore we don't need to think about it.
But this is just a report from California, how a pair of men have been charged with submitting thousands of fraudulent applications on behalf of homeless people.
Which again, as our Philadelphia Democrat, was it Philadelphia?
I can't remember which one it was, but the New York Post's Democratic Insider who claimed that this is something they can do, is just essentially filling ballots for homeless people.
And that's also what has been reported, or had been reported before the election went through, that this is a practice that a lot of people have been worried about.
Ballot harvesting, I think that's called.
It's basically taking ballots from people and saying, we'll submit it for you.
You don't have to worry about it.
You don't have to go outside the house.
It's fine.
And it's not something that is just being brought up since the election right now when it's all up in the air, but it was before as well.
So these are incredible things that were a problem before.
Yeah, were understood to happen before this election.
And again, the idea that there is just no question and nothing to discuss in regards to voter fraud.
Well, people keep getting arrested for it.
People keep getting charged for it.
So if there's nothing to discuss, I don't know what the legal system in the United States is doing.
But this was a 53-year-old Carlos Antonio de Bourbon Montenegro, who goes by the pseudonym Mark Anthony Gonzalez and Marcos Raul Arvalo, apparently submitted more than 8,000 fraudulent voter registration applications between July and October 2020. fraudulent voter registration applications between July and October 2020.
He apparently falsified the names, addresses and signatures on nomination papers under penalty of perjury to run for mayor in the city of Hawthorne, facing 15 years in prison.
So this, again, local election.
But again, you can see that 8,000 ballots, that's not...
There's not nothing.
In the local elections, there might actually be quite a lot.
It's huge, probably.
You know, it's absolutely huge.
And finally, for today's update on the presidential elections, and this has been my favorite part of the whole thing, Joe Biden doesn't want divisive investigations into the elections or into Donald Trump or anything like this.
He just wants to smooth this all over and carry on as if nothing happened.
Apparently, according to unnamed advisors close to Joe Biden, he's told his advisors he doesn't want his presidency to be consumed by the investigations of his predecessor.
to be consumed by the investigations of his predecessor.
He raised concerns that investigations would further divide the country.
And he raised concerns that investigations would further divide the country.
He doesn't want any kind of investigations, really.
He doesn't want any kind of investigations, really.
He just wants to be more oriented towards fixing the problems and moving forward.
He just wants to be more oriented towards fixing the problems and moving forward.
Interestingly, this is what Julius Caesar did as he returned across the Rubicon from Gaul.
He announced a policy of what was just basically blanket clemency to encourage people to come over to his side and accept his position in the civil war to legitimize himself.
And so Biden appears to be following exactly the same tack.
But as NBC report, it'll be difficult for Biden to avoid the issue altogether, given the expected calls for investigation into an array of issues involving Trump.
And this has been raising the question, should he pardon Trump?
And the answer I have is, what for?
What would they actually do?
I mean, he's been impeached, he's been investigated on the Russiagate and all of these other things, and literally nothing has come of it.
I mean, that doesn't mean that obviously a lot of things that Trump could be legitimately...
Could be.
People could go after him for some things, like he's continued a lot of the wars and done terrible things there and stuff like that.
I would dispute that.
I mean, he has continued, I suppose, makes it sound more active than I think that Trump is actually in this regard.
I mean, especially if the generals are going to lie to him about the troop numbers that are in Syria and things like this.
He has been trying to bring troops back.
That's a good point.
And he has been trying to make peace around the world.
The thing I'm worried about is Yemen.
That's the big one.
And I think Trump mentioned it once or twice during his presidency.
It's going to be more obviously, but nothing major.
And he's done nothing much about it.
And honestly, I'm quite disappointed.
But I don't know if I should have expected something else.
At the same time, what I wanted to say is that the things that people fault Trump for, on those counts, there appears to be nothing for Trump to be pardoned for.
I mean, he seems to be worthy of being nominated for Nobel Peace Prizes.
A lot of people.
The EU has a Nobel Peace Prize.
Obama as well.
Sure, but Trump got five nominations.
No, I'm joking.
I know, I know.
I'm not saying that's a great metric.
No, I'm not categorically against Trump or anything like that.
No, no, of course.
But he seems to have done a generally good job, doesn't he, in international policy.
The recent news from the Middle East seemed to be great, honestly.
That's something that I had not expected at all.
It's fantastic.
And the sort of thawing of relations with rogue regimes like North Korea and stuff like this, it's generally been fairly good.
But what's interesting is in May 15, 2020, Biden said that he wouldn't pardon Trump.
And that's interesting.
So, I mean, maybe he'll change his position.
But he hasn't said whether he would or wouldn't pardon Trump recently.
So it's just the question has been up.
So, the notable exception from today's update is Rudy Giuliani's filings.
These were done yesterday, and there's been a bunch of stuff, but honestly, I haven't had time to go into them.
I wanted to just knock off these ones just to say that we've covered them.
Any particular thoughts on them?
Well, I wanted to pick up on what you said earlier about the widespread word issue.
Because the way that American elections work, you don't actually have to have widespread fraud everywhere, a significant way, to make it change something, right?
If you have one or two swing states, in this case you have four, obviously.
Four or five?
Oof.
But if you have one swing state where it's really close, you don't have to have widespread voter fraud to swing the election, right?
You don't even have to have widespread fraud within that state to swing the election.
Exactly.
So you can have it localized nationally, and then it can be actually a small number of votes change overall, right?
And so, we've been bringing that up, but in the 2000 election, you had Florida disputed, and that was over less than 600 votes, right?
And so, we counted it several times, and it turned out that Bush had won.
Yeah.
No one will be able to tell whether it was actually the case or not.
That's not relevant now.
But it was that then, right?
And Florida was the state that was swinging the election for either candidate.
So if you can have less than a thousand votes swinging an election, you can have a very mild case of voter fraud, but it's still very important.
Yeah, that's absolutely true.
And this is in fact exactly what was told to us in the 2016 BBC article about spotting the likely signs of vote fraud, all of which apparently have turned up in the US election from the evidence that we've seen.
And you're absolutely right.
And it's not as if the Democrats wouldn't have known in advance the states from their own internal polling and their own operatives on the ground about how particular places swing, so they'd know where to target in advance as well.
This is the machine in action.
But yeah, so it's still all to play for with the presidential elections.
Numbers are tightening.
There seem to be definite discrepancies.
And the Democrats themselves seem to be losing their minds, screeching racist but even daring to investigate.
It's still going to be a lot of fun.
Yeah, and imagine if Trump ends up actually being made president again.
I mean, they're going to lose it.
But anyway, let's switch gears.
Yep, talk about Obama.
No, no, the BBC. We'll do Obama last, sorry.
Right.
So I want you to talk about the issue of the funding of the BBC. It's been an issue that has been a long time in the news by now.
And it's still relevant because the BBC is still funded as it is, which I'm going to explain in a second.
But Boris Johnson has been talking about it on and off.
For a couple of months now and he's actually pushed off the reform of the BBC because of the new lockdowns and because of everything that's going on.
And so right now it's on hold and we'll see how it goes in the future.
The issue is over the state funding of the BBC. So, how it works in the UK. Everyone has to pay a license, basically.
And you can have an exemption from having to pay the license.
But the exemptions are really unclear.
The rules are kind of convoluted.
So...
You have to pay, even if you have a TV and you're watching different channels, but you're watching them live, if I understand correctly.
If not, please correct me.
As I understood it, it's if you have a terrestrial television.
No, I think...
Has that changed?
I think that might have changed, because if you have...
Again, if I understand correctly, because it's really very complicated.
If you're watching BBC, but you're watching it on demand and not live, then you don't have to pay the license fee.
But if you're watching ITV or things like that or other means, or radio, then you have to pay.
So, there's a thin line and some people say that it's deliberately thin.
For example...
So, the BBC campaign said that the BBC have made the license fee rules deliberately unclear in order to keep people coughing up.
And that's kind of what it seems to be as well.
The express.co.uk said that, quote, pensioners are terrified of legal threats...
Basically, people coming in their homes or sending them mail saying, like, you could be facing jail time or something like that if you don't pay.
And then there's a report saying that every year, tens of thousands of Brits are convicted for failing to pay their TV license fees.
That's from 2017, and I imagine that's publicly available as well.
And so this is kind of the situation where even if you actually shouldn't pay the fees because of the way you… The Byzantine regulation makes it hard to understand.
Exactly.
And so you're making sure that you pay it just to avoid any risk of imprisonment because you can actually go to prison for that.
And that might have changed as well because I've seen some news around that in this year.
So it might just be fines now, but it's still significant.
So you don't want to pay huge fines on that.
And so there's been also criticism over, quote, immoral debt collection during lockdown.
Basically, people are getting visits in their homes, which might be Not safe amid coronavirus and they are being threatened and they're being forced to give them money.
And the Tory MP Tim Davey said on this count, quote, So this is basically what some of the Tories are saying.
It's been basically one of the major things that they've been focusing on, apart obviously from the big news of the coronavirus and things like that.
But this has been something that they've had a decent track record on, apart from actually not scrapping the TV license, right?
Yeah.
Yes, so I get a couple more quotes from people who support defunding the BBC. When I say defunding the BBC, it's actually not exactly accurate because it might be that if you scrap the mandatory license fee,
people are still going to pay and people will still want to subscribe to the BBC. It might end up with a similar amount of money that it has now, but it might be a little bit less, let's say, and so the BBC might be forced to make some adjustments to be more Scale back, yeah.
Yeah, to be more careful with their money, right?
Because that's also been a major theme that… Well, one of the things that has been recently happening, I mean, they've got a new director general that's been appointed by the conservatives.
And I believe it was he.
He said that the BBC essentially is vast and does not need to be as big as it is.
It provides way more services than is practical.
Yeah.
I don't think it was him that suggested it should be a voluntary subscription, but that's been floated around as well recently, which was treated with horror by the previous Director-General, because we know what would happen.
Sorry, Karen.
We say we know what will happen, but it's likely because of the way that the BBC is run, but it's not inevitable.
It's not something that has to happen.
It's something that is likely to happen if the BBC continues on its course.
It depends if they can purge the wokeness from it.
That's part of it, definitely.
If they're going to continue with the attitude and the general direction in which the BBC was going in, they're going to end up like Vice News, laying off loads of people.
Fair enough.
I think one of the big problems with the BBC as well was that some of its presenters and people that work there, they actually receive loads of money.
Huge live of pay.
Yeah, exactly.
So this is, for example, something that could be improved.
I mean, I don't mean to judge.
If someone deserves that money, good for them.
But at the same time, right now, it's state-funded.
So there's...
It's not like there's checks on where the money goes, right?
And the argument from the BBC there is they have to be competitive with the private markets, so they have to offer really high salaries.
And to be honest with you, I don't disagree, but what I disagree with is that I have to be forced to pay for a service that is offering these really high salaries.
If the argument is that they need to be competitive, I mean, they should also compete, right?
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
Yes.
So if less money goes to the BBC, if it's made non-mandatory, then it might be actually forced to trim down on these high salaries and on these wasteful things, right?
It might be perfectly good.
It might continue the way it is now, but no one's going to care because it's private, right?
Yeah.
And so the Brexit party chairman, Richard Tice, he said about this, quote, It's about the overall concept of forcing people in today's world to pay a fixed amount for a series of services that, frankly, many people no longer want.
It just feels in today's world, when there's so much competition, you can get effectively almost all of what the BBC offers from other people.
That's how competition works.
And he's exactly right.
I mean, You have so many news channels, you have networks, and you have us.
Many, many options.
You can watch Lotuses.
So you have many other options.
So there is no good argument, in my opinion, why just one of these should have an exception.
Should have a privileged status.
Exactly.
It's basically a privilege.
And so the frequent defences, the common defences of why it should stay the way it is, I think two are the most prominent.
The first one is that it offers unbiased journalism.
That is important because all the other commercial stations, commercial networks, basically have their interest...
Affected or dictated by the owners.
Do we stand by that charge of unbiased journalism on the BBC? That's actually what I wanted to address.
Sorry, I didn't mean to jump in.
No, no, that's okay.
I've got good quotes here.
The journalist Toby Young for The Spectator said, quote, The BBC in particular seems to have become a propaganda arm of the state.
Normal journalistic standards have been abandoned and it just regurgitates the views of the public authorities, transmits nightly death porn to terrify people into compliance and regularly warns its viewers and listeners about the fake news circulating on social media. transmits nightly death porn to terrify people into compliance and Often something condemned as misinformation one week, for example, that face masks protect against infection, becomes government policy next.
And the BBC's phalanx of reporters all swivel by 180 degrees like a well-drilled marching band.
So this is what some people think of the unbiased journalism that the BBC produces.
Yeah, I mean, I've been on the receiving end of their unbiased journalism, and I didn't feel it was particularly neutral or objective.
But this is the thing, the BBC, everyone's interest is essentially laid at their pay packet, and theirs comes from the state.
So, that's what they defend.
Yeah, and I think you'll be able to recall a lot of problems or a lot of cases where it was a serious issue, how the BBC covered certain events, right?
So you made some videos about that in the past, basically showing that it's very far from unbiased journalism.
Yeah, and so on the screen now is the BBC's budget.
I was actually surprised to find out that it's surprisingly stable.
It's not going up too much, but it's still a huge amount of money.
So as you can see, it's… Five billion a year?
Four billion.
Four billion.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know if everyone can see it properly.
Right, right.
License fee income is three and a half billion and then one and a half billion from other income.
Yeah, yeah.
And the other income is divided into advertising and then some grants from other people.
But for anyone who doesn't know, when you're abroad and you go to the BBC website, you get adverts.
So basically $5 billion a year if you count both the sources.
And so that's a huge amount of money for $1 billion.
Well, that was the complaint, though, because there are so many different services that the BBC has, and some of them are quite niche and not very well viewed or very well regarded, and the idea of taking a bit of chopping an axe to the BBC and chopping it down a bit, at least pruning back the branches, is probably a very good idea.
Yeah, exactly.
And so the other defense of the BBC that I think is important and frequently cited is that it's important for the public.
It's public service.
It's something that is in the interest of everyone, basically.
So that...
So that they can rely on something in case something happens, right?
So I thought I'd check some polls or opinions of people that people have over the BBC, right?
And so the first thing, it's not the thing on the screen now, but it's a YouGov poll, which has been...
That's not on there, John.
It's a YouGov poll that found that 35% are willing to pay more than what they're paying now to ensure that the BBC is able to provide the services that it provides now.
And 56% are willing to pay less or nothing.
There's a huge disparity between those groups.
And if only 35% of the people actually have enough faith in the BBC to continue what they're doing and that it's good, then that doesn't say much about the argument.
No, it doesn't.
And I find it very interesting how it's always roughly this kind of third number, because I think that this is the sort of percentage of the country that is heavily remain Lib Dem or Labour voting, have very strong opinions on Brexit, and I think they're the people who think that the BBC are doing a very good job.
And there's also going to be quite a significant overlap between those groups of people and people who think that state ownership of things is a good idea.
And so they often have this kind of romantic view of state-owned businesses, basically.
And so if the BBC is state-owned, it's automatically good.
Or at least it's automatically better than if it was privately owned.
Yeah.
And so this is going to be a factor for some people as well.
Yep.
Right.
So the next poll that I have here is a poll by Svanta Comres.
That's the company that does the polling.
And it's from October.
And it's a great headline.
Yeah, so that's basically the conclusion.
For anyone listening, the headline is BBC News.
Humiliating polls shows majority of Brits demand license fee reform.
Humiliated BBC. That's a bit sensational, but it's not too far from the truth because you've got basically four takeaways from it.
Three of them, I think, are in this article, but the fourth isn't.
And those are that a third of the people are happy with how the BBC is being run.
34% think that the money that BBC gets is being spent unreasonably.
And so that might mean several things.
That might mean something else.
Could be any number of reasons.
And then you have 43% that think that BBC no longer reflects British values.
Yeah.
And that's kind of interesting because that touches on what we were talking about earlier about unbiased journalism, right?
And a big thing cited in relation to this figure and this kind of statement was BBC's coverage of Brexit.
And complaints that the BBC was very pro-Remain and that it wasn't being fair at all.
And so a lot of people got really bitter about this because they thought they were not being represented by the BBC even though they should have.
And I just want to say my opinion is that is a totally justified position to have.
I'm one of those people!
Because, I mean, the fact that they say that it's not representing British values is important, because it goes to show you that it's not really, for a lot of people, about any one particular policy, any one particular thing, but it's about a kind of impression that they come away with on a moral level, a question of moral values.
And it is, I mean...
If you go back 20 or 30 years, the BBC did represent a kind of very mainstream, central, political, moral compass, and now I do think that that's just shifted far to the left.
You can see it with all of the sort of woke coverage and woke media that they produce.
There's definitely a strain of that, though.
But also, those things were much smaller back then than now, or non-existent, right?
So you could interpret it differently.
You could say that since there's social media, since there's so many different sources now that people can choose from, the kind of central...
Oh, sorry.
This kind of central narrative that used to be present in a lot of countries and a lot of societies is getting fragmented because people don't trust the same source.
So the same sources are not able to construct the same narrative as being reliable or something trustworthy, right?
And so it might just be that it's always been this way, but people have just been getting information from other sources as well in recent years.
And so this kind of conflict is more pronounced.
Well, you've led us really well into the Obama interviews that I want to talk about, actually, because this is one of the things that has led up to this.
So the final thing we're going to talk about is Barack Obama has come out against the Internet, and he's decided the Internet is actually the problem, and it's for many of the reasons you've just listed there, Hugo, actually.
So he's been doing a bunch of book tours for a book that he's released called Promised Land or A Promised Land.
Remarkably utopian sounding, but he's also clearly making severe commentary on the current political environment.
And I think that his interpretation of these things is really fascinating.
So he did this 60 Minutes interview where he talks about things like the cleavages in the body politic, where people are incredibly divided, and the current media landscape is one that facilitates something he calls truth decay.
Where things that are true are not being agreed upon by both sides, such as false claims of voter fraud that never happen.
I don't know why anyone would say such a thing.
This, again, is just an untrue statement, according to Obama.
And he thinks that Republicans are pursuing this because they're doing anything for power.
Again, whenever I hear, like, the other Democrat chap saying your conscience is going to get you for this, I always hear projection when I hear this, because I just think, well, what did you guys do?
But the funny thing about this interview is when he was told that Biden got the highest number of votes ever, Obama didn't even flinch.
He was just like, yep, as if that was totally expected, totally normal.
And even Trump got like 8 million more than Obama got.
Something like that he got the first time, sorry, that Trump got the first time.
So like, you would think that that would have been explored.
But he said that.
He said that right after.
He said that Biden got the highest number of votes.
And then he said that Trump got 8 million more votes than last time.
Which, I mean, if you listen to it and you're not paying attention, you're not going to connect dots.
But it also means that That Trump must have gotten a really high number as well, like record numbers as well, because otherwise, Biden, like, 8 million is a lot, and Trump won last time, even though it wasn't the popular vote.
Yeah, but he didn't even flinch at the numbers, and I find that really interesting, because, I mean, in one way, it's a massive dunk on him from Biden.
I mean, is Biden really that much more popular than you are, Obama?
I don't believe it.
That's a good point, actually.
And he just goes, yep.
He's looking at the guy and he's like, really?
That's just, again, nothing unusual there.
Nothing to discuss there.
Why Biden is nearly 10 million more votes more popular than Obama, and why Trump's nearly 5 million more votes more popular.
You would think there would be some reflection there.
But he said at about nine minutes in that he wanted to work with media and tech companies to separate truth from fiction.
And that George Floyd's death will allow a reckoning with America's past to occur.
Which, I mean, this is the very essence of Obama's perspective on the United States and what the divisions are.
But we'll get to explaining them in a minute because they are irreconcilable.
But he does recognize that Trump is not the cause, he's the effect.
And the media landscape has changed to become more partisan, which is true.
But the 60 Minutes interview wasn't the best one.
The best one that he did was the Atlantic interview that was published yesterday.
So I'm going to read a couple of quotes, and then we'll talk about them, because they're really great.
So, talking about division, he says, I come out of this book very worried about the degree to which we do not have a common baseline of fact and a common story.
This is talking about the BBC issue that you were talking about, because, as he says, we don't have a Walter Cronkite describing the tragedy of Kennedy's assassination, but also saying to supporters and detractors alike of the Vietnam War that this is not going the way the generals in the White House are telling us.
Without this common narrative, democracy becomes very tough.
And, again, this is very dangerous to our democracy, is what we're hearing here.
But it is their democracy.
It's their narrative.
It's the narrative they sign off on, and they're very annoyed that there are large sections of the American public who are not just in accordance with it.
And I think that they have good reasons that we'll get to.
So if the viewers don't know what you just mentioned, or you went over it in recent podcasts, just Google Media Borg, MSN Borg.
Yeah, MSN Borg, yes.
And he says, remember, the point of the media, the way he's describing it, is to act as a bonding agent, so both sides can come together.
And there is definitely some truth in what he's saying here, right?
But the problem is, is the two positions that he not necessarily represents, but has facilitated, and the Obama position and the Trump position are diametrically opposed.
The Trump position comes from the idea of America as a sort of sainted country.
There's something sacred about it.
It's a great mission.
It's a great thing that they're doing.
And conversely, Obama seems to come from, well, A much more skeptical perspective on that, which I think can be summed up by Obama's own pastor, Mr.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who in 2007 or 2008, just before Obama was elected, was, as Obama puts it, two minutes of videotape in which my pastor is in kente cloth cursing out America.
Can we play clip two very quickly?
Can we play?
Can we play?
Some amazing energy.
The democratic preachers tend to, don't they?
Whether they're in local parties or on big stages.
But I mean, I didn't detect any lies.
He was saying that… America has done things that are wrong.
No, that you had government policy in the past, which has persecuted people of colour.
And that's undeniably true.
And he also said, I feel like in the beginning of this clip, you showed the middle part.
Yeah, he goes through a series of things that America did do.
Yeah, but he specifically was saying, The government did this, the government did that, right?
And so he was specific about his criticism, about saying, like, this was a law there, this was law here, this was done to them by the state.
And so I think that that's actually a good point because he was – when he was saying damn America, he wasn't saying damn America as a country.
He was saying damn American government, right?
And I think that's an important distinction to be made because a lot of right-wing people and a lot of American conservatives would do exactly the same thing, right?
But I think you're being too charitable to him there because, again, rhetorically, he came out and said, we're told to say, God bless America.
No, God damn America.
He's not saying the American government there.
He's saying America as a concept, as a country.
Is he though?
And so this is like, again, it's categoric.
Donald Trump is God save America.
Obama comes out of a tradition that is actually God damn America.
And I'm not saying they're not justified on either side.
There's definitely true statements that Jeremiah is making, but it's about the question of the sort of cohesiveness of the society.
And if one side is, your country is awful and I want God to damn it, and the other side is, my country is amazing and I want God to bless it, I don't see what kind of real interaction they can have.
But I really have to disagree with you on this, because when Obama was in power, you would have conservatives saying, this is not the way it should be, or when any democratic party...
Yeah, but let's just take the two sides, right?
Each time a Democrat is in power, you have conservatives saying, basically, this is not how it should be.
The government is being evil.
They'll say the Democrats are being evil.
Yeah, but the government is doing awful things, and it's not dignified in such a great country.
And so I think that this might be happening here as well, but just in the opposite direction.
And why I insist on it so much is just because of the beginning of the clip where he's specifically talking about government, this, government, that.
And he says it like 50 times or something like that.
He does, he does.
And it's the historical continuity that you were talking about that he kind of alleges.
I think that he might see it in the culture as well.
I'm not speaking that.
I don't really know much about that person.
But at the same time, you have a lot of laws, a lot of policies in the US, which… We're good to go.
You can even make that case, even though you might not want to condemn the entire culture or the entire country, which I don't see why you would have to do that.
I think you are ascribing to him a level of nuance that I don't think he necessarily holds, or certainly the people who are listening to that sermon also hold.
And I agree with you that you are right, that he does say the government, but then he just expands this into America.
Fair enough.
I might be completely wrong, and his other public appearances and his other speeches might prove what you're saying, but I'm saying the feeling I get from this speech is what I said.
Right, okay.
Well, that's fair.
But I think that the general trend of what we'll just call the radical left movement in the Democratic Party has picked up on this premise, this stream of thought that begins from the premise that America is I know,
but… He also talks about it further.
Let's say that I'm right for a second.
And if the past is actually just like talking about government policies and not the culture and not the country as a whole, then if Obama learned from him and he has kind of the same view, let's say, then Obama is not necessarily part of that whole movement that sees America as intrinsically wrong and evil and Hitler, right?
And so...
Because, also, Obama named his book The Promised Land.
It seems to me like he likes America and he likes being there and people and everything, but he just sees a lot of things that are bad.
And that sounds like I'm supporting what Obama's doing or what Obama's saying.
I don't want to be procedural as that.
Jeremiah Wright endorsement right there.
No, it's just that you might be right.
He might be in the radical part.
Let me finish my case because I appreciate where you're coming from.
You are right.
And this is what the squad also appeal to.
That the United States is not fulfilling its promise.
And that's true because the promise of the American Revolution is a big one.
And people at the time framed it as if it was for all mankind, which is why these people are globalists.
They expect all mankind to be the inheritors of the American project.
But I think if, and I agree with you that Obama, I don't think he is the radical who is like, America was evil, it's conceived in sin, even though he may have been to various pastors who think the same.
And I think that he is in some way responsible for sort of wet-nursing the radical left opinion, that that is the case.
And I don't think it's unfair to say that the radically left position is that America is a kind of uniquely evil nation because of slavery.
And so I'm not saying that's necessarily Obama's position himself, but I think there's a very blurred boundary between Obama's views and those views, which I'll come to in a bit.
I agree with you completely that Obama might be a part of this.
To say a part of it, not consciously, but he seems to be just opening the door to these ideas.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what I actually wanted to say.
He might actually be a part of it, in his mind, in the way that he sees things.
But what's, I think, indisputable is that he's unenabled for this.
He's allowed these people to become more prominent, and he's amplified them as well.
So this is definitely his fault.
But the thing that he's identifying, I think, is true.
And I think it is this position that America is irredeemably evil or America is unblemishably good.
And I think these are the two situations that we find ourselves in.
And in fact, he's got just the best quote here.
And it's a real shame that this wasn't on video, because the clip of this would be hilarious.
But he says this.
Now you have a situation in which large swathes of the country genuinely believe that the Democratic Party is a front for a paedophile ring...
This stuff takes root.
I was talking to a volunteer who was going door-to-door in Philadelphia in low-income African-American communities and was getting questions about QAnon conspiracy theories.
I mean...
Yeah, I can barely say it without laughing.
Now, I'm just saying, Obama, I guess we have some questions.
Who killed Jeffrey Epstein?
How many times did Bill Clinton fly on his plane?
And why was Hillary Clinton the previous nominee?
I mean, like, front for a pedo ring, there are questions.
There are genuine questions that have to be answered there.
Uh...
So just saying, you know, if there are people who genuinely believe this, what it is, is about your failure to address the reasons, the honest and transparent reasons, that Bill Clinton would fly on the Lolita Express 26 times.
According to the flight manifest.
It might be a nothing bug, but it's on you.
Exactly.
Exactly.
It might be nothing.
And hey, if for some reason Bill Clinton flies 26 times on the jet of a convicted pedophile and a man who was suicided in jail for doing it again after he was arrested again, then you better come up with a bloody good explanation as to why Bill Clinton kept flying on that guy's plane.
Especially if Bill Clinton was photographed with one of the victims getting a back massage in an airport.
There are just questions.
Real questions that have to be answered.
And Obama's saying things like this.
This is the single biggest threat to our democracy.
I think Donald Trump's a creature of it, but he did not create it.
He may be an accelerant of it, but it preceded him and will outlast him.
Yes, but it's because you are not being transparent.
And this appears to be evidence that suggests that there is foul play at hand.
But, again, I just can't believe he actually came out and said that people believe the Democratic Party is a front for a paedophile ring.
Well, it's only because of the paedophiles who were arrested consorting with high-level Democrats.
Like, come on.
I mean, people have been pointing out that Donald Trump knew Epstein as well, but it just doesn't stick.
Well, that's because Donald Trump disavowed him and banned him from his Florida Malibu club.
But anyway, so Obama says that the division – where he thinks the division is coming from is – it is coming from tech companies.
But he says, I don't hold the tech companies entirely responsible because this predates social media.
I was already there.
But social media has turbocharged it.
I know most of these folks have talked about them.
They've got to the degree which they think that the social media companies themselves are insisting that they're like a phone company – Rather than like The Atlantic, which is the publication he's interviewing, he says he does not think are tenable.
They are making editorial choices, whether they've buried them in algorithms or not.
The First Amendment doesn't require private companies to provide a platform for any of you out there.
At the end of the day, we're going to have to find a combination of government regulations and corporate practices that address this, because it's going to get worse.
If you can perpetrate crazy lies and conspiracy theories with just text, imagine what you can do when you can make it look like me or you are saying anything on a video with deep fakes.
This is a surprisingly salient point from Obama, but again, it comes from the remoteness of the people who are being accused.
They are billionaires, they travel around the world, they've got connections with All sorts of people.
You can just have a look at Epstein's black book, which an unredacted version was leaked to the internet.
So we know who he's been consorting with, and we know what he's been convicted of, and then he mysteriously dies in jail.
So essentially, you have to just do a kind of public livestream or something.
Do a town hall, whatever it is.
But take the hard questions.
You've got to be able to give good explanations.
We may want to point out that just being on his list in his little black book is not a conviction of anything.
No, of course not.
But it's a good tip to investigate.
It raises major questions.
And, you know, Prince Andrew as well being there.
Virginia Guffrey's testimonies against him.
Like, there is...
Look at Prince Andrew's interview.
That's just amazing.
It's wild.
Yeah, he's not sweating.
But yeah, so there are genuine questions.
And...
When people feel that they aren't getting answers, they're going to feel as if they're being lied to and that something is being hidden.
And it's very difficult to tell them that it doesn't look like something's being hidden because it really looks like it is.
And it seems that, frankly, you can't have transparency.
Because of...
I mean, like, I believe that something really nefarious is going on too.
It looks like it, you know?
And I don't want to trust my lying eyes all the time, but with no explanation whatsoever from the powers that be, what are people supposed to think?
But anyway...
There haven't been any good attempts at explaining this thing.
No, there's none at all.
You would expect people to kind of, if this is big, if this is popular, you would expect them to address it and say, no, this is the explanation that we want to give.
This is why it was okay and nothing would happen.
This is why it's fine that Bill Clinton keeps flying on Epstein's Lolita Express.
But nothing like that came out, right?
You're a conspiracy theorist.
No one has offered any explanation, any plausible explanation there could be.
Even if you wanted to believe them, they didn't come up with anything.
Yeah, I can't even give them a charitable interpretation.
Because they just said, no, you're a conspiracy theorist.
Shut up.
It's like, yeah, but we have evidence.
And so what Obama's thoughts on this basically boil down to is agree with us or things won't get better.
He says this, what I've always believed is that humanity has the capacity to be kinder, more just, more fair, more rational, more reasonable, more tolerant.
It is not inevitable.
History does not move in a straight line.
If you have enough people of goodwill who are willing to work on behalf of those values, things can get better.
America as an experiment is genuinely important to the world not because of the accidents of history that made us from the most powerful nation on Earth, But because America is the first real experiment in building a large, multi-ethnic, multicultural democracy, and we don't know yet if that can hold.
What I think this boils down to is essentially you have to agree with me or things can't proceed.
And that's not a fair point because, like I said, Obama personally might not have the thought that America is evil, but he does say we need to have a reckoning with our past.
I mean, the Americans need to have a reckoning with their past.
I mean, what does that even mean?
You know, that seems to open the door to reparations, to reappropriation, to, I don't know, public censure or, you know, shamings.
I don't know.
I mean, what does he even want?
I mean, the whole unity divisiveness debate is kind of ridiculous.
It is.
Because, like, the word divisive, I can't remember who said it just now.
Sorry about that.
But it's basically that...
Biden.
But the quote that divisiveness is basically, you're not doing what I want.
Which is basically what Obama is saying openly.
He's not hiding it.
You can see it from the quote that you just said.
Things can get better if you're willing to work on behalf of those values and the values that he's espousing.
Maybe we're not though.
And I think the last part of the quote is kind of interesting because he said that America is the first real experiment in building a large multi-ethnic, multicultural democracy.
And we don't know if that can hold.
But that's an interesting statement because it might be that, but it's not exactly the democracy part, which is the central part, which has been the central part in history, right?
It has been large, multi-ethnic, multicultural, But it hasn't always been a strong democracy, right?
Universal suffrage, modern democracy.
Not just that, but only...
It's been intensifying in recent history that now you have much more scope in the US government for...
For being able to, as a group, force our views on another group, right?
Because there's a much larger scope for democracy.
So if you have these groups, whatever it might be, racial, cultural, language, It might be whatever, but if you have these large groups, they're basically pitted against each other because each is competing for basically imposing control over the others.
Resources, influence, recognition.
And so if those things are not done politically, if basically democracy has a smaller scope, you don't fight that much over this control, so you don't have that much social strife.
And that's what he's kind of forgetting, that was a large part of American history.
Yes.
But anyway, so returning to the sort of, you know, part of the common narrative was a function of the major three networks and a handful of papers that were disproportionately influential.
And you can't put that genie back in the bottle.
You're not going to eliminate the internet.
You're not going to eliminate the thousands of stations on air with niche viewerships.
Designed for every political preference.
Without this, it becomes very difficult for us to tackle big things.
And in regards to the coronavirus, he means let's do what the science tells us to do to save lives.
He's true.
He's right.
The genie is out of the bottle.
And this is why...
The only answer to this problem is, frankly, kind of blanket transparency.
You just have to tell everyone what has happened.
And this is a meme from Gabe Newell, the creator of Steam.
Just never lie to the internet.
They'll catch you and they'll never let you forget.
And it's right.
4chan exists.
Exactly.
It's not just 4chan, but it's just like...
I know, but they're good at it.
They're very good at it.
But it just essentially means absolute transparency.
If you want to have a kind of cohesive bonding agent...
I mean, even if the people don't like you, they will at least accept that you have been transparent, if you've been transparent.
But no one can do that in the case of the Democratic Party and their connections to people like Epstein and Ghislaine.
No one can do that.
You can't...
I wouldn't trust the...
The denial or the allegations that are leveled at people who are concerned about this for the life of me.
I just think it's ridiculous.
And finally, I know we're running out of time, but I hate this.
Let's do what the science tells us to do to save lives.
I don't take moral instruction from science.
I don't think anyone should.
I mean, science has instructed people to do some horrific things in the past hundred years.
It really hasn't been very long.
Since we just take science, and this is the sort of core of scientism.
It doesn't tell you what morally is right or wrong.
But even if it did, there's no consensus.
Well, I mean, let's not even concede the premise, because it doesn't.
Science tells us absolutely nothing about what moral right and wrong are.
Science tells us about what the state of the world is.
Is it made of word?
Is it made of whatever?
It doesn't tell us how we should do things.
And it's up to our own moral philosophy, frankly, to be able to actually articulate that ourselves.
Yeah, and also, this is not just about either science or philosophy.
The corona issue is mainly about trade-offs, and economics is the science of trade-offs.
So that's a huge part of what you need to do and what you need to consider if you are commenting on this.
It's not, like, you can't just take something that you call science and then say, that's going to be the law of the land.
This is what's generally termed as scientism, and I think that's a very useful term, because it just, like, let's just essentially allow scientists to dictate our lives.
It's like, no, I've known too many scientists to know that they don't actually make prudent decisions with their own personal lives.
I used to work at the research council, I used to meet scientists a lot, and I'm not taking their advice.
I'm not taking their advice.
They might be perfectly good and amiable people, but it doesn't speak to their personalities.
And it's not that they're bad people.
It's just they make bad decisions.
But anyway, should we go to a few questions?
Harian Gladev says, really enjoying these podcasts, lads.
Here's some money while the site's down, so I can at least give some support.
Thank you so much, Harian.
Yeah, the site update, well, it's been worked on very intensely by the devs.
And thank you to the Discord volunteers.
Again, for anyone who isn't aware, we're going to be making sure that either a coupon is applied to your account so you won't be charged for any amount of time that the site's been down, or you can email contact.lotuses.com to get a refund if that's what you'd like.
We're perfectly happy to do either.
But we don't recommend it because the premium content is going to be good.
That's true.
The premium content is not just going to be good.
What does the kids say?
Lit.
That's what's going to be lit.
I learned that from Steve Bannon.
I didn't even learn that from the kids.
I had to learn from Steve Bannon.
That's the word they use.
But it's the correct word.
I live the daily movement.
Moose on the Loose says, Montice Carl is best Carl.
Yeah, well that won't last for long, so enjoy it while it's here.
Deplorable Patriarch says, all four electors have been bullied and certifying by usual death threats and accusations of racism from the left.
I don't know, it looks like two of the electors may have been the ones, part of it, screaming racist.
Yiz says, great technical work on the show, lads.
The format and framing are tight, audio is crisp and clear, and the presentation material is fresh.
Keep it up.
Thank you very much, Yiz.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you, Matthias.
Doomhand says, thanks for answering my question yesterday about the election, about devolution yesterday.
You're welcome.
Someone with a Russian name, can you read that?
I can't read that.
I can read.
No, sir.
No, neither can I. Oh, the Russian agent can.
Yeah.
Sergei says, woo, Russian collusion.
Thank you, Sergei.
Yes.
Thanks, Spurgleberry and Gus.
Ken Jones, Carl, you need to compare the far left with the biblical Pharisees.
That's an interesting idea.
For the many, not the few says, Corbyn is back.
No, no, no.
Keir Starmer put the knee on Corbyn's back on that one, I'm afraid.
Yeah, put down the knee hard.
He's not having it.
Aidan says, now's the time to heal.
I mean, heal, you dog-faced pony soldier.
Good point.
Yep.
Adrian Venu says, landlords for Biden, Trump chapos get out.
Mossad says, Biden will fund Iran, based.
Trump didn't start enough wars, not good enough.
Philosophy Alpha Male says, Biden for Peace Prize 2021.
James Andrew says, do you have any special guests planned?
Nicholas DeSanto would be a great one to lighten the tone.
Yeah, I definitely will be inviting guests after the lockdown, which we don't actually know how long it's going to go on for, which is really frustrating.
Robin says, keep it up boys, Hugo's doing a great job.
I think Robin, is that one of the chaps who's working on the website?
Yeah.
Robin, thank you so much, mate.
Honestly, I can't thank you enough.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, well done, Hugo, you're doing a good job.
Thank you.
For the many, not the few says, Roger Borg is an actual batty man?
I don't know who that is.
Lazarus Long says, the BBC don't defend the state, they do the bidding of the state.
This is not the same thing.
Ultimately, their bias is in peril, our state.
Yeah, well, when I meant defend the state, I meant they'll defend the actions of the government, because they're the people who are eventually pulling the purse strings.
Biden done all that what the pastor was moaning about.
He should be a Trump supporter.
Yes, Biden was actually deeply invested in some of the things and so was Kamala Harris.
Some of the legislation and actions taken because of that legislation, you would think that there would be Trump supporters, wouldn't you?
JT Brown says, The Rev.
Jeremiah Wright is correct.
America is guilty of all of this.
That's true.
The party conveniently leaves out that it was Joe Biden who championed and passed the laws to enable all of it.
That's also true.
I should have mentioned that, really, shouldn't I? A fuzzy creature.
See, if I'd mentioned that, you wouldn't have been incentivized to donate to us.
Has Joe Biden made all the progressive era legislation?
He's made a lot of it.
In the 10s and 20s?
Not quite that far back.
But what they're talking about, the drug laws and three strikes and things like that.
But right, we'll skip forward for a couple because there are a few on the same subject and so I don't want to cover them.
Whoever runs your website, sack them.
I don't want to sack anyone.
Mistakes happen.
We're really doing our best though.
Gordon Newell says, if the DNC is not associated with the pedophiles, why does Biden sniff so many children?
Disavow.
Is there a lot of seats to PO Box?
Not yet, but there will be.
Conspiracy theorists is leftist code for they're on to us.
Loving the new setup.
Studio looks great from a six-year fan.
Thank you so much, number three.
But right, thank you everyone for joining us.
For example, the 9-11 conspiracy theories were against the right.
That's true.
It's a different delineation, that's what I'm saying.
Yep.
Right.
There's two more.
Oh, there's two more.
Okay, good.
Bjorn says, why haven't you posted your website vid on any of the old channels?
I know people who never subbed to daily.
Oh, I just didn't remember.
I'll do that when the website's up.
Then I'll do the video for the other channels.
And the Nexus says, thank you to Miss Obvious for the seed money for this awesome work.
Well, thank you very much.
And thank you all for joining us.
And we'll be back tomorrow at 1pm UK time.
I don't actually know what the topics are going to be yet, but one of them is definitely going to be Rudy Giuliani's filings.
The judge, I've been skimming through it, and the judge was pushing back at him quite hard.
And it's frustrating because he's definitely got a few concrete examples of things that should definitely be looked at.
But I mean, I guess if it's not widespread, it's not a problem, is it?
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