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Jan. 19, 2025 - No Agenda
03:36:59
1731 - "Cyber Timebombs"

No Agenda Episode 1731 - "Cyber Timebombs" "Cyber Timebombs" Executive Producers: Zaryn Dentzel Sir 'Imp'erfect - sirlibre.com/lightning-thrashes Skylar Firestone Sir Nick Sir Kevin Dills Gavin and Caitlynne McMahan Dame Sandcat Associate Executive Producers: Kurt K. Elon Musk Eli the Coffee Guy Linda Lu Duchess of jobs and writer resumes Darin Kirby Become a member of the 1732 Club, support the show here Boost us with with Podcasting 2.0 Certified apps: Podverse - Podfriend - Breez - Sphinx - Podstation - Curiocaster - Fountain Knights & Dames Art By: KorrektDaRekard End of Show Mixes: Lee O LaPuke - Clip Custodian Neal Jones - Secret Agent Paul Engineering, Stream Management & Wizardry Mark van Dijk - Systems Master Ryan Bemrose - Program Director Back Office Jae Dvorak Chapters: Dreb Scott Clip Custodian: Neal Jones Clip Collectors: Steve Jones & Dave Ackerman NEW: and soon on Netflix: Animated No Agenda Sign Up for the newsletter No Agenda Peerage ShowNotes Archive of links and Assets (clips etc) 1731.noagendanotes.com Directory Archive of Shownotes (includes all audio and video assets used) archive.noagendanotes.com RSS Podcast Feed Full Summaries in PDF No Agenda Lite in opus format Last Modified 01/19/2025 16:58:22This page created with the FreedomController Last Modified 01/19/2025 16:58:22 by Freedom Controller  

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Mocktails.
Adam Curry.
John C. Dvorak.
It's Sunday, January 19, 2025. This is your award-winning Gilmore Nation Media assassination episode 1731. This is No Agenda.
Plowing through SCOTUS briefs and broadcasting live from the heart of the Texas Hill Country here in FEMA Region No.
6. In the morning, everybody, I'm Adam Curry.
And from northern Silicon Valley, where we're all discovering somehow, somehow...
That things are cheap in China.
I'm John C. Dvorak.
It's Crackpot and Buzzkill in the morning.
Yeah, things are very cheap in China.
Very, very cheap in China.
Have you noticed the charm offensive?
Oh, I have a lot to see and to talk about, but what charm offensive are you talking about?
Of the Chinese.
Oh, things.
So I didn't get any clips on this, but it's become a big deal because I've seen it.
A number of them, I just haven't collected them.
Of all these, usually young TikTokers who, they're not on TikTok anymore, so they went to this Red Book thing, which is right out of China.
Red Note.
Yeah, Red, yeah, whatever it is.
It's Chinese.
And they're going on and on about, oh, you know, things are so cheap in China, and they're so, I'm thinking that, oh, brother, you know.
So I got a note this morning.
From Catherine, our unreconstructed hippie woman that lives in Thailand.
Wait a minute, unreconstructed?
Yeah, I think she's still a hippie.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, she's the one with the helipad, isn't she?
I don't know if she's got a helipad or not.
She's a Bitcoin billionaire.
Oh yeah, that's the one, yeah.
And she has the apartment, if you have no agenda list, you can stay there.
Yeah, no, that's a different one.
She goes on, she says, oh, I didn't realize a friend of mine just came back from Shanghai, and everything's so modern there, and it's cheap.
So, when I first went to China in the 90s, early 90s, yeah, it was cheap then, too.
It's cheap in China, hello!
And so, yeah, they have a maglev train from the airport.
Why is it cheap in China?
Why?
Well, because nobody gets paid a lot of money, eh?
And?
And it's controlled by the Chinese.
It's cheap.
And in China, everything's best price.
Best price.
So, it's not new that things are cheap in China and they're very modern.
The key is, I don't know when that maglev train went.
We don't even have them in this country.
No.
They have the maglev train.
We can't even get a regular train from L.A. to San Francisco.
No, of course not.
So they've got maglevs that do 300, 400 miles an hour.
Yeah.
Go live there.
Go live there.
It's great.
Go live there.
Good luck with the smog.
Before we get into anything, the topic of the day.
Amongst many, has got to be this weather!
We begin with this morning's top story.
Dangerously low, life-threatening temperatures sweeping across the country.
More than 100 million people from the plains to the northeast are under winter weather alerts.
Even the deep south won't escape the deep freeze.
Several cities have already declared weather emergencies as the back-to-back winter storms bring heavy winds and snow.
25 degrees this morning in the hill country.
Yeah, it's cold there.
I understand it's going to snow.
I don't know.
There's no snow predicted.
If it is, that'll be fun.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
I've been to Texas once when it was snowing.
And nobody knows what the hell's going on.
Remember, I got that generator for a reason, to ensure that I never need it ever.
Yeah, 25 degrees is a bit chilly there.
Yeah, and wind.
Wind.
Yeah, we got a wind.
We got a wind.
I want to do China and TikTok, but I have a lot to do, so let's get a couple other things out of the way.
I got a lot of TikTok clips, mostly about the fact that Trump's not going to be inaugurated tomorrow.
Well, let's start with the inauguration itself, and then we'll get into that.
Because I actually learned quite a lot by listening to the entire Supreme Court discussion.
Which I do as a public service.
I might add.
Public service.
Where was it?
Oh, it's everywhere.
I mean, they stream the whole conversation.
Audio only.
No video.
That's why no one cares.
I know.
I like that.
Oh, it's great.
This was actually very informative in a number of ways.
And so before we get into that, let's talk about the big day tomorrow.
Big day!
big day, big day, Trump day one.
Day one for the new Trump administration.
What more are you learning about his first moves and this immigration crackdown?
Yeah, crackdown.
This will be a very busy first day for the president.
Certainly, border security and deportations are at the top of his list.
He campaigned on those issues.
Those will be among the executive orders he signs.
And yes...
His borders are.
Tom Homan says that they are looking at preparing to do raids and deportations almost immediately after Trump takes office.
They'll focus, it's important to say, he says they will focus immediately on those who are in the United States illegally and have committed crimes.
He's going to sign him in the limo!
So that was, was that ABC and that was Jonathan Karl?
Yeah, yeah.
He hates Trump?
Yeah, well.
You know, this morning I saw J-6 or Jenny at church, and she had her American flag jacket, American flag pants.
J-6 Jenny?
Yeah, remember she hosted the meetup here in Fredericksburg?
I love that nickname.
J-6 or Jenny.
Yeah, oh yeah.
She's fantastic.
J-6 or Jenny.
J-6 or Jenny.
She's part of our club, man.
Yeah, I'll bet.
And she's all excited.
She says, I'm going to be celebrating tomorrow as she gets her pardon.
She'll be celebrating pardon day.
I sure hope he does it.
No, he's going to do it.
But he promised he would do it.
Remember the tiny desk?
He's got the tiny desk right next to him.
If the tiny desk shows up, that'd be great.
Ready to go on the tiny desk.
Now, things have changed, and we'll get into the immigration stuff a bit later on, but things have changed due to the hottest year on record!
Good evening, and we begin tonight here with the breaking news involving President-elect Trump's inauguration.
The carefully orchestrated plans for the inauguration now shifting tonight to three days before he takes the oath of office.
Dangerously cold weather, forcing his ceremony indoors.
This is the first time since Ronald Reagan in 1985. The forecast calling for potentially the coldest inauguration day in 40 years.
23 degrees, the wind chill, making it feel like 7 degrees for much of the day.
Flags, seats, and the staging area, of course, had been already set up for Monday.
Ceremony crews have been working around the clock on this for months.
They are now racing to prepare the Capitol Rotunda for what will be a much smaller event, but a warmer one.
So what does this mean for the vast majority of ticketed guests?
President-elect Trump saying, quote, tonight this will be a very beautiful experience for all, and especially for the large TV audience.
It's going to be beautiful.
It's going to be the best ever, smallest crowd ever, smallest ever in history.
Monday's forecast high for Washington is 23 degrees.
Tonight, a rush to reimagine the day's festivities.
While the massive outdoor platform could seat more than a thousand, the rotunda will only be able to hold several hundred guests.
Tonight, the Joint Congressional Inaugural Committee acknowledging the vast majority of ticketed guests will not be able to attend the ceremonies in person.
Among those who will be allowed in?
People with tickets for the presidential platform and members of Congress.
Another major change?
There will no longer be an inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Instead, after a swearing-in, Trump will travel to the nearby Capital One Arena to hold a celebration event there.
This will be a very beautiful experience for all, promises the President.
He'll be very beautiful.
I love that he's, of course, it's going to be a great television production.
Perfect.
You can never really produce a great television production on the steps there.
You know what I mean?
No, it sucks.
And you've got to have that big shield up and everything, the bulletproof stuff, and everyone's shivering, and now you can control the sounds.
It would be much better for our country girl, what's her name, who's singing the national anthem.
Yeah, Courtney Cox.
Yeah, that one.
No, what's her name?
What's her name now?
What's her name?
American Idol winner.
Yeah, what's her name?
Yeah, what's her name?
She's so famous that we can't remember her name.
No, that's Low T, John.
That's Low T. That's just Low T. Kerry Underwood.
There we go.
Thank you, trolls, Kerry Underwood.
Of course, we have some very important guests.
Really, it's stunning who we'll have.
President-elect Trump revealed today that he spoke with China's president, Xi Jinping, on the phone today, discussing not just TikTok, but also trade and fentanyl and other topics.
CBS News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and Moderator-Faced Nation Margaret Brennan is here.
And Margaret Donald Trump invited the communist leader to come to inauguration.
But is he coming?
He's not, but Xi Jinping is sending a special representative in his place, his vice president, also a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official.
It's highly unusual, not just because of protocol, but also because of the moment of time we are in.
Yeah, moment of time.
It's highly unusual because it's never been done before.
No, no, no.
It's highly unusual because China...
Just today, the Biden administration revealed that they have identified the hackers who not just breached the U.S. Treasury, but burrowed into nine different U.S. telecom companies.
They burrowed, John.
Wee Too Low is another guy.
They burrowed in.
But burrowed into nine different U.S. telecom companies to siphon up Americans.
They burrowed in?
Well, wait.
There's a reason she's saying that.
But burrowed into nine different U.S. telecom companies.
To siphon up American phone call data.
So they burrowed in to siphon up?
And we know that Trump's own national security advisor, Mike Walz, has said they planted cyber time bombs in U.S. infrastructure.
What?
What is the cyber time bomb?
It's ticking.
It's ticking.
It's tick-tock ticking.
Cyber time bomb.
It's just waiting to go off and to blow up our phones.
Cyber time bomb.
Walls has said they planted cyber time bombs in U.S. infrastructure.
This is the Chinese.
The Chinese.
And so these could be used in the event of future conflict.
And the U.S. can't get them out.
We can't get them out.
We suck.
Wait a minute.
What does she say?
What do you mean you can't get them out?
They're cyber time bombs.
We can't get them out.
Well, there it is.
It's right there.
How come you can't get it out?
Because we're no good.
If you know it's there, you can get it out.
She's full of shit, this woman.
Because we don't know what wire to cut.
The blue one or the yellow one.
It's very, very scary.
China.
Yes, they've burrowed in, they're siphoning it off, and they planted cyber time bombs.
But wait, there's more.
We got Nazis!
There's also some other foreign leaders that have been invited attending that are raising eyebrows, right?
There are, Nora.
In fact, a European diplomat said...
Are your eyebrows raised at this minute?
Oh, my eyebrows have just gone through the roof.
There's also some other foreign leaders that have been invited attending that are raising eyebrows, right?
There are, Nora.
In fact, a European diplomat said to me just yesterday, it's pretty disconcerting that two leaders of a German far-right anti-immigrant group known as the AFD are attending.
Their leaders espoused Nazi propaganda slogans.
They've been condemned by their own government, but they will be attending the inauguration.
Robert Brennan, thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Yes.
They're talking about that AFD woman.
Yeah.
And she's the one, and she's been on TV. She's the liberal lesbian, the libertarian lesbian.
Libertarian conservative is what she calls herself.
And she says it's bullcrap.
They keep calling him far right and all the rest of it just to besmirch them.
And it's just a propaganda trick.
And CBS is all in on it, I guess.
Communist Broadcasting System.
Hello.
Might as well start early.
Get in on the ground.
So hopefully everything will go well tomorrow.
We want everyone to be safe.
Well, now we should discuss the rumors of why they're moving it inside because of the security threat.
Yes, because Alex Jones had a profit on.
Besides the prophet.
And the prophet said he saw it was an attack, multiple cities, it was thousands of ISIS fighters.
And by the way, this is the guy who predicted that Trump would be shot in the ear.
Yes, I know.
I followed this too.
So silly.
The more credible, I think, bullcrap...
Was the Incredible Bull Crap.
That's actually a good show title, too.
Incredible Bull Crap, yes.
Incredible Bull Crap is the fact that, and this all, of course, people like to tie this stuff together and it goes like this.
Well, you know, since they took the blocking off the DJI drone so they can now fly in a restricted area.
They're going to have a couple of those big, you know, some of these DGA drones are the size of a Cadillac.
Six feet in diameter.
They're huge.
They're huge.
And they're going to drive a couple of those babies into the podium.
Bulletproof glass or not, they're going to take these two drones because they can now go into these areas where there's restricted flight restrictions.
And they're going to slam into the whole process and just by...
Sheer brute force and maybe a bomb blow up the whole inauguration ceremony.
So just move it inside.
Wow.
That was the best one.
I thought that was the most.
And that was kind of believable.
Yeah.
Well, again, let's just hope everybody stays safe.
Everybody.
Stay safe.
Stay safe, everybody.
Yeah, I like the Alex Jones guy.
I mean, it was so outrageous, I didn't even clip it.
I'm like...
I didn't clip it either.
I really didn't.
Actually, I have a few more here.
Because in attendance will also be many of Trump's appointees.
And ABC went through some of those.
Should we play those?
I guess, sure.
On Capitol Hill, President-elect Trump's pick to oversee America's economy, billionaire Scott Besson, pressed by senators about the President-elect's plan to boost the economy with tax cuts, tariffs, and what the nominee said today about sanctions on Russia amid the war with Ukraine.
Rachel Scott, on the Hill tonight.
Hit it, Rachel!
Tonight, the man president-elect Donald Trump has chosen to guide the American economy and tackle inflation, taking center stage on Capitol Hill.
Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent, a billionaire investor and hedge fund manager.
Today...
I believe that President Trump has a generational opportunity to unleash a new economic golden age that will create more jobs, wealth, and prosperity for all Americans.
Republican senators asking Besant to outline the stakes if Congress fails to achieve one of Trump's top priorities, extending his signature 2017 tax cuts.
If we do not renew and extend...
Then we will be facing an economic calamity.
Democrats pushing back, insisting that Trump tax cuts have only benefited the rich.
Now these wealthy people have more money than they know what to do with.
And it is certainly not doing anything to lower prices for working families.
I believe that President Trump...
And if confirmed myself, are committed to addressing this affordability crisis.
And part of the affordability crisis stems from this great inflation that we've had.
Oh, well, and there's trouble ahead, according to old lady Yeller.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Friday that the government will reach its debt limit on Tuesday and will need to take extraordinary measures to avoid risking a potentially catastrophic default.
The issue will, of course, now fall to Yellen's expected successor, Trump Treasury pick Scott Besant, who is still going through the Senate confirmation process.
Besant said in his confirmation hearing Thursday that if President-elect Trump wants to eliminate the debt ceiling...
He will work with Congress to make that happen.
Yeah, we've got to print some money, baby.
You know, I like the idea that we get a Republican in, and the first thing he wants to do is remove it.
Remove it!
Let's just get rid of it.
It's practical, but at the same time, it's like, okay, well, there goes the balanced budget.
Oh, no, no, no.
Wait.
He has strategies.
You know, supposedly, the whole Bitcoin community is all sithering.
Supposedly, on the little tiny desk next to the J6 or Jenny, pardon, will also be a crypto bill that will send Bitcoin skyrocketing!
And that, of course, will save us.
Because of the...
This is basically the newest version of the trillion dollar coin.
Yes, exactly.
Because of the Bitcoin strategic reserve and the stable coin.
The stable coin on top.
Trump is a meta guy, you know.
I think he has a plan.
We'll see.
We'll see.
We can go as long as the economy...
When the economy collapses, we'll know what didn't work.
Also facing questions today, Trump's picks for two key environmental roles.
For Secretary of the Interior, former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
And for EPA Administrator, former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin.
Democrats pressing both nominees about Trump's pledge to roll back environmental regulations.
He agreed.
With President-elect Trump, that climate change is a hoax.
I believe that climate change is real, as I told you, as far as President Trump goes.
The context that I've heard him speak about it was with a criticism of policies that have been acted because of climate change.
And I think that he's concerned about the economic costs of some policies where there's a debate.
Republicans insist these nominees strike a balance between protecting the environment and the economy.
Congressman Zeldin will correct the course of the EPA. Yes, he will.
You know, these guys, this is kind of bothersome.
But at the same time, what are you going to do?
It's like Zeldin...
Zeldin is totally on board.
Zeldin has also been on Fox a lot, so he's like another Fox guy that they put in these positions.
And Zeldin is totally on board with the hoax idea.
But he can't say it.
He can't say it.
And so we're still at the point where you can't say what you think.
So this is not good.
Not yet.
Not yet.
They've got to be...
Be careful because they're still in the confirmation process.
We can't make everybody angry.
That's not how you're going to do it.
When we're confirmed, then we can go all crazy.
And then, of course, we have our oligarchy tonight or tomorrow who will be at the inauguration.
The oligarchy.
Turning to the inauguration just 24 hours after President Biden warned of an oligarchy taking shape in America, what he called a tech industrial complex.
Tonight, we have learned a growing list of tech CEOs plan to attend President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday.
That list includes...
Apple's Tim Cook, SpaceX and Tesla's Elon Musk, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai, and TikTok CEO Sho Chu.
All of them, David, will have prominent seats for Donald Trump swearing in, David.
Now, okay, how about a prop bet?
A little prop bet?
Prop bet?
Prop bet?
Okay, what's the prop bet?
Will Jason Calacanis be at the inauguration?
Oh, there's no chance.
Jay Cal, you got tickets?
He's the kind of guy that would actually get in.
Sitting behind Elon.
He could find a way.
Yeah.
But I think he really hates Trump, honestly.
I don't think he likes Trump.
He's a little wishy-washy on it.
Well, he's reluctantly...
I did watch his podcast of late when they brought in that one guy.
I forgot his name already.
Oh, that guy.
Carrie Underwood.
You can just tell.
And Kelly Canis is losing his hair in some very peculiar way.
Well, that sucks.
I mean, let's not make fun of it.
No, I'm not making fun of him.
I'm just wondering.
I mean, that's not male pattern baldness.
It's like a sweep.
It's going from the front.
It's going to be totally bald.
It's a strange hairline.
I've never seen anything quite like it.
You know what that is?
Low T. Low T. I would say the oddest bit of clippage that came my way in the past few days was the Bill Gates clip.
I'm surprised Bill Gates isn't going to be up there with him.
Well, he doesn't need to because he had a three-hour dinner with President Trump.
Well, a lot of people have had three-hour dinners with Trump.
Yeah, but Bill Gates got really excited about it.
Listen to this.
I saw this clip.
I didn't think he was that excited, but okay.
A lot of people got excited.
All right, forget that.
Let's do something else.
Because we have to discuss the algo chasers for a moment.
This is the number one most emailed clip I received.
And I was happy to see that, because there were a lot of different versions of it on the socials, I was happy to see that the Valuetainment crew, Picked it up and did exactly what you'd expect them to do.
This is Algo Chaser Heaven, everybody.
The current national security advisor.
Here's a video they shared with me before we got started.
Jake Sullivan.
And I think, Vinny, you asked me the question before you played it and I didn't know where you were going with it.
I want you to watch this and tell me if there's something weird about the delivery of what he says in this.
Folks, just watch it.
That's what you said to me.
And I'm like, what are you saying, Vinny?
In about 10 seconds into it, you're going to say, why did you say that?
You didn't have to say that.
What's your point of saying that?
Are you insinuating something?
Are you suggesting something?
Just watch this here.
Go for it, Rob.
Go, Rob.
I just will say one last word, which is this is I hope this is my last time at this podium, at least for a little while.
I don't mean that in a negative sense.
I mean, the only thing that would bring me back is an unexpected event in the next few days, which, as you all know, is totally possible.
Why would you say that?
Over the course of the past years.
But if it is, in fact, my last time before you, I just want to say thank you for what you guys do every day.
Thank you for putting up with me.
Why would the National Security Advisor say farewell but go, hey, listen, you might hear from me again if something happens.
And I would think, since you're the National Security Advisor, you have the FBI, we have all this apparatus, you should say nothing is going to happen because we're secure.
He says, because it could quite possibly almost, he's almost as if he's letting us know something is going to happen and you are going to hear from him.
Or I told you so, it's not my fault.
We're all going to die!
You know.
But let me help you boys out there to PBD, Valuetainment.
The guy has been talking for weeks about one topic and one topic only, and that's the Gaza peace deal.
That's what he's referring to.
Like, the deal might fall apart, something might happen, but it's not as you dupes, because that's what everyone emailed me.
Oh!
Oh!
He's signaling something's gonna happen to Trump!
Yeah, I got the same thing.
I didn't get a clip.
I didn't take the clip because I thought the whole thing was so dumb, but I'm glad you did.
Well, this is why people come to the No Agenda show.
They're like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Oh, that's better.
It's nothing.
And even if something did happen, he wouldn't be...
All these podcasts...
Yeah.
And that's just one of many.
I think Bannon's the worst, to be honest about it.
It is entertaining, you have to admit.
Hey, as Q said.
And it's free, because you don't pay.
It's value-taining.
Remember, John, as Q says, nothing can stop what's coming.
Trust the plan.
So it's like, okay, yeah.
All these guys, they all do this.
They're just all hair on fire.
It's terrible.
I'll go chasers.
I'll go chasers.
Yeah.
I think it's a good term.
Yeah.
But I don't think...
See, the problem with the term that...
Well, I don't use it.
Is that you're actually assuming they're overtly doing it.
No, no.
That's just who they are.
That they can't help themselves.
But they have to do an emergency pod.
You see.
We're going live.
We've got value attainment live.
I'm never going to get on this show, by the way.
They're never ever going to invite me.
No, they might if you keep harping on it.
Emergency pod!
Something's going to happen.
I mean, Alex Jones is the best now.
Emergency pod!
Thousands of ISIS everywhere.
Madison Square Garden, Statue of Liberty.
It's happening.
It's going down.
Nothing can stop what's coming.
I mean, I used to be a bit like that before there were even algos to chase.
But I've learned.
You were never that bad.
But after 17 years, it's like, no, no.
This is the problem.
This is why we have only four more years.
Because it's just going to be Walter and Stedler.
You know, you and me just going, blah, blah, blah.
Did you say Walter and Stedler?
Yeah, what are their names?
What are their names?
It's Waldorf and Statler, I believe.
I think Walter and Stedler is much better.
Walter and Stedler.
We need t-shirts that say Walter.
Hello, no agenda shop.
Walter and Stedler is our new nicknames.
So last night, actually yesterday, I had a lot of time.
Tina was at a conference in Dallas.
She's driving back today.
Hopefully she's listening.
Drive safe, baby.
And so I had a lot of time.
That's why I went through the whole Supreme Court hearing.
I learned a lot.
It was very educational.
And I'm going to share some of that.
But I also thought to myself, I'm going to get me that TikTok app.
Let's see what happens.
I need to see what happens when this thing goes into effect on Monday.
So I got me the TikTok app, which interestingly...
You mean the TikTok app?
It went into effect last night.
I know.
I'm getting there.
I'm telling my story.
I'm ramping up.
You're talking about the phone app?
The phone app.
Yeah, of course.
You don't have it?
No, I never had that.
Why would I want that?
Oh, interesting.
No, because they spy on you, John.
They're worse than any app ever.
So I'm like, okay.
So I load it on my flip phone.
It actually loaded onto that phone?
The install took a while.
I tried to load it on my StarTac and it didn't load.
StarTac.
Half the audience goes, what?
But the other half thinks we're hilarious.
Okay, that's the good news.
So it loads and I start.
Right away, it gives me Denzel Washington preaching.
I'm like, okay, follow, heart.
And then this thing just...
Oh, yeah, it's great.
So it immediately...
Wait a minute.
Immediately it caught on to the fact that you're like born again?
I guess so.
I mean, that was the first thing that popped up.
I'm like, okay, follow heart.
That means there has to be something on your phone that it accessed and said, well, look at this.
This is interesting.
It might have just been a lucky guess.
Texas.
Hill Country.
Oh, Texas Hill Country.
Gillespie County.
Sure, I get it.
We got 35 churches here.
Yeah, no, I think it was a lucky location guess.
Yeah, good work.
And, you know, it's like, even if you're not into the message, it's Denzel.
You're like, oh, it's Denzel.
Interesting.
And so now I'm getting black preachers left and right, like, doing the...
Yeah, they figure you're black.
Totally.
Adam Curry?
Are you kidding me?
Curry?
Yeah.
Curry is a very, very black name.
And this is entertaining.
I'm loving them.
These preachers, man, they're wild.
They're on fire, these black guys.
Oh, these guys are good.
And doing the fall, you know, like falling backwards and guys are catching them.
It's fantastic.
Then I get nothing else except once in a while I get, you know, someone showing up with, surprise, a cheap product from China.
I just, you know, slip by.
I checked out the shop.
And then in the evening...
I was right, there's a shop.
That's what I'm missing out on.
Because I don't have the app.
We're going to get to that.
And it's right there at the top of the menu.
Shop.
And so, before I went to bed last night, I'm like, let me just get me some Jesus.
I'm going to go on the TikTok app.
Boom!
No go!
Taken down!
Oh, you were there when it went down?
Yeah, and this was 10, 15, so somewhere around that time.
It went out early.
It went out early.
And I'm like, wow!
So now I've got to go get my other screen.
I've got to get the Graphene OS. I've got to look at YouTube and see what everyone...
Because I knew that there would be lots of sadness and crying.
And moaning.
I need to share a few of them.
By the way, Most of these have F-bombs in them just for your kids, if you care.
Oh, yeah, not safe for work.
Well, it's not safe.
If you care about it, it doesn't matter.
I've got to keep it real.
I am crashing the fuck out right now.
I don't know what to do.
Oh, my God.
I've already opened and closed the app probably six times already just to keep getting the same stupid warning message.
Oh, my God.
Like, this just feels...
I can't...
This is so dystopian.
First of all, I feel...
Pathetic that I am freaking out like this over an application being unavailable on my phone.
But also, this has been a massive part of our lives for the last six years.
And normally, when something happens, I would get on TikTok and start complaining and I can't even do that.
I feel disconnected.
I feel cut off from the world and my community.
This is crazy.
This is fucking crazy.
God, and I can't...
Now I'm rooting for Trump?
Ew!
God, make America Fucking great again, I guess.
God.
Ew!
So now I see where you get the theme for today's show.
Ew!
What do you mean?
Low T. Now, there was a lot of consistency in these clips.
My community...
And since the pandemic, this is when everyone got hooked on this thing, and my little business, my little business.
This was very consistent.
I'm so sad that TikTok might go away.
It changed my life.
My long home build is on here.
How I taught everyone to grow mushrooms.
How I showed everyone how to parasite cleanse.
Started my business.
It saved my life.
And I just really appreciate all of you as my community when I didn't have one.
When I had nowhere to turn.
When I couldn't get any help from my own doctors.
I literally turned to TikTok and my community.
I did not want to make this video and I did not want to believe this is happening.
But we're so close to January 19th that if I don't make this video, I will be very sad.
Thank you.
And, you know, it's obviously we're laughing because of the severe narcissism that these people need to share all of their lives and their feelings and their problems, but you cannot...
You just can't deny that they've gotten something, some redeeming quality out of this app.
And many of them would realize, like, I can't believe I'm crying over an app.
But I am.
Because of my community and you guys and my friends.
But they're also all of their customers.
And this is the last one I have.
This girl, young woman, is one of those eyelash flappers.
Her eyelashes are bigger than Pam Bondages at the hearing.
And she's sad.
She raps it all.
In fact, I even saw her on a couple of M5M reports.
And to the U.S. government, I'm never forgiving you for this.
And I'm never going to trust you ever again because you just, like that, took away millions of people's income and livelihood.
And who does that?
So I'm never trusting you ever again with anything.
I'm so dumb coming on the internet and crying about an app.
But the fact is that this has been a sense of community for me.
For years now.
And it got me through really, really hard times in my life.
The pandemic, losing my job, all of that.
Getting divorced, like, all of this crap that's happened to me in the last five years since I've been on here.
Hours and hours and hours of time I put into creating stuff for this platform.
And I'm not the biggest creator on here.
Like, I'm not, like, I don't have 3 million followers or 10 million followers, but I am.
I do have a platform.
It's the biggest platform I have, and I worked really, really hard to make it.
On top of that, it's been a source of income for me for going on three years now.
First, it was just a little bit, but then it got to be more.
I'm not rich off of it, but it has significantly helped my income every month.
And it's been consistent enough that I've been able to rely on it.
So on top of being just sad that I'm losing my creative outlet and my platform, I'm worried about what I'm going to do financially.
Okay.
And we can all laugh about it.
It's hard to laugh about it because it's so pathetic that you have a situation where this has evolved as a societal mechanism for people to even make money and accept it as such.
So you can't really, I don't think you can laugh at it.
I want to hug her.
I want to hug her.
Well, she needs more than a hug.
She needs some cash.
Cash and a hug.
But it's just like, how did we get here?
Oh, well, I think I can explain this.
And the first thing, and I'll say it up front, I think the U.S. Supreme, even though TikTok, they came back online today.
They came back online this morning because the guy from Singapore said, You know, President Trump has made us feel comfortable.
He's going to give us a 90-day extension.
We're turning it back on because they literally turned it off.
And I tried VPNs.
The app clearly is showing them that I downloaded this from the U.S. So even any other country I tried with a VPN, it would say, no, no good.
I tried browsers.
I guess they threw a cookie on there.
I mean, I could not get to it no matter what I tried.
That came back.
However, on the App Store, on the Google Play Store, I don't have an iPhone, it says, Looking for TikTok?
Downloads for this app are paused due to current U.S. legal requirements.
And right above it was the featured app Instagram.
Just something to notice.
I personally feel the U.S. That's a good one.
I listen to, and I have clips of it, but I want to...
Play some other things first.
But I want to say that the Supreme Court has done a severe injustice to one of the main economic outputs of our country, which is the ability to create and use media to sell crap that nobody actually needs.
We are good at this.
We're good at it in mainstream television.
We guilt you into thinking that you're not going to be popular or have sex or you're going to die if you don't buy these products.
This is what we do.
And so that's what has happened is this is a new version of a great American tradition of being the sellers and the buyers at the same time.
We are the market for China.
We're perfect for it.
And we sell it to each other.
Sometimes we get really good and we make a song that everybody loves.
That's one of our exports.
See Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, whatever you want.
But that's our culture.
This is what we do.
And they didn't even consider that.
There's also people who make their own little thing they make at home and they sell it on Etsy.
This is the economy.
That is quite large.
I mean, it's billions.
It's probably $15 to $20 billion of GDP creation within the U.S. just from TikTok alone.
You know, some people say it's about a billion dollars a month.
And most of it is just this stuff from China.
So I think they made a big mistake because what they didn't realize is this was all because our technology industry has been focused on advertising instead of the obvious opportunities.
No one has the all-in-one solution.
Google has rigged search.
Amazon has horrible stores that gouge you if you're trying to sell something.
Meta and Facebook, they have the small business ad market.
They don't know how to work together.
And this is the magic that TikTok grabbed.
And this community thing and everybody loving the app is a byproduct of what it really is.
And I was surprised.
Nay, stunned.
Nay.
I like that.
Oh, he was nay, stunned.
Nay, stunned.
That on the media from NPR had the actual truth of what TikTok is.
But of course, they didn't come up with it themselves.
They had to bring in a blogger.
But I think the guy has it right.
Tech journalist Ryan Broderick has been tracking the great TikToker migration and what it tells us about the future of the internet for his newsletter, Garbage Day.
Ryan, welcome to On The Media.
Thank you for having me.
Happy to be here.
You recently wrote that, quote, Americans still don't realize what TikTok is.
And when you say Americans, you mean users, the people who use TikTok, but also politicians and the Supreme Court justices.
You say American lawmakers think that TikTok is a social platform.
I mean, I know from spending time on TikTok that TikTok's users also think that it is a social platform.
By the way, this Micah guy, what a douche.
Just get to the guest and stop pontificating.
Why is it not that?
...
of course.
But TikTok is the sister app of ByteDance's other app, which is called Douyin, which can only be used inside China.
And Douyin, like most Chinese social networks, are primarily social shopping apps.
They make their money from live streams with influencers hawking products, which you can then buy directly through the app.
TikTok, when it launched outside of China, was always a long play to bring social shopping to the rest of the world.
And And you can see this with the introduction of TikTok Shop, which happened a few years ago.
All of the ways that the app surfaces content can be used for finding social content, but they were built...
You'll hear users say the algorithm feels different than Instagram or YouTube or whatever.
And that's why.
It's because it's literally built for something very different.
Never really acknowledged that or understood it or cared about that.
We've kind of used it inadvertently for other things.
But that's what TikTok is here for.
It's a long play of trying to make Chinese-style social shopping big in the West.
And this is what we've been saying.
We hadn't even really put it together to give it the name social shopping.
But we knew that this is what was driving the so-called influencers.
Everybody on TikTok who has a platform.
It has some kind of angle to sell you some product.
If only just, you know, like the ham radio guy.
You know, cheap crap.
It's perfect.
Just get us some cheap crap and we'll hang out with you.
And it seems that the algorithm working the exact opposite of U.S. algorithms, which is get them in, get them in, get them a little mad, get them a little excited, show them an ad.
Okay, show them an ad.
No, it's much more advanced.
It's more...
It's more along the lines because, in fact, we do have a note from, we probably should play it, or you should read it from our TikTok insider from ByteDance.
It's more along the lines of something that was developed by Bill Ziff called Special Interest Publishing.
Ah, very good point.
And I talked to Bill a lot about some of his theories because he really brought it to a...
He developed, overtly developed these theories.
And one of them was, and I think this applies to this TikTok analysis, is that in a computer magazine, for example, nothing in the magazine should be outside the realm of computing.
Bingo.
So if General Motors came and says, we want to run a whole series of ads to sell Chevys, he would refuse the advertising.
No.
And it was irked, by the way, irked the sales guys to no end because they would bring in, they would bring in, hey, look what we got.
We got, you know, a cigarette guy wants to advertise.
He's got a million-dollar contract here.
No, no.
If it's got nothing to do with computers, it had, so in other words, the idea was in, and Modern Bride was a good example of this.
Another perfect example, yes.
Is that every single ad, every single thing was about being a bride.
It never took you out of that area.
You were always in the mindset.
And that created the buying impulse to buy from these advertisers.
And that's maybe what's going on here.
I'm going to play the note.
It's G-flat.
ByteDance alum here, chiming in because I thought you were on track with the discussion.
They operate an AI recommendation system.
It's a more basic type of machine learning algos, but they've been training it for a decade at least.
That is the kicker right there.
That's right.
They've been training the AI algo for a decade.
Good luck catching up.
So it's ingested every news source in the world, and now all these videos and data points.
When I worked on the American version of their popular news app, Chow Chow, in China, top buzz in the U.S., we had this complex...
Back-end system that would spit out the news that would get the most clicks.
Yes, a small U.S.-based content team, complemented by what might have been hordes of overseas Asian workers, would roll through a selection of the content to filter out low-quality or illegal content, thus training the algos.
Just machine learning.
It's no super AI. We would also set breaking news items to the top.
At the time, the TikTok team would decide on trends to promote in-app, and each worker had a set of influencers they managed.
And these trends would be sent their way to produce content and create trends.
As you can imagine, brands would get involved, music industry would chime in, and they would start to predictably manufacture some categories to follow.
I imagine they have such a broad data set and a big head start, so just a bit better at it, for sure.
My guess on U.S. concerns that TikTok is such a great data harvester that them having the lead can be spun as the threat as sophisticated data sets are said to be the lifeblood of future autonomous warfare.
Well, yes, and we'll get to that.
But that is exactly what's happening.
And all the other stuff that, you know, when I go in and they guess based on my location, oh, okay, curry, black guy, Texas, give him some Denzel.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
And then, of course, with my scroll, and that's why I purposely followed and liked, they just gave me all that.
I got nothing.
I didn't see any gay guys showing up.
I got nothing but black guys preaching their butts off.
So, it's a byproduct.
It's a byproduct of what the algo was actually intent for, which is this social shopping.
And when you say social shopping, you're kind of referring to what is more common in China and other countries where like everything apps where you could communicate and buy your groceries and et cetera, et cetera.
That's not something Americans are that exposed to currently.
Honestly, like imagine if TikTok was owned by Amazon.
That's kind of what all of these apps are making a play for.
You have what look like social networks that have e-commerce inside of them, but then you also have e-commerce apps that have social content inside of them.
Amazon has even tried to add more social features.
There's like a short form video feed inside of Amazon now.
So that's the way that a lot of these Chinese apps have been evolving, which is towards you're looking at social content in between buying things.
That's the idea.
And in my estimation, this is why TikTok got in all this hot water because the tech companies with their very powerful lobby all got together.
And maybe even some mainstream media corporations said these guys have figured it out.
We've been slow.
No one has the whole thing all put together.
Nobody has it.
And funny enough, I remember back in 2006, 2007, Mevio did a pitch to Amazon and said, we should have our podcasters just selling your product like the original American invention, which to this day still works, QVC, home shopping.
It is so outrageous that our Silicon Valley companies miss this.
I mean, it's a gigantic gaping hole.
They should have seen it.
Yes?
The network TV people have seen it because they have moved Home Shopping Network onto their morning shows.
Every morning show has a whole segment at the end.
That basically is a home shopping network thing, only it's a little quicker and faster paced.
And I don't think that the Silicon Valley people, I think you're giving them a bit too much credit because I don't think they, what they've seen is the loss of interest in their products and the furtherance of interest in TikTok.
And these other sorts of things.
And that's what's freaking them out.
Just the superficial nature of it.
I don't think that they've gone deep enough to understand any of what you just said.
Really?
Gosh.
Well, that's even more astounding if that's true.
And, of course, it is true that...
I mean, that's why they had to bring a blogger out who happens to just be analyzing.
Anybody from Google saying, well, the way we see it, no, they're clueless.
And we know from my sister's research that TikTok was overtaking search on Google because people are looking for stuff to buy.
That's what people are looking for.
And other things, where to go, where to eat.
It was eating up a lot of business.
Turns out, though, when it comes to social shopping, the USA is not even that important to ByteDance and TikTok.
I think that's an interesting distinction.
I'm not sure I understand what bearing it has on the legal arguments for and against banning TikTok, nor do I see its relevance to the meaningfulness to its user base.
A lot of the conversation around the ban in the U.S., particularly from lawmakers, but also in the media, is this idea that TikTok will have to cave and they'll have to sell in the U.S. because the U.S. audience is so valuable.
And the point that I was trying to make is that it's not, because we are just one step towards a global e-commerce network.
Now, are we massive and are we very influential?
Absolutely.
But the idea that our goofy videos are so valuable to TikTok that they would sell, to me, feels laughable.
Yeah, I think this guy, he figured it out.
He figured it out a long time ago.
Final clip from On The Media.
Again, the political groupings and the communities that people belong to is all just a byproduct of their outstanding shopping algorithm.
The way that Mike Gallagher, the lawmaker who sponsored what we call the TikTok ban...
By the way, who got a lot of donations from Google.
He puts it as, you know, China is engaged in a smokeless battlefield of the internet.
And that TikTok represents a form of soft power over Americans.
I think that ByteDance via TikTok is probably doing some version of what Meta with Facebook has done to the rest of the world.
I do think that at this point we can say that there are radicalizing effects of social networks or social-like networks that have political consequences.
Do I believe that it is as simple as we want this political outcome so we're going to show people that content and that political outcome happens?
I mean, the research doesn't back that up.
I do think the way that...
People experience content online and the algorithms that push it towards us do create political effects.
Because TikTok is so interested in hyper-targeting your interests, no two feeds are alike, right?
Like your TikTok feed and my TikTok feed never two shall meet.
And a lot of the impact of that has been on building small, weird subcultures or fandoms or communities, but you also have a lot of marginalized communities saying that on TikTok they feel...
Very comfortable, where if they go to Instagram, per se, they feel very antagonized or attacked or whatever.
And that does have an effect on political speech.
As we saw at the end of 2023, when Israel invades Palestine and the youth of America on TikTok are talking about it in this way that people are saying is anti-Semitic or whatever it is.
If you look into it, it's teenagers reacting to the conflict.
In a way that didn't feel moderated by mainstream media or whatever.
You know, they felt like they could just sort of have these conversations amongst themselves.
All byproducts.
Fantastic.
But it worked.
The whole campaign set up by Silicon Valley and I have got to believe that, you know, Disney, ABC, Comcast, I'm sure all of them were in it.
We've got to get rid of these guys for the reasons you mentioned.
We gotta get them out.
They're just, it's going too well.
They're eating our lunch.
And it works perfectly when you go to the mainstream and you listen to, here he is, Jimmy Kimmel, roll out the dangers, the dangers of TikTok.
By the way, he had some funny lines in here.
When I say TikTok is an app for teenagers, he does.
They're right, it's not an app.
For teenagers, just like crop tops are great shirts for old fat guys.
TikTok is for everyone.
The problem with TikTok is it's totally controlled by the Chinese government.
I heard a good explanation of why there's a problem, because I wasn't sure why exactly it was a problem.
The reason why the Chinese having our kids' personal information is a threat is because kids aren't kids forever.
They grow up and get jobs, and when they do...
The Chinese government will have all the passwords they use, they'll have everything they posted, their financial information in a lot of cases, messages, you name it, they will have it, which isn't so much of a problem if they grow up to work at Petco, but some teenagers grow up and become nuclear physicists or they join the military or the State Department.
Every single person in the Army and the State Department...
Used to be a teenager.
I don't know if you knew that.
And in the future, the Chinese government will have tons of their data to blackmail them with.
And that's why it's a national security threat when your nephew films himself eating corn on the cob off a Makita drill bit.
So that's the message.
The message is they'll have stuff to blackmail you with later.
We played that clip, not that clip, but we played a clip that claimed this sort of bull crap, I think two or three shows ago when this all began.
And I had the clip.
It was pulled from one of the PBS or NPR shows.
And it was nonsense.
When we played it, it was so stupid.
I don't even think we talked about it much.
And now it's coming to the fore.
This is bull crap.
Well, wait until you hear some of the arguments made at the Supreme Court.
And so I did a deep dive on the SCOTUS TikTok hearing.
And unlike Notebook LM, you'll actually learn something on this deep dive.
I've got to say up front, there were multiple lawyers, one on behalf of TikTok USA, and two actually on behalf of creators, or as I like to call them, the creations of TikTok.
And I think they did their clients a huge disservice by making this a First Amendment case, because the reason why the Supreme Court voted, 9-0 was for national security.
But a lot of the national security stuff comes up as they are talking about it being First Amendment.
And the First Amendment angle that their lawyer took was, well, the algorithm is our free speech.
What we decide to feature or to demote or promote, that is the free speech of the corporation TikTok America.
Now, of course, the problem is that the algorithm is owned by ByteDance.
And so they're taking the information, it's running through the algo, and then they present it here in the U.S.
What I thought was super interesting, because I would have skipped this normally, is the definition of this algorithm that came up.
And I don't know if this can be used in cases later in law, particularly as it pertains to social media.
Media Platforms and Section 203. Here's Amy Coney Barrett with the TikTok lawyer.
Mr. Francisco, can I ask you a question about the relevant speech here?
So it strikes me that this is a little different than your Bezos example because there it's clearly content discrimination because we're talking about the ability to post particular articles versus other articles.
Am I right that the algorithm is the speech here?
Yes, Your Honor.
Well, I would say the algorithm is a lot of things.
The algorithm has built within it.
It's basically how we predict what our customers want to see.
The editorial discretion.
Yeah, the editorial discretion.
It also has built within it the moderation elements.
All of this kind of comes together when the source code is translated into executable code in the United States.
in the United States that executable code is then subject to vetting, review, moderation through content moderation algorithms.
And so it ultimately lands on the TikTok platform.
But what we're talking about as a net choice is the editorial discretion that underlies the algorithm.
So when you say editorial discretion, that's a hot button on Section 203.
This is why I kept this clip in my lineup.
That means that you are a publication.
If you're editorializing...
Then Section 203 no longer applies.
So I wonder, and a constitutional lawyer, Rob, will be able to tell us, I wonder if just, because it didn't show up in the report, in the 27 pages, which I also went through, but can you use that later to say, well, you know, they decided when they were talking that it was editorial.
Something to just keep in the back of our minds.
Well, I have two thoughts on this.
Okay.
First of all, I thought that the reason they went with the free speech idea was they were making the assumption that because it was a conservative court, they would just be all over free speech.
It was a cheap trick.
It didn't work.
Good point.
The second thing is, when she brought up the algorithm, it was the algorithm...
Was algorithms free speech?
He should have said, no, free speech is free speech.
What people say is free speech.
It's got nothing to do with the algorithm.
The algorithm should have been thrown out of the argument by this guy.
Instead, he buys into and he goes on and on about it, trying to describe it.
This was a huge blunder.
That's what I said.
I think he did his client a huge disservice.
The problem is, this is non-technical people.
Oh, wait until the clip's coming up.
You'll see how unsophisticated our Supreme Court is.
They could have gotten anybody to coach them at least a little bit on this.
It was embarrassing.
Well, the lawyers that come out in front of the Supreme Court are supposed to be the knowledgeable ones that can do the coaching on the fly instead of falling into line like this guy.
No, it was no good.
But the reason why he took the free speech angle is because there's a carve-out, there's an exception in this law, which he kept trying to bring up, and he would get cut off by other justices.
I don't think that they were in on the gag here, but he kept bringing up Timu.
He says, you know, Timu, they collect data.
But they get a carve out, and it's in this clip.
What we are seeking to do is use an algorithm that displays the combination of content.
And the government doesn't care about that.
I mean, the government is fine with you doing that.
You can invent it yourself.
It doesn't even care what content that displays, cat videos or whatever.
A lot of cat video examples.
Lady, it's dogs.
But I think that the way that the analysis has to unfold is, first you ask, is this law burdening our speech?
I think we agree that the law is burdening our speech.
Then you have to look at whether the law itself is somehow content-based.
Not just what their motivations are, but whether the law is content-based.
And here, the trigger for this law, the one thing that gets it going, is if you operate a social media platform that has user-generated content, unless that content takes the form of a product, travel, or business review.
Then within that universe of content, it says there's one speaker we're particularly concerned about, And we're going to hammer home on that one speaker And then, just to make the rubble bounce, they come in and tell us that one of the reasons they're targeting that speaker is because they're worried about the future content on that platform.
That it could, in the future, somehow be critical of the United States or undermine democracy to pull examples from the government's brief.
So I think there's no way...
We need to get around the fact that this is a content-based speech restriction, and you do have to go directly to what their interests are.
I think that strengthens your argument that they went with this because they thought conservative court.
I think you're absolutely right.
But he talked about the carve-out there, and now he's going to try and use that.
What would your argument be?
It would be an equal protection argument?
Nope, nope.
This is the one I want.
Even if you could get just to the data security question, again, you'd have to ask the question, would this law have been passed by Congress for data security reasons?
Because you're being asked to uphold a law based on that single governmental interest.
And when you look through the provisions, like the content recommendation algorithm provision, like the covered company provisions, the answer is no.
And if you're still in doubt on that, just go back to the under-inclusiveness problem.
Would a Congress really worried about these very dramatic risks leave out an e-commerce site like Temu that has 70 million Americans using it and every bit the connection?
Does Congress have to go all or nothing on that?
It doesn't have to go all or nothing.
A particular problem.
They might be getting to what you're talking about next.
Who knows?
But you're really sitting up there and saying Congress would not pass the divestiture law if data security were the only interest.
So I'm saying it would not have passed this divestiture law if data security were the only interest.
It's very curious why you just single out TikTok alone and not other companies with tens of millions of people having their own data taken in the process of engaging with those websites and equally, if not more, available to Chinese control.
And he has a very good point.
That there was a carve-out for companies like Timu.
That have Chinese control, Chinese algorithms, but they recommend product, travel, or service, and therefore this law does not apply to them.
Now, we're going to get into tracking and some embarrassing moments.
I just want to say up front, anybody who has ever developed and submitted an app to any of the app stores I have knows how much scrutiny there is, particularly on user data.
Had to turn off certain tracking in their app in 2022 on Apple's platform, iOS, which they said cost them about $10 billion annually in revenue.
I mean, it's equal, unless Apple and Google are in on it with TikTok, I don't know that, and they let them do other things, everybody has the same data.
Everybody can access, as long as you get your user to hit OK, The minute the EULA comes up, they can look at other apps, they can look at your health data.
All of this stuff is available as long as the user says okay, and of course we all know everyone says okay.
So now we're going to talk about that Sotomayor, Justice Sotomayor, is very unsophisticated.
In fact, she doesn't even know the difference between a website and an app.
How many of these sites have...
All of the data collection mechanisms that TikTok has.
From what I understand from the briefs, not only is it getting your information, it's asking and most people give it permission to access your contact list, whether that contact list has permitted them to or not.
So they can now have data about all of your contacts and anything you say about them.
How many other sites gather information by...
This is so embarrassing.
Sites.
The lawyer is even going to use the term website like, I'll stick with a website, whatever you want, lady.
Keystrokes.
Back it up.
The keystrokes.
This is also important.
Contacts and anything you say about them.
How many other sites gather information by keystrokes to be able to do voice and...
Finger ID information.
And there's a whole lot of data stuff that was discussed in the brief that I don't think any other website gathers.
So, wouldn't this be a unique site?
If I viewed the evidence that way, how would this be under-inclusive?
Justice Sotomayor, I don't think a lot of the suppositions you're making actually bear out.
And as Justice Gorsuch was pointing out, one of the, obviously, the real challenges in this case is it comes to you without an ordinary trial record compiled and all the rest.
So we have only limited amounts of information.
But absolutely, these other websites are taking much the same kind of information, if not more.
And as to the contact list thing, I think you also, that points out one other aspect of this.
That is voluntary decision by an American.
But not informed.
If you don't think it's informed, that could be solved.
No, it can't be, because for the United States, the threat of using that information is what is at issue.
It's not whether the user thinks it's okay, it's whether the U.S. believes that it could put sites at issue.
Now, unfortunately, the documentation of what TikTok We certainly can.
I was hoping there would be something in the documentation.
There is a little bit, which I have marked up.
The platform collects extensive personal information from and about its users.
Data collection practices extend to age, phone number, precise location, internet address, device use, phone contacts, social network connections, content of private messages sent through the application and videos watched, TikTok user data, user content, behavioral, including keystroke patterns and rhythms.
And this is all the stuff that every single app can track with Firebase, Amplitude, UX Cam, Mixpanel.
They even have session replays so you can see exactly what a user did.
This is nothing new.
And then the guy throws in a kicker, the lawyer.
I like this.
Which made me go, yeah, how about that?
Something else that I think you might notice is even if all this act goes into effect and the law goes through, TikTok gets to keep all the data.
So wouldn't a data security law require them to expunge that data or get rid of it or something?
I mean, it's a very weird law if you're just looking at it through a data security lens.
Maybe Congress could do better.
Mr. Fisher, um...
Yes!
Good point!
Good point!
You've driven me over the boredom cliff.
Oh, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to listen to it because it gets really good now.
Okay.
Please stay with me.
Because when Justice Alito compares an algorithm to an old shirt, I mean, that's got to be worth something.
I think you should have led with that, but okay.
This may not make any difference for constitutional purposes, but just out of curiosity.
I'd like you to explain what the practical consequences would likely be for your clients if TikTok went dark, as Mr. Francisco put it.
There, I assume, is a great demand for what TikTok provides.
And if TikTok was no longer there to provide what your clients really want, is there a reason to doubt that some other social media company would not jump in and...
Take advantage of this very lucrative market.
There are two reasons, Justice Alito.
One is, many of the declarations from my clients actually explain they've tried on other platforms to generate the kind of audience and engagement they've been able to on TikTok, and they've fallen dramatically.
Yeah, I know they haven't so far, and I'm just wondering whether this is like...
Somebody's attachment to an old article of clothing.
I mean, I really love this old shirt because I've been wearing this old shirt.
But I could go out and buy.
Something exactly like that.
But no, I like the old shirt.
Is that what we have here?
Or is there some reason to think that only ByteDance has this...
ByteDance has devised this magical algorithm that all of the geniuses at Meta and all of these other social media companies, they couldn't.
No matter if they put their minds to it, they couldn't.
When he said Meta, I'm like, okay, he doesn't know.
He really has no clue.
No clue.
The Solicitor General, on behalf of the United States, who was there to defend decision by Congress, she was the worst.
I think she may be a Zoomer, but she's definitely a millennial.
I mean, can you just...
If you were to defend this...
What would the example be that you give that China could do with all of our important personal information?
What could China possibly do that would be so horrible for us?
The only example they've come up with, and you played it already, and I played it before, is that you can blackmail somebody in the future, but this is again, the example I used before previously was that It's like having pictures of your kid crying or doing some little thing when they were three or four years old and then showing it at their high school graduation as a joke to humiliate them, which is what parents love to do.
And that's as far as it gets, which is this is their argument.
It's like, hey, you know, we've got some information.
You're going to join the CIA. We've got some information showing you walked around naked when you were three.
They've got nothing.
It's a bogus argument.
Didn't even come up.
Didn't even come up.
It's much stupider.
General Prelogger.
Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the court, the Chinese government's control of TikTok poses a grave threat to national security.
Grave threat!
No one disputes that the PRC seeks to undermine U.S. interests by amassing vast quantities of sensitive data about Americans and by engaging in covert influence operations.
This was the term.
Covert influence...
What did she say?
Covert influence operations.
Covert content manipulation.
And no one disputes that the PRC pursues those goals by compelling companies like Bankdance to secretly turn over data and carry out PRC directives.
Okay, here comes the weaponization.
Stand back, everybody.
TikTok collects unprecedented amounts of personal data.
And as Justice Sotomayor noted, it's not just about the 170 million American users, but also about their non-user contacts who might not even be engaging with the platform.
That data would be incredibly valuable to the PRC.
Okay.
For years, the Chinese government has sought to build detailed profiles about Americans, where we live and work, who our friends and coworkers are, what our interests are, and what our vices are.
TikTok's immense data set would give the PRC a powerful tool for harassment, recruitment, and espionage.
tool for harassment, recruitment, and espionage.
On top of that, the Chinese government's control over TikTok gives it a potent weapon for covert influence operations.
On top of that, the Chinese government's control over TikTok gives it a potent weapon for covert influence operations.
And my friends are wrong to suggest that Congress was seeking to suppress specific types of content or specific types of viewpoints.
And my friends are wrong to suggest that Congress was seeking to suppress specific types of content or specific types of viewpoints.
Instead, the national security harm arises from the very fact of a foreign adversary's capacity to secretly manipulate the platform to advance its geopolitical goals in whatever form that kind of covert operation might take.
The act addresses the threat of foreign adversary control with laser-like focus.
It requires only divestiture of TikTok to prevent Chinese government control.
And that divestiture remedy follows a long tradition of barring foreign control.
All right.
I'm going to keep it short for you.
So what she says...
She's projecting, by the way.
What do you mean?
What she's describing is what we do.
Well, exactly.
I mean, you don't want China doing this.
Do you want your own American companies being able to do this?
Well, of course.
That's exactly what the Twitter files were about.
Okay, we're going to bring Thomas and Kagan into it.
Is there any difference between content manipulation by a non-U.S. company as opposed to a U.S. company?
Your question exactly.
I didn't hear Mr. Fisher make a distinction between the two.
Yes, and I think the important thing to recognize is that the act here is targeting covert content manipulation by a foreign adversary nation.
Now, I understand my friends to say...
What difference does that make?
The difference is that there is no protected First Amendment right for a foreign adversary to exploit its control over a speech platform.
No, I mean the difference between covert and non-covert.
So I think that Congress' concern with the covert operation was that a foreign adversary could effectively weaponize this platform behind the scenes.
any number of geopolitical goals.
Here are some of the examples that come to mind.
Okay, get ready.
One of the pages out of the playbook here is for a foreign adversary to simply try to get Americans arguing with one another to create chaos and distraction in order to weaken the United States as a general matter and distract from any activities that the foreign adversary might want to conduct on the world stage.
What do you mean by covert, though?
I mean, isn't this amazing?
That's her example.
We can get Americans to argue with each other?
Really?
That's what it's come down to?
Is covert just mean it's hard to figure out how the algorithm works?
Because we could say that about every algorithm.
No, the covert nature of it comes from the fact that it's not apparent that the PRC is the one behind the scenes pulling the strings here and deciding exactly what content is going to be made to appear on the site.
It's just because we don't know that China's behind it.
That's what covert means.
It doesn't have anything to do with the difficulty of figuring out what the algorithm is doing.
Because people don't know that China is pulling the strings?
That's what covert means?
What it means is that Americans are on this platform thinking that they are speaking to one another, and this recommendation engine that is apparently so valuable is organically directing their speech to each other.
And what is covert is that the PRC, a foreign adversary nation, is instead exploiting a vulnerability in the system.
Well, if that's all it means, that people don't know that China's behind it, everybody now knows that China is behind it.
Anyway, then all those justices doubled down.
They were making jokes about the fact that everybody knows it's Chinese.
The whole thing was completely idiotic and stupid and highly under-informed.
Highly under-informed.
So, we need to get TikTok back and we need to get people selling crap again.
This is what we do.
Sorry I bored you.
Is that it?
Well, I'll stop here.
Yeah.
You were going to have more?
Well, I'd have only one more.
But it's enough.
It's enough.
It was just more joking about covert China and her saying that Americans will start arguing and then I think it was Kagan Gorsuch says, well, if that's what they wanted, they've already won.
We did it with our own companies.
So the whole thing was just idiotic and clearly Silicon Valley Mainstream money to get rid of TikTok.
And I think Trump will use this to a great advantage.
He'll lord this over Silicon Valley, over his tech bros.
He'll lord it over everybody.
Let me see what I can do with this.
He can keep it going for at least three months.
Yeah, maybe I should let those guys come back.
Maybe we should do this.
I think it's great political currency for Trump.
With China as well.
Hey, why don't you open source that algo, let our guys in on it, and we'll lower the tariffs to 10%.
Okay.
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Do a count on the chat room.
Let's...
I have the banning TikTok news.
This would have been my contribution.
2,655.
2,600?
And 55. That's 100 over.
Yeah.
So they were riveted by this presentation.
That's good.
Of course they were.
This would be my...
Of course they were.
Of course they were.
Bickering at the Supreme Court Department.
Okay.
You know what?
I think we learned a lot more.
Than you got anywhere else.
We didn't learn anything anywhere else.
In fact, this is the extent of it.
This is the banning TikTok news clip.
This would be what you would hear anywhere else.
The popular social media app TikTok says it will go dark for its 170 million U.S. users tomorrow, but it may only be for a day.
Well, that ban lasted less than 12 hours.
Or that self-imposed ban lasted less than 12 hours.
It was a publicity stunt.
Of course it was.
So since you're playing this sort of clips, I have something to compete with it.
I have three clips only, though.
It doesn't take that long, a couple of minutes.
But NPR downloaded the comms of the fire department during the event, and it turns out, and if you listen to it carefully, the timeline that we were presented with isn't quite accurate.
NPR's investigations team downloaded more than 2,000 hours of communications between first responders.
And that audio shows how crews trying to control the fires ran into a huge problem with the water supply.
Here's more on that from NPR's Kiara Eisner.
Just eight hours after the first responders saw that brush fire, a firefighter sent out an urgent message on the radio.
If you can get a hold of any sort of public works or DWP, our folks are starting to report that they're running out of water and hydrant systems.
The dispatcher jumped in to say people were trying to fix the problem.
Six minutes later, a firefighter suggested sending a truck that transports water, called a tender, to the scene.
"With us losing our water up here, is there any way we can get a bunch of water tenders through the city?
And we can keg them up at least in the safe area up in the Palisades, and we can set up a portable hydrant system so our folks can have a shorter turnaround time." But reaching the fire was not easy.
As fire trucks and tenders tried to rush there, they had to fight through crazy traffic.
71, you've got gridlock on Palatades Drive.
People are driving down both sides.
And the fire itself kept moving.
With the wind that we're experiencing up here, and I'm looking across canyon, that's where it looks like it's headed.
Nearby, a super scooper was providing support from the air.
That's a plane that scoops up water from lakes or other reservoirs to dump on fires.
LA County, Quebec 2, flight of two super scoopers just leaving the fire scene at this time.
We're showing van eyes in about three minutes.
NPR journalists transcribed and analyzed communications from 13 audio feeds streaming LA City and County first responder channels.
The feeds were downloaded from broadcastify.com, a live audio streaming platform.
Oh, boy.
Someone's going to get in trouble for this one.
So you listen to these clips.
I've got two more.
And the timeline that I was led to believe, and I'm not going to skip these clips, but I'm going to jump to an analysis that was done by NPR itself earlier in one of our other shows.
And play this so we can get a little background.
This clip is called NPR Coverage.
About water.
This is our cover-up.
This is a cover-up story, if you listen to this, and then we get back to the downloaded clips.
NPR spoke to half a dozen water and fire experts who say no municipal water systems are designed for fires this big.
They say the issue was not a lack of water, but hurricane force winds that meant aircraft couldn't fly and drop water on the blazes.
A popular false narrative claims billionaires Stuart and Linda Resnick hoarded water on their California farms that could have been used to fight.
Stephanie Pinsell, professor at UCLA, says while the Resnicks use a lot of water...
Their groundwater is distinct and not germane to the problem.
We did not run out of water.
Julia Simon, NPR News.
We did not run out of water.
This is bullcrap.
And if you listen to that first clip, they were dumping waters from airplanes initially.
It was later, after they'd long since run out of water...
That they'd grounded the airplanes.
Wow, man.
Yep.
Does NPR make this conclusion?
No, of course not, because this stupid cover-up story that you just played was their argument that, oh, no, everything is fine.
Heaven forbid that we...
They're self-contradictory here.
They play these downloaded clips, and then the next thing you know, they're trying to cover it up.
But listen to this.
Here's part two of the comms.
By Tuesday evening, the communications show conditions were getting increasingly dangerous.
And by 2 a.m.
the next morning, first responders were organizing rescues.
Yeah, we've done an ALS transport of a chest pain, possible CO poisoning of a firefighter.
We're getting a report of a patient needs to be evac'd on a ventilator, and they've lost power.
But a few minutes later, the radio communications again turned to the water problem.
We've lost most of the hydrant pressure in Zulu.
By the time the firefighter issued that update from a section of the Palisades fire, other parts of L.A. had already started burning.
The Eaton Fire near Altadena had started Tuesday evening at the base of the Angeles National Forest.
That's about an hour's drive northeast of Palisades.
Just after midnight, in the early morning on Wednesday, the water appeared to be running out there, too.
And by 6 a.m., Firefighters near the Altadena neighborhood were mentioning problems with hydrants.
The communications indicate this came as a surprise to the first responders.
And just past midday on Wednesday, A firefighter made a dire announcement.
Hey, I see operations just further.
We're up at Lake in Altadena and all the hydrants up here are dead.
We're working on trying to find water for them.
Yeah, lies.
It's unbelievable.
And so this is the last clip.
California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered an investigation last week into how the fire hydrants lost pressure and how they stopped providing water.
City officials say the system was never designed for large wildfires like Palisades or Eaton.
It was designed for house fires or urban fires.
But in a letter the governor wrote to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, one of the utilities in charge, Newsom demanded answers.
On the radio channel, a first responder also thought about reaching out to the water company.
Just checking to see if we have a representative from the water department so we can maybe work on our water supply issues.
But in the meantime, there was only one thing they could do.
Pick your best targets of opportunity, do the best you can.
We're having real problems with water.
No water at all.
So do your best.
Reva Duncan is a former fire chief with the U.S. Forest Service.
She says that sort of response is often the only option.
When they run out of water and they're in that kind of situation, then they have to kind of do triage.
Do we have to move even farther over where we can be effective and efficient with our water and at least try to stop some kind of progress of the fire?
Firefighters are trained to keep their cool when communicating on the scene and over the radio.
But Duncan says it's still devastating to run out of resources.
It's hard for us to watch people's homes burn down and them lose everything, especially when it's the situation where there's so little that firefighters can do at that time.
More than 40,000 acres have burned in L.A. so far across the different fire regions.
That's an area three times the size of Manhattan.
They like doing that Manhattan comparison.
Three times the size of Manhattan, that's a classic.
I'm sure you received this.
If not, it's in the show notes.
The Design for Disaster documentary, 1962. No, I did not receive this.
Oh, it's the story of the Bel Air and Brentwood Wildfire.
Oh, the Bel Air 61 fire.
Yeah, it was a big deal.
Yeah, it's really good.
And that was the catalyst for brush clearing, etc., which I think just wasn't happening anymore.
It's a good doc.
It's about half an hour.
This is the same as this typical, like the financial thing.
I describe it all the time.
You put all these rules in place to keep something from happening.
The rules keep it from happening.
And then after a few years, people say, this isn't happening.
What do we need all these rules for?
Exactly.
It's just a natural phenomenon.
So they stopped doing all the work they should have been doing.
They left that 117 million gallon reservoir dead empty, which was the Palisades Reservoir, dead empty.
And then they ran out of water right away.
Right away.
Whoops!
It's just like, it's unbelievable.
What a fiasco.
What a botch.
Of course, we don't really have to worry because we're Americans and we do what Americans do in these situations.
Here's my 18-second NPR clip.
Music stars will hold a benefit concert for L.A. fire victims.
The event's called Fire Aid.
It will be staged on January 30th in two venues.
Some of the performers will include Lady Gaga, Jelly Roll, Billie Eilish.
And the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News.
Nothing like some Red Hot Chili Peppers at your fire aid, huh?
Yeah, perfect.
Fire aid.
Last night, Saturday Night Live, had Dave Chappelle.
I haven't seen it all, but what I saw was really good.
Did a very funny sketch about a family in Los Angeles.
And he also...
It said this 50 seconds in his monologue.
And then we watched the news or talked to my friends.
They all have these conspiracy theories of what started these fires.
Now, they say it's arsonists.
I've heard this theory, and I'm sure there were some arsonists, but there were a lot of elements that came together to make this fire the catastrophe that was.
The winds were 100 miles an hour.
L.A. was dry as a bone in the levees.
There was just too many factors.
If you were a rational thinking person, you have to at least consider the possibility that God hates these people.
Sodomites.
And that's not true because West Hollywood was unscathed.
Because how can you burn what is already flaming?
There you go.
I hope they bring him on to FireAid.
Have them crack some jokes.
They won't.
No, of course they won't.
He probably didn't even clear it with Lorne, all the stuff he did.
People are already selling.
TMZ had one of those celebrity realtors on.
Josh Altman.
Have you ever seen Josh Altman?
No.
You know these shows, though, right?
Yeah, they do all the high-end stuff, and so they cornered him.
This is hard to say.
I strongly believe that 50% of the people who lived in the Palisades are not going to be moving back to the Palisades.
Why?
Yeah, and honestly, that number wasn't as big last week in my mind, but after the phone calls that I've been getting, people who are...
Moving to Brentwood, Santa Monica, Bel Air, Beverly Hills.
Those are going to be the markets that are going to go up because people want to be as close to normalcy as possible.
And those are those towns right around the Palisades.
Those are going to go up that market.
That's where they're going to move.
It's going to be too long.
You've got to realize Palisades is the all-American town, right?
The families are running around.
It's like what you picture towns in movies that we used to watch.
These kids that are five years old right now that live...
In the Palisades and go to school, there's a chance that if things don't move fast, it could be four to five years before they're back there.
These kids are now ten, they're going to different schools, different lives now, you know, so it's tough because picture you living on a street, you're the first house finished, and every other house on the street is in construction.
Think about that.
You don't want to do that.
You want to wake up every single morning and be reminded of that?
Right, it's traumatic.
I'm negotiating almost a dozen deals right now on land in the Palisades, much faster than I ever thought I would be doing.
People are already trying to sell their dirt, knowing that they're not going to go back there to home builders that will then build their house and either keep it or sell it.
Yeah, they're selling their dirt.
Yeah, the problem with that report was very un-California-like.
What was the price of the dirt?
I don't know.
I'm sure it wasn't cheap.
I'm sure it was very expensive.
I'm sure it wasn't cheap either, but what was it?
I don't know.
We have no idea.
Was it a lot selling for half a mil?
We don't know anything.
We don't know anything.
No, because it's a shitty report.
Oh, geez.
Sorry.
That's not a report.
They cornered the guy.
No, it's TMZ's fault.
They're all from California.
They know better.
And California is different than the rest of the country.
We talk about our real estate prices.
Constantly.
What'd you pay?
Oh, I paid this.
None of your business.
Not in California.
Really?
Y'all talk about that all the time?
Yeah.
What'd you pay for that lot?
Oh, I got it for a song.
I got it for $80.
The market was like $100.
Oh, good deal.
You made a good deal.
Maybe he was trying to protect his clients.
No, I think maybe the lots are going cheap.
Well, that was kind of the insinuation that people are selling their dirt is getting rid of it.
I don't think much insurance will cover what it will actually cost to rebuild.
No, this is all from scratch.
Yeah, so time to build a new L.A. super city.
L.A. 2.0.
10-minute Palisades.
15. We'll give them 15. Of course, in...
Electrified California, the EVs were a real problem with firefighting.
Here's CNN. Scattered amongst the ruins of California's devastating wildfires sit countless Teslas and other electric vehicles, most left behind by owners forced to flee from the fast-moving flames.
The CharDVs are a grim reminder of a new frontier facing firefighters and residents when battling wildfires and the daunting environmental challenges in cleaning up some of the remains.
It's a little different world now today with batteries, not just car batteries, but battery packs, people with solar, those Tesla wall batteries and the like.
So the hazmat side of this is made a little bit more complicated.
Just last month, the EPA approved the state's ambitious plan to end the sale of new gas.
So that was Newsom.
Yeah.
Gravely voice Newsom.
Yeah.
Who's promoting that you had to go 100% EV by 2030. Yeah.
You can't sell a gas car anymore and he's making that comment?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What a douche.
The hazmat side of this is made a little bit more complicated.
Just last month, the EPA approved the state's ambitious plan to end the sale of new gas-operated vehicles by 2035. 35. It gives an extra five years.
California has seen a surge in electric vehicles over the last decade.
There were more than 3,000 EVs per 100,000 residents in California in 2023, the highest per capita of any state in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy.
Let's talk to the firefighters about it.
20, 30 years ago, when these things were not present in these fires, you didn't have to think about them.
San Diego Fire Battalion Chief Robert Rezendi is a member of the EPA's Lithium-Ion Battery Task Force.
He says the surge in batteries in homes and in EVs creates a new layer of complexity in firefighting.
As the batteries start to burn, they actually release flammable gases like hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and then they also release their own oxygen.
And so smothering the fire doesn't really work in these situations.
Putting a bunch of water on them doesn't really work in these situations.
Resendi says a normal gas-powered car fire can be managed in 5 to 15 minutes.
But putting out an EV fire could take 2 to 12 hours.
So the battery just kind of has to run its course and its chemistry needs to be consumed before it'll stop being on fire.
If there is a vehicle that's burned out right now in one of these wildfire zones in LA that was an EV... Is it possible that if the battery is intact, it could still reignite?
Yes.
Because of reignitions, he says it could take a swimming pool's worth of water to fully extinguish an EV battery fire.
And how about that battery power storage plant in California?
Was that near San Jose?
That's in West Point.
It's off on the coast.
It's actually a power plant, and they use...
They have a big bunch of batteries there to save wind power.
To store the electricity.
Yeah, and it blew up.
Is it still on fire?
I would think so.
They want to put one of those in Kerrville.
It's a bad idea.
It's a very bad idea.
Except I was thinking about it while listening to that last clip.
Why can't somebody, because it takes, what, 12 hours to put the fire out?
A swimming pool won't do it?
I mean, it just keeps burning until the batteries are gone.
There's got to be some chemical way of stopping these fires.
The only thing I've seen is they have this big fireproof oxygen-tight tarp they throw over the car, and then it kind of burns out underneath that.
Yeah, but still burning.
There's got to be some solution to this issue.
Here's the solution.
Combustion engines.
I know your solution.
Combustion engines.
Have the explosions under the hood.
Not in your garage.
It's so...
Yeah, you're right about Newsom.
It's horrible.
He just likes to hear himself talk.
I love the climate change angle.
It's finally starting to kick in.
And we have, I think, a definite new Reverend Al Clip when it comes to the L.A. fires and climate change.
He's in rare form today.
Firefighters have been making progress in containing the raging Palisades and Eaton fires.
The devastation now ranks among the worst in California history.
Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Foundation said Friday that 2024 was the hottest year on record.
1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Bringing the planet dangerously close to breaking the pledge made by global...
Glossal leaders under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
Glossal.
Glossal leaders.
Glossal?
There's more.
Los Angeles County has declared a public health emergency due to the air quality.
Officials one, the biggest threats are smoke and particular matters, which they say may cause long-term health effects.
Particular matters.
Wow.
He's got a new producer.
A set of particulates.
Yeah.
Particular matters.
Rev Al is the best.
And how much does he make?
This is where you usually remind us of that.
I think a 1.2 mil.
At least.
CBS this morning jumped right in with Jane Pauly, although I cut Jane Pauly out of these two clips.
They found someone to make all the connections.
The monster that roared through L.A. County last week is still alive.
But firefighters seem to have it cornered.
People have started returning to their homes, or what's left of them.
And insurance, if they had it, is a whole other battle.
And the focus now is turning from what happened to why it happened and what in the world is next.
This disaster is as bad as just about anybody here can remember.
But is it really just the new normal?
Nature is telling us, I can't take this anymore.
I cannot support you.
I can't take it anymore.
Listen carefully.
There's nature telling us it can't take it anymore.
But is it really just the new normal?
Nature is telling us, I can't take this anymore.
I cannot support you.
If you keep treating me this way...
John Valiant is the author of Fire Weather, On the Front Lines of a Burning World.
And he says climate change is making disasters like the wind-driven L.A. fires fiercer.
This is not an anomaly.
This is the future.
We can expect fires of this intensity and worse in the future.
The types of fires we've seen over the past 10 years are qualitatively different from the previous 100 years.
Wait, wait, wait.
The types of fires are different.
Yeah.
How has fire changed?
In a number of ways.
The most potent and frightening way, the most obvious to the layperson, you know, people like us, is it moves faster and with greater intensity.
And you talk to any firefighter with any sense of history, and they are seeing different behavior.
That is...
In many cases, unfightable.
I guess he hasn't seen the documentary about the 1961 Bel Air Brentwood fire.
Went pretty fast then, pal.
But this is what they do.
Bring it right around to climate change, because, you know, Trump's coming in.
We've got to press this issue.
We've got to make people think about this stuff.
Because they're nowhere safe.
And Valiant says the cause is something science has been telling us for decades.
The CO2 that our combustion engines keep pumping into the atmosphere.
We don't feel it.
We don't smell it.
We don't notice it.
But if you were to take the car engine that brought me here and set it up on the floor here and fired it up, we would go deaf and then we would die.
From its emissions.
I love that.
We'd go deaf and then we would die.
And set it up on the floor here and fired it up.
We would go deaf and then we would die.
Die.
From its emissions.
And that's under the hood of every internal combustion engine car.
And there are hundreds of millions of them.
So the emissions from fire, these trillions of fires that we make.
Who is this guy?
He's the guy who wrote the book about fire because of climate change.
He's on CBS. They did a 10-minute package on him.
10 minutes to tell us we're going to die.
So the emissions from fire, these trillions of fires that we make every day, has created this artificially warm climate.
And so, he says, we get more intense fires.
Hold on a second.
What's the temperature there in Austin here?
Well, I'm not in Austin, but we are...
I mean, you're in the Austin area?
Well, right now we're probably around, just around freezing.
You're around freezing?
Yes, we're freezing.
It's around 32 or so?
Yeah, it's freezing.
Yes, we're cold.
So that's the horrible heat that you're dealing with.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Yes, how about you?
It's 50. Oh, that's cold for you.
When I take it back, I'm looking at the thing that's on the screen here.
It's actually 49. Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Oh, put on the sweater.
I got one on, believe me.
These trillions of fires that we make every day has created this artificially warm climate.
And so, he says, we get more intense fires, stronger hurricanes, and hotter heat waves.
We're going to lose everything.
And we're not joking.
Climate scientist Peter Kalmas has been sounding much the same alarm for years.
So do you feel like you're sitting on all this science and you're trying to share it with the world?
Sitting on science?
Another show title.
Sitting on science is dynamite.
Sitting on science!
Do you feel like you're sitting on all this science and you're trying to share it with the world and no one's listening?
That's exactly how I feel, yes.
We met him in 2022 near his home in Altadena, California, just as he was about to move his family to North Carolina.
Was part of that move because you were worried about wildfires?
Yeah, so for a few years I wanted to move.
To someplace a little bit less fiery.
But I want to make it clear, I don't think there's any place safe from climate change.
And believe me, he went right into Helene, and he's in North Carolina, and, you know, so we're all going to die.
There's no place.
No place where it's not safe anywhere from climate change.
Anywhere.
Ever.
Not going to happen.
Might as well get used to it.
The new normal.
Yeah, I think you're right.
This is a Trump thing.
Yeah, totally.
Because we don't need the hoax.
Idea floating around.
No.
The hoax.
The preemptive strike is what this would be called in normal circumstances.
From CBS. The communist broadcasting system.
CBS the worst.
The communist broadcasting system.
You remember that report?
Oh, not that report.
All the reports from the Surgeon General about alcohol and cancer two weeks ago?
Two weeks ago.
I've heard a couple of reports this last couple of days.
And what did we think that might be on the way?
Mocktails.
Mocktails?
If only.
No.
No.
Wouldn't you know it?
To the Index of Other News, a new report by the American Cancer Society tonight finding certain cancers on the rise among women and younger adults, including breast, thyroid, and colorectal cancers.
For the first time, cancer diagnoses in women ages 50 to 64 have now surpassed men.
There's your report.
And so it begins.
They've all been drinking too much.
That's going to be the reason.
And, of course, our thesis is the vaccine cover-up.
Yes.
Yes.
I got a note from one of our boots-on-the-ground nurses, actually in Southern California.
She says at our hospital, there's been a lot of talks amongst doctors of what they feel about using GLP-1 drugs for alcohol.
Some are very intrigued.
And walk around saying, hey, just Google GLP-1 drugs and alcohol addiction.
The solution is right there.
Problem, reaction, solution.
These things are compound nowadays.
It solves a lot of problems.
Yes, it does.
I know.
It's that they haven't gotten to the one you're pushing, which is coming.
I'm pretty sure you might be right about it.
What, the alcohol with the...
No, no, the GLP-1s and erectile dysfunction.
Come on, it's got to be on the next stop on the train.
Is it in the book?
It should be in the book.
You made it go in the book, and somebody's out there, there's a virtual book that's floating around.
I've got a couple Biden clips I want to get out of the way.
Yeah, sure.
Biden and the 28th Amendment.
Oh, yeah, this has been interesting.
This is the NPR stuff?
Yeah, I got two clips.
Three days before President Biden leaves office, he made a surprise announcement about a proposed constitutional amendment that has been debated for decades.
Today, I affirm the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all the necessary hurdles to be added to the U.S. Constitution now.
The Equal Rights Amendment that says, quote, equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
But the official who certifies constitutional amendments, the archivist of the United States, does not think the proposal has been properly ratified.
NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben joins us.
Danielle, thanks so much for being with us.
Of course.
Good morning, Scott.
What exactly did the president announce?
Well, he announced basically what we just heard there.
He said that in his mind, this amendment is already the law of the land.
Now, of course, it's not in the Constitution.
And were it to get there, legal scholars say the ERA could affect a wide range of areas like pregnancy discrimination, pay equity, and reproductive rights.
But before the ERA can become an amendment, it has to be certified by the archivist, a woman named Colleen Shogan.
The White House told reporters Friday that Biden wasn't directing her to certify the ERA. Rather, they said that Shogun is simply required to certify the amendment, and the archivist has said that's not happening.
This story is very confusing to me.
Obviously, I'm interested in a constitutional amendment, but this has been batting around since the 70s?
It expired.
Oh.
It never passed, and it had a deadline built into the act to make it a constitutional amendment, and it never made it, never made the deadline.
It never got passed.
It was just bullcrap.
So J.D. Vance had the best one-liner.
He had it on Twitter.
He says, hey, Joe, while you're making these proclamations, make Pete Rose a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is about the same thing.
But just let me understand, because what I heard, and that's, of course, the reporting, is that Virginia said, oh, no, we ratify it, and now it's ratified, and it should be the amendment.
Is that what the story is?
This is Biden's interpretation of reality.
This is all bullcrap.
To make this amendment...
Part of the Constitution.
The process has to be started over.
It's expired.
But Biden has just decided to do this like a maniac.
Well, we don't think Biden actually is doing anything.
Someone else is acting like a maniac.
I didn't clip it.
Did you see the Speaker of the House?
Before you go with that, let's play the second half of this and then we'll talk.
If the archivist is that explicit, where's the confusion?
Well, we have to go back to when the ERA passed Congress in 1972 to explain this.
After that, it went to the states for ratification.
38 states have to sign off on an amendment.
And importantly, the ERA had a deadline attached to it for ratification.
That deadline was eventually set for 1982. But by then, it was still three states short.
Now, despite that, state legislatures continued ratifying it over the years, and in 2020, Virginia became the 38th state, and the ERA reached that benchmark, and the debate was reignited.
But why is there debate?
Well, it's all about that initial deadline I mentioned that was put on the ERA. Now, one side, which includes the American Bar Association, they argue that the deadline does not matter.
One argument they make is that the Constitution just doesn't say anything about amendments having deadlines.
But interestingly, DOJ officials under both Trump and Biden are on the other side of this.
During the Trump administration, the DOJ issued an opinion saying the deadline did matter and that it was up to courts or Congress to move the ERA along.
And in 2022, the Biden DOJ agreed that this is up to the courts and Congress.
And this is where the archivist comes in.
In 2022 and again last month, her office, Colleen Shogun, said that they are following what the DOJ said in those instances.
Hmm.
Interesting.
They can start it over.
They want to pass this thing.
Start it over.
There was all in on it.
Does this go back to the bra burning?
Yeah.
Wow, it's that old, huh?
I think it was initiated in the 70s.
And this is really about discrimination based on sex.
Right.
And I guess there's tons of laws already that don't disallow that.
Well, actually, we had a series of clips that are in the archives by Phyllis Schlafly.
She was the number one complainer about this thing.
Phyllis Schlafly was a right-wing woman who was very famous, and she was interesting in these series of clips that we put on the show.
I think we played some of them.
She was sharp, and no one could really...
She's one of those people trying to debate...
Like if you went up and decided to debate Ben Shapiro, for example...
Oh, I would be screwed.
You'd be dead.
Yeah, screwed.
Well, she was this type...
She wasn't a fast talker, but she was hard to beat in these debates.
Her commentary was based on, look, women have it better.
Right now, because we're like a protected class without this amendment.
She says, you put the amendment in and now we're going to have to go to war, we're going to have to be drafted.
She just moaned and groaned about how this amendment was a bad idea because it was...
They got a good deal going on.
They had a good deal going the way she saw it.
And she had a strong argument and she convinced...
She's the one...
She is the reason this never passed.
Now they could restart it because she's not around anymore and there's nobody making her arguments and everyone's gung-ho for this and that.
So it's possible they could get it to be passed.
But she had strong arguments and she was powerful.
Well, the first thing the Republicans would do would be exactly that.
It's like, okay, you're being drafted now.
That's what you do.
You take the worst case scenario and you make it worse.
I'm glad you clipped the Mike Johnson stuff because I thought about it and I guess I forgot about it.
Can we play those?
Yes, Mike Johnson, this is a clip that has a lot of people bent out of shape and I want to defend him.
I think I only have two clips.
He had a meeting with Biden and Biden wasn't, apparently he showed him that he wasn't really running the country.
And everyone condemned Mike Johnson after these clips appeared because it was like, why didn't you say something?
And the problem that you have with that is that if you're the Speaker of the House meeting with the President, that's a private conversation.
You can't, and he says why he can talk about it now because the Wall Street Journal brought it out.
No, you can't go in and discuss this sort of thing just in general.
So I give him a break on this.
In some ways, I actually kind of feel sorry for Joe Biden.
I mean, he's in the twilight years of his life.
He is not...
Obviously has not been in charge for some time.
And I know this by personal observation, and now the whole world knows it.
And it's been very, very concerning to me over the last, you know, year and a half since I've had this position.
Can you tell us a story when you say personal observation?
What kind of thing did you see?
Well, I mean, it's public now because the Wall Street Journal got it and put it on the front page.
But January a year ago, almost exactly a year ago, I had been asked, I became Speaker in October 2023, and there were all sorts of big national security concerns and everything going on.
And I started requesting a meeting with the president because, you know, I'm kind of old school.
I'm a constitutional law guy.
The Speaker of the House should be able to talk to the president, especially in times of great national interest and calamity.
But they wouldn't let me meet with him.
And his staff kept getting excuses.
This went on for like eight or nine weeks.
I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, he doesn't have time.
What are you talking about?
I'm second in line of the presidency.
He has time.
I need to talk to him.
We had, I can't say the classified parts, but we had some big, big national concerns at the time that I was losing sleep over.
Finally, I just went to the Hill Press Corps and I said, the President is not being allowed to meet with the Speaker.
There's a problem.
So they started putting pressure on him.
Long story short, they finally relented.
They invited me to the White House.
I show up and I realize it's actually an ambush because it's not just me and the President.
It's also Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem, you know, the whole CIA director, everybody.
So I walked in the Oval and, ah, I know what this is.
They're going to hotbox the Speaker on Ukraine funding.
That's what it was.
This is probably the third week of January.
Hey, Mike, what's that in your mouth?
The CIA director.
Hey, Mike, do a little pull-aside with Mike here for a second.
I think I remember him saying that he couldn't get a meeting with the president.
That I think he did say in public.
Yeah, well, he could do that, but he couldn't discuss the meeting itself, but now he does, and here's what the outcome was.
We sit down, we're in the midst of it, and the whole conversation, and I'm going, we don't need to have this conversation.
The president reaches over just like this.
We're sitting right next to the fireplace in the Oval, and he grabs my arm and he says, the speaker and I just need a couple minutes together.
Would you all just leave us alone?
And I looked up on the faces of some of the staff standing around the wall, and they're like, no, he did it.
So he called it.
He's the commander-in-chief.
So everybody leaves, and he and I are standing awkwardly in the middle of the Oval Office right over the rug by that coffee table.
And I said, Mr. President, thanks for the moment.
This is very important.
I've got some big national security things I need to talk to you about that I've heard and I think you know and what do we do?
But first, real quickly, Mr. President, can I ask you a question?
I cannot answer this from my constituents in Louisiana.
Sir, why did you pause LNG exports to Europe?
Like, I don't understand, you know, liquefied natural gas is in great demand by our allies.
Why would you do that?
Because you understand, we just talked about Ukraine.
You understand you're fueling Vladimir Putin's war machine because they've got to get their gas from him, you know.
And he looks at me, stunned, and he said, I didn't do that.
And I said...
Mr. President, yes, you did.
It was an executive order, like, you know, three weeks ago.
And he goes, no, I didn't do that.
And he's arguing with me.
I said, Mr. President, respectfully, could I go out here and ask your secretary to print it out?
We'll read it together.
You definitely did that.
And he goes, oh, you talk about natural gas.
Yes, sir.
He said, no, no, you misunderstand.
He said, what I did is I signed this thing to, we're going to conduct a study on the effects of LNG. I said, no, you're not, sir.
You paused it.
I know.
I have the terminal, the export terminals in my state.
I talked to those people this morning.
This is doing massive damage to our economy, national security.
It occurred to me, Barry, he was not lying to me.
He genuinely did not know what he had signed.
And I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, we're in serious trouble.
Who is running the country?
Like, I don't know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn't know.
So, we know who was running the country because they were in the room.
That's who has been running the country.
And I would say the CIA director being there probably has the goods on everybody and might have been calling the shots.
We also had the Donald and Brothers or the BlackRock folk.
But the question that comes to mind, and it's never discussed, and Barry doesn't discuss it, that's for sure, and it wasn't discussed on this interview.
Who does he think is running the country?
A. But the other thing is, what was the point of pausing the LNG exports?
I mean, why was that decision made?
Was it so somebody could play some stocks, or somebody could make a quick buck?
I mean, what exactly, what was the rationale for doing that?
For that pause, that pause in time, who benefited from it?
Can somebody trace that?
I mean, you should be able to follow the money on that one.
That should be easy enough to figure out.
Maybe somebody...
Biden was just a dupe to sign it.
Maybe somebody had a tanker of oil out there on the ocean.
It was very suspicious that this happened.
It was odd.
It was odd.
It was like our number one gangbusters move, the LNG. It was perfect for us.
Well, speaking of our allies, and this will be the last that I have before we take a break, I'm very excited because Ritter, Ritter, our boy is on fire.
But first we have to understand just how worried our allies are about the big orange man.
For the last four years, Europe felt it could rely on its American ally when it came to trade and defense.
But not anymore.
Donald Trump hates the ongoing US-EU trade deficit, which continued to grow during his first term.
It means America buys a lot more from the EU than it sells to the EU. Last month, he said he told the European Union to close that deficit by the large-scale purchase of American oil and gas.
Otherwise, he'd use what he says is his favorite word.
Tariff.
Tariffs.
Tariffs.
They're doing super cuts now in the news.
Tariffs.
The tariffs.
Trump believes US import tariffs, which are basically a tax on imports, are lower than the EU's.
Any questions?
And he may be right.
The World Trade Organization says that in 2023 the average US tariff was 3.3% compared to 5% in the EU. But that rises to 10% when it comes to importing American cars into the European Union, which is why he's threatening the bloc with counter-tariffs, a tactic that, for him, doesn't just apply to trade wars.
We need Greenland for national security purposes.
People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right.
But if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.
And if Denmark wants to get to a conclusion, but nobody knows if they even have any right title or interest, the people are going to probably vote for independence or to come into the United States.
But if they did do that...
Then I would tariff Denmark at a very high level.
On defense spending, he's already putting pressure on Europeans to spend more as a percentage of their overall economic output.
Well, I think NATO should have 5%, yeah.
Well, you can't do it at 2%.
I mean, at 2%, every country, if you're going to have a country in a regular military, you're at 4%.
I think they should be, you know, they're in dangerous territory.
I think they should be, they can all afford it, but they should be at 5%, not 2%.
I'm the one that got them to pay 2%.
Now, I played that for the 5% number, which I had not heard before.
Had you heard 5% of GDP? No.
Well, as it turns out, the guy who used to be in human resources at Unilever, who ran the Netherlands into the ground for the past 12 years, who is now the head of NATO, he's our guy!
He is selling...
Your buddy?
Our guy is Mark Rutte.
He works for us, and he's doing a great job.
I have some Dutch pride, actually, now.
What I know from Donald Trump and from the incoming administration is that they were the ones pushing us for more defense spending.
They were successful at this and they were right.
They were right!
They were right!
Yes!
I mean, we did not spend enough.
And now luckily we are overall close to...
This is interesting.
Wait!
Oh, it's so much better.
Give that guy a strobe waffle.
We spent enough.
And now luckily we are overall close to the 2%.
The problem is, of course, That in the meantime, the 2% is not enough.
It's not enough.
We just heard Trump say it himself.
And some of you asked me, okay, what should it be?
I don't want to commit to a number, but as I said in my Carnegie...
Yeah, you better say it, because here's my number.
...talk after my speech.
when you look, so let's say at a sort of first glance at the capability requirements emerging from the internal planning process with the NATO, it will be north of 3%.
But then you're right if you do joint buying and making use of the NSBA, Luxembourg structures and everything else.
Listen to these Luxembourg structures.
We We have all kinds of funny ways to make the money flow.
You can deduct joint buying.
You can deduct.
Innovation, for example.
This guy, he's selling.
He's like, look, listen, you can afford this place.
You can afford this house.
You get to write off the mortgage.
You write off your insurance.
I mean, this is a bargain.
Ukraine is experimenting with new radar systems, which are extremely less expensive than some of the more traditional radar systems to detect enemy missiles coming in.
Just one example.
Cheap radar?
What?
Cheap radar.
This is very cheap radar from Recyon.
We've got many more capabilities we can buy from America.
To detect enemy missiles coming in, just one example, if you deduct that, you don't have to get to what we are afraid of you would need now, which is 3.6, 3.7.
So you would bring that number somewhat down, but it will be impressively more than the 2% we are at now, I'm afraid.
But that is a structured process within NATO.
We will conclude it over the coming months with the defense ministers, latest in June before the summit in The Hague.
So now, as a good salesman, he's going to look at the other side.
He's going to look at your argument, why you shouldn't buy this, why you shouldn't buy into this much higher defense spending on American gear.
Oh, you want to have your own NATO? Fine, go ahead!
Then, on the more autonomous European defense, well, it's great to have a sort of European NATO, but then forget about the 2%.
Then you have to bring it up to 8%, 9% or 10%.
Yay!
This guy's great!
Forget about this.
Forget about it, man.
8%, 9%?
You have to build your own nuclear capability.
Oh, yes.
And it'll take 15, 20 years.
It'll take forever.
If you want to build a European NATO without the U.S. At this moment, the U.S. It's spending over 60%.
Oh, boy!
Of all the money is being spent within NATO territory, over 60%.
That means the other 31 are doing less then.
Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark, get your math right.
40%, including Canada.
And so it is an illusion that you can build a European NATO over the next 10 or 50 years.
And why would you?
I mean, the transatlantic relationship, I think...
Yeah, so you go ahead, you do that.
And meanwhile, me, Mark Rutte, I'm going to close the deal now.
I'm absolutely convinced the United States will stay.
Within NATO, I'm not worried about that.
But we have to make sure that the argument which the U.S. had in the past and still can have to a certain extent at this moment, that because of their spending, we can spend more on other stuff because they spend it on defense, that we take out that argument by spending more ourselves.
And when I say spending more ourselves, yet it's better spending, joint procurement, innovation, etc.
But again, also more spending.
The 2% Everything I'm seeing at this moment is not nearly enough.
And if we don't do it, we are safe now, but not in four or five years.
Here comes the threat.
So if you don't do it, get out your Russian language courses or go to New Zealand.
Or decide now to spend more.
And that's exactly the debate we have to finalize over the next three or four months to stay safe in this part of the world and defend ourselves.
You will be speaking Russian if you don't spend the money.
I'm liking this guy now.
You've always liked him.
He's perfect for us.
Because you can do him.
Well, but he's perfect.
I had no idea.
He is 100% military industrial complex shill.
I mean, surprise, gambling going on here, but I mean, he's perfect for this.
Because, you know, you can't argue that.
You want to speak Russian?
Go ahead.
Don't spend the munis.
We must decide this in three to four months.
So the AFD people in Deutschland, they're seriously thinking of quitting NATO. If Germany leaves, what's left?
That's where the money is coming from.
Wow.
I don't know.
It's going to be an interesting year.
You know, Europe is...
Goes back hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
They're always fighting with each other.
And the fact that we've put this off somehow, where there hasn't been any real fights since 1946, except for this Ukraine situation and a few miscellaneous bombings here and there in Serbia.
Minor stuff.
Minor incursions.
It's a miracle.
They were always at each other's throats, traditionally, forever.
I don't see why that would change.
It's got to come back.
Well, if Germany, if the AFD helps Germany leave NATO, well, there it is.
And isn't it always the Germans and the French?
It's always the Germans and the French, in some way, shape, or form.
I don't understand.
I mean, the British are always in there, too, fighting someone.
They got nothing now.
They got nothing.
Yeah.
Well, with that, how about I thank you for your courage?
Yeah, you might as well.
And say in the morning to you, the man who put the seas in incredible bullcrap.
Say hello to my friend on the other end, the one, the only, the unimitable, John C. DeVore!
Yeah, in the morning to you, Mr. Adam Curry.
Also in the morning, ships and sea boots on the ground feeding the air subs in the water.
Dames and knights out there.
Hello, trolls!
Here we go!
Yeah, our peak was still $26.55.
It was good.
You know, everyone wants to hear what you have to say about TikTok.
And I'm sure you will say I gave him too much.
You did.
Yeah.
Well, we don't need to have a meeting about it.
Message received.
We don't have to have a meeting about it.
We never have meetings about anything.
Actually, we don't.
I do have a late donation that came in, though, that I will talk about as we get to the donation segment.
Oh, we typically don't do that.
I know, I know, and that's what my complaint is.
It'll be a big complaint.
Well, what about the meeting about that late donation?
We should have had a meeting.
I could have brought it up, but I'll bring it up.
You can talk about it after the show.
In our pre-show meeting, where we...
The pre-show meeting, which consists of in the morning.
In the morning.
And hit it.
Hit it.
That is how all meetings should go.
If all corporations did meetings like we do...
Oh, there's also one, there's a variable, which is, did you get the bonus clip?
That is the third element.
That is a big part of the meeting.
That is a big part of the meeting.
Those trolls, by the way, are hanging out at trollroom.io, noagenda.stream, and there's a troll room where you sit there, you troll along.
For some reason, people, there's like five guys in there, and all they say is...
Oh, that's fake and gay.
That's the only line they have.
It's fake and gay?
That's the only line they have.
Yeah, over and over again.
It's just like, oh, wow.
You need new material.
You need new material, guys.
Low T. Of course, you can also get the show live on a modern podcast app.
Go to podcastappsplural.com and get one of them that has the bat signal.
And we go live, and you can listen live in your app, the same app that gets you all of your favorite podcasts.
And when we release the podcast, within 90 seconds, you'll be notified.
It's a beautiful thing.
And it adds all kinds of cool stuff, like chapters with art that is taken from our art generator, which is diligently uploaded by our artists.
During the show, they make these things.
And that, of course, is part of our value for value model where we give this to you as a public service.
If you get any value out of what we have presented to you, then you just send it back to us.
Time, talent, or treasure.
So let's start with the value we receive from our artists for episode 1730. We titled that one Pam Bondage.
Oh, by the way, I got a note from, let me see, where is it?
From Trolldar.
And he sent a picture of him at a rally where Pam Bondi was speaking.
And he says, yeah, she may be telegenic, but in real life she looks like Merle Haggard in a blonde wig.
Well, it doesn't matter if you're telegenic.
I thought that would just be something that you'd be interested in hearing about.
Well, you know, I have this theory, and so it's, you know, okay.
Well, go ahead.
What's the theory?
I consider there's different kinds of beauty.
And within the same person, there's three kinds of beauty you can exhibit.
One is in-person beauty, some people that are just terrific-looking in person.
And then there's photogeneity, which is somebody who looks great in a photograph.
Photos, yes.
And then there's telegeneity, which is also similar, but it's not the same.
And it's when people look good on video.
And she is telegenic.
She's a little photogenic.
I've never seen her in person.
But it brings me back to my story about Marla Maples.
Yes, you have mentioned this, but go ahead.
The story about Marla...
I got to meet Marla Maples, Trump's wife, or became her wife, or became his wife.
Was she married to the Donald at the time?
No, she was not.
She was single.
But you were like, hey, baby.
No.
You could tell she wasn't interested in anybody but someone bloated.
But you could also tell this.
For one thing, she was more beautiful than you can imagine to the point where she looked pretty in photos, but no.
No, she didn't really look all that great in photos.
It was okay.
Is it mad or not?
Because she was a killer, and you knew from just looking at her that if she put her hooks in you, you were done.
And that's what happened to poor Trump.
Now, so I'm having a photo take and shoot in New York, and with this photographer there, who's a picture from one of the magazines.
Now, are you in the photo shoot, or are you producing the photo shoot?
I'm the guy being shot.
By this photographer.
What was this for?
Was it an ad?
It was for PC computing or something.
I don't know.
I can't remember.
But I had this shot.
So I was in there talking to the guy, and he also did fine art.
And I said, oh, you know, I'm always trying to scrounge some free art.
Free stuff.
And so somehow Marla Maples comes into the conversation.
I said, you know, she's so pretty.
I've never seen a good...
And the guy jumps on it right away, and he says...
I tried to take pictures of her, and I couldn't capture it.
It was the most frustrating experience I've ever had as a photographer.
And so she was of the one type only of beauty.
But there are some people that are all three, which is very rare.
Now, what did you talk about with her?
With Marla Maples?
Yeah.
Oh, I can't remember.
It was just, you know, your jaw drops when you're just chatting with us.
She was on the phone almost all the time.
It was at a...
Now I sound like a douche, but it was at Bob...
How do you pronounce his last name?
The guy who ran...
Guccione.
Guccione.
Guccione's mansion was the biggest...
It was actually a whole flat...
So wait a minute.
Let me just get this straight.
You're doing a photo shoot.
For yourself at Bob Guccione's mansion.
I like the way you conflate these things.
No, the photo shoot was like a year later.
Oh, okay, I see.
I'm at Guccione's mansion for some event because of something that was going on and they had a big party there.
Computer party, no doubt.
Yeah, and she was there and there's a bunch of these Guccione people there and the house was interesting.
It was a big townhouse.
He had the whole townhouse.
And it was supposedly the biggest one in Manhattan, supposedly.
Bigger than Epstein's?
Very douchey.
I don't know.
I never went to Epstein's.
I hope not.
But Guccione, yeah.
Between Guccione and the Grove.
What is it?
Bohemian Grove.
Bohemian Grove.
Yeah, I know.
I'm suspect.
Very suspect.
I think we need to put pictures of you up on the wall and connect some yarn between them.
Yeah, yarn.
That's what we need.
Hey, the artist for episode 1730, Pam Bondage, was no one less than Darren O'Neill, who has just become a force to reckon with when it comes to prompt jockeying.
Who needs talent when you can prompt jockey?
We know Darren has no talent.
That's what's so great about it.
Yeah.
And he did this, and what was really nice about it, it was...
A little different.
I mean, first of all, it was...
It was a fabulous piece, let's face it.
It was.
It was like a movie poster and a postage stamp.
Newsom's Inferno, and above it, it had No Agenda Studios, and then produced by Curry and Dvorak.
I mean, yes, that is insight.
He does have ideas.
He's got ideas.
I don't know how that piece could even come...
I mean, it's obviously AI. It's what he does now.
That's what he does, yes.
I don't know how this piece could have possibly been generated by anything.
It's so good.
Well, maybe he'll tell us.
Maybe he can let us know how he did it.
He sent us the prompts before.
I'd like to just take those prompts that he did and then try them in different AIs and let's see if it comes out.
I mean, it's amazing.
And the sad thing, of course, is he's usurping...
Talented people.
Oh, he's kicking their ass.
Yes.
It's sad.
It's sad.
But what are you going to do?
I mean, this is...
It's like disco all over again.
You know?
When everyone came in with the drum beats.
Well, I'm reminded of Martin J.J. in the years past.
When he was dominating the art segment.
The art charts.
The charts.
The art charts.
He was dominating for about...
I don't know, two or three months, and he said, look, I'm dominating.
It's ridiculous.
I quit.
Yeah, Darren.
Just saying.
I don't want Darren to quit yet, but he's getting there.
He is up there for sure.
Let's see.
There were some other things that we looked at.
I kind of like the red note from Sir Shug.
Better than TikTok.
Try red note.
But Tantanil had come in, which we're happy to see.
It's a yes or no question.
I take that as a no agenda, but it was just...
I mean, it just couldn't compete.
A lot of Bondi...
Bondage pics.
Very funny.
We don't typically put people on our art.
People keep forgetting that.
Yeah, we don't.
It's not really a rule, but generally we don't do that.
What else was there?
Merle Haggard with a wig.
It finally hit, huh?
No, I got it the first time, but I'm just looking at this picture of her in the bondage outfit, and it's like, I don't know.
What was interesting is there was a meta piece as Tante Neal made a newspaper, no agenda newspaper, and in it she had Darren's image as newsprint in the newspaper.
Did you catch that?
No.
Are you looking at the art page?
Yeah, I got the art page up.
Which one is it?
It's titled Too Soon.
It's a newspaper and it says Olympic Fire Arrives in L.A. And then you see Darren's Newsom's Inferno image on the front page of the paper.
A very, very meta of her to do that.
Well, I'm not finding it.
Okay.
You see Newsom's Inferno.
Oh, there it is.
I see Too Soon.
Okay, let me look at it.
Oh, that's interesting.
That's very meta.
Yeah, it's just too small.
Well, yeah, you can't see it, and it's also kind of a boring composition.
No offense to me.
No offense to me.
But boring is what I would call it.
And I saw that you used Commissioner Blogger's Looney Tunes with Biden for the newsletter.
Yes.
By the way, that was an interesting newsletter.
You have a new feature.
Tell us about this new feature, so people can subscribe to the newsletter.
It's a point-by-point way of arguing some situation that exists.
So it tells you what, you know, it's like the left says they have these standard things they keep saying, and then somebody argues against it, and nobody says anything correctly, and so this is a kind of...
The idea is to create, about once a month I'll try to do this, a counterpoint or a counterpunch, which is the name of the article, to any point.
I think maybe transsexuality or the gender studies.
How about this?
I have a bonus clip.
We try to do this now.
Remember, this is the secret No Agenda Donation Club.
Oh, that's interesting because after your bonus clip, I have a bonus clip.
Well, this is about the newsletter and specifically about the...
You had a name for it.
You had a catchy name.
Counterpunch.
Counterpunch.
A Wall Street Journal news report has put immigration advocates in Chicago on alert.
If your family is picked up by ICE, we will give you an appointment to sit down with an attorney or an accredited representative in Chicago to be able to start your legal screening, seeing what the options are for your family.
State and local leaders joined them Saturday morning.
We did anticipate that Chicago would be first.
Why?
We were the first in the country to declare ourselves.
The Wall Street Journal's report says as early as next Tuesday, 100 to 200 ICE agents could be sent to the Windy City to begin a deportation operation.
Those familiar with the plans told the journal the focus will be removing people who are here illegally with criminal backgrounds.
That assertion is to broaden the idea that immigrants are more prone to criminality.
That's why we reject it.
That's the big thing.
That was your counterpunch.
Yeah, that was the perfect example.
And in the newsletter, the counterpunch to that argument is outlined in great detail.
Yes.
Go look it up on the socials and every single show notes page.
Even on noagendashow.net, you can find a place where you can subscribe to the newsletter.
It's well worth it.
It had actual content.
Yes, which never helps.
No, it doesn't help.
Now we're going to move over to the treasure portion of our time.
Well, before that, you want to play a bonus clip.
A bonus clip, okay.
This is an example of, if you have your ducks in a row and you can make an argument, you can do a, which is the counterpunch, we'll have a discussion of that.
But here's an example of Megyn Kelly.
Who turns out to be getting pretty good at these rants because she's fast, she's quick-witted, and she's got her...
Very, very popular rants from her.
Yeah, and she nails it, and she's short.
Now, this is a rant from Megyn Kelly on Jennifer Aniston.
It's 55 seconds.
Tina told me about this one.
It's quite good, but think about how tight.
How tight this 55-second rant is, and try to be like this.
You just saw Jennifer Aniston tweet it out about J.D. Vance's childless cat lady.
Comments?
I don't know if you saw that.
She came out and said, oh, I hope your daughter never needs IVF, which you will oppose.
Lie.
He doesn't oppose IVF. He signed on to the Ted Cruz Katie Britt bill protecting it in all 50 states.
So she wanted to stand up for childless cat ladies because she's one of them.
What did she say about the women?
What did she say about the girl who got her face punched out by the man in the boxing ring?
Zero!
What did she say about Peyton McNabb, who's suffering permanent nerve damage and brain damage from getting hit so hard in the face and the head by a volleyball player in North Carolina?
Nothing.
What'd she say about that girl who got all of her teeth knocked out in a field hockey game by a boy pretending to be a girl on her team?
Zero.
So I don't give a shit what she thinks about J.D. Vance and childless cat ladies.
She masquerades as some protector of women.
She's quite the contrary.
She's never stood up on any of these issues.
This is the one she comes out on?
You don't want childless cat ladies to be offended?
That's where you're going to plant your flag?
The problem is that Tina's a big fan.
Of the Megyn Kelly show.
But she doesn't really watch the whole show anymore.
This stuff gets chopped up.
It gets posted on...
She's an Instagrammer.
It gets posted on Instagram.
And so she just looks for the clips and she'll play, you know, 5 to 15 minutes.
She never really gets the whole show.
And I think Megyn Kelly does a disservice by doing that.
I mean, it's clearly her team that is doing that.
And her rants are perfect.
In fact, she should be trending on TikTok.
It's perfect for TikTok.
It's very TikTok-y.
It's extremely TikTok-y.
In fact, they have some good TikTok material coming up after the break.
We are very excited.
First, we will thank our executive and associate executive producers.
As every single show, part of the feedback loop of Value for Value is we thank everybody who supported us.
Financially, $50 and above.
As a special Hollywood insertion, we'd like to thank our executive and associate executive producers.
And we don't just call them that.
It's also a credit you get on the show notes for each individual episode.
And these are very real credits, just like Hollywood.
You can use them anywhere that Hollywood would recognize them, including IMDB. $200 and above, you get an associate executive producer credit, and we read your note.
$300 and above, you get an executive producer credit, and we read your note.
Now, do you have the late-breaking donation you wanted to talk about first?
Well, the late-breaking donation is $222, and so when we get to that...
Oh, okay.
Then I will start with Zarin Densel from Port Townsend, Washington.
Huh.
Isn't that up where you guys have a place?
Yeah, Port Townsend is the cool town.
It's a little antique town on the coast.
It's cool.
It's cool, man.
It is.
If you go to Port Townsend, it's like a tourist trap.
It's really a pretty little town.
Well, you got good people there because Zarin gives us a nice fat row of ducks.
22, 22, 22. Thank you.
And says, thanks for keeping me sane through these crazy times.
Can't really imagine living without my new agenda.
ITM from Zarin.
I love the note.
Short note.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
And clearly, Zarin got some value from the show.
A lot.
And sent it back.
And we appreciate you.
Yeah.
This is kind of...
Donations we should be getting from the intelligence community.
Well, we don't know what Zarin does for a living, so we'll just keep that in the middle.
Well, if he's in poor towns, it seems unlikely, but you never know.
Ty Glander's up next, and he's also in Washington.
He's in Kirkland.
And we got a nasty note from somebody that works at Costco.
Oh, no.
Saying, you know, Kirkland was only the headquarters of Costco for a while way back before I was there, and I've been there for 30 years.
Oh, I was unaware.
Issaquah.
Issaquah is where it's headquartered.
Issaquah, Washington.
That's Costco.
So we got the note, and the guy was very informative about all kinds of Costco inside the information.
And did we learn about the hot dogs?
Are they skimping on the bags?
Are they skimping on the drinks?
Did we get any information on that?
He says that the hot dog thing is a problem with the company because they used to have a Polish and a hot dog, and they used to be made by, I think it's Nathan's and...
Yes, it was Nathan's, yes.
And then there was a kosher...
Kosher version.
Yeah, but it was done by a different company.
Made by Oi Nathan's.
Oi Nathan's.
No, there's some other company.
Hebrew.
Hebrew National Science.
Oh, Hebrew Franks, yes, you're right.
So there was a two, and they said, oh, they were going broke.
So they decided they're Costco.
Really?
The Costco hot dogs are currently made by Costco.
They were going broke?
They were losing money on the hot dogs.
Well, sure.
They're eating the dogs.
We're losing money.
They're eating the dogs.
So that would have been perfect for the clip.
Yes.
So they're making their own hot dogs now, and somebody bitched about the buns being smaller.
I didn't notice that.
That was me.
That somebody was me.
I noticed it.
And he said that they don't have the...
After COVID, they dropped the onions and the sauerkraut because of COVID. And so they stayed away from it because, as you know, it costs money.
They took advantage of the situation.
They took advantage of the situation, but this guy's an insider at Costco, so we have Costco questions.
We can find out the answers.
When is the cheap wine coming back?
Give us a heads up.
He said the...
The reason for the chicken change, because they used to be in the plastic industry.
Another show title, Chicken Change.
Chicken is in a bag now, which is regretful.
Everyone at the company knows it, too.
It's all for environmental reasons.
Of course, Washingtonians.
All that plastic.
Washingtonians.
There you go.
That's it.
Anyway, so we got Ty Glander here, and he's in Kirkland, Washington, the former home of Costco.
631-61, and he says to correct the record and get knighted.
Sir Libra's birthday gift was to drive traffic to the best metal show in the Value for Value universe.
That's SirLibra.com slash lightning dash thrashes.
Yes.
I'll put a link in there.
I think we can.
I would like to be knighted as Sir Imperfect.
Imperfect.
Good.
All right.
You got it.
We'll see you in a bit, Ty.
Skylar Firestone.
Now, there's a DJ name.
Have you ever heard one?
Hey, everybody!
Skylar Firestone with you, rocking and rolling from Liberty Hill, Texas.
34569. ITM, great show.
Your deconstruction is top keck and skibbity riz, as the kids would say.
Hey, you see how that rolled off my tongue?
Yeah, unfortunately.
Shout out to my smoking hot wife, Michelle.
We'll need a dedouching.
You've been dedouched.
Also need a That's True and Yak Karma and the longest Al Sharpton you got.
Well, I don't know about that.
Why don't we play that?
Let's play that.
I like that Climate Change Al Sharpton.
We'll play that one again for you.
We haven't heard it enough, so it's kind of funny.
Go team!
Go sports!
That's true.
Firefighters have been making progress in containing the region.
The raging Palisades and Eden fires.
The devastation now ranks among the worst in California history.
Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Foundation said Friday that 2024 was the hottest year on record.
1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, bringing the planet dangerously close to breaking the pledge made by global leaders under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
You've got the gift that keeps on giving.
Yeah, MSNBC's headliner.
Sir Nick in Tucker, Georgia comes in with 33333. I'll be as brief as I can, he writes, as we all have lives to live.
I donate for many reasons, mostly because the show is more than often correct or on the right track.
Adam once was pro-XRP. I was never pro-XRP. That's not true.
I don't even know what that means.
It's a crypto coin.
He seems now to be lukewarm.
I'm here waving the flag again.
Bitcoin is pathetically slow.
Ethereum was given a free pass by the SEC even though the transactions are very expensive.
XRP was created to...
Interface with the Swift banking system at almost zero cost.
Hindsight is 20-20.
XRP has tripled in the last six months because Gary Gensler lost his lawsuit.
It hasn't happened since the inbred insider losers at the SEC lost their two-year-long battle to try and squash Ripple.
Then in all caps, if the federal government can't stop it, why aren't you buying it?
It's the only cryptocurrency with a green light.
No jingles.
Give me karma and the rest of the slaves.
Or with the rest of the slaves.
Sir Nick, Knight of Abundance.
He gave us $333, so he must be doing well.
I'm all for it.
Ripple is down 5% today, but okay.
Good to go.
You've got karma.
I always thought it was a wine.
What?
I thought it was a wine.
Okay, so Kevin Dills, Huntersville, North Carolina, 333. We haven't heard from him for a while.
No, well, he has complaints.
Adam, you're chomping your teeth.
Huh?
Please send me a time code.
Now, I'm the one that catches this stuff.
Yeah, I mean, I can't even chomp.
Sometimes I notice this, but I don't think I've heard that on the show.
Well, since I'm listening on speakers, it's possible I'm missing the subtlety of the chomping of the teeth.
He says it breaks through the noise gate.
It's distracting.
Please stop.
Also, please use your cough button.
That's John, by the way.
No, no.
You cough a lot on the show, and you have a cough button, and I don't.
Well, get a cough button.
No, I just use the mute.
You blow your nose, you're sneezing, you're hawking.
Well, sometimes I blow the nose for effect.
I mean, it's a good, you're yacking away on something and a nose blow right in the middle of it's perfect.
For effects, well, I use my cough button a lot when I cough.
Believe me, the times that I don't use it is rare, but I shall pay attention and please send me a time code for the so-called teeth chomping.
I mean, they are new, so who knows?
You're hurting my ear balls!
You're hurting the show!
That got my attention when you said that.
Sir Kevin Dills, Duke of North Carolina.
Thank you, brother.
I will pay attention.
Send me a time code.
Sir Jim James in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 33333. He writes, switcheroo.
This donation is to the marriage of Gavin and Caitlin McMahon.
This isn't the vinyl you asked for, but it's an executive producership to your marriage instead.
Vinyl.
I wonder what that means.
May God bless your union and may the love you have for each other today persevere until the end.
Just some newlywed karma for the new couple.
Goat karma works for me.
Thanks.
You've got...
We go to Pahrump, Pahrump, Nevada.
Pahrump, Dame Sandcat is in Pahrump and says, with her $333.33 donation, any Rev Al, please?
I'm glad you asked.
Los Angeles County has declared a public health emergency due to the air quality.
Officials won.
The biggest threats are smoke and particular matters, which they say may cause long-term health effects.
Particular matters.
Thank you, Ravel.
All right, so now we're at the associate executive producer level, and so I have to bring in the bonus donation.
The bonus donation.
Okay, this must be something special.
Went back and forth, back and forth.
Well, it came in from...
What is the rule?
Tell people the rule first.
The rule is...
The rule.
The rule.
Is you got to get your donation in by midnight Pacific time.
Not while the show is being produced.
So this came in at 7 in the morning because somebody rolled out of bed and said, yeah, I haven't donated for a while.
And so I think I'll donate.
And so we went back and forth.
I said, yeah, it's too late!
It's money!
You're a rule follower!
You're a rule follower!
So this is Dana Brunetti.
Oh, really?
Oh, you're sucking up the Hollywood.
Oh, please.
Yeah, I knew you'd be offended.
He gets special treatment because he's Hollywood?
I gave him grief for this because it's like, you know, you're Hollywood.
And he's like you.
He's anal.
He's like a neat freak.
And he's a guy who would go, oh, he rules, he rules.
He goes on.
But anyway, so he has this note, which I thought would be worth reading.
If I can just say, for those who are new to the show, Dana Burnetti, producer of such fine entertainment as Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades of Greyer, and more Greyer than Fifty Shades, House of Cards, Gran Turismo, and many, many more fine entertainment products.
He's an entertainment product guy.
Who's retired.
Uh-huh.
That's what I say.
Sure.
He's serious.
So he writes a note.
He wanted this note read, I think, more than anything.
Here's the note.
We need to discuss tip of the day.
Oh, and he's making waves.
Okay.
All right.
It's gone from Timu to how to look people up online.
Very dangerous and addictive.
We don't want it ending up banned in the U.S. like TikTok.
Get it together, JC! Then he says, this donation is a switcheroo and the secretary slash associate producer credit.
He can't stand that, yeah.
He's got a beef about the credit itself as a...
Hey, give us $10,000 and we'll change it.
Goes to the richest man, my best buddy, and Adam's favorite agent provocateur, Elon Musk.
Oh, brother.
Signed the governor of El Dorado.
Well, you know, perhaps the governor should look at Elon Musk being outed as a phony expert gamer, which is all the rage now everyone's talking about it.
I don't know anything about this.
Well, I think it was on Rogan, and he was showing this video of how good he was at gaming.
Turns out he has some Chinese guy doing it for him.
There's a Chinese guy doing his tweets, too.
Come on.
Well, for sure he's got writers.
I mean, does he even do anything?
No, he does anything.
All right.
Well, we will alert Elon of this switcheroo.
So, do I just put Elon Musk in the credits?
Yeah, I put Elon Musk in the credits.
What was it?
It was 222 was what it was?
22222. It was a row of ducks, a small row of ducks.
Elon Musk.
The associate producer length row of ducks.
Elon Musk.
And Elon Musk, coincidentally, from Austin, Texas.
What?
He's in Austin, Texas.
Oh, that's where he lives?
Yes.
He lives in Austin.
I thought he moved to the coast so he'd be near his lunch.
We're just going to call it Austin.
We're just calling it Austin.
All right.
Very good.
Then I'll do Kurt, who also is in Austin.
Now, Kurt should have gone first because he has 263.22, but oh no, breaks on for Dana Brunetti, the big Hollywood star.
Kurt K of Austin, Texas.
My last name is pronounced, produced.
Is Kiefer, which you probably just mispronounced again.
No, I can read ahead.
It's pronounced Kiefer, not Kiefer.
Yeah, all caps here.
Moving right along.
I decided to replace my very old WBEZ NPR coffee mug from my previous life in Chicago with a spiffy new No Agenda 15-ounce mug from NoAgendaShop.com.
Why?
Because NPR sucks.
I can't believe I contributed to the wackadoodles over at America's Treasure.
That's our national treasure.
For so many years, all my money now goes to you guys.
John, it's paying off.
It's paying off.
Once again, a big thanks to my Austin native, free-thinking, brilliant, drop-dead gorgeous wife, Beth, for turning me on to no agenda.
Continuing jobs karma for my dear sister, Carrie.
Love you guys, the producers, and boobs!
All the best!
Kurt!
Thank you, Kurt.
Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.
Let's vote for jobs!
I think that makes us assume that Beth has nice boobs.
Yeah, it sounds like it.
Yeah, Eli the Coffee Guy's up.
He's in Bensonville, Illinois.
$201.19.
And he says, well, that was an interesting four years.
I guess we'll have to wait and see what the next four years will bring.
Then he goes on to say, I do believe centuries from now, historians will say the mid-2020s was the golden era for the best podcast in the universe.
I'd say probably.
Maybe.
What a time to be alive!
I'm just glad to be along for the ride.
Caffeinated and motivated.
Jingles.
I love caffeinated and motivated.
We've got an attitude for gratitude.
Yeah, baby.
Jingles.
Trump jobs in four more years.
And for producers who are excited for what this future holds, visit gigawattcoffeeroasters.com and use the code ITM20 and you'll have some great tasting coffee in your future.
Stay caffeinated, Eli the Coffee Guy.
Four more years!
Oh, that fits.
That actually sounds really good.
I'd never considered that.
Those two together?
Four more years!
Oh, wait.
Four more years!
Jobs!
That's a great fit.
Not bad.
That's a good fit.
Thanks, Eli.
And, curiously, also requesting...
Trump Jobs Karma is Linda Lupatkin from Lakewood, Colorado with $200.
Who doesn't know her?
Jobs Karma Trump version.
And for a resume that gets results, visit ImageMakersInc.com, your go-to for all your executive resume and job search needs.
That's ImageMakers Inc.
with a K. And work with Linda Lu, Duchess of Jobs and writer of resumes.
Jobs!
You've got...
Karma.
Nice.
Wrapping things up is Darren Kirby in Portland, Oregon.
Portland, huh?
Hello, John and Adam.
Hello.
Thanks from Darren Kirby at Dimlin's Lamplighter and Keeper of the Scrolls.
First time donor, I invite No Agenda listeners everywhere to advertise a business card affordably on scrolls.com.
That's S-C-R-O-L-Z. That's with one L followed by a Z. Yeah, I figured that.
If on the throne for relief from boredom and grief, you will be amused to find fun, fast, and entertaining tidbits on scrolls.com.
Please at least some karma and maybe chimes or bells.
respectfully darren kirby in portland you've got karma Well, woo!
Everybody loves that chime.
Do you still have that thing?
Anybody laying around?
What was that thing called?
We both had one of those.
It was very annoying.
It made dogs bark, babies cry.
Oh yeah, I do.
It's right here.
You are the true archivist.
You actually should be holding on to the 28th Amendment.
No.
You're talking about this.
No, no, no.
It's the piece of metal you strike.
No, that's not it.
That's not it.
That's the chime.
So you're talking about...
The Zenergy chime.
The Zenergy chime.
You're talking about this.
Yeah, there it is.
Woo, baby.
There you go.
Thank you all very much, executive and associate executive producers.
Again, these credits are completely real.
You can use them anywhere.
Show business people hang out.
Go to Danny Brunetti.
Go up to his ranch and say, excuse me, I'm executive producer.
You're a lowly secretary associate executive producer.
Yeah, it's funny I didn't mention his name.
I should mention, I'll tell you where he lives.
He's in bumfuck shingles.
And he's the governor, apparently.
We'll be thanking everybody.
$50 and above in a few minutes.
Remember, we do have John's tip of the day coming up, created by Dana Brunetti.
And I think we have some talk clips coming.
So once again, thank you all for supporting us with your time, your talent, and your treasure.
Our formula is this.
We go out, we hit people in the mouth.
Water!
Yeah!
Shut up!
All right.
You're up, I guess.
TikTok.
TikTok, all right.
So this will be the last of the Lulu clips.
You must be very happy that TikTok is back on the air.
I don't really care.
What else are you going to do with your time?
What are you going to doomscroll?
LinkedIn?
See, I don't use...
I use the online app.
It's on an app.
It's a website.
Oh, yes.
You and Sotomayor.
Yes.
In fact, I don't even do that.
I let other people clear these clips.
I don't even really look at any of this.
Just so you know, just so you know, the website is stealing your contact list.
Yeah, I bet it is.
I heard it.
So let's start with this funny-looking guy that comes on, and he's been talking about Trump being arrested.
And fortunately, he went on and on, so there's a two-parter.
But this is the Delulu, talk Delulu dude one.
He is not going to be sworn in, and he will not be our next president.
How I know that for certain comes from the knowledge of some information I found out last night that I didn't know.
You know, we all know that when Biden was sworn in, the one person not present at his inauguration was who?
Donald Trump.
He lacked the character to be there.
To share in another man's joy.
To have the character to say, you know, I didn't win the election.
You did.
But here's a guy that's been given everything on a silver platter his whole life.
He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple.
He couldn't be at Joe Biden's inauguration.
So what I found out last night, you know, I'm thinking, when is Donald Trump going to be arrested?
And now I know that he's going to be arrested at his inauguration.
Because there's going to be three people not present there.
Barack Obama.
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and their wives will not be present at Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday.
They will not be there.
Not just because they know that he's an asshole, they don't want to be near him or around him, but because it's a security risk.
It's a security risk that they don't want our presidents to be subject to.
The inauguration, the steps that have been taken, 30 miles of high-quality, well-built fencing.
This is very difficult to negotiate.
It's not easy to get over.
30 miles of that.
Cement blocks and 25,000 law enforcement officers.
Those things are in place to quelch a second insurrection.
Because the powers that be know that the proud boys and girls there That are invited into Washington, D.C. this Sunday to celebrate Donald Trump's victory.
That's why he invited them in on Sunday.
So they can celebrate.
He knows that they're there.
To come to his back.
Because he knows something's up.
To have his back on Monday.
The systems are in place.
They can't have his back.
You know what these guys are missing or what they miss?
Because this is obviously going to be the last to lose.
Quantum dots.
But they need a Q. They need their version of Q. Like Zed.
Zed says, you know, they need a guy.
Yeah, you're right.
There is a missing element here.
We're left hanging by...
Oh, he had this information that was provided.
By who?
By what?
Anyway, he wraps up here with a short...
I had to put this in.
There's the rest of it.
They can attempt to have his back, but they'll be arrested and put down.
So there you go.
This is probably one of my most meaningful videos.
One of my...
Reaching out to you.
Hopefully it'll be one of my shortest.
I'm learning to curb it.
I'm going to be better.
I'll be better at providing information and not going on so long.
Please.
The 15th, the hearing on election interference.
The next day, yesterday, Joe Biden signs an addendum to an executive order 13694, making it a crime to undermine the election process, which Donald Trump's guilty of.
And that's the final piece of the puzzle.
Done.
They had to wait this long, and everybody's like, why couldn't they have done it weeks ago?
They couldn't.
Kamala had to certify the ballots so that no Republican attorneys can raise their freaking ugly heads and question anything.
It's a lockdown.
It's locked.
Everything has been done legally.
Donald Trump was never going to take office.
Oh, boy.
What are they going to do with these people?
I'd like to know, because I've got two more of these people.
Okay.
This one here is my favorite.
...of the group.
This is They Got Him.
Oh, brother.
They got him.
And in the event that this really is, like, the end of TikTok in America, which I still don't fully believe, but yeah, I'm gonna say it.
They got him.
The three-letter agencies, the government, whoever.
Whatever you want to say.
They got him.
He's not going to be inaugurated.
He is going to be punished for his crimes, both proven and still in the works.
But yeah, I don't think he's going to take office.
and even if you know who we want to take office doesn't honestly like as long as it's not him that's fine with me although i do hope to god that it doesn't you know turn out to be a process where it's jd or little johnson because that's that's not much better but yeah i mean we heard that his inauguration was moved inside because of security and not because of weather like you said
so i don't know nice fade out on the music so I saw a bunch of pictures this morning that NYPD is there.
I don't know if that's like...
The norm or a regular thing just to have extra, you know, protection there or whatever.
But NYPD is there lining the streets.
Something's going to happen.
He's not going to make it with some, like, geoprism even predicting that there's going to be, like, a great switch.
So, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see.
But, like I was saying, if this is the last app, the last day of this app, excuse me, sorry.
If this is the last day of this app, then, like, They got him.
Even if we don't see the takedown on TikTok like we want to see, or even if we do, you know?
Even if we do, that would be great.
But it's, rest assured, it'll be okay, and we're good.
They got him.
Well, now I understand why the troll room continuously says it's all fake and gay.
Dude, and you had something to say about my Supreme Court clips?
And then we have...
And then we have, I'll let that slide.
And then we have the talk.
Reason Trump going inside.
Because he's done.
They got him.
It's all over.
He's getting arrested.
He's getting arrested.
Kamala's going to be president.
So you may have heard that the Trump team is moving their inauguration ceremony from outside to inside in the rotunda.
And they are saying it's because of frigid temps, but it's actually because they are expecting some of the lowest turnouts ever for an inauguration.
And I know this very well from working with Kamala.
If you know you're going to be short people, you move to a smaller space.
Move everybody to the front.
Take the pictures from the back.
And that's what they're going to do.
Oh, brother.
No one was going to...
Well, it's going to be 12 degrees.
Yeah.
But people were still going to show up, probably.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man.
Oh, man.
Is that it?
Does that conclude our...
I think of the Trump stuff, yeah.
There's one other clip which has got nothing to do with it.
It'll be...
It'll be used as appropriate.
We put it in abeyance for now.
Yes, in abeyance.
Now, I got the free speech clips out of the UK, which are interesting.
The UK is a very interesting study from the perspective of free speech.
Of George Orwell.
There isn't any.
What has been going on there has been kind of a shocker.
Yeah, I have to call my buddy, Michelle.
Is this about the pubs?
Is that what this is?
No, this is not about the whole problem with the universities.
They're making a big fuss at some of the universities because they've decided that free speech is a good idea.
Let me just read you the headline.
Labor's pub banter crackdown.
Landlords could ban...
Oh yes, I heard it.
I don't have a clip on it.
This is great.
How is this even...
This is beyond me, what's going on.
Landlords could ban drinkers from talking about controversial topics that bar workers think are offensive.
So a landlord can kick you out if you're running a bar on their property, I guess.
This is why I have to call Michelle, because he knows this stuff.
It's like, yeah, there is no free speech in the UK. None.
Zero.
Zip.
Nada.
I wonder how Scott Galloway is doing.
He bought a house there.
He moved to London.
So he could talk about football.
Oh, please.
All right.
Free speech in UK universities.
Britain will enact free speech legislation for universities amid mounting calls from leading academics, but only partially.
The British government is seeking to repeal some provisions of the incoming law, which it deems burdensome.
NTD's international correspondent Malcolm Hudson has more on this from London.
Free speech in UK universities is now set to be better secured, with a law aiming to protect students and teachers from cancel culture, though the British government is currently implementing only parts of the law after previously pausing the full version, and this after continued and mounting pressure from academics and free speech advocates who wanted the law enacted.
Education Secretary Bridget Philipson paused the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act just before it was due to take effect last August due to concerns that the law was burdensome while not addressing hate speech on campuses.
However, almost 700 academics, including several Nobel Prize winners, called on Philipson to implement the law to protect free speech.
On Wednesday, Philipson confirmed key provisions will be brought into force.
The ability of our academics to explore and express new ideas through teaching and research is precious and we must protect it.
These fundamental freedoms are more important, much more important, than the wishes of some students not to be offended.
She said universities are not a place for students to shut down any view with which they disagree.
Provisions to enact include...
The higher education regulator of the Office for Students will have the power to investigate complaints over breaches of free speech, as well as the power to issue fines for breaches.
The Act will also require all universities to have robust codes of conduct to ensure the protection of free speech.
Universities that break the rules will be publicly held to account and could end up paying compensation, fines, or even be suspended.
Just one of the many reasons we left you guys.
You're crazy.
You're totally crazy.
This all seems to be about just banning the term packy.
Really?
I mean, the whole thing is crazy.
They're like the Australian guy who wants to make memes illegal.
Elmer.
Elmer Fudd.
They do not have any version of a First Amendment.
They have the Magna Carta.
Which I think says something maybe about religious freedom, possibly.
But this is, wow, this is a problem.
Where's the revolt, Britton?
It's beyond me, but here's the second part of this series.
Philipson is seeking to repeal other parts of the legislation.
The first is the duties on student unions in the Act.
Students' unions are neither equipped nor funded to navigate such a complex regulatory environment.
She's also seeking repeal of another provision, one which would allow individuals to sue institutions that failed to comply with freedom of speech requirements.
She said this...
It would create costly litigation that risks diverting resources away from students at a time when university finances are already strained.
The Department for Education also said overseas transparency provisions in the Act will be kept under review.
These provisions were meant to prevent anonymous donations to universities amid concerns about foreign interference.
Responding to Philipson, Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott asked what changes to the overseas funding provisions are being considered.
Can she confirm that none of these were discussed in the Chancellor's recent visit to China?
And can she confirm...
That there were no deals done to amend this clause.
Philipson did not respond to this question at the time.
Where's Nigel Farage?
Where are these people?
Where's the outrage?
There's none.
There's no outrage.
At least not that I can see.
I haven't seen any.
It's very peculiar.
In fact, I remember we didn't talk about it, but there was a Starmer.
Who's really freaked out about the fact that Trump's henchman, Elon Musk...
Hatchet man, hatchet man.
Yeah, hatchet man, I'm sorry.
You're right.
He's going after him for being a pedophile.
Not for being a pedophile.
For protecting the pedophile.
Rapists.
Yes, yes.
And Starmer made some comment about, you know, they're going to ask for the extradition of American citizens who...
Who get involved in British politics and make commentary of some sort that's against their laws, which means Musk.
I don't know what they're going to do.
This is just crazy.
By the way, did you see the news about Darren Bell, the prize-winning cartoonist?
Oh, yes, yeah.
He's done some really...
Odd, groomer-like cartoons?
There was a meme about it, which I was going to use.
I'll probably put it in the next newsletter.
It's quite funny.
Yeah, that guy.
Yeah, he was a nasty editorial cartoonist.
We don't know that he is.
He's been arrested on it.
No, I say he's nasty.
A nasty editorial cartoonist.
He was a mean-spirited, nasty editorial cartoonist that used to give Trump grief.
For one thing or another, especially his, you know, his supposed, you know, assault on that crazy woman in Bloomingdale's.
Oh, in Bergdorf.
Bergdorf, yeah, like there's nobody around in Bergdorf.
And so he's that guy, and then the next thing you know, he was accused of being...
Uploading child pornography.
Oh man, what a scourge.
What a scourge.
Yeah, a ledge.
A scourge.
Well, speaking of Elon...
Elon!
It's amazing what kind of press the guy can get.
Tonight, these spectacular images of debris ablaze in the sky above the Caribbean.
The SpaceX Starship breaking apart and crashing back down to Earth.
The FAA now requiring SpaceX launch an investigation into the mid-flight failure.
The incident forced flight delays and diversions around Florida.
Some pilots concerned mid-air.
It's got a major streak going from at least 60 miles with all these different colors.
Just curious, but it looked like it was coming towards us.
This was the seventh test launch of the rocket.
The reusable booster successfully hauled in by the so-called chopsticks of Mechazilla.
Mechazilla has caught the booster!
SpaceX lost communications with the ship just minutes later.
Companies saying they believe a fire caused it to break apart.
SpaceX is asking anyone who finds debris to report it to them, and the Starship will be grounded until SpaceX and the FAA completes this investigation.
I love it.
I love it.
Was this the moon launch?
Was this the one that was supposed to go to the moon?
I think so.
Forget the Van Allen belts.
You can't even get above the clouds.
But hey, man, it's really awesome how the booster gets caught by Mechazilla, man.
That's really awesome.
That's really fantastic.
That's really awesome.
Okay.
Get me to the moon.
We did it 60 years ago in some rickety piece of aluminum.
You know me, John.
At least you're consistent.
I am very consistent.
I'm going to show my support by donating to No Agenda.
Imagine all the people who could do that.
Oh yeah, that'd be fab.
Everybody is very nervous about the tip of the day because now that the creator himself...
Dana Brunetti has showed up on the scene and is making waves.
We're very curious.
Everyone loved the dash cam one.
I saw people posting pictures of it and links to it.
It's a huge hit.
You got some free gear out of it, which reminds me, because we're going to thank everybody $50 and above, I want to thank Sean Homan in Noblesville, Indiana.
Who comes in with 14848, which he says was a show 1730 donation.
I guess that was...
What was the number for show 1730?
It wasn't 14848. That must be with fees?
I don't know.
Well, it's his first donation and a switcheroo for his wife.
They just had the fourth human resource.
It was their first boy, finally.
And then he says, everyone go to stealtharms.net.
And the reason why I say that is because, you know, you got yourself a dashcam.
He sent me a platypus.
A what?
A platypus.
You don't know about the platypus?
No, I don't know anything about what you're talking about.
Oh, the platypus.
That is the hottest handgun going on these days, the platypus.
You're shooting a gun called a platypus?
Yes, it actually looks a bit like a platypus.
Was it just spray bullets every which way or what to do?
I don't know.
You got a big bill on the end?
Kind of.
I got to go pick it up.
I'll pick it up tomorrow.
I'll let you know.
So, anyway, that's it.
You can continue.
Oh, what was I doing?
You're going to pick it up with Sir Stuart in Staffordshire.
Oh, no.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You got me all confused.
Yes, I am sorry.
I'm sorry about that.
Sean Homan was the first.
He's in Noblesville.
Okay, you read that for some reason.
Yes, I did.
Because he gave me a platypus.
I didn't get a platypus.
You got a dashcam.
The platypus is more interesting.
Well, you got to talk to Sean.
I got gypped.
You sure did.
You got gypped.
That is as bad as saying Paki, my friend.
You can't say gypped anymore.
Surely you know this.
Why can I say gypsy?
What is the reason?
Because it hurts gypsy's feelings.
You know, curiously I had one gypsy who told me that.
Yeah, and did he beat you up?
No.
Did he read your fortune?
Okay, onward.
Sir Stewart and Stafford, these are the donations.
Pickpocketed me.
You're bad.
Sir Stewart in Stafford, Staffordshire, UK, 12433. David, David, David, Barron, I think he's by now.
Gladstone, Missouri, David Fugizotto in 12433. There you go.
There you go.
Dame Roundstone in Trumbull, Connecticut, 12433. These are all the donations for the inauguration.
$120.25.
Right.
Plus the...
Interesting how the fees bring it to a $33.
Magic number everywhere.
It's amazing.
Yeah, I found that to be peculiar.
Indeed.
James Fitzgerald in Palmer Lake, Colorado.
I'm just going to read all these.
These are all donations for the Trump coronation.
Mary Ann Del...
James Fitzgerald's in Palmer Lake, Colorado.
I'll get it.
Marianne Delphia in Garrettsville, Ohio.
Michael Kellner in Rippon, California.
Nathan Cochran in Franklin, Tennessee.
Sir Nathan, it's your mercy me, boys.
Yes, yes, right.
I need to see.
Yes, you do.
Desperately.
You need it.
Next time you're out here.
Or just come by.
We'll go have dinner with the band.
You can hang out with the band at dinner.
Yeah, have dinner with the band.
Yeah, with the band.
Bring them over.
Dame Malavation.
Malavation.
Malavation.
Malavation, Colorado Springs, 120-25.
John Wynn in Austin, Texas.
Also, these are all 120-25s.
This is a good...
This worked out.
Aaron Mullet, as in Mullet, in Goshen, Indiana.
Sir Richard Hufford.
He says, please deduce the newsletter works.
I think we should at least do that, since he complimented you on the newsletter.
You've been deduced.
I did.
That was a good newsletter.
It was.
I liked it.
Sir Richard Hufford in Tempe, Arizona.
Sir...
Digi in Indianapolis, Indiana.
And last on our little list is Stephen Carr in Miami Springs.
I didn't even know there was a Miami Springs.
Apparently.
Florida.
All right, onward with Kevin McLaughlin.
Conquer North Carolina.
He's the Archduke Luna.
Lover of America and boobs.
8008. Stephen Colgazier.
Gazier.
Gazier.
That's probably what it is in Fernandina Beach.
Fernandina Beach, Florida.
A lot of beaches in Florida, I might add.
75. This is his fourth donation.
Okay.
Sir Selverin in Silver Springs, Maryland.
6767. Sir Kevin O'Brien in Chicago.
606. Sir Don.
6006. Love is lit.
Les Tarkowski in Kingman, Arizona.
6-0-0-6.
Small boob fans.
Lydia Terry in Rochester, New Hampshire.
59-33.
Dean Roker.
55-10.
Aaron Chamberlain in Dayton, Ohio.
55-10.
It's on the birthday list.
Turn to 37. Sir D in Miami, Florida.
55-10.
Marius of...
I don't know.
Marius of Nagel.
Mariusz Nagel in Oslo.
Norway.
Norway.
He wants to deduce it.
You've been dedouched.
Adam will give you some house-buying karma at the end.
Oh, you've got to put baby-making karma on that list at the end.
All right.
That's what he needs.
Mm-hmm.
I'm assuming it's a he.
Sir Tommy Hawk in Iowa City, Iowa 5050. Sir Economic Hitman in Tumble, Texas, $50.01, and now we've got the $50 donor's name and location as appropriate.
Angie Jagger in Barn, Netherlands.
Luke Olsen in Alexandria, Virginia.
That's our spook area, and that's all the $50.
No offense, Luke.
Corey Bennett in Denver, Colorado.
Scott Lavender in Montgomery, Texas.
Diane Schwanabach, parts on loan.
She's got a happy birthday coming up.
Andrew Gusick, Sir Andrew in Greensboro, North Carolina, 50. Bart in Dordrecht.
Dordrecht, yeah, you got pretty close.
Holland, and it's a note of some sort.
Is this because of a nighting?
I can't tell it's all in book.
No, no, it's not.
He just, he says, go Jesus.
Oh, okay, well.
I guess, yeah.
Sir Canabique and Dame Tracy.
Canebrake.
And Dame Tracy together in St. George, Louisiana.
Leon Shipley in Covington, Washington.
Sir Jerry Wingenroth in Saugus.
Usually last on the list, but no.
There's Baroness Knight in Edmonds, Washington.
And last on the list is actually Alan Bean, our buddy Baron Alan Bean in Beaverton, Oregon.
Hey, who was our dentist up in the Pacific Northwest?
Yeah, the dentist.
Who is that?
That's Knight Birch.
Oh, right.
Greg Birch.
Yeah, I got someone who has a dental question for him.
I want to forward it to him.
Yeah, Greg Birch seems to be overboard.
Oh, well, then that won't help, will it?
Well, thank you all very much.
$50 and above.
Under $50 we do not mention for reasons of anonymity, but we always appreciate it when you do one of those sustaining donations, which means any amount, any frequency.
Go to noagendadonations.com to set that up, and I'm going to do a combo baby jobs and house-selling karma.
Jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.
Let's vote for jobs!
You've got...
Parma.
There it is, noagendedonations.com, everybody.
Help us out.
Happy birthday, birthday.
Oh, no, I don't know.
Hogan says happy birthday to his mom, Erica Kuchik. Kuchik. Kuchik. Kuchik. Kuchik. Kuchik. Kuchik.
Celebrating today.
Happy birthday, Mom Erica.
Dave Bazor wishes his son, Caleb Bazor, a happy one, turns 21 today.
Dave Malevation turns 61 tomorrow.
Aaron Chamberlain turns 37 tomorrow.
And TPC says happy birthday to Tony.
And we say that as well.
Happy birthday for everybody here at the best podcast in the universe!
We do have one-nighting to celebrate here, so I'll get our one-nighting blade out.
There you go.
Oh, it comes from under the rubble.
There it is.
Hey, Ty Glander, step on up on the podium.
You are about to become a knight of the No Agenda Roundtable.
In fact, because of your contribution, the amount of $1,000 or more you qualify, I'm very proud to pronounce KD as Sir Imp-Erfects.
That's right, Sir Imp-Erfects.
For you, we have Hookers and Blow, Rent Boys and Chardonnay, Prostitutes and Cigars.
Along with that, Harlots and Aldol, Redheads and Ryes, Beers and Blunts.
We've got Cowgirls and Coffin Varnish, Rubenes, Women and Rosé, Gases and Sake, Vodka, Vanilla, Barclays, And as always, at every single round table, what everybody loves.
No, it is the mutton and meat.
I screwed up.
...
and mead.
Hope you don't mind.
In the meantime, while you're munching on that mutton, sipping on that mead, go to noagenderrings.com.
That's where everybody can take a look at those beautiful knight and dame rings.
They are quite handsome and quite beautiful.
And you, sir, will use the handy ring sizing guide to give us your ring size and an address.
Send it off to the address listed there, and we'll get it to you as soon as possible.
It is a signet ring, so you can imprint your ITM, hit-em-in-the-mouth credentials on your important correspondence with the wax that we supply.
And as always, it comes with a certificate of authenticity.
Ty, welcome to the roundtable.
No agenda meetups.
No agenda meetups.
That's where you bring your attitude of gratitude because connection is protection and these are your first responders in an emergency.
You can all find noagendameetups.com, the listing of every single meetup that is planned and scheduled.
They're all producer organized.
We just love when people do this and we love the reports that you send and especially if they come from faraway lands such as Buenos Aires.
Hola, John and Adam.
This is a meet-up report from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Commodore Dalton S. Fisher here.
Thank you for your courage.
Hi, Adam, John.
In the morning.
Hello there.
Here it is, Timoteo Grispo, in flesh.
He doesn't know the show, but we're going to get him to listen to it anyway.
Por la mañana.
Ah, there you go.
There you go, John.
Buenos Aires.
We can make a trip.
Do a remote.
Yeah, we have some eskies.
Some people have taken us around and showed us the sights.
And some people are very smart when they title their meetups after well-known brands.
This comes from Keene, New Hampshire.
It is the TooManyEggs.com meetup.
This is Emily.
Resist we much.
John and Adam, how are you?
You guys are great.
We enjoy us as TooManyEggs meeting number nine.
And it's a pleasure to be here with you guys.
Moving along.
Hi, John and Adam.
This is BriBri.
I like the show.
Keep doing what you're doing.
It's good stuff.
ITM, gentlemen.
This is Crypto Duke.
I guess we had a lot of shy people, which is why we have a big gap.
So that's why.
Anyway, thank you again for the great show.
And we're having a great time here at Margaritas in Keene.
Woohoo!
Yes, indeed.
And our final meetup report comes from Central Ohio.
Good evening, gentlemen.
This is Wild Bill of Ohio.
We are at Dempsey's for the Central Ohio meetup.
And we're playing Slappy Birds.
It's Flappy Bird, but the same thing.
ITM gentlemen, this is Sir Rod, Knight of the Crocs and Sox, hanging out with the Central Ohio meetup crew.
Happy to have Sir PBR Street Gang and Dame Trinity here with us from Indiana.
I'm going to pass the phone.
Thank you for your courage.
In the morning, Dame Trinity having a great time at Dempsey's.
Sir PBR Street Gang coming directly from Dempsey's, downtown Columbus.
Having another great meetup.
Sir Dempsey, he does.
No, hold on.
It's Sir Leary at Dempsey.
He's good to go.
Great meetup.
Love having these folks.
Sir Leary here.
Sorry about that delay there.
But we've got real roses in the glasses here, and it's really nice.
So if you want to go join a meetup, we'll see you in February.
Ciao.
In the morning, bag slappers.
John, go back on Who Are These Podcasts.
Adam, you need to go on Who Are These Podcasts.
Dabbleverse, guys!
Dabbleverse.
In the morning!
A reminder to get your servers on these meetup reports.
We love hearing from them as well, and that's a good person to hit in the mouth.
The No Agenda Mug Club Media Meetup is well underway as we speak in Blackfin Ameripub, Ballantyne.
That's in Charlotte, North Carolina.
We have tomorrow, that'll be...
Is tomorrow also President's Day?
I think it is.
No, it's Martin Luther King.
Is it Martin Luther King Day?
It's a holiday, yeah.
You won't get your mail.
Oh, man.
I'm going to miss my mail.
What else is going on tomorrow?
Oh, yeah.
That's right.
The Shrunken Amygdala Inauguration Celebration, 7 o'clock at March 1st Brewing in Cincinnati, Ohio.
And on Wednesday, the Outer Swamp Meetup in Java Nation, Rockville, Maryland.
There's many, many, many more fantastic meetups scheduled.
And I do apologize to the Outer Swamp.
Somehow they slipped through the cracks.
So make sure if you're in Rockville, Maryland or in Spookville Nation over there to go to Java Nation 6 o'clock on Wednesday.
And as I said, many more, including Tokyo on January 25th.
Tokyo, Japan.
I'm sure there'll be some no-agenda celebrities there.
You can find every single meetup listed.
Well into this year at noagendameetups.com.
Go ahead.
If you can't find one there, start one yourself.
It's real easy, y'all.
Sometimes you want to go hang out with all the nights and days.
You want to be where you won't be, triggered or held lame.
You want to be where everybody feels the same.
It's like a party.
It's just like a party.
Only noisier.
There you go.
I think I brought some ISOs.
This is the moment of the show.
We like to play some fun little ditties.
This is really the true meeting we have.
The only meeting we have on the show is this.
And we do it in public.
I have two ISOs.
Do you have any ISOs?
I have one, but I have to preface it with the clip from which I drew the ISO. Oh, well, let's do that first.
So I'm listening to NPR. Oh, surprise.
And they're talking about this guy, this kind of low-T guy.
This is going to be my new term for the typical...
For the day, yeah.
The guys who talk, hi, I'm on NPR. And so these low-T guys.
So this guy's going on and on about this show on Apple called Severance.
Oh, yeah.
I think I saw a couple episodes of the first season.
It's very creepy.
It's about a company that shoots you in the head.
They drill your brain and then makes it so you don't remember anything you did at work because it's a spook operation.
Have you watched the new Squid Game?
No, I'm not going to watch this.
There's only so many hours in the day.
I'm not watching Squid anything.
And I'm not going to shoot a Squid gun.
So forget it.
I've forgotten.
So this guy goes on.
He's going to bring these guys on.
And it just goes right to the end where when he brings these two people on, I know after listening to this intro to these two people, which I cut out to make my ISO. That I'm never going to watch this show, Severance.
But here, listen to this.
Severance is now back for its highly anticipated second season on Apple TV+. And for people like me who got obsessed with season one, the follow-up season has a lot of questions to answer.
It goes deeper into the shadowy corporation of Lumen, the life-and-death mysteries, and the romances driving the plot.
If you don't want the first season spoiled or to hear even mild hints about the second season, consider this your warning, because we're about to get into it with some of the show's breakout stars, Tramiel Tillman and Britt Lauer.
Welcome to you both.
Thank you for having us.
Thank you for having us.
Let me guess what your ISO is.
Thank you for having us.
Thank you for having us.
Oh, man.
That's just so creepy.
Yeah, that is kind of creepy.
By the way, we finished Diplomat?
The second season?
Yeah?
Great.
You liked it?
Yeah, I really did.
Where was it?
Where was it published?
It was published, I think it's on Netflix.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's on Netflix.
Mimi's got something on Netflix she's watching too that she's all raving about.
I'll have to check these things out.
No, you can't just leave us hanging like that.
I'll ask her again.
Says, hey, I'm watching the show.
You know, what show?
Some show is called something.
I'm like the wine guy.
Hey, I had a great bottle of wine.
What was it called?
I don't know.
And it's not where is it published, it's where did it drop?
I'm not dropping nothing.
It's a smell that stays with you.
Huh?
Well, that's kind of, I think, disparaging.
Okay, how about this one then?
Stay tuned!
I kind of like that one.
I'm so stupid about that one.
I think we have to go with that.
You know what it is?
People who do voice-to-text, you have to talk like that.
Stay tuned!
So the Siri picks it up and does the exclamation mark.
Stay tuned!
It's pretty good, right?
Yeah, that's fine.
All right, everybody!
David Brunetti has created it, and John C. Dvorak delivers the tip of the day.
Great advice for you and me.
Just a tip with JC.
And sometimes Adam.
Well, this one actually came in from one of our producers.
He stepped on his credit, by the way.
He stepped on his credit.
It comes in at the end again.
Okay.
And stepping on credits is not new to him.
Hey, I don't have...
He's had his credits removed and then put back and then he sued the Producers Guild, then quit the Guild because he was...
That's what I mean.
He's got his record passed.
We don't need any hassle from this guy.
He has your number, not mine.
He has your number.
He calls and yells.
So...
This came in from one of our producers, Sir Bates, and he says, I heard the Audible complaint on NAS 1730. Here's a tip, and this is a good tip, by the way.
A lot of people gave me this tip.
A lot of people came in with this tip.
This is a great tip.
I've been an Audible user since before the Amazon acquisition, and users can download files from your library.
The downloadable use is the AAX extension, which is not usable outside of Audible.
I use OpenAudible, which you can get at openaudible.com, to convert from AAX to MP3 for my iPod or other MP3 player.
You can also connect OpenAudible to your Audible account to download your library directly.
This is why you have the account.
You download the library as a bunch of AAXs, you convert them directly to your local drive, and then you convert them to MP3s, and they can't.
And then you can put them on tour and share with your friends.
You can do anything you want.
But this is a workaround for the complaint you had on the last show, which is you cancel your subscription for 10 minutes and all your audiobooks were gone.
Yeah, it turns out there's a lot of different apps that do this, but the most frequently recommended one was indeed Open Audible.
And I hope we're not violating some severe copyright issue by promoting this in your tip of the day.
Well, it's getting dark.
What does that mean?
The tips are getting darker.
We got ways of violating privacy and your picture of the house.
That thing was that, you know, people have sent me so many extra sites that also have this.
Yeah, there's information.
It's called the Internet.
Yeah, but yet the Supreme Court can oodle on forever about TikTok.
How about getting rid of...
Well, this is going on.
Let's get rid of these websites first.
There it is, everybody.
John C. Dvorak's Tip of the Day, created by Dana Brunetti.
Great advice for you and me.
Just a tip with JC. And sometimes Adam.
Created by Dana Burnetti.
There you go.
See?
I leave the credits in.
I don't want any hassle from that guy, man.
He's got a Cybertruck, you know, could roll over me.
He does have a Cybertruck.
That's why he's all up Elon's butt.
Because, oh, he's got a Cybertruck.
It's great.
Yeah, make sure it doesn't explode.
All right?
Don't worry.
Elon will catch you with his tech...
Chopstickzilla, whatever it's called.
Chopstickzilla.
Hey, that does it for our broadcast day.
Thank you very much for sharing it with us.
Of course, we do this as a public service under the Value for Value model.
Go look it up, value4value.info, and you'll see that all you have to do is send back some time, talent, and treasure, and we're good to go.
Keep it good for yourself.
You give, you'll get back tenfold, so I'm told.
Coming up next on No Agenda Stream and Trollroom.io, Canary Cry News.
Ah, Canary Cry News Talk.
Yeah, those guys are great.
Big No Agenda fans.
And we have end-of-show mixes from secret agent Paul.
We've got Leo LePuke and the clip custodian Neil Jones.
We'll see you on Thursday.
Happy President's Day, everybody.
Enjoy your new president.
Until then, adios mofos.
I'm Adam Curry.
And from northern Silicon Valley.
Where I remain, I'm John C. Dvorak.
We'll be back on Thursday.
Remember us.
NoagendaDonations.com.
Adios, mofos, a hooey, hooey, and such.
I'm not going to be a mule.
I got something to do.
I got to go do boom, boom, boom.
This is my wife.
This is my sister.
They switched on me.
The Equal Rights Amendment.
It's the 28th Amendment to the Constitution now.
I would eliminate the capital gains tax.
I would raise the capital gains tax.
Come on, man!
Come on, man!
My long-time friend, and she's a friend.
She's been my friend.
Have you taken a cognitive test?
No, I haven't taken a test.
Why the hell would I take a test?
My physical and mental filth.
My physical, as well as my mental filth.
Fitness.
Lying dog-faced pony soldier.
Former mayor of Massachusetts.
The president has a big step.
The president has no intercourse whatsoever.
I was ready to prostitute myself.
And with...
I don't know.
Make sure you have the record player on at night.
Well, I'm sick and tired of smart guys.
I want to be clear.
I'm not going nuts.
And they're coming to take me away.
Ha-ha.
They're coming to take me away.
We choose truth over facts.
Anyway.
And, uh, uh, uh, uh, what am I doing here?
The fact is that I don't remember.
She was 12, I was 30. I want the press to know that wasn't me.
Trump is telling us what he intends to do.
Trump means to throw people in jail who disagree with him.
Listen to what he says because he's telling us what he will do.
He says, let's remove all doubt.
This is what I'm about.
He will execute whoever he's allowed.
Take him at his word.
Boom.
Boom.
Predilection.
Predilection for revenge.
Look at his past.
Trump is telling us what he intends to do.
Trump is telling us what he intends to do.
He has to be eliminated.
You couldn't carry my husband out of a fire.
Which my response is, he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.
All the trees burned down.
And the mayor's away.
Gavin's doing podcasts.
And the fire chief's gay.
Couldn't get no help Couldn't get no help Cause no one looks like me No one looks like me California's burning California's burning The water's gone to the sea The water's gone to the sea Went up to a dam And I jumped right in Well, I landed on my knees Landed on my knees
When I intended to swim I intended to swim.
The smell is safe and warm.
The fire hydrants are dry.
California's burning.
California's burning.
Because of deer.
Just how woke is the L.A. Fire Department?
You want to see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it's a medical call or a fire call, that looks like you.
It gives that person a little bit more ease, knowing that somebody might understand their situation better.
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