Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Pentagon Leak Arrest
Aired: 2023-04-16
Duration: 48:19


=== Why Ukraine Became My Issue (01:42) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
[00:00:09]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:00:10]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:00:12]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:00:16]  If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
[00:00:22]  Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
[00:00:34]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:34]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:37]  I'm Dave Smith.
[00:00:38]  I am riding solo for this episode.
[00:00:41]  Rob is actually on his way over to my place to pick me up.
[00:00:45]  And then we're driving up to Albany, doing some stand-up shows up there at the Albany Funnybone all weekend.
[00:00:51]  Next stop after this will be Chicago Zaney's.
[00:00:53]  I'm real excited for that one.
[00:00:54]  So I know I'm going to see a bunch of you guys out there.
[00:00:56]  So looking forward to it.
[00:00:58]  ComicdaveSmith.com.
[00:00:59]  All my live dates and ticket links and stuff is up there.
[00:01:02]  So go check that out.
[00:01:03]  So for today's episode, just me, I wanted to talk a bunch about this, the latest whistleblower in this Ukraine leaks that came out.
[00:01:15]  We talked about this story a little bit last week, but there's been a bunch of updates.
[00:01:19]  It's a really interesting situation for a lot of different reasons, not just this story, not just the information that was leaked, but also kind of what it demonstrates about the corporate media apparatus, the FBI, and of course, the wider war in Ukraine, which has become like my issue.
[00:01:41]  Again, I always get, I don't really choose these issues.

=== The Press Discredits Truth (08:58) ===

[00:01:43]  They kind of choose me, but the war in Ukraine has now become kind of like what COVID was for me and this show for years was like kind of what was our bread and butter, what we were known for.
[00:01:55]  And now, especially since last time I was on Rogan and that clip just went super viral.
[00:01:59]  This has been the thing.
[00:02:00]  I got another debate that I'm going to do on Ukraine, I think in a couple of weeks.
[00:02:06]  So yeah, this is, you know, I always try my best to stand up against the worst thing that the government is doing.
[00:02:14]  And for, you know, quite a while, it was always the wars in the Middle East.
[00:02:20]  It was the COVID tyranny here at home, inflation and the destruction of the currency.
[00:02:25]  And now it's really this thing in Ukraine.
[00:02:28]  You know, we still got a lot of the old ones, but this war in Ukraine, which is just so insane and has really put us closer to nuclear war than we've been since at least the Cuban Missile Crisis and definitely has pushed us closer to a world war than I would say since the 1940s.
[00:02:51]  So, okay, so I don't know exactly even where to go about this first.
[00:02:56]  So let's just, just for a little bit of perspective, way back when, way, way, way back, stretch your memory all the way back to a few days ago.
[00:03:06]  Okay, as of a few days ago, this was the story.
[00:03:10]  I'm reading from a Reuters article here.
[00:03:13]  The headline, Russia likely behind U.S. military document leaks, U.S. officials say.
[00:03:21]  Read a little bit from this article.
[00:03:23]  Russia or pro-Russian elements are likely behind the leaks of several classified U.S. military documents posted on social media that offer a partial month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine.
[00:03:35]  Three U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, while the Justice Department said separately it was probing the leak.
[00:03:43]  The documents appear to have been altered to lower the number of Russian casualties suffered by Russian forces.
[00:03:48]  The U.S. officials said, adding their assessments were informal and separate from the investigation into the leak itself.
[00:03:56]  The U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, given the sensitive, the sensitivity of the matter and declined to discuss the documents in any real detail.
[00:04:07]  So that was a few days ago.
[00:04:09]  A few days ago, it had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.
[00:04:13]  And yeah, of course, U.S. officials will speak anonymously and claim this.
[00:04:20]  There is no, anyway, that's all wrong now.
[00:04:25]  They admit once again, none of that's true.
[00:04:28]  The New York Times just outed the kid.
[00:04:32]  I said kid, 21-year-old, the kid who was the leaker.
[00:04:36]  He has been arrested because that's what we do when people leak information about evil things that the government's doing or that the government's lying to people.
[00:04:46]  There are severe consequences for people like Bradley Manning, now known as Chelsea Manning, for Julian Assange, for Ed Snowden.
[00:04:55]  Those guys, you know, you get real punishments for.
[00:04:59]  The leaks say like that we saw during the Trump administration, the leaks, let's say, of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
[00:05:11]  Who was that leaker?
[00:05:12]  We don't know.
[00:05:13]  There has been no mass effort by the FBI.
[00:05:16]  There's been no effort by the New York Times and the Washington Post to try to locate that leak, right?
[00:05:21]  And you would think that's a much easier one to pin down.
[00:05:25]  There's not that many Supreme Court justices.
[00:05:27]  They don't have that big of a staff.
[00:05:29]  It's only so many people who would have had access to this information, but there's just no effort to get to the bottom of that.
[00:05:36]  This, however, when you're dealing with like the entire, you know, whatever, National Guard Air Force or whatever, this, this they get to the bottom of in a second.
[00:05:46]  So now there's a few interesting things about this.
[00:05:49]  So now all that nonsense about Russia being behind this has all completely been dropped.
[00:05:54]  Nobody's saying that.
[00:05:55]  Much like with everything that they claim is Russian disinformation.
[00:05:59]  Yeah, it is until you figure out that these are just U.S. officials lying to the American people.
[00:06:04]  And of course, these media outlets just are, they are to be mouthpieces for them.
[00:06:10]  They don't even like, there's no editorializing within the article.
[00:06:16]  There's no like, it's just presented as they always do.
[00:06:19]  This is what the New York Times does all the time too.
[00:06:21]  They say something as like in a, like a statement of fact, and then after it say, U.S. official claims.
[00:06:31]  So if you're reading it, it's designed to give you the impression that this is the news.
[00:06:36]  And then just like with a tagline of claims a U.S. official.
[00:06:40]  However, the journalist will never, you know, like put in there, we have no way of knowing that this is true.
[00:06:48]  They've claimed these things before and they turned out not to be true.
[00:06:52]  And there's no like, so this is a few days ago.
[00:06:56]  And now a few days we find out that what these U.S. officials were saying was all complete lies.
[00:07:00]  And there's no effort from Reuters to write a piece about how like we're being lied to by U.S. officials.
[00:07:08]  Now, I know they speak under anonymity, but there's no one in Reuters going to go, we will not use them as a source anymore in the future.
[00:07:15]  None of that happens.
[00:07:16]  It's just as if it didn't exist.
[00:07:17]  We just move on.
[00:07:18]  Well, that bullshit didn't work.
[00:07:20]  Let's see what's next.
[00:07:21]  And what's next is now they've outed this guy and he's been arrested.
[00:07:28]  And so now the entire tone of the corporate press where they're going with this has nothing to do with Russia anymore.
[00:07:39]  Now it's all about just smearing this guy.
[00:07:43]  He was a really bad guy.
[00:07:46]  They're claiming he's racist and he's a gun enthusiast and that he, you know, what they actually say, if you look into it, they're making a bunch of claims about him.
[00:07:56]  You know, I don't know.
[00:07:58]  It's impossible to tell.
[00:08:00]  You certainly can't trust these people at all.
[00:08:02]  Obviously, their goal when they were reporting that this was Russian disinformation, their goal was to challenge the credibility of the things that were, you know, of the classified documents that were leaked.
[00:08:17]  Obviously now, their goal is to paint this guy as a bad person, but it's very clear that they're just doing the government's bidding.
[00:08:26]  What was particularly disturbing about this one is that it seems that it was the Washington Post and the New York Times that actually located the guy and then gave the information to the FBI.
[00:08:40]  So think about that for a second.
[00:08:43]  The government is lying to the American people about perhaps the most important thing in American history.
[00:08:52]  So I'm not overstating that, by the way.
[00:08:54]  One of the things that we found out in these leaked classified documents is that U.S. military is embedded in Ukraine.
[00:09:03]  This is not just a proxy war with Russia anymore.
[00:09:06]  This seems to be a hot war between the United States and Russia.
[00:09:10]  That is up there with the biggest story ever.
[00:09:14]  Like the two biggest nuclear superpowers in the world are at war on one of those nuclear superpowers' border.
[00:09:21]  That's a big story.
[00:09:22]  And the government's been lying to us about that, as they lie with all of these wars.
[00:09:28]  And think about if you were a journalist, put that in quotes, journalist at the New York Times or the Washington Post, and you just found out that the government was lying to the people about one of the biggest stories in the country's history.
[00:09:43]  And your response is to try to help the government arrest that guy who brought that information to you.
[00:09:52]  What example could better prove what we've been talking about for all of these years?
[00:09:59]  What could just be a clearer display of what the corporate press is?
[00:10:05]  Like who they work for?
[00:10:08]  They do not work for the people.
[00:10:10]  They are not interested in getting truth to the people.
[00:10:12]  They are interested in protecting the intelligence agencies.
[00:10:17]  That's their goal in this.
[00:10:20]  Okay.
[00:10:20]  They work for the government.
[00:10:22]  They are the enemy of the people, period.
[00:10:25]  And this is, I mean, I struggle to think of a more clear-cut example than what just happened in the last two days than that.
[00:10:35]  You have one guy who is bringing truth to the American people about the lies their government is telling them.

=== Facet Financial Wellness Offer (02:02) ===

[00:10:42]  And then you have the press who would like to discredit the information and then ultimately arrest the guy who, you know, will probably pay quite a heavy price for bringing this information to us.
[00:10:59]  If past precedent is any indicator, he is going to be in prison in very bad conditions for a very long time.
[00:11:08]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Facet.
[00:11:14]  We all know talking about money can be stressful and overwhelming, but because of this, it occurs much less often than it should.
[00:11:21]  Facet can help you not only start the conversation about money, but support you every step of the way so you can make financial decisions with confidence.
[00:11:29]  Everyone should have a go-to financial partner to guide you through the continuous and ever-changing life journey.
[00:11:34]  Facet's planning goes beyond just retirement and investing.
[00:11:37]  They'll advise you through every financial decision you face, things like real estate, tax mitigation strategies, understanding your benefits and equity compensation.
[00:11:46]  A facet membership gives you access to unbiased, personalized, and actually affordable financial advice for every facet of life.
[00:11:54]  A facet membership includes your own dedicated CFP professional, the highest possible certification, plus a team of experts who use industry-leading technology and investment management strategies based on Nobel Prize winning research to help make all of your complex financial decisions easy and stress-free.
[00:12:12]  Facet is now offering a $500 Kickstarter to your financial wellness journey, but only right now for a limited time.
[00:12:20]  They're waiving their $250 enrollment fee for new customers that sign up for an annual membership, as well as offering you $250 into your brokerage account if you invest 5,000 within the first 90 days of membership.
[00:12:33]  If you're still wondering if Facet is for you, take their free five-minute financial wellness quiz to unlock insights into your personal finances.
[00:12:41]  Check out facet.com slash P-O-T-P.

=== Smearing John Mearsheimer (15:24) ===

[00:12:44]  That's f-A-C-E-T.com slash P-O-T-P.
[00:12:48]  This ad is sponsored by FACET.
[00:12:50]  Facet Wealth Incorporated is an SEC registered investment advisor.
[00:12:54]  This is not an offer to buy or sell securities, nor is it investment, legal, or tax advice.
[00:13:00]  Facet.com slash P-O-T-P.
[00:13:03]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:13:04]  Of course, the war criminals who were exposed by Manning and Julian Assange, they all walk free to this day.
[00:13:16]  The people who were involved in illegal spying on American citizens that Edward Snowden revealed, they still walk free to this day.
[00:13:29]  Clapper, who lied under oath, saying that there was no mass data collection apparatus at the national security, you know, that he's said, I forget his exact terms with NSA is not involved in any mass bulk data collection, something like that.
[00:13:45]  Blatant lie.
[00:13:46]  He still walks free to this day.
[00:13:48]  And all of these people who have lied us into this war in Ukraine then continue to lie to us about it.
[00:13:52]  They're also still free.
[00:13:54]  But this kid is arrested.
[00:13:56]  And on top of that, on top of the fact that he's going to be, you know, held in brutal conditions for many years, he'll also be completely smeared by the corporate press.
[00:14:06]  It's just absolutely disgusting.
[00:14:08]  Just disgusting.
[00:14:10]  Now, what they're saying about him too is like, you know, they're saying that he was in this Discord server where they regularly shared racist memes, which it's so funny that this is what they go to to smear people.
[00:14:27]  Basically, you're saying he was 21.
[00:14:29]  That's what you're saying.
[00:14:30]  He was 21.
[00:14:32]  It's really something like, because these things happen now on Discord or, you know, on the internet in general, it's now they can kind of like smear any one of these young guys who does something like this as like, look at this.
[00:14:47]  But I mean, typically speaking, I don't know.
[00:14:49]  Again, I don't know the details of the case.
[00:14:51]  I don't know the memes that he was sharing in this Discord server, but it's almost like if you could imagine at a time in times past, like let's say like Daniel Ellsberg or something like that, who if you don't know, he leaked the Pentagon papers.
[00:15:06]  So back in the Vietnam War, when the U.S. officials were telling the American people that we were winning the war and everything was going great.
[00:15:16]  And then he released the Pentagon Papers, which showed a slightly different story where things actually weren't going that good.
[00:15:23]  But imagine at the time, if they had tried to be like, like if you had access to every wise crack that Daniel Ellsberg had ever told his friends and you could pick out the offensive ones and be like, well, look, they cracked this joke or they said this thing.
[00:15:40]  And it's so, it's such an insane standard to think of.
[00:15:43]  But now, because these things happen on a Discord server, they can do that.
[00:15:46]  They can actually find like, oh, you're discredited because I don't know, you found a meme entertaining or something like that.
[00:15:52]  It's really, really something.
[00:15:55]  But anyway, so that's what they're doing.
[00:15:56]  That's that's how they're trying to go after this guy now.
[00:15:58]  By the way, even Chris Hayes, host over at MSNBC, he tweeted out.
[00:16:03]  He said, I don't know the inside story, but from the outside, it sure looks like the Washington Post and the New York Times cracked the case of the mystery leaker and the FBI did not.
[00:16:12]  And he is right about that.
[00:16:14]  Pretty interesting how many people in his replies are celebrating this.
[00:16:21]  This is now where the progressives are.
[00:16:24]  They are celebrating that the that corporate media outlets are doing the bidding of the FBI for them.
[00:16:36]  Really something.
[00:16:38]  Now, look, I'll say one of the other criticisms that they're giving this kid is that he did not, you know, he did not leak these documents in the same type of manner that, say, Snowden did, which was a much more professional way to do it.
[00:16:58]  I will agree with that.
[00:17:00]  He's he didn't go to a news outlet like Snowden went to Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian and let them kind of vet the information and then put it out.
[00:17:13]  He just put it out on a Discord server.
[00:17:14]  They're saying, you know, they're kind of trying to discredit him because of that.
[00:17:18]  Look, however you might prefer that somebody leak these things, whatever you think is the preferable way to do it, whether or not you think this kid was sharing memes that are offensive or any of this stuff, this is all just irrelevant.
[00:17:33]  It's beside the point.
[00:17:35]  None of that really matters.
[00:17:37]  This guy is not the story.
[00:17:39]  And that's not what's interesting about this.
[00:17:42]  The question is, did he reveal important information to the American people or not?
[00:17:49]  That's the question.
[00:17:50]  Has our government been lying to us?
[00:17:53]  And the answer to both of those things is clearly yes.
[00:17:56]  So if that's the case, it really doesn't matter.
[00:17:59]  We're not like, we're not looking to be best friends with this guy.
[00:18:03]  We're not like concerned with his moral character.
[00:18:07]  Or I don't even really care, to be honest, his motivation for why he did this.
[00:18:11]  What I care about is like that the information gets out and that government secrets get exposed.
[00:18:16]  That's what matters.
[00:18:18]  And what really matters in this case is what's going on in this war in Ukraine, what this says about, you know, what's really happening as opposed to the government narrative on this, which we know has always been bullshit.
[00:18:33]  And that is the story.
[00:18:35]  So that's what really matters.
[00:18:37]  And here's what basically we've gotten.
[00:18:39]  Because if you remember last week when me and Rob were talking about this, which was the case, we were talking about how it was like you couldn't find these documents anywhere online.
[00:18:46]  You had some people like reporting on them, but then like there was almost, it was very, very difficult to find them.
[00:18:52]  That's not true anymore.
[00:18:53]  Now they're up there and we've been able to take a look at all of them.
[00:18:56]  And okay, so the really interesting takeaways from this are not just the casualty numbers, which of course the U.S. government is claiming were altered.
[00:19:06]  But that, if true, would paint a drastically different picture of this war.
[00:19:11]  But it clearly shows that while publicly, much like with the war in Vietnam, much like with the war in Afghanistan, where publicly they're saying, oh, the war is going great.
[00:19:22]  Everything is going exactly as we wanted it to.
[00:19:24]  You know, publicly on, if you turn on like cable news or something like that, all of the experts are saying that Ukraine is dominating, Russia is losing, and it's inevitable that Ukraine is going to win.
[00:19:37]  Now, there are some holes in their narrative because it's like, you know, it's like I've talked about from the very beginning.
[00:19:42]  It's like Vladimir Putin is a huge threat to take over all of Europe.
[00:19:46]  He's hell-bent on reconstituting the Soviet Union, but he's also getting humiliated in Ukraine.
[00:19:53]  And you're like, okay, well, if one is true, then the other one doesn't seem to be much of a threat.
[00:19:57]  But likewise, what they're saying now is that Ukraine is dominating.
[00:20:01]  They're doing a great job.
[00:20:02]  It's inevitable that they're going to win.
[00:20:04]  But also, you better be ready to send them another $100 billion or they'll lose.
[00:20:09]  So again, which one is it?
[00:20:11]  Is it inevitable that they're going to win or are they doomed if we don't continue to prop them up?
[00:20:16]  So they're trying to play both sides of that.
[00:20:17]  But what this actually shows, what these documents show is that actually Ukraine's not doing well.
[00:20:23]  Okay.
[00:20:24]  Now, if the casualty numbers are correct, then it shows that actually they're getting dominated in this war.
[00:20:29]  And actually, behind the scenes, everybody's freaking out about this.
[00:20:33]  And the Biden administration is really worried about it because they're like, this is not going well at all.
[00:20:39]  As with all of these wars, they're sold off lies.
[00:20:43]  They're started off lies and they're continued off of lies.
[00:20:47]  Every one of them.
[00:20:47]  This is the case for every one of these wars.
[00:20:50]  They're always completely built on a house of war propaganda.
[00:20:56]  And, you know, you could think about, if you think about through the war in Afghanistan, for 20 years, 20 years, government officials were telling the American people that the military we're building over there is great, that we have really created this democracy.
[00:21:14]  And man, this military, we've trained them so well.
[00:21:16]  They're going to do such a fantastic job.
[00:21:18]  We did that for 20 years and they folded in a day.
[00:21:23]  Like it's never, it's not just that they'll exaggerate what's going on.
[00:21:27]  They will completely mislead you.
[00:21:29]  And then they complain about, you know, disinformation.
[00:21:32]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show.
[00:21:35]  You know him.
[00:21:36]  You love him.
[00:21:36]  YoKratom.com.
[00:21:38]  If you are over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom, go get your Kratom from yokratom.com, home of the $60 Kilo.
[00:21:48]  Their stuff is lab tested.
[00:21:49]  It's high quality.
[00:21:50]  It's delivered right to your door and it's the best price you're ever going to find, $60 for a kilo at yokratom.com.
[00:21:58]  This company does so much to support this show, this network, our comedy festival, SkankFest.
[00:22:05]  They've really supported us.
[00:22:06]  So if you get Kratom, if you like Kratom, go get it from yokratom.com, home of the $60 kilo.
[00:22:12]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:22:15]  So that's one of the major takeaways of these documents, that the war is not going well for Ukraine.
[00:22:19]  Ukraine is getting wrecked.
[00:22:22]  The other major takeaway, the biggest one that I mentioned earlier today, is that U.S. military is embedded in there with Ukraine.
[00:22:30]  Another major piece of information is that there will be no negotiations at least through 2023.
[00:22:39]  That is the plan.
[00:22:40]  And we're just going to keep this war going.
[00:22:42]  Another major one is that Zelensky plans on striking deep inside Russia.
[00:22:48]  So that's the plan.
[00:22:51]  You think about the risk of escalation that Zelensky, something we were assured wouldn't happen.
[00:22:57]  Now, at least behind the scenes, they're talking about it.
[00:22:59]  That Zelensky is going to use U.S. weapons to strike Russia.
[00:23:08]  When this war first started, Joe Biden said our response was going to be sanctions.
[00:23:14]  That would be what our response was, sanctions to cripple the Russian economy or destroy the ruble.
[00:23:21]  Of course, those didn't work at all.
[00:23:23]  The ruble is actually stronger now than it was when we started these sanctions.
[00:23:27]  But now we've gotten all the way to this point, all the way to this point.
[00:23:30]  So however you feel, even about the war in Ukraine, however you feel about what led up to this war or whether you think America should be funding it, there's really no arguing that this is vital information that we should have.
[00:23:46]  You can't make an informed decision about any of this stuff if you don't have it.
[00:23:49]  And the American people can't have an informed opinion about any of this stuff if they don't have this information.
[00:23:55]  So anybody, this is like a real kind of like a line in the sand of just who's an honest actor and who's not.
[00:24:06]  Like if you don't, if you're against this type of stuff coming out, then you're with the bad guys.
[00:24:12]  You're the enemy of the people.
[00:24:14]  And if you view this, leaks like this as a heroic act, then you're with the people.
[00:24:20]  You're one of the good guys.
[00:24:22]  I think it's that simple.
[00:24:24]  I really do think it's that simple.
[00:24:26]  All right.
[00:24:28]  So what does all of this say about the bigger picture with the war in Ukraine and where exactly we are now?
[00:24:39]  You know, I saw earlier today, I saw a speech from Victoria Newland, who's been right at the center of Ukrainian policy for the last decade, and she's done such a great job.
[00:24:58]  And she was giving a speech about how great Ukraine's going to be, how after they repel Russia, we're going to build up their military so Russia can never evade again.
[00:25:06]  And we're going to help build up their energy sector and build up their political institutions to give their people freedom and dignity and all of this and how wonderful this is going to be for Ukraine.
[00:25:16]  And it's interesting to look back at like the track record of some of these people and what, you know, like what they've claimed all along.
[00:25:26]  So I remember there's a speech, like a famous lecture that I think it was in 2014 that John Mearsheimer gave.
[00:25:38]  If you don't know Mearsheimer, he is certainly not a libertarian non-interventionist like me.
[00:25:44]  He is a realist is what they call him, the dean of the realist school on foreign policy.
[00:25:50]  He certainly doesn't object to, I think, American interventionism, but believes that we should do it in a not completely destructive way.
[00:26:00]  But he is like a world-renowned scholar on particularly matters of foreign policy with Russia.
[00:26:08]  And he's been great on this whole Ukrainian crisis from the beginning, from well before the coup in 2014 in Madan.
[00:26:18]  And he's been really spot on about all of this.
[00:26:21]  So he said in 2014, when the West backed the overthrow of the democratically elected Yanukovych government, he said, his quote was that the U.S. was leading Ukraine down the primrose path, that essentially, by us intervening in Ukraine, we were convincing them that they had the backing of the U.S., which is, you know, which really means something to foreign governments.
[00:26:48]  It's a big deal to convince them that the most badass powerful military in the history of the world has your back.
[00:26:55]  And so we basically convinced them to go to play hard with Russia.
[00:27:01]  And Mearsheimer was saying, this is going to be a disaster because when it actually comes down to it, Russia will end up crushing Ukraine and we won't be able to have their back.
[00:27:10]  We're leading them on.
[00:27:11]  You know, it's like, if you could imagine like you're, you're a big jacked guy and you're convincing this little tiny guy to go fist fight a guy much bigger than him.
[00:27:20]  And you're like, don't worry, we got your back.
[00:27:22]  And so he's like, wow, shit, normally I wouldn't fist fight this guy, but now I got this humongous guy behind me.
[00:27:27]  We're going to go two-on-one on him.
[00:27:28]  We're going to fuck him up.
[00:27:29]  So now he's talking big to this guy.
[00:27:33]  And except what America isn't telling you is that like, we're actually a crumbling empire ourselves.
[00:27:38]  Like this big jacked guy has like, you know, two Achilles, you know, tend to tears and he's got artificial knees and he's like, he's actually not in a position to really help you see this thing through.
[00:27:49]  So then you go start the fight and this little guy gets just annihilated.
[00:27:53]  And so that's, that's what Mearsheimer was saying back in 2014, that we're leading them down this path to their ultimate destruction.
[00:28:01]  Just juxtapose that to Victoria Newland in 2014 was saying, it's so wonderful the people's revolution has worked out.

=== America As A Crumbling Empire (13:33) ===

[00:28:08]  And look at that.
[00:28:09]  Ukraine is joining the EU now and it's going to be nothing but peace and prosperity for Ukraine going forward.
[00:28:15]  And just think about that.
[00:28:17]  Think about the different predictions that were made by these people and how one was stunningly accurate and really in a very profound way understood the like the different players involved here and what the ramifications for all of this was going to be.
[00:28:33]  And one was neocon fucking nonsense.
[00:28:37]  One was Iraq will be greeted as liberators in Iraq.
[00:28:40]  This is these neocons, like they are, it's unbelievable.
[00:28:44]  They're like 0 for 75 on all of these predictions.
[00:28:48]  They're always just to a point where you go, I, I, it's impossible for me to believe that they actually believe any of the stuff that they're saying at this point.
[00:28:57]  So I think they're just literally shills for special interests and they know exactly what they're doing and that this none of this was the plan because this is literally what they said in Iraq, that we would be greed.
[00:29:08]  And I'm not saying, like, I'm not lumping Victoria Newland in with these people.
[00:29:11]  This is Robert Kagan's wife.
[00:29:13]  This is her husband is the guy who wrote the project for a new American century in whatever it was, 1997 or whatever.
[00:29:20]  Okay.
[00:29:20]  It was like the neocon like Bible that we've followed, you know, pretty much to a T and it's been a disaster everywhere.
[00:29:30]  Stuff about, you know, NATO expansion and military, you know, wars in the Middle East and regime change in Iraq and all this stuff.
[00:29:37]  But when we went into Iraq, that's what they said, that we were going to be greeted as liberators, that it would be a cakewalk and that it would be paid for in oil.
[00:29:49]  Like, so the war wouldn't cost us anything.
[00:29:51]  It would be easy and the people would love us.
[00:29:54]  They would be happy that we were there.
[00:29:55]  Meanwhile, we got into like, you know, almost two decades of guerrilla warfare because we weren't greeted as liberators.
[00:30:05]  We were greeted with a rebel army.
[00:30:08]  We were greeted with an insurgency that lasted for years.
[00:30:13]  And it wasn't paid for in oil.
[00:30:15]  It cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives.
[00:30:22]  So, you know, a little bit off from what they said.
[00:30:25]  And it's the same thing here with Ukraine, that they said that this was going to, the made on revolution, as they call it, was going to liberate the people, that joining the EU was going to bring prosperity to the country.
[00:30:36]  And of course, that ultimately joining NATO would bring security to the country.
[00:30:40]  And look where they are.
[00:30:42]  You know, it's the thing that's so tragic about this is that the people who, you know, support these neocon policies and the people who put the Ukrainian flag in their Twitter bio and all of this stuff, they, you know, they claim they're like standing up for the people of Ukraine.
[00:31:01]  Like they have a right to defend themselves and we have to stand with them.
[00:31:04]  And what do they actually have?
[00:31:05]  What are you actually giving these people?
[00:31:08]  Just prolonging this war?
[00:31:11]  Because that seems to be the plan here.
[00:31:14]  Like the neocons think that the strategic value in this is that they can bleed russia dry.
[00:31:22]  So like, okay, they are saying it can hurt Russia, but they're, they don't believe this nonsense that they're saying.
[00:31:29]  The same, there's no way they could.
[00:31:31]  I mean, if they do, they'd have to be so delusional.
[00:31:35]  I mean, imagine like predicting the consequences of war 14 times in a row.
[00:31:42]  And it's 180 degrees the opposite of what you predict.
[00:31:45]  Like you predict it's all going to be roses and sunshine and it's all death and destruction and babies starving to death.
[00:31:51]  Okay.
[00:31:52]  Every single time.
[00:31:53]  And then the 15th time, you're just as confident making that prediction.
[00:31:57]  Well, if you're not lying through your teeth, then the level of delusion is like otherworldly.
[00:32:03]  So, okay, they're saying everything is going to be fine.
[00:32:07]  No, what they're doing is they're trying to bleed Russia dry and they're willing to sacrifice the Ukrainian people in order to do that.
[00:32:14]  That's their position.
[00:32:16]  It doesn't sound like a friend of the Ukrainian people to me.
[00:32:20]  And in fact, the people, you know, on our side of it who get accused of, you know, spreading, you know, Putin propaganda, Russian talking points or whatever.
[00:32:31]  Well, what we're advocating is bringing an end to the war.
[00:32:35]  The best thing for Ukraine is to bring bring an end to this madness.
[00:32:40]  Maybe like people will stop dying.
[00:32:43]  That seems like it could be a slightly better position.
[00:32:47]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is sheathunderwear.com, the underwear of legends.
[00:32:53]  And as one of those legends, I must tell you, it's just the best.
[00:32:57]  It's the best pair of boxer briefs you'll ever put on your body.
[00:33:00]  They're comfortable.
[00:33:01]  They're high quality.
[00:33:02]  They can be worn just like regular boxer briefs, or you can use the dual pouch system, which separates your man parts.
[00:33:08]  I highly recommend it.
[00:33:09]  And they're really great, particularly for these summer months, great for working out, great for being outside in the heat because they just keep everything cool and comfortable.
[00:33:16]  And here's something crazy I just realized.
[00:33:18]  Sheath has been advertising on this podcast for three years now.
[00:33:22]  Three years of supporting this show, which you guys all love and cherish so much.
[00:33:27]  So what you got to do to support the show, go support our sponsors.
[00:33:30]  And in the process, get the most comfortable pair of underwear you'll ever own.
[00:33:34]  Sheathunderwear.com.
[00:33:36]  And if you use the promo code problem20, you're also going to get 20% off your next order.
[00:33:41]  Sheathunderwear.com, promo code problem20 for 20% off.
[00:33:46]  Let's get back into the show.
[00:33:47]  The other thing that I just feel like, you know, I've talked about before in the past, but it's something that this story particularly made me made me think about.
[00:33:56]  It's hard to ignore it, is that you see how quickly how quickly the Russian propaganda, the Russian disinformation, Russian propaganda, Russian meddling stuff gets invoked.
[00:34:10]  And, you know, it, and of course, it's all crap, but it really does show you, it's like, yeah, this has been now really since 2016, just the go-to.
[00:34:25]  And if you're keeping track, I mean, this war started last year.
[00:34:29]  It didn't start in 2016.
[00:34:30]  It started in 2022.
[00:34:32]  Now, okay, the Civil War started, you know, earlier than that.
[00:34:34]  It started in 2014.
[00:34:36]  But the, if you can't honestly, you know, like one of the things that all of the political leaders, this has been one of my big arguments about this from the beginning, is that all the political leaders always use the term unprovoked.
[00:34:50]  And there's a reason why they do.
[00:34:52]  It's a reason why these liars always have to say unprovoked.
[00:34:55]  Vladimir Putin led an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the unprovoked war, every one of them.
[00:35:01]  They're like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, all the people in the press, all the freaking Republican establishment, they all say it's like this unprovoked war.
[00:35:12]  And the reason they have to insist that it's unprovoked is because it was so clearly provoked.
[00:35:19]  Like it's so obvious that it was provoked.
[00:35:21]  And if you admit that, it doesn't excuse Vladimir Putin, but it does at least put some of the blame on them.
[00:35:28]  It's like, it's even weird that they would have to use the word.
[00:35:32]  Like, you know, like, I don't know.
[00:35:37]  Why would you even need to say that it was unprovoked?
[00:35:41]  Wouldn't that just like, wouldn't that be the assumption?
[00:35:44]  If you're saying this guy's such a bad guy, it's just very, it's like, you know, it's like if you're throwing rocks at a dog and then he snaps and like like killed a bunch of people.
[00:35:54]  And when the dog snaps and kills a bunch of people, you have to constantly say, this dog snapped and killed a bunch of people and no one threw any rocks at him.
[00:36:02]  No one threw rocks at this dog.
[00:36:04]  By the way, you're telling the story to the cops.
[00:36:06]  What happened with the dog who attacked those kids?
[00:36:08]  Well, let me start by saying no one threw rocks at him.
[00:36:10]  That's the first thing I want to let you know.
[00:36:12]  It's like, right?
[00:36:12]  The Senate almost like, it seems like something someone guilty would say, but they all repeat this line.
[00:36:18]  But like, what does that even mean?
[00:36:19]  How can anyone deny?
[00:36:21]  You know, I was making this point in one of the last debates that I did on this topic, where I was saying, like, if you, if you believe, if you don't believe, let's say, that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, which everyone's admitted it wasn't.
[00:36:40]  If you don't believe that Vladimir Putin hacked our election in 2016, which anyone paying attention knows was complete bullshit.
[00:36:48]  No evidence has ever been provided that that happened.
[00:36:51]  Havana syndrome, which they've all backed off of and admitted was nonsense.
[00:36:56]  Bounties on U.S. soldiers' heads in Afghanistan.
[00:36:58]  They've all backed off and admitted that was nonsense.
[00:37:01]  Okay, you would have to believe all of those stories are true to actually say that the U.S. has not been provoking Russia.
[00:37:10]  Because if any one of those stories is a lie, which they all are, then that in itself is provocation.
[00:37:17]  You have the intelligence agencies for the biggest war-hungry country in the world, the United States of America's federal government in Washington, D.C., the biggest war-hungry force in the world, is claiming that you committed an act of war against them.
[00:37:35]  They're setting the pretense for some type of military aggression.
[00:37:39]  Of course, that's a provocation.
[00:37:41]  You know, like imagine there was like a serial killer that just went around murdering people, but he always claimed he was only murdering bad guys.
[00:37:52]  And then he started telling everyone in the world about how you were a really bad guy.
[00:37:56]  Like every day, he just started talking about how you were a really bad guy.
[00:37:59]  Do you think you might have to prepare to defend yourself?
[00:38:02]  You might have to prepare to be like, oh, shit.
[00:38:03]  Okay.
[00:38:04]  I have reason to believe this guy might be trying to kill me next.
[00:38:08]  And of course, according to William Perry, who was Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense, according to William Perry, and he's said this for years now, he said that Vladimir Putin believes that there is a covert U.S. policy to assassinate or overthrow him.
[00:38:28]  Now, I don't know if that's true.
[00:38:31]  I'm just telling you that the secretary, a former secretary of defense has told us that Vladimir Putin sincerely believes that.
[00:38:38]  I don't know if it's true.
[00:38:40]  Also, it doesn't seem that crazy that it would be true.
[00:38:43]  If any of us found that out, if there was a new leaker and that came out that that was true, that it's been U.S. policy for, you know, for a decade now, that we want to overthrow Vladimir Putin, would that surprise any of you?
[00:38:56]  Sure wouldn't surprise me.
[00:38:58]  I highly doubt it would surprise any of you.
[00:39:00]  It's not as if the U.S. government does not favor policies of political assassinations.
[00:39:06]  It's not as if they don't favor policies of regime change.
[00:39:09]  So that's the impression that Putin's under, okay?
[00:39:13]  It doesn't make him a good guy.
[00:39:14]  It doesn't make him justified for this war.
[00:39:16]  Just saying that's what's going on here.
[00:39:19]  He's under the impression that we are trying to kill him.
[00:39:24]  And the reason why this is so stupid is because this is the only time you probably would use nuclear weapons, right?
[00:39:33]  The big check on powers using nuclear weapons.
[00:39:37]  Look, the reason why.
[00:39:39]  Think about this.
[00:39:40]  The United States of America since 1991, up until maybe this last year, has been, you know, the major force in the world.
[00:39:52]  I think undeniably.
[00:39:54]  The unipolar moment, as Charles Krautenhammer called it, started in 1991.
[00:39:58]  Soviet Union collapses, and the only superpower left is the USA.
[00:40:02]  And we've run roughshot over the world since that time.
[00:40:07]  We've started wars all over the place.
[00:40:09]  I mean, I don't even know, like, I'd probably miss one if I was trying to count them off.
[00:40:15]  But all types of regime change wars, invasions, drone bombing campaigns, colored revolutions, just all around the world doing whatever we want to do.
[00:40:24]  Because we're the most powerful country in the world and we can do it.
[00:40:27]  We can get away with it.
[00:40:28]  And the idiot neocons who ended up rising to power decided to implement those policies.
[00:40:34]  But we've never nuked anyone.
[00:40:37]  And why would we?
[00:40:38]  Why would we not?
[00:40:40]  I mean, in some, you know, you could argue they're more effective weapons than some, we dropped a ton of bombs, but we haven't dropped any nukes.
[00:40:48]  So why is that?
[00:40:49]  Why do we not do that?
[00:40:50]  Well, because, you know, why would you do that when you're winning, when you're in a position of power?
[00:40:57]  You're not going to nuke anybody because, you know, shit, if you drop a nuke, then that there's just a chance that like one of these other nuclear armed countries might, you know, respond and that they'd be like, hey, look, we can't allow this to happen.
[00:41:11]  And so, of course, you don't do that when you're winning.
[00:41:14]  We're not going to, there's no question that in, say, like, whatever, in 2014 or 2015, when Russia, you know, entered the war in Syria and got Bashar al-Assad's back to ensure that, you know, ISIS didn't take over Damascus.
[00:41:33]  Well, why, why wouldn't the U.S. just nuke Russia?
[00:41:37]  Well, because Russia can nuke us back.
[00:41:39]  And then the whole world is going to be destroyed.

=== Reckless NATO Policy Risks (05:31) ===

[00:41:41]  So it's like when you're the winners, when you're dominating, that's a risk.
[00:41:47]  You know, it's the end of human beings if we go to nuclear war.
[00:41:52]  So you're not going to do that.
[00:41:53]  The only time you might do that is if you thought you were going to die anyway.
[00:41:59]  If you thought you were going to die anyway, you might want to go out with like, well, fuck you too.
[00:42:05]  So we've convinced Putin that there's a U.S. policy to kill him.
[00:42:09]  And now we've announced in front of the world that essentially we're going to war with this guy.
[00:42:16]  He overthrew our elections.
[00:42:18]  He's putting bounties on our soldiers' heads.
[00:42:20]  He illegally invaded Ukraine.
[00:42:22]  And now, I mean, the last one's true, but now, you know, it's like, oh, we're giving them all the weapons until the job's done.
[00:42:29]  You're going to lose a war right on your border, maybe even be attacked within your country, as these documents seem to indicate.
[00:42:36]  And what does he think is next?
[00:42:37]  And of course, you have the senile president of the United States on multiple times, multiple occasions saying that our policy is regime change in Russia.
[00:42:46]  Of course, the White House rushes to correct him, but those words still come out of his mouth.
[00:42:51]  So we are like actively attempting to create the situation, the only scenario where we might actually go to nuclear war, in which case we all die.
[00:43:04]  Could you think of a more reckless policy?
[00:43:08]  A more reckless policy than that.
[00:43:11]  Yet, of course, as we're engaged in this most reckless policy, our uh the, the corporate press, is working very hard to make sure that this whistleblower gets prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
[00:43:27]  That's where we are with all of this stuff and it is uh, it is really just something to take it all in and watch it happen.
[00:43:37]  I look on the on the bright side.
[00:43:39]  At least this information did come out and there's some people who are reporting on it and doing a really good job.
[00:43:45]  Um, i'll give, i'll give props to uh, Glenn Greenwald, who's just been phenomenal on this stuff, and to Tucker Carlson.
[00:43:52]  You know, at least we got the biggest uh, the biggest um person in cable news and he seems to not be afraid to uh to to talk about this stuff.
[00:44:06]  I gotta uh, I gotta call Rogan and try to talk to him about some of this.
[00:44:11]  Hopefully he'll he'll talk about it on his show, because it really is like unbelievable.
[00:44:15]  I mean, he has talked about it a bunch on his show, but I just mean this, this most late, the latest uh, the latest stuff with this.
[00:44:21]  It's really something when you you sit back and and and appreciate that what's gone on here in the last, in the last year, year and change at this point and like where we are at this point and that's just like with all the wars, how much propaganda there is, how much lying how, how completely removed and in some cases almost the exact opposite of the actual truth, of what's really happening.
[00:44:47]  I mean, look all the for all the talk about um, you know uh, Russia um attacking, and well, if they win, you know, because that's what all the proponents of this war will try to convince you is that the real dangerous scenario here is that Vladimir Putin wins, because then he moves on Poland for whatever reason there's, you know, then he attacks NATO and then we've got a real uh, terrible situation or something like that, even though there's really no indication that that's going to happen.
[00:45:17]  Vladimir Putin has never once said that he's going to do that there's, he's never done anything to indicate that he's going to do that, you know.
[00:45:25]  But so that's where they try to convince you.
[00:45:26]  That's the real, you know, bad scenario.
[00:45:29]  He wins, then he could attack NATO.
[00:45:31]  Look, NATO has been attacked twice in the last year.
[00:45:37]  NATO has been attacked twice in the last year.
[00:45:40]  There was no response to either.
[00:45:43]  NATO was attacked in Poland by Zelinsky.
[00:45:47]  Okay, now he may claim it was an accidental attack but, but missiles were fired into Poland and killed a couple people.
[00:45:56]  Okay, and that was Zelinsky, that was Ukraine that did it, but there's been no response to that.
[00:46:04]  And, of course, the Nord Stream pipeline was a serious attack on a NATO country, like an act of industrial terrorism and an environmental disaster, which also all these people, I guess, don't really care about that much.
[00:46:20]  All of a sudden, their environmentalism just goes away because it's so.
[00:46:24]  It's weird how it's always uh, it's always the warfare state first with all these things.
[00:46:31]  That always is the.
[00:46:32]  The number one priority always seems to be the military industrial complex, and then all these other issues come, come second um, but yeah, those were both attacks on NATO.
[00:46:42]  Article Five was never invoked um, but those were the attacks on NATO and it wasn't Russia that did either of them.
[00:46:50]  Just something to keep in mind, I suppose something to keep in mind as this whole uh, as this whole thing continues to develop.
[00:46:57]  It's uh, quite a story.
[00:47:00]  I, you know, I don't know, just going back to this, this uh whistleblower um, I don't know who this kid is, what his motivations were, I don't know.

=== Believing The Whistleblower (01:06) ===

[00:47:12]  As I said earlier in the show, that's really not my main concern.
[00:47:17]  But I don't believe the corporate press when they go on these smear, uh campaigns against him.
[00:47:23]  I just don't believe any of it.
[00:47:24]  They just lied too many times, it's too.
[00:47:27]  It's just they've blown all the credibility they have, so there's no reason to even to take any of that.
[00:47:32]  They say serious and it's so obvious what their motivation here is, why they want to smear this kid.
[00:47:38]  But what I do know is that he got us some more truth about what's going on in this war and he is going to pay a heavy, heavy price for it.
[00:47:47]  And to me at least, just knowing that that's that sounds like the stuff that heroes are made of.
[00:47:55]  So I guess, guess.
[00:47:55]  I'll just I'll end on that thought.
[00:47:57]  A little bit of a shorter episode for today.
[00:47:59]  I apologize about that.
[00:48:00]  But like I said, Rob Bernstein's on his way to pick me up.
[00:48:03]  We got some gigs to go do in Albany.
[00:48:05]  Looking forward to seeing some of you guys out there in Albany, New York.
[00:48:08]  And then looking forward to seeing you guys out in Chicago.
[00:48:10]  Zaney's in Chicago.
[00:48:12]  That's the next stop after this weekend.
[00:48:14]  ComicDaveSmith.com.
[00:48:15]  That's the website.
[00:48:16]  All right.
[00:48:16]  Thanks for watching, everybody.
[00:48:18]  Catch you next time.
[00:48:19]  Peace.