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July 4, 2024 - On Brand

02:02:16

OB #63 - The UK General Election

In a solo Russell show we finally nail him down on his UK election thoughts, as well as Julian Assange's freedom, and once again, 9/11. Support us on Patreon! - patreon.com/OnBrand Buy a magnet! - getyourreallivegoldhere

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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's 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 Wirth and each week I go through an episode of Brand Show with my co-host Lauren B. And that's me, Lauren B. And I'm 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?
	Oh, I'm looking up an author right now because I just forgot.
	It ran out of my brain, but I do have it.
	Vibes, vibes.
	Where is it?
	Where is it?
	Ha!
	Okay.
	Well, you know what?
	We're going to do a blanket Thank You Libby again.
	I'm plugging libraries.
	Y'all know me by now.
	I'm plugging libraries.
	Oh, and if you're new, welcome also.
	Hi, I plug libraries.
	Hi, I'm Lauren B. I love the library.
	And the library app Libby, which is, there's several versions.
	Hoopla's another one.
	Canopy's another one.
	Libby's kind of the main event for me.
	Libraries, the Libby app, and my partner who also reads books or listens to books whenever they can at work, and suggested it particularly.
	And boy, it's an event whenever one of our holds comes up for a book we really jump at the bit to listen to.
	But this one's available.
	So specifically this book that is in conjunction with how great the Libby app is in general.
	I feel like I can't sing its praises enough.
	But The Education of Brett Kavanaugh was a book that I just finished that Mike was like, I kind of tried this out just to see.
	Super interesting.
	And it's before, it's like pre-COVID.
	It was like Trump was in office.
	Pre-COVID.
	It's this, like, window in time, you know, into the hearings around Brett Kavanaugh and the actual reporting or lack thereof.
	Really, really interesting.
	So I want to look at the authors and not be a dick and just say, oh, these two people.
	Robin.
	Oh, see, now her last name is difficult to say.
	Pogrebin?
	Pogrebin.
	Okay.
	I was going to say Peregrine, because my brain filled it in.
	That's not the word.
	I wanted to make sure.
	And Kate Kelly, that's easy.
	Easy peasy.
	Kate, you got me.
	You got my back.
	OK, but yeah, so it's really interesting.
	I mean, obviously I don't want to like rehash the whole case, but basically they're like, yeah, it potentially happened.
	It could happen.
	It probably happened.
	But, um, boy, it's a perfect crime when everyone's hammered.
	Um, and, uh, there was a really, I don't know.
	I feel like they made the point that like he was 17 when these events occurred.
	Um, But I think the issue, the issue I certainly took, and the issue that people have taken, like there was a letter from his like college friends that were like, hey, we saw what he said in Congress and he just lied a lot.
	So the reaction, and also especially the way that he reacted, was like this crying, it was very obvious, I think to anybody, That kind of was aware of at least the context that he was just like throwing a fit because he had this thing that he wanted and he saw an impediment and he showed no grace or remorse or even like acknowledging like you have all these people that are like and him also being like you were blackout drunk.
	Like, at any point, he could have just admitted his, like, cognitive recollection impairment.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Or I remember it differently.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Because you're a very drunk person.
	No shit.
	Right.
	And it's interesting in the way they outline it.
	Maybe a little disheartening in that, like, yeah, there's no there was no one in the room that can tell you definitively for sure what happened.
	So, um.
	That doesn't mean it didn't, and the way that he handled it, I'd say.
	I mean, I don't know what y'all got from it in the UK, so I don't know how...
	I was paying quite a lot of attention to the coverage, so I can't speak as to other UK listeners, but yeah, I remember the whole thing pretty vividly, and thought from the start, hey, this guy shouldn't be on the Supreme Court, should he?
	That doesn't seem like the best idea, but here we are.
	Sounds like a really interesting book, though.
	Yeah, it was interesting.
	And also it's just like, acting like it's this, this major injury, like just to not put this particular human in a position of moral authority.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I think that's a reasonable position to take.
	Like, not saying you can't ever have a job.
	I don't, you know, but like, Maybe everybody needs to be aware that there's a dark side.
	Like, I don't know.
	If there's like a very dark side that's like super hidden, maybe he's skeptical.
	Maybe he's skeptical of that person.
	I don't think that someone who lies to Congress should be on the Supreme Court.
	I just, that's a, that's a personal thing of mine, but you know, me.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I think the distance of time, I think, was an argument.
	And sure.
	But how you handle it in the moment.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	You know?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I feel is the thing that is really vital to That's the thing that speaks to your- or just like he could have just at any point, and I think this got lost in the coverage, but also that what- okay, why this is relevant because it was- I avoided listening to it for a little while because I was like, I'm not gonna go backwards and because like I already remember the whole thing and I don't- I'm not gonna like rehash this, but
	It speaks to so much to where we are and I feel like all the Supreme Court decisions that came through this week.
	There's a portion of the book where they explain like he felt like and he was supported to and kind of encouraged to go Trump and just like freak out and completely deny.
	When, like, a reasonable person could have just said, you know what?
	That I had a substance abuse tendency, and I can't tell you definitively if I remember this or not.
	Because that's what all of his friends and the guy that wrote a whole ass book about their youth were saying, is like, I can't tell you definitively.
	He shut down anyone else's experiences but his when he was the famously blackout guy.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Who's not gonna have a great memory.
	Yeah.
	Yeah because like you can like or just acknowledge like your experience is different but that was like this was this environment there was this environment around him to like because everyone also was saying that knew him and was around him was like this is not the person I know.
	I feel like if that person was not in him anywhere it never would have come out.
	Regardless of your circumstances, your character and integrity should be the thing that is consistent and you shouldn't be letting how other people behave dictate your behavior.
	If you're gonna put yourself in a position of moral authority, I feel.
	Uh and I think it and they're very like you know like if it was a different time then you could say like well you know like you could kind of admit any wrongdoing but he just decided instead to go like full Trump and now we're here like now the connection's very clear to me.
	He's part of what is supposed to be the highest moral authority in the land um which great just great.
	No, he is.
	Yeah, he is there and he's in that position.
	And yeah, I don't know.
	I think that how you handle yourself matters.
	And also, The fact that the Trump approach, the Trumpism approach, worked.
	Like, every single one of these are steps that we've been watching leading to this moment.
	Anyone who's surprised, where have you been?
	But also welcome.
	Like, this shouldn't be a surprise to anybody.
	Because the groundwork has been laid.
	At least I can connect and I can see the groundwork that's being laid to get this guy in a position of power that is very consequential now.
	Yep.
	And will be for a long time.
	Yeah, it's fucking tough.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	But it is still really interesting, and it's a snapshot that is, I don't know, I think less messy, which was also kind of, I appreciated that, you know?
	Anyway, right, so what's your good thing?
	My good thing this week, I'm going to show off some nerd credentials, I went to visit a buddy of mine in Leeds, which whole other story about a six hour train journey there and seven and a half hour train journey back.
	That should have been half that time because the rail system in this country is fucked.
	But that's a whole other story.
	That's easy to access, let me tell you.
	Also very expensive.
	Very expensive in combination with being terrible.
	But anyway, went to Leeds to see a friend and that was great.
	Had a lovely time.
	Went to a board game cafe and had a great time there.
	Ended up eventually playing Magic the Gathering over the course of the weekend, which I hadn't played in years.
	I was like, ah, this is fun.
	This is, this is great.
	Was playing in a format that I didn't know very well.
	Commander format for the magic nerds out there.
	I'm used to standard or modern.
	Um, and I was playing with a deck that I didn't know or any of that.
	And I was like, oh, this is going to go badly.
	Supposed to be the worst deck out of the two that were kind of on the table as well.
	I was like, all right, well, we'll see.
	And I kicked some ass and it was great.
	And, uh, yeah, that was, that was just really fun to kind of, um, To kind of pick up an old game, you know with with a friend.
	and it's like, ah, this is nice.
	I haven't done this in a long time.
	Felt a bit of nostalgia coming on.
	Nerd cred's an interesting way to say that.
	All right.
	(laughing)
	Interesting.
	More power, hey.
	Thank you, thank you, yes.
	I'm protecting my ego and that of those I love.
	(laughing)
	Dear, oh dear.
	Now, we have a show to get to, but first we need to thank some new patrons.
	So first, Chelsea Johnson, you are now an awakening wonder.
	You are indeed an awakening wonder.
	Thank you Chelsea.
	Thank you so much.
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	It is this which allows us to be editorially independent and ad-free.
	As a patron, you'll also get a shout-out on the show and access to our patron-only aftershow, Off-Brand.
	This week, we took a look at the leaders' debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer.
	The final debate just prior to the UK general election, which is being held today in the UK.
	I, myself, am voting Plaid Cymru.
	But if you're in the UK, if you're a UK listener, regardless of who you're voting for, please go out there and vote.
	It's the only way this whole thing works.
	Though, actually, if you're considering voting Conservative or Reform, Maybe stay home, take a nap.
	I don't know how you ended up listening to this show, but anyway.
	You know what?
	I'm glad you're here.
	Not sure how you're going to take it, but I'm glad you're here.
	here and yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, us listeners. I encourage you to check out. I just want
	you should it's gonna be depressing, but you should check out what not American politics
	looks like.
	Brace yourself!
	But definitely, it is more illuminating than you could possibly imagine.
	The concept is still less extreme than the reality as far as a comparative tool.
	And I think that it's very valuable to understand, like, it helps you see what could be possible in, like, what's normal political discourse, which I know saying that is also insane, but like, yeah, you know, yeah, it is also is also kind of fucked, but but way less.
	So yeah, it's yeah.
	Yeah, possibly a bleak look for American listeners, but enlightening, I hope.
	Yes.
	Yes, right.
	Yeah, and there are some bleak moments in the debate that we cover in the Off-Brand as well, but also some pretty funny moments, and that was a full three hours as well.
	So head to patreon.com slash onbrand to check that out, everybody.
	And please note that while you can easily listen to our audio version anywhere you can find podcasts, you can also watch us on YouTube, or if you listen in the Spotify app, the video will come up there too.
	Also, important announcement.
	We are doing our monthly live stream next Sunday, July 14th at 2pm CST, 8pm GMT.
	It'll be up on the YouTube and anyone can join.
	So come and hang out with us.
	And the recording will be available for patrons after the fact as well.
	Super looking forward to it.
	It's going to be cool.
	Yes, please.
	Love to see it.
	Yeah.
	So, for the show, this week I actually struggled a little bit with what to cover, which made a nice change.
	We've had Julian Assange freed, which was big news in the alt-right circles, as well as, you know, the Biden-Trump presidential debate, which was a complete disaster.
	Russell actually did a live stream at what would have been 3am here, providing commentary and essentially talking over Biden.
	But it was so bad, like even Russell has said he no longer takes joy in watching Biden stand there slipping ever further into the throes of dementia.
	Even Russell has stopped making jokes about it, and I think if we've gotten to the point where Russell Brand won't take cheap shots at Joe Biden, there's a problem.
	You know, that says a lot.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	In any case, Russell didn't have too much that was interesting to say about the debate, and there's plenty of coverage elsewhere as well, so we won't be tackling it today.
	One thing he covered that is worth mentioning, without necessarily playing the clips because it's really short, is that the College of Pediatricians, a conservative action group who are pro-conversion therapy for the gay community, by the way, made a video about how much they hated trans kids receiving treatment.
	Then in a five-minute editorial, Russell came out in support of this notion, saying, well, can't we all agree on this at least?
	And no, no, we can't fuck off into the sea and stay there.
	But yeah, again, other than the position of get fucked, Russell, there's not a huge amount to talk about there either.
	But it's, yeah, it's one of those little pins in the board that we should at least be aware of.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I think, yeah, I think yesterday, because we, uh, was it yesterday?
	No.
	Today?
	What is today?
	Uh, what is today even?
	Yeah, um, the Biden administration just said their first thing that was not in support of, like, specifically not in support of, like, I couldn't find The article where like, I couldn't find the specific care.
	I think it was, I'm going to say just surgery.
	We know that it's never just surgery.
	But finally, because that was like kind of one of those like bulwarks that I was at least kind of relieved.
	Like, okay, at least the Biden administration hasn't said anything.
	Like overtly, overtly, you know what I mean?
	Like explicitly negative about like, you know, trans care for kids and, or like care for trans kids.
	Said that wrong.
	You know what I mean?
	But I think just did.
	So if this is like how we're all getting nudged to the, to that area, I'm not, I'm boy don't also do that.
	Democrats don't also do that.
	Yeah.
	Gotta love election season.
	Holy shit.
	Oh my god.
	They're trying to lose so hard.
	Yeah.
	They're trying so hard to lose!
	Roll dice for a choice.
	If you got a 50-50, just roll dice.
	You'll have a better record.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Probability is a better- is a better plan.
	I mean, Jesus.
	The choices that they've been making.
	If you had one job and you did the wrong thing over and over and over and over and over.
	Anyway.
	Anyone else would get fired.
	Yep, I'm with you.
	Anyway, yeah, that whole, all of that bleak situation brings us to what we will be covering today.
	And well, there is no guest.
	It's full Russell for over an hour.
	And if you're new here, I apologize.
	This may be a lot.
	Let's get into the first clip, which is Russell introducing the show and airing some of his feelings about Assange being freed.
	And there are some technical issues on Russell's end, so the volume in this one is all over the shop, as well as like the old digital audio glitch, but I'll do my best to try and make it more salvageable for listeners.
	Anyway, here we go.
	Thank you Awakening Wonders.
	Thanks for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
	Sorry for being a little bit late.
	We were just talking about the audio, but Whether or not we are audible, we know that Free Speech has experienced an incredible victory in the last 48 hours.
	Julian Assange is free.
	And I suppose we'll be tackling loads of questions about the freedom of Julian Assange and the deal that was made.
	But there has to be a moment, doesn't there?
	Where we acknowledge that something extraordinary has happened.
	That most of us probably assumed that Julian Assange was going to die in prison because what Julian Assange did was embarrassed and exposed corruption exactly the level that most of us suspect is beyond the reach of democracy and we're going to be exploring that a little bit.
	What you might call the uniparty or there's loads of ways of analyzing it but the sort of sense that There are impermeable powers that we cannot access that in fact control the world and there are so many examples of that that are usually dismissed as conspiracy theory when they bubble up into public consciousness.
	They're also usually wildly anti-Semitic, but okay, Russell.
	Yeah, the alt-right, who like Julian Assange, all have a little bit of a problem.
	See, they've spent several years now whinging about Assange being held in Belmarsh Prison in London, and...
	They're no longer able to whinge about it.
	One of their favorite toys has been taken away from them because the thing that they wanted to happen, happened.
	From Russell's account, it sounds like he thought he'd be able to talk about Assange until he died in prison and then hold him up as a martyr to the cause after his death.
	And if I were Julian Assange and this were one of my most vocal supporters, I'd be a little bit worried.
	You know, that doesn't, that can't feel great.
	That can't feel great.
	Yeah.
	I mean, there's also a lot of support on the left.
	Like, middle to far?
	Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Which is difficult.
	I don't know.
	I mean, what I was really wrestling with is like, yeah, you know what?
	What he did As far as WikiLeaks and what he released.
	Yes, we do need more access to those, to that kind of information.
	We absolutely, we are entitled to it as taxpayers and as citizens.
	We are entitled to that information and it's being kept from us.
	And so the argument that's being made to his merit, I don't necessarily, in this, in a vacuum, you know, right?
	Like that instance, I don't, like the short version?
	Yeah, I get it.
	The long version is very different.
	Now, here's what really threw a wrench in my personal works yesterday, is because what I compare it to, for myself, is the Panama Papers.
	And the project behind the Panama Papers was coordinating this massive effort.
	Journalists all over the world took all this time and did all this work.
	People actually did.
	Die, like there were like, like, I think that's one thing that's very, very frustrating for me.
	I cannot remember the name off the top of my head.
	But there are, there were like dire consequences for, there have been dire consequences for journalists.
	Like journalists in Gaza, over 100 have been killed.
	Like, yeah.
	Julian Assange, you know what?
	Maybe his life was in danger and maybe all this hoopla around his case is what kept him.
	The thing is, we can't prove a negative.
	We'll never know.
	Now, yeah, the Panama Papers, just like the case.
	Went through.
	We can all see it.
	There's a documentary.
	It's very easy to I think it's still on Netflix.
	You can find it to understand the case and how dire this like international money laundering mafia conglomerate nightmare that has act has adversely impacted all of our lives.
	And they just got the they were acquitted.
	So.
	That genuinely fucks up my feeling about it in a really horrible and disappointing way.
	And I love that my partner knows how to break bad news to me when they know I'm working on something else and I haven't seen it.
	I'm very thankful that I got a gentle text about it.
	I got a little T-dubs, you know, like the R version of T-dubs, because also, um, another very, like, accessible, like, if you have access to, you know, any of the HBO stuff, there is a documentary called Q Into the Storm, and there is footage you can see and you can find where Julianne Hassan just, like, Oh, is like on fucking board and actively kind of feeding into the inception and like growth of QAnon that we are not aware of in America.
	Like it's not the news.
	It wasn't news that we're it wasn't on our kind of mainstream legacy media.
	No one talked about it.
	And so where we're at right now, how QAnon Also, a massive force that has adversely affected all of our lives that that legacy media isn't even touching.
	So there's stuff and what I'm also at least a little relieved about that a lot of the coverage I saw of the recent Julian Assange news did mention.
	The rape allegations in Sweden.
	And did mention that.
	That I'm at least relieved that was there prominently.
	Because they are intrinsic to the whole situation occurring from start to finish.
	It is a very important piece of information.
	The way I view Julian Assange is like, yeah, he released some good stuff through WikiLeaks, but also, yeah, did some really shitty stuff as well.
	Doesn't seem great.
	I consider him more or less kind of a host onto himself.
	He will kind of do what is expedient for him in the moment a lot of the time.
	Right, right, right, right.
	Because the Panama Papers thing is like, there's a lot of, like, they took care Journalists, like professional journalists, took care not to also kind of cause the amount of harm without context.
	And so release it, we don't know.
	We don't know, like we'll never be able to understand the extent of the harm that could have been avoided if it was a more responsible handling.
	But at the same time, well, everybody just acquitted, or at least whoever went to trial was acquitted, so.
	Yep, yep.
	I'd love to be surprised, but here we are.
	Anyway, Russell said what Julian Assange did was expose and embarrass corruption at a level beyond the reach of democracy.
	What he actually did was aid Chelsea Manning in hacking into a US government computer to gain access to classified information to be released to WikiLeaks.
	But that's not why he spent all those years hiding.
	He spent years holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy trying to avoid extradition to Sweden for his sex crimes and he claimed asylum.
	Somehow.
	And then he failed to appear in a UK court over this same issue and so his asylum was revoked by the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
	He was arrested by British police and served his very short sentence for failure to appear in court.
	The US then unsealed the 2018 indictment against Assange for the conspiracy to commit computer intrusion charge.
	And so after Assange's UK sentence was up, he spent five years fighting extradition to the US.
	He could have gone over there and faced trial and all that stuff had he wanted to, but nope, he chose to stay at Belmarsh.
	That was his decision.
	It could have gone to trial.
	Russell likes to harp on, there was never a trial!
	There could have been, he just opted not to.
	And then just the other day, President Biden agreed to request from the Australian government to sort out a plea deal for Assange, who has now pleaded guilty for conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, and is free to go as part of the deal because he He already spent two months longer in prison than his expected sentence would have been anyway.
	Right.
	So... Right.
	Alright, fine.
	Right.
	You just did it over here making a fuss about it instead of over there.
	Okay, right.
	Oh, and yeah, it is worth noting as well, yeah, the reason that all of the alt-right got on board with Assange was because he colluded with Russia to release both false and true information about Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US election.
	Prior to that, they fucking hated the guy.
	Yeah, they couldn't stand him.
	And then all of a sudden you got Tucker Carlson being like, what a great guy.
	It was so confusing.
	Yeah.
	What happened?
	But also saying QAnon shit at the same time.
	Like that's like, oh, QAnon stuff.
	Those people like our thing.
	So everybody's like, ooh.
	When our purposes align regardless of the moral implication, well then we're good.
	Then we're on board.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Uh, anyway, Russell chats a bit more about Assange in this next clip.
	To see him and Stella Assange embrace again.
	To see the eerie ghoul of the Guardian's watermark up in the corner.
	One of the legacy media organisations that abandoned Assange after partnering with him.
	For the revelations that in a sense changed reporting and formed a significant moment in the advent of independent media.
	The legacy media had to form relationships with WikiLeaks and Assange because he had access to information and means of conveying information that were way advanced of what they were capable of.
	Subsequently, of course, when the establishment came for Julian Assange, when Mike Pompeo said we should kill him, Mike Pompeo, head of the CIA, when Hillary Clinton said, hey, maybe we should drone this guy or can't we drone this guy?
	The Guardian, The New York Times, The Spiegel, Figaro, all those organizations that were happy to use Assange's reporting abandoned him.
	Is Mike Pompey the plaster cast that's curled up in a ball in Greece?
	Is that who we're talking about?
	Yeah, that's Mike Pompey.
	He said we should kill Julian Assange.
	I'm trying not to get hung up on that.
	But he also said it a couple times, so it wasn't just like a misspink.
	That's really funny.
	He does correct himself later on, but yeah, it is quite fun.
	Yeah, so the legacy media abandoned Julia Assange.
	Weird how the media doesn't stand by sex criminals after they've been outed.
	You just need to do it quietly and then they're fine with you.
	Anyway, the Hillary Clinton claim that he just made is fun, because supposedly, according to conservative news site True Pundit, which cited anonymous State Department sources, Hillary Clinton said in a meeting in 2010 discussing Assange, can't we just drone this guy?
	Which, to me, reads as a joke.
	You know, because even Hillary Clinton, I mean, you know, evil, but also not stupid.
	Yeah, but also like, who's gonna fail the roast challenge because the jokes aren't funny?
	Hilary Clinton.
	Yeah, it's true.
	Bad joke.
	Yeah, she denies ever having said it, but it's believable.
	However, on the Mike Pompeo claim, sorry, the Mike Pompeo claim, that supposedly Pompeo said the US should kill Assange, well, there's no actual evidence for that.
	It's something that was asserted by Tucker Carlson on his show.
	And what it was covering for is a little bit more revealing, because after a big CIA-related leak on Wikileaks, one foreign senior counterintelligence official told journalists in the UK of a spring 2017 meeting in which former President Donald Trump, because 2017, right, asked whether the CIA could assassinate Assange and provide him options for how to do so.
	Um, sources speaking to Yahoo News called the plans unhinged and ridiculous, and it was unclear how serious they were with one saying it was just Trump being Trump.
	Um, so essentially, Trump wanted to kill Assange.
	Um, but rather than put their god-king in the wrong, Tucker pivoted and blamed then-director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, instead.
	Um, hmm, okay.
	Did Frank Herculaneum have anything to say about it?
	Did he speak up?
	Mike Pompeo is a whole ass thing though, for real.
	Everyone should know his name.
	He is his own creature that occasionally will say rational things in public and we were like, meh.
	No, he's his own ghoul.
	Listen, ghoul has entered the chat.
	Let me tell you about a ghoul.
	Fucking Mike Pompeo.
	So the ghoul comment for listeners, Russell was playing a video of Julian Assange that we've all seen, you know, like being freed and hugging family and whatever.
	And just the Guardian has a watermark on the video that they posted.
	That is like a video that is A happy moment for this person.
	It's not, like, sinister or evil.
	There's no, like, overtone.
	It's just the guardian.
	Ghoulish watermark!
	Watermark.
	That's just so, that's why I said oh girl.
	It's like so extra.
	Like, that's too much.
	If you don't like it, don't use it.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And as for, um, Gizzard is available elsewhere.
	Right.
	As for Mike Pompeo, I mean, any director of the CIA, I think, just, just, just automatically treat as sus and work your way from there.
	Oh, absolutely.
	Well, yeah.
	I mean, but he also, yeah, he's, uh, yeah.
	He's worse.
	He's worse than a lot of them.
	It's not so much worse.
	There's a very specific, like, boy, I can't.
	I can't.
	We don't have... There isn't the time.
	This could be an entire off-brand.
	Honestly, this might be an off-brand.
	We might have an entire off-brand because... And it's one of these things that I just don't ever hear anyone reckoning with because it's the pre-CIA thing.
	Like, why was he allowed anywhere near government?
	At all, is an issue.
	I have that feeling about a lot of people.
	Oh, sure.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	But yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I think we'll have to get into Pompeii another time because there's a legion of stuff there.
	Coming for you, Mike Pompeii.
	Mike Pompeii.
	Anyway, so Assange's freedom has led to a new round of conspiracy theories and Russell's audience, well, they're not convinced.
	A lot of people are obviously saying, it's not the real Julian Assange.
	I think it is the real Julian Assange.
	We can't be so enmeshed in conspiracy theory and cynicism that we're unable to enjoy even a brief victory in a grim world.
	It's not the real Assange.
	It's a fake.
	Okay, baby.
	He called you dumb, but he's doing you a favor.
	So he wasn't mean, that was a gentle nudge to let you know you're out of pocket.
	It's like, nah, nah, that's not, yeah.
	Maybe.
	It's not the real one.
	We're not playing that game here.
	You gotta couch, you gotta layer, you gotta obfuscate.
	We aren't doing that.
	That's silly.
	That joke that I've made about Joe Biden a lot lately is like, well, if this I'm buying the conspiracy theory that they're all clones, because this speaks more to what clone technology would actually look like and how fucked up and shitty it would be.
	Like, this clone is broken, you gotta replace it.
	Or this is proof that they're not clones, because they would have replaced him!
	By now.
	Yeah, you would think.
	You would think.
	Oh dear.
	Yeah, one thing I do enjoy about this show specifically is that because Russell has no one to talk to he ends up chatting with the audience on his locals channel a little bit more and we do get a few gems today which is fun.
	I'm into that.
	I'm here for this.
	Now, the reason I wanted to cover this show that we are looking at today is that we finally get to Russell's perspective on the UK general election.
	You know, the country where he and I live.
	It only took him five weeks, but he got there out of our six-week election period, by the way, to finally weigh in.
	You spoiled brat.
	I swear to God.
	I love it.
	OK, but also another plug for our live stream is I got some awesome recs as far as like just what to listen to to add into my, you know, I say add in.
	I kind of pay a lot more attention than I had time for, but whatever.
	I found out that I can talk to the computer and you guys talk back to me.
	It's very exciting.
	Um, man.
	Yeah.
	Uh, hearing the UK take on the election is like, Oh, six weeks.
	God, it's been so long.
	We're so glad it's over this.
	Oh, I think they've run out of steam.
	Like you, like, I appreciate you.
	You're great.
	I love it.
	UK killing it also spoiled.
	Bratz.
	Oh my god.
	Also, shut up.
	Yeah.
	You do not know the pain.
	Listen, the thing is, your feelings are valid.
	I just have that reaction of being honest about it.
	Yeah, that's fair.
	That is fair.
	We don't have to suffer anywhere near as much.
	I think that's the general consensus, really, of the differences in our two countries.
	What are we doing?
	What are we doing?
	But the analysis even of our stuff is great.
	It's a great perspective and I appreciate it so much.
	I appreciate the sharing and the talking back to me and telling me things.
	Yes, yeah it's good, it's great.
	So we finally get to hear his perspective on the election and prior to this here broadcast he had put out three editorials in support of none other than Nigel Farage, which unsurprising but hilarious because the two of them were once Well, the two of them were once sworn enemies, right?
	He called Nigel Farage a pound shop Enoch Powell, which, accurate.
	But Russell's audience, they've spent about five weeks on local saying, hey, talk about Nigel Farage, he's doing some great stuff.
	So I'm like, ah, yeah, you are a slave to the whims.
	That's definitely a little bit of what's occurring there.
	Yeah, so he's kind of, he's not said like, I really support Nigel Farage, but everything Nigel Farage says he's on board with.
	Okay, that's enough.
	So today we get his perspective on Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, but first a little bit more support of Nigel Farage.
	Nigel Farage is a populist leader in our country.
	Maybe he could be regarded as Britain's Donald Trump.
	That's one sort of perhaps reductive way of looking at Nigel Farage.
	He recently said in an interview with the BBC that NATO had to bear some responsibility for their actions and indeed Western powers had to acknowledge their
	culpability when it came to provoking Russia into their invasion of Ukraine.
	Now many of you will be familiar with the work of Jeffrey Sachs or John Mearsheimer
	or actual history and will know that in this matter at least Nigel Farage is simply telling
	That's why it's fascinating to see Rishi Sunak, financier, globalist stooge, current prime minister, and Keir Starmer, member of the establishment, former head of the Crown Prosecution Service, potential persecutor of Julian Assange, singing from the exact same song sheet.
	Essentially a double act.
	Being asked to choose between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer in a general election is like choosing between Morecambe and Wise or Abbott and Costello.
	You might have a favourite particular member of a double act, but what do you think the meaningful difference is between two establishment stooges that parrot the talking points of the globalist elites whenever they're questioned or inquired of?
	One would say perhaps the fanfare and excitement of a general election and the fervour of pundits is all coming to waste if what you're invited to vote for is one of two sock puppets representatives of the same uni-party.
	Yeah, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are a regular Belushi and Aykroyd, those two.
	A real Fry and Laurie combo.
	Um, yeah, Jesus Web Trust.
	Both main parties are the same.
	There, I shortened that ever-expanding sentence for him, but that's also a false equivalence.
	I'm no fan of the current iteration of the Labour Party, but they are demonstrably better than the Tories who've driven the country off the cliff over the last 14 years.
	And we will get to some of those Key differences a little bit later.
	I think Lauren's apartment is exploding.
	What's happened?
	You okay?
	Still alive?
	Yeah!
	Okay!
	We'll carry on I guess.
	If another one happens?
	If another weird explosion I kind of felt a little bit happens?
	Then that'll be our answer as to whether or not it's an emergency.
	Yeah, but to the broader point, Nigel Farage has consistently said, oh, it's NATO's fault that Russia invaded Ukraine.
	If you poke the Russian bear, don't be surprised if he reacts, he said.
	Right, which, I mean, these people just love making as many excuses as possible for Putin.
	But Farage has been doing it since at least 2014.
	Like, he got on that tip quite early.
	It does make you wonder where his allegiances kind of lie, and the alt-right mediasphere are loving it because they want Russia to win and take over Ukraine.
	I will say it again, there's no excuse for invading and taking over a sovereign country, which is what Putin is trying to do because he's claiming that historically Ukraine is part of Russia and therefore belongs to him.
	Oh dear.
	And Farage is all on board with that.
	Great.
	Now, we see a clip of Rishi Sunak talking about Farage and Putin.
	Look at both Keir Starmer, next Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, current Prime Minister, not only condemning Nigel Farage, but denying the idea that Putin was provoked.
	Look at this.
	You should be alarmed by this.
	It should reveal something to you.
	It should show you... Be scared.
	You might be excited about getting rid of one government, but if you get rid of a government in order to simply replace them with a set of principles, ideas, virtues, edicts, and interests that are, broadly speaking, identical, you're wasting your time.
	And the whole system is a waste of time.
	And we will provide further examples of why optimism and starmageddon do not belong in the same sentence.
	What he said was completely wrong and only plays into Putin's hands.
	This is a man... It's played into Putin's hands!
	Putin will be loving this!
	Okay, what's happening today?
	Well, Nigel Farage has pointed out that NATO expansionism has provoked us.
	Yes!
	That goes right into my hands!
	And now to poison some people on the streets of Britain!
	Right, the KGB maybe did kill someone in Britain, but as Donald Trump once said, do you think our deep state agents don't get involved with stuff like that?
	Think there ain't CIA bases in Ukraine?
	Think British special forces aren't involved in blowing up bridges in Crimea?
	Two wrongs don't make a right.
	Any number of wrongs don't make a right.
	Very different wartime situations, but also what?
	That's supposed to make it okay?
	It's whataboutism to an extreme degree, because yeah, he's arguing that because intelligence services around the world get up to shady shit, Russia are completely fine to poison people using Novichok nerve agents in the UK.
	The intended target, former Russian military officer and MI5 double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were both poisoned while in Salisbury.
	And my favorite part of the story, that would be funny if it weren't so tragic, is two British nationals also got poisoned because a guy found a perfume bottle, later discovered to contain the nerve agent, In a litter bin, in a rubbish bin, trash can, right?
	Somewhere in Salisbury.
	Gave it to his girlfriend, who then sprayed it on her wrist.
	Which would be hilarious had she not fallen ill within 15 minutes and died.
	Oh, man.
	Yeah, I know.
	Listen, as a proud dumpster diver, these are the stories that really bum me out.
	We don't need that.
	Be careful.
	The guy who gave it as a gift survived.
	He was hospitalized.
	You mean he gets to live with it forever.
	Yeah, right.
	Through no fault of their own.
	Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
	Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
	Great.
	Good.
	That whole sequence of events is totally fine, according to Russell, I guess.
	Just very curious moral compass on this one.
	Well, that's a very common distraction.
	That particular whataboutism is intended to be a thought-stopping statement, and just don't let it... Everybody, don't let it stop your thoughts!
	Because it's not an answer, it's a deflection.
	No.
	Not an answer.
	It just inevitably leads to there being more bad.
	That's all that's ever going to come from that.
	Yeah.
	It obfuscates the situation.
	Yeah.
	For anyone that wants to actually understand it.
	And makes all of these bad things acceptable because like, oh, well, if they're doing it, then we can do it and it's fine.
	We can just not want any of that.
	We can just not want any spy poisonings.
	I feel like that's a good position to take.
	That's my, that's my, you know what?
	That's a hill I'll die on.
	Yeah, I think we can call that the official pod position.
	Will die and might if I grab the wrong perfume bottle off a trash can, I guess.
	I don't know.
	Man, oh man.
	That's rough, dude.
	I don't like that at all.
	Now we get to Kirstama.
	Should there be fanfare and excitement about him?
	Woohoo!
	We got rid of the Tories to do something barely different at all.
	Indistinguishable.
	Let's celebrate.
	Let's celebrate the tiny gap between these two stooges.
	...about Russia and Ukraine are disgraceful.
	I've always been clear that Putin bears responsibility, sole responsibility, for the Russian aggression in Ukraine.
	And I think anybody who wants to stand to be a representative in our parliament should be really clear that whether it's Russian aggression on the battlefield or online...
	Online?
	Online aggression?
	I can understand concern about Russia's actual invasion of Ukraine, which must be terrifying for the poor Ukrainian people who are being played like pawns like the rest of us in this globalist endeavour.
	But what, you're worried about bots now?
	When we know that our nations are just as guilty of that same kind of insurrectionist, insidious activity in China, in the Philippines, and presumably in Russia.
	That's just standard fare.
	You can't condemn them for that.
	And if you can't take a little bit of abuse on the internet, well, bloody hell, don't start looking at my XFeed, baby.
	I can confirm his Twitter feed is frequently a disaster.
	But yeah, according to Russell, it's also totally fine for Russia to have gotten involved in both the Brexit campaign and our elections in recent years, using bots to invade social media and make targeted ads in support of right-wing causes, which have supposedly had drastic effects on UK democracy.
	I am beginning to wonder what wouldn't be fine for Putin to do, you know?
	Like, where's the line if there is one?
	Poisonings are okay, bots and that kind of thing, you know?
	What's the thing that does it?
	You know, I don't necessarily hear totally fine because he does agree that like it's bad, Um I or like well okay pays lip service but also this is all lip service so I think we just need to look at like read between what he's actually saying here is like I think that
	It's not so much that he's saying, oh, it's totally fine, so don't even bother with it.
	He's using this information as a prop.
	He's not actually acknowledging the harm.
	That's what's tough.
	You don't need to believe in harm reduction or address the reality and pertinence of harm reduction if the harm isn't worth you paying attention to in the first place.
	Or like this is the this is what he does.
	He just he pretends that there's a better world somewhere else that somebody else will take care of.
	And so he doesn't have to think about the reality of what's happening right now.
	Like that's.
	Yeah.
	And I because they're there.
	This is a this is legitimately like as far as like Ukraine goes right.
	Like what's and what's Russia is doing.
	It is complicated.
	And it does go way back.
	But what he's saying, again, it's a thought-stopping statement.
	So you can't necessarily, as an individual, as a listener, you are not encouraged to figure out and learn about what You know, like, what led up to these events and what will actually stop the inhumanity, right?
	Like, stop the damage that is still happening on the ground.
	It's just about, like, he just wants to be sensational and say, well, the US does it too.
	And doesn't even say, so that makes it okay.
	That's what I'm saying.
	He's not saying, oh, well, the U.S.
	does it too, so that makes it okay.
	He's just saying, oh, the U.S.
	does it too, end of thought.
	Let's just keep paying attention to the problem, not understanding that there has to be human rights informed diplomatic choices and accountability.
	Like that's that's the issue is this is like no no no major powers are accountable because they set up a system to where they don't have to be accountable.
	So we just we need everybody to like it's there's no good guys here.
	There genuinely is not.
	It's almost as though there are better things for Russell to be talking about on this show.
	More pertinent ways to actually mobilize your audience.
	To address the problems.
	Not just fearmonger, right?
	Because it's not unreasonable, and I heard it framed this way, and I think it was really useful to understand, and this is not like, this isn't the beginning, this is just the step, as far as like, if you understand the argument that Putin's actually like, put forth, regardless of, listen, regardless of making a point in good faith or bad faith.
	If we think about as Americans, right?
	You think about like, okay, so if Russia lined up a bunch of like Iron Dome style, like, um, weapons and missile systems on right on the edge of Texas, but on the Mexico side and was pointing all those things at Texas.
	Texas would have a really great excuse to be like, that's not good.
	We're going to retaliate.
	That's like, as a point of view.
	The thing is, like again, no one's right.
	But as far as like, you can address the actual argument being made, and then negotiations can start.
	But if both sides can't even be honest, or aren't willing to, or there is no accountability structure that is forcing them to be honest, First, you can't negotiate from false premises.
	You have to negotiate from a realistic point of view.
	Especially all these fucking talks that are just leaving one half, usually leaving out Russia, and just treating Russia like a rabid dog, not A sovereign nation that is making choices as a sovereign nation regardless of how you feel about the choices being honest about the situation on the ground is how you start like that's the the systems in place that allow a lack of accountability can get us here so being able to at least
	Talk about the reality.
	Like, everybody has to exist in the same reality to be able to negotiate.
	And if there is no shared reality, there is no negotiation.
	And this, listen, we are all living in this, like, shattered reality.
	This is what happens.
	This is the, like, end result.
	And it can get a lot worse.
	We think that it can't, but it can.
	So, just understanding Sides.
	Acknowledging sides.
	Keeping everybody honest.
	If the major powers are allowed to make up their own stance and reality, there's never going to be a negotiation because it is a quagmire.
	It's not getting fixed.
	This is so like you have to deal with the reality on the ground.
	There is not going to be like this is going to be a long, ugly, destructive quagmire again.
	And like if there's any interest towards like reducing the loss of human suffering.
	Everybody needs to be honest at the table.
	And I don't think that the U.S.
	is particularly honest either.
	And I'm not saying that as a what about.
	I'm saying that we need to insist on accountability for anything to get fixed.
	And it's at the highest levels.
	Eventually.
	I mean, like, the people that are paying for everything should probably start bitching louder.
	Like, because we're paying for all of this!
	We're paying for all this brinksmanship!
	Yeah, yeah, I...
	I don't know what the answer is because that's that's part of the broader thesis of this show is how do you get everyone into back into a shared reality again how do you how do you make that you know how do you make consensus reality exist in on a broader spectrum again right you know how do you how do you Yeah, it's a tough one.
	And as for Putin, I don't know.
	I don't know the answer to that one either.
	I'm definitely not the right person to be bringing that to the table.
	But yeah, it's a whole mess of concerns.
	And if America had any morally correct leg to stand on, At all.
	Like that's that's how first of all like that's genuinely how you do it is you stop also doing nightmarish colonial like imperialist projects.
	The UK don't exactly have much to say on that story.
	that's bad. Like and that's that we're not even there. The UK don't exactly have much to say on
	that story. So yeah yeah yeah oh dear. That's what I'm saying. That's it's that's but he's
	part of the problem that's why he's part of the problem. He's just fear-mongering.
	Yeah, and it's further cementing those different realities.
	Exactly.
	Now Russell has a couple of conspiracies to spin about Keir Starmer, but this is the big one, which is also topical.
	So the reason it's important to look at a figure like Keir Starmer is not because I think he's evil, but actually the opposite.
	I think he's kind of neutral and potentially simply a tool of the very same kind of establishment that puts figures like Rishi Sunak into positions of power.
	So let's have a look at this story and look at Keir Starmer's connection to Julian Assange and the United States of America.
	Fascinating.
	The Crown Prosecution Service, England and Wales' public prosecutor, has deleted all records of its former head Keir Starmer's trips to the US, it can be revealed.
	This will be their statement.
	It's perfectly normal standard practice to delete all of that.
	It's just standard practice that we've deleted all of that.
	It's standard practice to survey people online.
	It's standard practice to deem, amplify and censor true information online.
	It's standard practice to control you.
	It's standard practice to move towards authoritarianism.
	It's standard practice to hold elections that don't mean anything, where you can choose anyone as long As long as it's these two people that we already control and these two institutions that are already corrupted by their finance models.
	It's standard practice.
	Well, have you considered that maybe we need new standards?
	Yes!
	That's exactly what we're considering right now.
	Uh, yeah, you can really tell that he's on his own for this show because, boy, do these little rants come thick and fast.
	Okay, okay.
	There was a block of text from a report on the screen while he was saying all that useless shit.
	Yes.
	And then it went away?
	The block of text comes back.
	At some point it goes full screen.
	Like I said, we're having some tech problems.
	There are issues.
	The live stream that he did, like the first half an hour, they couldn't get it to work, so they just had to not.
	Sure, sure.
	There are problems.
	There are problems.
	Still, I think the point should be made that he's just very cavalier with all of our time and attention.
	And it's fucking infuriating, because all the time that he spent saying that shit, he could have just read the thing.
	Yeah, he could have been conveying some useful information.
	And also, where's that same analysis of the US election?
	Or is Trump somehow the exception to all those assertions about elections being meaningless and everyone being controlled?
	Is that what's happening there?
	That's funny!
	That's funny.
	Interesting.
	Anyway, this article that Russell is, well was reading, is from Declassified UK, which does appear to have some relatively sensible reporting regarding the UK government getting up to shady shit, as well as a lot of reporting on Israel's ties and funding to the UK government.
	Russell is cherry-picking elements of this article to make the coverage a little bit less sane than it is.
	But to answer his question, yes, the Crown Prosecution Service, which Keir Starmer was once head of, told Declassified that information held has been destroyed in line with retention schedules.
	So, yes, it is in fact standard practice, which, honestly, I'm not thrilled about.
	You know, that's the kind of stuff that should probably be retained forever just in case, you know.
	The head of CPS going off and having meetings in the States.
	I'm like, maybe we should keep a record of that forever.
	That sounds like a bad rule.
	Yeah, it does, doesn't it?
	It does.
	And for those not in the know, the Crown Prosecution Service prosecutes criminal cases that have been investigated by the police and other investigative bodies, right?
	It's the state body for prosecuting criminal cases.
	Russell likes to assert that the role of Director of Public Prosecutions, which was Keir Starmer's role, is the same as that of a US Attorney General, and no it isn't.
	Not least of all because we have an Attorney General in the UK as well!
	The DPP is a couple of ranks below the Attorney General, being the third highest ranking prosecutor in England and Wales, which Keir Starmer was until 2013.
	So the argument could be made it's like a it's like someone in the Attorney General's office?
	I don't think there's really a US equivalent to the role, I don't think.
	Just because of the way your system's set up differently, because you've got all the states and everything else.
	It'd be like if you had a head federal prosecutor kind of situation, I don't know.
	Maybe there is some kind of thing that's equivalent, but I don't know what it is in that system.
	Anyway, next, in a slight diversion, Russell tells us a little story before the locals chat weighs in again.
	Let's have a look at the next... Oh no, I'm in charge of this, aren't I?
	I'm in charge of this stuff.
	Excuse me, let me... I was wondering who's in charge.
	It's like that empty boat thing, isn't it?
	You know, like if there's a guy asleep in a rowboat on a lake, just drifting in and out of consciousness, and then there's a boat keeps knocking into him and he's getting all infuriated about, why is this boat banging into me?
	Why is this boat banging into me?
	Then he's all infuriated.
	Then he sort of like opens his eyes and looks.
	There's no one in the boat.
	It's an empty vessel.
	All of us really are connected and united on a molecular level.
	Perhaps there are abrasive moments and brushes and bumps between us, but ultimately are we not all children of the same source?
	Are we not all on our journey home?
	Let me know in the chat if you believe in that.
	Or you could use your free speech like Sammy the Soothsayer to say, Biden eats and fucks babies.
	Vote that sicko and Democrats out.
	Save the USA.
	For me, it's all the same.
	It's all the same.
	Biden eats and fucks babies.
	To me, it's all the same.
	That was so weird.
	That was so weird.
	Because he also showed the same article.
	The thing is, is we've listened to two clips now that would easily he could have read what he was showing on the screen.
	He could have easily read.
	I'm compelled at this point.
	It's dry.
	It's now I'm being taunted with information that I want.
	Oh yeah.
	He's on his own.
	He has got to fill this time.
	This is the problem.
	And we get stories about boats that make no sense to what he was talking about.
	Oh dear.
	And yeah, Biden eats and fucks babies.
	Yeah, I can't.
	What do we say?
	What is there to be said about that?
	There's nothing.
	I just, I'm- I bet he doesn't.
	I'm in support of the locals chat being more active in this show because you know what?
	It's entertaining.
	Again!
	Again!
	That's the, it's QAnon, right?
	That's like QAnon, like Adrenochrome.
	Oh yeah.
	Like full on, like that's, that's, we're talking- It's definitely down that road, yeah.
	We're talking max level, like, For sure.
	QAnon Pizzagate, right?
	And obviously he's not, because the argument is that the adrenochrome makes them super strong and powerful.
	If anything, the comment would be, he doesn't anymore, and that's why he's performing this way.
	He doesn't eat enough babies.
	Exactly, yeah.
	He's on a diet.
	We're winning the battle because his supply has been cut off and now we're seeing his- I shouldn't punch up QAnon.
	I'm gonna stop.
	I think my point's made.
	You're helping.
	You're helping far more.
	You're helping them far more than you mean to.
	Yeah, so let's get back to the Keir Starmer conspiracy.
	Conspiracy theory, right?
	Come on, man.
	Yeah, do better.
	Come on.
	Okay, you're not better than this.
	Yeah, he actually reads a little bit more in this clip at least.
	But while there is no longer any official record of what Starmer did on these four trips on the British side, some information has come to light on the U.S.
	side.
	U.S.
	records show that on the 9th of November 2011, the U.S.
	Attorney General Eric Holder met with Starmer at his office at the U.S.
	Department of Justice, the DOJ, for 45 minutes.
	Starmer's CPS was then handling Assange's proposed extradition to Sweden.
	Declassified has previously shown that the UK Home Office deployed eight staff on the secret operation to seize Assange from his asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
	This was a highly irregular move as Ecuador is a friendly country and the asylum is a right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
	Yeah, the asylum was revoked, as mentioned, because Assange violated UK law and he didn't show up in court.
	And the Ecuadorians weren't about to piss off the UK government by refusing to comply with the extradition of someone who had broken UK law in London, no less.
	So that's all that was.
	And as is hopefully nice and clear by now, the conspiracy that DC, UK and Russell more so are trying to spin is that Keir Starmer went to Washington four times while head of the CPS to discuss Julian Assange and what to do about him.
	Firstly, even if that is the case, it's kind of reasonable because one might argue it was Keir Starmer's job to do so.
	I was thinking that exactly, like yeah he probably did.
	Yeah, maybe he came up.
	Maybe he did.
	Maybe he did.
	And also there's a part of this article which Russell leaves out, and I will read it to you now.
	There are lots of parts actually, but this one's relevant.
	Quote, the personnel involved in the Starmer-Holder meeting at the DOJ indicates it had a national security focus.
	It is possible that some of the unspecified actions against WikiLeaks and Assange referenced by Holder the previous year were discussed.
	Possible.
	Starmer was part of a five-person British delegation.
	This included Gary Bolch, then UK liaison prosecutor to the US who dealt with extradition.
	Also present was Patrick Stephens, then head of the International Division at CPS in which he developed and led CPS activities worldwide in support of UK national security.
	Stephen states that at that time he was at the heart of the UK government's national security and international justice strategy.
	And alongside them sat Susan Hemming, then head of counter-terrorism at the CPS, who was in charge of issues related to, among other things, official secrets.
	So, that group, to me, sounds far more like it's going to be meeting regarding national security than, oh, what do we do about this annoying Assange guy?
	Which, let's be honest, could be dealt with in a phone call.
	I'm not sure it requires four in-person meetings with large groups.
	The only reason to have these kinds of meetings in person is usually to get into some pretty classified stuff.
	Not, oh, this guy keeps releasing documents people send to him.
	Also, not for nothing, but while the US were investigating Assange at the time, between 2010, I think it was, to 2013, the broader wisdom was, especially while Obama was in office, until all the Chelsea Manning stuff came to light, that is, Assange had just kind of done a lot of the same stuff that journalists do.
	And so they didn't want to prosecute him because then that would then require prosecuting journalists for doing the same things, which would then be unconstitutional.
	It'd be a whole big mess.
	So they're like, let's not.
	Yeah, let's let's not touch that.
	That's actually really interesting as far as like the phone call versus actually having to come over and visit because they talk about at the end of the Brett Kavanaugh book they just read.
	It's like because Congress apparently and arbitrarily can decide, or like certain Congress people can decide to have to put things in a, oh my God, I can't remember the, quiet secret room where government secrets are.
	Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Right?
	I know the one you mean, yeah, yeah, it came up in all the UFO stuff.
	Yeah.
	Right, right, right, yeah.
	I just, I remembered all of the acronyms that aren't it just now.
	Apologize.
	But they talked about it like, because there is a, in and of itself, if you kind of like, Classify those documents to that degree, and classify that kind of investigation to that degree, then there is an information control in and of itself.
	Especially if America can force the UK people that need the information to not get a phone call, but in fact come over and we can control the information further because of that.
	You know, no cell phones, hour at a time, was like, it's how they limited the subsequent FBI, quote unquote, heavy, heavy, the heaviest lead-filled, quotes, investigation into Brett Kavanaugh.
	Like, they acted like it was the nuclear codes.
	And I'm sorry, it's not.
	That's crazy.
	And so, that kind of, these are the things that I'd like to know From the information that was destroyed.
	The thing is, if we're talking about what the option could be, what we should demand from journalism and from people that give us information, like Russell, or at least the claim to be caring about the news at all, is filing FOIA requests in America, coordinating with other journalists, and I'm hoping, I'm interested, I'd like to know what those destroyed records potentially Had in them why it's okay to destroy them, maybe change that rule.
	That's a proactive step.
	They're doing some research to figure it out, and also like what, yeah, anyway.
	Oh, I was about to just go off, because there's another thing I read just on the screen that is alarming, but that's the thing.
	There are actually very concrete actions that we can demand from our representatives, and steps we can take as citizens to find this stuff out, not just hear Russell Gish Gallop.
	Yeah, yeah, completely fair.
	Yeah, but basically, under any amount of scrutiny, this kind of conspiracy theory does fall a little bit flat.
	And the thing is, even if Keir Starmer did make decisions regarding Assange, that was literally part of his job.
	If that was the case.
	Big whoop.
	If anyone keeps the records to prove the thing you don't you don't have to like you don't have to obfuscate you don't have to be accused of like that's the thing is now the records are destroyed yeah supposedly right the records are destroyed so then there is no like he can't prove that he's right either he can't go either way.
	That's the real story here that's the real story here is that is that CPS are routinely destroying records and I'm like maybe they shouldn't be doing Change that rule!
	Change that rule!
	keep those. Those feel important. Change that rule. Change that rule. Yeah, exactly. Bad rule.
	Next, Russell asks a little bit of a stupid question. The CPS's lack of disclosure of
	documents related to Assange may raise suspicions of a cover-up.
	While Starmer was still in charge in April 2013, the CPS rejected Assange's request for the personal data it had on him because of the live matters still pending.
	I wonder why Assange wasn't given his legal right to access, under the Freedom of Information Act, to those documents.
	Those documents... Do you want a government That's just sort of controlling you and censoring you and surveilling you.
	Is there an opportunity for you in the next election in your nation to vote against that?
	Are there independent candidates that say that you will run your own life?
	The government will be your servant.
	We will end lobbying.
	We will end donations and we will ensure that you have as much power as possible.
	We will pull our countries out of foreign conflicts immediately.
	Let's stop this madness.
	Let's get out of these wars.
	Let's do whatever we can to improve your life, to start supporting infrastructure.
	That's the only function of government.
	You don't come to us for ideology.
	We've proven that we're ideologically bankrupt.
	You go to your God or your lack of God for ideology, and we'll get on with making sure that the trash gets collected on time, that your streets are clean, that your schools are working, that you can get doctor appointments.
	We'll leave you alone and shut the fuck up, which is what we should have done a long time ago.
	Because when it comes to morals, we've got nothing really to offer, have we?
	Again, I would just love to hear this same perspective applied to Donald Trump.
	But no.
	Yeah, in an alternate universe, one could argue that Russell's trying to run for office here.
	I mean, there's a lot of weighing of options.
	So do we go back to that article at all?
	Because the thing after that, that he didn't read, was the thing that stuck out to me the most.
	No, no, it moves on from here.
	So yeah, by all means.
	Well, I mean, I can't, it's not there, but basically there was, um, yeah, there we go.
	Let me read this.
	Is that, is that cool?
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I thought that cause I was like, Oh, he stopped reading.
	So where he stopped reading where the article picks off, picks up.
	Oh my god.
	Come on, brain.
	Okay.
	Even GCHQ, the UK's largest spy agency, had granted Assange's request for the personal information it held on him, which revealed one of its intelligence officers calling the Swedish case a fit-up.
	I'm assuming that's like a stitch-up or like a frame job.
	Yeah.
	That terminology.
	That's the idea.
	Screamed to me, um, as I don't want intelligence officers saying, just like disregarding, uh, essay allegations as a credible essay allegations from all, from what we've covered, um, as a frame job, I would think that Russell and I, like, I, I read that and I was like, Oh no.
	And then I was like, Oh, Russell's going to read that and say, yeah, me too.
	Which, appropriation, don't say me, but you know.
	But he doesn't.
	No, he does come back to it.
	I don't think I cut the clip because he spends a long time on this and just going in and out of rants constantly and then putting it back up on the screen and then taking it down.
	But yeah, he does read that bit.
	But yeah, he doesn't make a broad point of like, this is what happened to me.
	It's weird that he didn't.
	Sure.
	Yeah, kind of.
	Kind of.
	But maybe you would have to also be like, "Yeah, I don't want to agree with...
	Why not?
	I don't want to agree with an intelligence officer."
	I don't know.
	It's weird because I would think that it would bolster his claims of conspiracy against him,
	but also maybe not.
	I don't know.
	But yeah, I'm with you on that.
	Intelligence officers should not be making those decisions.
	Should not be putting those opinions in there.
	Oh dear.
	Or if you do, cite your sources.
	Somebody explain why.
	Is it just bias?
	I think it might just be bias.
	Just a little bit.
	Just a little bit.
	Yeah so anyway this whole thing was was a little bit dumb and we we move on um and Russell so Russell spends a good chunk of time a good five minutes saying how much he loves John Oliver right and knew him back in the day when they were doing comedy gigs in tiny rooms together and all this like yeah they were they were friends and he really really admires and respects John Oliver as a person and a comedian and all this uh before playing John Oliver's piece from last week tonight and here it is Let's have a look at this.
	It's on July 4th!
	Britain has a chance to wash itself clean of 14 miserable years of Conservative rule, and it's a chance it simply must take.
	If I may quote Bill Pullman, yelling about aliens, if we do this, the 4th of July will no longer be known as just an American holiday, but also as the day when Britain looked at the Conservatives, who've driven the entire country into a ditch, and said in one voice, loud and clear, The thing is though, that the Labour Party will remain in that piece.
	I wonder what single policy could be pointed to as an example of how there will be change for ordinary British people.
	I wonder what in particular about Keir Starmer's past or history or vision for the future could be celebrated as bringing about the kind of change that this piece seems to be calling forth, beckoning, celebrating.
	Okay I mean I can actually answer that.
	So they want to close tax loopholes so the ultra-rich pay more in tax.
	They also want to windfall tax the oil and gas companies.
	They want to set up a nationally owned energy company which would bring everyone's energy bills down.
	They want to better fund the NHS and sort out the glaring problem of NHS dentistry in this country and that we just we don't have any.
	They also want to reform the House of Lords removing hereditary peers and introducing a mandatory retirement age in the House of Lords of 80 years old.
	For those in work, they want to ban zero hours contracts.
	I thought that one would get you.
	And introduce rights such as parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal from day one of employment rather than it being between six months and two years.
	Again.
	Like, not a big fan of present-day Labour Party, but they do have some good policies which run directly counter to the Tories, and these policies will very genuinely help the people of the UK.
	At the very least, you know, we've got the Tories trying to actively destroy the fabric of the United Kingdom for profit, and the Labour Party seem not to want to do that, which is something of a change, and, you know, kind of makes the vote a little, you know, it's a clear choice, is what I'm saying.
	So his whole thing of like, No, they're not.
	They're definitely not.
	But that's the thing, is if you're not willing to be honest about, like, the parameters in which harm reduction is appropriate, at least, at least, that's the thing, is like, what he, you know, he said about, it's like, get out of foreign wars, get out of foreign conflicts, is such a, that's, listen, they're simplifying to understand, and I just did that earlier in the episode, and I'm not saying that that's what it was.
	I made a billion qualifying statements that I bet some of you will still ignore.
	Fine!
	Whatever!
	But the point is, like, there's simplifying to be able to explain and have a conversation, and there's oversimplification to have a thought-stopping statement, right?
	So get out of foreign wars!
	That's not, no, that's, there are steps that can be taken, that need to be taken to fix the problem, but We need government that is willing to be able to do it, and if not, we need to be able to withhold their means to do it, which is money and labor or whatever, because you would need to stop the bleeding.
	Like, stop the bleeding first.
	That's the thing is, stop the bleeding first.
	You have to think about it like triage, right?
	And stop making more problems.
	And then second, fix the messes we've already made.
	And also, don't pretend that we're broke all the time, companies, governments.
	We're not fucking broke.
	We see all your money.
	Stop telling us that we're broke and that you're broke and you can't pay for stuff.
	You just don't want to.
	There is a confusion between want to and can.
	And then you can do the stuff.
	We can't pay for better services or anything like that, but we can pay enormous bonuses to the people at the top of this company.
	Hey.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	It's just so like fucking absurd to me that like, And there is something really, like, disheartening to me about, like, fundraising efforts, especially, like, we're looking at Gaza right now, obviously people are very aware, or at least more aware.
	And there's efforts in a lot of other places, like, dumping money into both sides.
	is not the thing that's going, like, obviously it needs to get there on the ground, and obviously we need the money to be able to do that.
	But your tax dollars, and a lot of your, like, revenue, like, portions of your, like, profit, whatever, like, all this money is also, like, there are just two giant money pits.
	Like, there's two money sarlaccs that are just getting filled with money that is taken from us.
	And it's dishonest, I think, to frame either thing as a solution.
	It's just two ways for corporations to burn money and get power.
	I'm sorry about foundations, by the way.
	I'm sorry about charity.
	Even the best rating, it's still not... Unless you are lobbying to get The government, unless you are doing everything in your power to stop the government, get the government to stop the bleeding first, no amount of our donations are going to make a dent, because we do not have the collective resources.
	Because we already have the collective resources.
	It's the government.
	They're ours.
	We need to understand that those are already our things.
	Stopping the bleeding is the most important step to be able to actually fix any of the problems.
	It's the political pressure and everything else not, you know, throwing money at the problem without applying all the rest of it is not going to work.
	Yeah, because just pulling out of like, just having bad foreign policy is just bad foreign policy, like doing nothing.
	Like there's there, I think people don't understand, like doing nothing.
	Like, is also harm.
	Like, ignoring it is also harm.
	So just being like, oh, just leave it.
	Leave it for somebody else's problem.
	Like, no, messes need to be cleaned up.
	Messes were made to be cleaned up.
	Yeah.
	Agreed.
	Agreed.
	The amount of thought stopping statements, because we are listening to Russell talk a lot, are driving me fucking crazy.
	Oh yeah.
	Oh yeah.
	Like I said, thick and fast.
	And speaking of that, we get to Russell's main take on this election, I would say.
	Because I don't see that happening.
	Keir Starmer is Tony Blair without the charisma.
	And Tony Blair without the charisma is just a war criminal.
	So God knows what kind of globalist nightmares may await us if people happily go vote for Keir Starmer saying, well it's not perfect, it's the best we can do.
	The best we can do is what's gotten us in this mess.
	We need to become radical.
	We need to awaken to new possibility.
	We need to look for new alliances.
	Anything that's a vote against the establishment, even if that's not voting at all, is better than supporting the ongoing establishment tyranny in the form of interchangeable bureaucrats.
	Yeah, he just said not voting is the answer again.
	And it's like we've time-travelled back to 2013.
	Keir Starmer is not a war criminal like Tony Blair, in case that needed pointing out to anyone.
	But what I do find most curious about this, that you picked up on, is yet again he's making a lot of effort to completely shit on the left-wing candidate, while just kind of brushing the right-wing candidate to the side.
	There have been plenty of reasons to go after Rishi Sunak over the last five years or so, and certainly the last two since Russell's been doing this show, and he's remained almost completely silent on the guy.
	Keir Starmer, however, he's fucking gunning for.
	Hmm.
	Don't listen to people when they say they're both the same.
	That shit's done.
	At least the internet, have we agreed that that's bullshit?
	Again, doing nothing.
	What did I just say?
	What do you know?
	I might know a thing or two, a bad thing or two.
	Doing nothing.
	Counts as harm when the results of your inaction are... Oh my God, I don't know why.
	This is, okay.
	I don't know why people are allowed to say this.
	Just you not doing something does not mean that you are not making a choice.
	That is also a choice.
	And, like I said, you know, I don't think I've ever had less of a leg to stand on, truly, like, in asking people to vote.
	Imploring people, please vote.
	In America, anyway.
	Because they, like, the Democrats have made it, like, they are actively making that choice Too fraught for me to tell anybody what, genuinely, for me to tell anybody what to do.
	And that's like, that's a, just because our government doesn't have red lines doesn't mean as individuals we shouldn't be allowed to have moral outrage is completely appropriate.
	If anything, I don't have an answer for that.
	But y'all are still in play.
	This is extremely damaging as far as like, Just to have observed this election really puts a fine point on the disenfranchisement I've grown up in.
	So like I said, it's a fucking bummer from over here to see, but please believe.
	Y'all do have agency and it's, listen, it's not a lot, but it's definitely more than we've got.
	And so I would, I, and also it's a much smaller country, so much more manageable.
	I think, what did I tell you?
	I don't know.
	I don't think we said it when I was recording.
	We were talking off mic about it, but like, It feels like compared to, you know, like seeing the UK kind of like political structure compared to just through this election compared to the U.S.
	It's like the U.S.
	is perfectly fine.
	Like as far as like governing this whole giant, unwieldy, like huge, diverse country, especially with the like just technology has run away with like most of our kind of like institutions.
	So there's already a lot of problems, and it feels like, even compared to the UK, the US government is content to trim the lawn with a pair of scissors.
	There's better ways.
	Or, either get a lawnmower, Or a smaller lawn.
	Like that's, those are the two solutions that are very obvious to me because the problem in and of itself is unwieldy.
	And guess what?
	So much of the grass has gotten very tall because we have gotten to it because this one pair of scissors.
	Like Dollar Tree ass fucking shitty scissors.
	Like, so I just, I feel especially I feel especially offended, I think, at Russell actively trying to disenfranchise.
	Because he's doing it here to obviously, like, I mean, that's the thing is he doesn't think he's talking to people in the UK.
	So, because he hasn't talked about the, he hasn't talked about...
	Yeah, he knows better.
	I don't know how many UK listeners he has compared to US, that's for sure.
	I think it's a vanishingly small number and I also at this point don't know how many of them would actually be voting for Labour anyway in this election given that he's veered massively to the right.
	One would assume that a lot more of the people That we'll be listening to his show from the UK seem to be reform people.
	They want Nigel Farage to win.
	So, you know.
	Yeah, if all the sides are the same, we're going to hear the same, you know, rebuttal for like Rishi Sunak and Nigel Farage, right?
	Right?
	Right?
	Nope.
	Nope.
	That never appears.
	That never seems to materialize.
	I'll let you know if he gets to it this week after the election, but I'm going to bet no.
	That's just where I'm at.
	Anyway, in the next clip, Russell gets to what he thinks politicians should be doing.
	And by the sound of it, it kind of amounts to everyone gets everything they want all the time.
	Can you think of a single political leader that's saying, we're going to end the donations, we're going to end the lobbying, we're going to end the corruption, we're going to end the divisiveness culturally, we're going to empower you individually, we're going to do whatever it takes to ensure that your mandates, your referenda, are what we govern by.
	We are your servants.
	We are no longer your leaders.
	We can no longer claim those principles.
	We've made too many mistakes for too long.
	You're in charge now.
	Make your own mistakes.
	If you want no more immigration, you go for it.
	We'll assess the situation down the line.
	If you want no more intervention in foreign wars, you go for it.
	Seems like a good idea.
	If you want no more enrichment of the corporate class, then that's what we'll end.
	If you want an end to financial corruption internationally, and the same sets of interests being able to implement their agenda in various nations through various bureaucracies, we will support your right to do that.
	These centralist political systems exist only to facilitate ongoing globalism and corporatism.
	We know that.
	Anyone that would advance the possibility of another four years of that is on the side of the enemy.
	Strong words there.
	But also, it's five years per term in this country.
	He would know that.
	He would know that if he spent even a microsecond actually engaging with British politics.
	But you know, just the very most basic thing of its five year terms.
	It's very telling.
	Everything for everyone I think is a really good point to make because leadership is inherently about compromise, which means people are going to be upset with you.
	Advertising!
	Oh, you want that?
	You got it.
	You want this?
	You got it.
	You can have the moon!
	Yeah, that's how you sell laundry detergent.
	That's not how you organize and lead anything.
	Regardless of your preference for an organizational structure, there has to be the organization part.
	Like there's gonna have to be negotiations and concessions and ideally, enthusiastic compromise, ideally.
	The thing that he's talking about, like it is both impractical and baby brained,
	because it would require like national referendums every five minutes, as though also any of that
	could somehow be done without special interests on either side trying to sway the electorate
	in one direction or another for profit.
	You know, like what happened with the Brexit referendum.
	Maybe that's the thing that needs to stop.
	Maybe a little bit um so it's like this this idea would just it just would not work practically speaking on so many different levels.
	I really do think he just kind of needs to go back to his I don't know what a thing I'm just asking questions shtick because yeah should kind of shut the fuck up about all this stuff he knows nothing about.
	Yeah well I mean that that's telling is like that's where it's coming from is he wants he's selling laundry detergent.
	Yeah.
	If everyone's getting everything they want, you're getting still dish soap, not a community, like a viable organization of community.
	You're not.
	Yeah, yeah, this week was more meds.
	It didn't go great.
	It was more meds he was selling and Tax Network USA.
	He was selling them as well, which was great.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah.
	I couldn't find, I couldn't find anything specifically nefarious about them.
	They were quite, they're quite difficult because of the name.
	They're quite difficult to, to search properly.
	But, um, But yeah, I think maybe it might be fine.
	I bet it's not.
	I bet it's not.
	I bet it ain't.
	I'm drawing little patterns around the thing.
	I'm going to put little squiggly lines around it just so I look in to eat.
	Hello, sailor.
	Yeah.
	See if you have any more luck than I did.
	I've never heard of that.
	Tax Network USA.
	Normal.
	But it sounds like a lot of other things.
	And we know that that's a real flag.
	It does.
	It does.
	Yes, yeah, you're not wrong.
	Now, after essentially calling John Oliver the enemy, Russell says this.
	This is what we have to rise up against.
	And I say all of that with a great deal of respect for John Oliver as a comedian and a broadcaster.
	Fuck off into the sun, you cunts, fuck pigs and weirdos.
	You tossers, wankers, dick splashes and cock wombles.
	If Britain stands together this July the 4th, it will finally celebrate its Independence Day!
	Well, I don't know about all that.
	You're right, Russell.
	You don't know about jokes.
	Yeah.
	Incisive take.
	Incisive take.
	Oh, dear.
	Yeah.
	It's been so long since we heard the first part of that clip.
	Really weird.
	Also, it's a whole segment.
	There's the whole context of the segment.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I know.
	I know.
	It's insane.
	But yeah, he's really filling time.
	Now, we've got a little palate cleanser clip here because Russell covers a little bit of Hillary Clinton and he finally says something I think we can both agree with.
	Hillary Clinton's got a new book out.
	It's good to see Hillary Rodham Clinton.
	She always uses the middle name when she wants to make a point.
	There she is, staring out at us from inside her skull and bones club that she probably wasn't a member of.
	Bloody sexists.
	They let all the Bushes in and the other Clintons and everybody else, but not Hillary.
	The title of the book, Something Lost, Something Gained.
	One can only assume that that's integrity and money.
	Okay, I kind of like that.
	I always resent it a little bit when he can make me laugh off the cuff, but I enjoyed that.
	I agree with most of what he says, because he knows how to couch his terrible ideas into mostly what I agree with, and that's the thing.
	You can't throw away that 10%.
	That's the point.
	That's her maiden name.
	Do y'all just say middle name when it's in the middle?
	Because there is also- He did say middle name, yes.
	He said middle name, but there's different conventions for what is labeled which name in the UK, so I don't want to- I pointed that out, but I'm not trying to come for him if that's more normal.
	Y'all do the date better.
	No, no, that would be unusual here.
	Okay.
	Yeah, yeah, no, no, no.
	That wouldn't be accepted here either.
	Okay.
	Yeah, yeah, no, no, no.
	That wouldn't be accepted here either.
	He even called it a main name.
	Kind of fucked up.
	But like, as I think about it right now, but like, she's using her hyphenate,
	'cause that's her other last name.
	That's not her middle name.
	It's not Hillary Ann Clinton.
	Like, come on.
	Like, that's weird to point out.
	It's just a weird thing to point out.
	It's weird to point out.
	Yeah.
	Also, what kind of middle name would Rodham be as a choice?
	You know, that would be much more...
	Yeah.
	It'd be interesting.
	Ferlin Husky dog.
	I don't even.
	Ferlin Husky.
	God bless him.
	I listen to some Ferlin Husky.
	I listen to some Ferlin Husky.
	It wasn't bad.
	Not bad stuff.
	Not bad stuff.
	He has a whole highlight.
	If any of it's as even remotely good as his name, work.
	Work, work, work.
	Good for her.
	Good for her indeed.
	Now we move from the UK election as it appears we've come full circle.
	We go to 9-11 Conspiracy Theories.
	Certainly this new revelation has damaged my trust in the establishment which, I'll be honest with you, wasn't that strong anyway.
	So this is the revelation that Saudi Arabia are likely, likely have strong ties to the 9-11 attacks and indeed it is 9-11 victims that want this investigated further.
	In the same way that apparently the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre And as I can't, I never tire of saying they deserve a great deal of sympathy and they deserve a great deal of compensation.
	Surely the same sympathy and compensation is owed to the victims of 9-11.
	Firstly, those two situations, not the same by literally any stretch of the imagination.
	And secondly, someone needs to tell Russell about the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which has awarded more than $12.79 billion in compensation.
	Though there are plenty of arguments it doesn't go far enough, it does exist.
	Anyway, in what must be some kind of miracle, Russell is covering an actual conspiracy that may have some actual legitimacy to it.
	And we can tell because this one is being covered by 60 Minutes and CBS and that's where he's getting his clips from.
	The legacy media are terrible except for when they're useful to the cause.
	Is there a foolish watermark on these videos as well?
	Jesus!
	There is indeed, yes.
	Yeah, the video that's been unsealed that they'll be talking about is from 1999 and it features Omar al-Bayoumi, whom the FBI says was an operative of the Saudi intelligence service with close ties to two of the 9-11 hijackers.
	He's looking around Washington D.C., filming security checkpoints and the like, and appears to be reporting back to someone in the video, referencing The Plan every now and then.
	The video was taken within 90 days of the time when senior Al-Qaeda planners were deciding on 9-11 targets.
	Said Richard Lambert, a retired FBI agent who led the initial 9-11 investigation in San Diego.
	There have, for decades, been questions about Saudi involvement and funding of the 9-11 attacks.
	And this video appears to be another potential piece of evidence pointing in that direction.
	We've never had anything conclusive.
	The US has kind of said, well, no, they didn't.
	The Saudis say, no, no, we didn't.
	But the problem is, The US can't really particularly be trusted to tell the truth about Saudi Arabia a lot of the time.
	Or ever.
	Or ever, specifically the US government.
	And Saudi Arabia can't particularly be trusted to tell the truth either.
	So it leads to a lot of things pointing in that direction, but nothing that's been, let's say, actionable.
	Anyway, let's look at the first clip from it.
	This video, unsealed in federal court this week and obtained by 60 Minutes, was recorded in the summer of 1999.
	The man behind the camera is Omar al-Bayyi.
	Quite nice the way he talks to him.
	Greetings to you, beloved esteemed brothers.
	They've got a nice vernacular, I'll say that for them, and seems like a pretty sweet guy.
	Right up until the point where, needlessly, thousands of people had to be murdered.
	For what?
	And by whom?
	And how?
	I feel like those questions have been pretty definitively answered.
	Yeah, the who, why, and how are all kind of clear.
	Just last week he was saying Osama Bin Laden.
	What is interesting here, of course, is that this actual conspiracy runs slightly at odds with the unfounded conspiracy theory from Lax Blumenthal at the Grey Zone in our first episode that 9-11 was all a CIA operation.
	Unless it was a joint operation between Saudi Arabia and the CIA, which I'm sure will be Max's next article.
	Oh dear.
	Well, I mean, but again, like, this is not how you find this out.
	Like, this isn't how you figure it out.
	There's also been a glimpse, because I'm very interested as to what came, like, what built up to 9-11.
	Sure.
	And I'm interested in the reality Because we could all be really upset about a lot of real stuff.
	And we can be insisting on transparency for a lot of real stuff.
	And again, it goes to diplomacy.
	If the US has any interest at all in coming to the table as an honest, good-faith actor, that's the only way these things will get fixed.
	Or being forced, which is also what a lot of countries are doing, and I think rightfully so, because we've been out of fucking control for decades.
	Yeah, for quite some time.
	Yeah, our hands shouldn't have had to have been forced in the first place.
	Yeah, yeah, I agree.
	Unfortunately, this kind of clip acts as sort of a microcosm of Russell's broader coverage of this subject entirely.
	He just kind of reacts vapidly to the video that's playing, and there's sadly not that much there.
	But there is a little diversion, and I think he's still upset at being called controlled opposition.
	When even if you go a bit off key with a conspiracy theory, remember like people at the beginning of COVID that were going, it's a bioweapon, it's a bioweapon, it's a gene therapy.
	I remember thinking, no, you're going too far now.
	I bet what it is is they've just not done enough research on it.
	But my God, you know, look at what came out.
	And anyway, the sort of mood is correct.
	The point you're taking to, even by Conspiracy theories that are not true is this.
	Don't trust the government.
	They're fucking lying to you.
	Don't trust the media.
	They're amplifying the message of the government.
	Unite, oppose, become disobedient.
	You get that idea.
	What you don't want to get from the conspiracy theories is like, well, there's no point doing anything.
	I'm not going to trust anyone.
	You're a controlled opposition.
	Then you've gone back in a circle to being useless again.
	I think we're having some feelings.
	And for the third time in this episode, if Donald Trump becomes president again, do you think this guy will be saying, don't trust the government, they're fucking lying to you?
	Yeah, also, you know what's absent from all this discussion?
	Corporations.
	Like corporate power.
	Corporations, yeah.
	Corporate power.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Just ignoring this massive force because it's not convenient.
	A force that is arguably bigger than the government's.
	I would argue that.
	Very directly.
	Certainly in terms of financial power.
	As I am.
	Gestures to evidence starting an avalanche that I am then crushed under due to the sheer weight of all the evidence that corporations are in fact Also culprits that need to be controlled and regulated and examined very thoroughly and might be one of the only... like if you're... oh my god, dude!
	It's almost like he doesn't mention corporations because it goes, it runs counter to his bottom line and potentially compromises his ability to make more money and get back into the good graces of a larger media.
	Almost like that's what he blames the media for doing is corporate, he doesn't say it though, globalist.
	He says globalist.
	But yeah, corporate biases are why the legacy media doesn't also point out these same issues.
	It's almost like he's just reacting to the news, not understanding what's going on.
	Yeah, just a little, just a little bit.
	No, no, he does not.
	No, no, not at all.
	And yeah, he's, he's, he's protecting his bottom line.
	He's protecting the bag, you know, the good old big capitalist bag that's somewhere in the distance behind him.
	Yeah.
	You know what?
	I will say the thing that's been very, very fucking cool.
	And I do want to give a shout out.
	I miss them dearly.
	I miss home.
	St.
	Louis.
	So St.
	Louis has a lot of defense contracting.
	And the citizens know it, and the citizens have had to deal with health problems because of it over decades.
	And St.
	Louis Pride, there was this whole effort that was fucking so sick and cool.
	So, basically, there was a group that, as a protest, stopped the Pride parade, got arrested.
	It's a whole thing, because Boeing was one of the sponsors.
	Which, as citizens, we should be upset with Boeing.
	Not it's not just because of the war stuff but like also the worst is bad and they actually stopped the pride parade made a whole protest of it and I'm very I'm I was bursting with pride appropriately pride parade.
	Well, anyway, same word.
	Okay.
	Um, that's not embarrassing at all.
	And, uh, anyway, yeah, it was, it's very cool and it can happen.
	Like that's the thing is there are people that are focused on the corporate structures that are allowing all of this misery, nightmarish misery to be inflicted on us.
	Yeah.
	Listen to them.
	Yeah.
	A hundred percent.
	Definitely over, over this idiot.
	Um, and now, uh, we, we do get a little bit more of the video here before, uh, the locals chat weighs in again.
	Investigators believe the hijackers on flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, had the US Capitol as their likely target.
	The lawyers for the 9-11... Someone in the chat, Jim says, Oswald and Jack Ruby were lovers.
	Everyone's just getting out of their system now.
	Lee Harvey Oswald was bumming Jack Ruby on that grassy knoll?
	How does that help us?
	How does that help us?! !
	I'm not sure it helps us.
	I am wildly more interested in that conspiracy theory compared to most of the ones that come up on this show, like Jack Ruby of course being the man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, but the idea that they were gay lovers is quite frankly the Netflix series we all deserve to see.
	I want it.
	I want it now.
	Yes, please.
	Um, anyway.
	Listen, the Kennedy assassination is such a, like, pillar of our lives that it's as normal to discuss as it is to breathe air.
	So I almost, like, I'm just like, I don't even know.
	If I say anything, I'll say too much.
	So.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	There's plenty to be interested in.
	That is also a silly distraction.
	And it's homophobic.
	So don't do that.
	Also don't do that.
	Yeah.
	Fair.
	Fair.
	Anyway, yet again, Russell has a little bit more to say about Alex Jones.
	Isn't it weird?
	How Alex Jones is, like, attacked in the way that he is when he's the dude... Like, you know, it was mad what he said about Sandy Hook, and he said that wrong.
	But isn't it also mad, if you're thinking about victims' families and protecting the families of victims, that Alex Jones went, oh, the Twin Towers are going to get blown up, and there's some guy called Osama bin Laden, and there'll be links to the Deep State.
	Before it happened, and then during that whole period, Saudis are getting all flown out of the country and stuff.
	Some weird dark shit went on.
	Whatever 9-11 was, it wasn't what they said it was.
	And I remember actually going on UK television and someone goes, do you think 9-11 was out?
	I go, I don't trust the American government.
	Right?
	And I was like, it was like one of those things that you can't say that!
	It was when I was sort of awakening to all this stuff, I suppose.
	Awakening in the old pod.
	Uh-huh.
	Yeah, this was back in 2014 when he said he was open-minded about 9-11 conspiracy theories, particularly that the US government may be responsible for the attacks.
	It would appear not much has changed.
	Anyway, whatever 9-11 was, it wasn't what they said it was, which has got to be the vaguest conspiracy theory in history.
	And yet Russell seems to be making it work.
	As for Alex Jones, yet again, he predicted the obvious thing about the guy who had already bombed the World Trade Center and said out loud several times that he was going to do it again.
	Already did it.
	Yep, and Alex also throws so many predictions out there that at least one might hit at some point, especially with some creative editing.
	So yeah, it's hilarious that he just keeps hitting on this.
	Anyway, we've got one more clip and it's the outro to the show and the locals chat comes in one last time.
	Bring back the tiny hat for Thursday.
	I will be tiny-hatted up to within an inch of my life.
	Stoney says, Waco was my wake-up.
	Yeah, Waco was pretty crazy.
	We should get into that thing.
	Disney, it was this building's seven-court fire if you were struck by debris and the sprinklers were all busted.
	The fire was over there or it would have stayed up.
	I don't know, man.
	I don't know about that.
	Okay, so as far as I can tell at the end there that someone trying to point out that Building 7 had legitimate reasons to come down and wasn't the subject of controlled demolition and Russell disagrees.
	But in other news, Waco was pretty crazy, huh?
	We should get to that!
	Oh god, I'm waiting for the locals exclusive on Waco.
	Oh dear, this is, this is gonna be terrible.
	This is gonna be terrible.
	Dude, even the store, like, man.
	So many.
	Okay.
	We just watched the Netflix.
	Have you seen, have you watched the documentary that's like on the Waco documentary?
	Not the... No, I haven't.
	No, no, no.
	Not the dramatization with like hot Koresh, which, okay, whatever.
	But like, I mean, it's TV.
	What are you going to do?
	But yeah, we just watched the documentary.
	We've kind of been putting it off because we know about this stuff.
	Because like, especially with like the, you know, there's a lot of accessible coverage kind of dissecting the way that like, especially now, the way that the, you know, the alt-right and the and White nationalists and stuff kind of like operated under the just in America in the 90s, right?
	Yeah.
	But we still learned a lot.
	It's, it's extremely beneficial to watch.
	And it's illuminating.
	Like we had listened to a lot of stuff with like, obviously, Mike and I are like, very familiar with the story and very familiar with all this kind of stuff.
	But like, it was still interviews we had never heard.
	And, um, coverage we never heard and it's not cool.
	It's terrible.
	It's awful.
	It's really bad.
	And kind of like the point is, is like, if you, if there are things that you don't care about, like women being people and children, um, not being abused, then you can think Waco was crazy.
	Or that, like, I mean, like, basically, like, Russell's whole everyone gets what they want idea includes situations like the ones they had in Waco where they were, like, producing weapons.
	Very dangerous weapons.
	Yeah, especially, it does kind of marry into his tiny ethnostates philosophy as well.
	You know, tiny theocratic ethnostates.
	I'm like, In that regard, I think he should pay a lot of attention to what happened at Waco.
	He should.
	He really, really should.
	Just a thought that maybe history is important to learn from in that regard, as far as what you're suggesting has already literally gone horribly wrong.
	Several many times over in human history.
	Every single time it's been attempted.
	Yes, it's gone very, very badly.
	I mean, or it just, well, the thing is, it doesn't always go badly.
	I mean, sometimes it just fails.
	Sometimes, like, listen, things like the stories that just like peter out because it's hard.
	We don't hear about those.
	Like there's plenty of like utopian efforts that just kind of fall flat or like you learn something and then you just have like a better town for a while.
	Like there's there's plenty of like Half okay things that have also been attempted.
	We talked about the farm, wasn't it?
	When we were looking at all the cults and stuff ages and ages ago.
	Oh, yeah.
	There's, well, there's a farm, but still it's like, it's, I mean, usually the point being.
	It was a bunch of hippies in a place anyway, but, and that one was kind of fine for a while.
	Kind of fine for a while.
	What I'm saying is like, there are like, we hear the sensational stories about the bad ones.
	It doesn't always have to go bad.
	But if you have to make massive exceptions to just like part of the humans that you are trying to utopiate with having like rights and safety and autonomy.
	then we're not cool with that, that's not okay.
	Yeah.
	And so it's a misunderstanding of that, do with that will, does the whole of the law.
	And I've heard, it's funny, I've heard people who are Christian really come for the satanic temple
	and all that kind of stuff, as far as, oh, do whatever you want.
	No, no, it's also, that's everybody.
	The statement is a guarantee of autonomy.
	It's not one guy gets to do whatever he wants.
	It's everyone is like everyone has their independent autonomy that is respected.
	So yes, yeah, exactly.
	There's a lot of also there's a lot of talk about respecting others as well within the you know that which which is the other side of that that I think is important.
	That would be the issue to promising the laundry detergent version where everyone gets what they want.
	Yeah, yeah.
	How can you accommodate everyone in that scenario when the answer is you cannot?
	With no compromise.
	Right.
	Yes, exactly, exactly.
	Anyway, we've nailed Russell down on his general election feelings, finally.
	It's been a while since we've tackled a Russell-only show, and I think it mostly successfully illustrates why he shouldn't be left to his own devices for very long, you know?
	Yeah, I mean, but also he's like everybody else, like all his followers are listening to him.
	Just because we aren't, I think, I mean, Yeah, did I groan inside immediately when I was like, oh, we're going to do this?
	Right.
	Well, whatever.
	But I mean, like, listen, it's never like pleasant.
	I say it at the beginning of every show.
	It's going to be shitty.
	I'm not going to be that surprised, but it is worth kind of, you know, examining what he's you know, what he's doing on his day to day.
	And I just the amount of misunderstanding.
	That he has that he's perpetuating like that's that's what frustrates me is obviously there is this energy that he can mobilize for like anything good and he's actively like there's an obstinance in a way to me that like he is so it's all obfuscation it's all reactionary.
	He's not, there is no, like, new, good, better idea.
	It's just, this is the news and here's why it's wrong, look over there.
	Like, it's just jingling keys away from the points being made.
	Like, I do hate it, but there's, like, he says things and I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
	We're gonna, oh, we're not talking about that anymore?
	Again?
	Oh, yep.
	Again.
	Okay.
	Again.
	Doesn't seem like a good use of yours or anyone else's time, Russell.
	Pretty much.
	Who's Steve Bannon's in jail now?
	Rush Limbaugh's still dead.
	Phyllis Schlafly's still dead.
	Steve Bannon's in jail.
	Silver linings to every cloud.
	Very little good news to impart for everybody.
	I hope the people he stole money from get their money back or something.
	Genuinely.
	Yeah, fingers crossed.
	It's not nothing.
	It's a very tangible fraud case that he was caught on and lost.
	Don't let nobody tell you different because that's the M.O.
	now.
	It was so badly hidden.
	That was my favorite poem.
	Like, oh, this is just obvious on its face.
	Cool.
	Okay.
	Because he thought he could.
	Yeah, they thought they could get away with it in the era of Trump.
	Yeah, I mean, but also like, I'm saying that in light of all the really terrible judicial news.
	Obviously, I just realized that what I said was like, I'm saying that because yeah is as a reaction to all the bad news i'm sure everybody's already heard and i'm we're in this yeah you have a king now that's that's you you have a king now that's good that's that's um that's fun um anyway
	I mean, we have a king and our king isn't allowed to do whatever he wants, you know, but you have that with yours and that's interesting.
	That's an interesting predicament.
	You know, the thing that I heard that I've seen as far as like the take is that Republicans know that they just handed Biden a loaded gun for the rest of his presidency.
	And they are so confident that he is not, I think the most fair, even like the most fair take that genuinely, like even my like screaming left, you know, like listening habits, right?
	Like my, you know, like where I get my kind of like information analysis from is that Joe Biden is so profoundly not the man for like the person for the moment is not not able to meet the moment.
	And this is the Republicans calling that bluff, guaranteeing that Joe Biden does have like just handed him like what they like the quote was a loaded gun.
	It's completely right.
	And they know that he won't use it.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I don't think that's good.
	I think you should.
	No, it's not.
	Yeah, the take I saw that was that Biden should now like blow up the Supreme Court, you know, and the members of and call it an official act.
	And there we go.
	Because that would be legal now.
	That's fine.
	Oh, anything.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Because I said so.
	Fully applies.
	And you've got till January, dog.
	Yeah.
	Whatever animates you.
	Right.
	I'm not worried for the fate of the planet.
	But yeah.
	Bluff called and they're not wrong.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's embarrassing.
	And it's I mean, embarrassing is the is the easiest feeling to address.
	Not all the other really fucking awful ones.
	Yeah.
	All of the potential consequences that could arise from this.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	It's been a week.
	It's been nearly a decade, to be honest.
	It's been a tough eight years.
	Oh, shit.
	Okay, this keeps going.
	This keeps on going.
	And we are here.
	Alright, well, Patrons, we'll see you Sunday for some off-brand goodness.
	If you want to support us and what we do, head to patreon.com slash OnBrand.
	We would love to have you over there.
	If you want to get in touch, drop us an email.
	It's theonbrandpod at gmail.com.
	There is a Facebook group, OnBrand Awakening Wonders.
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	Some lovely humans there too.
	and if you want to find us on socials we're the on-brand pod everywhere except for where we're not look for the logo and personal socials I'm at Alworth official Lauren is at made.by.lauren.b and also if you click the old link in the description you will find some great magnets there with our logo on with actual gold real life gold leaf that's on there we sell actual gold unlike these hucksters and we can send it to you wherever you may be Yeah, all right.
	Patrons, we'll see you Sunday for some off-brand fun.
	Possibly about Mike Pompeo.
	We shall see.
	The rest of you, we'll see you next week.
	If you're in the UK, go and vote, please.
	That would be dope.
	Preferably as lefty a candidate as you can think of.
	That'd be lovely.
	Otherwise, take care of yourselves and each other.
	Thank you very much.
	We love you.
	Bye!
	That's not win-win-win.
	That's lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie.

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