Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein challenge the narrative that Vladimir Putin's invasion was unprovoked, citing declassified minutes where James Baker and Robert Gates allegedly promised NATO non-expansion. They argue Western provocations, including a 2014 coup funded by George Soros NGOs and false election interference claims, shifted blame onto Russia while elites ignored de-escalation opportunities. Smith further disputes the official story of the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, noting John Brennan's admission that sabotage lacked strategic sense for Russia, suggesting instead it was a warning shot or an adversary attack designed to justify removing European energy dependence. Ultimately, the hosts contend global elites engage in dirty business to maintain control rather than serving ordinary Americans' interests. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Negotiating Our Way Out00:15:21
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gash 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 Gash Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith, the most consistent motherfucker you know, the libertarian Tupac.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein, the king of the caulks.
COVID Jesus.
What's up, my brother?
How are you?
I'm doing well.
It was fun doing some comedy this weekend and lining up some more shows.
Hell yeah.
Well, this weekend, was that the show with you and Chris and Justin?
Yeah, we had like 300 people fill up this brewery.
Fans, dude, they had this pumpkin beer.
I already want to go back.
I have like the taste of my mouth.
It was so good.
It's like cinnamon toast crunch with alcohol and pumpkin.
So it was you and Justin Silver and UN and BK Chris.
Yeah.
Okay.
And you guys filled it up.
Who was filling it up?
Was it our people there?
Not really.
We had to fight them.
God damn it.
It was.
No, no, there was, there was like a meat cock table in the back.
They had a banner out.
They were trying to sign people up and work in the crowd.
No, no.
So there was like, you know, it was a big room.
So there might have been 40 or 50 people that were like our people, but it was definitely dominated by the locals.
Ah, yeah.
All right.
There you go.
Well, I was just curious.
I mean, I knew it wasn't fucking Justin or Chris's people.
So goddamn, who was it?
All right.
Well, if you guys do want to come out to see a Philip show that will be our people, Poughkeepsie, New York, November 25th, 26th, me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein will be out there at Laugh It Up.
That's the ticket links.
I fucked up and the ticket links weren't up on the website, but they will be up by tomorrow.
So if anyone's listening to this, you should be able to go over to comicdaveesmith.com and check out the ticket links.
Also, I will be out at the comedy store, New Year's Eve show, me and Louis J. Gomez and a bunch of other great comics will have out on that one.
So yeah, come check that out.
And Skank Fest coming up soon in just a couple of weeks.
It's all sold out.
But if you have tickets already, I will see you out there.
And you can check out the pay-per-views.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Fuck yeah, the pay-per-views.
God damn it.
I got to fucking have the information for how to order that.
I will by the next show.
But yes, we're going to be doing a live part of the problem, a very special live pay-per-view part of the problem.
I believe it'll be $10 to get the pay-per-view.
This one isn't going up on YouTube or the RSS feed or anything like that.
So this is just, if you want to see it, you got to order it live, but it's going to be a special episode with a lot of special guests.
It's going to be something incredible.
Also, there will be stand-up sets from me and Rob and some other great stand-up comedians on the show as well.
So you'll get all of that.
It's a very, it's a cool thing.
And I think you guys will enjoy it.
If you don't mind forking over 10 smackers.
Okay.
So a few things we want to talk about on today's show.
One of them is the latest on this Nord, Nord Stream pipeline attack and what exactly is going on, what people from different camps are saying about it, because this is big and we're hoping it's not, but could potentially be, you know, the start of World War III.
So this is worth paying attention to.
But I thought I would start a little bit broader than that.
So as many of you guys know, I just, I was back on the Joe Rogan experience last week, and the clip that has been going super viral was about me talking about the origins of Russia invading Ukraine or the reasons why Russia invaded Ukraine.
And so I did the podcast.
That was, I was hoping that would be the clip that Joe put out. on his YouTube, which he did, or Jamie, I don't know who fucking decides what clips come out on there, but they did end up putting that out there.
Of course, the podcast itself gets something like 15 million people listening or viewing it.
The clip is up to, I think, approaching 3 million views on YouTube.
And then, of course, it's been shared to a ton of other platforms.
And I've seen it kind of going viral all over the place.
So the clip has been viewed by a lot of people.
I don't know exactly how many, but a whole many millions of people have seen me breaking this down.
And of course, this is a pretty hot button issue.
So I've been getting a lot of reactions in all directions, or really all directions in two directions.
It's been either I really agree with you and that's so awesome that you're saying that, or oh my God, you're completely full of shit.
And this is what's wrong.
And so particularly amongst the blue check mark crowd, I've been getting some pushback for what I said.
So I thought maybe just to start the episode, we could respond to a few of the of the criticisms of what I had to say there on Joe Rogan's podcast.
I will say, generally, I've been kind of blown away by how stupid it is.
But that's kind of how these things always are.
This has been a major theme that we've talked about for years and years on this show, Rob.
But man, when you hit whatever the hot button issue is, that's the issue right now.
Man, people get really upset about it.
And so that's been kind of interesting to see.
Although also people, you become their kind of champion when you take the courageous position too.
So I guess it's both of those things.
What's like the big snippet?
It must just be that it's Russian propaganda.
You're like, when it came to Corona stuff, it was, oh, you just don't care about people's health here.
I guess you don't care about the people of Ukraine.
What's like the, what's their quick snippet?
Well, there's been, I mean, there's been a lot of dumb quick snippets like that, which, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, um, that I'm repeating Putin talking points.
Well, sometimes he makes good points.
That I'm pro-Putin, that I support the invasion, that I don't care about Ukraine.
I don't care about the heart, you know, go tell that to the mother of someone who died in the war in Ukraine or something.
I mean, I guess the problem with all of that is that I do state pretty clearly in the clip that I think it's wrong that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and it's inexcusable and it's horrible that all these innocent people are dying and all of that.
So it's that was kind of stupid.
There were a couple finer points that got some pushback from some people, like some blue check journalists and shit like that.
One was that I said that Russia was that the Soviet Union was given assurances that NATO wouldn't move to the East when the Soviet Union collapsed.
And the response I've gotten from this a lot is that like, well, that never happened.
A lot of people say there was no formalized treaty, you know, so there was no like reason for Russia to really believe that this was backed up by law and stuff like this.
The problem is that I didn't say there was a formalized treaty, you know, I said that Russia was given assurances, both verbal and in writing, that NATO wouldn't move to the east at all.
And I'm right about that.
And I'll actually, I'll put in the episode description for this episode all the links to this.
So there's a piece at antiwar.com, which I highly recommend everybody check out every single day.
It's the best website on the planet, but that has all of the links of this.
And the fact is that this isn't even like really in dispute.
Literally, the minutes from these meetings have been declassified.
So you can go look at it.
And James Baker, the Secretary of State at the time, Robert Gates, who was, you know, I don't know what exactly his position was at the time.
Robert Gates was like in the CIA for like 30 years.
And then he was the Defense Secretary.
No, he was the defense secretary for George W. Bush and for Barack Obama.
But at the time, his position for George H.W. Bush, he might have been like the deputy national security advisor or something like that.
But he, you know, him, Baker, the Chancellor of Germany at the time, a few other people in NATO, all giving their assurances that NATO won't move at all into former Soviet territory.
This is like, I don't know, it's just kind of goofy to like even like split hairs about whether this was a written treaty or not.
I never claimed it was a written treaty.
I'm just saying that like this is, if you listen to Vladimir Putin and every leader of Russia since Gorbachev, this has been one of their major grievances that NATO keeps expanding further and further to the east.
So this pushback to me is goofy and kind of, I don't know, it's like with all these things, they kind of try to lock you down into this like, well, there were assurances, but it wasn't a treaty.
It's like, okay, but none of that's really the point.
The point is whether this war was provoked or not, which, and that was the center of what I argued in the clip was that, look, everyone is saying, or when I say everyone, all the powerful people involved from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris to Hillary Clinton to Blinken to everyone on the news.
What do they always say about this invasion of Ukraine?
The talking point is it was an unprovoked attack.
That's literally what Joe Biden said in his State of the Union.
It was an unprovoked attack.
And my point is that that's bullshit.
That doesn't mean it was a justified attack, but it was certainly provoked.
And here's all the things that provoked it.
That's the center of the argument.
And if like, I, by the way, be happy to fucking debate anyone who wants to fucking challenge me on this topic.
That's a new thing, by the way, that they say on Twitter now.
If you say that, they go, oh, you're a debate me, bro.
Oh, that's, that's your thing.
You want to fucking, oh, someone wants to debate you.
Like, like, I don't know.
You're claiming to have a fucking argument that's better than mine.
So yeah, let's fucking argue with each other about it.
I don't know what's a better way to settle this.
So yeah.
I've heard Chuck Liddell in interviews before he says that before he was in the UFC, people have asked him if he got into a lot of fights.
And he's like, he said, yes, I did.
And he goes, I never started fights, but I didn't let you out of them too easy.
And the reason I bring that up is because even if you wanted to argue that this war was unprovoked, we're certainly not letting Russia out of it.
There's been a lot of opportunities to de-escalate, and we've chosen to declare that Putin's a war criminal.
We seem to have some sort of a strategy here that we think that Putin's just going to go, oh, yeah, I shouldn't have done that, turn himself in, give up his country to somebody else.
So, if you're just looking at this like from a strictly rational, hey, let's de-escalate, not sacrifice more lives in Ukraine, get everyone the energy needs that they need and not march towards nuclear war.
We're certainly not moving towards trying to negotiate or de-escalate the situation.
Yes, that I think that's very well put.
And I see a lot of people saying things like, you know, where I, because I'd be advocating that we should negotiate our way out of this.
And people will say things like, well, what should happen is Vladimir Putin should just leave and return all of you.
Yeah.
Let's just have more money.
Right.
But it's almost like if you were thinking about like leading up to, say, like, I don't know, any calamity in world history.
I don't know.
Take the war in Iraq.
You go, if you go before we're leading up to the war in Iraq, and I was like, yeah, we shouldn't launch this invasion.
And you go, well, what should happen is Saddam Hussein should stop being a brutal dictator.
You're like, yes, that's, yeah, that's true.
That should happen.
You're right.
But it's not going to happen.
So given that we know that's not going to happen, let's now deal within the confines of reality and go, okay, what should our response be?
So, yes, Vladimir Putin should like, I mean, I don't even know the areas of Ukraine.
Look, none of these fucking, this is the truth.
All these fucking countries, and this is true throughout the world.
None of these lines on the maps are drawn perfectly.
It's not exactly clear where Ukraine should be and where Russia should be.
It's certainly clear that Western Ukraine does not wish to be ruled by Moscow.
It's not so clear about like the eastern parts of Ukraine.
But regardless of that, yeah, what should happen is that Zelensky shouldn't ban opposition parties and fucking have state-run media.
And, you know, Putin shouldn't be drafting anti-war protesters into the war.
And none of them should be killing innocent people.
And everybody should just give everyone their liberty and fucking be nice to people.
Okay, fine.
But that's not what you have to deal with at a certain point is like within the realm of what's going on right now and what's possible, what can happen.
So, you know, anyway, there's that.
The other thing I guess people gave me pushback for was that, you know, I mentioned that there had been multiple reports that Zelensky and Putin or Ukraine and Russia had the outlines of a deal.
And then Boris Johnson went in there and encouraged them not to negotiate with Russia.
And, you know, people were giving me pushback about that.
The problem is, like, I'm right.
There's multiple reports about that.
And not only that, and Dave DeCamp over at antiwar.com, he came in and caught my back on this shit.
And I didn't even know this, but he was fucking posting this.
He's great, by the way.
Go check out all his shit.
Dave is fucking phenomenal.
But he was going, he goes, no, Boris Johnson even admitted it.
Like when he came back to fucking England, he told them that he was, he was telling them not to negotiate.
Questioning The War Lie00:05:31
Now, he said he was doing it over the war crimes that they had committed, but okay, still, whatever.
Like, I'm not saying those war crimes are okay, but he still was saying he told them not to negotiate.
And of course, if they were close to negotiating, well, I mean, look, they'd have no choice but to negotiate if we hadn't been sending them tens of billions of dollars in support.
So we're sending them all this weaponry, and now they're in a position to not negotiate, whereas before they would have had to.
The outside of this also made no sense where Biden said that we refuse to say that Ukraine can't enter NATO.
And it sounds like he didn't even want Ukraine to be in NATO.
It really looks like if you take a step back, oh, yeah, no, no, no.
For some reason, wanted this war.
Well, it does seem like Biden and Blinken and Hillary Clinton and all these people have said so many times that like they're, oh, at this point, I mean, Biden straight up said several times that Putin must go, that he must be overthrown.
You know, it's, it's who the fuck knows exactly what they want, but they've all said at points that the goal here is to fucking draw Russia into this conflict and to bleed them out, to really hurt them, both in justifying the sending in of weapons and the sanctions and all of this shit.
And so, okay, let me try to think.
The other criticism that I've gotten, I don't know what else was like actually like a legitimate criticism.
One of the criticisms is that I haven't mentioned everything, you know, which is like, you're like, oh, yeah, in this 10-minute YouTube clip, you didn't mention everything that Vladimir Putin has ever done wrong.
Well, but that they go, well, you're mentioning everything America's done wrong, but you haven't mentioned everything Vladimir Putin.
It's not really relevant.
We're talking about de-escalating to get away from nuclear war.
Well, yeah.
I mean, and also like, I also didn't mention everything Ukraine's done wrong.
I didn't mention in that clip that there's fucking real deal neo-Nazis in the Azov battalion.
You know, I didn't mention in that clip that Zelensky has like fucking banned his major opposition party and that he's basically, you know, become a dictator through this whole thing.
I didn't mention that either.
But I'm sure it's also true that I didn't mention everything that, you know, that Putin's done wrong.
And there's a lot of fucked up shit that Putin's done.
But it's like, if you were like, if you had a 10 minute video arguing against why you should fucking fight the war in Iraq or Afghanistan or Somalia or Yemen or Syria or whatever, that you'd go, but you didn't mention everything that Saddam Hussein has done bad.
Yeah, no, that's true.
I don't know.
There's only so many things I can mention.
I didn't mention everything the U.S. has done wrong either.
But the point I'm making is that we shouldn't fight this war.
And so here's five really important reasons why we shouldn't.
Oh, I saw this fucking, this guy, Destiny, who I guess is like a very popular guy.
Yes, a guy, not a woman, a guy.
Although from what I've seen, he argues like a woman.
But he's some popular YouTuber.
And someone sent me a clip of his video responding to me.
And basically, it was just, I don't know if he went on to make more points or whatever, but all the clip that the guy sent to me was that someone said, so it was me saying, I go, look, all the people who are trying to sell you on this war right now are the same people who were telling you 20 years ago that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he was in bed with Osama bin Laden and he was about to nuke Kansas if we didn't, you know, like go fight this preemptive war against him.
And his response was he was like, oh my God, these guys.
So basically your point is just that everything is Iraq.
Everything is the war in Iraq.
That's it.
You have one lesson from history is the war in Iraq and everything is Iraq.
And I don't even, I'm like, no, you fucking retard.
That's not my point.
My point is what I said, that the same people who sold that are selling you this.
And that's reason enough to maybe be skeptical and ask a few questions.
And it's not, by the way, it's not even an opinion that the same people who sold you that are selling you this.
It's just a fact.
Max Boot and Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton and all of the people who sold you the war in Iraq are now selling you to ask anyone who was fucking on board with the war in Iraq, Victoria Newland, like all of the same people are the ones who are selling you this shit.
That's all I'm saying.
I don't know if someone who's fucking lied through their teeth before to sell a war is trying to sell you a new war, maybe question whether they're lying through their teeth.
But all of this is kind of fucking beside the point, right?
Like all of these stupid little fucking, I don't know, these stupid little attacks that people are making about what I said, none of which, they're not right about any of them.
I'm right about all this shit.
And I wouldn't like, you know, I'm good enough at what I do that I wouldn't go on Rogan's podcast and make these fucking arguments if I didn't know it.
Oh, I guess there were a few people who were like, also argued just one more before I get to where I was going, but there were a few people who argued that the 2014 coup wasn't a coup.
Future Underwear Revolution00:03:00
It was a revolution.
Like, yeah, I don't know, man.
No, it really wasn't.
And we fucking went through the whole thing on the goddamn podcast.
And I still haven't seen anyone really respond to any of the points to go like, oh, yeah, no, no one's arguing that there weren't actually people out in the streets.
It's just that they were being funded by George Soros NGOs and that Victoria Newland was on phone calls deciding who was going to be in the new government and who wasn't.
And then, of course, there was the Gideon Rose interview that we played on the podcast in its entirety, where he's just telling you that this is what the Obama administration is doing.
They're stealing a country from Ukraine.
And then Stephen Colbert goes to Gideon Rose, well, why isn't Obama spiking the football?
And he's like, well, because that might lead to Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine.
So we don't, we want to make sure we don't do that.
So it's like, I mean, come on, dude.
At the very least, if you watch that Gideon Rose video, you'd have to go, oh, so Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine wasn't like some unforeseen, unprovoked thing that we couldn't have thought of.
This was something that as soon as this fucking overthrow of the last government, the last democratically elected government was executed, they were concerned about.
Okay.
How do you deny that?
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Geopolitical Provocation Matters00:11:23
What was the deal that Putin had worked out with like the government that the U.S. was like, all right, we got to get rid of the leader in Ukraine?
It was like some like massive, I forget what the deal was.
Yeah, yeah, he paid him off big.
I forget what it was.
It was something big.
I mean, not big, like, not like what we're paying off Zelensky right now.
There's something like $30 billion or something like that.
But I guess the previous government had like been flirting with joining the EU.
And then Vladimir Putin came in and gave him like tons of fucking money.
And they decided like, no, we're not going to join the EU.
And then the U.S. government like just overthrew the.
Yeah.
Yeah, basically.
And then there was a coup.
So, you know, there's like, I'd have to like refresh myself on the details of it, but it was a lot of money that Vladimir Putin threw at them.
And again, this is where like people become like binary fucking thinkers where they're like, oh, so that's okay, but what we do isn't okay.
And I'm like, no, I'm not saying any of it's okay.
I'm saying that it's on that Russia is sitting on the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the history of the world.
And that this is 5,000 miles from New York City.
And that he wants to influence them to come over on his side.
And that it's not a worthwhile fight for us to pick to start fucking trying to influence them to come on our side.
You know what I'm doing?
And look what it's led to.
I'm realizing the problem is I have to start having lunch with Scott Horton.
Cause like when I hang out with Scott Horton, it tends to be late at night.
And so like I ask him all these things and he gives me all of it, but I'm drinking.
So it's like, I get like the little gut bits.
I gotta start off with lunch.
Nothing that talking to Scott earlier in the day can't fix.
Trust me.
I completely, I'm with you on that one.
But really, when it all boils down to it, at the end of the day, the time when you're drunk talking to Scott Horton, at the end of the day, what it really comes down to is this.
It's not an argument over whether Putin's justified to invade Ukraine or not.
Again, like I was saying before, of course he's not.
Of course he's not.
But this is to me, look, I'm an anarcho-libertarian.
I thought, what does this even mean?
Is he justified to invade?
No, he's not justified to rule his country.
He's not justified in anything that he does.
You know, like he's not justified to fucking collect his salary off taxes.
Like no one's justified in any of these fucking governments, but that's not really what matters.
What matters is whether it's true that this was an unprovoked attack or whether it was provoked.
That's really what matters.
Like in terms of like the geopolitical conflict here, that's what matters.
Because of course, look, like some people will say, you know, because I'll point out, as I'm sure we all have pointed out, that you go, look, this guy's threatening to use nukes.
And he's saying he's not bluffing.
Maybe he's bluffing, but he's saying he's not bluffing.
And he's threatening to use nukes.
And that's a pretty good enough reason to be like, I don't know if we want to be in this conflict.
But then they'll make the point.
And this is to some degree a fair, at least like question to raise.
They'll say, well, does that mean that anyone with nukes can do whatever they want to do?
Anyone with nukes, like he could just fucking storm into any country he wants to.
And if he goes, well, I'll nuke you.
If you stop me, then you go, well, we can't do this.
Right.
So, I'd say, no, that's not the point.
But the point is, certainly, like, it's not that we should back down from anyone who has nukes, but we certainly certainly shouldn't provoke conflicts with people who have nukes who might right on their border who might be willing to use them.
That's certain that that seems reasonable.
So, then the real question that this all comes down to is: was Vladimir Putin provoked or what, or wasn't he?
That's the fucking question.
And I just think it is a slam dunk of a case that, yes, he was provoked.
And in fact, I don't see how any person who knows anything about this, who's being even somewhat honest with themselves, would not conclude at least that, like, yeah, he kind of was provoked.
Like, you might argue to what degree, but you'd have to go, yes, we've been fucking with this guy forever.
And now that all this shit is going down, you would have to at least ask yourself whether maybe that was a bad move.
Maybe it was a bad move.
But just to go over this case of how we have provoked Vladimir Putin, let's even say, let's say for the sake of argument that you don't grant me any of those points that I'm right about, by the way.
I'm right about everything I said on Joe Rogan's podcast.
But let's just say for the sake of argument, you go, no, Dave, even though we have the declassified minutes of these conversations, there was never any assurances that NATO wouldn't move to the East.
Okay, fine.
That never happened.
For the sake of argument, it never happened.
No one ever told any Russian leaders that we wouldn't move NATO to the East.
Does it provoke them that we do?
Can you really argue against that?
Does it provoke them that the former Soviet countries, I mean, you guys are the ones saying he wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union.
Does it provoke them that the former Soviet countries are now in our military alliance, our defensive military alliance, which also, by the way, this defensive alliance sometimes enforces no-fly zones in Libya and bombing campaigns in Afghanistan in those defensive wars?
If you're not the global elites, what's NATO doing for anybody?
I mean, why is yeah, why is taking over Ukraine and making it join NATO a win for anybody, other than if you're trying to make a bunch of money and grip the system and spend in locations because it can end up in your bank account or help out your friends?
But I'm just saying for the average American, what the hell does it matter if Ukraine's in NATO or not?
Well, that's that's a fair point.
But and for that matter, all of the former Soviet bloc countries.
But look, even if you were going to argue that the 2014 coup was an organic revolution, okay, no Western influence in it at all.
Okay, well, would Gideon Rose being on the Colbert show and bragging about how we're taking this country away from Putin and what an idiot he is because he's focused on the Olympics and doesn't even notice this has happened?
Could that be considered a provocation?
I would think so.
No?
I mean, how about Donald Trump sending in weapons to the new government that just experienced this organic revolution?
Could that be considered provocation?
Hey, how about this?
How about our fucking CIA and FBI And every establishment politician saying that Vladimir Putin committed an act of war against us in 2016.
How many of them compared it to Pearl Harbor?
Do you remember that, Rob?
We've played all of the comparisons to Pearl Harbor, of Vladimir Putin interfered in the elections.
Well, do you remember what we did to Japan after Pearl Harbor?
Wait, yeah, it involved a couple of nukes and firebombing of Tokyo.
Okay, so do you think that could be considered a provocation?
Do you think that, I don't know, let's go down the list here.
Do you think that perhaps, do you remember the lies that Vladimir Putin had was the thing that had come up with some technology no one could think of that gave this Havana syndrome thing where they were like giving brain damage to our diplomats turned out to be a complete lie.
Even the CIA admitted at one point that this was like all bullshit.
You know, yeah, radio wave weapons of some sort that they were claiming they fucking used.
They claimed they were putting bounties on U.S. soldiers' heads in Afghanistan in an active war zone that Vladimir Putin was putting bounties on U.S. soldiers' heads.
They were accusing him publicly of initiating the war, the war between America and Russia.
Is that a provocation?
By the way, like, tell me if you believe all of this shit actually happened.
Like, this is a binary.
Either you believe all of this shit actually happened, or you have to concede that we have been provoking Vladimir Putin.
It's one or the other.
Do you believe that Hunter Biden's laptop was actually Russian propaganda?
Because if not, then you have to acknowledge that you have four former heads of the CIA and 50 something different intelligence officials all saying that Russia was trying to interfere in our elections in 2020 again.
But what's the problem with all of these stories?
Oh, yeah, they were all complete lies, all complete lies, just claiming that Russia is fucking with us when in reality, what was going on was we were fucking with Russia.
Do you look back at any of this now that we're in the situation that we're in now and go, maybe we shouldn't have done that?
Maybe there was, maybe there was more of a downside than an upside to just saying, hey, let's pick on this fucking country that can't do shit to the world because they've got a GDP smaller than Italy and they're fucking like no threat at all to anyone except their neighboring countries, perhaps.
But all they really have is the world's biggest nuclear arsenal.
Maybe we shouldn't just fuck with them over and over and over again.
Maybe that would actually be smarter.
Again, I know I'm just a debate me, bro, but if anyone wants to come fucking like actually try to argue with me on this shit, any of you fucking blue check marked journalists who are talking shit or any of these guys, please let's fucking do this and see what type of argument you can actually come up with.
And I bet it'll just rely on something like, but the war is terrible and what he's doing is wrong.
Yes, that's true.
And Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and Muammar Gaddafi was a mean dictator.
And, you know, all of the, oh, like, sure.
And we didn't want communism to, you know, take over Vietnam.
But that's not a justification for why we should be fucking sending weapons in and flirting with a war or any of this shit.
Bambi Runs HR Now00:02:09
It's just not.
Sorry.
That's just not like an adult way to have this conversation.
So all of that.
I don't know.
Did I miss anything big about the obvious provocations of Russia that we should have mentioned?
Yeah, whatever.
I guess that'll do for now.
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The entire situation really just looks to me like dirty business.
You know, it's like classic when a new competitor comes along and you're not allowed to do this in our economy.
Dirty Business Pipelines00:12:36
You know, you just go burn down their business and you threaten them or whatever else.
That just looks what the global elites are doing with NordStream.
I don't get it, but that's what this just appears to be.
Well, that's the thing we should.
Okay, so let's transition to that talking about NordStream again.
Like we said the other day, I mean, pretty much, I guess the factual information of what we have available to us, we pretty much had on the first episode that we talked about this, right?
Which is that it looks pretty clear that this was done by a government.
There were it was like these pretty insane underwater explosions.
So that's what it is.
They're trying to blame this on Vladimir Putin.
There's a real issue with that, which is that it makes absolutely no sense.
Look, I remember this feeling this way about when they, if you remember this, Rob, back when they, the, the, the bullshit gas attacks that they tried to blame on Assad in Syria.
And essentially what happened was that Donald Trump announced that he was leaving Syria, that we were pulling all of the troops out of Syria.
And this is after, you know, the war in Syria started in 2012.
This is like 2017, 2018.
And so the war has been going on for about six years.
And Donald Trump announces we're pulling out.
So essentially announcing Assad has won.
Now, Assad was in a brutal war, you know, a war for his life, a war like, you know, look what happened to Gaddafi, who, you know, his not too distant neighbor, who's he was in a war where America said we were having regime change there.
And he ends up being, you know, beaten and sodomized to death in the streets.
Okay.
So in 2012, this is in 2010.
Gaddafi is killed.
In 2012, Obama announces that the U.S. policy is overthrowing Assad.
So just imagine that from his perspective, right?
Like the last guy got sodomized in the fucking street, okay?
With like a golden gun or some shit.
You know, I don't know if you guys have seen the shit.
Yeah, SkankFest shit.
The same way that Jay will die at Skankfest.
It's the same way Gaddafi died.
A bayonet.
Maybe that's the right term.
So he fights this brutal war.
No holds bar, you know, for six years.
And he kills a whole lot of innocent people in that war.
But also the other side is like ISIS and they're pretty fucked up too, which is horrible.
And then Donald Trump announces that he's pulling out.
And within a couple weeks of that announcement, they say Assad gases his own people.
And it was like 40 people or something like that.
And right away, I remember looking at this.
I remember arguing.
I was at, I think this was 2017, 2018.
I was on SE Cup show at the time.
I think it was 2018.
I was on SE Cup show at the time because I was a contributor there.
And I remember arguing the day after that this made no sense.
And she was like, no, but our intelligence agencies are saying Assad did this.
And I was like, no, but he didn't.
He didn't.
Because this makes no sense.
Why would he?
And I said, this is one of the clips that went viral at the time.
I don't know if you guys could find this, but I said, I believe my exact words were, I go, if he did this, it's the greatest military strategic blunder in the history of the world.
You know, that the guy, you just won this war and you're going to do the one thing that would guarantee to keep American troops here after the commander in chief just announced he was leaving.
Does that make any sense?
Like for no strategic advantage.
Like you could have just killed them with a bomb and no one would care.
You know what I mean?
But you killed them with this gas attack and that's the one thing that you know would fucking lead to being like the international community is now rallied to stay here because they cannot tolerate chemical weapons or whatever.
It's just made no sense.
And then of course, subsequently in the following months and the following year, there were a whole bunch of OPCW whistleblowers who came out and said, yeah, yeah, all of the evidence points to the fact that it was actually the rebels who used the gas and that it didn't come from the air.
It came from the ground and the ground was controlled by these rebel areas.
And so there's just no, you know, and so like that's, that's what you, you got to start before the evidence comes in with these things a lot.
And that's kind of where we are right now.
We haven't had the like, you know, on the ground evidence yet, but you can just kind of use the smell test.
You can just go, what makes sense here?
And why would it make any sense that Vladimir Putin would send his people, you know, all like, why wouldn't he, he could just turn off the gas pipes from his end or he could blow them up from his end.
Like, why go all the way into the middle of the fucking Baltic Sea?
Like, why go to Poland and fucking blow up these pipelines?
It just doesn't make any sense.
And here it goes, haha, I'll destroy the great leverage that I had over Europe.
Come on, man.
It just makes no strategic sense at all.
But it's been interesting to listen to some of these people talk about this.
So let's, let's play a couple clips.
First, we have John Brennan.
Of course, as you guys know, John Brennan was the CIA director under Obama who committed literal treason arming al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria.
You know, he gave aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime, whatever you think the punishment for that should be.
That's fine.
And of course, he also was part of the team that cooked up the Trump-Russia conspiracy.
And he also was on record telling us, what was it, a week, Rob, maybe two weeks before the Mueller report, that we were going to see Trump and his family let off in handcuffs anytime now.
It was very clear that Mueller was about to indict the whole Trump family.
So that guy, here he is on the Nord Stream pipelines.
Why do you and others in intelligence believe that Russia did this, blew up these two pipelines?
I mean, what evidence has the U.S. and Europe been able to gather so far?
Well, Alex, it's still unclear who actually carried out these explosions against these pipelines.
But I think the nature and scale of the attack clearly indicates not only that it was an act of sabotage, but that it was most likely some type of state actor that did this.
These explosions took place several hundred feet below the surface of the water.
It involves several hundred pounds of explosives as well.
And so three of these pipelines were struck by what looks like four explosions.
So again, it had to be a state actor that maybe had some underwater robots or others that place these explosives.
So I do think that the most likely suspect at this point, according to many, is Russia as a way to signal to Europe that it has this capability.
And not because these pipelines were pumping gas, they weren't.
But there are other pipelines that go into continental Europe, into the UK from Norway.
I think there are seven underwater pipelines that do that right now.
And there's also a lot of undersea communication cables.
So is this part of Russia's efforts to intimidate and try to bully Europe into relaxing or reducing its support to Ukraine?
So I do think this investigation, I hope to think that it's going to identify who actually was responsible.
But at this stage, Russia does seem to have the motivation.
I do not believe that any NATO country would have carried out these attacks.
Yeah.
So you say it's likely a state actor.
So that's what we've got from Brennan.
So he's asked point blank, why is it that you and the entire intelligence community say that this was Russia?
What evidence do you have for that?
And his response is, well, we have evidence that it must have been a state actor, which is, I think, true.
That there's probably no one other than a government who's going to blow up this type of shit underwater this way.
And then he goes, and it seems to be Russia to send a message to Europe.
We could blow up our own pipeline like this.
Imagine what we'd do to you.
It's like if you had a fucking black eye and you were like, oh, who did this?
And I go, well, it seems to have come from a fist.
And my guess is that it was Rob just to send a message to everybody else.
That like, if I punch myself in the face, just like you're doing.
I'm crazy.
I'll do it.
Yeah, just imagine what I'd fucking do to you if I did this to myself.
I mean, all right.
I guess it's not impossible, but just on the evidence we've been given, it seems like if you had a black eye, it seems like the least likely person to have punched you in the face would be you.
Like, there's, I'm not saying it's impossible that you did that because you're that crazy and you want to let other people know you're crazy or something, but it seems like the least likely.
I also like, I think he said that the pipeline, and you might have to replay that.
I might have heard it wrong.
He said the pipeline wasn't carrying oil.
I don't think they're oil pipelines.
They're natural.
They're natural gas.
They're natural gas pipelines.
Yes.
And it was clearly carrying stuff because there's shit pouring into the ocean from what I understand.
Yes, it wasn't like delivering things.
So it was filled with natural gas and filled with methane and all of that.
But Germany had turned it off at their end since the war because they've been so pressured to since the war in Ukraine.
Nord Stream 2, I believe, was the one they were using.
That had been turned off.
But the issue, as I talked about on the previous podcast, the thing is that Germany now was also about a decade ago, I think, they like put these heavy restrictions on nuclear and like really moved away from that.
And they're going full in on the like climate change, insane, you know, sustainable energy shit.
And they don't have nearly enough energy for their people.
And they're coming into winter now.
And so there was this big, like, there's reports that there were negotiations between Germany and Russia already.
Whether or not that's true, the truth is that Vladimir Putin had a lot of leverage going into winter, where there's what they're saying is that firewood is the new gold in Germany.
Like there's this is a real thing that's happening right now is that in first world countries, people are genuinely concerned over how they're going to have heat through a winter.
It's how insane this climate change fucking, you know, these people are.
And so, so anyway, the point is that Russia, this was leverage for Russia, that they could be like, all right, well, you want to come back to the table and turn these pipes back on or no?
That's the insanity of Brennan's claim because he goes, all right, it's obvious it was a state actor.
And so, well, Russia's the only one that would have the motivation.
The motivation, he states, makes no sense.
No, they want it.
So it's a warning shot to prove what they could do.
But so Russia's, I mean, why wouldn't they just then go to wipe out communication lines?
And then, so Russia wants to escalate the war at this point that they're letting NATO know that they'll directly attack them.
None of that makes any sense.
And then if the idea is, well, who's got the strongest motives to ignore what you just said, then it would be the United States basically saying, hey, we're going to take away the option of Europe not backing us in terms of pitting Russia into the like, how do you like a much stronger motivation?
If the analysis is who has the strongest motivation, then how do you ignore that one?
And of course, and then Brennan says, I can't imagine that a NATO country would do this.
Healthcare Bills Explained00:03:10
That's that's his only argument, but he can't imagine it.
He needs a better imagination.
Yeah, like it's like he doesn't have to imagine it because he knows that's what actually happened.
Right.
Slick wording.
Could you imagine that a NATO-backed country would knowingly arm Al-Qaeda?
Like, could you imagine that?
I bet you could because you did it.
So like, I don't know what this means.
Like, I just can't imagine.
I mean, we're the good guys.
So I just can't imagine that we would do something this fucked up.
Like, all right.
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Creating False Scarcity00:07:54
All right, let's go to the next video, which is Blinken, our current Secretary of State.
And this is what he had to say about the attack.
Ultimately, this is also a tremendous opportunity.
It's a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs.
That's very significant.
And that offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come.
But meanwhile, we're determined to do everything we possibly can to make sure that the consequences of all of this are not borne by citizens in our countries or for that matter around the world.
All right.
So, Vladimir, so according to Blinken, this is a tremendous opportunity.
So, I guess in the middle of this war, right on Russia's border, try to keep in mind, if you're comparing this to anything, there's really nothing since 1812 in America that you could compare this war to.
This is not a war in Europe.
This is not a war in the Middle East.
This is a war on your border, a war right next door to your country, where you have serious concerns about your own nuclear reactors being hit with a bomb.
Like, you know, like things like that really could affect your country.
That he just decided, luckily, to give America a tremendous opportunity, as Blinkett would put it.
This is a great opportunity for us now that this happened.
Well, man, thanks, Putin, for that blunder.
All right.
That's the official story that we're supposed to swallow as of right now.
Again, look, I do not know who did this.
I do not know for sure that this was America.
I don't know.
It wasn't funded and we helped execute it.
I think we're probably smart enough to work through a third party, but I'd be very surprised.
Who the hell else is doing this shit?
I mean, if you're going to say Putin did this, the only thing that makes sense is to say that he did this to frame us.
You know, that he did this because it would so look like it was us.
And that's why he did this.
Even that seems like a stretch.
That he would do this.
He would fuck up his own shit just to make it look like we did it.
Not saying it's impossible.
I'm saying that what these people are saying doesn't make any fucking sense.
And they've been lying to you over and over again.
Now, again, to that fucking Destiny guy, when I say that this guy armed Al-Qaeda knowingly in Syria, my point is not that this is the exact same thing as arming Al-Qaeda in Syria, retard.
My point is that the guy who knowingly armed Al-Qaeda in Syria and then lied about it probably shouldn't be trusted.
When I say blinket, like a guy like this, that he probably shouldn't be trusted.
That's all I'll say.
And this is the old, because I heard Ted Cruz saying this back when they were talking about Nord Stream 2, but there was some Warhawk philosophy that we can't allow Russia to build the infrastructure to be servicing the oil needs because then,
and then when they go there, and then it doesn't make any sense, because then Russia is going to be able to be this world empire with imperialism and all these things they have no proof of, but just kind of sounds like you don't want to compete with these people and that you don't actually believe in free trade and you want to secure, you know, the security of the private profit, private, you know, profits.
Which is always what it is.
Yeah.
Securing the private profits for some corporate interest.
Yeah.
And so that's all that this just still sounds like is, hey, there's this evil world empire machine.
And if there's free trade between them and their neighbors, that their neighbors are able to get the oil or natural gas resources that they need and Russia is able to profit.
And that means that someone else can't service the energy needs, then we've got a problem.
And then it comes down to what they're really trying to push because then he goes into nonsense talk where he goes, and we don't want to punish the people of Europe.
Yeah, but you are.
That's the consequence.
The consequence here is that people aren't going to have the oil.
We're not looking to.
Yes, that's what you're doing.
You can claim that you've got the high moral road, but that is what you're doing.
And then it just comes to this fucking green energy bullshit of pretending like windmills work, of pretending like, you know, solar panels are going to work.
And that if we can just get off the oil from Russia, then we can finally figure out this alternative energy thing, which means people are going to starve and die.
Yep.
That's quite literally, that's what it means.
You know, and believe me, I think through this winter, and this is, I think it's going to be bad, but hopefully some people will wake up.
I think through this winter in Europe, people are really going to see like, oh, yeah, oh, we get a little bit of a wake-up call of how dependent on fossil fuels we really are.
And then we'll see what's going on.
I see kind of a weird tide here.
You ever like pay any attention to like the dumb metaverse shit?
No.
Like the idea that you're going to sell like digital property.
It's like there's a false scarcity to it.
You're in a digital landscape.
There's an infinite amount of land.
You fucking invented it.
It seems like the DeVaus or whatever this fucking new initiative is, and I'll use, we'll call them the global elites.
It just seems like we're headed towards the natural progression of humanity is science and progressing in a way where there's actual abundance and most people can afford what they need.
And like they're trying to create some sort of false scarcity to kind of like hold humanity back and down.
Yeah, that's that's interesting that you put it that way.
It certainly seems like just to back up what you're saying.
I don't know if it's completely right, but it certainly seems like there is an imposed level of scarcity that need not be.
Yes.
You know, like you don't need this.
Like we've gotten to a point in humanity where we don't need to have true scarcity in energy and food.
We've figured out how to produce that for the world, and yet we're imposing a severe level of scarcity in both of those things.
Or just make it a little bit looser, like we would actually figure out how to have that for everybody, but for some reason, someone doesn't want that, right, right.
We won't just keep moving in this direction.
But it's the scary thing is we're not just, it's not just like, oh, we're not moving in this direction for the people who are food insecure right now to be, you know, secure.
We're moving in the direction for the people who have taken it for granted that they would be food secure to not be.
So anyway, look, the point of all of this is, okay, and we'll wrap on this final thought.
If you will admit that it at least seems more likely than not that an adversary to Russia blew up the Nord Stream pipeline than Russia did.
Granting Evidence First00:01:55
If you'll at least grant that, just on the evidence we know right now, and I will be the first to admit we don't know for sure, but at least if you'll grant that, would that not also count as a provocation?
Because it seemed like a pretty big one to me.
Be honest with yourself for all the people giving me shit about that fucking clip on Rogan that's gone super duper viral.
None of what we've laid out in this episode is a provocation.
Not saying a justification.
Put on your big boy pants here.
We're not try to not be a binary thinker for one second.
Not saying it's a justification for what Putin does, but was it a provocation?
Was Putin provoked into what he's doing right now?
Because that's an important question.
And it's essentially the central point I was making in that video.
All right.
That's our episode for today.
Come see me and Robbie the Fire Burn, me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein in Poughkeepsie, New York at Laugh It Up.
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What do you got, Rob?
Any final plugs?
Run your mouth.
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