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Aug. 19, 2018 - No Agenda
02:53:58
1061: Red Dot
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Time Text
Wake the neighbors!
Quick!
Adam Curry.
John C. Dvorak.
And Sunday, August 19th, 2018.
This is your award-winning Gitmo Nation Media Assassination, Episode 1061.
This is No Agenda.
Cracking canine hate and broadcasting live from the capital of the drone, Star State, here in downtown Austin, Tejas, in the Clunio, in the morning, everybody.
I'm Adam Curry.
And from northern Silicon Valley, where it turns out that Trump is not the leader of the free world, I'm John C. Dvorak.
Now, you see, you can't do that.
It was perfect.
I'm John C. Dvorak.
Don't go breaking the whole thing that you're the true leader of the free world.
We get it.
Are they locking your door already?
Yeah, they're coming in.
They're coming to get me.
They're coming to take me away.
Hey, who was that again?
That was the coming to take me away.
To the funny farm.
Life is beautiful all the time.
Who was that?
Was it the bonzo dog doodah band?
No, no, it's on the tip of my tongue.
It's...
It's like, ah!
Okay.
Someone in the chat room will know.
Well, we don't have a chat room.
We have a troll room.
We have a troll room.
Dr.
Demento.
Someone in the troll room will know.
It was Napoleon, yeah, Napoleon something or other.
That's right.
Napoleon...
Okay.
Why even do that when we have important things to discuss?
John, I need you to look at the Trump rotation.
Okay.
The Trump rotation.
I don't have it in front of me, no.
I cannot recall.
Do we have...
Dog hater on the list.
Nope, I'm sure of it.
Dog hater should be added to the list and I think I can prove it.
Okay, hold on a second.
Let me get a pen.
Yeah, you do need to write this down.
That's interesting.
We should have caught this one much earlier.
But there is an issue with dogs.
As you know, the president likes to call people dog for a number of reasons.
Brian Williams felt it was time to investigate if the president hates dogs.
Does this president really physically not like dogs?
That's right, Brian.
He's actually the first president in more than 100 years who's not had a dog as a pet in the White House.
He has lived with a dog before when he first got married to his first wife, Ivana, as she brought with her a poodle.
He resisted the dog.
He didn't want to have anything to do with the poodle, but she said, the poodle's coming along, Chappie's coming along.
Turns out Chappie didn't like Trump very much because whenever Trump would come near Ivana's closet, Chappie would bark at him territorially.
Ivana writes about this in her memoir that came out a few months ago.
We launched an extensive web search that took us at least a few minutes, and we could only find one.
Don't you love that?
I mean, I know he's making fun of himself, but it's just kind of, it's so beautiful to hear him say, we did some extensive research, a two-minute web search.
We launched an extensive web search that took us at least a few minutes, and we could only find one photo extant in all the land of Donald Trump with a dog.
But it's deadly serious what he does with that word, using it as an attack.
He's dehumanizing his enemies.
That's the goal there.
Aha!
And there's a long history, actually, of authoritarian leaders who've used these animalistic slurs as insults to dehumanize individuals or groups of people.
We remember during the Holocaust, the Nazis would call Jews rats.
There we go.
Hey, good work.
It only took them a minute to get to Hitler, huh?
Yeah, that's really fast.
They got it down.
Now, this is just a lead-in to the real accusations about Trump misusing dogs, not just hating them in general, and I don't know if a poodle is a dog, by the way, but comparing people he hates to dogs.
Al Sharpton has details.
He's barking like a dog.
Choked, he choked like a dog.
Choked like a dog.
Choked like a dog.
We've seen you employ people, expect unwavering loyalty, teach them tricks and give them treats for a job well done.
Like, oh!
Six figures worth of hush money to silence an alleged affair, for example.
But the moment they deviate from their good behavior and fail to fetch, you publicly condemn them on Twitter with animalistic slurs.
Steve Bannon was, quote, dumped like a dog.
You tweeted after he was fired.
Sally Yates, you said she choked like a dog during her Senate testimony on the Russia investigation.
And now, Amorosa.
That doesn't include all those outside your orbit you've hit with a canine cut down.
Like when you referred to black NFL players as sons of, well...
Female dogs.
But I think you might have learned a lesson this week.
And wait for it, John.
Pay attention.
Sometime the dog bites back with a book deal.
And while we're talking about female canines, you know what they say about payback?
It's a real...
Well, you...
I'm sure you know the word I'm thinking of.
So in the words of my late friend Aretha Franklin, show some R-E-S-P-I-C-T. Oh, no!
Woohoo!
Yeah, everybody!
No MSNBC everybody Hitman Al Sharpton spells respect R-E-S-P-I. What?
Aretha Franklin.
You start off the show with clip of the day.
I mean, nothing can top that clip.
Show some R-E-S-P-I-C-T. It's from this morning's show.
Everything blew up here around quarter to 11.
Everyone's sending me this clip.
Thank you, by the way, everybody.
Wow.
R-E-S-P-I-C-T. So he goes through this whole rigmarole that's obviously written for him, so it's smooth as silk.
He's got a lot of one-liners, a lot of good material, and then he punches out with that.
Unbelievable.
What an incompetent bonehead.
Why does MSNBC pay this guy so much money to be on that, you know, unless he's got...
Well, I know.
I know.
Let me tell you.
He's been in the news quite a bit, actually.
And I think it's, well, twofold.
One, as we know...
He's a hitman.
We learned this on the last show.
So you don't mess with the hitman.
In fact, this was on MSNBC. The last step before witness protection is always a visit with Reverend Al.
Uh-huh.
That's right.
Last step before witness protection is always a visit with Reverend Al.
Now, Reverend Al, having worked for the FBI, being an informant, guess what he has?
Since 83.
What does he have?
Clearance.
This is why Al is still around.
Without us really realizing it, the swamp has been exposed.
At least a big, big, scummy pond part of it, which is this clearances business.
Oh, yeah.
This is great.
Let me just play this Sharpton bit until we get into it.
And this is what makes it so scary to me because that effect of saying I can't afford, if I'm in intelligence, if I want to do something later in my career, I can't afford to speak my mind even in private because I could have this against me.
And that is where we're going toward an almost totalitarian type of state.
Walking slowly there, but headed that way, when people are afraid for political reasons to exercise their freedom of speech now.
That is the threat here to me.
I think that is a valid threat.
And from an intelligence perspective, and especially at the CIA professional outside of their work, they should be able to publicly, when they have left the agency, As I have, talk about their own opinions and quite often informed opinions.
And I think that, adding to the public debate, is what is so important.
So we were half right, or at least partially right, that taking away someone's security clearance in Washington, D.C. is extremely funny because a million and a half people have top-secret clearance already.
Almost five million have some sort of clearance across the U.S.A., So when you don't have clearance, you are truly in D.C. a loser.
And so, you know, I've dealt, I think, I've told the story many times.
Tell it again.
We're some distant niece in the family.
We're all sitting around, big family reunion.
She's talking to me.
I ask her something.
She says, yeah, I can't talk to you about that because you have no clearance.
This is how it works.
You get a spy job.
You get clearance.
You can't talk to people.
That's what it is.
Now all of a sudden it's like, my First Amendment right has been taken away because I don't have any clearance.
You still can't talk to people.
No, the problem is you're not as valuable anymore.
You have zero value to MSNBC if you're John Brennan and you don't have security clearance.
You have no value and they are freaking out over this.
The people who are freaking out the loudest clearly have the most business to lose.
Here's a background or a little M5M freakout over this whole ordeal.
This is a dictatorial exercise of power that should frighten and call on all Republicans to say, Mr.
President, you cannot do this.
You are trying to inhibit the free speech of people who may be in opposition to you.
We had to make sure everybody's clear on one thing as we were doing this.
The free speech is not impinged in any way by security clearance removal.
You have all the free speech in the world.
To associate the two, which is what they're trying to do, is bullcrap because you do not – your free speech, your enjoyment of free speech for the First Amendment rights has not changed at all.
So don't, you know, these guys who keep doing this, they say, oh, they're impinging on my rise of free speech.
No, they're not.
They're taking your security clearance away, usually for what I would call insubordination.
Yeah.
Okay.
Let's go back.
Sorry.
Yeah.
And just explain why this is not taking away their free speech.
Because the security clearance has nothing to do with free speech.
They can talk all they want.
In fact, they could probably talk even more, even though I think not.
In terms of what they can say.
In fact, the security clearance seems to me to impinge free speech.
Yes, exactly.
Thank you.
That's exactly what security clearances do.
It means you can't talk about this.
That is the literal definition of restriction of free speech.
But it's not.
It's an agreement.
But okay.
Again, all of these reasons that they're throwing up They're throwing up, believe me.
They are throwing up.
It's because their livelihood has been threatened, and this has been exposed, and they're coming up with all kinds of reasons to say that this is unconstitutional, it can't happen, and we need laws to stop the president from doing this.
In the meantime, every douche knuckle we see on television has security clearance, including many of the presenters.
Al Sharpton, Anderson Pooper, we know that for sure.
So, to remove this removes their livelihood, and to me, it's like, wow!
It actually doesn't remove their livelihood.
In DC media circles, it sure does.
Well, it shouldn't.
They have no value.
They have no value.
It shouldn't be that way.
When I'm seeing Anderson Cooper, I should be seeing a news presenter who's objective and is reporting on the news.
I shouldn't be watching some spook trying to trick me.
What do you think sources are?
Sources are people with clearance.
That's what this is all about.
More M5M freakout.
The free speech of people who may be in opposition to you.
To use this kind of punishment to chill speech is a violation of the First Amendment.
I mean, this is a striking move towards authoritarianism.
You know, this is what dictators do.
They shut down the press.
They shut down dissent.
They jail their opponents.
Or in this case, they steal their security clearance.
Steal!
What happened here was a pure authoritarian act from an intemperate president who wanted to punish one of his critics.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The White House is threatening him right now by taking away security clearance.
They've already taken it away from John Biden, so doesn't that say to everybody else, shut your mouth?
It's all going crazy!
I've got to throw this one in.
This is just a guy...
I'm leading up to that.
I know exactly what...
I've got the clip already lined up.
Of course, that's my final one because it's the best one ever.
But first...
It's not the best one ever.
Oh yes it is.
I think it's the best one ever.
Or at least up to date.
We'll see more.
First we need to go to NPR, the serious news outfit, who still have some respect somewhere.
My favorite show, NPR This Week, which always has that jamoke in there.
What's his name again?
It doesn't matter.
Jack Beattie, is this a redux of the Richard Nixon enemies list?
Oh, it's an enemies list!
Well, as John Dean, who was one of the people involved in putting together the enemies list for President Nixon...
As he said last night on CNN, this is a step beyond the enemies list.
He said President Nixon didn't do anything based on the enemies list.
It was out there as a sort of target of opportunity and of presidential peak.
The president has acted on it.
And as John McLaughlin, the former CIA director, said yesterday, we've seen this show before.
We've seen it in authoritarian regimes, in petty dictatorships.
Where leaders use the power of government to punish their political enemies.
And of course the great threat of the Trump presidency is that that's how we're going to end up in a kind of Trumpian authoritarian dictatorship.
Trumpian?
It's just a whole new category.
I like it.
And this is a kind of early warning.
Early warning.
This is a possibility.
This is a breaking of a norm.
It goes well beyond anything that any president has done.
Yes, because having your credentials, certainly your security credentials, which I think is just a part of it.
You leave and no one ever gets their credentials revoked, apparently.
Like, hey, Paul Manafort, what do you think?
Did he have security clearance?
He may very well have had it.
Every lobbyist, it's what you do.
You're in government, and then you're done.
You go out and you join a lobbying firm, but that's where you can really make your money, by influencing the government.
This is the definition of the swamp.
Let's back up a couple of shows.
When you first exposed the fact that, or surmised, or I think deconstructed correctly, the fact that Peter struck...
Lisa Page, yeah.
They were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government.
Yes.
And, of course, he was just fired on Monday and gone for good, and he'll probably have trouble getting work in the government again.
They should have his security clearance pulled.
And the article that was...
We talk about all these guys bitching and moaning, but we don't talk about one of the old hacks of the CIA that is...
It's pretty objective.
Never liked Trump, doesn't like Trump, but he, Ray McGovern, which I linked to his article in the last newsletter, and people should click on that and read this article.
McGovern says that Brennan was a conspirator.
A ringleader of a number of CIA people.
Who was Ray McGovern again?
Ray McGovern is an ex-CIA analyst.
We've had clips from him over the years, quite a few actually.
He's an ex-CIA analyst and pretty much on the side of – he sees a shadow government for what it is and a lot of – views the government as a corrupt mechanism in different ways.
But this person doesn't like Trump.
But he thinks that this all has to do with Brennan being a conspirator and he should have had his clearance pulled according to McGovern.
And the way I see it, since McGovern wrote that piece, these guys who have signed – people who are active CIA members who have signed the petition that Mike Morrell – Yes.
Orchestrated should all have their clearances pulled.
And if anybody's working for the agency, I think they should all be fired.
Yes.
They're all – talk about traitorous actions.
This is insubordination of the highest order if you're actually working – I think it's insubordination on all levels.
And that's kind of what McGovern is thinking.
And the guys who signed off on Morell's document, I think they also should probably let go for being stupid.
That is the dumbest thing to do.
Why don't you just lay low?
Sackable offense, I agree.
Well, the media's problem, the M5M, on all sides, I would say, Their problem is that they're official spokesholes, and we've been tracking them since the first day this show began.
Here's a former admiral of this or of that, a CIA guy, this, all X. And of course, they're all coming from the pickle factory, and they're all read in.
That's the problem.
They can't be read into the official story from, well, let's just call it the deep state to make it easy.
That's the problem.
Hey, man, I got some bullshit that we're pushing out there.
Here it is.
That no longer can be said, technically.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Now, I do have one clip that you don't have, I'm sure, which is another one of these roundup clips from CBS trying to be objective, but curiously, they can't be that objective because they keep bringing in Brennan, who works for NBC as their analyst.
You know, they don't have their own guy here, although Morell...
Morell, I think.
Yeah, he's a CBS guy.
But he's not in this clip.
Now there are plans to cancel the clearances for other officials.
The president is facing mounting criticism from the intelligence community for this unprecedented action.
After Brennan's clearance was revoked this week, more than a dozen high-ranking former intelligence officials have come to his defense.
Mr.
Trump is spending the weekend at his New Jersey golf course.
Errol Barnett is traveling with the president.
Errol, good morning.
Good morning.
The White House has drafted additional documents revoking the security clearances of current and former intelligence officials.
This is according to The Washington Post, and apparently President Trump is ready to sign them.
And this comes as more than 70 former intelligence officials go public with their displeasure with the commander-in-chief.
The fact that he's using a security clearance of a former CIA director as a pawn in his public relations strategy, I think is just so reflective of somebody who, quite frankly, I don't want to use this term maybe, but he's drunk on power.
Former CIA Director John Brennan speaking out against President Trump for revoking his security clearance.
Retaliation, he says, for criticism of the president's policy.
I mean, seriously, who's drunk on power if you're that pissed off about, you know, security clearance?
I guess, does it make any difference or not?
You can't be the ex-CIA director and come out and, after a meeting with Putin, say that the president's a traitor.
I didn't say that.
He said treasonous action, treasonous act.
But it comes down to the same.
Spoking his security clearance.
Retaliation, he says, for criticism of the president's policies and character.
Like this tweet from July when Brennan called Trump's performance at a press conference with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, quote, nothing short of treasonous.
I think this is just another example of Mr.
Trump trying to frighten and intimidate others.
But I can tell you, these are not the type of people who are going to be bullied or intimidated by someone of the likes of Mr.
Trump.
There's no silence.
If anything, I'm giving him a bigger voice.
Speaking to reporters while leaving the White House Friday, President Trump was asked if a current Department of Justice official should lose his clearance, as some conservatives are suggesting.
I think Bruce Gore is a disgrace.
I suspect I'll be taking it away very quickly.
In protest, 15 former top intelligence officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations went on the record with their displeasure at the president's actions.
saying Mr.
Trump's motives have, quote, everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech.
They are joined by 60 lower-ranking former CIA officers who also signed a letter supporting Brennan and warning that Mr.
Trump is threatening the security of the country.
Yeah, Brennan was on Rachel's show for about an hour, I think.
I didn't have time to listen to it all, but I did...
And I don't have the clip, but I did read that he backpedaled on the...
It was obvious what I meant.
I didn't really mean it literally, that kind of stuff.
Oh, no, he backpedaled on the treason thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
Well, because there's a problem.
Why would he do that?
This guy's brazenly arrogant.
Now, here's another thing about this guy.
He got called back on something.
This guy.
This is the guy that everyone believes to be a Muslim.
He swore.
He converted while in Saudi Arabia at the station there.
He's the station chief.
There's also a lot of records.
He really didn't do a very good job in his job, it seems.
But he became a Muslim.
If he's going to become a Muslim in Saudi Arabia, he's going to become a Wahhabist, a Salafist.
And so you go to Snopes and look this up and they say unverified.
They can't say yes.
They can't say true or false.
I've started thinking about this.
Has anybody just on NBC in particular just asked him?
Why would they do that?
Is it that hard to do?
Is it like, oh, we can't do it because it's like a violation of some moral edict?
Well, apparently, we've been out of the loop on this.
Yes, apparently, this is a huge issue in Washington, D.C., and I think it's pretty obvious why.
Yeah, because he's a Wahhabist Muslim, and this guy is a troublemaker.
Yeah.
Now to Phil Mudd, former CIA operative, I think they call him on CNN. He's the CNN guy.
Phil Mudd worked at CIA, still has his clearances, apparently, and this comes up in a conversation with I think it was Jim Scudo, actually, with Paris.
What's the guy's name?
Paris Dannon, I think, is his last name.
Yeah, yeah.
He's a black conservative.
Yeah, and he calls it right off the bat and says, hey, man, this is kind of swampy that, you know, you leave and you got your credentials and you can go work for consulting companies, which are numerous.
You can work for a lobbyist.
All kinds of places you can go and work with your security clearance, including...
Phil Mudd is working on CNN. No one's ever heard of Phil Mudd.
There's no real background.
But he's on CNN, so we know who he is.
Why is he on CNN? Because he has clearance.
And when this comes up, the video is even better than the audio.
You can see his head actually expand a little bit.
He's so angry.
I'm surprised he didn't have a stroke.
He's a candidate.
And he just explodes on this.
And then...
He lies by deflecting, I would say.
He says, I never get paid for consulting with the government.
And Paris keeps saying, no, no, man, when you go to consulting companies, what Paris should have said is, are you not being paid right here, right now?
But I don't know why he didn't do that.
Probably because Paris is being paid.
It's all a big, swarmy, messy, ugly swamp.
And also, if you do consult for the government, there is a $55,000 stipend.
He may have refused that, I don't know, but everyone kind of gets that offer.
What?
I doubt it.
I doubt it, but...
He just lied.
Well, here he is.
A lot of these people that have these security clearances, and this is the secret in the swampy Washington DC, they have them and they keep them because it's profitable for them after they leave government.
Because if you have a security clearance, especially high-level security clearances, your contracts and your consulting give pay you a lot more money because of the access that you have.
I hope the president continues to do this and I hope he adds Omarosa to the list because if she has a clearance, she too, because of her actions, Should have it revoked.
Well, I don't know if I'd put Omarosa in the same category, the 75 people who signed those letters, but Phil Mudd, I imagine he wanted to react.
Profitable Paris, when I am requested to sit on an advisory board, let me ask you one question.
How much do you think I'm paid to do that at the request of the U.S. government?
Give me one answer and you've got ten seconds.
Now that is how the CIA runs.
When you are getting your ass handed to you in the CIA, you've got ten seconds to answer!
How much?
I'll ask you a question.
How much are you paid for your consulting and contracting gig for being a...
I have no contracts with the U.S. government that pay money.
Zero.
When I'm asked to offer advice to the U.S. government, I get paid zero.
Let's be honest.
I'm not talking about...
Your role with the federal government.
I'm talking about the contracts and gigs that you get from being a consultant and a contractor.
The consulting firms that they form and that you all get is because you get more money when having a consultant before having the security clearance.
Stop acting like that doesn't happen.
I have zero consulting relationships with the U.S. government.
I'm not talking...
Phil, that's a good talking point.
I'm not talking about relationships with the government.
I'm talking about in the private sector.
When you have a security...
I have zero relationships with the private sector that involve my security clearance.
Well, what about what you're doing right now, Phil Mudd?
You're on CNN! Zero.
I get zero dollars from consulting companies that deal with the U.S. government.
Are we clear?
Well, I will be clear in saying that everybody in Washington, D.C. knows if you don't want to be honest about it, that's on you.
But if you have a security clearance and you keep it, you get more money to have it.
We're done.
Get out!
Get out of that box!
Get off of the train, I'm telling you!
Hold on a second.
A couple of things.
Besides telling the guy to get out...
And by the way, the host, right then and there, should stop him.
Oh, I have the bit where he kind of gets in there.
He kind of gets in there, but you can't let one of the guests tell another guest to get off the stage.
You can if he has clearance.
In Washington, D.C., no.
Wait, here's the thing that got me.
There was a little tidbit in there that just like, The guy out of the blue, why would you do this?
Mud, out of the blue says, who are you talking about?
General Hayden?
Yes, yes, yes.
Because he apparently has all kinds of deals.
Yeah.
You know what?
How about all the XTSA guys who set up the scanner companies?
Come on!
And it's hundreds of millions, probably topping a billion dollars by this point since they started with their L3 systems.
Come on!
But we're going to try and obfuscate it, and the press, who are so...
They're adamant about their rights and press freedom and they need to report on everything are just keeping silent.
They are not explaining at all how this works.
This is so easy.
Can I just finish?
It's 30 seconds.
Let's finish this clip.
No, no.
I want you to stop that thought.
Okay.
The press...
You're going to get this done.
Don't worry.
The press...
It's in the bag for the CIA. Yes.
No, not just CIA. For all the intelligence agencies.
But Mockingbird is the main player.
And that's CIA. I mean, the NSA doesn't even come up in the conversation.
The DIA doesn't even come up in the conversation.
The press has been infiltrated by the one agency mostly.
There's no NSA guys working for the New York Times.
Maybe there's one.
I doubt it.
Right.
And so they're just like these guys within the whole structure of the mainstream media are just, you know, they're backing this, idiots like this mud character.
And they need it because that is their connection to the messaging.
And you're right.
I love how you put that.
Mockingbird is the, what'd you say?
Is the...
It's the premier population.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's the primary player.
I like that.
Mockingbird is the primary player.
That's, yes, exactly it.
And for those of you who think that's a conspiracy theory, you should look it up.
From consulting companies that deal with the U.S. government.
Are we clear?
Well, I will be clear in saying that everybody in Washington, D.C. knows if you don't want to be honest about it, that's on you.
But if you have a security clearance and you keep it, you get more money to have it.
We're done.
Get out!
It's not your show, so I'm staying right here.
Don't be so defensive about this.
Get out!
25 years in the service, this is what I get.
Your voice is still here.
You can still do whatever you want.
But the politicalization of the intelligence community under this administration, with the people coming on here every day tweeting and talking about this administration, you all have made it about politics, not the president.
Let's take a beat here for a second.
And Phil, I appreciate your patience, because I know it's getting personal here.
Phil, I appreciate your patience.
The guy's having a hernia.
Come on!
Appreciate your patience because, you know, you gotta suck him off because, oh, he's our connection to the information.
Shameful.
Shameful.
By the way, I bet if I took a vote right now in our very own troll room and I said, who has some form of security clearance?
Let me see how many say yes, because I know there are people who have security clearance.
And it may not be top secret clearance, but if you're a contractor, there's dudes named Ben, there's all kinds of dudes named Bernadette.
There's so many, so many people who have some version of clearance.
We've laughed about this for a long time.
I got two so far in our troll room alone.
Yeah.
Because it's rampant.
I actually come from a partial CIA family and have no clearance.
I have anti-clearance.
They put me at a different table at Thanksgiving.
It's a form of control.
The clearance thing is a form of control.
How about the definition of control, almost?
Yeah.
Because you sign away all these rights, just talk about this and that.
You lose a lot of free speech rights.
This is crazy to listen to this reverse argument by guys like Mudd.
Because they all know it's a scam and they need their clearances so they can talk to each other.
It's like your experience with your niece or whoever it was.
She can't even talk to you because you don't have a clearance.
Yeah.
And she's following the rules.
And she probably is at some really well-paying job right now.
Yeah.
Not worrying about your next podcast.
Right.
Any collusion?
Just saying.
Oh, man.
So, I think this is fantastic to watch.
Anyone...
It doesn't matter really what side you're on of any political spectrum.
You should not be like...
I mean, isn't...
When I grew up, and we learned about Russia, Soviet Union, which was, I think, very little compared to what we know today, that was one of the things.
Everyone was a part of the secret police.
They were all, you know, in collusion with each other, and they could pass on stuff, and they would leak, and there was a...
You know, you would get killed, right?
It turns out we have all these people.
All of them.
When you look at Mike Morrell or John Brennan, you think, yeah, okay.
Phil Mudd didn't even really think about it.
Now I've got to think about it all the time.
Well, then you have, in fact, you're right next to one of these jokers.
Chancellor of the University of Texas at Austin, ex-spook.
Who is this?
He's not an ex-military McRaven.
I have a clip.
He's at UT. Oh, yeah.
I didn't realize.
Former leaders of the U.S. National Security Establishment are blasting President Trump's decision to strip ex-CIA Director John Brennan of his...
Hold on.
The leaders of the National Security Establishment?
How am I supposed to interpret what that means?
Well, there's democracy now, so I mean, it's like, where are these people?
Journos, I'll remind you.
It's shameful to call yourself a journalist and want this to go on.
Look, I'm just a VJ. What do I know?
Former leaders of the U.S. national security establishment are blasting President Trump's decision to strip ex-CIA Director John Brennan of a security clearance, calling it a clear attempt to stifle the free speech of the president's critics.
The letter was signed by six former CIA directors, five former CIA deputy directors, and a former director of national intelligence.
It came as the New York Times reported White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sought to advance the security clearance story in order to change the topic away from news reports about Trump's alleged use of a racial slur, the N-word.
Meanwhile...
Let me think.
What is important?
This issue of everyone running around with top secret clearance or, you know, someone...
Dog.
Something dog.
Slur.
The N-word.
Meanwhile, the former naval...
Hold on a second.
Let me hear how this journalist just said that.
...took away from news reports about Trump's alleged use of a racial slur, the N-word.
Wow.
I'm not a shred of evidence in this and they're just using that as a lead-in.
Meanwhile, the former naval admiral who led the assassination raid on Osama bin Laden wrote in an open letter he would consider it an honor if Trump would revoke his security clearance.
Retired naval admiral William McRaven, who Who led the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command under President Obama and now serves as Chancellor of the University of Texas, wrote, quote, Through your actions, you've embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage, and worst of all, divided us as a nation.
If you think for a moment that your McCarthy-era tactics will suppress the voices of criticism, you are sadly mistaken, McRaven wrote.
Yeah, and if you think we're going to allow the times of the church committee to go unnoticed, you're severely mistaken, sir.
My goodness.
Well, he's been in Austin, so he's infected.
Oh, well, who's that?
Well, he says it'd be an honor to have his security clearance pulled.
Pull it!
Yeah, right away.
I'd pull it immediately if he thinks it's a good thing.
He's saying it's a good thing.
It's an honor.
Seems like some insubordination to me.
This is all insubordination.
It's ridiculous.
Unbelievable.
And I'm still not convinced that Omarosa...
Who keeps kind of flowing through this story, that she isn't on another Trump mission.
Because remember, the last time, it was very convenient that she said things in the Big Brother house that made Pence look like a raving lunatic compared to Trump, right at the time when people were talking about, hey, we impeach him, we get Pence.
That timing was uncannily coincidental.
I'm still not sure that she's not on a mission from Trump.
I've felt the same way.
I don't know exactly what yet, but come on.
The risk she's taking or she took to record people in the White House, I don't think I could even do that.
It would only be between her and Trump, too.
Nobody else would know about this.
It's just insane.
I mean, just think about it.
I mean, you've got to be really brazen to do that kind of stuff.
Unless it's under some kind of control or knowledge.
Or maybe she's just crazy.
That's possible.
She's...
I don't know.
I mean, it'll turn up in the end one way or the other.
When we're dead.
I'd like to find out earlier.
I don't think we can find out.
Are you familiar with ASMR, by the way?
The acronym Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response?
No.
I got a couple, actually not one, but a couple of emails about this.
We played the clip from Omarosa reading from her book.
And I think I joked about, you know, that she'd probably already done the audiobook because it was a very dramatic read.
And it was on NPR, so they really had a great recording.
You could hear every strand of spittle sticking in her mouth.
Like that.
Yeah.
You could hear it.
Apparently, and I think we may have touched on this months ago or longer.
That's what a good valve Michael do.
Exactly.
Apparently, there is a large group of millennials who love to listen to recordings of That are specifically meant for the ASMR audience.
This autonomous sensory meridian response which gives an experience characterized as a static-like or tingling sensation on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine.
People say this is a version of euphoria.
Subjective experience of low-grade euphoria.
Sounds like a standing wave to me.
Well, I have an example, which is just some guy walking around some 3D world in some game, which, of course, I have no idea what this is.
But you'll hear what...
This is apparently a really good example of what people like, and they listen to this in very high fidelity, and it gets them off somehow.
In dungeons, that we would just do this.
Are you feeling it yet?
No.
Me neither.
Well, here's 10 seconds of Omarosa.
All I hear is some guy needs to clear his throat.
I think it's part of it.
Listen to Omarosa, which people responded very positively to.
On this phone conversation, I was told exactly what Donald Trump said.
Yes, the N-word and others in a classic Trump goes nuclear rant.
I think we could get in this business.
I think it's a distinct possibility if you can talk a little enough.
I know what you mean.
It's very bingy and moist.
I think I need to be eating some fruit.
Juicy nectar tripling down my chin.
People are freaking out.
Yes!
All caps.
Woo!
Another business opportunity.
We got the gear.
And we do.
We got the gear.
We got the talent.
We just need some scripts.
Scripts.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to release an hour of me just doing that.
I think the bongos would work out in this kind of environment.
Yes, I think the bongos...
In fact, do you have any...
We need like...
You know the percussion?
You know, kind of you...
Like a wind chime.
Wind chimes.
We need wind chimes.
I have something similar.
I got this.
Get your wind chimes out, bro.
Break it out.
Oh, yes.
And then from time to time, we just go.
Oyster.
Very oyster.
Good at oyster.
Avocado toaster.
Yeah.
We got the gear, man.
We got the props.
We are good to go!
And we throw in a rain stick from time to time.
Ah, it's going to be genius.
Rain stick.
Just genius.
Oh, man.
Anyway, no, I never heard of whatever it is.
I don't have any idea what you're doing.
Well, anyway, well, it's a thing.
It's a thing.
I didn't know either, but it's a real thing.
Let's see.
We can go a number O directions.
Well, let me get, since we're still on these talk show, as you like to put it, jabronis.
Or jamokes.
I have to play this clip, because this is a clip of this Michelle Goldberg, who somehow got on Katie Turr's show.
And Michelle Goldberg is a columnist for the New York Times, and she gets her story sometimes, columns above the fold on the front page.
What's her background?
University of California, master's degree in journalism from the Graduate School of Journalism at Cal.
Oh, above the fold.
You got the credentials.
You're going to hear her.
Katie has this woman come on and she's just doing some normal discussion of Trump in a negative way.
And then this Goldberg woman jumps in and makes some commentary and then she's got some sidekick.
I don't know who this guy is, but he's sitting right next to her and there's a big gap between...
Those two and the woman talking.
And it's going to start off with the woman talking.
But I believe that what we're about to hear, because she hasn't been there long enough, she doesn't know the rules of the New York Times, I believe she's actually expressing, because they brought her on for a reason, in last year, just in last year,
that she is expressing the actual thought, the kind of the thought, the way the New York Times thinks, About everything, including this country, Trump, and everything in between.
So their worldview, in other words.
I believe the worldview is being expressed.
This is a New York Times columnist, and I think she's talking a little out of class, out of whatever the phrase is.
School.
Out of school.
She's a little out of school, but she's telling it like, hey, okay, now I know what the Times is up to.
But this, again, this is the most vocal president, at least in real time, that we've had in recent memory, right?
He is the leader of the free world.
Oh, no, he's not.
He's not the leader of the free world, but sorry.
By default, he's the leader of the free world.
Angela Merkel's the leader of the free world, but...
Well, he is the most important person in the world in politics right now, and he is very vocal.
And I do agree with you that this does express a level of exasperation among his aides that they can't have any control over.
Yeah, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Your argument that he's not the leader of the free world because he's not standing up for democracy, he's not standing up for humanitarian rights.
He's a sort of junior player in a block of authoritarian countries.
And the people like the European Union are no longer looking at him as a leader any longer?
Of course not.
They see him as, right, they see he's instead, he's like, right, he's part of a bloc that includes Vladimir Putin, Duterte, he's, you know, he's kind of part of a, he's part of kind of an Axis power.
Well, hold on.
It's worse than that, in a certain way.
I mean, not that that's not the worst thing you could have said, because it's about the worst thing you could say about him.
Well, he's not just rounding people up and murdering them without any, you know, due process.
He'd certainly like to.
Well, anyway.
I don't think you can say that definitively in the show.
Wow.
This is an important clip, I think.
I think so, too.
He's a junior leader in a block of authoritarian countries, including Duterte and Putin.
Are we an authoritarian country by her standards?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
I agree because we're part, yes, if you're a globalist, we are.
Yes.
And that's what Obama tried to make us.
And I would say that her comment about, Katie throws in, well, he's not rounding people up and shooting him, referring to Duterte, I think, more than Putin.
And the woman says, well, he'd sure like to.
That's the New York Times.
Yes.
I think we heard...
You know, screw it.
I've got to give you this first of all.
It's an important clip.
Clip of the day.
It's a very important clip.
I think so.
I think we actually heard the...
Yeah.
The mentality, the editorial mentality of the New York Times.
And when they brought that racist woman in who, you know, hates men.
Yeah, Sarah Jum.
Yeah, Jum, whatever her name is.
They...
They would refuse to back off on that.
And I said, well, they have too much pride to back off.
No, I don't believe they have too much pride.
They would have backed off if they wanted to.
They want this.
This is the New York Times epitomized by this woman's comments right here.
They hate the country.
They hate Trump.
And Angela Merkel is the true leader.
Angela Merkel is the leader of the free world.
Jeez Louise.
Yeah, we're going to see how well...
She did it, by the way, matter of fact.
Oh, he's not the leader, no.
Angela Merkel.
Angela Merkel's the free.
And let's see how well the leader of the free world, according to the New York Times, does when Erdogan releases 500,000 or a million refugees from Turkey to go flood Europe, Germany mainly.
Let's see how she does then, leader of the free world.
to us by someone on email and I thought it was, yeah, forgot about that.
Remember all those deals they had to do?
The European Union?
"Hey man, take them back.
Don't send them.
We'll send you money.
Billions of euros.
Please keep them.
Keep him!
And now his country's melting down.
Who knows what the crazy guy will do?
Angela Merkel will save you.
Don't worry.
It's all going to be fine.
Just look at the ground.
It'll all go away.
Very good, John.
Very good.
Yeah, I was very...
I was taken aback by it, actually.
I can imagine.
I mean, this is the kind of thing you should talk to your Libjo friends about and say, hey, just what exactly is going on with this?
I probably will.
Although one of them has kind of cut himself off from all political talk.
He pussied out.
Yeah, he totally pussied out.
I brought something up the other day.
I wanted to get some clarification on something that he should know about.
And he, well, you know, it's too much money.
It's too crazy.
So he got nothing.
Unfortunately, this type of thinking, and this is just a background, it's just a chant clip, you'll understand very quickly what's going on.
This is from the DC Rally, and this is a video that's in the show notes, nashownotes.com.
And it's like a dude named Ben type guy, long hair, you know, that kind of has the physique of a dude named Ben.
He's wearing a Trump 2020 t-shirt, and he's surrounded by the counter-protesters.
And we've determined that the word racist does not mean the same as, and it's okay, words can change meaning.
Racist, colorist, means you're actually against someone else from a different skin color.
Although it hasn't been used, it could technically, you could be a colorist against white people.
Although I haven't heard it technically used that way, but it does seem the definition is open for that.
Racist implies the institutional racism of the white man, mainly, against all other people.
Right.
This is discussed in that essay.
Right.
So, hate speech...
As we've learned in our civics class, and I think they still teach it, maybe not, is still free speech and is permissible under the Constitution, under the First Amendment.
I don't know who teaches that because when the students or others are grilled on it by a man on the street or by a survey, they think hate speech is not protected by the Constitution generally.
I think the majority of people feel that way.
Well, it's very, very, very discouraging to me to hear this, because, you know, you and I grew up with, I don't like what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.
And sticks and stones may break my bones.
No, no.
We saw that change four years ago.
Words hurt is now just the phrase.
Hey, words hurt!
But this is the D.C. rally, and I don't know if we'll play the whole thing, but not only do you hear that racists don't have the right to free speech, it's just not protected under the Constitution.
You want to get ignored?
Keep yelling.
Keep yelling.
Racists don't have the right to free speech.
Now the crowd gets into it.
It's just, it's, it's, It's discouraging to hear this.
I can't understand a word of it.
I think it's worst clip ever.
You're welcome.
Racists don't have the right to free speech.
Is that what you're chanting?
Yes.
Racists don't have the right to free speech.
So this has gone a step further now.
Yeah, that is a step further.
That's a step in the wrong direction.
It's a very wrong direction.
So white men don't have free speech is the way I translate it now.
You don't have that right anymore because you've been racist.
Your kind has been racist.
You need to shut up.
You don't have the right to free speech.
Well, that's what we were witnessing when the Evergreen takeover was going on and they were just pretty much telling the teachers to shut up.
Yeah.
You have no rights to speak to us.
But let's just talk about – let's not talk about it.
Let's come back after our break and we'll do something on press freedom because the press believes they have all kinds of rights, which I believe they actually don't have.
Well, that's – And with that...
Well, to reverse things...
I'd like to thank you for your courage and say in the morning to you, John C! And C stands for clearance.
It's for pussies.
Dvorak!
In the morning to you, Mr.
Adam Kerr.
Also, in the morning to all the ships and sea boots on the ground, feet in the air.
Subs in the water!
Space force!
And all the dames and knights out there.
Yes, in the morning to everybody in the troll room, noagendastream.com.
Good to have you all here, as usual.
Been very helpful this morning, and that is highly appreciated.
Also, I'd like to say in the morning to Darren O'Neill again.
Comes back with an outstanding album art for episode 1060.
The title of that was Austin Beatniks.
10...
1060.noagendanotes.com And this was Alex Jones as Bart Simpson, but it really was.
I think he rendered a whole new drawing of Alex Jones with his vitality boner pill drink, and he was writing on the board, I will not call people to arms on Twitter.
Over and over again, it's the classic, iconic Bart Simpson blackboard pose, and we couldn't find that this had been done anywhere.
I wanted to express the methodology we use when we pick at least an aspect of it, although we have been tricked.
But generally speaking, we don't like people to use – if they're going to use derivative art, they have to change it enough and make it funny enough that it's okay.
You can do it.
But if they provide something that's just somebody else's art, unless it's in the public domain, and just wrap something around it, like the no agenda stuff, we always – No, it's not good enough.
So when we see something that's so outstanding...
We immediately assume the worst.
We assume...
Where did he get this?
And I'll tell you, it's not because we distrust the artist necessarily.
Actually, it's to protect them as well.
Well, besides protecting them, it's that when you see something like this, you go...
Or you say to yourself...
How did he get this done in this amount of time?
Unless he's done something else similar.
Who knows?
There's no evidence that this was anything but original.
And then he added the cool little moniker for us at the bottom.
Longtime podcast personality, Adam Curry and former John C. DeVore.
I gotta tell you, the...
The amount of requests for that ISO clip is more than anything we've ever had.
Oh my god!
Woo!
Listen to that horn!
People love it.
It's a winner.
It is a winner.
Total winner.
Well, thank you very much, Darren.
It's highly appreciated.
Great work.
It really makes a difference when you see...
We have not been deplatformed yet.
So we show up in iTunes and podcasts and all the other apps.
Oh, by the way, since the picture of the dog with his paw to the side of his head...
Yeah.
There's been four podcasts and none of them on the Roku app, none of the artworks have shown up since that picture.
Hmm.
Has anything been changed?
No, not that I'm aware of.
Okay.
No idea.
Because I go to the Roku app every so often to see how the art looks.
Because I wanted to see this particular piece for sure, and it was just a white blank.
Hmm, that's strange.
I really don't know.
Okay, well, hopefully our Roku guy.
Yeah, or gal.
We have no idea who does a lot of this stuff.
But we love it.
No, he's contacted me before.
Oh, okay, it's a guy.
Let us thank some people.
Yeah, we can thank two people.
Okay.
For the great support we had on this show.
Apparently nobody cared about the palindrome.
The palindrome.
No, it's kind of out of favor.
Yeah, it is.
Oh, well.
Well, that was a nice try.
Sir Mark of the Midwest comes in as the executive producer, $351.51.
And he has a red note, which means he's got some call-outs in here.
Thanks for the hard work.
I'd like to make this donation in honor of my fantastic son, Michael's 32nd birthday.
Make sure he's on the list today, Sunday, August 19th.
He's been a loyal listener and contributor for years.
He got me started on the No Agenda show a year or so ago, and your insightful deconstruction of today's news has given us many hours of constructive conversation.
A couple of months ago, he made up a large donation to complete his long-awaited knighthood, then promptly gave it to me.
I was so honored it brought me to tears.
How could there be a prouder moment in a father's life than receiving a gift like a membership to the coveted roundtable?
I know he continues to support this show with a monthly donation, but I wanted to bump up the total with an executive producer contribution so he can soon join me at the table.
I guess we'll credit him with this.
Yes.
Happy birthday, son.
Your mother and I love you very much.
On another note, could you please call out my good friend and co-worker, Jeff Bruce, as a douchebag?
Oh, no!
A douche knuckle?
I'm stalling.
I don't know what's going on.
Why is it breaking?
Here we are.
Douchebag!
There it is.
It was a big douche.
He probably is on the 405 right now in the free lane driving his Tesla using free electricity listening to the free No Agenda show.
He's a double douchebag.
Hit him again!
Douchebags!
Listen, you dirtball.
This stuff is not free.
The fine folks listening to this show are paying you, freeloader.
I know you're going to use the fine media deconstruction in your everyday conversation.
It's time to pay up.
Just to make it interesting, if you get your moldy money out and donate $100, I'll match it.
Remember, just the discussion of your lack of support could bring bad karma to that Tesla.
Doesn't take much to wake up the gremlins.
I'll have no part of this.
I have no part of that.
No jingles.
Travel karma for Michael's upcoming trip to Japan.
Thank you for all you do, you humble servant.
Sir Mark of the Midwest.
You've got karma.
Wow, good note, Sir Mark.
Thank you.
That was funny.
The 405 is not in the Midwest, so I'm not sure what...
The reference is.
But okay, let's move on.
That was our executive producer.
Associate executive producer is Sir Patrick.
He says, I felt the need to donate after Thursday's show where donations were plentiful.
Sometimes there are donation drops right after the big shows.
Please shed light on the biggest money scams of all time.
What does that mean?
I don't know what he means, but he's right.
He snuck in with an associate executive producer.
And could have gotten executive producer because he's got the right idea, which is there are.
He's right.
There are donation drop-offs after big shows.
Please shed light on the biggest money scams of all time, question mark?
Not quite sure.
Don't know.
He'll get in touch with us to re-inform us as to what he's referring to.
Yes, but we appreciate the donation, obviously, for your associate executive producership, and I'll give you some karma for that.
You've got karma.
And that is it.
One exec, one associate exec, but these are both very valid credits that you can put on your LinkedIn.
Again, go to LinkedIn and you'll see how many No Agenda producers are currently experiencing job fullness.
Am I saying that politically correct enough?
They're experiencing jobfulness.
Jobfulness.
Yes, it does seem to work.
But also, you're participating in our value network, and that's what's really appreciated, and people always seem to get something out of it, and usually it's even more than they put in.
So, thank you very much.
We'll be thanking more people.
Also, a short list in our second half, $50 or above.
And please remember, we do have another show, which is coming up on Thursday.
You can remember us Profusely at...
So whether you're a douchebag or not, it doesn't matter.
You still have valuable deconstruction you can take out and propagate.
Our formula is this.
We go out, we hit people in the mouth.
Shut up!
Let's go!
Okie dokie.
See, I have two press freedom, which is not a thing, by the way.
I think this has snuck in and we've identified it, but we need to keep mentioning.
The First Amendment speaks of the freedom of speech, but also the freedom of the press.
Should we read it just verbatim, just to make it a little more interesting?
You might as well.
You've done it before and nobody seems to remember.
Let's just make sure we do it right.
Here we go.
Respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
So, government can make no law that abridges the freedom of speech.
What does abridge mean?
Well, let's do it by the definition.
Let's look up the actual definition.
The actual definition is to shorten or to curtail.
That's the legal definition is curtail.
It'd be curtail.
So, Congress may not curtail.
No, it says curtail.
Let's be fair about it.
The freedom of speech, and they may not abridge...
The freedom of the press.
Now, let's understand that the freedom of the press relates to freedom of speech, and the way I think this has always been understood by the Supreme Court, who claims to be the highest authority, is that that means you can print whatever you want.
Say whatever you want.
You can print whatever you want.
The government cannot stop that.
Now, can you be sued for libel and are there things that over the years we've agreed to that are not okay?
Incitement to violence is the main one.
Sure.
It does not mean that the press is better than citizens like myself or John C. Dvorak.
They have more privileges.
They have nothing, nothing extra.
It doesn't mean you have the right to go and be in the White House briefing room.
It doesn't mean any of that.
But the press wants you to believe it.
And it's discouraging.
So here is, well actually a lot of mistakes in this one.
This is a CBC report from Scandinavia.
And this is regarding the hundreds of newspapers that all wrote editorial board statements or op-eds about Trump calling the fake news media the enemy of the people.
Now he did at one point say the fake news media like CNN. So definitely he has literally called CNN fake news media.
Yes.
More than once.
So they have an actual grievance, I think.
If anybody does.
But, now, again, you know, so we come to the incitement part of, you know, if you're calling someone the enemy of the people, is that hate speech that incites violence.
You know, that is something that could be discussed for a long time.
And that's really what the journos are doing.
Except they keep changing it a little bit to...
The press, the free press is the enemy of the people.
The media is the enemy of the people.
The journalists are the enemy of the people.
None of that was ever said.
They have done it, and they are creating a very poor situation out of something that's already shit.
But look at the work you're delivering.
So here's CBC. Just a lot of bad quotes in this.
Hundreds of newspapers across the United States are fighting back against the U.S. president today.
Dailies, weeklies, national publications are all launching a coordinated editorial campaign.
Just even those words, you know, they're fighting back.
Really?
Are they fighting?
Is it a real fight?
If we're going to talk about words, let's really analyze them all.
Standing up for press freedom.
These are just some of the headlines.
Standing up for press freedom, which is meaningless.
Making the rounds.
The move is in response to Donald Trump calling the news media the enemy of American people.
Oh, it's even better now in Scandinavia.
Wow, they've added a word.
No, not at all.
It's the news media.
Yeah.
Is the enemy of the American people.
American people, yeah.
But it's not the fake news media.
It is the news media.
So we're already just misquoting at best, lying at worst.
One of the papers taking part in the call to action is the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch in Missouri.
Todd Roberson is the editorial page editor, and he says the president's barrage against the media erodes public trust with journalists across the country.
When the public is told that the truth is fake and false information is truth, it just creates chaos.
People don't know who to believe anymore.
What?
I know.
He fumbles it a little bit, doesn't he?
It creates chaos, though?
It creates chaos?
Yes, chaos.
People running around waving their arms and running in circles?
I mean, what are we talking about here?
Well, hello.
It's chaos.
Remember, it's our favorite theme.
Chaos.
Chaos.
We've got to bring chaos back.
Across the country.
When the public is told that the truth is fake and fake false information is truth, it just creates chaos.
People don't know who to believe in.
No kidding we don't know who to believe.
What do you think this is all about?
For ten years we've been doing this show.
No kidding the people don't believe the news media.
And democracy cannot function properly in that kind of a circumstance.
Our main thrust is pretty much, I noticed from the other editorials that I was able to review, there are a lot of them there, so it's hard to review them all, but there's a consistent thread throughout, which is that when you label someone, any group of people, place this label on them, you target them for attack.
And we all feel it's just a matter of time.
Oh, let me see.
So, for instance, if you...
If you label someone literally Hitler and just as bad as the Nazis ripping children from mother's arms, when you label someone like that, do you think that could cause an issue?
Do you think that if there really truly were Nazis that smart people, patriotic people wouldn't go out and kill the Nazis?
I guess that logic is lost on this dick.
People place this label on them.
You target them for attack.
And we all feel it's just a matter of time before some vigilante somewhere takes the law into his own hands and decides to go after the enemy.
Yes, yeah.
That's the problem we have here.
These guys don't seem to recognize.
They're just worried about their own skins.
Nobody knows who they are.
I mean, you read any newspaper, local newspaper, there's about 30 guys, body lines in there, you read them.
You know who these guys are.
You've never seen them.
They're not on television.
Yeah, but they feel that they're heroic.
Oh yeah, no, they really have a high regard for themselves.
And they don't.
They are no, according to the Constitution of the United States of America, codified in 1789, you have no extra right above me.
Or a church.
Or a church for that matter.
A bunch of guys in a crowd shaking their fists.
You have no extra right.
None.
Press freedom.
Here's some more journos on NPR. Um...
Same topic.
I think that one thing...
You're going to love this, by the way.
And you've got to talk to your journo friends about this one.
I think that one thing that people are finding some difficulty, and I'm talking not the president, but the public who has received this negatively, is that they do see these coordinated editorials as some sort of A, either bias or B, attack on the president.
And I saw them as neither.
Just as the president would stand up and strongly protect Article I of the Constitution, because that's where the executive power is derived from.
Members of the press, journalism as an industry, is the only trade that is expressly protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Wow!
That to me is...
Do they really believe this?
That the trade of journalism...
I actually subscribe to that too.
Well, I think it's horseshit.
The trade as an industry?
As an industry, you're protected by the Constitution?
No.
As an industry, she says.
Yeah, I think so.
I agree with that.
The industry is protected by...
What difference is there between your industry and just people?
Well, that's protected by the Constitution, too, but the point is not that it's got any special protection.
It just happens to be the only one mentioned in the Constitution that's protected.
But it's not...
It's not a person.
It's not a church.
It's the press.
It's the press.
The press.
Meaning bloggers and newspapers.
Ah, okay.
So, if I'm a blogger, I am then protected as a part of the same industry?
I think so.
Okay.
Okay.
Let's go try that out.
Should we go to the White House briefing room, see how we do?
I'm a podcaster.
My industry is protected under the First Amendment.
The podcast industry.
I think so, yeah.
Article 1 of the Constitution, because that's where the executive power is derived from.
Members of the press, journalism as an industry, is the only trade that is expressly protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Is the act of running a church a trade?
No.
Is it an institution?
No.
I just consider it a church.
I think you can make the arguments as an institution, sure.
It's aggressively protected by the U.S. Constitution, and that's what this is, a reminder that there is a freedom of the press, and pushing against that always goes against the spirit of that rule, if not the letter, and the president's attack, just as Aaron said, as the enemy of the people.
How is that abridging their right by saying that?
It's hateful speech towards them, but how is it a bridge?
And by the way, none of those op-eds were a reminder of this.
No, they were bitching and moaning about being called enemy of the people.
Yeah.
On that point, you are correct, sir.
Okay.
It's just irksome to me.
I am.
I am.
Who do these people think they are?
These jamokes.
The letter and the president's attack, you know, just as Aaron said, as the enemy of the people.
I mean, that's...
Hold on a second.
Here's what I think you really want to say.
If you guys, you press people, would actually do your job and stop slanting news like the one we had in the last show with Lester Holt making up quotes that didn't exist...
And people saying that the president said this when he didn't or saying the president said this when he didn't, doing that over and over and over again and then making it a meme, that is not doing your job.
That is just writing propaganda.
I mean if you – this issue wouldn't even be discussed on this show.
If the press was honest, they're dishonest.
Exactly.
It doesn't matter.
I'm fine with it because they can be as dishonest as they want.
I really don't care.
No, but that's what creates the problem.
If they weren't dishonest, they wouldn't get all this flack.
No, we just sometimes get it wrong, but we always correct.
They don't.
This is what they say back to you.
They're wrong!
I've read at least 50.
It's like the Syria Red Line bombing of the gas the first go-round.
It was proven time and time again to be the...
Or weapons of mass destruction.
New York Times.
Aluminum tubes.
Come on.
Always goes against the spirit of that rule, if not the letter, and the president's attack.
If not the letter.
I'm picking a report here.
Always goes against the spirit of that rule, if not the letter.
That's bullshit.
Pushing against that goes against the spirit, if not the letter.
No!
And the president's attack, you know...
He's actually exercising free speech.
As Aaron said, as the enemy of the people.
I mean, that's a really, really strong denouncement that's, you know, to put us in the same category as those folks who would commit terrorist attacks or something against the United States is really outrageous.
A terrorist attack has something to do with the First Amendment now?
And I think it's important to point that out.
I don't think that's being unbiased.
I think that it's an important assertion of the Constitution and its protections of journalists.
OK, I think you made your point.
Thank you.
You've beaten these poor people to death.
We know they're full of crap.
It's not really much of an issue.
There's something in there that galled you to some extreme.
That they, as a class of people, of workers as an industry, are protected by the Constitution.
You agree with it.
I don't.
I think it's just...
No.
I think the act of printing...
Words, whether that's modern day video, it doesn't matter.
You can say whatever you want.
It doesn't mean that journalists are protected.
Like, oh, don't touch him.
No more than I am.
No, I think you made that point right off the bat.
That's why I'm irked.
You said something irked me.
I'm repeating it.
Don't bait me.
Something did irk you.
That's what it was.
I just told you what it was.
That's what irked me.
Well, you know, the press has got, you know, the problem is, yeah.
I know what you're trying to say.
I know what you're saying is that everybody has these freedoms.
And why is the press holding themselves high and mighty above everyone else when, in fact, all they have is the printing press or the broadcasting tower or the podcasting microphone or whatever they want?
Yes.
Are they special?
They're no special than the average person standing on the corners.
Right.
So it's the arrogance that is taught in J school that they are special is, I think, what irks me.
The arrogance that we're special, we're protected.
Yeah, they're high and mighty.
I agree.
You can argue that.
Okay, well, that's it.
You are not high and mighty.
I'm not.
I'm not.
He says, I'm not.
Let's go to a switch to this, because in this I have a little Andrea Mitchell screw up.
First of all, this discussion is subtle right now, a discussion of privatizing.
The Afghanistan War.
Yes, yes, yes.
This is...
By the way, you know that right now we have 15,000 enlisted soldiers and 30,000 contractors in Afghanistan.
In fact, Eric Prince discusses this with Andrea Mitchell.
And Eric Prince, of course, wants to get a piece of the action and...
Ever since this guy's folded his tent and started new companies, I kind of like his analysis.
He's working for China.
He's working for a whole bunch of other...
He's not getting U.S. contracts.
Okay, I'll go work over here.
Well, even that's exaggerated though apparently.
But let's listen to his takedown of the situation as it now exists because she brings him on to criticize him obviously.
It's an NBC operation and she's hoping to get his go.
But he's just really good at explaining what's really going on.
I thought I really enjoyed this.
What about oversight?
What about, you know, the chain of command?
If you had private...
Now, right now you do have one company for private security that is licensed in Hong Kong.
You train in a rented facility.
This is the one that says Andrea Mitchell.
I mentioned her, but the clip I'm looking for is Eric Prince on Afghanistan.
So sorry.
Joining me now is Eric Prince, a former Navy SEAL, the founder of Blackwater, the former firm that had faced years of investigations for its role in Iraq.
It no longer exists.
He has now launched a new security organization, and he's pushing for the privatization of the war in Afghanistan.
Mr.
Prince, thank you.
Thanks for having me.
What would be the advantages of privatizing, given all the objections from the Pentagon, from the State Department, from the rest of the military?
First of all, privatization is a loaded term.
Right now, there's 15,000 U.S. troops and another 30,000 contractors.
All I need, my plan would say, 2,000 US Special Forces remain and about 6,000 contractors.
So by any stretch, that is a severe reduction in manpower and certainly in spending.
Right now, America, this year, 2019, will spend $62 billion just in Afghanistan.
That's more than the entire UK defense budget.
So if people are concerned about domestic spending or budget deficits, Or the fact that we have Americans dying, fighting and dying there now, as recently as last week, who were infants when the Twin Towers came down.
We now have our first multi-generational war, and I'm trying to get a rationalization of it.
What worked after 9-11 were a few CIA officers, a few special forces, and some air support, and they devastated the Taliban in a matter of weeks.
When we shifted six months after 9-11 to a very conventional battle plan, effectively repeating what the Soviet battle plan was in the 1980s, we've been losing ever since.
We've been losing blood and treasure, and just as recently as this week, when you have four simultaneous attacks across the country, killing 350 Afghans and blowing up 50 kids in Kabul who are studying for exams, that is not what winning looks like.
Yeah, and there's our friend Blood and Treasure back again.
Haven't heard that in a couple of years.
Yeah, I never liked the term.
Well, it goes on and on.
There's a bunch of funny stuff, but then they go into this thing where Andrea was given false information that she used.
And he was very gentle with her in passing.
Like, no, it goes like this.
It was very interesting.
But it was, you can hear, I wish you could see it, because she's so flustered over this information she's reading, condemning him about something or other, about his relationship with China and those schools, and giving nonsense, throwing nonsense at him, and he rebukes it all.
It's a very funny clip.
What about oversight?
What about, you know, the chain of command?
If you had private...
Now, right now you do have one company for private security that is licensed in Hong Kong.
You train in a rented facility in Beijing.
You've graduated at least 5,000 from there already.
Oh, no.
Not the company that I have anything to do with.
It's not done anything like that.
No.
No, we've graduated probably 20 or 30 employees.
Maybe the school has prior to our involvement.
In November, when you were giving them a commencement message on Skype?
Correct.
Those are the first 20 company employees.
That's it.
Anyway, going back to Afghanistan...
I think he's smart.
She tried to do a gotcha on him.
Yeah.
Failed.
And then she tried later.
I didn't have this clip and I probably should have.
She goes and she tries this trick where she says she tries to get him flustered by saying, what do you think about Donald Trump calling people names?
He's called your sister Ditsy DeVos.
Yeah, which is not confirmed.
It's just a rumor.
Yeah, it's a rumor, which he's glad to use.
And he just laughs that off really easily and just goes on to the next topic.
He's very single-minded.
This guy does not get sidetracked.
I like this guy.
The interesting thing is that with the Benghazi attack on the embassy, all those guys were contractors.
So what happens when those who are left over, who weren't killed in action...
What happens to them?
Well, not only do they have all their security clearances pulled, but they also had to sign NDAs, along with all the other survivors, if you remember.
There were 53 survivors.
That was all Brennan, by the way.
Yes, Brennan pulled their credentials.
Brennan made them sign NDAs, so they couldn't talk about it.
Yeah.
Curtailing their freedom of speech.
Yeah.
Well, nobody wants to bring that up except us.
And journos, because we're journos, that's why.
Because we do care.
We are.
We are journos.
We're journos, baby.
I'm a journo.
Don't deplatform me, bro.
We're journos.
Oh, man.
Okay, well, then we're going to go in that direction.
I got one more clip.
This one cracks me up.
Because for one thing, if you're going to do the report to scare the public about the threat of hurricanes in California...
Wait a minute.
This is a global warming story that showed up, I believe it was on CBS. And it was like just a scare-harm, scare-harm story that we're going to have hurricanes because of the temperature rising in the oceans.
The problem is when you start to deconstruct the story, they have...
They have dates in there that don't coincide with the current global warming scheme.
The temperature in the Pacific all ago hit a record high this month, and there are new concerns rising water temperatures could bring hurricanes to California.
Jamie Ucas is there.
Irma, Harvey, and Katrina are among the hurricanes that have ravaged the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico.
But here in California, hurricanes are virtually unheard of.
What do you do in a case of a hurricane?
I don't know.
I can't imagine that kind of devastation hitting the shores here.
Hurricanes that form in the eastern Pacific Ocean usually don't make it past Baja, California.
Only one managed to reach as far as San Diego in 1858.
However, there's now the potential this rare event could strike the San Diego area again.
Oceanographer Art Miller.
It could happen, especially if the ocean temperatures continue to stay in this anomalously warm state.
It's very simple.
Scientists at the Scripps Pier have been recording historic temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, as high as 79.5 degrees.
That's about 10 degrees above normal.
So what has the temperature gauge showed you over the last week or so?
It's shown that we have been right at or outside the record temperatures that were already set back in the 30s.
So we know that we are experiencing a very extreme temperature event.
That potentially increases the likelihood that a hurricane might track just a little bit further north than it would have.
Even though California has been battle tested by fires, mudslides and earthquakes, the widespread impact of a hurricane on lives and property is still unknown.
This is worse than fake news.
Let's scare the public needlessly.
Meanwhile, one did slip by.
Before you finish that, I do want to mention two things about that story.
One was they do mention 1858 when a hurricane apparently hit San Diego.
Then they say the temperatures are getting to where they were in the 1930s 80 years ago.
It's conditioning, baby.
Conditioning.
It's getting you ready for crisis.
One that slipped by me, although it did come up in the household, was, I think it started, well, I know where it started, but it really, once Mother Jones published it, Mother Jones, got to think, Mother Jones is good, Mother Jones, Mother Jones is true journalism.
That's where corn is.
Report!
Oatmeal breakfast foods contain unsafe amounts of weed killer!
Breakfast with a dose of Roundup!
The Roundup chemical found responsible for cancer might also be in your oatmeal!
We had a clip last show.
Yes.
Well, I figured the origins finally got to the origins of it.
The Environmental Working Group.
Have we ever dealt with these guys before?
EWG? The name rings a bell.
Yeah.
Well, they're sponsored by a whole bunch of organic food brands.
They're a non-profit, a 5014C, which means they're a lobbying group.
And they just published a report, not in a scientific journal.
They just published a report on the blog.
And oh, look at this!
We got the proof.
Now, yeah, you can find all kinds of stuff.
There are all kinds of trace amounts in products.
And I'm sure that they might have found some trace of glyphosate in oatmeal.
By their own admission in the report, what they found was 100 times less than the EPA threshold.
It's like, what is the plastic stuff that...
Oh, there's a bunch of different plastic things you don't want.
We talked about it.
It's the stuff they make the traffic cones from that's in mac and cheese.
Oh, yeah.
You know, that kind of stuff.
That goes way back, that discussion.
I mean, none of this is healthy, obviously.
And the press gobbles it up.
It's a great toss away before the top of the hour.
They should be gobbling at oatmeal rather than these stories.
You know, you can toss it in just before the break, and now a crazy story!
Wow, everybody!
And we're so used to it that, you know, we just shake our head like, you know, whatever.
Oh, what next?
What next?
Move on, yeah.
But you got to call it out.
It's just PR job.
It's just a PR job.
The Environmental Working Group, all kinds of fun little organic product brands sponsoring that.
Way to go, guys!
Way to go.
By the way, I do have an ISO from the last clip of mine.
Okay, I have it here.
Oh, there goes the house!
I can't understand the whole thing.
Oh, there goes the house!
It's, ah, there goes the house.
Nah.
Okay.
It's not quite.
It's the best I could do.
I know.
You already have one that's exciting.
I know, I know, I know.
Here's a piece of news that's really kind of interesting.
This is, again, this reminds me a little bit about that, like the Michelle Goldberg and her Angela Merkel runs the world.
It's like, I think it's getting, this is a bad sign, by the way, when the employees, who should be just doing their jobs, if they want to get into management or the board of directors, I mean, that's different than just being some schlub doing You know, working on code.
No offense, Ben, but This is what's going on.
This is the Google story.
1,400 workers at Google have signed a letter protesting their company's plans to launch a service in China that will allow Chinese censors to block search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest.
The New York Times reports the workers say the plan raises urgent moral and ethical issues.
Earlier this month, The Intercept reported Google's project, codenamed Dragonfly, was launched in the spring of last year and accelerated after Google's CEO met with a top Chinese government official in December.
Well, this is what always happens to the revolution.
It always eats itself.
And, you know, this is a part of a bigger conversation about the social networks.
Because the social networks really and truly have effed themselves.
And I think a lot of Silicon Valley companies are doing this.
You know, Google, their job is to collect the world's information.
And that's what they say.
And we got all the information.
And then they disseminate that out and they make money on that.
So they have a network.
In their case, they've got a huge network of people and computers and actual networks, as does Facebook and Twitter.
They all have networks.
But when you no longer control the people through Pavlovian feedback loops, and people say, wait a minute, I could actually use this against the network itself.
This is where my You Can't Monetize the Network comes from.
Because at the bottom line, whether it's an ad-based platform, which we know they're not, an ad-based publisher like Twitter or Facebook, or whether it's a technology company, Google, they all use the network, and you ultimately cannot fight the network.
Look, Alex Jones can be deplatformed from everything.
Is that going to stop hundreds of thousands of people uploading his audio and his videos to Twitter?
No.
No.
What will have to happen?
We've got to go police it.
How do you police it?
Well, we know AI is a lie.
Because I see them hiring the facebaggers right behind me here in downtown Austin.
They want to have 3,000 by the end of next year.
And we know from our Intel, our Uber Intel, that they're being trained to watch every single video on Instagram, every single video on Facebook, to make sure that it passes the community standards.
But it doesn't matter.
By the way.
Just an aside, can you imagine having that job?
That has got to be mind-numbing.
Oh, I think you need to be on pharmaceutical helpers, no doubt.
So, all of this, you've unleashed the beast.
You've taught everyone how to use the networks.
And now they're using it.
They're using it against the networks themselves.
I see no, I mean, of course, billion-dollar companies don't go away overnight.
But, you know, if someone really got pissed off about it, we're unimportant.
But let's just say there were enough people that got pissed off about the No Agenda show.
But it's easy.
You just target advertisers.
You make a lot of noise.
Like, hey, Nike's advertising on this platform that has the Noah Jenner show.
Whoa, we're going to boycott them.
Nike doesn't care if you can see their ads or not.
They don't want to be involved.
Hey, we have no media.
That's always the answer when you see the sleeping giant people going after Media Matters, going after companies.
It's like, you know what?
Yeah, we're not going to advertise there for a while.
We're kind of done right.
We just don't want to be involved in it.
There's all kinds of ways that the network is working against the companies.
And by the way, if we actually figured this out, think of how powerful we would be.
We really would be very, very powerful.
It's right there.
And we're not interested.
Oh, no.
No, of course not.
We're not on a power trip.
We just like to deconstruct a few news stories and entertain the troops.
I'm not talking about us, per se, but the people.
The people themselves.
Well, the point I was making was that they can't even control...
First of all, I wrote a column saying it's fine that Google goes into China and does whatever Chinese...
It's just a business.
And what's the point?
But you got all these, because you're in Silicon Valley and everybody's, I don't know how this happened, by the way.
How everybody became like a left-wing Bernie supporter.
And really, the whole area.
It's just overnight.
And so they, you know, so now Google has, or Google, their employees are turning on them.
I would just fire every one of the people that had anything to do with this.
They got enough people to back, you know.
Just fire everybody.
This guy's got to get more firm.
Of course, it would cause even more problems if the company might kill itself.
Yeah, it's a mess.
When you have a PC culture and you have people fueled by PCs, it's like PC squared.
That's an incredible power.
You've got the political correctness, and you've got a computer.
And you can literally force...
PC squared.
PC squared.
You like it?
I worked on that.
You did?
Yes, I wrote it down, even.
It's one of those, hey, man, I just took a hit off this joint.
I got a good one.
Good stuff.
I got a good one, man.
PC squared.
Yes.
Well, to be done right, it would have to be the PC would have to be in parents and the squared sign would have to be after that because otherwise it's PC squared.
Oh, yeah.
We don't want that.
No.
Yeah, it has to be mathematically correct.
Yeah.
So now, you know, and I just see people aren't real.
It's the same thing I said about Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez.
Everyone's laughing about her.
Oh, bring around more of her.
That's exactly what they said about Trump.
Be very, very careful.
You don't have to necessarily be a genius on the outside.
You may be on the inside, but even if you look stupid, you can still become president.
And you can be stupid and still become president.
So all that's very possible.
But the idea is missed on everybody.
Just like Phil Mudd, he's getting paid to be on CNN to talk about how he never uses his security clearance to do stuff like be on CNN. So when you're all saying, we all get together, we just want to ban somebody, it can be done continuously.
One guy, I've never considered him a lefty, but he's liberal and he gets in trouble all the time.
It's part of his shtick is Bill Maher.
Bill Maher tries to defend the free speech of Alex Jones on his show this weekend.
He's got a panel of...
I can't remember the names of all these people.
It doesn't matter.
Just listen to what they're saying, what their true beliefs are, and you can replace Alex Jones for the No Agenda show.
It doesn't matter.
I've said things that are hateful, I'm sure.
You can find something somewhere, no problem.
John even more so.
No!
So I'm going to do my free speech for a minute because Alex Jones, who is not my friend and who tells crazy lies about me, is thrown off Twitter, I think, and Facebook and a few other platforms.
I think he's going to...
Thank God!
Woo!
Thank God!
Woo!
Well, if you're a liberal, you're supposed to be for free speech.
That's free speech for the speech you hate.
That's what free speech means.
We're losing the thread of the concepts that are important to this country.
Either you care about the real American shit or you don't.
And if you do, it goes for every side.
Listen, you can hear a pin drop.
Everyone's very confused.
The panel is puzzled.
I don't like Alex Jones, but Alex Jones gets to speak.
Everybody gets to speak.
Sure, but he doesn't necessarily get to speak on Facebook or Twitter.
No, I get that.
If a guy goes out, and this is not opinion, if he engages in vile slander and fabrication about children who were murdered at Sandy Hook, and he harasses the parents of children who were murdered at Sandy Hook, that's not...
You know what?
Facebook, Twitter.
None of them have an obligation to provide him a platform.
I understand that.
And even more importantly, you know, this is not the Internet of 1996, where he put up a website, and, you know, he's using, like, the public pipes.
Like, these companies, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, these are the majority of time Americans spent on the Internet, right?
We're talking, for the Internet, this is ABC, CBS, NBC, right?
And they're making money off of him.
They're running ads against him.
So, you know, I agree with you about free speech, and that's of concern to me as well.
I also don't think those companies should be profiting off of what he's saying.
We all agree on that.
You hear this?
Listen carefully, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, all you people, MailChimp.
Listen carefully.
They don't want you to profit off of people they don't agree with.
That is Alex Jones today.
That is Jen Briney tomorrow.
We're talking, this is ABC, CBS, NBC, right?
And they're making money off of him.
They're running ads against him.
So, you know, I agree with you about free speech, and that's of concern to me as well.
I also don't think those companies should be profiting off of what he's saying.
We all agree on that, that private enterprise does not have any obligation.
If you make a t-shirt that says, your mother sucks cocks in hell...
They don't have to sell it at Baby Gap.
You know, we get that.
I have to admit, I thought that was pretty funny.
But I'm just saying...
It's pretty much the same thing we're talking about here.
Yes, I understand.
But I'm just saying, as a concept, we have to understand that the way to get rid of hateful things is to the sunlight best disinfected.
And a good example is, wait a second, the alt-right rally.
Right, too.
The Nazis, remember last year in Charlottesville, they had their rally again.
20 people showed up.
Okay?
Not because we outlawed it, but because we let it happen the first time.
And these mental midgets found out, oh, it's not so great when you do this in public, because then you go back to the office and people don't like you so much.
Yeah, but Steve Bannon's on television tonight.
Whoa!
Steve Bannon's on television!
Wake the neighbors, quick!
We've got to get into our safe spaces because Steve Bannon's on television tonight.
Can you believe that's happening in these United States of America?
Okay, not because we outlawed it, but because we let it happen the first time.
And these mental midgets found out, oh, it's not so great when you do this in public because then you go back to the office and people don't like you so much.
Yeah, but Steve Bannon's on television tonight.
So, I mean, the alt-right hasn't disappeared.
And what the YouTube algorithm was doing was funneling people to Alex Jones.
Like, the YouTube algorithm is the crossing guards.
Attention, YouTube.
You're being blamed for your algo.
Pay attention, Silicon Valley.
Pay attention.
Hey, everybody, there's a rally.
You know, let's all go to the rally.
And, like, bringing people to the Unite the Right.
The problem companies are having is they don't know where to draw the line.
They know there are lines, and they're...
This is some British douche who works for Axios.
They're scared of their own shadow.
I see them.
The tech execs come to Washington, D.C. with their tails between their legs, desperately trying to have these off-the-records with us reporters.
What can we do to be more, you know, feeling?
And they're squeezed from all ends.
They're scared of conservatives.
Because conservatives have these things, oh, they're banning, shadow banning us, and they're scared of the left because the left's saying, you know, clamp down on anyone who says anything offensive, and they're scared of their own shadow.
They're in a crouch and they don't know what to do.
Well, except for that they do need to act to at least uphold their own terms of service, which is what they're doing.
But they keep changing.
The bar keeps moving.
They haven't been consistent.
The concern I have to your point, Bill, about more speech, which is your point, right?
Right.
On these platforms, in 2016, 44% of people who identified as left of center did not post anything about politics on their social media feed.
44%.
On the Republican side, on the conservative side, it was only 8%.
Why didn't they post?
Because they didn't want to be trolled, harassed, or abused.
These platforms, yes, they are quasi-public squares, but they have an obligation to make sure that people are not harassed when they use them.
And that's why I think this is an important step.
It's only a week's suspension, for Pete's sake.
It's not like it was the end of the world.
What is that, like a timeout?
I mean, the Twitter thing is just ridiculous.
We're going to have Alex Jones, you know, off Twitter for a week, so he thinks about what he's done.
I mean, what?
Like, he's some sort of a, you know, nine-year-old who is, you know, you say, hey, I'm really sorry about that.
Yeah, the kids really are dead.
I am Q. Just don't forget that.
And he's Q. Okay.
It's always a good out.
And I'm Q. So, I see the power that we're going to witness on social networks is going to be immense.
It is going to be against the social networks.
It's all over this interview.
It's all over it.
They can't profit off of it.
All these things are all wrong.
People are now attacking the platform, which is very interesting.
The platform should be a movable platform.
Platform is a platform.
You can't do anything with a platform, but of course they're not platforms.
Jump on it.
Now, I've seen this movie before.
I've seen the centralization, decentralization.
And right on cue, we talked about it on Thursday, we have, if you look at how RSS and websites, and actually Dave Weiner had all the right ideas.
RSS, the RSS cloud, which has now been supplanted by the PubSub, the active pub.
Which is just another protocol, but it includes it all.
It actually functions more like an email box.
The terms in the protocol even say inbox, outbox.
And it's a great way for decentralized systems to talk to each other.
The vision was good, but now it's been modernized.
And when Twitter turned off pieces of their streaming API, there was an action on Twitter.
And it was the divest day, I don't know, some stupid hashtag.
And I saw a huge influx of people moving to Mastodon.
All we need, because I remember how Twitter started, besides the fact that they were a podcast infrastructure network first, Twitter was put on the map for one reason.
Do you remember?
Who showed up on Twitter that made Twitter the place to go?
Who?
Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore.
Oh, right.
Exactly.
Not only were they two massive celebrities of huge interest, Ashton Kutcher, give him full credit, he showed everybody.
He set the standard.
Look, there's Demi Moore.
Whoa!
There's Demi with bedhead.
Oh, here's Demi and Demi Moore making out.
Wow, I was like, this is fantastic.
Then we got the audience created hashtags.
The audience created...
We called it a pound sign!
Actually, the Twitter people wanted to ban the hashtag idea.
They wanted to ban hashtags.
RT, which stood for retweet.
The first time you showed up on Twitter, you're like, what the hell is this RT? Why is RT? Is Russian television on?
What is going on?
Good point.
So when you move to Mastodon, all we need is one celebrity couple, and I know which one I have in mind, to set up their own instance, and you'll see a huge dent.
And I am now, go to noagendaplayer.com, because this is a message for, yay!
Kanye, I am calling you as a true patriot for you and Kim Kardashian West to go to Mastodon and leave Twitter.
I tell you, the money opportunities for you are a thousandfold bigger than whatever Kim is getting as an influencer on all of her social media right now.
Because you'll have no one standing there for a handout or a piece of the action or 30%.
You'll have free reign.
The audience will go.
Go yay.
Peace.
Bye.
Thank you.
Okay, well, I think this is another good example of one of our propositions.
It's just an idea.
This will go probably as far as everything else we do.
Well, we're only good at one thing.
Yes, apparently.
But this was just a call to action.
This is not a business I'm going to be in.
I'm just saying.
Yeah.
And I'm sure that you're going to get this.
Maybe.
Maybe.
I don't know.
Okay, okay, we got it, we got it, we got it.
Let me see, I did get some...
Oh, did you see the bus stop signs in London?
No.
Oh, so Facebag, who of course are worried.
Oh yes, no, I've seen these signs.
These are the big giant signs that say...
I think they're parodies.
No, no, no, no.
Calling out Facebook.
No, it's better than that.
Facebag has an ad campaign and it's, you know, big letters, fake news is not our friend.
And then underneath, they, well, we don't even know what it said originally because people have gone out and pasted in the same large letter type text.
The following paragraph, after fake news is not our friend, then all of a sudden new is, it's a great revenue source.
Yes.
Next one.
Data misuse is not our friend.
And underneath that, it's our business model.
I mean, this is, not only is it fantastically funny, it's guerrilla, it is backfiring on their marketing.
They're already afraid.
They never advertise.
When did Facebook ever advertise?
I don't think they ever advertised.
They didn't have to.
Ever since the congressional hearings, they've been advertising.
And so now they're trying to say, hey, we're good.
We're all good guys.
Come over here.
Hang out with us.
And people are vandalizing their entire campaign.
This is beautiful.
This, to me, is the show right here.
This is the show.
Okay, then I had last thing.
Oh, yes, I got a note about the firewall issues, how this trickles down when virtue signaling is in place and Apple says, get him off, and the social networks say, get him off, then the firewall companies like Palo Alto Networks.
Start putting things on their blocked list.
And one of our producers works there.
He's an engineer and tries to help companies stop all these breaches you talk about.
In the show, you said Alex Jones' site was classified as questionable and enhanced blocked.
In the Palo Alto Networks firewall system, which goes apparently to thousands of companies.
Our definition of questionable is as below.
We define the URL based on a variety of different signals.
First we have tools that try and automatically define the category.
Next, users can submit for overrides to request changes to the categories, which is what looks like happened in this case.
Automated systems initially vet this, then it is manually inspected by humans.
I guess Palo Alto Networks, no offense, but has no AI either.
Automated systems initially vet this, then it's manually inspected by humans.
It looks like this site has been classified as a news site recently until it was reported for other things.
See, this is the problem.
It's the reporting.
You have this feedback loop.
It seems like the compromise between the suggestions was to move it to questionable instead of, for example, extremism or hate speech.
Customers can request reclassification and provide rationale to argue why it should be different.
Next, a customer defines what action they want for each category.
If something is questionable, they might allow it depending on corporate policy where something like extremism will probably be a block.
So now you have all of these little decisions that are made between some skip logic and some grep commands.
Oh, okay, this may be a signal.
And then a human being looks at it, makes a classification.
Then other customers who, of course, you know, one company to the next will have a different idea.
And it starts to get categorized.
And before you know it, you've just got a gray mass of mush.
And all you can see is, you know, yes.
This gives me the idea.
Is it a profitable idea?
If you had an operation, you know, you talked about last show, you talked about this woman with a block list.
Yeah, the block together.
Which I think is a good idea.
Think about this as a kind of a company, a media matters-like operation that's got more of an octopus structure.
So you have your main company that is going to...
Use its ability to find, locate certain kinds of operations that you want to shut down through normal means.
And so you create these boycott lists, which you could have a variety of them.
You could have, instead of the one list that woman has on Twitter, you could have maybe 10 different lists.
If you don't like this, subscribe to this list.
You put the button and the blocks go into play from the app.
Mm-hmm.
But meanwhile, you have this octopus structure.
So if something like you get Jones kicked off of the – or put on a blacklist someplace, and then you have people commenting from the different tentacles coming in from left and right.
It could only be a small team.
You don't need a lot of people.
I mean the Russians are doing this with a lot of people.
I think you can do it with a small team, that well-paid team who are online all the time.
And you can even have some people in India or elsewhere to do this.
So we're not racist.
It's fine.
Yeah, and you go in there and you reconfirm.
Oh, it's great that you did this.
You should block them.
And if something starts to come out of it, they're never going to have an organized group like you would be with the octopus operation, which is super organized.
Because it's all nebulous.
Nobody knows anybody.
There's complainers coming in from left.
So what you're saying is the need for an organization, the octopus org, that sits on top and really corrals the message of all these people, provides them the feedback loop and makes them feel good?
Is that what you're saying?
Well, there's not more than that.
It directs its efforts towards politically, you know, it's all politically motivated.
So if you're running a campaign for some, you work with a campaign, for example, of somebody running for the Senate.
And you do everything you can to block, stifle.
It's a dirty tricks operation is what it amounts to.
It's something Roger Stone should do.
He can't manage something like that.
But, I mean, it would be, he would be like one of the guys you'd employ because he'd have ideas.
Yeah, I bet he does.
Don't you think?
Oh, yeah.
Of course he'd have great ideas.
But you'd have an actual commercial operation.
There'd be consultants.
Yeah.
And they would do these dirty tricks.
And it would be because the way these things come in, the way he described the Palo Alto Networks.
Oh, somebody comes in and they ask for all that.
Can you look at this again?
Because I think he shouldn't be on the blacklist.
Well, you could have 10 people saying he should be on the blacklist.
I mean, you could organize.
And in fact, if this isn't organized already, I'd actually be surprised.
I'd be surprised.
I've talked to public relations companies about these ideas, and they're all like, oh, you know, it's not necessarily a great thing.
And they'd rather go off and do native advertising because there's a lot of money in that.
I think there's as much money in this.
I think so, too.
And that is actually something we could.
I mean, you're just creating another value network.
It's not that hard.
Yeah.
Message goes out.
Hey, everyone report this.
Report this.
Click on report.
Report this.
Yeah, you'd have a system of messaging to get the word out.
Bless you.
Well, that's the beauty of it.
We have that system.
It's called Twitter.
We just use Twitter.
Well, you can use the IRC, too.
It's more fun to use themselves against themselves.
Well, maybe.
Yeah, that's a funny idea.
I think that's funny.
I like that.
But I think, you know, it's something to consider.
You know, you just need a good team, a core team, and you can create this octopus structure, and you can start pushing people around.
All right.
So the newsletter is our delivery mechanism.
Stay tuned.
You will hear more.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
It's on every page of the show notes.
Subscribe to the newsletter.
Just quickly before we take our break here, you know, I've been rather obsessed with going OTG off the grid trying to...
We have not had a report for some time.
Yes, well, I'm extremely pleased still momentarily with the Kyocera...
What is it?
The Dura 47010, whatever it is.
Because it has a modern web browser, you can do pretty much everything you need to do in a modern web browser.
You don't need to have all the apps.
And it also doesn't distract you, because I can only get text messages or phone calls, nothing else, blings, bloops, bloops, or flops.
But the problems are still rife throughout our world.
The largest lifeguard organization, the DLRG, is warning there's a growing number of child drownings this summer, and that is linked to parents not paying attention because they're on their smartphones.
How sad is this?
That's pathetic and it doesn't surprise me.
Yes.
Another OTG in reverse, i.e.
a very bad thing, is happening in the Netherlands.
More and more people are concerned for their privacy when they're at organizations such as the Harlem Culinary Festival.
And the Culinary Festival is like a food fair, I guess.
It's in Harlem.
And the organizers, a lot of people apparently who go to seminars and fairs and events are saying, I really don't want to be photographed and put on social media.
I say that to people, too.
Well, they're the Dutch, and they have come up with a fabulous idea.
Upon registration, and this is truth, it's fact, upon registration, you check a box and say, no, I do not want to be in photos on social media, and they give you a red dot to put on your head.
Why don't you put a yellow cross on your shoulder?
Or a bullseye for that matter.
A red dot because then the AI can scan that and say, oh, we can't post this one because there's a red dot person in there.
Is that great or what?
It's dumb.
I think that right there is another fabulous opportunity.
Because the dot, of course, should have an RFID chip in it.
There's all kinds of cool stuff we can do to people.
You track them.
Where are those red dot people going?
Anyway, I do see Silicon Valley as the enemy of me.
I don't want them tracking me or as little as possible.
And I was thumbing through my copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War over the weekend.
And I was reminded that I'm on the right path because he wrote, when the enemy is bigger than you, be invisible.
I'm going to show myself all by donating to No Agenda.
Imagine all the people who could do that.
Oh, yeah, that'd be fun.
Yeah, on No Agenda in the morning.
Well, we had a lot of donors invisible this week.
Ha, ha, ha.
Yeah, no kidding.
But we do have a few people to thank, including Ari Kiraji.
Kiraji.
E-R-I. And that would be...
And this is actually a donation for her husband.
For her husband, Brian Mickey.
51st.
51st today.
Yes.
Who will make his day.
That's so nice when you do that for your man.
Yeah.
Sabine or Sabine Trumpler.
Trumpler.
Trumpler.
Must be a shitty name in Germany right now.
Hamburg.
Deutschland.
Oh, it's actually Achim Trumpler.
This is his wife's PayPal.
Oh, okay.
He's making himself invisible.
Achim Trumpler from Hamburg.
Making himself invisible.
No jingles, no nothing.
$101.01.
Aerie was $150.
Anonymous, $101.01.
Matthew Stegman, $101.01, who says he may not be able to afford the 81818.
Of course, nobody could hear.
Of course not.
William Bagdad.
In the days of yore, we would have people that would take us up on these offers.
William Bagadin, $100, no jingles, of course not.
Max Wyndham Jr.
in the Woodlands, Texas, 9999.
Michael DeLozier in Merville, Tennessee.
Perky Boobs.
Perky Boobs was 6-0-6.
No, Perky's 9-9-9.
9-0-0-0-9.
8181.
We got a few of these.
We got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
8181.
Drayton Valley, Alberta, Canada.
Baroness Monica.
Don Berger in Euless, Texas, 8181.
Jacob Hernandez, 8181.
Grandview, Washington.
Christopher Dolan in Cambridge.
Sir Christopher Dolan, I believe.
I think so, too.
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Yes, Sir Scott.
Fuller, Scott, Fuller, Sir Scott in Cumming, Georgia.
Night of many small donations here.
Everyone can afford to chip in, he says.
Anonymous, 8118, which is actually...
It's a confused palindrome.
Well, it was actually offered some time ago.
Michael Lopez in Flanders, New Jersey, 8008, the only guy who caught the boob donation, which was specifically put on there.
I think it's Miguel, I would say, not Michael.
Yeah, Miguel Lopez.
Sir Rick in Arlington, Washington, 6996.
Baron Mark Tanner, once again, 66-66 in Whittier, California.
Marcus...
Mueller?
Mueller, is that what it is?
I believe it's Mueller.
Mueller!
Dean Roker, 55-55.
Dean Roker's 55-10.
Brandon M. Ellsbury, 50-33.
Andrew Benz in Imperial, Missouri, 50-05.
The following people are all $50 donors, name and location, and there aren't that many.
Andrew Gusick in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Thomas Dillon in Laverne, California.
George Wuchat in Universal City, Texas.
Eric Mackie, M-A-K-I, in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
And Joel Daroon in Savannah, Georgia.
And last but not least, Daulet Zangusen in Bellevue, Washington.
And Brandon Ellsbury said, keep up the...
He was from Orlando, 5033.
Keep up the awesome work, John and Adam.
Your work is immeasurably beneficial and you both are like the college professors I never had.
In spring of last year, I used the N.A. show notes search engine to complete my papers and it truly allowed me to pass my class with flying colors.
I am truly thankful.
Can you please wish my smoking hot girlfriend a happy birthday and an awesome job at working to lose weight?
She turned...
Brandon.
She turns 22 on the 20th.
Also, happy birthday to my lol bro, Thomas, who turns 20 on the 24th.
Do we have both those on there?
Yes.
But, Brandon, I know you're proud of her.
And she should be proud.
Advice.
Yes.
You don't say that publicly about your woman.
Ever.
Ever.
It's just some advice.
You guys are young, I think.
You're the same age, so you'll be okay.
Just some advice from the worn and the weary.
Yes, exactly.
Thank you all so much for your support of the program, and I do hope you come back for more.
Thursday, we have another show, and you can always support us at Dvorak.org slash NA. We sing it for remembrance.
Dvorak.org slash NA. Karma has requested.
Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.
Let's vote for jobs!
Yeah!
You've got karma.
and here's our list for today today is the 19th of august 2018 sir mark of the midwest says happy birthday to his son michael uh he turned 32 today august 19th eric kiragi says happy birthday to her husband brian micky 51 today and brandon elsbury you just heard him to Happy birthday to his smoking hot girlfriend.
She turns 22 tomorrow.
And his brother Thomas turns 20 on the 24th.
Happy birthday to everybody here at the best podcast in the universe.
Happy birthday, yeah!
And as you'd probably expect, there are no nights and no title changes.
Hopefully that will change on Thursday.
Thank you again for supporting us.
It's the only way we can make it.
No advertising here.
Can you imagine?
I mean, there are people around.
There are people who despise me, certainly.
There are people who spit on you.
And if they actually had something to go after, we'd be gone.
If we had ads, we'd be gone.
Imagine trying to hang on to a Squarespace ad with people calling you out as a Nazi or whatever.
Quadroon.
A Nazi quadroon.
Trump-apologists!
Trumpeters!
Exactly.
So, I think...
The best one I've heard originally is Trump-pansy.
Trump-pansy is good.
I like that.
Yeah.
It's like chimpanzee, but it's Trump-pansy.
Although it has a kind of a...
I would say it has a slight homophobic sound to it that maybe it shouldn't be used.
Yes, I understand what you're saying.
Let me see.
Oh, yes.
The Electoral College was discussed on C-SPAN the other day from a guy I know personally.
He wants to get rid of it.
Of course.
And I respect this guy.
I've worked with him.
I've fought lawsuits for things he believes in and won in that regard, Creative Commons.
As far as I know, I was the first to challenge a copyright in court to uphold Creative Commons, and it was awarded.
Oh, yeah.
I actually know him very well.
I'm sure you do.
And I've always liked the guy.
Although I do remember we got in some little scrape, some online back-and-forth bitching about something.
I can't remember.
He actually enjoys that.
Oh, okay.
Well, I recall in the previous election, he was going to be the candidate.
You know, hey, give me all your money, and then I'll have a really smart person as vice president.
I'll resign, or she can become president.
So now he wants to get the convention together to create an amendment to the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College.
And we have so many international listeners, and this is such a topic, because it's coming back apparently, because he's trying to make this happen, and he's...
As predicted.
I would like you...
To abridge the choice of an electoral college and its function so that we can then understand if it would be good or not to get rid of it and why it's unique.
Well, the last election was a proof that the electoral college does have a function.
And that is to keep one state with too many people and too many votes from hogging the...
In other words, here's what happened in the last election.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but only because...
And she won it by about 4 million people.
But only because Trump was shut out of California, was not really allowed to speak.
And so she won that those extra 4 million people came from one state.
California.
The rest of it was spread out in such a way that the California...
I have to stop.
I'm sorry.
I think one of the main problems is right there, is that most people, and most of those would be American, don't understand the model of the states.
I think they just think America, one big country...
Yeah, no, it's not.
No, every state is...
Every state, for the international listeners, every state is governed separately.
It has its own laws.
Some states you can drink – well, it used to be some states you could drink when you were 18, others 21, different driving rules, all kinds of things that were not covered by – To things they can or really can't do, but the only things they can meddle in.
And everything else, everything else is supposed to be governed by the states.
That's been gotten very gray over the years through a lot of social programs.
It's not very clear anymore, but people are forgetting that the states have their own laws.
For instance, I'm in a state and I petition my government frequently where marijuana is illegal.
And we're going to get it legal in Texas.
And if you don't like that, if you think, that's ridiculous, man, you can't smoke my weed, then you can either risk going to jail or leave the state, go to another friendly state, or 420 friendly state.
The entire West Coast is legal.
So the idea is the electoral college was set up to give just a fixed number of votes, each representing various states, I don't know what California is, but let's say California has 80 votes.
If California votes for Hillary and she wins by one vote, all 80 votes go to Hillary.
If they vote for California and she wins by 4 million votes...
No more go to Hillary, just those same 80.
And so the problem is you don't want these states that are lopsided in favor of one candidate over another kind of stuff in the ballot box.
Now, The argument that comes from, in this particular case, from people who wanted Hillary to win is, how is it possible that a state like Montana gets to have equal representation in the Senate?
And how can it be that they have even that many electoral votes?
Well, the electoral votes are based on the population of the state.
So Montana doesn't have more electoral votes than they deserve.
No, but once...
Okay, continue.
And so the idea is to keep one state from dominating the whole system.
We don't want California picking our presidents, which it would have done if Hillary had won.
Okay.
That's it.
That's all there is to it.
It's not that complicated.
Well, the way – I always like to look at it is the system was put in place in case we had some form of mass hysteria outbreak and people were trying to bully in some nut job, which is exactly what people are saying is what it allowed, whereas I believe the opposite.
No, it's just the opposite.
It kept a criminal from becoming president.
Exactly.
So it actually worked incredibly well.
But why Professor Lessig fails to see this?
He's a big hill bot.
Yeah, but he's a law guy.
I mean, he's a professor of law, very smart, I have huge respect.
Does he not know the origins of the Electoral College?
He knows everything, but as far as he's concerned, it doesn't work right because Hillary didn't win.
So he's dumb.
No, he's not dumb.
He's conniving.
Oh, okay.
He's a real hardcore Democrat.
I know, but to throw your credibility as a constitutional scholar into the wind by saying...
You're joking when you say this, right?
No.
He's making himself look good.
Are you kidding?
No.
History will be the judge of that.
It's incredibly difficult to imagine our Constitution being amended.
This is a general problem, not just as it affects the Electoral College.
And so, you know, what we're trying to do is the best we can, given that really critical constraint on our constitutional process.
With the state compact, how many states will be needed to make that change and how many states have signed on?
So, the compact is triggered when the equivalent of 270 electors have joined.
And right now, there are 12 states representing 165 electors that have joined.
But the problem is they've kind of hit a very thick red wall because there's not yet a solidly Republican state that has joined the compact.
Now, that could change.
People are thinking about trying to bring referenda in states that allow referenda because what we know is that the public overwhelmingly supports the idea of a president who actually represents all of America.
What we know is the public is deeply skeptical, as your earlier callers were, of this electoral college system that seems to be just a random number generator increasingly in this election of our president.
So if the people could decide, I think it would be an easy question.
But we depend upon these politicians to bring the National Popular Vote Compact to fruition.
And despite the incredibly hard work of many people, literally since Bush versus Gore, that still has not come to fruition.
I think he should be stripped of his clearance.
I don't think he has one.
Who the hell knows?
I don't think he does.
To me, that's just...
I mean, I'm sorry.
He's throwing his credentials to the wind.
It's sour grapes.
Well, yeah.
All I know is he wouldn't be saying anything.
Ask him this.
Well, if you remember before the election, there was no road to 270 for Donald Trump.
No road.
And the electoral college was swinging.
It was going to be a landslide, as some of these guys would say.
It was a landslide, the biggest ever, and the Republican Party was going to be destroyed.
Would you, if that had happened, would you still be doing this?
What do you mean?
In other words, if Hillary had gotten in with a landslide nearly destroying the Republican Party, because there was no road to 270, would you still be on this bandwagon trying to get rid of the Electoral College?
No, of course not.
Of course not.
I understand, John, thanks, but I don't understand how someone can just say this.
I don't know, the guy, you know, he has standing, had standing.
He still does with his group.
Yeah, with his group.
Okay, fine.
Let's face it, when he ran for president with his cockamamie scheme, come on, I mean, you know, that's kind of a credibility issue there, that idea.
I think we laughed about it then, too.
I think I probably had a similar lead-in.
Nudge up.
Elon Musk is...
Elon!
Oh, Elon!
I should have had that one ready.
He did an interview about his tweet, you know, taking the company private at...
Oh, yeah.
He's looking into this.
You can't do that.
Elon!
Yeah.
Did you read the New York Times interview?
No, I just read about it.
Oh, yeah.
He even mentions he was on Ambien.
Yeah.
No, this has really hurt the company's stock.
Oh, immediately.
And now today came out there was...
Um, Azealia Banks, who is a hip-hop, hip-hopper, she was tweeting that she was at Elon's house, and I guess she's friends with her wife, and she said, I have some of the tweets here, I waited around all weekend while Grimes coddled her boyfriend for being too stupid to know not to go on Twitter while on acid.
I saw him in the kitchen tucking his tail in between his legs, scrounging for investors to cover his ass after that tweet.
This is what Bankson told the Business Insider of a meeting with Musk last weekend.
He was stressed and red in the face.
Now, of course, Musk denied all of this, but a little report from CNBC who were just baffled, just baffled by the price of $420, just baffled by it.
I mean, there are some very, to me, very interesting but also troubling revelations in that interview.
Like, let's talk about the $420 price.
I mean, he said, oh, he just glanced at the stock price, tacked on 20%, and then rounded it up to 420 because of quote-unquote karma and the fact that that's like National Marijuana Day.
He acknowledged that.
That's in the interview.
No, the way I read it, I couldn't say if he's explicitly referenced marijuana, but it was written for us to draw that conclusion for sure.
I think that's a fair conclusion.
And I think, you know, I can imagine, you know, corporate finance students across America who spent years learning how to do a discounted cash flow will look at that and say, you know, what?
What?
I thought she had a thing at the end there.
They just baffled.
Oh, my God.
Now, this kind of breaks my whole assumption that Elon is the golden child of the intelligence and space force.
You're backing off of it.
I'm not.
No, I'm not.
I'm not backing off because...
If he gets through all this, and I still think he'll take the company private at 420, I think then we'll all have to say I was right.
I'm still thinking...
Oh, I'm writing it down.
Yeah, please.
I'm going to say, I'm going to tell Ashley he was right.
Yes, you can just do that.
You can just call me anytime you want.
I will.
I'll tell you you're right if he takes the company private.
You're right.
At 420.
At 420, please write down the 420s.
420 or better.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
He's in a heap of trouble.
Yeah, it sure looks like it.
By the way, would you want to go on a rocket with him right now?
Oh man, I think he goes on a rocket every weekend.
Woohoo!
Yes.
Now, amidst all of this, and this was just a two-parter, fantastic couple of quotes.
This is Michael Pillsbury.
He's a big defense guy.
I think in the Bush, he was undersecretary for Department of Defense.
He's ran the military-industrial complex from beginning to end.
Older guy, gray guy.
I don't think he has...
Any direct intelligence involvement.
But he has clearance.
Trust me.
He's got clearance.
And he's out there talking for a reason.
So we're not going to be hoodwinked.
Is he wearing a blue shirt?
He's got gray hair.
I don't remember if it was a blue shirt.
Maybe.
He's got gray hair.
Well, he's now...
Of course, he runs a think tank now.
So he gets to go out there with his credentials now.
But whether he believes it or not, I thought his assertions over what China thinks of President Trump were interesting.
There was a surprising piece written by a Chinese expert in the Financial Times recently that described the Chinese leadership's view of Donald Trump.
And it came as, I think something is a surprise if you follow the news coverage of Trump in this country.
It said, essentially, Chinese leadership believes that our president is playing a kind of three-dimensional chess, he's a brilliant tactician, and that they fear he's outflanking them strategically.
Do you think that's right?
Yes, I was in Beijing a week ago.
I think I heard pretty much the same thing, that they think President Trump is basically the superior president out of the last five or six that have dealt with China.
And he's done the most to alter the relationship.
He's really got their attention.
They're quite concerned that there's something deeper going on than they're aware of.
So you get the sense that the Chinese leadership and the advisors to the leadership are afraid of being outsmarted by President Trump.
I think he's distinguished himself as fighting back at all, number one.
Number two, the details and the depth of his allegations in these several White House reports he's released are really quite stunning to the Chinese.
He's basically alleging that they stole their way to the top.
They've had forcible technology transfers from U.S. companies, these outright stolen technology, that they sort of have an illegitimate path to being number two in the world.
That he would say these kinds of things, especially this term he's used in some reports, Economic warfare.
That China is committing economic warfare against America and other countries.
This is really quite astonishing to them.
They're used to being, if you will, coddled or spoken politely to.
So this is really quite a shock.
And it's working, I think.
I find that to be very interesting.
That's something you won't hear in the mainstream media.
What was that, CNBC? No, that was Tucker Carlson.
It was on Fox.
Of course it was on Fox.
Tucker got that out.
That's interesting.
The guy actually had a funny gaffe in the same little interview.
Do you think that so far this change in our attitude toward China has helped the United States?
And by the way, his gaffe will prove that the no-agenda show mind control works.
States, have we gotten something out of this?
Well, it's kind of a strange reaction, but we've certainly got the attention of the European Union.
The European Union commissioner, Mr.
Drunker, came here about less than a month ago.
It works!
It works!
We've programmed him to say drunker instead of junker.
Wow!
And drunker is not really close to younger.
It's not really the same, you know.
I was watching that in bed last night on the hearing aid.
So, you know, you can't hear anything.
I just hear.
And I laughed so loud Tina woke up.
I could not believe it.
Oh, by the way, I just wanted to say something about the hearing aids.
So here's Silicon Valley for you.
So if I have these hearing aids, Apple was the first one to come out with smartphone integration for streaming to your hearing aids.
It's called MFI, made for iPhone.
I believe it's an open protocol.
I believe it's published and I believe anyone can use it.
And it's a part of the Bluetooth high streaming spec something.
And there's a number of hearing aid manufacturers who immediately went, oh, okay, great.
We're programming for this.
We're good to go.
Google comes out with an announcement yesterday.
Yeah, we're going to support hearing aids, but it's going to be a completely different standard, and it's only going to work on these hearing aids over here.
I hate these people.
Well, that's pretty douchey.
That is the Google way.
I have to say, Apple is very good at it themselves, but they jumped on and supported this, and I guess you get some first rights.
We're talking about a handicap, an actual medical issue that you're now going to screw with people on.
I think I have an ADA defense here.
Yeah, you do.
This might be actionable.
Yes, class.
Some actionable.
I don't know.
We got lawyers out there.
We got invalid lawyers.
What do you call it when you do a...
Invalid lawyer.
Iron science.
He was law enforcement, man.
He wasn't a lawyer.
He was the law.
Talking about the Chinese.
Going back to the Chinese.
Horowitz just got back from China.
He was grilling people over there.
You didn't listen to the last show, but he...
He's lucky to get back, man.
He said...
He kept asking, what do you think of our President Trump?
And they said, oh, we think he's great because he's doing something about immigration.
The Chinese seem to be concerned about our immigration policies.
Oh, interesting.
Oh, I know why.
Of course, because they're concerned because they don't want the cheap labor to go to factories in America.
Stuff like that.
Yeah.
But they like him.
So it's not like if you go to Europe and start asking about Trump because the Europeans are part of the same structural news.
I mean, the Chinese news is not pushed around by the New York Times.
The European news just translates the New York Times.
I look at the headlines every morning.
There's an email I get and it has all the Dutch newspapers from the left to the right to the intelligent to the quasi and everything in between to the gossip rags.
The headlines are exactly the same as in the United States.
Sure, there's some local flavor and color for a couple of stories, you know.
Dog bites man.
Man bites dog.
But all of it's like, Trump yanks clearance!
There's no journalism in the EU. Well, there is, but it's a lot of copy-paste work and just translating.
And why wouldn't you?
You're up nice and early compared to the U.S. You got the overnight stories.
Boom!
It's good for a whole new cycle.
Okay, time for coffee.
Alright, so I have one clip since you got the drunker thing.
I gotta play this.
And this is a woman, she's kind of a substituter and she's on CBS. She's a professional journalist.
She's not a spring chicken Meg Oliver.
And she is on the network.
And this is the...
I don't have the other clip, but I've caught her doing this twice.
This is a segment from a package that she put together, and it's just a short piece.
And I'm just going to say, I want you to see if you can catch what really galls me about this.
Her unusual journey started in 2013.
Grassley was an art major at the University of Montana when she visited the Zoological Museum on campus.
I mean, completely overwhelmed with...
Yes, it would be zoological.
She has done this before.
Do they have no one correcting people?
I don't know if they know how to pronounce the word or if CBS doesn't care.
I think this is shoddy.
At the national network level, to say zoology is inexcusable.
It's inexcusable.
It's grounds for firing.
Push her over to MSNBC where she can get away with that stuff.
Yeah.
That, by the way, is an actual service this show could provide.
If anyone needs a service that'll correct stupid things your on-air people say, we're your guys.
Yeah.
Well, it's a consulting company we have that people should be taking advantage of.
They don't, as usual.
As usual.
You know, I came across a conspiracy theory that I like very much.
In fact, I'll just do a little theremin.
I'll do it up front.
Alright.
Wow, it hurts so much.
Now, we've discussed the Communist Manifesto before on the show.
We've discussed that...
Karl Marx really was more of a blogger and much less of the guy who wrote it.
It was, of course, Friedrich Engels who wrote the Communist Man.
Engels is the bad actor amongst the two guys.
Marx was pretty much a journalist, a columnist.
He never even lived in Russia.
He lived in England.
It lived in England.
Engels was the real bad actor, and instead of being called Marxism, this should all be called Engelism.
That doesn't sound as good.
I think he was like a gadfly, this Marx guy.
He was kind of around social circles, and he did some poetry, and I think we correctly concluded years ago he was a blogger.
So here's the conspiracy theory, and I like it.
Frederick Engels' dad worked for the Rothschild Bank.
It must have been London, I think, at the time, where that division of the Rothschild Bank was.
And...
The Communist Manifesto was written under the auspices of his dad, and then, of course, the reason why they really wanted to separate the Engels' name from it is because of the bank, so they put it under Karl Marx's name.
Now, here's where the conspiracy gets interesting.
There is the Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto.
And the way the conspiracy reads is, this is what Marx wrote for communism.
It sounds like an awful lot of it is already in place in the United States.
Now, what I don't know is if these ten planks of the Communist Manifesto are indeed ten planks of the Communist Manifesto.
I've read the cliff notes of the Communist Manifesto, and I feel bad about that.
It's online?
Sure, I have not read it in its entirety.
Have you read it?
Years ago.
Like years ago.
Okay, so these are the ten planks, and you tell me if you think that's correct.
I'm going to pull it up.
Well, you're going to get the same stuff I got if you look for 10 planks.
Conspiracy theory.
I'm looking for the Communist Manifesto.
Uh-huh.
And then I'll look up 10 planks.
I'm not quite sure where this 10 planks comes from.
Well, while you're doing that, plank one.
Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose.
Sounds pretty communist to me.
Of course, that has not happened in the United States, but through taxation, your land can be taken away from you.
And I would argue that property tax is a form of rent that goes to the public purpose.
Second plank, a heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Well, we have that.
In fact, I think most people are proud to say we have a progressive tax.
Third plank.
Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
It's not been abolished, but we do have quite a hefty tax.
It's known as the death tax.
Plank four.
Confiscation of the property of all immigrants and rebels.
And that's forfeiture, which happens all the time.
If you do something bad, then they can take all your stuff away.
That's there.
Centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
That would be the Federal Reserve.
That would also indicate the student loan situation.
Oh, yeah.
And that is centralized.
Six, centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the state.
Now, we do have regulations.
We have the FCC. We have the Interstate Commerce Commission.
There's a number of...
Yeah, but we still got bloggers.
Well, I'm going to get to this point.
The seventh plank.
Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
So we don't have this exactly, but what we do have is a lot of government involvement in agriculture.
We just recently saw $12 billion in subsidy go to the farming sector, or at least promise to the farming sector, to compensate for tariffs.
The eighth plank, equal obligation of all work.
This is Ocasio's vibe.
The equal obligation of all to work.
Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
And I think that that's where socialism comes into play.
Well, that's where we got that guaranteed job, which we have a long discussion about.
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
So that's what Ocasio's about.
Yeah, she's a big fan of that.
People don't fully understand.
I should actually write it up because it probably needs to be written up.
Yeah, and because it's an actual system that falls into this.
It's an economic system.
Economic system.
It falls into this.
And when I read these planks, I'll just do the last two.
Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries.
Gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country.
By a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
That's Larry Lessig.
Yes, and the Planning Reorganization Act of 1949.
Electoral College.
And then ten, free education for all children in government schools.
Does that sound like Ocasio?
Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form.
And combination of education with industrial production.
To me, when you say socialism or democratic socialist, you're just here to finish the job.
It seems like we're already there.
We have all this.
It's just sneaky.
Well, you have to remember that people associate communism with the Soviet Union and its structure.
And much of the communist manifesto was not really...
What was implemented in Russia was a Stalinist system, which was really a modified version of this.
And there's also the communist manifesto applies to China.
And their version is a Chinese...
Hybrid between capitalism and communism.
It's a system that's completely different again.
So the basic system, which is the one we should all go out and read the Communist Manifesto, I think, now, and I'll do that, is probably just a kind of a suggestion box.
Well, here's what I'll posit.
Posit?
Yep.
Okay, dude.
Well, positing has nothing to do with dude.
It does.
Okay, well, I'll posit this.
Posit me this.
Posit.
And this closes out the conspiracy.
This communist manifesto, if followed, which we seem to have followed quite well, and other countries have followed suit, it really is about one thing.
It gives complete control over the country and the population through taxation and through money creation by the central bank, which in our case is the Federal Reserve.
They don't have to own it to control it.
Completely control the masses through this manifesto and through taxation and money creation.
Go Bitcoin!
Now, on that note, I'm going to change the topic.
Yep.
You used the word posit.
I did.
So I'm watching the worst movie ever made in the history of, I'd say at least Disney, maybe every movie company ever.
I'm sure I loved it.
Which one was it?
Avengers Infinity Wars.
What is this?
I might have seen this on the airplane.
Which one is this?
This is a movie where about half of the characters in the Marvel Universe are killed at the end.
And that's the way the movie ends.
By some ogre.
I didn't see this.
This is a big ogre.
And he uses the word when they're asking, why do you want to kill everybody?
He says, well, I've done the calculus.
No.
No.
Who wrote that?
A speech writer for Clinton?
So this guy, who's just some big bruiser, he gets...
This is actually more of a symbolic movie about the New World Order and the global governance idea.
And who wins?
Well, the global governance guy, the big ogre, wins and he gets to go relax because he says once he kills, half of everybody in the universe gets killed.
Along with all the superheroes.
Unfortunately, a lot of superheroes get killed.
How could this be a good movie?
Oh, I was cheering.
Because I'm saying, oh, great, no more Spider-Man movies.
Oh, great, no more, because all these guys are dying.
Ah, they didn't kill Iron Man, so we had to watch him again.
Oh, a couple of these guys are going to come back.
They killed, no, they killed the entire, what's the group, what's that funny comedy with the little raccoon, Guardians of the Galaxy.
Everybody, I think the raccoon's still alive, but they killed all of them.
They're all dead.
And for good.
And the way Marvel works, and I hate to talk comic book talk, but the way Marvel works, whatever happens, happens for everything, all the franchises.
So they have to obviously come up with some bogus way of bringing him back, but I think they should just close the franchise.
I think this is fantastic.
The movie sucked.
It had no story whatsoever.
Ever since Deadpool and Deadpool 2, who needs to see another superhero movie?
That's the franchise right there.
Deadpool 2 is funny.
I agree.
I thought it was a very enjoyable movie.
Worth watching.
It's just gags and jokes.
But this movie was the worst movie imaginable.
I recommend it if you really feel like tormenting someone.
But according to people that know about people who went to the scene in the theaters, they say that people were crying in the theaters because their favorite characters were killed.
Oh, man.
How old were these people?
Forty.
Whoa.
I don't know.
I mean, they may have been young.
They may have been old.
But there's a lot of people that are into this.
Anyway, it is a horrible film.
Very, very poorly.
No story whatsoever.
It does have some symbolism, I think.
Good work at alienating a large portion of the audience, film girl.
Thanks.
People love that.
Yeah, what can I do?
So we've had the virtue signaling about the straws.
You probably heard the virtue signaling about the balloons.
Balloons are a problem because a balloon releases.
So if you have a helium balloon, it should be forbidden because the helium balloon goes up, it pops, it comes back down, fish eat it and die.
And other rodents eat it and die.
They all die from the balloons.
Well, if rodents eat it and die, so what?
It's inhumane.
Okay.
We have yet another virtue signaler on the horizon.
I don't know if this is happening under pressure.
I can certainly see the waste.
Let's see if this can make it.
Maybe it will stop global warming.
The ketchup packets days could be numbered as Heinz plans to overhaul its global packaging designs to find greener alternatives.
The Chicago-based food giant announced on Tuesday that it will make 100% of its packaging globally recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025.
The company joins rivals like Unilever and Nestle that have set explicit deadlines to make their products environmentally friendly.
Pines isn't sure yet how it will address non-recyclable packaging like the ketchup packets.
The company says new packaging will have to balance sustainability with requirements for food safety, shelf life, and cost.
Here's a thought.
Do you think it's maybe possible that John Kerry running for Senate, I believe?
Is he running for Senate?
I don't know.
He's running for anything.
Yeah, I think he's running for Senate.
He's not going to get leverage from this.
No, no.
How about he got pressure?
Just wondering.
Well, maybe.
I think this is bullcrap.
I think it's just virtue signaling of the worst sort, which consists of, we're going to do it in 2025.
I'm sorry, he's running for governor.
What, he's running for governor?
I think he's running for governor, isn't he?
Come on, troll room.
Help me out here.
What's he running for?
Since you're talking about virtue signaling and crackpots, there was a documentary on PBS about this woman who spent all her life Getting plastic water bottles banned from Concord, Massachusetts.
And she finally managed to get it done and it got banned and it's always going to be a horrible domino effect and I don't know if anybody else did anything.
But she was an old, kind of an old bitty who went from person to person to person.
And talking about You know, saving the planet or whatever.
You have to listen to this clip and tell me if you find anything peculiar about it.
I'm doing is, I have a petition article, number 32, on the town warrant, and that is to ban the sale of drinking water in plastic bottles in the town of Concord.
I don't think we have that kind of problem.
I think those have been overblown a lot in the last several years.
Why put more burdens on people than they ever have?
Well, because...
Only 20% of the plastic water bottles are recycled.
How do we know that, though?
What are the statistics for that?
You can find out a lot about all these issues if you go to Corporate Accountability International in Boston.
They have tobacco things.
What did you do?
Why did you kill that bug?
Why did you kill that bug?
The guy's talking to her, and he sees this potato bug or something walking across where his feet are, and he steps on it, and she gets freaked out.
She looks and sees him doing that and gets right off the topic immediately.
This is so easily distracted, and is concerned about why he stepped on a bug.
This is like, to me, is like, wow!
Wow!
Also, what was it?
The Office for Corporate Responsibility sounded like a nice outfit to me.
Oh, yeah.
Let's play this clip so we can get it out of the way.
This is the Como clip where he says America's never been that great.
And look, all this comes down to this.
We're not going to make America great again.
It was never that great.
We have not reached greatness.
We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged.
The guy's on Xanax.
Something's wrong with him.
I'm calling Xanax.
It sounds a bit like it.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, I understand what he was trying to do.
Sure do.
But he flubbed it.
It was just stupid.
The delivery was wrong.
The timing was wrong.
And probably sort of just stayed away.
You know, it's like, you're going to try and make a joke about Make America Great Again?
You've got to have a good joke.
I don't know what he could have done to structure that better, but it was really poorly executed.
Now it's a meme.
Yeah.
All right.
Time for one more, and then we should really get out of here.
Well, I got one I've been trying to get off the list that's been here for a while.
This is a classic.
When you have Shields and Brooks, I think they're moving Shields off of the job on PBS NewsHour because he just rants and raves.
He sounds like an idiot, to be honest about it.
But let's listen to his commentary on Putin and how it relates to Trump.
Vladimir Putin, 2% very favorable among American voters, 3% favorable, 65% unfavorable, 46% very unfavorable.
So by a margin of 23 to 1, his very unfavorables to his very favorables.
And why is Donald Trump hanging around with him?
David, I've been suspicious all the way through.
He must have something.
There's some reason.
Donald Trump is not a man given great loyalty to individuals.
You know, his hero worship is finite.
It does raise serious questions about what's going on here.
Is he still waiting for the pee-pee tape?
Is he a little behind on the, has he not been brought up to speed?
I have no idea what he's talking about.
You're right.
The guy's all, he can consider him gone.
Now he's just not only bet on the wrong horse, he's riding into the sunset with it.
Yeah.
Even Brooks has backed off a little bit.
All right, everybody.
That's your deconstruction for today.
Almost three hours of it.
I think that should hold you over for a couple of days.
We'll return on Thursday with another episode of the best podcast in the universe, which is supported by you, the producers of the show.
And it's highly appreciated.
We're honored to do the work.
Please remember us at Dvorak.org slash NA. Coming to you from the 5x9 Cludio in the common law condo in the capital of the drone star state, Austin, Texas, FEMA Region 6 on the governmental maps.
In the morning, everybody, I'm Adam Curry.
And from northern Silicon Valley, where we beat the Zephyr, I'm John C. Dvorak, and I'm Q. We'll return on Thursday.
Until then, adios, mofos!
Am I missing a piece?
No, you're not missing anything.
These guys are deluded.
I don't know what their problem is at this point.
This has gone on too long.
But this comes back to the, you know, don't be stupid.
You have a moral obligation to be smart.
Yeah, you have a moral obligation to be intelligent.
Right.
Intelligent, yes.
It's confusing to me.
I mean, doesn't anyone else see this?
You gotta think more.
You gotta think smart.
You gotta be smart.
You gotta be intelligent.
Don't be stupid.
You have a moral obligation to be smart.
Positive thinking.
You gotta think more.
You gotta think more.
You gotta think smart.
You gotta be smart.
You've got to be intelligent.
You've got to be intelligent.
In fact, the president called you Wacky.
To protect us.
These are invisible missiles.
Fighting against hate matters.
Now, how you fight, it gets hot.
These are invisible missiles.
Welcome back to Prime.
It gets hot.
Language to what he has used with Ovaros Vanagel Newman over the last couple I
And I am here to blow the whistle.
Well, what Mr. Nixon Nixon, I mean, Mr.
Trump does when the time is right.
You talked about it.
You obviously want to talk about it.
John, this is a part of the palace intrigue that I made sure that people were aware of.
Secretly get the tanning bed into the White House.
I don't know.
I can't even talk about the things that I talk with them.
I don't love anything at all.
It can be verified, cooperated, and it's well documented.
I have been able to verify every single thing.
Everything that you see is in quotes.
It's verifiable.
It's documented.
Because here's the thing.
Uh, um, uh...
Are you speculating?
You know that it's a seven-minute interview.
Now we're at 10.
I know you gotta go, but I want to read this.
I am likely to not have an interview right after this with someone else.
And sometimes he battles with reality.
I don't love you leaving at all.
We're going to have a dedicated crew who will be going out in kind of known hotspots in the city where there have been complaints of feces, whether dog or human, and they'll be going out to clean it up.
So that's going to be their new job.
The Poop Police
The Poop Police Because they're waiting for you to make the doo-doo.
Every single day they make their final stand.
With shovels in their hands.
The poop police, they're gonna clean up the town.
The poop police, they're gonna make it less brown.
The poop police, police, police.
The best podcast in the universe.
Fire.
Popo.
Dvorak.org.
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