Dave Smith and Rob Bernstein dismantle the Gas Digital Network's critique of state overreach, exposing how corporate media fabricates narratives like Russian bounties for Taliban killings to prevent U.S. troop withdrawals from Libya and Afghanistan. They debunk the baseless Trump-Russia collusion claims driven by Big Rape's interests while analyzing the nuance in Chris Dale's legal case regarding minor interactions. The episode concludes by criticizing Nancy Pelosi's misnaming of George Floyd and contrasting the vengeful nature of the Jewish God with the propaganda surrounding peaceful Jesus figures, arguing that war propaganda never ends because power demands perpetual conflict. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Benghazi Scandal and Control00:14:57
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gas Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I, of course, am Dave Smith, the most consistent motherfucker you know, and I am joined for this episode on the phone by the fire, the king of the caulks, Rob Bernstein.
What's up, my brother?
Yeah, thanks for letting me call in.
I've been a bad boy.
Karen took my computer away, so it's going to have to be phone calls for a little bit.
That's right.
Rob is disrespecting the Jewish religion right now on the phone.
Terrence Shabbat on his way.
That's not true.
He's making that up.
It's not sabbatical hours.
I wouldn't do that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I'll let you guys make your own assumptions as to why Rob doesn't have video coming in right now.
But I'm glad you're joining us by the phone because I wanted to talk to you about some stuff.
And so now we can give an episode to the fans with both of us together, which is what it's all about.
All right.
So this is a story that's been kind of, I guess you could say, dominating the news.
It's another 2020.
Buckle up.
They've always got something new for us.
So it's been trending.
Although I'll tell you, and I don't know if you've noticed this, Rob, but there's definitely some type of like they're.
They're they control what's trending and what's not.
You know what I mean and then they can like push things that they want to be trending and uh, just tell you, I so don't understand Twitter.
I don't know where to find what's trending, like.
I've gone there to try and find I don't know what that even means where that column exists, like can you explain this to me?
I feel old.
If you're on the computer, you go there's a little like like the hashtag pound music sign thing and that'll take you to it.
And if you're on your phone, if you're on your phone, you just go to search and then trending and news.
It's actually a great tool because a lot of times there'll be stuff like, I'll check, you know different like news sites, but then there'll be different stuff that's trending, and it seems to me that it's sometimes organic and it'll be like, oh look, 8 million people are talking about this, so it's trending.
But then sometimes something will be trending and it's like 8,000 people are tweeting about this, but it makes it into the list.
I don't understand it either.
It's a little bit weird, however.
Uh, as I looked this morning, there were um trending was, uh, there's two different uh trending hashtags.
One was Afghanistan and the other is Benghazi.
Um, and when I saw it I was like, what the fuck is Benghazi trending about?
Now, I had read the Afghanistan stuff yesterday, but then to see Benghazi trending out.
So, anyway, what everybody is, there's all these blue checkmark leftists who are tweeting like, oh, the Republicans made such a big deal out of Benghazi, but they're letting this Afghanistan shit slide.
So, anyway, let's unpack this whole thing from every angle.
The first thing I'll just mention about the Benghazi thing trending is that, yes, the establishment Republicans fucking suck.
So, you're not like shocking anybody with that revelation.
But yes, if there are people who are defending the establishment Republicans, they suck.
The scandal was not Benghazi.
Benghazi was a little, you know, story.
And they're definitely, I mean, the Obama administration lied about what happened there.
They, you know, they didn't like get it wrong.
They lied.
And this was actually even revealed in some of Hillary Clinton's emails that she knew.
I think it was an email she sent to Chelsea Clinton.
These were some of the Hillary Clinton emails that we actually got.
But she knew the night of it that it was like an al-Qaeda type group that stormed Benghazi.
So they stormed the U.S. Compact in Benghazi.
You got to get the context of why that lie was such a big deal.
And if I remember correctly, it was that they were basically claiming victory on the national security side because, you know, we were taking a softer tone.
Terrorists were no longer, like, it was just a bush thing that we were provoking terrorists.
And since we were taking a softer tone now, no one was interested in terrorist activities.
So it was kind of a larger cause.
They were celebrating what they called at the time the Arab Spring.
And they went around and I forget who it was.
It wasn't, was it Susan Rice?
No, it was someone.
Anyway, Obama sent one of his delegates around to say on all the Sunday shows that it was a result of this racist cartoon video that had been put out.
And that's what these Muslims were pissed off about.
It turned out to be complete bullshit.
But of course, the real scandal that the Republicans, with a couple notable exceptions, Rand Paul, Thomas Massey, the usual suspects.
But for the most part, the Republicans didn't really jump on the major scandal, which was the war in Libya, the bigger picture of all of it.
What were we doing in Benghazi to begin with?
And this was a war that Obama illegally fought, violated the War Powers Act and violated the Constitution, a war that wasn't declared by the Congress.
And it was all based on lies.
And the British parliament did an investigation into this.
The idea that Gaddafi was about to go genocidal, this was all complete bullshit.
We overthrew Gaddafi, destroyed the country.
This had a huge impact on the refugees flooding into Europe because Libya was kind of like, you know, Gaddafi was the one kind of keeping them at bay.
So there's slave markets still to this day in Libya.
The country is a complete failed state.
We sided with the jihadists and the jihadists still have a lot of control in that country.
So that's the scandal.
The scandal is Obama launching a war of aggression based off lies illegally, which led to slavery and jihadists taking over a country.
If that's not a good enough scandal for you, I don't know what to tell you.
That meets my threshold of a pretty decent scandal.
But so anyway, it's fucking infuriating when these leftists talk about Benghazi like, haha, there was nothing there.
It's actually, yeah, the Benghazi thing, focusing all your energy on that was kind of stupid.
But there was a huge, huge scandal, huge scandal in Libya.
So anyway, that's first.
So here's what in regards to that scandal, it's got to be because the entire military conservative right also liked what happened in Libya, so they're not going to go after Obama for it.
And that's right.
I think part of the picture with Libya, and you may be able to fill in more of the blanks on this, but wasn't Gaddafi going to be doing something crazy where he wanted to start selling oil directly in gold or he was doing something with gold that I think was, yeah, challenging currency, which is a big part of the picture.
Yes, he absolutely was.
You guys can go down that wormhole if you want to, but Gaddafi was planning on, you know, working with other Arab countries to not use dollars as the oil reserve standard.
So I definitely entertain those theories.
I don't know for sure.
But the other thing that's worth noting is that Gaddafi, after 9-11, did everything he could to try to help the U.S. effort to round up terrorists.
I mean, Gaddafi was not a fan of these terrorists either.
And he also completely dismantled a whole bunch of his weapons programs.
So the precedent that it set was, of course, to try to, you know, for any other leaders who would think about dismantling any of their weapons programs was to be like, well, as soon as you do that, they're going to come in and fucking overthrow you.
And you're going to get, you know, fucking beaten and sodomized to death in the streets.
And Hillary Clinton's going to laugh.
So it was pretty bad.
So stupid by us not to keep up our end of the bargain on that because, like, I don't know, it becomes so transparent that people are going to realize, oh, I can't give up my nuclear bombs, or this is what's going to happen.
Like, game theory, it's not a play that you're trying to run once.
If anything, you want Gaddafi to stand as the example of, listen, we'll work with you, and you can remain in power if you get rid of your nuke.
We just don't want people with nukes.
So that's a pretty epic blunder.
Well, yeah, I mean, or that's not actually their concern at all.
I mean, I actually think they would very much like Iran to actually have a nuclear weapons program, which they don't have, because then that gives them the excuse.
So that's, you know, it's like things are not always as they seem.
But you're right.
If they were, if their interest was really that some of these countries don't develop nuclear weapons, then sure, this would be an epic, epic blunder.
I mean, and I think even it wasn't Kim Jong-un, but it was someone in the North Korean government who brought this up when Trump was negotiating with them and they were talking about dismantling their nuclear program.
They're like, we saw what happened at Gaddafi.
You think we're stupid?
Like the fact that they can launch a nuke at Seoul at any time is the only reason why we don't go in there and topple that regime.
So of course they're completely incentivized to keep the program going.
All right.
So to the Afghanistan scandal, to this big scandal.
And here, let me read Rachel Maddow's words on this.
Okay.
This is a quote from Rachel Maddow that she tweeted.
So if the New York Times report is correct, U.S. intelligence has concluded that Russia offered bounties for dead U.S. troops in Afghanistan and has paid out some of those bounties.
And Donald Trump was told in March and so far has opted to have no response.
So that is the accusation that's being lobbed against Donald Trump that the intelligence community has figured out that Russia is putting bounties on U.S. soldiers' heads.
And they're getting the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers.
They've paid out some of these bounties.
Donald Trump was briefed on this on March and decided to do nothing.
Now, why would that be?
Obviously, because I don't know, He hates the troops and wants to see them dead, and he's a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
Here you go.
Proof of all of this or something along those lines.
I don't know exactly.
So right away, the thing that might jump out at you is that, you know, for people who have been through this a little bit, right?
If it's not your first day on the job of keeping yourself informed, you might be like, yeah, but hasn't there been like a whole bunch of stories about Trump and Russia that always seem to get disproven?
Like, what was the one?
Shit, what was it?
There was the story that Russia attacked the electoral grid in Vermont.
There were stories about all this, obviously, the big Russia collusion thing.
And all of these stories get walked back kind of quietly afterward.
And then, of course, you know, if like you listen to Rachel Maddow's wording, if the New York Times report is correct, the U.S. intelligence community has concluded.
And then from there, you go, like, well, I mean, those are two pretty big ifs, right?
If the New York Times is correct and if the intelligence community is correct or telling the truth.
So those, you know, are kind of worth noting.
The other thing that has been pointed out, I've been reading a few people who have, you know, more expertise in this area than I do, although I am right about all of this.
Go ahead.
Just also in government time, what's March?
That's nothing.
So he found out in March in the middle of COVID.
He didn't, you know, shut down the country to say, hey, we got to go to war with Russia.
It's not like he said, hey, I'm letting right.
Okay, let's just assume all this is true.
It's not like he stood up and said, hey, I'm letting Russia off the hook for this.
He just hasn't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, like Rachel Meadow is completely pulling out of her ass that Trump did nothing.
You don't know what Trump did, but of course, this is all assuming that any of this is true.
And the truth is, the claim is pretty absurd.
The idea that Vladimir Putin is putting bounty on the heads of soldiers in Afghanistan who are an occupying force, who are already, you know, like it's not as if these people needed any extra motivation to kill American soldiers.
And the idea that Vladimir Putin would do this to get the like nine U.S. servicemen who have been killed this year killed, there's so much more downside than upside for Vladimir Putin.
It doesn't really make any sense.
But anyway, let's just, you know, look into this a little bit further.
And something I'd want to that I would suggest keeping in mind, because I do think sometimes it's hard for people to wrap their heads around what the people in these positions of power are actually like.
And this is a big flaw in humanity in general.
The truth is that, right, there are sociopaths amongst us.
There are predators in the population.
And most people are not sociopaths.
Most people are not predators.
Most people are not violent criminals.
And human beings suffer from projection.
We project onto other people that they're kind of like we are.
And so oftentimes people kind of work with this assumption that nobody would actually just be a vicious, violent sociopathic predator because I'm not that way.
So they wouldn't be that way.
But that's a fallacy.
Other people are that way.
John Bolton's Familiar Report00:06:57
And I'd like just to keep in mind John Bolton, who we talked about a couple episodes ago.
Now, I still haven't read John Bolton's book.
I've read some excerpts from it, but I did watch his entire interview with Brett Baer, which I'd recommend people go watch.
I'm not a big fan of Brett Baer, but he actually did a decent job interviewing him and gave him some pushback.
And so here's, you know how everybody was saying that the line for John Bolton when he was done with the Trump administration was when he didn't bomb Iran.
So because Donald Trump, as we've talked about and go listen to our previous episode, Where's the Winning, where we kind of take down the Trump presidency.
But the one thing, you know, a normal, sane person would say that Trump has formed is that, well, he didn't get us into any new war.
This is what really pissed off John Bolton.
But John Bolton actually corrects the record in the interview with Brett Baer.
That wasn't the line for John Bolton.
He was furious about that.
He was furious about him not bombing Iran and not getting us into another war.
I mean, that's his job.
He's the president.
Your job is to get us into another disastrous war.
But the line for John Bolton, from his own lips to the devil's ear, the line for John Bolton was when he was floating out the idea of meeting with the Taliban and having peace talks about getting out of Afghanistan.
That was the line for John Bolton.
It's like, are you telling me you're not going to start another disastrous war?
And you're thinking about ending a war that John Bolton just couldn't sleep at night knowing that he was a part of an administration.
He was like, dude, Afghanistan's a fucking cash cow for us.
It's 18 years.
There's no end in sight.
We keep putting troops in, pulling them out.
There's no clear enemy.
That is a cash cow.
How can you possibly take that away from us?
Yes.
So just keep in mind that like there are real people like this and they occupy high levels of power.
This John Bolton was not some staffer who was fucking sick in the head.
He was the national security advisor.
Okay.
This is a big, big position.
And there's lots of other people like that in the Pentagon, in the military, in the deep state all around.
And this is real.
And keep in mind that the intelligence community lied us into the war in Iraq, the war in Libya, the war in Syria, the war in Yemen.
All these wars were pushed based off lies.
And you can't not have context in your head if you want to understand what's going on here.
I actually thought there was a Wall Street Journal piece on this, which I actually thought was very revealing.
So let's get into what's going on in Afghanistan.
Okay.
What are the claims here?
All right.
So here's the title from the Wall Street Journal piece.
The title, Russian Spy Unit Paid Taliban to Attack Americans, U.S. Intelligence Says.
Okay, so there's your title.
Bounties, and here's the subtitle is Bounties Paid by GRU are disclosed as U.S. Plans Troop Drawdown Taliban Peace Plan.
All right.
So let's get into the article.
And by the way, this is an article by Gordon Lubold and Warren Strobel.
It was out yesterday, June 26th on Wall Street Journal.
You can read it at WallStreetJournal.com or WSJ.com.
Excuse me.
Okay, Washington.
A Russian spy unit paid members of Afghanistan's Taliban movement to conduct lethal attacks on U.S. troops in the country.
According to a classified American intelligence assessment, people familiar with the report said.
All right.
So just to be clear, there is supposedly a report that said this that people familiar with the report are telling us about.
That's what we're going with here.
Unnamed, unverified sources.
Just keep in mind, we are completely taking the and the Wall Street Journal didn't even do this reporting.
The New York Times did this reporting.
So the Wall Street Journal is taking the New York Times' word for it that they're taking these unnamed people's word for it.
That's the level of journalism.
What does familiar with the report mean?
You've seen around at office parties.
You've never quite had a conversation.
We hooked up back in the 90s.
We've stayed friends ever since.
I'm pretty familiar with it.
I've been to the report's house a few times.
You know, who knows, Rob?
That's a really good question.
What does familiar with the report mean?
There's no need to tell us.
Who are the people familiar with the report?
No need to tell us.
The details of the report, eh, we'll give you a couple little salacious glimpses, but no one really knows.
All right.
Let me continue from the article.
The assessment of the role played by Russian's military intelligence agency, the GRU, in fostering attacks on American soldiers comes as President Trump is pushing the Pentagon to withdraw a significant portion of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and a U.S. diplomats, and as U.S. diplomats try to forge a peace accord involving the Taliban and the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
I mean, come on, guys.
Come on.
I mean, just read that again.
Literally, read this one more time, okay?
The assessment of the role played by Russia's military intelligence agency in the fostering of attacks on American soldiers comes as President Trump is pushing the Pentagon to withdraw a significant portion of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and as U.S. diplomats try to forge a peace accord involving the Taliban and the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
What a shocker.
As Trump's trying to end a war, all of a sudden, some unnamed people familiar with some undisclosed report are coming out to the press.
And what does the story read?
Trump, Russia, Russia, kill U.S. soldiers, Trump, do nothing.
What does this smell like to you?
I mean, they want to make sure we stay in this war.
Yeah, seems fairly obvious to me.
Now, again, it's like we're supposed to, what?
Just believe this, even though no evidence has been presented?
Why is it impossible for them to ever just come to the American people and be like, these people by name from the CIA have this intelligence and here's the evidence?
Sheath Underwear Ad Break00:02:41
Go ahead.
I'm sorry, Rob.
No, no, I'm on board.
I think it's, you know, the fact that it's the intelligence community.
That should be enough.
That's their favorite thing, is to tell you that people in the intelligence community, but that's an even funnier way to go about it.
I like your idea.
There should be accountability to one individual.
So if 10 years from now, it turns out to be a lie and claws us a shit ton of money.
We know exactly who Who we can hate?
Yeah.
I mean, this system just seems insane.
I mean, like, look, if you, I suppose, if you're operating under the belief that the intelligence community would never lie to us or get the intelligence wrong, especially if it were to lead us into a war or prevent us from ending a war, if you're operating under that assumption, then I guess this all makes sense.
However, if you're over here on planet Earth, where you operate under the assumption that, you know what, the intelligence community gets the intelligence wrong a lot and they might even be lying about it, then how can the system be that a journalist, you know, the ones that we really trust who would never lie, they can just write that a source says that the intelligence community has found this.
All right, let's take a quick second.
I want to thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Sheath Underwear.
Sheath uses moisture wicking technology to create underwear that keeps everything breathable, incredibly comfortable downstairs.
Sheath's smart underwear comes in a number of different styles, including a brief with a dual pouch that, you know, keeps everything where it's supposed to be.
Let me tell you something.
I love Sheath Underwear.
These are like the best underwear I've ever owned.
And if you check out the pouch thing, I was a little skeptical about it, but it's phenomenal.
It's like an inverted kangaroo pouch for your downstairs bits.
Everything feels really good.
Love Sheath underwear.
It was invented by a soldier while serving in Iraq, where you can imagine things tend to get a little sticky.
He developed the prototype in Iraq and raised money on Kickstarter and launched Sheath.
And now they're right here supporting our show.
A great company, great product.
Sheath creates amazing underwear.
And if you don't love them, they have a 100% money-back guarantee off your first pair.
Plus, they have an amazing line of underwear for women too.
So go to sheathunderwear.com.
And if you use promo code problem20, they're going to give you 20% off your entire order.
They ship anywhere in the world.
So getting them is not a problem.
One more time, go to sheathunderwear.com, promo code problem20 for 20% off your order.
All right, let's get back into the show.
No Evidence of Deaths00:10:18
All right, let's continue reading in the article.
The intelligence assessment regarding Russia's actions in Afghanistan was delivered to the White House earlier this spring and until recently had been known only to a handful of officials.
A person familiar with it said the contents were reported earlier Friday by the New York Times.
It couldn't be determined whether Russian bounties paid to the Taliban fighters resulted in any American combat deaths in Afghanistan.
So, oh, by the way, we can't even determine that this actually led to any Americans being killed.
That's just a big question mark, but let's just proceed as if we know that this happened.
Now, okay, so again, we're just saying that this was then presented to the president.
Now, this brings up another, you know, interesting kind of question here in this whole thing, but let's say, and we'll play around with this a little bit, but even saying that you accept this form of journalism and that you could even call it journalism.
Don't you think it's a little problematic that if all of this is happening, right?
And so what you're saying basically is there's a couple of CIA people who are anonymously speaking to the New York Times and they're telling them, look, this is what happened, right?
If this was unknown to anyone else, why is it okay for them to just come out and tell people about it now?
Like, why is it okay for these obviously politically motivated CIA people to come out and tell the press these little drips of information?
Oh, hey, Russia's been doing this and Donald Trump hasn't done anything about it.
I mean, like, if you're going to give us a little bit of the information, shouldn't you have to give us all of the information so we can get a gauge of what's really going on here?
But no, the press doesn't even ask these questions, and they don't have any problem with this because it creates the narrative they want.
When they say presented to Donald Trump, was it in a written report?
Because we know he doesn't read, you might still not be aware of it.
Yeah, could you guys make like a really fun movie, perhaps a cartoon about what's going on in Afghanistan?
Maybe put it on Sean Hannity's show, and then we'll get Trump to pay attention.
The leaking is a little bit crazy.
I don't really understand how they are continuously getting away with like leaking these kinds of things.
Yes.
And then, by the way, I know you're absolutely right.
This is insane.
This is an insane way to think you can run a country.
And for all the people who like, you know, like are all the ones that Donald Trump is undermining our institutional norms and the, you know, the sacred Oval Office or whatever that CNN lady said.
It's like, okay, but why is this okay?
Isn't this undermining the sacredness or whatever?
But I just want to read one more time because this is really fascinating.
This is like a clinic in how the corporate press operates.
I want to read this last paragraph one more time.
It couldn't be determined whether Russian bounties paid to Taliban fighters resulted in any American combat deaths for Afghanistan.
That is such a this is you know Michael Malice always says that the corporate press is is factual but not truthful so you'll see these examples of things where they say after a Trump rally, COVID cases surge okay so it's factual that we there are more COVID cases, but there was a lot more testing and it was done the day after the Trump rally.
So there's no way you could even argue that the new cases they've found were a result of the Trump rally.
But they didn't actually claim that.
You know, they just said after Trump rally, COVID cases surge.
So it is factual, but it's completely misleading intentionally, right?
So this is, in a sense, like a factual statement.
It couldn't be determined whether Russian bounties had resulted in any American deaths.
But another more truthful way to say that is there isn't a shred of evidence that this happened.
You get where there's like a different, those are both factual statements, but there's a real difference between saying, well, it couldn't be determined.
Well, I think Rob has a bunch of, you know, dead children in his basement.
And I could write, it couldn't be determined whether those dead children are currently in Rob's basement.
But another way to say that would be, there's no shred of evidence to back up this claim.
One's a little misleading, you know?
One is like, well, we kind of know this is true, but we haven't been able to determine it yet.
And the other one is, there's no reason to believe this is true.
Now, it couldn't be determined whether Russian bounties paid to Taliban fighters resulted in any American combat debts.
So it actually hasn't been determined that Russians paid anything to, that they paid any bounties either.
But isn't that a slick little way to say it?
It hasn't been determined that the money they paid resulted in a death.
Well, has it been determined that they paid bounties to the Taliban?
No.
You have two anonymous sources who claim they saw a report.
That's far from determined.
It would be very easy to say we have these two anonymous sources in the CIA who said they saw a report that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.
But that wouldn't be the same as saying it's been determined that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.
So we have not determined in any way that they did pay bounties to the Taliban.
But isn't it slick to say it couldn't be determined whether Russian bounties paid to the Taliban fighters resulted in any American deaths?
So you're already assuming that the bounty was paid, even though that hasn't been determined either.
So another way to say this is there's been no evidence put forward that the Russians paid bounties to the Taliban, and there's not one shred of evidence that this resulted in an American death.
That is also a factual statement, but it paints a clearer picture because that's a factual statement that's also truthful.
This is a factual statement that is not truthful.
Now, here's another great paragraph.
And then I'll just, I think we'll just abandon this article after this.
But here's a really another great paragraph that's just in there.
After the salacious headline, here's a nice one: The White House, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Pentagon declined to comment.
Great.
Russia's embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wait, can we just talk about the Pentagon and all it's like the exact intelligence agencies that you're saying have put out this report that is immediate and super important and is caused for war won't actually clarify or make any statements in regards to this?
Sounds like it's not that important.
It's like living in fucking clown world.
It's not even the intelligence community said, so we have to do this.
The intelligence community hasn't said anything.
It's just a couple people who you're claiming are intelligence community people.
I don't fucking know.
I have no idea.
So.
Right.
It's almost like, hey, guys, we heard some random rumors from inside the thing.
So we're going to print this here and let's start making some important decisions around it.
Yes.
These are important rumors.
And, you know, they always kind of protect themselves.
Like, even in the title of this article I was just reading, you know, the title isn't Russian Spy Unit Paid Taliban to Attack Americans.
Okay.
The title is Russian Spy Unit Paid Taliban to Attack Americans.
U.S. intelligence says.
So they protect themselves in that sense.
Now, of course, that's kind of misleading because it's not exactly U.S. intelligence says.
If you actually start reading it, it's unnamed people familiar with the matter says.
But even there, they go, well, we're not telling you this is a fact.
We're just saying that.
But then if you watch like one level late, one level removed, two levels removed, three levels removed, everyone just talks about it as if this is a fact and we know that this is happening.
And this is the same thing that you'd see with the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
Everyone talks about it as if it's a fact.
So someone like one reporter on CNN goes, you know, their famous word, if true, then this is huge.
And then everyone just spends a half hour talking about it, assuming that it's true.
So that's what's going on here.
If you listen to Rachel Maddow or any of these other people, they're just talking about it like it's true.
Like we know this is true.
And we don't.
And it's not, when you take a step back, it's not only do we not know it's true, there is not one shred of evidence to support that it's true.
We've seen literally zero evidence.
And if this has to be walked back, one of two things will happen because this is complete bullshit.
Either it'll be walked back and it'll be walked back quietly and won't they won't make a big deal out of it, or they'll just stop.
They'll just stop talking about it.
And the latter is more likely.
We'll just stop talking about it.
But here's the reality of the situation.
And we've seen this time and time again.
You will not end one of these wars without a fight with the media.
The entire media class will come down on you hard if you try to pull out of a war.
That's not what they're here to do.
That is not part of the program.
And just like when Trump tried to pull out of Syria, you saw all of these headlines about the Kurds abandoning the Kurds, our precious allies.
They were just going to be slaughtered, how horrible it would be.
Have you seen any corrections about that?
Oh, you know what?
Media Pressure on War Exit00:02:58
We were wrong.
The Kurds weren't going to be slaughtered.
Anything?
Is that even a story anymore?
Does anyone care about how the Kurds in Syria are doing?
Was that ever the issue at all?
It's so obvious, especially in hindsight.
It becomes even more obvious.
Although these stories are pretty obvious in real time.
But in hindsight, they never cared about the Kurds in Syria.
There wasn't all the sudden this great overflow of compassion for the Syrian Kurds.
They didn't care about that.
They didn't want to end the war.
They did not want Trump to pull the troops out.
And that's what this is about, too.
And of course, they hit a story now that'll be seen as like proof that Trump really is in bed with Russia.
I mean, why else would he do nothing?
It's such a shit show.
I forgot about that Kurd thing.
Oh, yeah, because so did everybody else.
So did everybody else.
And anyone who was chouting that can still go on the news and just make the next claim.
There's no scorecard for this.
That's right.
That's right.
And that really is one of the problems.
And just such dishonesty.
All right, let's take a quick second and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Ridge, the makers of the Ridge wallet, which is a huge improvement over a traditional wallet.
I use the Ridge wallet.
It's a minimalist front-pocket wallet.
You don't have to have this brick in your back pocket that's throwing your spine out of alignment.
You're keeping a bunch of things in that old-fashioned wallet that you don't even need.
You have gift cards with no money on them and old receipts that you're never going to use.
Get the Ridge wallet.
This is the wallet of the future.
It's sleek.
It's got two metal plates bound together with a durable elastic band.
The Ridge looks nothing like a traditional wallet.
It comes in titanium, carbon fiber, and aluminum.
It's really cool looking.
It's just a great place to keep your cards and your cash.
It's a much better product than the traditional wallet, and it's something that looks really cool.
It also makes a great gift for any of the men or women in your life.
It's a minimal front-pocket wallet designed to streamline what you carry every day.
It has 30,000 five-star reviews, and it's just a better way to carry your cards in your cash.
So go check it out.
They have a lifetime warranty if you love it and free returns if you don't.
One more time, it comes in titanium, carbon fiber, and aluminum, and over a dozen different styles and colors.
And you can get 10% off today with free worldwide shipping and returns by going to ridge.com/slash p-otp.
That's ridge.com/slash p-otp and use the promo code p-otp.
Get 10% off with free worldwide shipping and returns.
The ridge wallet, it's an awesome product.
Go check it out, ridge.com/slash p-otp.
All right, let's get back into the show.
Another one, there was a fucking, yeah, this is completely unrelated, but it's just another great way that the media works.
So this was from, wait, so this is from the Washington Post.
Dangerous Cities Myth Debunked00:12:37
They said, Trump keeps claiming that the most dangerous cities in America are all run by Democrats.
They aren't.
Okay?
So that's the headline.
Again, keep Michael Malice's line.
Factual, but not truthful.
Okay.
I'll read that headline one more time.
Trump keeps claiming that the most dangerous cities in America are all run by Democrats.
They aren't.
Now, here's the subtitle.
Most of the current mayors of these cities are Democrats.
Two of the mayors of cities with the most reported violent crime overall, though, are independents.
And one, the mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, is a Republican.
Among the 20 cities with the most violent crime per capita, one isn't a Democrat.
So then Trump's claim is accurate.
Most cities are not.
Trump's claim was that, well, yeah, I guess he did say even most.
Most dangerous cities in America aren't.
What do you just say?
19 out of 22 are Democrats?
I think I don't have the article in front of me, but it sounds to me 19 out of 22 are the most dangerous cities in the U.S.
The mayors are Democrats, which means that Trump's came is more than accurate.
But of course, if you were looking at that, you would just go, he's right.
I mean, the essence of what he's saying, whether he said they're all or most or whatever, the point he's making is right.
But that's not what they do.
Their agenda is transparent.
But anyway, back to the war stuff here.
This is the Afghanistan conflict is really, in many ways, the most illuminating one.
Because in Afghanistan, you have a situation where there are kids serving in these wars.
You got 18, 19-year-olds fighting in this war who were like one when the war started.
I mean, this is the longest war in American history.
And even Barack Obama himself, who escalated the war and fought it through his entire presidency, said that there's no military solution in Afghanistan.
We don't even know what we're fighting for.
What is it?
To take land away from the Taliban?
Well, that hasn't been going very good.
They're doing, I don't know exactly right now, but they've probably got more territory than when we started the war, or at least around the same amount.
And by the way, the Taliban never fucking attacked us on 9-11.
There was no need to even go to war with the Taliban.
The Taliban housed Al-Qaeda.
Some fucking rich Saudis came over and said, can we pay you if we stay here before 9-11?
And they said, fine.
That's what they were guilty of.
And then they were willing to go through the international process of extraditing al-Qaeda.
And we were like, no, fuck that.
You turn them over right now to us and surrender.
And they were like, no.
And now we're in the longest war in American history.
But even on top of all of that, even if this was true, let's play your thought experiment game a little bit more, Rob.
Even if it were true that Vladimir Putin, for no strategic benefit whatsoever, like just to get like three more Americans killed or something like that, is giving out money.
He's given out bounties to the Taliban.
And this is all accurate.
And Donald Trump has done nothing about it.
Let's just say every bit of this reporting is accurate, which is insane.
But let's just say.
It might not have been Putin.
It could have been whatever that equivalent CIA unit was sitting over there.
And they're like, we got extra budget.
Life might be fun to do with this.
We can't say we're not using all of our budget.
And they're like, well, why don't we just hand it over to some Taliban guys, play some bets on who they can kill.
It might not be a Putin.
But let's say, let's just say, why not?
It goes all the way up to Putin.
It was ordered by him.
Okay.
Okay.
Trump's done nothing.
What should Trump do?
What do you want to do here?
Do you want a war with Russia?
Do you is the conclusion from all of this that right now, America, as we teeter on the brink of depression, as we're having recovering from riots in our streets, as we're reclaiming the land of the nation formerly known as Chaz, as we're trying to put our country back together or watch it fall apart or something.
Do we really want to take on a war with a nuclear-armed country?
Is that what we're suggesting here?
With a huge country that has thousands of nuclear weapons, what's the game plan here?
What are we going to do?
Are you against immediate divisive action?
Yes, the only kind of leadership that matters to CNN.
The leadership to start dropping bombs.
So if you don't want a full-out war, what are you saying?
There should be some more sanctions.
We shouldn't think about letting them back into the G8 or whatever, keep it as the G7, you know, whatever.
Okay.
Well, how about this?
If you care so much about our troops and them being in danger, maybe they shouldn't be in danger.
Maybe they shouldn't be there to begin with.
And wouldn't the obvious answer here from any perspective be like, let's get out of Afghanistan?
Wouldn't this just be more reason to get out of Afghanistan?
Oh, shit.
There's bounties on our troops' heads.
Okay, well, we're not going to fight an all-out war with another nuclear power because that's never happened before.
And because, you know, it has these like undesirable side effects, like ending all life as we know it.
That would kind of suck, right?
So let's pull our troops out, regroup, and think about what response we should have to Russia.
Doesn't that sound a little bit more reasonable?
Doesn't that sound even if all of this bullshit, which is so obviously not true, even if all of it were true, wouldn't we still be right?
Wouldn't the correct answer still be to just end this fucking war, this nonsense war that we've fought longer than World War II and World War I combined, longer than Vietnam, longer than the Civil War, longer than any war in American history?
Isn't it just time to end it?
Just go, okay.
Also, one more thing, just to throw in here for the sake of fairness.
Let's just imagine for a second that this Putin thing is true.
And it would probably be because kind of like even, you know, Osama bin Laden said, just keeping the U.S. at war is expensive and maybe it distracts them or takes away resources so that they can't challenge Russia and Syria.
On the flip side of that, what kind of bullshit is the CIA pulling where we're paying people to do shit just to fuck with Russia?
I'm sure it exists.
So it's dishonest for us to kind of, like, I'm just saying, imagine this Putin thing is 100% true for us to pretend like, oh, this is a war activity or the worst thing ever.
I'm sure we're pulling the same shit to them, if not worse.
Well, sometimes it's just like flat out projection.
Like they're actually accusing Putin of doing what we did to the Soviets in Afghanistan.
There's, oh my God, they're trying to lure us into this war so they can take out our soldiers.
What are they trying to do?
Bring down our country?
It's like, all right, so let's not get lured into the war then.
Let's not be there.
And, you know, it's like the mentality that people get.
You know, I was, I tweeted something about this earlier.
And there was one guy who tweeted back at me and said, and this is like kind of representative of where people's mentality go, especially when you see pieces like this in the Wall Street Journal or on Rachel Maddow's show or something like that.
And they go, he goes, I don't know.
I mean, do you think Putin's not capable of doing this?
And it's like, all right.
I mean, that's not at all what a relevant question should be.
I mean, yeah, that's not evidence.
No, it's not.
And this is a crazy way to go.
It's like, if you make an outlandish claim, you need to have some evidence to support it.
That's all.
Not just, is this person capable of that?
It's like, you know, if you said that, like, whoever it is, if there's some crazy maniac homeless man on the street and you said, I think he's, you know, just killed 17 people.
And I was like, what?
There's no evidence of that.
And you said, well, you don't think he's capable of it?
I don't know.
I don't know if he is or isn't, but that's really beside the point.
And of course, then the flip to that is like, yeah, well, is the fucking, is the New York Times capable of pushing CIA lies?
Do you think they're capable of that?
Because I would suggest that they are.
But again, this is like what always happens.
This happened back when I was telling you guys in real time that Assad did not gas his own people.
And I also said that on SE Cup's show and got, you know, a whole bunch of shit for it.
But, you know, and at the time, people, that's what they'd always say.
Oh, you don't think Assad's capable of this?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Probably.
Probably he is.
Okay.
He still didn't do it.
There's still no evidence to suggest that he did.
And I was right about that, just like I'm right about this.
And it's not hard.
It's not like a feather in my cap.
This isn't a testament to me.
It's just, it's really easy.
It's really easy to be right about this stuff.
Here's the basic rule of thumb.
If the fucking CIA claims something, and in this point, you can't even say the CIA is claiming something.
It's just that the New York Times, it's just that the Washington Post is claiming that the New York Times is claiming that two people who claim to work for the CIA are claiming this.
The CIA itself is not saying anything.
But if you have the Washington Post claiming that the New York Times is claiming that people who claim to be in the CIA are claiming this, and this is going to push us into another war, and there has been no evidence provided to support this, assume it's bullshit.
There's your rule of thumb.
That's how you can be right about all of this shit.
It's really that easy.
Okay.
And in fact, even if the intelligence communities come out and are claiming something, if they won't show you a shred of evidence to back up that claim, treat it with skepticism.
Treat it with the assumption that this is probably not true because it's been not true every single other time.
Every single time.
With the war in Iraq, with the war in Syria, with the war in Libya, with the war in Afghanistan, with the war in Yemen.
Did I miss any?
All bullshit.
And this one's bullshit too.
And, you know, if Trump can't fucking just plow through this and just get us out of this goddamn war, has there ever been an easier, like an easier layup of a war to pull out of?
A war that, you know, was started in response to 9-11 to Osama bin Laden, who's dead, who's been dead for quite a while at this point.
Wouldn't Osama bin Laden die in 2012, 2011?
It's been dead.
We're going to, you know, it's going to be a decade of him being dead and we're still in this fucking war.
The guy is dead.
The war's been going on forever.
There's no, everybody admits that there's not a military solution here.
Just pull out.
That's it.
Just pull out.
It's that easy.
What is it?
What are you worried about?
That the New York Times and the Washington Post is going to attack you?
Okay.
They're going to attack you no matter what you do.
So just pull out of the fucking war.
And if he can't, and he can't get that done, then when the hell do we ever pull out of a war?
Then it turns out that Ron Paul was right all along, and we're not going to pull out until we pull out, like the Soviet Union pulled out of their wars because the society collapsed, because the entire state collapsed, which is a much more uncomfortable way to do it, but looking more and more likely.
Like that might be how this whole thing gets done.
So we'll see.
Police Precinct Retirement00:09:43
But anyway, it's kind of brilliant because they get it trending and everyone's talking about it.
And now for all of these people who never let go of the Trump-Russia collusion bullshit, now they've got one more thing to fucking, you know, to label Trump with.
Oh, this is proof.
Why would he not do anything when he knows Russians are killing American soldiers?
You know what I think, Dave?
I think it's big rape is just trying to get Chris Dale out of the news.
So, you know, they're manipulating what's trending.
Big rape.
They're bringing in billions in profits every year.
And their whole business model has been threatened.
That's right.
They got to see.
Did you see off topic, by the way, but did you see that Christalia, like his people released more of the messages between those chicks who were accusing him?
Yes, including one of them when, like, oh, where he immediately said, oh, you're not 18.
How do you get into my show?
Goodbye.
Yeah.
Something along those lines.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was basically like, oh, I assumed you were over 18 because you were at the show.
Everyone there has to be 18 or older.
And she was like, I'm 17.
And he goes, bye.
And with the other one, it showed that she had lied and said she was like 22 or something like that.
So, you know, that really does change the situation drastically.
The third one was still a little bit more ambiguous, but not quite the Twitter party that existed a day earlier.
Yeah, it's just like people have no, like, there's no nuance to any of these conversations.
And there's, it's just a situation where there really does need to be some nuance applied.
Like, I'm all fine with ruining somebody if they, you know, have sex with a child.
More than just ruining their career, they should probably go to jail or have some serious, you know, punishment.
If you're talking about someone like this, listen, assuming that he that he did, you know, was under the impression or they lied to him and told him he was of age.
And of course, these are girls he never actually had sex with, right?
These are just text messages.
I mean, you can judge a 40-year-old for trying to hook up with a 20-year-old, but it shouldn't be anything that ruins their career.
And it's like, it does like no one will care about this.
This won't do anything to get the fucking the pit bulls off of him.
But that really is a major difference.
There's a major difference between if someone goes, hey, I'm only 16 and he goes, yeah, whatever, send me a nude picture.
Or someone goes, hey, I'm 16 and he goes, okay, then we can't talk anymore.
It's a pretty big difference.
I don't know about you, but I'm working on my crying skills.
I really want to have a Brendan Schaub Academy Award winning podcast moment.
So I'm just not there yet to put on the performance, but I'm practicing.
We'll wait till one of us is accused of something and then you can go fucking cry it up.
I'm angry.
I'm angry at Louis J. Gomez.
I just can't get over it.
Yeah, that whole shit is fucking disgusting.
I mean, one of the lessons, man, is that it's like you want to have real friends around you, man.
Real friends, because you hang out with these fucking phonies.
And, you know, If people aren't really your friends, if you're in any type of difficult situation, they will bail on you quickly, quickly.
But anyway, it makes what Louie did seem not so bad.
That's true.
You know what?
They're trying to help us bring back Louie, which I think at this point, if we can get enough other people for worser things than Louie, I won't be like, hey, what's the big deal?
Yeah, that's what I said.
I said we should, I tweeted something out about this, but we should just start negotiating with the cancel mob.
I thought that was really funny.
All right.
You can have Crystalia and we'll throw in Kimmel.
But I want Louie and I want him now.
And I want him back.
I mean, not just specials on his website.
I want him back.
I want HBO, Netflix.
I want him in movies.
Right.
The Kimmel thing is incredible because if you're Kimmel, I mean, you've had an amazing career and you've made all the money.
Now maybe you can go back to just like doing comedy that's not late night TV.
Maybe you start doing something a little bit cooler if you so want to.
But isn't it amazing that you can last for that long and then they can just go, oh yeah, but this thing's been on the shelf the whole time.
So he's got to go.
It's very weird.
It's very weird.
And it's one of those things that it makes you wonder.
Like you don't know for sure because it is possible that it's just kind of spontaneous and organic.
Oh, enough people just get upset over this thing and then it's a thing.
But it kind of makes you wonder, right?
Like, is there something behind this that's pushing this?
Because this could have been a thing last week, last month, last year, five years ago, but all of a sudden now it's there.
And I really can't imagine what the position must be like for someone like Kimmel, who is in this position.
And you know, you've done bits and blackface.
You know, you did the whole man show.
I mean, you've done like a lot of fucking shit that could get you canceled today.
And it's almost like every day, it must kind of be in the back of your mind, like, is it going to come up today?
Is that going to be a thing?
Very, just very, very strange.
And I don't understand.
Much like in many ways, being a cop, although obviously I'm have a less favorable view of cops than comedians, but much like I feel about being a cop, like even being like the, you know, the host of Kimmel's show, who would want this job anymore at this point?
Like, I get it that the money is great and shit like that, but Kimmel's got the money.
He's got all the fucking money he needs.
Why would you want this anymore?
Like, isn't it torturous to just be in this position where you can just be torn down at any time?
Like, wouldn't you, I would just, you know, I mean, I guess whatever, that's the reason why I'm where I am and Kimmel's where he is.
But I would just be like, dude, I'm going to go.
I mean, I'd still want to do something.
I'd still want to like talk to my people and make comedy for my audience.
But wouldn't you just be like, dude, I'm taking my fucking hundred million dollars.
I'm getting the fuck out of here.
I'll do a fucking podcast for the people who want to listen to me.
And I'm going to do the comedy I want to do.
And fuck all this.
Like, what's the point?
And the same with like, you know, why I was comparing a cops, like with all this shit going on, imagine you were a cop who's like eligible for retirement, you know, but you were going to like work another five years to get a sweeter pension or something like that.
Wouldn't you be like, I'm out of here?
Fuck this.
By the way, I'm rooting for the last.
There's a dude in, there was an article in the New York Post, a lieutenant like in the Bronx.
Some guy like high up was in charge of his precinct, just retired because I get like he felt like he's basically being thrown under the bus where they're basically being told like not to cop anymore.
And he's like, well, I don't want to be out in this neighborhood in the Bronx and not like just letting crime going on.
So he's just like, fuck this, I'm out.
Yeah.
Oh, I get it.
Look, I get it.
Because the truth is, like, and obviously, there's, you know, like, I'm not a fan of cops, and there's a million different laws that should be repealed, and the whole way we police is all fucked up.
But if you're already out there now as a cop with these rules that you don't really get to change, you know, and then now you got to also understand that even if it's like a fucking gray area or a situation where you're completely justified, if you end up doing something now, there's a video of it.
It's going to be all over the news.
It's going to be a whole fucking thing.
People are going to want your head.
They're going to charge you.
They're going to like ratchet up the charges just because that's the kind of political, you know, feeling of the moment.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to be there.
I think maybe they should all.
They should all start to consider my advice.
You guys should all resign.
All right.
Did you see, by the way, out in Minnesota where the George Floyd thing happened or Minneapolis?
Minneapolis.
Minneapolis.
Did you see they're actually rebranding that police precinct with like the local family, you know, freedom, like some ridiculous name?
Did you see that?
I forgot the exact name, but it was hilarious.
No, I didn't see that.
But did you see Nancy Pelosi get the name wrong?
What, for what the new police force was going to be?
No, she was talking about George Floyd and she called him something else.
She called him like George something.
That was great.
The other thing that was funny with this new police force is the way they were describing it.
Like, we're just going to be, we're going to change the focus to local community safety.
And it's like, well, can't we all just have that?
Like, isn't that what we should all just have?
Why is there going to be this and then the police force, which does something different than that?
We're going to have a police force that doesn't murder people.
We're just going to focus on protecting people.
Like, that sounds like what we all should have been doing all along.
Nope, Minneapolis only.
They're going to be the only county that gets this one.
They're still killing people next door.
Don't you worry.
You guys are free to go live over there.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, that's our episode for today.
Thank you very much for phoning in, Rob.
I hope you don't get sent to hell.
I think I'll be all right.
I think me and God are an okay standing.
Now, don't forget, the Jewish God is a vengeful God.
None of this peaceful Jesus crap.
He's a bad on paper.
He just wants people riled up and scared.
I think he's actually forgiving and nice.
You know, that's my God.
A whole lot of propaganda coming out of your God.
All right.
Let's not get you in more trouble with God.
Anyway, good to talk to you.
Go listen to the Run Your Mouth podcast, everybody, and we will see you next time.