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May 23, 2024 - On Brand

02:49:14

OB #57 - RFK Jr. II: Brain Worm Boogaloo

RFK Jr. is back on Stay Free to talk Israel-Palestine, a Very Important Poll he paid for, and his plans for America. Support us on Patreon! - patreon.com/OnBrand Buy a magnet! - buysomeactualgold

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	This is propaganda live.
	I only suggest how to take him out of the boat.
	Extraordinary cultural moment.
	Already iconic.
	Already iconic.
	We love you.
	You're welcome here.
	Where did this guy come from?
	It looks like he's been doing it for ages.
	He's very confident.
	Plainly, and this is a matter now of fact and record, I'm right wing.
	I feel that Christ may have had a better vision.
	Is this misinformation or is Vivek Ramaswamy in the lavatory?
	That's sort of like a poem.
	Is this Eminem?
	Man, if we didn't come together in that stream.
	I'm assuming it was just the Pete.
	Now these are the kind of conversations I think that the legacy media can no longer compete with.
	Win win win win win win win This is On Brand, a podcast where we discuss the ideas and antics of one Russell Brand.
	I'm Al Worth and each week I go through an episode of Brand Show with my co-host Lauren B. That's me!
	I'm Lauren B. and I am the host that has no idea what we're getting into today, but it's usually bad.
	It's almost invariably bad, which is why we do the good thing before the bad thing.
	Lauren, what is your good thing before the bad thing this week?
	Well, I would like to keep on theme for my good things that the ICC and the Hague has potentially maybe done a thing to prosecute Benjamin Netanyahu as an individual, not as a state.
	Cause it just needs to, the killing needs to stop and the destruction needs to stop.
	Oh my God.
	Cause it's been, um, you know, following the campus protests, I mean, school's out so they can really enforce trespassing.
	Um, and that's kind of what they knew they were going to do all along.
	So, uh, DePaul is still holding firm, I think with at least demonstrations and stuff.
	I don't know if they're because their occupation got tossed here in Chicago, but I do think that there's it's kind of moved over there a little bit as far as like students that have been able to maintain kind of their occupation protests.
	So that's cool.
	But also I had time to cut my bangs.
	Yay!
	So we can do like less here.
	I can see, which is tight.
	That's always nice.
	That is always nice.
	Yeah.
	What's your good thing?
	My good thing this week is just a cute little video game that I've been enjoying, just as kind of some downtime.
	It's a very relaxing one called While the Iron's Hot, and it's a pixelated blacksmithing game, basically, where you're just there in your cute little village, and people want you to make stuff out of, you know, iron and whatever, and you have to, you know, go and get your iron.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So, you know, like 8-bit kind of graphics kind of situation.
	Yeah, 8-bit.
	Okay.
	Pixelate is like, is there a witness protection program involved?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I'm not here to judge, you know.
	But yeah, it's nice.
	It's very cute, very relaxing and just kind of, you know, if you need.
	If you need 15-20 minutes to just kind of get in more of a neutral kind of headspace, it's good.
	It's good.
	I've been enjoying that.
	It's got little tiny puzzles and stuff.
	I'm like, yeah, good.
	This is what I need right now.
	Cool.
	Nice.
	Yeah.
	And cute.
	Eight-bit.
	And cute.
	Yes, yes, exactly.
	Exactly.
	And you have a pet ox and everything.
	It's wonderful.
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	As a patron, you will also get a shout-out on the show and access to our patron-only show, Off-Brand, where we discuss anything but Russell Brand, except this week we did, in fact, talk about Russell Brand.
	Specifically, Lauren led a look into Russell's editorial on abortion and the state of reproductive rights in America.
	It is bad out there, with women essentially being legally tortured and killed.
	So, hmm.
	Yeah, there's no other way to put it.
	Medical torture.
	We also talked about how it fits in with Russell's, like kind of, I think it's not all blood and guts.
	So yeah, there's a lot of not that as well.
	In the episode.
	Yes!
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	There's a lot to discuss.
	So, hey, head to patreon.com slash ombrand to check that out.
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	Should be a lot of fun.
	It's been a while since we've done a live streaming situation.
	Yeah, we said it would be a more regular thing in October.
	Hey, we get to it eventually.
	No time like the present!
	Yes, indeed.
	Ah, dear.
	So, this week's show.
	I was kind of spoiled for choice for things to cover, to be honest.
	Neo-Nazi Mike Benz was back on for a bit more blob talk, which, yeah.
	There was a former criminal, British criminal, who's turned to Christianity, so lots of Christianity talk happening there.
	There was a guy insisting that the WHO dates back to the East India Company and is continuing the opium trade.
	And then there was the person- As a high theory?
	I'd love to hear it.
	As a stoner theory?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	As you?
	Yeah, yeah, as fact.
	When it's presented as fact, that's the part where he started to lose me a little bit.
	But, you know, interesting!
	And then we get to the person that we'll be dealing with today.
	Now, specifically, I very much had to make the choice between what was fun to cover and what's important.
	And with this show, we always go with what's important.
	And in fact, this particular show is of enough importance for me to have to go back on my word.
	To never, ever have fun ever on this show, except for not today.
	Right?
	Well, well, I will try.
	There are fun parts, there are fun parts, I can promise that.
	But let's let Russell introduce the guest and I'll explain.
	Hello there, you Awakening Wonders.
	Thanks for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
	It's a very special show.
	We're talking to Bobby Kennedy about his presidential campaign, about his position on war, about the worm that penetrated his actual mind.
	There's so much to discuss today.
	Thank you very much for joining us.
	He's not Bobby Kennedy.
	He's not Bobby Kennedy.
	That's not his name.
	You're talking about a deceased person, Russell.
	It starts immediately.
	All right.
	He consistently refers to him as Bobby Kennedy throughout this whole thing.
	So yeah, RFA Junior is back on Stay Free for the fourth time, I believe it is.
	Now, last time we tackled RFK Jr., I said I'd be dealing with him exactly once, specifically because he was so uniquely full of shit, it made it impossible to research his ramblings because they weren't based in anything even close to resembling reality.
	And, well, I'm having to go back on my word today because there are things in this conversation we do need to deal with and be aware of.
	Yeah, that's how the show works, right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	We don't really get to choose what we're doing as much as Russell gets to.
	Inflicted upon us.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Indeed.
	So the man himself, obviously, RFK Jr.
	requires little introduction at this point, so let's get straight into it here with the opening of the show and Russell.
	Russell is throwing a little bit of shade off the bat, actually.
	Bobby Kennedy, thank you so much for joining me on Stay Free with Russell Brand.
	Thanks for having me, Russell.
	Really been looking forward to this.
	Must be hard for you to make appointments on time when there are living parasitic worms crawling through your brain, even as we speak.
	I apologize for being late.
	My bad.
	Yeah, the New York Times.
	Cheryl woke up this morning.
	The New York Times read an article about a worm having eaten part of my brain.
	And Cheryl woke up this morning and just said, nothing surprises me anymore.
	Well, it shouldn't surprise her considering it's true.
	I understand wanting to make a dig at the New York Times, half at it by the way, but he then spends the next five to ten minutes telling the story of how yes, there was in fact a parasitic worm in his brain, or is.
	He then joked about how he hoped it was eating all the negative thoughts up there.
	You know, in short, in 2010, for anyone who's missed this, in 2010 he had a brain cancer scare and they realized it was a parasitic worm he'd managed to pick up while staying in India.
	According to RFK Jr., in a deposition, I might add, so under oath, he said the worm ate part of his brain and then died, which vibes I feel that way any time he comes on Russell's show.
	But yeah, so categorically, Accurate, the story in the New York Times.
	But anyway, must be hard to be on time with a parasitic worm in your brain, eh?
	Well, or an excellent apology for being tardy.
	And if it's dead, what?
	What?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I did read more about this.
	Apparently, you know, you can just kind of leave it there because it kind of calcifies around it and it's not kind of worth removal.
	Right.
	Because brain surgery is...
	Psychotically crazy.
	It's amazing.
	It's a modern miracle, like a literal modern miracle, but also kind of a lot if it's not going to cause any problems.
	Yeah, pretty much.
	Kind of makes sense.
	Pretty much.
	Oh boy.
	So from here we go straight into a question from Russell that does have wrapped up in it why we're covering RFK Jr.
	Is it how we know which part of the brain got eaten?
	Because that's actually the answer that I want.
	Oh dear.
	Intuition is not enough for me to listen.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Okay.
	I think we definitely, we get a sense of it throughout the interview, I think, as to which part got chomped.
	You know what?
	I don't know.
	I want to know what he thinks.
	I want to know what he thinks.
	Lateness, we'll put lateness on the list for now.
	And with an asterisk, I think.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Uh-huh.
	Yeah, so we're going to skip into the question from Russell that is wrapped up in why we're covering RFK Junior here today.
	I want to tackle immediately what seems to be an important fact and an important question and line of inquiry among many of the people that are drawn to your campaign because of its veracity, authenticity, transparency and clarity when it comes to the issue of war.
	I think many of us look to you as the anti-war candidate, although many Trump supporters will say during office Trump avoided war and has a great record in that area.
	I think there are a lot of questions around your perspective on Israel and Gaza.
	I'd love to talk to you about the anti-Semitism bill and I'd like to talk to you about why
	you aren't taking a position of absolute condemnation of all violence, of all war and why in particular
	you haven't condemned this aspect of the escalating Middle Eastern conflict that your country
	is continuing to support via arms.
	Not a bad question.
	It's curious, isn't it, that RFK Jr., being supposedly an avowedly anti-war candidate, hasn't condemned the genocide being perpetrated in Gaza right now.
	I mean, he was avidly against any intervention in the Ukraine war, so what could possibly be the distinction here?
	Thank you for clarifying.
	That's what I remembered happening, is that it's very useful to be anti-war for that subject.
	Yeah, it's strange when these people aren't necessarily consistent.
	Oh, let's let this man tell us exactly what he thinks and who he is.
	Let's party.
	He is going to, I can guarantee that.
	But first, we do take a little bit of a self-aggrandizing pivot, because Russell has described how well RFK Jr.
	is polling, and he wants to talk a little bit about that first.
	Yeah, let me answer that first.
	Just talk about some of those.
	Initial comments that you made, and then I'll get to guys.
	My polling now shows, and as you said, it's unique in American history.
	We're an independent candidate in head-to-head polls.
	Zogby just did the biggest poll, the largest.
	Typical polls, Russell, like the Gallup poll, Quinnipiac, Harvard-Harris, New York Times, Seattle are around 1,200 to 2,200 people.
	Occasionally, they'll get 3,000.
	This Ogbe poll is 26,000 people, and it has a margin of error of almost zero, and it's all 50 states.
	You can actually look at the election outcomes, and because the margin of error is so low, anybody who does this poll will come up with the same results.
	And what the results show, what they polled, was the head-to-head contest.
	Biden against Trump, with me in the race, and Biden loses.
	Biden against Trump.
	With me out of the race, Biden loses even worse.
	He loses two extra states.
	He loses Maine and Virginia.
	And those go to Trump if I get out.
	So the people who are saying I need to get out to say Biden... What we found is that 57% of the people who support my campaign say that they will vote for President Trump if I leave.
	And then we measured also Me against Trump?
	So Biden can't win no matter what.
	When I run against Trump with Biden out of the race, I beat Trump narrowly by about three electoral votes.
	And when I run against Biden with Trump out of the race, I beat him in a devastating landslide.
	So I win 39 states and he wins only 11.
	And there's never been a time in American history when an independent candidate I can't tell you anything.
	Okay.
	Almost 0% margin of error.
	Yeah.
	That's impressive.
	Wow.
	That is impressive.
	Yeah.
	Okay. Um, almost zero percent margin of error. Yeah. That's impressive. Wow.
	Is the poll in the room with us right now?
	And also we're completely ignoring, you know, Ross Perot and all of that because that was,
	you know, a pretty significant success of a third party candidate. But anyway.
	Adjusted for third party, yeah.
	Yeah.
	So I'm quite sure our listeners, like me, were wondering through that whole clip, is any of this true?
	It wasn't.
	It goes to a different high school and you wouldn't know her?
	this poll he's mentioning doesn't come up. You can find five or six other poll results where he's polling anywhere
	between 7 and 13% nationally, but the poll where he wipes the floor with
	everyone is a little bit harder to come by.
	Now there's a reason for this and it's because...
	It goes to a different high school and you wouldn't know her? Is that why?
	Well, something like that.
	The other easily findable polls are independent and lacking kind of a certainty of bias anyway.
	There's a little bit in any kind of polling.
	While this poll that he's talking about was conducted by John Zogby Strategies and paid for exclusively by the RFK Junior for President campaign.
	There's a problem.
	paid for this, and is touting the poll I bet for says...
	"I'm destined to win!"
	Now, look, it is important to note that John Zogby's strategies do have a fairly
	solid reputation within the polling industry, right?
	They've been at it for a while, you know, but their method of digital polling has been broadly criticized for potentially skewing results towards those who spend more of their time online.
	Nonetheless, it's not an insurmountable problem if it's properly and responsibly accounted for in the weightings of the responses.
	Now, obviously, polling and the statistical side of it is a bit of a difficult subject to get into, but thankfully there was an article written for whowhatwhy.org by Jonathan D. Simon, who was a former polling analyst, and he had this to say about the poll.
	Quote.
	These days, just about every poll comes, or should come, with a caveat or two, and this one is no exception.
	But any intrinsic problems with the poll itself pale by comparison to the deceptive way in which the poll results have been used by the Kennedy campaign.
	The Kennedy press release presented the poll as the largest presidential poll of the 2024 election, and began by stating that it surveyed more than 26,000 likely voters with a margin of error of 0.6%.
	Which sounds awfully impressive, given that most national polls have a sample size of less than 2,000.
	It's worth noting that the numbers of voters surveyed is given by the Zogby Strategies data sheet as 23,683, though the margin of error is unaffected by the disparity.
	But Kennedy is not interested in the national vote.
	In fact, as far as I could tell, he doesn't even bother presenting any nationwide results.
	Instead, he presents three colourful electoral college maps, showing states one in each of three head-to-head match-ups.
	Trump-Biden, Kennedy-Biden, and Kennedy-Trump.
	The difference between those two maps comes down to exactly five states, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Utah, and Virginia, that move from the Trump column in Biden-Trump to the Kennedy column in Kennedy-Trump.
	The impression given, one, a highly accurate poll, way more respondents and way lower margin of error than all the other polls presented for comparison.
	Two, a big movement of key states from Trump to Kennedy.
	And three, only Kennedy, not Biden, can beat Trump.
	Why is this impression so deliberately deceiving?
	Because Kennedy touts a huge national sample to build the state-by-state electoral college maps, and those state samples are tiny.
	So the sample sizes for those five key states range from 350 to 635.
	[laughter]
	A little mathematical polling secret, highly counterintuitive but true, is that once you get to a population as large as a state for a desired level of accuracy, you need just about exactly the same sample size for that state as you would need for the whole country.
	So in order for this to be accurate, he would need, you know, a couple of thousand people in each of those states to even try and Get any kind of accurate information.
	Put another way, breaking that great big 26,000 national sample down to 50 individual states means the margin of error for each state is nowhere near that 0.6%.
	In fact, the corresponding margins of error shown in the attached table are far greater, and because The margin of error is calculated for the vote share of each candidate.
	When we're looking at the margin between the candidates, we have to effectively double the margin of error.
	This means that the margin of error ranges between 7.8 and 10.4% for each state.
	Which is far, far bigger than the margins of victory for each candidate, which range between 3.9 and 5.2 percent.
	Which means that putting these states in the Trump column or the Kennedy column is highly speculative and not much better than a coin flip.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	So wait, did they poll all 50 states or did they poll the five states that they were focused on for the Electoral College?
	So they had respondents from all 50 states, but from those five states that are the linchpin to his electoral argument, they only had that many respondents.
	Aha!
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So like a really small graduating class for high school.
	Right, yeah.
	And the margin of error is far greater than the potential margins of victory.
	Like when you've got Yep.
	percent margin of error, that's not a reliable poll. And according to this chap, it is in short
	a laughably unreliable poll, at least for the purposes to which Kennedy is trying to put it.
	What would the Electoral College results be if just Georgia and Virginia went the other way,
	with Biden beating Trump and Kennedy losing to Trump? Trump v. Biden would now result in a 273
	to 265 Biden win.
	win and Trump versus Kennedy in a 297 to 241 Trump win, a complete reversal of Kennedy's
	vaunt.
	The other three states, if flipped, would just add to that turnaround.
	None of this is to say that Biden will in fact defeat Trump or that Kennedy would lose
	It is to say that the Kennedy campaign has presented the poll in such a way as to deliberately misrepresent its import.
	It is, at best, statistical quicksand, and any halfway ethical candidate would put up a sign to warn the unwary.
	Instead, Kennedy hides the ball where it is very unlikely to be found by most media outlets, let alone the voters, and splashes out a deceptive message meant to breathe sudden life into his campaign and fulfill his evident mission of dragging Biden down.
	Back on planet Earth, Kennedy's still polling the same 10 to 11 percent, and even that is going to shrink by November.
	Which is good to know, because with stunts like this, he keeps making it clearer and clearer that he poses his own brand of danger to the survival of our republic.
	Unquote.
	So there we are, everyone.
	Nothing to be concerned about, just a presidential candidate actively grifting the American public.
	That's all we've got there.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, OK.
	You know what?
	I think that the point I would take away from this is to bolster the issue of the Electoral College and how disenfranchising it is for literally the rest of us.
	Sure.
	But if you are in those battleground states, Understand the gravity of the situation.
	Sorry that they have put this on you.
	The rest of us in big blue states don't want this to happen.
	I want my vote to count.
	I want I want one vote to count for like a whole vote.
	And they don't.
	So let's you know what the I mean, even a fantasy what they're focused on.
	It's just amazing.
	It's pretty incredible.
	The sample size is so tiny.
	And also already, I don't know that that reportage of 0.6 bias, I don't think that's true.
	I don't think that's possible.
	I don't think a margin of error that low.
	Yeah, that's the thing.
	The math is done for the margin of error.
	That's an extremely conservative number to apply, I think, because it doesn't seem like... It's a similar issue with people thinking Twitter is everybody.
	And have for a long time, that we all kind of like agree and we talk about like, and have to constantly remind ourselves and each other like, okay, this is what's happening on Twitter.
	Twitter is such a tiny, tiny, tiny portion of the population and we just think because it's loud and it's there and it's available and that people that are also involved in it are the ones that are, you know, that kind of have The the platform and the microphone to some degree to be able to say it.
	But yeah, a lot of people are not on Twitter.
	A lot of people aren't going to take that poll to begin with.
	And now, vanishingly few, in fact, take that poll.
	And it's not no, no.
	Yeah, and there should be an awareness to just be wary of polls in general.
	Oh, also that?
	I think we learned that from 2016.
	Especially when it's such a close race.
	It really could swing either way, and I think it's gonna stay that way.
	A whole heap of salt with any of them.
	I mean really, if we haven't understood, like if you didn't get burned by the poll, like if you didn't, the polls, like we need to be real.
	I don't know anyone in my life, or me, that are like, oh yeah, I trust polling data.
	No.
	Yes!
	We learned that lesson.
	That's done.
	It should be for marketing.
	And we have also learned to trust it from RFK Jr.
	even less.
	Of course, but that's the thing.
	It's for marketing.
	It's for the people to make ads.
	It's not for us to make decisions.
	It's focus group data.
	And that's for them, and has no bearing on, like, us.
	It really doesn't.
	For sure, for sure.
	And I think there is kind of, there is also a bias in seeing data.
	Like, some people do just kind of want to be on the winning team, if you get me.
	And so, like, I don't know, there are people out there who I think will kind of, maybe, if someone's polling really well, be like, oh, maybe I'll go in that direction.
	I seem to be doing well.
	I guess.
	I guess.
	There are somehow undecided voters out there, and I don't know how they exist in today's world.
	I don't understand at all.
	I mean, they're saying they're undecided.
	That's what someone is saying that day.
	That's very true.
	The election is a really long time away.
	That's why it's an October surprise and not a March surprise.
	That is another reason why any of the polls that he's referring to that were released in March don't matter.
	Except for marketing.
	It's his own marketing input as to where to put his energy and that's what all of the candidates should be doing is responding to popular notions about them.
	he does like his little rallies showing the three maps with him winning in a landslide.
	I will say that.
	[Holly
	[Laughter]
	Oh dear. Now, now, let's rip the bandaid off.
	Let's get into the issue of Israel-Palestine.
	On the Gaza issue, you know, I'm anti-war, but that doesn't mean that all wars are evil.
	I think defensive wars, if it's a war of choice, to me it's an immoral war.
	In the last hundred years in my country, All the wars that we've been involved with, except for one, which was World War II, in my view, were immoral wars.
	They were wars of choice, and this includes World War I. My grandfather was a peace activist in World War I, Joseph Kennedy, and he lost a lot of his friends, a lot of his relationships because of that, but he said this is a war that is going to benefit arms dealers, it's going to benefit bankers.
	And it's going to benefit empires, and it's not going to benefit people.
	And, of course, 50 million people died, and he was right about that.
	World War II was a moral war, in my view, because it was a defense war.
	Our country was attacked.
	We were attacked by an implacable enemy that was intent on global domination, destruction of Western values, Western cultures, all the things that we—democracy, all the things that we believed in.
	I look at the Israel—of course, you know I'm very, very much against the Ukraine war, which is definitely a war of choice.
	Okay, two big problems I have so far, one being at the end there.
	But first, the characterization of what's happening in Palestine is a war.
	I do take issue with that because, firstly, you have one of the most advanced and well-funded militaries in the world supposedly attempting to root out what is a militant group within the Palestinian population.
	Except, instead of routing those people out in targeted, intelligence-based missions, say, Israel have taken to bombing hospitals, schools, and civilian populations at large, slaughtering by the tens of thousands.
	There is an overriding belief that all Palestinians are Hamas, and therefore all Palestinians must die.
	I take a small amount of issue categorizing that.
	I think my position has been made clear already.
	Abundantly, yes.
	For the record, in terms of scale, the size of Hamas is estimated to be between 15,000 and 40,000 people.
	15 and 40,000 people, the Israeli army has 169,500 active personnel and 465,000 in reserve
	to be called upon if required.
	And despite this obvious disparity in numbers, funding, military intelligence, the Israeli
	army are still taking it upon themselves to slaughter women and children en masse.
	Further, since the Hamas-led October 7th attacks in Israel, the Israeli government has deliberately blocked the delivery of aid, food, and fuel into Gaza while impeding humanitarian assistance and depriving civilians of the means to survive.
	Israeli officials ordering or carrying out these actions are committing collective punishment against the civilian population and the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, both of which are war crimes.
	There was an IPC acute food insecurity analysis conducted in December 2023 which warned of a risk that famine in Gaza may occur by the end of May 2024.
	If an immediate cessation of hostilities and sustained access for the provision of essential supplies and services to the population did not take place.
	It's not happened and children are dying of starvation.
	New mothers are so malnourished they're unable to provide milk for their newborn children who are then dying of starvation and it is set to get much, much worse.
	To me, that does sound a lot less like a war than it does the wholesale slaughter of a race of people, which might otherwise be described as a genocide.
	And also a siege, right?
	What we know about a siege, what I know about a siege, and what I mentioned last week, was that over six months, sometimes seven or eight, is usually in history, when we learn about history, when things start to unravel and then something actually breaks.
	And so this is the modern equivalent And I think what we are are also far enough away from in our own history as human beings is starvation and the understanding that like starvation and famine was a very real cyclic problem for most of humanity at some point in time.
	And that actually what they have what so Doctors that were allowed to come out before Rafa was bombarded, is that doctors were reporting having to treat severely malnourished people.
	And I know that the details are grisly, but it's true that basically your body starts to eat itself if You are left to starve.
	So it's not just a far side cartoon of a guy that's really skinny on an island in a tattered Tommy Bahama shirt going, it's actually extremely brutal.
	And what we know from British records of successive famines, they called this a disease called the bloody flux.
	So, because you also kind of expel your, your insides come out.
	And so you kind of, it's bloody.
	And that's, if you're a history nerd like me, you have a acute awareness of the long and storied history of this happening to people, and how it was its own disease to be reported in rolls and records.
	Because it also was Not necessarily common, but it was something that was part of a much more present understanding in the human experience that we have separated ourselves from.
	And I think that's a massive disservice.
	Uh, we're not like, you know, teach history, teaching history is like great men and battles and shit.
	And like, you know, he's done a chess board and not teaching what actually happens to regular people in war.
	And now that we're all like, I'm everybody's really like shocked and appalled.
	I am as well, but I'm not surprised because I know that this is what has been, this is, this is standard warfare for thousands of years.
	And just because we hadn't seen it before, it doesn't mean it wasn't happening.
	So.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And, you know, this has been the project from the start.
	You know, it's been very clear that this is what this would lead to.
	And we are there now.
	And the pictures are there, everybody.
	The footage is there.
	And it is bleak.
	Yeah, it's terrifying.
	It's absolutely terrifying.
	It needs to stop.
	Harrowing.
	It needs to stop.
	It needs to stop.
	Yep.
	And as for the Ukraine war, apparently that's a war of choice in RFK Jr.' 's mind.
	And when he says that, he doesn't mean it was Putin's choice to invade, he means it was the USA's choice to send support to Ukraine in defending their territory from a foreign aggressor.
	And that's bad.
	Except when sending support to Israel, who was supposedly, according to him, defending their territory from a foreign aggressor.
	That one's fine.
	He very plainly wants Russia to take Ukraine, and we're about to see just what he thinks should play out in Palestine.
	In fact, there's a lot more clips talking about Israel-Palestine and a lot more to get into.
	Okay, one more, one little thing that he said up top, which Just to show how much of, like, all the range of his bullshit.
	The range of his bullshit.
	Saying that his grandfather, you know, was anti-war during World War I. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.
	Now, losing friends, whatever, whatever.
	Didn't lose enough friends or influence or clout for his family not to get the presidency in the next generation.
	Yep.
	So, boo-fucking-hoo.
	I'm sorry, was he destitute?
	Did his family lose standing?
	As in not enough to be the President and Attorney General, respectively?
	Bobby, okay.
	Come on.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I feel like the Kennedys have done okay.
	That's just... Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know about the loss.
	I don't know about... Citation needed about, like, the rift.
	The great sacrifice, yeah.
	Yeah, the rift in a cigar club about it.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Doesn't really add up to me.
	I'd like to see a sauce on that one.
	Any.
	Yeah, yes.
	Ever.
	So, let's hear RFK Jr.' 's justification for what's happening right now.
	I look at the Israel war and I see a defensive war.
	Israel was attacked on October 7th, but not just October 7th.
	It was attacked for 16 years prior to October 7th, with an average of 2,000 missiles a year being fired into civilian centers.
	I consider myself very, very pro-Palestinian.
	I have friendships with many Palestinians.
	I visited Leadership in the West Bank.
	I have I'm associated with an organization that Jordan Riverkeeper in Israel, which is the only organization that Israel that has Palestinian, Jordanian, Arabs and Israeli Jews on its board.
	I have friends in the West Bank and Gaza today.
	I'm supporting.
	And who are living under terrible, terrible circumstances, and my heart goes out to all the people who have been injured by this war, particularly the children, the civilians.
	It's heartbreaking.
	I don't see why people are blaming Israel.
	I hope they hear what you say and you don't have those friends anymore.
	That's crazy.
	Yeah!
	Great friends for the Palestinians.
	Some of my best friends are, mmm, Palestinian, is what that was.
	Yeah, that's exactly what that was.
	And yeah, you could hear the but coming, right?
	So, RFK Jr.
	doesn't see why people blame Israel.
	Uh-huh.
	Weird how his perspective seems to be, shall we say, a bit selective.
	I mean, sure, there have been thousands of missiles fired by either Hamas or the Islamic Jihad over the years, leading to remarkably few deaths or casualties, by the way.
	I was going to say.
	I was going to say.
	But there seems to be little examination as to why they might be doing that, as though maybe they were doing it for fun or just abject malice.
	Probably abject malice.
	How dare they?
	How dare they even?
	Exactly.
	Violence is the last resort of the oppressed, and the Palestinians have been oppressed since a bunch of colonial powers decided that three quarters of their country would become Israel in 1948.
	Or, we can fast forward a chunk to 1967, which began the illegal occupation of the West Bank, reducing Palestinian territory to the 139 square miles which constitutes Gaza.
	Or, we can consider the decades of apartheid policies enacted by successive Israeli governments.
	Or, if we look to the last seven months or so, the literal genocide that's being carried out.
	There are quite a few reasons a Palestinian might consider firing a rocket into Israel, but weirdly, none of them seem to be examined here.
	How strange.
	Well, I mean, inconvenient.
	We've learned from the poll situation that inconvenient truth doesn't really penetrate.
	Brush that to one side.
	Uh-huh, uh-huh.
	It's kind of incredible, yeah.
	Yes, yes, yes it is.
	And now we get to the subject of ceasefires.
	I think it's a mistake to conflate Hamas with the Palestinian people.
	Hamas has been the worst enemy to the Palestinian people.
	It has been a proxy of Iran.
	It is pursuing a different objective than the welfare of the Palestinian people.
	I don't see that Israel has a choice.
	There's no country in the world You have an organization, Hamas, that is sworn to the destruction of Israel.
	It has in its charter not only that it wants the annihilation of Israel, but also that it is against Islamic law to even negotiate with Israel, except it's a ruse.
	So people say, you know, we want a ceasefire.
	Well, what happens in a ceasefire?
	Isn't a ceasefire just an opportunity Or Hamas to regroup, rearm, and then attack again, which it says it's gonna do.
	It says this is just the beginning.
	October 7th is the beginning of a whole series of October 7th.
	And it's as good as it's worth.
	There have been five ceasefires to date, and every one of them Hamas has used to rearm, regroup, hoist the banner, and attack again.
	I mean, here's the thing.
	Why?
	Why, Bobby, would they feel the need to rearm and regroup?
	And also, what are the Israeli army doing in that time?
	Are they perhaps regrouping?
	Maybe a smidge of rearming as well?
	Because that's literally what armies do.
	That's what I'm paying for!
	With my fucking taxes!
	Yeah!
	Right!
	Not that they need to quite as much, because we've already seen the disparity between the two forces.
	And yeah, a bunch of shit that RFK Jr.
	just kind of threw out there.
	He made the assertion that negotiation with Israel, unless it's a ruse, is against Islamic law.
	That's not true, and paints the whole of Islam with a broad brush, whereas it's actually within Hamas itself that they are very reluctant to negotiate with Israel, though they have done so in the past, but it's all a ruse, apparently.
	Last week, Israel rejected a peace deal, or whatever they want to call it, whatever they decide to call the thing.
	It's Israel that is rejecting the deals.
	Well, the Palestinians just, they won't do it.
	Hamas won't do it, and it's always a ruse, and it can't possibly have anything to do with Israel's policies towards the Palestinians.
	There we go, we've been told.
	We've been told.
	And all of this, of course, amounts to him saying, Yeah, all of this amounts to him saying that, essentially, there shouldn't be a ceasefire.
	That's his position here.
	Because he's saying, well, if one happens, then they're just going to rearm and regroup, so we shouldn't have one, and we should wait until everyone is dead.
	That's the position he's taking.
	Well, and they, I mean, they deserve it.
	Yes, and they deserve it.
	They haven't done the thing that they're supposed to, to earn a ceasefire.
	Real anti-war stance, by the way, is that like, I mean, it's already fucking absurd that he doesn't define what a just versus a, like a, you know, a war of choice or a defensive war.
	What the fuck is your criteria?
	And also we already know.
	Yeah.
	His criteria is very specific and not actually anti-war.
	Flexible.
	Flexible, one might say, his criteria is.
	Well, or just completely, like, misconstrued.
	It's this kind of like, yeah, it's wildly biased.
	Just say it.
	Just a touch.
	Just a touch.
	If that's what you want, just say it.
	Well, the next clip takes his ideologies a little bit further.
	At some point, if you're Israel, and this last attack demonstrated, I think, to everybody in Israel, and this war is overwhelmingly popular in Israel, because people understand that this is no longer a tactical problem.
	It is now a strategic problem.
	They tried to handle it tactically for 16 years.
	They did something that no nation in the world has ever done, which is to build the Iron Dome.
	So they're dealing with a neighbor As firing missiles in Mexico decided to reclaim Texas and started firing 2,000 missiles a year onto San Antonio and Houston, it would take us five minutes to go get rid of the people who were doing it.
	Any other nation in the world would do that.
	And you know, defensive wars are legal under Article 5 of the UN Charter for a good reason.
	It is that, you know, a nation has an obligation to protect its people, to protect its borders.
	You have a group that is pledged to its destruction, and I don't see how Israel has any choice except to go in and get rid of the group unless they're going to negotiate, which they will not negotiate.
	Israel will negotiate.
	Every other country in the world that got in this position would surrender.
	Israel's won the war.
	Why is Hamas not surrendering?
	It's hiding behind its own people.
	It is ensuring their deaths rather than doing what the Nazis did, what the Japanese did, what everybody else, what Iraq did, which is to say, yeah, we're going to surrender.
	We're not going to put our people through this.
	Why are people blaming Israel?
	I mean, the question we should ask ourselves, are we blaming Israel just because it's a Jewish state?
	Are we blaming Israel?
	Because it's a Jewish state.
	I can answer that one pretty quickly.
	No we're not!
	Genocide, regardless of who it's being perpetrated by, is genocide, and is always wrong.
	From hard genocides like this one, to soft genocides like what's happening to the Uyghurs in China, or what's happening in Congo, Armenia, or Sudan.
	Like, to characterize opposition to genocide because it's Israel as being anti-Semitic is completely absurd.
	But it does completely and accurately portray how much of a free pass Israel have been given since the inception of the country to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with relative impunity.
	At least a free pass, if not massive amounts of support and direction.
	Tacit approval, yes.
	I mean, support, material support.
	Israel would not be able, also, not a neighbor, not a neighbor.
	Like a profound misunderstanding of even the dynamic within the country itself.
	If you want to say a state, if you want to say Texas and Louisiana, That's what we're talking about is states within a country, not a neighbor.
	It's not Mexico and Texas.
	It's states next to each other in a country.
	Pick your lie.
	Pick which lie you're going to do.
	And even then, it's more complicated than that, given how the country was formed, right?
	Sure is.
	And refugee status of the people in Gaza, all of that.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	And as for why Hamas doesn't surrender, like, bear with me here, but my mind was immediately cast back to the movie Gladiator, right?
	In the opening scenes, it shows the Roman army defeating the last of the Germanic tribes, and Quintus asks that very question to Maximus before the battle.
	Why won't they surrender?
	And Maximus responds, well, would you, Quintus?
	Would I?
	And obviously that sprung to mind for me because if you put yourself in the position of Hamas, religious doctrine aside, if they surrender it means the total obliteration of Palestine.
	Netanyahu refuses to acknowledge the possibility of Palestinians Well, even logistically.
	and intends to occupy Gaza with an Israeli military force.
	He has made that clear.
	The intention to remove Palestine from existence is very obvious.
	And if that's your home and your people, your culture, and yes, in this case, your religion as well,
	why would you surrender?
	Well, even logistically, I mean, I think the argument is made that logistically, like,
	is about hostage negotiation, right?
	So, Hamas, basically the line is, from I think the Zionist perspective, is, or at least I've heard it screamed a lot on videos at college kids from Citizens are is that the is that Hamas are monsters because they won't negotiate to return hostages and even
	A massive contingent in Israel itself, of Israelis, they are protesting because those hostages are not being considered by Israel.
	This is all Israel's responsibility.
	It's all Israel's fault.
	There's no percentage, to me, That can be put on the Palestinian people at all.
	This is Israel.
	Israel made this mess and Israel is blaming others for making their own mess, including not, I think that's entirely reasonable from a logistical perspective for Israel to assume most of those hostages are gone because of their Tactics, and how they have prosecuted this genocide.
	So I don't think that they have very high hopes, but they're telling their people and the rest of the world that hostages are the most important thing.
	And they're not even pretending to do that.
	No.
	They're not pretending to do any of it.
	Why or what?
	What?
	What?
	So from a logistic perspective, also Israel's not winning.
	Are we going to talk more about that?
	Is he going to say more about Israel winning?
	No, he doesn't.
	No, he doesn't.
	So feel free.
	Yeah.
	So here's the thing.
	One One country's insurgency is another country's freedom fighters.
	History, that's the way of it.
	That's long and short of it.
	It's speculated by people that know a lot more about military tactics than I do, especially American military tactics, is that Israel thought they could go in and do this real quick and it would be done, done in a week.
	Just like Russia and Ukraine, right?
	They did not expect.
	And I think, I don't know how far you have to shove your head in the sand to think that this would be a quick prosecution of extreme deterrence.
	Because looking at the reality of the situation, an insurgency, there They just have to not lose.
	Whereas Israel, if they want to move into Gaza, take it over and put in a bunch of timeshares, like they're selling here, or whatever, development, they have to win.
	Winning is very different than not losing.
	It's true.
	There's a ton of military maneuvers that are also getting posted.
	All this stuff gets posted on Telegram.
	There are public sources of information and also leaks from drones, Israeli drones.
	And there's a ton of footage that Hamas posts and shows very clearly what they're doing.
	Israel is absolutely losing because they can't win.
	The requirement for them to win would be to eradicate Hamas.
	They are awesome at slaughtering civilians.
	They're dogshit at fighting Hamas.
	Yep.
	One would assume tunnels under the ground would be where your focus is and not just apartment blocks full of people and their universities and their bakeries and their hospitals and their schools.
	That's not where they are.
	So you're definitely not gonna win.
	and it's also Israel's fault for throwing all of these troops
	that are mandatory serving for Israel, Netanyahu is also on the hook for all of that death
	and destruction and injury.
	His troops that he's sending into impossible situations and also really poorly executed and poorly equipped.
	So the facade of this incredible, most moral high-tech army has long since
	completely disintegrated.
	So for us, For him to say Israel is winning is coming from the same brain and mouth of the person who thinks he's destined to win the election.
	Yes, yes.
	Okay, why are we listening to this man say anything?
	If it was a little louder and he was outside with tattered clothes on the corner where these thoughts belong, we would not listen to him.
	It's just wrong.
	It's just, like, it's impressively incorrect.
	Oh, he's only just beginning.
	I bet.
	I can promise you that.
	I bet.
	I feel like the more time you give him, the more wrong he's gonna be.
	It's just an equation.
	It's an inevitability with this man, I will say.
	Oh, and fuck RFK Jr.
	for presenting the Iron Dome missile defense system as some kind of magnanimous act on behalf of Israel.
	If all the other fucked up stuff wasn't happening, perhaps you wouldn't need a missile defense system.
	Just saying.
	Good lord.
	Now, finally, Russell interjects in what is a bramble of a statement here.
	He does, however, make a crucial mistake in this clip.
	I believe he very much intended to say Palestinians, but he says Israeli instead.
	You'll see what I mean.
	It's a uniquely complex issue in both historical, cultural, religious, territorial, and certainly contemporary American political life.
	And Bobby, while you were talking, because of the space I occupy, even as a humble online content creator and comedian, I can hear the opposing views flying like missiles with varying capacities across borders.
	Ever-expanding, ever-changing, ever-shifting borders and because of my own respect for friends that I have that are Israeli, because of the duty I feel to all oppressed people who in this instance it seems to me are the people that are under fire and are dying.
	Yes!
	in their thousands. I feel that I have to, to a degree, represent the arguments that
	are clearly out there. That it would be remiss not to note that the International Criminal
	Court are considering arresting Netanyahu, as perhaps they should have arrested Obama,
	as perhaps they should have arrested Bush, as perhaps they should have arrested Blair,
	as they will not be able to arrest Putin due to the precedent it would likely set that
	all of our leaders are war criminals. And I suppose because of the uniqueness of your
	position, I suppose that what...
	People are asking of you is an acknowledgement that this is you know on a very pragmatic level costing Joe Biden or as he is in some quarters now known genocide Joe votes and popularity it's causing division in new alternative media spaces and the only way that I can even respectfully navigate it as a contributor an orator is to say that As an observer who would not like to offend people that are Jewish or Israeli or Muslim or Arab, I feel that the one position that we might take is the position of people that are vehemently opposed to all war.
	And the growing argument for, I want to say, a kind of reframed American isolationism, a refusal to allow America's inconsiderable and unique might to be utilized for the ferviment of provocative wars, whether it's the Ukraine-Russia conflict or this ongoing conflict, due to, in both cases I suppose, one might argue that The superior power has a particular duty that comes with power and in both cases I wonder if America, if America is to continue as it appears to have militarily if not economically this somewhat unique position that there it seems that there's an enormous appetite among American people and British people that that power be directed towards diplomacy and peace and the cessation of conflict
	Rather than its furtherment.
	Okay.
	So, you know, broadly pushing back here in a mealy-mouthed kind of way, but it's something.
	You know, I don't disagree with some of those positions.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Here's the thing.
	Here's the thing.
	As far as an ability to communicate analysis or understanding of foreign affairs, dogshit.
	Russell gave no information.
	How to deal with your irate uncle when you have to be cordial?
	This is a masterclass.
	Your unique perspective.
	Did you say unique perspective?
	I don't remember.
	It was like your out of the box thinking.
	There's so many words you could use.
	For someone who's being psychotic at you and you have to get through it, that's great.
	We just need to take that to the bank.
	We need to picture a turkey and some yams between them, right?
	That's what we need to do, you know?
	Yeah, and like a pulsating vein out of your mega-uncle or cousin or brother-in-law.
	That's a master...
	Honestly, yeah, take that, put it in your pocket for later.
	That was great as far as that goes, but it doesn't mean anything.
	Anything.
	No, no, no, no.
	I do also take issue with the idea that the actions of Obama, Bush, and Blair are the same as what Netanyahu is doing.
	Oh, sure.
	War crimes, but also not the same.
	And I also object to the idea that the ICC can't arrest Putin because somehow then they'd have to arrest every world leader.
	Like, sure, maybe they'd have to arrest every world leader who invades a sovereign country, but I'm kind of okay with that, personally.
	Maybe.
	Okay, let's try it.
	The thing is, try it!
	See what happens.
	Yeah!
	This is it.
	Let's maybe give it a shot!
	I'm completely fine with Obama, Bush and Blair being on trial for the things they did in office.
	Like, absolutely.
	Maybe they won't be found guilty.
	That seems unlikely.
	But also these things shouldn't be compared to an active genocide.
	But yeah, you're right.
	We should try it and find out.
	I think that should be the policy.
	If that's the argument.
	That's the thing.
	It's not a counter-argument.
	To prosecution of Netanyahu.
	You're supporting your own theory, like, okay, well, if those people also qualify, then definitely this needs to happen.
	Yeah.
	Why else is the Hague there?
	Why else?
	Yeah.
	Let's do the thing.
	Unfortunately, as we covered in the, I think it was the initial Ukraine war episode we did, none of those prosecutions are possible because of Things that have or have not been signed on to in terms of international law, because you can essentially opt out if you want to just do a war crime, which is why Russia are getting away with things now, but Israel are not able to, well, Netanyahu is unable to, because they did sign on to the Rome Statute, which is, hey, maybe that'll come back to... I thought it was because the Palestinians signed on to the Rome Statute, the Palestinians being... Was it the Palestinians?
	I believe so.
	Either way, they found a way to do it.
	They found a way to do it.
	Yeah, exactly.
	There is a legal mechanism there where there isn't necessarily one with the other examples.
	And I think maybe we need to be honest about the ineffective nature of these bodies.
	Maybe if they are not enforceable and are merely suggestions, and we are all being made acutely aware of that at the same time together, okay, let's do something about that as well.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Maybe we need to rethink this.
	You know, if people are just allowed to do shit willy-nilly because they decided they wanted to.
	Yeah, or do the thing that you're supposed to do, that you say you're going to do.
	Figure out how to get that thing done.
	If you can't do the thing that you're like, oh, we're going to take all the stuff except for asterisk, asterisk, asterisk, get rid of them asterisks, or else it undermines all of your authority.
	Yeah, pretty much, and it kind of leads to a bit of a collapse.
	It exposes the institutional protection of certain imperial powers.
	I don't know what you could possibly be talking about.
	That makes it so obvious that maybe this is all an elaborate ruse, and it's a couple of arms manufacturers in a trench coat, is this country.
	On the global stage, like, come on.
	All the wrong analysis is getting so much oxygen, and it's driving me crazy.
	Like, y'all don't know how to not- you found new sides of your mouth to talk out of because two weren't enough!
	What are we doing?
	I think the side that's being talked out of is significantly lower than the mouth, in my opinion, but there we are.
	So, from here, RFK Jr.
	starts talking about Iraq, and he starts out by saying sort of semi-correct things, albeit with a very American-centric perspective, and then things start getting a little bit nuts very quickly.
	Yeah, I would agree with that.
	I mean, I'm going to use the White House to dismantle War Machine.
	I'm going to do one of my own.
	We have 800 bases abroad.
	The Russians have one.
	The Chinese have one and a half.
	And each one of those bases is just a nascent opportunity for new wars.
	These wars have done nothing good for our country.
	Not wrong.
	Every nation that we've engaged in a war over the past 20 years, much worse off than we found it.
	Iraq is an incoherent country now.
	It's just a battle between Shia and Sunni death squads.
	We killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein in liberating that country from Saddam.
	We pushed Iraq into a proxy posture with Iran, which is why October 7th happened, because Saddam Hussein had served as a bulwark against Iranian expansion in the Mideast and the Shia Crescent.
	And now we dismantled that and handed Iraq over to Iran, and it's allowed Iranian expansion to the Houthis, to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza.
	And we also created ISIS.
	We drove four million refugees up into Europe.
	Destabilized every democracy in Europe and probably led to Brexit.
	Oh, and to BRICS.
	Oh, and we pushed, you know, we pushed all of those nations into military and economic alliances with each other in opposition to the United States.
	So it's a terrible thing for our country.
	Okay, that was a lot.
	Now, he's not even going to acknowledge his own... You just said that Hamas were bloodthirsty savages that can't be reasoned with in any way.
	Okay, or is it a completely predictable result?
	Of geopolitical abuse and attack and disenfranchisement of people.
	Okay, he was like, yeah, just totally negated his own previous statement.
	Yep, he does that a few times here.
	Crazy!
	I'll recap.
	So, October 7th happened because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.
	America created ISIS, but ISIS then sent 4 million refugees into Europe, which destabilized the entire EU and caused Brexit.
	Then he brings up BRICS, which is an intergovernmental economic alliance comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates.
	And all of these nations were pushed into economic and military alliances with each other because of, and are against, the United States, according to RFK Jr.
	I'm honestly impressed that someone could be so wrong in such a short space of time.
	So, you know, October 7th, I get the feeling that's kind of more because of the oppression of the Palestinian people.
	Yeah, but also like, okay, what does the word cause mean to you?
	Because again, if you want to do like stoner pontification, sure.
	Sure.
	Listen, there's a lot of patterns and connections that I see and whenever I actually outline them it sounds insane because all the connecting tissues are not spoken in the moment.
	Right?
	So it's entirely reasonable for that to be an analysis that you can bring to a situation to help elucidate kind of like, if you have a framework, if you're like, oh man, you know, like the butterfly laps his wings and blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever, whatever.
	Okay.
	That's like a theoretical connection.
	And what's, what's the culprit?
	Who's, who's actually, Benefiting, who's actually causing the issues, like, how does that analysis help you understand?
	Because his analysis, we're gonna, I'm gonna use that word real loosely, his analysis is saying that, that like, And this is why they deserve it?
	Like, wait a second, because you just told me why they don't deserve it.
	Okay.
	These ideas are where you start if you see those connections, and then you figure out what the connective tissue is.
	And saying it all at once just makes you sound like it's what a smart person sounds like to a dumb person.
	Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of reductionism in the name of trying to address American imperialism.
	Oversimple.
	Oversimple.
	Aggressively.
	I mean, ISIS, now known as ISIL, they were created out of a subsect of Al-Qaeda in 1999.
	And there's a host of Shia-Sunni conflict wrapped up in there, as well as generally religious extremist ideologies.
	It's not as simple as, oh, we made ISIS.
	You know, it's really not.
	Now, a whole bunch of refugees did flee Syria and Egypt, etc., in the wake of ISIL kind of taking over, but I'm quite sure the entire EU was not destabilized by this happening.
	You know, I live here.
	Brexit happened due to the machinations of a bunch of rich white men wanting to make more money by capitalizing on xenophobia and outright lying to the public.
	Mission accomplished at the expense of the entire nation of Great Britain.
	And obviously, yeah, not all the countries involved in BRICS are enemies of the United States.
	I mean, I don't think there's a particular beef with South Africa, you know, Ethiopia, you know?
	It depends on how much they're allowing us to exploit them that week, I think.
	But truly, like the US is like saying Conditions, both choices made by the United States as like actions they've taken on the world stage and unforeseen consequences or maybe unaddressed consequences of actions taken by the United States, I think
	Broadly, you can say that those are causing a lot of these issues that we are facing currently.
	That does not mean we made ISIS.
	The American-made ISIS is the bad guy in the stellar cartoon Archer.
	This was not an American-made ISIS.
	We just had the one, and it's not really us.
	It's the guys who made Archer, which, spooky, hilarious.
	Yes, that was kind of funny.
	Kind of wild, yeah.
	But yeah, to say that actions were taken overtly and covertly over many, many years to contribute to the instability where these problems can thrive is very different than saying we did it.
	It's just a different thing.
	And if you're saying the wrong thing, then we don't have any recourse to learn about it or combat it.
	And possibly someone who is saying the wrong thing on these subjects should not be president.
	That's just an observation.
	Or even on a fucking podcast.
	Or even on a podcast.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Anyway, after that brief, enjoyable, mad distraction, let's get back to him talking about Palestine.
	You know, I don't believe that there's a genocide going on, and I don't think Israel's intention is genocide.
	I don't believe there's any evidence of genocide.
	There is genocide going on in the Mideast.
	But it's a genocide of Jews, and it's a genocide of Christians, and nobody's complaining about it for some reason.
	And there's much worse wars than what's happening in Gaza right now.
	But for some reason, people don't want to complain unless it's Jews who can be blamed.
	In Yemen, I think there's almost 200,000 kids who've been killed in Yemen.
	Civilian of the UAE and the Saudis and the other groups that are perpetuating that war with US support are specifically targeting the civilian populations with bombs and armaments and nobody complains.
	The Uyghurs who are being destroyed and eradicated in a genocide in China, the same thing that was happening in Kurdistan.
	In Syria, there are genocides all over the world, but what we're seeing in Gaza is not.
	Yeah, um, very little to say to that other than, like, yes, people are outraged at, you know, what's happening in Yemen and to the Uyghurs and elsewhere.
	We've been talking about it for years, and in both cases, you know, it's leading to hundreds of thousands of people dead, and we will continue to talk about it.
	But, also, what we are witnessing in Gaza is categorically different in terms of intensity and scale, and that does deserve to be acknowledged.
	In RFK Jr.' 's mind, the only reason that we're up in arms about this one is because we're all anti-Semites, which is blatantly and obviously untrue.
	It's that we're witnessing the slaughter of a pretty much defenseless population.
	And it speaks to the level of control that Israel has over that population to begin with.
	For it to be such a thorough and complete, like, sometimes genocides don't happen because it's not practical.
	Yeah.
	And for no other reason than that!
	They're doing what they can because they can.
	Cruelty is the point.
	Abuse and neglect and genocide is the point.
	So that's what they're doing.
	What this sounds like to me, what the past couple of clips have sounded like to me, are not any different from the understanding that I hear from liberals From elected Democrats, from a lot of legacy media that have the exact same myopic, motivated reasoning to continue misunderstanding the situation and saying things that are wildly fucking out of pocket.
	Maybe they manage their lies better.
	In fact, I think that they do.
	But he's not sounding like Trump here, he sounds like Hillary fucking Clinton.
	The first thing that he said was that they're gonna regroup.
	I was originally mad about this, if anybody remembers, I was mad that that was the claim that was being made in what, November?
	Like, is that even a humanitarian pause, which she was fighting against, Should not happen because Hamas can regroup.
	That's literally, he's not even coming from the right.
	He's coming from the liberal, I can't say left, the less right middle that we have.
	He's repeating what's being said in legacy media all over the place.
	Because they don't need to necessarily be right either.
	Christian Zionism kind of knows no political affiliation in that regard.
	Oh yeah, also that.
	Yes, absolutely.
	People that would never admit or even consider themselves to be supporting the notion of Christian Zionism.
	But are in positions of power, they're in positions of influence in the media.
	What's fucked up is what he's saying is pretty mundane and normal.
	I'm not shocked by anything he's saying.
	It's actually a lot nicer than what our own politicians are saying.
	Our own politicians are fucking bloodthirsty.
	Like, sociopathically bloodthirsty.
	He's kind of soft-pedaling that.
	He's got second tier.
	He's not on Fox, he's on MSNBC as far as his rationalization for genocide and why it's fine.
	Yeah.
	And why he can still consider himself anti-war.
	And I think that perspective is much more dangerous because it's so much more pervasive, you know, because it's not outright bloodthirst.
	It's, oh no, no, it's more complicated than that.
	We should just let it carry on.
	It'll all shake itself out when everyone's dead.
	Yeah, the complication argument fucking drives me crazy.
	And again, before October 7th even happened, again, I've made my stance very clear there.
	Off-brand episodes that, you know, that I spearheaded.
	You are more than welcome, listener, to go check them out if you haven't already.
	Yeah, the gall of these, like, participants and supporters of a colonizing imperial government to say it's too complicated for us to understand and to cite these kind of, like, ancient Like, basically acting like conflict is inevitable, and these, like, citing these, like, ancient conflicts, coming from a colonizer, like, coming from, like, the seat of empire, is so outrageous to say.
	It is so completely, like, galling to hear, because it's a lie.
	No, that's what we do.
	That's not what Muslims have done for Jews over hundreds and hundreds of years.
	Specifically, they ended up there because Muslims protected Jews from Christians for I mean, okay, alright.
	It is such a profound lie that is absolutely being, it just came out of our fucking, like, it comes out of our president's mouth.
	Unchecked!
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And Russell just said it.
	Like, it's not an ancient conflict.
	Knock that shit off.
	Yeah.
	And this is very much still the candidate that Russell's supporting.
	So that kind of throws away a little bit of the anti-war thing.
	Because the story's from the Bible.
	It's not even from the Bible?
	Christians have convinced themselves that the conflict is ancient because of the one anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish Sentiment that has motivated the conflict coming from Christians hating Jews, quote unquote, because they killed Jesus.
	That's using the Bible as your history and thinking that it's an ancient conflict because of that one idea.
	Yeah.
	That one idea that is a very late addition to dogma.
	And it's very convenient, and it is emphasized for completely cynical reasons by Christian Zionism.
	Or maybe earnest and terrible and wrong.
	Not necessarily cynical.
	Yeah, yeah.
	We get both.
	Right, we've got one more clip about Palestine here before we move on.
	Doesn't get any better, I will say.
	Okay, I'm glad I got all that out.
	Let me just point out something.
	There were 750,000 Palestinians In 1947, when the Palestinians declared war on Israel, they said, we do not want an Israel state of any size in the Middle East.
	And they invited six other nations to join them.
	And 750,000 Palestinians left.
	They left for a variety of reasons.
	The Arab League, the group that was making war on Israel, told them to leave, to get out of the war zone so that they could Eradicate the Jews and then everybody could come back.
	Those Palestinians, which were 740,000 in 1948, are now 7.2 million.
	So if the Israelis are doing genocide, they're not good at it.
	Now contrast that with what happened in the other nations, the Mideast, in 1948.
	the Mideast in 1948. Simultaneously that all the Palestinians, 750,000 Palestinians
	were leaving Israel during a war, a million Almost a million, about 950,000 Jews were expelled from the Mideast.
	And this is a genocide that's continuing today.
	This continues.
	There's only 15,000 Jews left in those countries, down from a million.
	They'd been there for 2,000 years.
	And Israel took them in.
	Mainly Israel, the United States, and other countries.
	Israel's taken in 3 million refugees.
	The surrounding Arab nations, which are 600 times the size of Israel, have a population 60 times that size and lots of open land, lots of tremendous wealth, refuse to take in the Palestinians who they had driven out.
	You know, the idea of saying that there's a genocide going on in Israel because people die in war.
	And in every war that's going on in the world today, there are civilians dying.
	And the average civilian to combatant death rate, according to the United Nations and to the Institute for the Study of Urban Warfare at West Point, is about nine to one.
	But in Gaza, it's about one-to-one.
	So they've achieved a better, they've protected in the most challenging conditions.
	The Israeli government has, the IDF, has protected civilians better than any army in history.
	John Spencer said it is the, it has done more to protect civilians under more difficult circumstances than any army in history.
	Oh, you know, I think that there's an argument, you know, the people who are saying that this is a genocide, it's not on any, it's just not accurate.
	Oh boy, um, a lot to unpack there.
	What do you think it is?
	Like, what's the word?
	It's a defensive war is what's happening.
	Yeah, okay.
	Um, yeah.
	He can say that in the abstract, but then when confronted with the actual numbers, he's not going to be able to say that.
	Well, the numbers he was citing there as to it being a one-to-one ratio were directly from Benjamin Netanyahu, which are unverified and bullshit, is the numbers that he was citing.
	And I'm like, okay, if you're getting all of your information about this directly from Benjamin Netanyahu, I can see why you have a skewed perspective on this issue, because you're definitely not getting the same information that we are.
	Or if you are, then you're just ignoring it.
	Yeah, suffice to say, the argument that population growth means a genocide isn't happening is fucking stupid.
	That's crazy.
	Population growth over, like, 80 years.
	As is the complete reductionism of, oh, Israel are taking in all these Jewish people.
	Why aren't the surrounding countries taking in the Palestinians?
	He said refugees.
	He did say refugees.
	He said refugees.
	He did.
	Honestly, the ahistorical nature of the things that tumble out of this guy's mouth, it's unbelievable.
	Yeah, it's very difficult to address because it's all just so patently wrong.
	And also, the ratio figure there that he's offering, right, the combatant to civilian deaths, that's one that's been claimed since the 80s, right, the whole 9 to 1 thing, and repeated in academic publications as recently as 2014.
	And these claims, though widely believed and correct regarding some wars, do not hold up as a generalization across every single war, particularly in the case of wars such as those in former Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan, which are central to the claims.
	Some of the citations can be traced back to a 1991 monograph from Uppsala University which includes refugees and internally displaced persons as casualties, which drastically inflates the number obviously.
	Other authors cite Ruth Leger-Sivard's 1991 monograph in which the author states, in the decade of the 1980s the proportion of civilian deaths jumped to 74% of the total and in 1990 It appears to have been close to 90%.
	A wide-ranging study of civilian war deaths from 1700 to 1987 by William Eckhart states, quote, on the average half of the deaths caused by war happened to civilians, only some of whom were killed by famine associated with war.
	The civilian percentage share of war-related deaths remained at about 50% from century to century."
	So, a one-to-one ratio is more accurate, and the genocide happening in Gaza amounts to about a one-to-three ratio of civilians being killed compared to combatants.
	And, you know, including the one in that one-to-three is Hamas being killed.
	I don't think that's even close to right at all.
	Well, it's based on the numbers that Hamas have given, anyway, of their own fighters killed.
	They said six to eight thousand, I think it was, out of Yeah.
	So one to three, if the average is one to one, one to three is very much not that.
	And we've seen, with our own eyes, civilians being gleefully fired upon by Israeli forces.
	You can find it, you can watch it, it's out there.
	Yeah, all the numbers just stopped, they just stopped counting.
	You know that it's over, I mean, 40,000 is extremely conservative, like that's not even, like that's, maybe that percentage at one point could apply.
	This is the problem.
	Accounting for wartime deaths and casualties, it's notoriously very, very difficult.
	And everything is always an estimate, and almost always a very conservative estimate.
	Which is still bad!
	Yeah, that's bad enough.
	Very, very bad.
	And the most obvious question here is like, if this doesn't constitute a genocide to this man, What the fuck does?
	Like, oh, it's different because it's Israel.
	Oh, it's different because it's Israel.
	OK.
	OK.
	I mean, it's cherry picking is, I think, very, very obvious.
	What I think is useful to hear him talk about and to hear him talk about this, it is a really great kind of synopsis of the lies That are being spread and being used to rationalize these actions.
	And this is how people can make excuses as to not pay attention, not care, or actively insult and subjugate the truth.
	Like, he's participating in a disinformation campaign.
	About this conflict and others.
	And you're absolutely right to say from a profoundly myopically American perspective, Amerocentric perspective.
	Yep.
	We have a roadmap for one guy's understanding and usually the kind of argument you're going to hear from someone who's arguing in bad faith.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And reminder, this is an anti-war candidate, everybody.
	God, right?
	Good lord.
	All right, so now we finally move on from Israel-Palestine, and we get to an important policy piece from RFK Jr.
	The issues that you talk about, transparency in government, they presided over government, they did nothing about the transparency.
	Nothing about the lies.
	Our government now lies to us every day on a variety of issues.
	And what I'm going to do the day that I get into office is pass an executive order saying that any public employee, federal employee, who lies to the public in conjunction with his job responsibilities will immediately lose his job, no matter what subject it is.
	I'm going to forbid the lying.
	I'm going to open up the freedom of information laws so that we really see what's happening to our government.
	I'm going to put the budget on blockchain so every American can look at it 24 hours a day.
	Oh no!
	I'm going to have total transparency in government, which is what democracies are supposed to be about.
	I'm sorry, we're putting the entire US budget on blockchain.
	And he means not just, like, making the framework of it transparent, he means the actual digital money itself.
	Yep.
	I assumed.
	I mean, I'm not surprised.
	This is a man who said he wanted to back the US dollar with Bitcoin.
	But he said at a rally recently, quote, "We're going to have 300 million eyeballs on our budget,
	and if somebody is spending $16,000 for a toilet seat, everybody's going to know about it."
	Unquote. I'm quite sure he was referencing the $640 the Pentagon paid per toilet seat in the 80s,
	which $16,000 it is not. Oh dear.
	Anyway, um... Well, we're like, sure, yeah, corruption happens all the time, and we do need to fix that.
	Blockchain is not how!
	Blockchain is not how!
	No, no.
	Because the idea of somehow moving every single piece of money in the budget into one unified blockchain is absurd.
	Not least of all because of the scale of doing such a thing.
	It would take years, probably decades, and cost a fortune to actually achieve on an administrative level.
	And for no good reason.
	There's no good reason because it's a bad idea to begin with.
	And there are already mechanisms in place that allow for transparency to what is possible at this point.
	Anyway, there is oversight to this stuff already.
	And the thing is, like...
	What we're considering here is the problem that there are significant black holes in the budget when it comes to, like, military spending, etc.
	And the military hides behind that information being classified.
	The thing is, that isn't going to somehow be fixed by putting it on blockchain.
	Like, they just won't do it!
	They'll just say, no, it's classified, fuck you!
	We need to remedy the original reason in, like, what, 2013 that they said that they could do that.
	Yes, there is a legal framework and mechanism they are relying on to keep their budget secret or clandestine in some way.
	Obvious stated, right?
	Yeah, you're exactly right.
	All these issues that he's enumerating His solutions aren't going to do anything.
	They're not going to do anything.
	It's just going to be massively complicated.
	That's what I'm saying.
	He's running for the It's Your Birthday Every Day part.
	It's going to be everybody's birthday every day.
	Oh, as soon as I get in.
	I'll put the Coke machines back in the cafeteria.
	Cake every day!
	Cake and french fries in the cafeteria if you elect me student body president is what he's saying.
	Literally, this is what we're doing.
	Also, we have spoken about this before briefly, but yeah, he's going to somehow fire anyone who lies to the public in any way, you know, who works for the government, which From a legal standpoint, I'd like to ask what the standard of a lie is for these purposes, and whether there's going to be a distinction to someone knowingly lying, because there's a wealth of difference there.
	If someone just parrots something that they don't realise is a lie, are you going to prosecute that?
	I don't know.
	But also, he's talking about Fauci here, that's really the veiled insinuation.
	And I've got to say, if he wants to try and prove in a court of law that Fauci lied, good luck!
	Because he hasn't.
	Well, there's already a mechanism for that!
	There's already a thing to do!
	Several.
	Yeah, it's another completely unfeasible policy idea that is at best an administrative nightmare and at worst could be used in an authoritarian fashion to fire anyone he doesn't want in office.
	Oh, maybe that's what we should be listening to.
	Yeah, he's saying it.
	He's saying it.
	Also, also, the guy just got caught listing his voting address as a house in New York where he doesn't live.
	It's not even his.
	Right, so that's not just a lie, that's possibly attempted voter fraud, right?
	Yeah, which, who does that?
	Republicans!
	That's actually who does it, statistically, and legally, who gets prosecuted for it.
	Yeah, he needs to watch that glass house he's living in, if he'd like to cast stones willy-nilly and pell-pell.
	Throwing a lot of rocks this guy.
	Um, now.
	Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know about that policy, dog.
	No. Um, now we get to his feelings on the modern media.
	In 1973, Americans learned for the first time that the CIA had been violating the Smith-Bund Act, and they had a program called Operation Mockingbird, where they had The leading journalists, over 400 of the leading journalists in our country, and editors at the New York Times, at the Washington Post, at ABC, CBS, NBC, were actually working for the CIA and propagandizing Americans.
	And the country was shocked.
	We had congressional hearings, the CIA.
	agreed to dismantle that program.
	They said we'll continue to propagandize everybody around the world, which they do to this day, mainly through USAID.
	They spend $10 billion a year.
	They're the biggest funders of journalism on earth.
	And, you know, and so they can they can craft and mold public perception elsewhere, but they're not supposed to be doing that here in the United States.
	But now, since 2014, they've been able to do it.
	And there's been a series of great articles recently by historians like David Talbott, like Dick Russell, and others, Kevin Shipp, who are intelligence agency historians, showing that there are journals now in the United States that are controlled by the agency, Daily Beast is, Daily Kos, Salon, Slate, Rolling Stone, which used to be the center of the counterculture, the guy Who runs Rolling Stone, and the company that purses Rolling Stone appears to be on the CIA front, and the guy who runs it, Noah Schlachman, is a person who came out of the national security state.
	And if you look at the articles now in those journals, they're all very pro-vaccine, which of course is a...
	Defense Agency Program, and they're very pro-war, every kind of war.
	And they, you know, if you look at all of the agenda items of the CIA, you can go down the list and check off that all of these journals are now are kind of automaton-like in supporting and promoting
	those agendas, and it's not healthy for a democracy. It's very, very
	dangerous.
	Okay. So, what he's saying here is that because Operation Mockingbird happened during the Cold
	War, in fact, most American media companies are still CIA-operated and influenced and funded,
	you know, so Salon and the Daily Beast and the like...
	Citation!
	Because they're both pro-vaccine and supportive of intervention in the Ukraine war, they're CIA fronts, right?
	That's what's happening there.
	And it couldn't possibly be that people actually support these things.
	It has to be a CIA operation at work.
	Yeah, well, and that's the thing, and what we talked about, and I talked about in a previous Off-Brand, we were talking about the CIA, and I talked about Operation Mockingbird, and I think maybe at its height, 800 were, like, 800 kind of, like, assets.
	Were under the umbrella, which we didn't have nearly as many then.
	That's a fucking big number.
	So absolutely reckon with the legacy and implications of that, of Operation Mockingbird.
	Sure.
	By all means.
	Yep.
	That's very important for us to reckon with, and we have not.
	But that doesn't mean that all the people you don't like are still Mockingbird operators.
	This is, I don't, I really don't like that I feel this way.
	And then I, but like grandpa go to bed.
	Like I feel like, Oh, okay.
	Oh, the CIA is, is the daily beast now.
	Oh, okay.
	Good.
	Tell me why you think that.
	Tell me, tell me what connections you have observed and made that are not tenuous, spurious, and at best, referential?
	Like, being next to each other is like cause and effect, dude.
	Because this is just like, okay- That's supportive of vaccines, so that's it.
	That's it.
	That's the tell.
	Yeah, and the Smithmont Act that he was referencing there, that's the thing that got amended and changed in 2012.
	And that is the idea that the CIA can't kind of propagandize its own people.
	And the reason it got changed was because it was found that bad actors were propagandizing Americans.
	Fucking no shit, come on.
	No shit.
	Via the internet, etc, right, and the American government were like, hey, we kind of want to set the record straight and kind of, you know, correct the propaganda with some of our own propaganda.
	Obviously, that has led to justifiable concerns from from journalists, etc, etc, about the prospect of, you know,
	the American government propagandizing against its own people. But yeah, these guys keep not
	coming up with citations for the things they say is the problem. Yeah, they also don't know how to keep
	their foot out of their own mouth because y'all are the free speech warriors. There is that. But you
	are begging for more granular regulation, like you are asking the government to step in on a much
	more pervasive and civil liberty violating level if this is the kind of like, setting that you
	actually want.
	Yeah.
	You want way more interference.
	Not less, but just not for the things that you like.
	The party of small government, everybody.
	Yeah, so now we get to the subject of Fauci, the NIH, and Big Pharma, right?
	Something that RFK Jr.
	has had a lot of time to think about.
	Something we should really expect a big policy swing on, because he's been insistent for a long time on taking them down.
	For you to have moved from the place where when your books are a bestseller the New York Times just, you know, almost run a blank space as if you're Elvis's pelvis to the point where you are now running for president and polling well.
	How do you think that those kind of ideas, because it sounds like you're saying that ultimately Anthony Fauci is a criminal and it seemed to me like when you were saying federal employees that lie should be held accountable.
	What happens to Anthony Fauci?
	What happens to Big Pharma in the event that you're granted that kind of executive power?
	If I get in there?
	Yeah.
	Let's go.
	No, I don't have a really clear plan.
	I think the best thing for our country, Russell, is to have some kind of Truth and Reconciliation Commission like they've had in Latin American countries, El Salvador, Argentina, and all over the world.
	And the way those commissions work is you appoint a high-level commission of people who are representing kind of all the major stakeholders.
	But who are very highly respected people.
	And then they take testimony.
	And if people from the government agencies come forward and tell the complete truth about what happened during COVID, for example, then they are immune from prosecution.
	Those things that they testified truthfully about.
	And the people who refuse to talk are now subject to prosecution.
	And you build you know, the information base and then they put out a
	report and tell exactly what happened. And, you know, I will, a lot of these commissions are just fancy
	ways of covering up the truth and, you know, and satisfying the public demand for an
	investigation, but I'm going to do a real investigation.
	I'm going to tell, I'm going to be rigorous about making sure the Americans know every item of truth that happened then and the rest of the world, because it's critical to make sure we never do anything like that again.
	And we know, you know, what works and we know what doesn't work.
	And we can recognize when we started heading down a bad path again.
	And, uh, We need that kind of rigorous process that also provides for the people who won't cooperate with it may be criminally prosecuted.
	He's got nothing.
	Oh, I'm gonna have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but not one of these ones that investigates and doesn't change anything.
	Mine will be a real one, and it'll be different because it will.
	Yeah, what?
	Okay.
	I don't have a plan.
	Bye.
	Bye now!
	That's enough.
	That's all I need from you for today.
	Years he's been talking about this.
	What else have you been doing?
	I don't really have a plan.
	I don't have any thoughts.
	Oh, he has thoughts.
	Oh, he just said a bunch of thoughts.
	We all have thoughts of varying degrees of value or coherence.
	Again, I'm going to say, I think Grandpa needs a nap, but this is how he thinks it's appropriate to consider policy and to make a plan.
	Is to go spitball him whenever he's confronted with it.
	I would love to say that our government doesn't work this way.
	That would be a lie.
	That would be a lie.
	State, local, federal.
	This shit happens all the time and it should never happen.
	Is just a, is a old goofball being like, well, well, well, well, I don't, uh, well, uh, well, let's see.
	We should look into it.
	All smoke and mirrors.
	That's also not a plan.
	I want to just be like, Hey, stop.
	No, no, no.
	Grandpa.
	How?
	What is, how will you do this?
	Like, oh, it'll just be different.
	Like the, the truth and reconciliation will just be different.
	It'll be different because it's me.
	And that's how that's gonna work.
	And the thing is, I am broadly supportive of the notion of having investigations into this stuff.
	You know, we have the COVID inquiry over here, you know, and that has made clear a shitload of corruption that was going on within the government of just, like, handing out things to their mates, just giving millions and millions of pounds away.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, I'd love to have accountability for the way that PPP was doled out here.
	I'm broadly supportive of it.
	I don't know, that's what he's talking about.
	Possibly not, and I get the feeling if he did have one of those, I don't think it would go the way he thinks it would.
	Really?
	We're going back to the glass house.
	Yes, yes.
	Maybe put the stones down, sir.
	That's not... No, no, no.
	You and all your friends, who I hope, if any of them are Palestinian and they hear a thing you say, they aren't your friends anymore.
	That's going back to what he said previously.
	You don't get to have those friends anymore.
	No, no, no, no.
	That's crazy.
	That's crazy.
	This is a lot.
	Yeah.
	I mean, but it's also not a lot.
	I mean, he's just making shit.
	I can't recall off the top of my head an episode that is less grounded in basic reality.
	He's like a singular talent.
	Yeah!
	In just magical thinking.
	Just, woo!
	Abracadabra, sir!
	Like, there's, I don't know how I'm, like, I can barely, like, the only reason I can take this seriously is because it's my job on this podcast.
	My brain is resisting it at every turn because I know that he's so full of shit the toilet's jealous.
	So entertaining this is like a real, like, also any bearing on like, I mean, this is pathetic.
	I'm not like, how am I, how am I to care about such a tangential, like, just ramble of like, of with no substance or like grounding in reality.
	The only thing that we should and have to take seriously is the negative impacts That result from this kind of unserious person, like profoundly unserious person while appearing quite serious, is like the real world stochastic terror impacts it has on our society.
	Yes, we need to take that very seriously, but taking this man seriously is fucking impossible.
	It's impossible.
	Yeah, and casual reminder, he's less qualified than Donald Trump, which is saying something.
	Like, Donald Trump was at least the president for four years.
	This guy has never held elected office even once.
	He's never been elected to anything.
	I mean, it feels a little apples and oranges to me.
	Like, they're just both incompetent fools.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And I think, like, the, you know, it needs to be taken seriously because, you know, he is polling at 10-11% nationally or whatever, and in the event that one of the two main candidates who are very old and not in great health dies, this man is going to become a big problem.
	But yeah, it's a hypothetical, but still.
	Still.
	I mean...
	Biden, I think his chances of taking Democratic votes is low.
	That's my estimation.
	I did think that.
	In the polling data where it says he wipes the floor with Biden, I'm like, I don't I don't think that's how that's gonna go.
	I don't think so.
	And so following on from all this, Russell asks a key question about the Kennedy legacy.
	Sir, may I ask that doesn't a reckoning of that scale expose what many people would regard as the true powers that ultimately manipulate and move through various intersectional points between the deep state and other globalist bureaucracies and benefit indeed from America's ongoing covert involvement in coups and wars?
	Ultimately, if you challenge those kind of interests, how doesn't your own family history Rather garishly and awfully and indeed tragically demonstrate that in all likelihood, a serious undertaking of such an endeavour would likely lead to your murder.
	Oh, you know, that is irrelevant to me.
	You know, it's relevant only in that And that it would be strategically a bad mistake to let
	myself get murdered.
	And so I'll take precautions to help ensure that that, you know, to make that difficult for
	anybody who wants to try it.
	Ah, yes. RFK Jr.
	is just so dangerous he's going to be assassinated, even as a sitting president.
	Something which the Secret Service are pretty hot on these days, by the way.
	But yeah, I've got to say, Russell has had something of a trend this week.
	He said Mike Benz was going to be assassinated.
	He said that someone was going to assassinate him.
	Now RFK Jr.
	is going to be assassinated.
	It's like he thinks there's some version of Oprah out there just handing out assassinations.
	You get assassinated, you get assassinated, you know, just.
	Well, I mean, there's been some shakeups, I'd say, this week.
	There's been some some no longer alive.
	Like, listen, foreign affairs have gotten quite exciting this week.
	That's true.
	That is true.
	It's kind of like, honestly, the numbers would like if he's just trying to throw out a bunch of If he's doing the Alex Jones carpet bombing of predictions, hoping that one... I mean, no time like the present to just keep guessing world leaders.
	Maybe it'll happen.
	I don't know.
	And just to use that and be like, I was right!
	If you're hedging your bets, now is, I think, a great time.
	Doesn't mean it's useful, good, right, or responsible in any way.
	Yeah.
	I also don't think anyone's going to be coming for Russell Brand or Mike Benz, you know?
	Oh, definitely not.
	Oh my God.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	I just think if you're putting, I think you're putting assassinations out there.
	It's like, I see a troubling trend and I have no, I have no conception of scale as to who is actually in peril.
	Yeah, sure.
	Like, that's... I mean, if you're gonna throw it out there... Listen, health complications happen all the time.
	Sure.
	Your clock might be right once, Russell, and then you can ride on that forever.
	Could you imagine Russell making a clear, concrete prediction, and then it comes true?
	Oh, he'd be insufferable.
	Even more so.
	He would be the Antichrist, as I defined in a previous opera in talking about Steve Bannon.
	That'd be him, because his ego would inflate.
	It might kill him.
	It might kill him.
	He might be too excited, and it would give him a brain aneurysm.
	I'd be worried for his health and safety.
	Yeah, yeah, me too, me too.
	We can only hope it never occurs.
	I don't think it will.
	I don't think it will either.
	We have a little more assassination talk here, and RFK Jr.
	brings up a quote.
	Three guesses as to who it's from.
	Oh, right now?
	Thomas Jefferson.
	William Shakespeare.
	Bingo!
	Thomas Jefferson.
	Is it though?
	Is it though?
	It actually is, so that's helpful.
	Wow.
	Okay.
	I'm already surprised.
	It is, however, a bit of a misreading, so let's hear it.
	Okay.
	So, you know, I think it was Jefferson who said that every generation must Water the tree of liberty with bloodshed if we're going to keep our values or be willing to do that.
	And so I think that's something that, you know, that's just an assumption that I feel, you know, that makes any kind of threat at this point irrelevant to me.
	Okay.
	I'm gonna read the full Jefferson quote here, which includes some surrounding context.
	Quote, What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion?
	And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?
	Let them take arms.
	The remedy is to set them right as to fact, pardon and pacify them.
	What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?
	The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
	It is its natural manure."
	Unquote.
	So Jefferson was advocating for armed rebellions and revolutions to happen every so often because the guy loved a good revolution from the comfort of his armchair.
	He was never willing to sacrifice his life, of course.
	You know, he famously ran away when British soldiers came anywhere near him.
	But RFK Jr.
	seems to think this quote is about sacrificing yourself for the good of the country, which does track to just how ahistorical this man is.
	It's just...
	It's a very obvious misreading of the quote.
	It literally, in any sentence, if you take any sentence from around it, you'll see, oh no, he's saying rebellions and protests, et cetera, like maybe what's happening now, are a good thing.
	And that tyrants, I feel like I really like the tyrants part of that quote.
	The blood of tyrants.
	Yeah.
	That's, that's got some romanticism to it.
	I like that.
	Yeah.
	There needs to be accountability for tyrannical leaders.
	Hmm.
	Yeah, people just kind of throwing stuff.
	Listen, an originalist is going to feel this way because this is this is Jefferson's prescription is death.
	Yeah.
	If you're a tyrant.
	Yeah.
	Get killed.
	So.
	Yeah.
	There's that.
	I'm not in disagreement.
	Glasshouse again, for his own sake, he shouldn't get elected.
	Yeah, yeah, it's true.
	So from here, we naturally get to a little bit of religious talk, because it's going to happen.
	RFK Jr.
	is Catholic, etc., etc.
	But not before we hear another quote.
	I think it was Socrates who said, good is what the good man does.
	In other words, in any particular situation, You can say that lying is, for me, lying is always wrong, right?
	But there may be circumstances where it isn't.
	So the rules and regulations, as Christ talked about constantly, and you know, people are binding up heavy burdens for other men to carry with all the rules and regulations and the hierarchies and orthodoxies, and you know, he said that You know, he was kind of breaking the rules and saying, what you eat, whether you act on it.
	If you act on the Sabbath to heal somebody, that's a good thing.
	Okay then.
	So that quote there wasn't from Socrates, he's referring to Aristotle, and specifically Aristotle is talking about the distinctions between a good man and a good citizen, saying that a good citizen lives and acts in accordance with what's best for the state, and a good man is the man that acts and lives virtuously and derives happiness from that virtue.
	Within, he was saying two fundamental things.
	One being that depending on the government, the good man and the good citizen might not be the same person.
	Because if it's an evil regime doing evil things, to support that state requires evil.
	The second crucial thing is that the good man acts and lives virtuously.
	As in, doesn't just talk about these things, but actually does them.
	I see a lot of people talking about religion on Russell's show, but I see very little action.
	Curious.
	And all this ties into what Socrates actually said at his trial about being a good man.
	Quote, You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death.
	He should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.
	Unquote.
	That would have been a good one for the assassination talk.
	He should have gotten that out then.
	Anyway, the quote very clearly says, you know, I am virtuous and live virtuously regardless of the consequences.
	And neither that nor any of Aristotle's aforementioned positions amount to, well, lying might be fine in the right circumstance.
	And not to put too fine a point on it, but this is from a guy who just said he would fire and possibly arrest any public official who lies.
	Specifically he said, for me, like, out the gate, for me, lying is always wrong.
	Okay, what does always mean to you?
	Then what does the definition of the word always?
	Because if you're saying lying is always wrong, maybe presupposing that in this instance, lying means you are actively saying something you know to be directly incorrect and contradictory in the moment.
	Most generous read, right, as far as saying lying is always wrong?
	Yeah, I would say, yeah.
	But then goes into, I'd say, an unrelated kind of tangent on like, okay, well...
	Lying is sometimes necessary.
	Okay, is it lying or is it obfuscation or there's a reason to make a more moral choice and hide your intentions from an authoritarian figure that would punish you for it?
	Like hiding refugees in a holocaust, perhaps.
	That's a moral lie.
	Which I came up with just now, and I think is a much better example than the prattling on that he did!
	Like, that's an example I think, but if he's using the example of lying, and we talked about this I think it was last week, I'm not sure if it was off-brand or on-brand, but For him, if lying means that you just don't know, like, I think there's probably a conception for like, well, I didn't know that I wasn't telling the truth at the time.
	So it's not a lie.
	Technically, oh, I'm not lying.
	I just didn't know.
	The issue with people like RFK Jr., like Russell, is that if they can just keep avoiding the truth with no accountability and no Like, if they never have to confront the truth, then they don't think they're lying, and they never have to admit that they're lying, including finding a reason
	Why the truth doesn't apply to you, which he's made those exceptions over and over in this interview.
	Okay, well, I wasn't lying.
	I just don't think that your argument's good enough to take seriously.
	Or, ah, I was talking about something else you misunderstood.
	Oh, or, ah, there's a reason.
	If there's like a rationale that they can justify in themselves to not accept the accountability that they were being dishonest, That counts under what I'm assuming, judging from what was said, his conception of what lying is that he says is always wrong.
	Because... Or he just said a sentence that means nothing.
	I think both are definitely possible.
	I think the best case scenario is he just made up a sentence, he just said a sentence that doesn't mean anything, because the other, the opposite, or not the opposite, the implication is worse.
	Not the opposite, that's a completely wrong word.
	Implication's worse.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I don't know, I think it's one of the many reasons why legislating against lying is very difficult.
	Almost impossible.
	Almost impossible, some might say.
	And yeah, he self-owned in that bear clip on that entire subject.
	Again.
	Again.
	Yeah, again.
	In the next clip, RFK Jr.
	talks about one of his solutions for the problems of modernity, shall we say.
	You know, I know how we're supposed to recover ourselves as a country.
	We get our sustenance from the soil, from good, rich, chemical-free soils.
	We get it from feeding our kids sustaining type of foods and nutritious foods and making sure that they have that.
	We get it from building relationships in the community, from moving away from the atomization, the fragmentation that, you know, that is the legacy of all these, you know, social media and, and, and technologies.
	And, um, and, and we do it ultimately.
	Community is the only source of dignity and knowledge and, and, um, The only real rich future in the post-industrial era, the post-technology era, we have to strive to hold on to community and to build community, you know, in ways.
	And that's why one of the things I've said, I'm going to build these wellness farms all over the country as my big Eastport program, where kids can go and get off of drugs and, you know, not only illegal drugs, but also psychiatric drugs, I guess, SRIs and bentos.
	And that these places are going to be places where you stay for maybe prolonged periods, however long you need.
	But we're going to have no cell phones there and no screens so that people learn to talk to each other again, you know, and to relate to each other and to build relationships with each other, because that's the source of our strength.
	And that's the source, ultimately, of strength of our democracy, of our nation.
	And it's going to come from lots of little nodes of communities, you know,
	experimenting with different ways of living in community all over our country.
	And that, you know, to me is the, is not only good for our physical health,
	but also our spiritual health as a nation.
	Thank you beloved Bobby.
	Thank you, beloved Bobby.
	Okay.
	Okay, what?
	What?
	So, you know, he announced this policy a while ago, and I found it very difficult to find any concrete information on it, and I wonder why.
	You don't say.
	So what he's suggesting here are farms that kind of act as like a rehabilitation and recovery program, but without the doctors or medical professionals.
	We have those!
	We have those!
	Same thing for people requiring antidepressants.
	We don't have those, necessarily.
	What you do is you go and work on a farm, and you have no access to phones or screens.
	You have to talk to the other strangers there, and they become your community.
	And how and when do you leave?
	Well, you can stay there as long as you need.
	Not as long as you like, as long as you need.
	Which may be a long time if those people are now your only support structure.
	And how is it funded?
	Well, he said elsewhere he wants to divert funding from the Ukraine war to this.
	Do any of the people there get paid?
	Well, no mention of that, but my guess is probably not.
	Maybe it's just the cynic in me, but this does sort of have the ring of like forced labor camps to it.
	A concentration camp?
	It sounds like a concentration camp where drug addicts are sentenced.
	The state deems who is a drug addict and puts them in a concentration camp.
	Al, can you think of any groups of people that have done that in the past, say, 100 years?
	80, 70 maybe?
	Maybe one that springs to mind.
	What the fuck are you talking about?
	Grandpa, go to bed!
	Okay, okay, okay.
	What also is screaming out to me is Grandpa's so fucking out of touch.
	That's an added fun little layer of sauce on top of every single statement he's made.
	At least they're also all old and bad.
	Yeah.
	To understand this world as, like, a conception that he has that is based entirely, like, a goldfish on what's immediately in front of him, with, like, no... like, if stuff...
	If he doesn't know immediately about things, which I thought there was even, I mean, he should be concerned because Kennedys don't have a great track record of not institutionalizing their family members, but like, you know?
	You know?
	For him?
	Himself?
	For him?
	Please, listeners, look into what Synanon has done.
	To the, like, the inception of Synanon and then like the basically like teen, you know, like teen survivalist training and like teen wilderness programs are farms for Violent abuse, constant, like, oh, I mean, what he's talking about exists and it's terrible.
	Kids die.
	Kids are extremely harmed.
	in these programs and they're also, bonus, wildly fucking expensive and they figured out how to get
	the government to pay for it because in the 90s parents had to pay for it. So now there are
	government programs that will subsidize these. So like it's already happening and it's like, it's
	try to find how many podcasts are about like kid work camps.
	And I promise, Al, listen, I know how you gotta curtail your media diet.
	Don't.
	Trust me.
	This is not, like, it's bad enough, you don't want anything to do with it, okay?
	It's bad.
	It's, like, really, Camp Anawaiki is a very specific, like, I'm thinking the first episode of a particular podcast came out a couple years ago.
	It's, man, it's rough.
	It's rough to hear about these stories.
	He's proposing, also, a thing that already exists.
	Like, it's already there, and we already know it's bad, which is exactly like Like, we just talked about an off-brand is Russell being fucking clueless about what he is signing on to and agreeing to, and it's not excusable.
	These two men have every fucking reason in the world to know what they're talking about, and the fact that they don't is irresponsible and it is fucking harmful.
	Do you know what you're signing on to?
	And don't, just because, because they have no reason to think like, oh, they just, well, they had this idea.
	Whilst gazing into a chrome ball in their garden amongst the flowers and the bumblebees.
	And they're like, we should have camps for kids to build community and get off drugs.
	Not even the psychiatric drugs they need.
	I can't even with that.
	But in general.
	And also, that is what happens at these teen rehab camps.
	Is they are not provided their medication, whether it's prescribed by a doctor, or like a doctor that's even at the facility, or there's any number of complications that keeps them from getting their medication, which further endangers their lives and their safety.
	So yeah, that does also happen, and it is fucking awful.
	It is awful.
	Just look up the thing that you think you thought of.
	Just look it up.
	Just do a quick Google and think, maybe this has already happened before, and I can glean, and there's experiences others have had, and there's other attempts that I can learn from as to why maybe I shouldn't say this into a fucking microphone.
	Yeah.
	Oh my God!
	And then he puts his, you know, kind of 50s style shine on the whole thing, doesn't he?
	Like, oh, there's clean soil in it, you know, like we used to live, you know, before all the screens and everything corrupted everyone.
	How are you going to do that?
	How are you going to do that while functioning in American capitalism?
	How do you plan to do that?
	Wishes?
	I think wishes.
	I've tried looking that up as well.
	I bet it's wishes.
	Doesn't specify.
	Let's go pay for it.
	If you look at his campaign website, he makes a big song and dance about the importance of it and of farmers, et cetera, and then it's just question mark?
	You're like, oh, okay.
	Yeah, that's a problem.
	Well, I don't really have a plan.
	The thing is, he has these sentences and these statements and this kind of like practice to engineer an answer that isn't just him admitting, well, I don't really have a plan.
	Yeah!
	He goes flim flam and wibble wobble and says all this stuff that sounds like he might have a plan and if you elect him, he might show you what's in the box if you vote for him.
	That's not cool, man.
	That's like literally not what even running for office is.
	You state your policy.
	Yeah, I will say that the lack of plans in general does make it feel like he might not think he's gonna win.
	That's just- Or that he doesn't have a fucking- he doesn't know!
	The thing is, is like, let me tell you something.
	Okay, if I had a team and if I was running for- if I was running for motherfucking dog catcher, do you think that I would not have A 10 point plan on every potential?
	Like, I have PDFs for everything that I would want to address.
	That's like, the point of running for office is staking concrete claims that you want to improve.
	And you don't even have to do them!
	If you look at Biden's fucking, like, his website.
	Yeah, his campaign promises.
	Yeah, his campaign promises that were outlined on his website.
	Oh, it's not looking good.
	Doesn't look good one bit.
	So you don't even gotta do them.
	Just make the claim.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	What you're supposed to do is here's what I'm going to do.
	And here is how, um, you know, and we're, we're missing that second crucial step in, in, in every possible way.
	And so we're just living in fantasy land.
	Um, you know, much the same as well.
	I'm going to dismantle the war machine on day one.
	Oh, are you?
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Okay, let me know how it goes.
	Yeah, how?
	Asking nicely?
	I don't know.
	Throwing somebody in jail?
	Maybe.
	Who do you want to throw in jail?
	Right?
	Like, there's any of those plans.
	Tell me who you want to- at least QAnon does.
	Like, this is ridiculous.
	At least a vague gesture of a name.
	Something.
	Alright, in the next clip, RFK leaves the show in a pretty strange exchange between the two of them.
	I've only had a few skirmishes with the kind of powers that I fear engage whenever there is an emergent voice for good and it's really been pretty terrifying and thank you very much for your willingness to engage with that power.
	I really appreciate and admire that in you and respect that in you.
	Your valour, your decency, your kindness, your gentle madness, your parasite-ridden cerebellum.
	I hope that you're still going to be capable to participate in some kind of pull-up competition, which I'm regretting ever having even conceded to.
	Is that something that's likely to take place in Nashville?
	Because I'm pretty keen to avoid it if there's a way.
	I think you can avoid it.
	I actually pulled my bicep this week.
	I didn't pull it.
	Good.
	Well, I'm not.
	So I think you're off the hook for Nashville.
	Perhaps we can then revert to the axe throwing, but we'll agree on a mutually... Axe throwing.
	Yeah?
	Yeah.
	Because I know your practice in that.
	Very much.
	Yes.
	That's emotion I'm familiar with.
	Bobby, thank you so much for today.
	I really appreciate you.
	I know how hard you're working and I know how I don't know.
	I can't imagine how difficult what you're going through is.
	And I pray for you and I appreciate you.
	And I'm really looking forward to seeing you.
	Thank you for joining us, Bobby.
	God bless you, Russell.
	And thank you so much for coming to Nashville.
	God bless you.
	Thank you.
	So that was a masturbation joke for anyone who isn't watching the video.
	I was doing kind of an axe-throwing masturbation kind of thing.
	So for anyone who hadn't seen, Russell was the headliner at a night of comedy in Nashville, which happened a couple of days ago now at this stage.
	He was there alongside Rob Schneider, Jim Brewer, Dave Landell, Mike Binder, etc.
	The usual shitheads that one comes to expect at these things, as these are the form that
	RFK Jr.'s fundraisers have taken.
	KAREN Oh, okay.
	MARK Yeah.
	KAREN I see.
	MARK Yeah.
	With a couple of thousand tickets ranging between $22 and $100.
	Supposedly Russell's set was terrible, reheating some of the things that we covered in the Brandemic special a little while back.
	It was a four hour event, and apparently a good chunk of people left after the intermission.
	Oh no!
	What a shame!
	Okay, wait.
	So who said that his set was terrible?
	I'm just curious.
	Uh, that was in the Daily Mail, I think it was, that was covering that.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Tough crowd.
	Yes, right.
	Should be easy crowd.
	I know!
	And there was a Tennesseean thing as well that was not a fan.
	And yeah, sadly they did not get to this pull-up competition which,
	that was announced like getting on a year ago now, yet mysteriously nothing has come of it.
	it.
	Why even bring it up at this point, right?
	I remember we covered that the first time, and that was a while back.
	And I was excited then, let me guess, I'm going to be let down by these men.
	I get the feeling.
	Because there's no reason for them to do anything that they say they're going to do.
	Cool.
	Tight.
	Pretty much, pretty much.
	Yeah, and Russell at the start there saying, you know, he's had these great forces come against him because he's a voice for good.
	Oh my god.
	Yeah.
	Gross!
	Gross!
	What do we say?
	Thanks, buddy.
	He can make anything about him.
	Yes, he can.
	The only things he cares about.
	Yeah.
	So I did think after this one and a lot of genocide talk, we might need a bit of a palate cleanser.
	And with that in mind, there have been a couple of ads I've enjoyed lately that I thought we could take a little look at.
	First is for Trulene, which are basically powdered vitamin sachets.
	Thank the Lord for our magnificent commercial partners, Trulene.
	Loyal, decent, fine product.
	Support them if you can.
	Trulene's Everyday Wellness, which is an all-natural, nine-in-one powder that boosts immune health,
	reduces inflammation, promotes gut health, including vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin B12,
	zinc, turmeric, and echinacea.
	It's a potion of pure wonder.
	Everyday Wellness, backed by science, inspired by Mother Nature herself.
	All you gotta do is stir these sachets into water and enjoy.
	Let's see what one of these glorious big bags.
	Look, this is like the parent.
	There is sort of like cells that are within it.
	There is infants, it's tadpoles, as it were.
	Control your health without prescription.
	Take that, Big Pharma!
	I'm feeling better already and I can just feel Pfizer's stock price plummeting.
	Spicy citrus tastes like sipping on sunshine.
	Let me have a sip of that sunshine.
	The inner light of the Lord is shining from within me.
	You can visit trulene.com, code brand25 for 25% off.
	Use the code brand25, get 25% off, they'll know we work.
	I'll tell you what it feels like.
	It's spicy.
	It gives you a zing.
	It's life itself.
	Now, I'm sorry, my brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles in Europe, this is only available in the United States of America.
	If you get some of this, if you don't feel the benefit within 30 days, Trulene will buy it back from you, even if the bag's empty.
	You can send them this empty bag.
	You could even put something in there.
	I don't know, a stool, a rabbit's paw.
	They'll give you your money back.
	That's how confident they are in this product.
	Try everyday wellness for yourself today.
	You deserve it.
	Trulene.com.
	Use the code Brand25 for 25% off.
	It works well for us.
	God, this stuff's delicious.
	I can't get enough of it, but then I have an addictive personality.
	Let's get back to the content.
	Let him know I sent you.
	Let him know I sent you when you send your shit in a bag back to the company expecting a refund.
	What are you doing?
	He just told his audience to shit in a bag and send it to them.
	I don't know.
	I mean, I thought he was looking for absurd things in like a footstool.
	You could, you could.
	No, no, no.
	He said a stool.
	He said a stool.
	Yeah, a stool.
	Like what I shouldn't be balancing on when I try to climb on the top of the cabinets, but I do, and don't tell Mike.
	That, that's what, I'm, listen.
	That's what you're picturing.
	I don't need to look for shit that's fucked up.
	Okay.
	It can be a surface.
	It's still- watch the whole thing, huh?
	Okay, well, let's talk about what you think enjoy means if you just said you enjoyed this ad.
	Okay, what- Well- Yes, enjoyed in a unique kind of Russell content watching kind of way.
	Of course, it's not available outside the US, which is slightly amusing considering it's just powdered vitamins, roots, vegetables and minerals, right?
	I get the feeling the reason here is that over here we're a bit more restrictive on what type of medical claims can be made alongside a supplement.
	And on the website, Trulene says their powders are gut-renewing, digestion-enhancing, that they strengthen immunity, lower inflammation, reduce cold and flu symptoms, and that they can replenish nutrients and hydrate you three times faster than just water.
	Oh, and for the one that Russell's touting here, quote, the natural inflammation fighting ingredients were hand-picked to be the off switch to inflammation and joint discomfort, unquote.
	Yaw!
	So...
	Yeah, that sounds like bullshit that you can say in America that probably is legislated against in other countries.
	Legislated against over here!
	Uh, yeah, yeah.
	Like, the stuff is almost certainly fine to consume and is probably beneficial, um, because vitamins usually are, but the presentation as being somehow curative is, uh, that's a little snake oil kind of situation going on there.
	Consult your doctor, because it very well may not be.
	There's plenty of these snake oils and snake powders that don't, that can harm you.
	Like if there is an active ingredient, potentially it is harmful, or you will get too much of the thing.
	There's a lot of...
	Yeah, there's a lot of, I think post in the wake of Andrew Huberman, there's been a lot of chat about AG1.
	It's like athletic greens is like the most commonly advertised food powder here.
	And I wonder, I thought that he was also doing AG1, but who fucking knows?
	I mean, it's extremely cheap to make and there are literally no regulations.
	It's wild fucking west.
	So, the way our government sees it is, well, nice work if you can get it.
	If you can convince people to buy it, we will allow you to sell it.
	Which is wildly irresponsible and unsafe.
	And even vitamins, you can have too many of.
	That's exactly right.
	That is a thing.
	Okay, we've got one more ad.
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	Fume.
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	Try saying fume without saying mmm.
	Fume.
	Yeah, you can just about do it, but it's hard.
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	Thank you, Fume, for sponsoring this video.
	He gave him that one for free.
	He gave him a whole ass little slogan for free.
	Dude.
	Fume paid for this.
	Fume paid for this content.
	Oh, it probably rightfully did.
	Well, or is sharing the profit, potential profit.
	I don't know if we paid for it or not.
	Dude, I'm not even mad.
	Like, Oh, dear.
	Companies have been convincing humans that water without flavor in it is disgusting for decades.
	Yeah.
	So, yeah.
	We've moved on to air.
	Yeah, you need to put a crystal light, you need to put a Mio in your water or else it's absolutely reprehensible and disgusting and tricking yourself into drinking water.
	And now, Which, like, genuinely, if this is a thing that will not put, like, not give you popcorn lung and not make you sick and not have nicotine in it, and it's just a habitual replacement, sure.
	Yeah, I'm not mad about the product.
	They've also existed for a long time in many other forms.
	So this is kind of like nothing new.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's Russell's presentation of it that tickled me.
	I mean, it's backed by doctors, but also doctors are terrible.
	Fuck, let's move along.
	Okay, this is an ad.
	I will say, at least this one is available in the UK.
	And yeah, it's basically just flavour capsules in a vape-shaped pipe thing that you inhale.
	Like, it's harmless and... Flavour here.
	Yeah, right.
	And I'm kind of on board with it, but holy shit, they picked the wrong place to advertise.
	Also, the thing...
	I don't know if they did!
	They're not trying to be good, they're trying to sell stuff!
	They're trying to sell, this is true.
	The thing is £65 for the basic little pipe, which is pretty expensive.
	And if you want one in black with a darker wood like the one Russell was holding, that's just shy of £100.
	Wait, what?
	I thought he had a natural wood one.
	That's weird.
	Okay, £100 for a different colourway?
	Yeah!
	Good!
	Night.
	Sweet print.
	No.
	Wow.
	Yep.
	Yep.
	And all of a sudden, I'm out.
	You can get an essential oil.
	Breathe around it.
	Way less money.
	On some lavender oil, you know.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Peppermint, you know.
	Oh, no!
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Shit, dog!
	Well, that's incredibly dumb.
	Okay, okay.
	It is, it is.
	Yeah, it's just a little palate cleanser there at the end.
	Oh, dear.
	But it's the state of Russell's advertising these days.
	And yeah, that was RFK Jr., everybody.
	Oh, boy.
	Well, what I do want to point out is that, and even RFK Jr.
	said, build community.
	And sorry if you're, you know, if you're just a main show listener, I know it's not like great form to reference a paywalled episode, but what we just talked about in the most recent Off-Brand is basically how Russell is using kind of any content he wants.
	And all of his content is just A thinly veiled call to action to pay money to to quote unquote join his quote unquote community.
	He wants you to pay to have access because what he is sort of tacitly and sometimes explicitly.
	Postulating about like or advertising is that his locals channel and his internet community is the prototype you can get on the ground floor for his you know like his his like minded ethno state small pockets of governing body with humans.
	You can get in now digitally and then maybe when you know you if you support him enough and if you pay for it enough and if you if you do if you're good enough maybe you can do the real one.
	And that is wildly fucking irresponsible and completely ridiculous to boot.
	It's wrong all the way down.
	It's saying like, well, listen, I could really get my cult off the ground if enough of you fucking cough up some coin.
	That's what he's absolutely advertising.
	And so the words build community.
	I think if we're talking about in the, I think we need to be very critical of definitions.
	Because it's extremely contextual.
	And to me, and I can't unhear it, that like, quote unquote, build community is pay to pretend you can talk to me because I'm so famous.
	And it is appropriate for you to pay money for the chance to have access to me, is what he's doing.
	And he will put Like I said, in Off-Brand, blood, sinew, and carnage does not phase him if he can invoke fear and hatred and misunderstanding to force you to cling to him in some way.
	It is a big fucking problem.
	The thing is, both of those men understand the assignment, and they did it.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So, that is the issue.
	Honestly, like, I don't, I mean, he said, like, he, not Russell, but RFK Jr.
	said, like, kind of way more measured things than I hear about what's happening in Gaza.
	Like, it's kind of, like, par for the course.
	A lot of mainstream media that A lot of us don't automatically reject as being absurd when we look at RFK Jr.
	like, ooh, Grandpa needs a nap.
	But if you hear it on MSNBC, or if you hear it on CNN, or even Fox News, or if you hear the New York Times, It's the same packaging, it's the same, like he's coming from the exact, he's coming from the mainstream, liberal, Democrat party position.
	Not entirely, but a good chunk of what he said is par for the course.
	It's completely wrong.
	It's absolutely ludicrous.
	But he's in the majority for his class of people, for who he is and what he's interested in doing.
	Yeah.
	So he's just repeating what he's hearing, and he's acting like it's edgy, and he's acting like it's special or different, and it's fucking not.
	It's absolutely, like, it's unethical from nose to tail.
	Rooter to the tooter.
	Un-fucking-ethical and completely problematic.
	And he is finding ways to insulate himself further from any amount of scrutiny or pushback, accountability whatsoever.
	Because he can find a reason why it's not a lie.
	Even among the people who intend to vote for him, you know, I kind of did some snooping around as to kind of what the feelings were on this anti-war candidate being fine with a genocide, and the basic position is, well, yeah, his position on that is shit, but you know, so are the rest of them, so hey, what does it matter?
	You know, oh, okay, great.
	Well, that's the exact opposite approach that I'm explaining here.
	It matters a great deal.
	It matters a massive amount.
	And I think that, especially at the beginning, whenever they were talking about how Trump was this, like, anti-war, you know, he, no, he tried to start some wars, like, real bad, like, he really, and did exacerbate conflict.
	Like, he tried to do it the whole time, and I think... I'm gonna use an example that I don't necessarily think bears out or is true entirely, but I think that we all agree what I'm talking about, like, you can understand where I'm coming from, is like, the adults in the room kept those wars from happening, because Trump was a petulant child, and the quote-unquote adults in the room were The ones keeping that from happening.
	I'd venture to maybe even postulate a scenario where Biden can do more bad shit because they think they are the adults in the room and they're not.
	They are not acting responsibly.
	They are not making even like correct, cynically correct decisions.
	It's complete, like, again, it's just, it's the same magical thinking, and because they're not Orange Man bad, then he's allowed to do it, because what I have seen and heard other people asking, and then also, by the way, when they ask, they get fucking dog-walked, and, well, not dog-walks, get dog-piled.
	Dog-walk means you deserve it to me.
	They get absolutely piled on, because postulating, like, hey, Liberals, left, Democrats, how would you be acting if all of the conditions were the same, but the president was Trump?
	Truly, ask yourself.
	And not to say, the accusation is like, oh, then that means you want Trump to be president.
	Fucking absolutely goddamn not!
	Stop putting words in my mouth and making a straw man to argue with because you don't like the argument that I actually just made.
	If Trump were doing the same thing, how would you be reacting?
	Oh, okay.
	Is it different?
	Why?
	Think about it for yourself.
	First, kind of how all your thoughts should work is like check in with you and then say it.
	But I think a reminder is due that the notion that like, I don't, I mean, There is a line of thinking that is not entirely unreasonable, is that if Trump gets elected, then maybe the country and the people will adjust and understand, oh, this is actually really bad, and should stop because they think somehow because
	The old man on their team is doing it.
	Put yourself in the position where, if it's Trump, would you be acting the same?
	Fucking no, you wouldn't.
	No, you wouldn't.
	There is a logic to like, oh, well, maybe if we get rid of the guy that's doing it, the next guy will do something different, or won't do it, or something will change, maybe, and yeah.
	The escalation argument?
	Is bad.
	The escalation argument is bad, but I think it's entirely reasonable for a certain thought process in a section of people would, in order to do anything to get this to stop, Is put the guy that these people, the team who's in charge right now, who they don't like, if you put the packaging on it that is distasteful, then maybe it'll stop and then we'll actually do the right thing as a country.
	I do not blame, I mean it's, I think it's not The right estimation to make.
	It is not the choice to make, I don't think, at all, because of escalation.
	The thing is, you can't feed a monster and expect it to behave.
	You can't be mad when the leopards eat your face, right?
	Like, if you're trying to say, well, a leopard is what's going to fix this, oh no, where's my face?
	It got eaten.
	That's the gamble you're making.
	But I don't blame people for at least entertaining that idea because this situation has gotten to such an extreme degree.
	You have any idea if like Biden came out tomorrow and was like, fuck this.
	Israel's cut off.
	We're not doing this anymore.
	And all the services that we pay for for them, we're going to pay for for you instead.
	Came out and did that?
	Oh my god.
	It would be like, outside bodies of, I mean, like, the thing is, you know what, I can't say that for sure.
	I don't know that for sure.
	But as far as the voting public goes, people that care about politics, all of the voters, even if they're not turning to Trump, are being turned off From Biden will come back in fucking droves.
	Oh, and it'd also be the right thing to do.
	So Socrates, Aristotle have my back as well.
	Thanks, guys.
	Appreciate ya.
	This is obviously such a dangerous and unethical The precedent to set the hypocrisy is undermining every aspect of these institutions, governmental institutions.
	And y'all are doing it to yourselves.
	We're just not, we're not even, listen, we didn't even do anything.
	We're just standing here and y'all are just like cutting off all your noses to spite your face.
	We didn't ask you to do any of that.
	Like that's not, No, you're doing the wrong thing!
	Nobody asked for the concentrated effort to lose the election and be complicit in a genocide.
	Nobody said yes to that, you know, that's right. Yeah. Yeah.
	And I think that like the thing that we should be as far as a,
	like I didn't really have like a vision of sort of like what to
	conceptualize as a solution or like to see the, I think it's very difficult to, and like to visualize.
	is...
	The end of this because it feels like everything I mean, I'm hoping maybe maybe the Hague get get some wheels moving.
	I really, really hope so.
	But like, it's not this.
	These situations are not without precedent.
	The same campus, you know, the same campus protests.
	Took a long time to, you know, like same BDS movement is what helped stop apartheid in South Africa.
	That seemed like an impossible behemoth to defeat.
	Same thing with like, I mean, there's a lot of like results.
	And I think of, and I've heard other people mention, I think it's a really great example, is Rhodesia.
	I hope one day we can see Israel in the way that we see Rhodesia.
	As it is a thing that happened, and it was wrong, and it's obviously wrong, and now we don't have Rhodesia, we have Zimbabwe.
	And I don't even, genuinely, Palestinians are not asking for the Jews to do anything except for let them live.
	It's wild to me that, like, the marketing that has been constructed around, like, phrases like, from the river to the sea, like, no, they just want to live where they lived.
	They just want to live in their community.
	They invited Jews into not just their country, their homes.
	As refuge to protect them.
	That's what happened.
	And listen, there's a lot of resources that I encourage everyone to go check out.
	There's a ton of documentary, like, there are so many ways to learn the actual history because what you are hearing in mainstream media is absolutely fucking absurd.
	And it drives me crazy because it's just a total, like, and Russell is making, like, Russell is so clueless.
	And doesn't care about not being clueless to advocate for these, like, homogenous, you know, like, theocratic ethnostates.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Which is what these colonial projects are.
	Inherently, ethnostates, by their very nature, of any sort, Are implicitly fascist, violent, and genocidal.
	That is what Russell is advocating for every time he says that.
	It refers to his homogenized community.
	That's what he's advocating for.
	Fascism, violence, genocide.
	That is what he's interested in, just like in Off-Brand we talked about on Sunday.
	He can make it sound like, oh, Trump just wants states' rights.
	No, no, no, no.
	It's happening right now.
	It's not a theory.
	It's not a far-off notion.
	The result is absolute carnage and suffering for women and procreating bodies everywhere in this country, not just in the banned states.
	All of us are suffering adversely from it.
	So, shoving your head in the fucking sand doesn't, like, if you want to do that, keep your fucking mouth shut.
	Keep your mouth down under the sand, too.
	Because you don't have a leg to fucking stand on.
	It's crazy to me that, like, he gets to say all this stuff, and it sounds nice, so why you gotta be mean to him?
	He sounds so nice, and everyone needs to get along and love each other.
	Shut up, you goddamn baby.
	Yeah, most of the things that come out of his mouth come from a place of such extreme ignorance that it cannot help but be harmful.
	And profoundly, foundationally selfish.
	Yes, oh yes.
	Foundationally selfish, because who he is willing to throw on the pyre to get some more people to pay to be a little closer to him?
	Yep, to help ship him to Bali when the time comes.
	Yeah, don't vote for it.
	Because also what we did talk about in Off-Brand, which is hilarious, is he even has faked the appearance of democracy because people will, like his locals community will vote on shit and then he just doesn't, he'll just ignore that too.
	He can't even do the thing that he wants to do in a goddamn group chat, let alone as a governing body.
	It's so obvious.
	Why aren't more followers mad at him?
	I don't know, they insist that he's right about a lot of stuff, and I spend all my week proving the opposite, but here we go!
	That's why we're here.
	And hey, that's our show everybody.
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	Bye!
	That's not win-win-win.
	That's lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie.

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