Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein dissect Elon Musk's poll to step down from Twitter, noting overwhelming "yes" votes despite suspected bot interference and his erratic leadership style. They critique government overreach in tech censorship, referencing FBI demands for media criteria and Tucker Carlson's anonymous claim of CIA involvement in the JFK assassination, which the agency refuses to address. The hosts also condemn Bernie Sanders for withdrawing his Yemen war resolution to avoid a veto, arguing this protects Saudi interests while Congress blocks transparency amendments. Ultimately, the episode suggests that both corporate chaos and state secrecy undermine democratic accountability. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Government Too Big00:05:10
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.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I'm Dave Smith.
He is my partner in crime.
Robbie the Fire Bernstein, my brother.
How you doing this evening, Rob?
I'm having a nice weekend.
How about you, Davey Smith?
Having a very nice weekend.
Yeah, very good time.
Saw a lot of family this weekend.
Everybody on my wife's side, everyone on my side, we all hung out together.
So I don't get it.
Why don't these go even do Christmas on Christmas?
I don't get this.
I didn't realize that this was like a big holiday weekend.
They really draw the whole thing out.
No, we weren't doing Christmas shit.
Oh, you're just getting together to be a family?
It was my wife's birthday.
Oh, happy birthday.
Everyone got together for that.
No, they don't do.
I mean, they get the decorations out early.
That they do.
And they keep them out late, but they don't really like celebrate until it's fucking Christmas time.
It's pretty much just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Nice and simple.
Yeah, they don't do like the 12 days, really.
I think that's just for the song.
I don't completely understand it, Rob.
I haven't, I haven't been in the game that long, but that's from what I gather.
I love Christmas.
People leave you the fuck alone.
The streets are empty.
I feel like a superhero is a Jew on Christmas.
Yeah, you gotta, I just feel like, you know, it, it, the worst part about Christmas is it, it does wear down my Jewy bah humbug energy a little bit, and I feel friendly.
Like if homeless people ask me for money, I give it to them and stuff like that, which is tough.
That's you gotta really avoid that.
But yeah, I tip, I tip real heavy.
Oh, dude, I fucking the other night, so it's yesterday.
So it was my wife's birthday.
And the, you know, we had a bunch of our family over.
Yeah, I just had like a little party.
It was nice.
And we ordered food.
And my doorbell is fucking broken.
So there's something with the wiring.
I got to fucking figure it out.
So anyway, the doorbell's not working.
So, you know, as far as problems with the house, it's fairly on the minor side.
But I did forget about this.
And we're all at a party.
It's allowed.
We're all drinking, whatever.
I ordered the food.
It dawns on me just randomly, you know, like we're in the middle of the conversation, drinks are flowing, you know, people are talking.
And I went, how long?
Let me check the time.
How long has it been since I ordered this food?
That's been like 50 minutes.
And they said like 30 minutes.
I was like, shit, let me go outside and see if like they just left it on the front because I also remember my fucking doorbell doesn't work.
So shit, they might be here.
And I opened the door and this like 16, 17 year old there.
He's shaking.
He's right outside the door.
I was like, oh shit, dude, have you been, have you been here long?
And he's like, no, no, I haven't been here long.
But you can tell like this kid's been here for a while.
Like, why are you shaking?
Like, you're from the car to here would not, you wouldn't be that cold.
And it's cold up here.
Like, where I live is like, I'm, you know, it's like, it's, you know, it's, it's a little bit colder than like even where in, you know, New York City or something like that.
And yeah, I gave him a really nice tip, but it was just so, I, I literally was fighting, not laughing in his face, which was fucked up.
I gave him a really, really nice tip.
Like, like, excellent.
I made this fucking kid's week.
Like, he was really thrilled.
It was just so funny to be like, it just dawned literally just because it happened to dawn to me to see this little teenager shaking.
Go warm up.
Food was still pretty warm, though.
So that's that's good.
But it was in like one of those fucking things.
You know what I mean?
So it's not been anyway.
Yeah.
Sorry, just a story.
Okay.
That's such a classic 17-year-old move, just not knowing what to do.
Yeah.
Just stand there.
Like, he's, I don't know what he could have come around and started looking through the windows and shit like that, but I guess I would understand where he'd be like, I don't know if I should fucking do that.
Like, that seems like kind of weird or something like that.
But yeah, I don't know.
I don't know exactly what he could have done.
Yeah, he could have.
That's a good point, Brian.
He could have just sat in the car until the door opened or something.
Yeah, what he should have done is go back to the car and call the restaurant who had my number and get them to call me.
But he's a teenager.
I've done stupider things as a teenager than that.
So what are you going to say?
Or have been really cool to smoke the joint, forgot that he was supposed to deliver it and just eat the food.
That sounds more like what I would have done as a teenager than this kid.
But you know what?
So honestly, I tip my hat to this kid.
I respect him.
Honorable move.
Okay.
Elon Musk Twitter Uprising00:09:30
All right.
Let's get into some news stuff.
Or actually, first, right before we do that, some quick plugs, Rob, what do you got coming up?
I got end of year.
My stuff is done.
Putting it together.
Come out for a misinformation spectacular round two up at the shell.
New Year's party on Friday night going to be a blast.
If you're unfamiliar with Rob's end of the year rundown, it has become like a thing that you do not want to miss.
It's really fucking great and entertaining.
So definitely go check that out.
Gas Digital Network, go over there, subscribe to the show, use promo code P-O-T-P.
You get a monthly discount.
You get ad-free shows, and you get access to our entire archive on demand.
Every episode in the history of Part of the Problem.
A lot of great stuff in there.
We have been right about everything.
Not everything, but man, we've been right about a lot.
And so you can go check all of that out.
Also, podcastmerch.com.
We got some brand new merch up there, some limited time stuff, really, really great stuff.
Go check it out.
And if you want to support the show, that would help us very much.
And also, you'll love the gear.
New Year's Eve, we just opened up a second show.
Me and Louis J. Gomez returning to the comedy store.
If you're in the LA area, come spend New Year's Eve with us, comicdavesmith.com for the ticket links.
And me and Rob the Fire burn scene are going to be on the road a ton in 2023.
So come out and see us in a town near you.
All right.
There's several things that I want to talk about on today's show, but I got to open up with.
And I know, you know, we've just talked a lot about Twitter recently, but it's been very hard not to.
And maybe this is the genius of Elon Musk's drip-drip Twitter files style thing is that we just have to keep talking about it.
There's kind of no way not to because it's such a big story.
However, aside from even the Twitter files stuff, today Elon Musk threw another fucking curveball at us when he tweeted out a new poll.
Brian, can we pull this up?
And let's see.
Let me read the exact wording of this.
It was whether he should step down as the head of Twitter or not.
And he put this up to a vote.
Last I checked.
The yes votes were dominating.
Should I step down as head of Twitter?
I will abide by the results of this poll.
The yeses are dominating.
Oh, and we can see there that our producer Brian voted no.
Oh, look at that.
So the yeses are at 50%.
Just pull it up for one more second, Brian.
The yeses are at 57.2%.
The no's are at 42.8%.
Is with just about seven.
Wow, look at that, over seven and a half million votes.
So I don't know.
I'm not a statistician, but if I'm looking at an election, I think they would be calling this already for yes.
Fake news.
You know how many bats are in there?
Yeah, right, exactly.
Stop the count.
I don't know, man.
I don't even know what to say about this.
I um, the thing, you know, in a way, Elon Musk buying Twitter, it kind of feels like a populist uprising where, you know, the establishment is so fucked up that some populist uprising happens and the people all support it.
But you do quickly start to realize that even though the populist uprising is so much better than the establishment, man, they really don't know what the fuck they're doing or seem to have any coherent strategy or anything like that.
I don't know.
Maybe Elon Musk does.
I mean, the guy obviously is a genius in many different areas in life.
Maybe he has his new replacement picked out already.
But my thing about it would just be like, man, I hope you got a fucking replacement picked who's really committed to like what you kind of were selling everybody on as what the new Twitter is going to be.
Twitter has gotten so much better since Elon Musk has been there.
And I'm like, oh, dude, are you just going to fucking leave?
And then this thing is going to suck again.
That would be disappointing.
I also just hate, I don't know.
You know, we mentioned this before, but I hate the fucking these decisions being made off these polls.
I just don't like it.
It's like, that's not really what we were like promised.
Certainly not what I was hoping for.
I obviously always, if you go back and listen to the show, you know, I was saying, look, from the very beginning, I was like, look, a lot of things would have to happen for this to actually be successful.
Back then, I was like, first off, he has to pull off this purchase.
And that seemed like it was very possibly wouldn't happen.
But then I always said, and then even if he gets it, who knows how he actually governs?
Does he actually mean what he's saying?
Is he capable of actually enacting this policy?
But what we were, you know, promised or what we were hoping for was a free speech platform, not an unrestrained democracy, you know, not just like, ah, whatever the fucking mob on Twitter feels like, that's what'll happen.
Anyway, I don't know.
Do you have any thoughts on this, Rob?
It's hard to know what Elon Musk has brewing.
And I think Tesla, SpaceX probably still has bigger investments.
And maybe that needs to take up a little bit more of his time than green or gray check marks.
And it seems like as smart as he is, he's almost like a dumbass like the rest of us, where he's just a little bit too addicted to social media.
And then it almost becomes like you're playing for keeps.
It's a little bit like it's fun to watch a basketball game, but if you ever watch Mark Cuban watch like the Mavericks, like that's what it really, because like he's making money.
You know what I mean?
Like he's got the biggest gamble on the table.
So he gets to watch it not just as a fan and a guy who likes the sport, but also as the owner.
So I bet, I bet Elon Musk is dealing with that right now, where he's like, dude, I used to like solve mathematical questions about how we can get to Mars.
And now I just seem to be pissed off about bullshit all the time.
Yeah.
No, I understand.
But I got to tell you, it's like, I really do think maybe Elon Musk doesn't even understand.
But my guess is he probably does.
But I think like this Twitter acquisition is so huge.
Like, I just don't know if a lot of people even like really understand like how big this is.
This is a huge fucking deal, a huge deal.
And this is why there's so much pushback from the corporate press and the all types of, you know, politicians and the whole establishment.
Why do you think this much of the market is against him being on it?
Is there that many liberals hanging out on the platform?
Honestly, dude, you know, when you're talking about numbers like this, even though obviously it's a lot of people, it's millions of people voted in it.
It's like, I think as soon as this poll was up, every fucking liberal journalist was sharing it and everyone was like, oh, here's our chance to fucking get him out.
Let's, you know, and I don't know.
Maybe to some degree that represents the fucking, you know, let's just say hypothetically, that represents the split, that it's, it's a, uh, you know, a 60, 40 or a little bit less than that, a 57, you know, 43 or whatever split leaning toward that side.
I don't know.
It's possible.
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All right, let's get back into it.
Michael Malice made this point recently when I was on his show.
By the way, Michael Malice's new book, The White Pill, is available.
I am almost done with the book.
It's phenomenal.
And we will have him on the podcast to talk all about it soon.
I just, I wanted to finish the book before I had him on because I thought that was the respectful thing to do.
But anyway, when I was on his show, he was talking about this where, you know, he was like, look, we have this like electoral college system.
And there's a strong argument for why we have that rather than just unfettered, you know, democracy.
But he was like, it is still a fact that the Republicans, I for what are the exact numbers on this?
So the Republicans lost the popular vote in 2000 in 2000.
They won the popular vote in 2004.
They lost the popular vote in 2008.
They lost the popular vote in 2012.
They lost the popular vote in 2016.
And they lost the popular vote in 2020.
In the last 20 years, the Republicans have once won the popular vote.
Popular Vote Facts00:07:43
Now, that's not to say that that's okay.
That's not how we pick presidents, but that's still information.
That's like, you know, you might want to pay attention to that.
That's something kind of interesting to note that it's like, yeah, no, most, this is where most voters are.
And then you have this huge percentage of people who don't even vote.
Where exactly are they?
It's harder to say.
But, you know, yeah, maybe that's what, I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that that's just what the numbers are, that more people liked it better the old way than like it this way.
But regardless of that, that's not really the point.
You know, the point is almost that even if the numbers are that, at least on the Twitter, in the Twitter world, they still relied on this intense censorship in order to kind of win the argument, to kind of win the narrative.
You know, even if you had like fucking, you know, there was a point where like abolitionists represented like 2% of the fucking of the vote in like the 1840s or 1830s.
But they just, they were, they had a strong enough argument and were persuasive enough and convinced enough people that they ended up, you know, winning the day.
The point here is that, you know, whatever we were expecting out of this whole new Twitter, just leaving this up to a vote lacks a lot of, I don't know, it leaves a lot to be desired.
if that makes sense.
And so I, so I don't really know.
It's hard for me to say.
I don't even know what the bot influence on Twitter is or what's real and what's not real.
But I do know that this thing, a lot of people, I think, don't appreciate how big a deal this is.
The fact that there is somebody out there that within this system, you know, we live in this kind of like this crony corporatist society where the game is pretty much rigged, but there are still, there is still a level of capitalism, right?
Like it's not laissez-faire free market capitalism like we would want, but there are, there's private ownership and there's very rich people and all of this that it's almost like a chink in the armor, whereas people always look to the government for solutions.
Even conservatives when it comes to, you know, the social media problems are all looking to the government for solutions.
You know, Donald Trump laid out his plan recently on what he was going to do about all this stuff.
Some of it good, some of it not good.
But really, the chink in the armor was that this one rich guy just fucking felt differently and actually could pull off.
And not just a rich guy, the richest guy, and actually could pull off just buying this.
But think about how unprecedented it is.
So you have the entire history of the corporate press being completely dominated.
You know, there were for most of our parents' lives, there were three TV channels and a handful of highly distributed newspapers.
And that's basically it.
And the establishment has them on lock.
And then when we're kids, there's the rise of cable news, but those are still almost all subsidiaries of the big networks.
Then all of a sudden, there's this rise of the internet and social media and all of this stuff.
And then after that, finally, that allowed an outsider candidate to win.
Donald Trump won the presidency through Twitter.
And then, of course, they crack down and they have that whole thing on lock.
But this is, what's the precedent for this?
That someone who's outside kind of bucking the establishment, especially today, the progressive establishment, just buys the biggest, most important political platform and owns it and can do whatever the fuck he wants with it.
This is fucking nuts.
It's like a huge deal.
And the problem with things that are nuts like this and are such a huge deal is usually people don't exactly know, and I'm not claiming I do, but they don't exactly know what this moment means and how exactly to proceed with it.
And so I think that's kind of where we are now.
I don't know.
Any thoughts on any of that?
I guess it's going to be interesting to see if he actually honors the poll, who takes it over.
And if it instantly, I don't know.
Hopefully it's not Adam Schiff or some real fucker.
Yeah, well, I don't think it'll be Adam Schiff.
You know, he did tweet, Lex Friedman tweeted and said, let me do it.
You know, I'll, did you see this?
So Lex Friedman said, fun suggestion, Elon Musk.
Let me run Twitter for a bit.
No salary, all in, focus on great engineering and increasing the amount of love in the world.
Just offering my help in the unlikely case, it's useful.
And then Elon responds and says, you must like pain a lot.
One catch.
You have to invest your life savings in Twitter.
And it has been in, and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May.
Still want the job?
And Lex Friedman responded, yes, we'll turn it around.
Which was interesting that Elon Musk, he said, like one catch almost, it seemed like in a sense of being like, well, obviously you won't do it with this catch, you know?
And Lex Friedman was like, yes, that would be interesting to me.
I'd be interested to see that.
So who knows?
Maybe Elon has something, you know, like interesting in the works here.
But I don't know.
Who knows?
It does seem to me, if I had to guess, this does seem more like what I was describing than I always, you know, the, what's that saying?
They're like, never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance or something like that, which I don't completely agree with that statement.
But in general, my rule of thumb is never assume.
This is, this is, I think, good advice to like right-wingers in general.
Never make your baseline assumption some type of like 4D chess type scenario when there's just a much more plausible explanation on the face of things.
So, you know, don't assume here, like, well, no, Elon Musk has this master plan and has everything figured out.
And, you know, the same way they used to do with Donald Trump, it was everything was always 4D chess.
The problem with that is it becomes almost like this coping mechanism where you can justify believing in a person, even if all the evidence is pointing you toward, oh, maybe this isn't real.
And I'm not shitting on Elon Musk.
Look, he's made Twitter much better than it was, much more exciting and freer and just better as far as I'm concerned.
But it does just seem to me like he bought this thing.
He had this noble mission.
And then once he got it, he's just not exactly sure how to wield it.
And he's kind of figuring it out as he goes.
And it's a little bit of a cluster fuck.
You know, I would, I, I would just look at some of his policies on like banning people.
And, you know, it's like, well, I'm kicking off all these people who doxed me and I'm kicking off all the journalists who shared their information, assuming they did.
I don't even know what the exact details on all that shit is.
And then he goes, all right, well, whatever.
They'll be back in a couple of days.
And you're like, because he got pushback because like, oh, well, you're banning people now.
Just like you said, don't ban people.
And he goes, oh, okay.
Well, they'll be, they'll be back.
Doxing and Demands00:15:23
You're like, dude, which one is it?
Either make this like a bannable offense or don't.
But what, how does it fucking, how does it deter anyone from doxing you if they just come back in a couple of days?
Like, what's it?
I'm just saying, like, what's the thought process here?
It just seems like you're kind of figuring this out on the fly and then go like you're figuring this out the way me or you, Rob, like work on our new hour of stand-up.
You're like, yeah, let me give this thing a try.
It's not really hitting the way I want to.
All right, I'll step away from it.
And then like someone's like, yeah, you know, that there was something to that thing you were doing.
You're like, you know what?
Let me give that a shot again.
You know, like, it's almost just like the way you kind of figure out, like, an artist kind of figures out, oh, how exactly do I put this together?
It's not like, it doesn't seem to me like, oh, there's some perfect master plan here.
That's just my guess.
I don't exactly know, but that's, that's how it seems to me.
You know, he's winging it.
Yeah, he is.
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Dude, I loved your tweet really made me fucking laugh about the kid who was trying to extort Elon Musk.
God damn it, that was really fucking funny.
What did you say?
I just said it's the best story for how you got your first car.
The kid, he's just such a dork and he's sitting there going, I want 50 grand or the price of a Tesla.
Here, let's play the video real quick.
We have this.
This is fucking hilarious on many levels.
So what is your current demand relative to Musk?
What will it make for you to go away and stop this?
Us still a Tesla or $50,000.
I mean, I'm not going to up it.
There's no need to.
I mean, isn't it amazing that they would even like air this on a fucking corporate like media channel?
It's just insane.
It's just some snotty teenager.
I love when snotty teenagers can get to very powerful people.
Like, because he's just, he's just that kid in class.
He's just a snotty teenager.
It's great.
Yeah.
Your tweet really fucking made me laugh.
It's so funny too, like how out of touch he is.
Like there's something about, listen, I'm not trying to like, I don't want to come off like fucking out of touch or anything like that, but there's something so funny to ask for the demand of $50,000.
It's just like, as if like when you're like a teenager, you're like, that's all the money in the world.
$50,000.
I'm set for life off this.
You're like, that's your big play.
You're extorting the richest person in the world and you're asking for 50 grand.
You know, like 5 million and 50 grand are almost no different to this guy, right?
They're going to be much different to you.
Anyway, this is insane to try to extort this money.
Like, here's the thing.
I think I am as much against tech censorship as just about anyone is.
How do you not root for that guy to be fucking booted permanently?
Like, you're literally going, I won't stop giving out.
He's telling the fucking head of the company, I won't stop giving out your real-time location unless you give me $50,000.
Like when you just be like, oh, okay.
Well, you're gone forever then.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Anyway, I mean, I get your point rooting for the snotty kid, but I really.
Well, no, no, I totally root for the snotty kid just because it's so much fun to watch people with so much power just have to deal with like some fucking kid from Indiana or whatever.
It's just so funny that some 17-year-old can bother billionaires.
I love that.
Okay, fair enough.
What I don't understand about this situation is that if Elon Musk were to pay him off, what's to prevent copy accounts?
And I don't understand why this kid, is this kid got some genius skill that this is really the only one in the world that can figure out how to be posting this information?
There's something that just seems missing in this storyline that I would assume that Elon Musk doesn't have the option of paying him off because I would think that everyone's going to go, oh, this is a quick way to make 50 grand.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Yes.
I completely agree with all of that.
See, it doesn't make any sense to me.
Maybe there's something I'm missing.
I don't know.
Anyway, I thought it was pretty crazy that Michael Shiminov, whatever that guy's name is, that he would even just interview this kid and have him say this.
I love the thought of him teaching a seminar like 10 years from now how to extort powerful people.
And this is like his origin story of like the first time he did it.
And then the next time, I don't know, he goes after the Clintons for a million.
Like I think this guy might end up with a long career of pulling this kind of shit.
Oh, that'd be that, you know what?
If he starts going after the Clintons, maybe I'd get on board with them.
All right.
You're winning me over a little bit.
Well, they got the more interesting planes.
Yeah, there you go.
Did you think there was anything interesting in the latest like Twitter information that's been put out, like the files?
And then there was that, what is it?
Yeah, you call it the addendum or whatever.
Well, I'll tell you what I found actually most surprising.
He called it.
Go ahead.
Was my, I was kind of getting the vibe or the thoughts a little bit that it seemed to me like some of these players at Twitter almost feel like they're FBI plants.
And so the same way that, you know, when Brennan, who's the old head of the CIA, is now working at the CNN at CNN, I don't think MSNBC now, whatever.
I don't think he doesn't work at the CIA anymore.
I think he just has a different job post.
Yes.
I don't genuinely think he left the CIA to now work over there.
It's like part of what the CIA does is they have to monitor, manipulate the media.
And so he's just, he's put into a different position.
And you read about that guy, Sussman's lawyer or whatever, who ended up being the head lawyer over at Twitter.
Sometimes it just seems to me like these people are leaving their government jobs, but they're not really.
Like that's just the way it seemed.
This kid, in that he was taking these meetings with the FBI and really powerlining what seemed to me to be an FBI narrative or a liberal Democrat narrative of dangerous information almost seemed to me like he was just their, like he was just an FBI guy who happens to have a job at Twitter.
But the fact that he reacted to one of these, one of the conversations requests from the FBI is going, hey, this doesn't look like this is from the FBI.
This actually looks like this is from the intelligence community.
At least within those emails seemed to prove my general thought, at least about Yoel Roth of being wrong.
Now, that was one of my more outward, like, I don't think my theory is incorrect that there's probably no one employed at these companies.
Yeah.
All right.
Anyways, put that aside, the actual letter from the FBI to Yoel Roth was fascinating because if you look at everything that we've complained about, the information that's come out about the COVID vaccines and the kind of way that you would break down data to find out whether or not something's accurate, you read that letter from the FBI and you start realizing, oh, no, the government knows exactly how to use data.
So in this case, the letter that they sent to them was, I guess Twitter was saying, we're not letting corporate, what was it?
State-run media is not on our platform.
It's not propaganda.
Right.
It's not on our platform.
And I guess the FBI would look at things like maybe RT.
I don't even know if that's on Twitter, but that would just be a good example and going, well, how are you labeling that?
And then they really wanted to drive into Twitter.
Hey, I want a written correspondence from you guys of what exactly is the criteria for saying something that's that something is state sponsored versus, I guess, independent media, but not like not state sponsored, but obviously walking with the talking points of whatever government it represents.
But forget the specifics, just if you read the email, they know how to use data.
And so it's so interesting to see them being like, hey, can we get this information while yelling at us when we were looking at this stuff?
Why do you need that?
That's not what you would need.
Yeah, that is a good point.
That is a good point.
The other thing that I thought was interesting is that even it seemed that even this guy like Yoel Roth and the other Twitter employees, even they seemed a little taken aback by this demand by the FBI.
Like they were like, wait a minute, what?
We have to give like a written statement to the FBI about what we're doing.
That's legal liability.
The way I see it is that they're willing to play ball in a soft-handed way.
Yes.
And the FBI is going like wink, wink, nah, nah, we don't like this on the platform.
But if Twitter actually has to write down in writing, hey, this is the criteria by which we're saying that this is okay for our platform, then they might actually bump up against government laws of government being like.
But my point is that it's what's interesting to, yes, I agree with you, but what's interesting is that even the people at Twitter in the old regime, it's not just, I think it's not just that they were concerned about bumping up against government laws.
You'd think more the government would be concerned about that, right?
Like they're kind of like, well, look, we're following what the FBI says.
We're not going to get prosecuted because they're the guys who would prosecute us, right?
But I think even they, it seems if you read through it, like the tone was kind of like, wow, this is like a lot.
Can they actually make us do this?
Like, even they, like, they're, they're ideologically with them and they want to play ball with them.
But even they, and it just goes like, I don't know what to say.
I feel like too often on this show, I guess I'm just saying, like, look, we were right about this.
You know, I don't know.
I don't mean to sound like a dick, but it's just like, oh, yeah, dude, it's not.
This is so being driven by the fucking government.
And they were putting so much pressure on this company.
It's amazing that anyone can even try to pretend.
Like, I could look, I, I can, you know, all the people who are kind of like going like, ah, the Twitter files are a nothing burger.
They don't really even reveal anything, blah, blah, blah.
I can kind of understand that if you've been saying what me and you have been saying for the past five years, you go, yeah, it's kind of just proving everything we said.
This is what we knew.
But for everyone else who wasn't acting that way, like this is humongous.
It's like one of the biggest stories of the 21st century.
That government, our government has been involved in mass censorship, a grotesque violation of the First Amendment and blatant election interference.
Like, how the fuck is that not a big story?
I think a lot of other than Fox News, no one's even really covering it.
I don't think I've seen the Wall Street Journal about it.
Very minimally.
And when they do cover it, they're covering it to say it's a nothing burger.
It's, oh, yeah, this is just whatever, all that.
One of the things that was interesting, the Matt Taibbi, one of his tweets there, which really was, I mean, look, I don't, again, I guess I'm just kind of patting ourselves on the back for getting this right, but it is, I think, important enough just to kind of like understand this.
This is what we've been saying on this show for quite a while now.
That basically what happened here, the story is, if you want to understand this, that because, of course, you know, in the same way, like when we were talking about Michael Knowles on the last episode, and people spin these narratives, like, you know, his narrative was like, oh, the problem is just that we've been way too libertarian.
And the issue then is that, well, the left takes everything over.
So of course, the conclusion is we have to be authoritarian in our own direction, you know?
And I understand where people get like sucked into this stuff, but it's just like, let's be really clear about this.
And so I think with social media and tech censorship.
And by the way, I think in all of these cases, that there's a group of kind of beltway libertarians who do libertarian, libertarianism, no favors by presenting things the way they do.
So, you know, there were libertarians at Cato and Reason who are saying, hey, they're a private company.
They can do whatever they want to.
You know, it's no problem if they ban unpopular political speech and stupid shit like that.
But the story has kind of been: well, look, these gigantic companies arose out of this kind of brand new market that was the internet and social media, this new industry was born.
And then all of a sudden, you had these companies that just had enormous power.
And man, can we really allow them to just wield this power that no companies have ever had before?
Like they control the fucking public square all of the sudden.
And now they can just violate people's freedom of speech.
I mean, we wouldn't let the government do that.
So maybe the government should regulate these companies and insist that they don't do any of that stuff.
But the thing that we've said for quite a while, years now on this show, is that, look, the social media was exactly what you'd want it to be.
It was this thing that was a game changer.
It was this thing that was bringing down the corporate press.
It was this thing where outsider candidates, look, feel however you feel about Donald Trump.
I'm not a big fan, but he was able to use Twitter to just fuck up the Bushes and the Clintons and the Obamas and all of them because he could just talk right to people.
It didn't matter if, you know, 60 Minutes was going to edit up a video of him.
He could fucking just tweet the unedited video and then fucking way more people see it than would have ever seen it on 60 Minutes and all that shit, right?
He just talk right.
He could go right through the middleman, which is the corporate press and talk right to people.
And you're like, wow, there's enormous potential there.
And it's like what we always said is, so what happened?
What happened is that when you had this new media where any Joe Schmo could put like us could put our opinions out there and then build up an audience from that and then be able to like affect the cultural consensus.
What happened was once that was used to defeat the Clinton machine and the Bush machine, then there was a huge push from the government that we need to crack down on this.
And that's what all of this like Russia interfered in the election and fake news.
If you remember before Donald Trump started coin didn't coin, but started using the term fake news, it was actually something that was coming from the corporate press.
And then he turned it around on them.
Fake News Origins00:05:02
But they were saying for 2016, there was this huge epidemic of fake news, fake news, and things like Pizzagate and Hillary Clinton's health issues and things like that.
You know, they'd focus on that.
And there were some things I think probably no reasonable person would deny.
There were some excesses in both of those stories, let's say, that were not accurate, right?
Like there, okay, Pizzagate turned out to like, I mean, like, like we've said many times, I mean, there was Epstein Island.
There are these, what's that clothing company?
There are like all these things, but there were claims made by people in the Pizzagate, you know, thing that were probably outlandish and weren't exactly accurate.
There were certainly claims that were made about Hillary Clinton's health that were not verified.
I mean, yes, she was having public coughing fits and fainting spells and things like that, but we don't really know that, you know, she had any of these like crazy health issues people were talking about.
And that's true.
There was, so, so I will grant there was some fake news out there, but there was also real news that nobody else is willing to talk about.
There was news like, hey, Bill Clinton's been accused of rape by multiple women, you know, like things like that that would never get to you through the New York Times or the Washington Post or NBC or ABC or anything like that.
But you could, people were really talking about that in 2016 on fucking Twitter, on Facebook.
You know, this was all over the place on the internet.
Things that matter, you know, like that matters, you know.
And so, anyway, there was a lot of this stuff.
And so, there's, there was fake news, but there was a lot of real news too.
So, instead of just having the institutionalized fake news of CNN and NBC, you also had some fake news on the internet and some really great important news.
Okay.
But here's the thing that Matt Taibbi posted, which I thought this was the one that really rang, you know, or hit home with me.
He says, it's number 33, by the way, on the latest dump.
The ubiquity of the 2016 Russian interference story as stated pretext for building out the censorship machine can't be overstated.
It's analogous to how 9-11 inspired the expansion of the security state.
And this is, and he links some documents in there from the like official intelligence analysis of the Department of Homeland Security.
And that's really, I think, a really important, like, I wouldn't say revelation because we've been talking about this for a long time, but a really important confirmation of that information, that this is what it was all about.
You know, the Russian interference bullshit narrative and the fake news bullshit narrative of 2016, what it really amounted to was not that Russia was behind some Facebook bots or something like that, or that there was fake news on the internet.
No, I'm sorry.
The people who sold you a war on weapons of mass destruction were not concerned about fake news.
This is not what it was.
What it was was this concern of like, hey, we have this platform.
We have these multiple platforms at the time that are out of our control.
And now they threaten our dominance over this whole fucking regime.
And so something's got to be done about that.
That's the essence of the story, if you ask me.
So anyway, I do think that's like an important thing that I hope at least some people are waking up to.
We'll see.
And 9-11 at least happened.
The Russia collusion thing, they just made up.
So they made something up that they were then able to, you know, crack down on tech censorship and all this other stuff to protect us from the thing that they made up.
Wow.
Rob Bernstein comes out, believes 9-11 happened.
All right, sheep, whatever.
Sure, bro.
Yes.
No, I think you're right about that.
But I think the point is just that the way 9-11 led to this like enormous increase in the national security apparatus is the same way that 2016, the election of Donald Trump, led to the censorship regime.
It was all a result of politics and government, not, as some people would tell you, it was a result of too much, you know, power in the market by private interests.
That's just not, that's just not what happened here.
Again, not to say that could never happen.
Fine, but that's not what happened here.
That's not the answer.
All right, guys, let's take a second and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Yo Kratom.
JFK Assassination Files00:10:55
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Okay.
Okay, a couple other things, real quick, but we're running up against time here.
So let's, I'll say this, and we don't have to spend that much time on it, but I wanted to mention that maybe we'll save the Kevin O'Leary thing for the next episode, but I wanted to quickly mention there was a monologue on Tucker Carlson's show from a couple nights ago that was really, I thought, something pretty incredible.
And again, as I've talked about a lot, there's something because I'm, you know, almost 40 now, and the, you know, I can go back a little bit of a ways.
I think that there's probably a much younger generation who just takes a lot of this stuff to be normal.
But for me, if you're my age and you can remember things that weren't just over the last few years, it's still pretty remarkable to see.
So Tucker Carlson did this long monologue on the JFK assassination just a few days ago.
And it's just pretty crazy to me that like the biggest guy on Fox News, the Fox News 8 p.m. hour, is now the one who would be talking about this shit where no one else will dare.
You know, this was something.
First off, John F. Kennedy was a liberal Democrat.
And it was always like the liberals and the leftists who were like opposed to the CIA and would want to talk about the John F. Kennedy assassination and stuff like that.
It's really crazy, you know, that it's this is now the only guy in the corporate press you can get this from is Tucker Carlson at Fox News in the 8 p.m. hour.
But he did this whole piece on it that was really interesting.
I highly recommend people go check that out.
It's up on YouTube and probably all over the place online.
And it was about this latest.
So there was some files from the JFK files that were released, but it was one of those things where it was like, you know, there's like 13,000 files and they'll release like a few thousand of them that are heavily redacted and then just not release any of the rest of them.
But Tucker went on a whole rant about how basically like the CIA was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Something that I think most people who are at least somewhat skeptical of government are pretty aware was like this is probably right.
The whole monologue was great.
He brought up a lot of just points.
Like I think, I think the example he used once was, so he said at one point, he goes, you know, John F. Kennedy was killed by a crazy lone gunman.
And then that guy was killed by another crazy lone gunman.
And they both acted alone.
And you just go through that and you're like, wait, what are the odds of that?
Like, what?
What?
You know, and he said at one point, he goes, you know, if someone got struck by lightning, you'd be like, wow, that's pretty crazy.
But if every single person in that guy's family got struck by lightning, you might be like, that sounds a little sick.
Suspicious do have a weather machine.
Yeah, right.
You might start blaming the juice.
He didn't say that.
But, you know, like, it's, it's, and, um, and anyway, so he uh reported, and I will say, I don't think Tucker Carlson is just making this up.
That being said, always take this type of reporting with, you know, a grain of salt.
But Tucker Carlson said, and this is under anonymity, he didn't reveal who his source is, that he, the, the show has spoken to somebody who Is uh has access to all of the uh classified files on John F. Kennedy.
And Tucker asked him straight up: Was the CIA involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy?
And he responded, yes.
And he said, The country is not what we thought it was.
The whole thing is fake.
And basically, just saying that, like, yes, we don't live in a democracy.
We live in a country where the CIA had the president assassinated.
Not the regime changes like we launch in other countries, like right here in our country.
Just there's a million things you could look into in the Kennedy assassination.
It's, I think the more you look into it, the more obvious it is that this is correct.
So don't take it just from this one anonymous source.
Just wanted to, I just wanted to bring it up to just be like, it's pretty goddamn crazy that, you know, that this is being broadcast on Fox News in the 8 p.m. hour.
This is where people can hear shit like this.
And a couple, by the way, one other point to it that I should make is that Tucker then he reached out to the CIA or something like that for a comment on this.
And they said that if anybody had access to the classified documents and told you that, then they have broken the law.
That was their response.
What a bad response.
Not that, no, this didn't happen.
Not that that's crazy.
What are you talking about?
We can show you that that didn't happen.
The response was, he wasn't allowed to tell you that.
That response is, hey, remember the last time your emails got sucked up because we were saying you were going to Russia.
That was them being like, yeah, you're not supposed to be reporting on that.
Um, look, I mean, let's just think about it like this: what is the plausible reason for why the CIA would not just release all the files?
Why the government would not just release all the files?
I don't care why they keep these files.
Well, well, go burn them with the Epstein's evidence.
Go put them in whatever that happened in New York City last week at that evidence locker.
Well, I'm sure that's true.
I'm sure there's some of that as well.
But just saying, why would the government not just release all of the files on Kennedy?
Do you think it's like because, oh, it would be, you know, the other claim, which is what they're trying to almost like paper this over with, is that, well, the CIA kind of fucked up because Lee Harvey Oswald went to the Soviet Union, you know, and he was like there for a while.
And they've already, they released documents in this last batch that basically indicated that the CIA knew.
Like they knew who he was.
They had been working on the people.
I would keep tabs on anything with three names.
You got three names.
You had a feminist mom.
You're probably up to creepy shit.
So you put all those people on a watchdog list.
You're going to all the communist countries.
Yeah, probably.
But there's all types of things.
Like he was staying at like five-star hotels while he was over there and shit, even though he didn't have any money.
Like it's just pretty obvious.
But anyway, you go, so the files that they released kind of indicate without saying it that it's like, oh, you know, the CIA fucked up because they like knew who this guy was, but they didn't like keep close tabs on him.
And he was able to come back in the country and then assassinate the fucking president.
The problem with that is you're just like, okay, like, number one, there's a lot of logistical problems with that.
You're like, so wait, but he had a job at this book depository where the president happened to be going in a motorcade right by.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's like, there's more to this.
This isn't a lone gunman.
Like, this is, there was an orchestrated thing here that happened.
But do you really think that they would be like not releasing files from, what is it, 50 years ago because the CIA looks bad?
They were a little incompetent then.
They fucked up.
I mean, really?
Would that be enough to fucking would that be so devastating?
I mean, look, people know that the CIA was telling people that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
People know that the CIA missed the fall of the Soviet Union.
People know, like, the CIA is fucked up in a million ways and everyone knows about it.
Is that, if you were like, hey, the CIA fucked up, they weren't really on their job, you know, in the 1960s, 60 years ago, the CIA fucked up.
Would that really be something that would like devastate you?
Like, we cannot possibly let people have this information because it will, no, it wouldn't.
But you know what would still, even 60 years later, be something that they absolutely could not let the American people know is what?
That the CIA helped assassinate the sitting democratically elected president of the United States of America, that they had his brains blown out on national television.
That would be something they couldn't let you know, even 60 years later.
Because once you know that, you don't go, you know, I think there's some excesses to this organization.
Or you don't go, you know, I think this organization needs to be reined in a little bit, or maybe they get more things wrong than they get right, or something like that.
Once you know that, you go, oh, this whole government is bullshit.
This is all fucking fake.
None of this is real.
And of course, no, that organization should be abolished.
Every one of them should be locked up.
Let me interview.
I want to know how every single head of the CIA since didn't know this and never told the American people about it.
You understand what I'm saying?
That even as long ago as the Kennedy assassination was, if this information comes out, it is still to this day a game changer in the minds of so many people.
It will be 60 years this November, by the way.
I thought they released some of the papers, but the redactions, like there was just nonsense there.
CIA War Secrecy00:06:47
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like they did.
Yes.
No, that's what I was saying before.
They released some.
They held back thousands of documents.
They released a bunch, but the redactions are to the point where there's like entire pages that are two sentences long.
You know, what are you redacting?
It's filling the banks.
Blanks.
Well, but what are you even redacting?
What are you concerned that we have to protect sources and methods from 60 years ago?
Do we, what are we going to, are we going to reveal some spies who are in the Soviet Union?
That spy is dead and the Soviet Union is collapsed.
Like, what are we even talking about here?
There's no possible justification for why they can't just release these documents.
The obvious answer is just that, that they can't let you know this.
Because once you know this, then it's like a domino falling.
And it's all just obvious from there.
It's all, it just becomes painfully obvious.
If you start with, oh, the CIA murdered Jack Kennedy, where do you follow after that?
And where you follow is pretty goddamn red-pilled.
That's the fucking truth.
Okay.
Before we wrap up, any thoughts?
Anything you want to add on any of that shit or you want to mention that?
I think we got it, man.
So I just, I just want to mention, and I don't even have a ton to say about this, but it was, I have to mention it on the show, but obviously it was a big project from the Libertarian Party, the new regime there.
And Scott Horton was just on the show a few episodes ago when we were talking all about it.
But there was this war powers resolution that Bernie Sanders had introduced in the Senate to end what has been the most horrific war, the most horrific thing in the world over the last seven years or so, seven, almost eight years, which is the war in Yemen, of course.
And, you know, there was a lot of enthusiasm behind this.
Bernie Sanders, of course, like the bitch that he is, he got a call from the White House the day he was to introduce this legislation and he pulled it and did not introduce it.
He said that it was, hold on, I want to pull this up exactly so I get Bernie Sanders' ridiculous excuse that he made for introducing it.
He said, today I withdrew from consideration by the U.S. Senate my war powers resolution after the Biden administration agreed to continue working with my office on ending the war in Yemen.
He added, let me be clear, if we do not reach agreement, I will, along with my colleagues, bring this resolution back for a vote in the near future and do everything possible to end this horrific conflict.
Yeah.
So basically he's saying he pulled the war powers resolution because the Biden administration agreed to continue to work with him on ending the war that they have had two years to end if they wanted to and have not.
And if they don't, he's telling you he'll bring it back.
Of course, if you're interested in working toward ending the war, it would seem like the best step would be to introduce the war powers resolution and try to get it passed.
That would probably end the war a lot quicker.
Obviously, the truth is that Biden, if they got the votes, which I think they likely would have, Biden would be forced to veto it.
That would have made him look very bad.
It would have made it obvious that he doesn't actually want to end the war, even though he promised that he did.
And so Bernie Sanders was basically persuaded to not make Biden look bad.
It's, I don't know what to say.
It's just truly disgusting.
Bernie Sanders, as terrible as a leftist fucking Democratic socialist as he is, he's not even good on the things you'd expect them to be good on like this.
Basically, what this all comes down to is the same reason the war was started, as Obama said, to placate the Saudis.
And right now, Joe Biden doesn't want to piss off the Saudis because they're already, you know, working with the Russians and stuff.
And he feels like this would be bad for them.
He also feels like this would be dangerous in general.
The Biden administration actually said this, that it would also hinder their efforts in Ukraine.
Because, you know, if you're starting to tell presidents they can't just have wars wherever they want without congressional approval, well, then maybe we can't have this war that we want without congressional approval.
Anyway, not surprising, pretty much what you would expect from Bernie Sanders.
But yeah, fuck him for pulling this thing back.
Can someone else introduce it now?
Yeah, theoretically, someone else could, but, you know, that's got to get someone who's willing to do that.
And the truth is, like, you know, Rand Paul or Mike Lee or one of these guys, they really should take over on this issue.
And they should have been co-sponsors to begin with, and they should take over and be the next ones to really push this thing.
We'll say.
Well, I guess What's nice is if it's brought to the floor, you get to see who specifically wants to support the war, which is why they all want to be able to ignore it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Well, that's a very important point.
Another element is you, this is one of the things that's beautiful about the about voting on these things in the Congress.
It's not perfect, but it is what it is.
But right, at least you get everyone on record.
I remember Ron Paul back in the day on the Iraq war tried to, like, it was like, I think this might have been in like 2004, 2005, or something like that.
But he tried to force a vote.
And it wasn't even a vote for a declaration of war.
It was just like a vote on who supports the war still.
He tried to force a declaration also.
But he was just saying, like, I want everyone on record here.
Like, who, you know what I mean?
Like, who's for this and who's against it?
And of course, they wouldn't even let him bring that to the floor because that's the way Congress is.
Rand Paul, when he first got into Congress, he tried to pass the, I think they called it the Read the Bill Amendment.
And it was, he was insisting that everyone read the bills before they vote on them.
Because, you know, the way these things work is like they'll be presented with like 3,000 page bills, like a day before they have to vote on them, sometimes the day of.
Congress Clusterfuck00:01:02
And just imagine, I mean, think about yourself.
Like, think about if someone presented you with a 300-page book and goes, I need this read by this afternoon.
You'd probably be like, I need a little bit more time than that, right?
But this is like 3,000 pages and you need it read by this afternoon.
It's impossible.
And Rand Paul was like, look, we can't, we should never vote on anything that the people voting on it haven't read.
Pretty basic.
It just seems like the most reasonable thing ever.
And that amendment failed.
Like, just doesn't that give you such a like insight into what's going on here?
They were like, ah, dude, you make us do that.
This whole thing comes tumbling down.
It's such a fucking clusterfuck.
But you know what?
It is fun breaking it all down with you good people.
All right.
That's our show for tonight.
Thank you guys for listening.
Come check us out on the road.
Me and Robbie are going to be all over the place.
Obviously, Rob's got the end of the year stuff coming up.
I got LA coming up.
And then me and Rob have a bunch of stuff together in 2023.