Episode 1665 Scott Adams: Ukraine Fights Back and Biden's Supreme Court Pick
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Content:
Biden nominates Judge Ketanji Jackson
Neo-Nazis in Ukrainian military and government?
Fake News propaganda encouraged War
Fake News industry in America, vs Russia
Ukraine, a war of disinformation
Temporary vs permanent sanctions
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Well, um...
My favorite story of the day, and a day with not so much good news happening, is do you remember the Canadian lady who was a protester in the truck convoy, and she was trampled by horses?
Well, I guess she's okay, and she has a Twitter account called Trampled Lady, or Candy, parentheses, Trampled Lady.
And she tweeted today that after getting trampled by horses by Trudeau, I decided I would be moving to Florida with my family.
Now, I wish I had a nickel for every time somebody who had been trampled by Trudeau's horses moves to Florida.
I don't know, it's some kind of a trend.
You get trampled by Trudeau's horses and you're like, Florida, I'm out of here.
So look for more of that, because I expect Trudeau's horses will be doing some more trampling.
Well, here's the big story that's not Ukraine.
We'll get to Ukraine in a minute.
But Biden's nominating, it looks like.
Not looks like. He is nominating.
Ketanji... I'll have to hear how her name is actually pronounced before I know I'm doing it right.
But I think it's Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Reputed to be a highly qualified human being.
Who, in any normal world, would probably just glide right onto the Supreme Court.
But we live in a contentious system, and so the Republicans will fight it to death or something.
Do you know what they should do?
What's the smartest thing for Republicans to do?
Well, they should ask all the tough questions that they're supposed to ask because some of those will become clips and they can use it for political reasons.
So they'll probably do questioning that tries to invite some kind of an embarrassing or compromising answer to make Biden look bad, if nothing else.
But once they've done their questions, anything short of unanimous approval is going to look stupid.
Am I wrong? Because I think everybody believes that there shouldn't be any trouble with the actual candidate.
Now, we could be surprised, but assuming there are no surprises, no surprises whatsoever, aren't we going to be in a situation where the Republicans are just going to look like racists if they vote against her?
All it does is return the same balance to the court that was there before.
Same number of liberals, same number of conservatives.
And if she's not the one who gets...
On the Supreme Court.
It's going to be somebody with similar views.
Because you can't keep the Supreme Court unoccupied or a seat open forever.
And I don't think we're that close to getting the next president.
So this is one of those cases where we can see if the Republicans are working on reflex or strategy.
This will be like the clearest example I think you'll ever see.
If it's reflex, they'll do everything they can to stop the nomination for no good reason.
It won't be good for Republicans.
It won't be good for the country.
It won't be good for Democrats.
It won't be good for the candidates.
It won't be good for anybody.
So will Republicans do something that is unambiguously bad for everybody?
I think they will.
I think they will.
I actually think that Republicans will be so fucking stupid that they fight this tooth and nail to the end.
What do you think? I think I've lost all faith in everybody.
Just everybody.
Maybe not Elon Musk.
Elon Musk, he's still cool.
Right? But everybody else, just everybody else, is useless at this point.
So... By the way, do you disagree with my analysis of this?
That fighting it tooth and nail would be the dumbest fucking thing anybody ever did?
Am I wrong? I'm not seeing agreement or disagreement.
Okay, I see some agreements.
This is about the simplest political question of all time.
Now, of course, I'm making a big assumption here that she's gone through some vetting before and that there are no surprises.
I think that's reasonably fair.
But if there are no surprises, the Republican strategy is crystal clear.
Because what do they want for their next nominee?
They want their next nominee to go through.
Because they know they're going to be in power in a few years.
Do you think they want to not get their nominees through?
No, they want that. So I think that the smart thing is to give balance back to the court, same balance they had.
They still have the majority.
Set a precedent that says if there are no big problems, you're going to vote yes.
Do your job, which is vetting, of course.
And then next time the Republicans want to pick somebody, say, look, when you had your candidate...
When you had your candidate, we gave you 100% support.
We're looking for the same.
Now, that doesn't mean they'll get the same, but I think it could help, and there's no gain whatsoever for fighting the nomination, unless we have some surprises.
Rasmussen is asking the American public about Biden's handling of the Russian aggression toward Ukraine.
49% of Americans who answered the poll said he's doing a poor job.
53% said defending America's borders is more important than defending Ukraine.
So normally when war breaks out, it's good for the leader.
Even if it's an unpopular war, at least the first week or so, the leader usually gets some support.
But it's not exactly our war, is it?
It looks like a war that we...
If I'm being honest, I think the United States caused this war.
Does anybody else think that?
I think the U.S. caused this war.
I'm seeing some yeses.
Now, one argument against what I just said is that it requires everything to be true in order to get where you are now.
So the U.S.'s actions are just part of the variables.
Everybody else would have to do exactly what they were doing to get where we are.
So it's not like you could change one variable and know what would happen.
You don't. Anything could happen if you change one variable.
It could go the same direction.
It could go a different one. But at the moment, it looks like the United States created a situation in which we said we would guide and protect Ukraine, And instead we turned it into a threat, didn't we?
Did you see the video of Adam Schiff in 2020, I think, saying that we wanted to support Ukraine so we don't have to fight Russia here?
We'll fight Russia there so we don't have to fight them here?
That sounds like an offensive mood, doesn't it?
That sounds like an offensive move.
So we've got a member of Congress who said in public that we have offensive intentions about Russia and that we would fight them in Ukraine.
We actually said we're fighting Russia.
Like one of our politicians said that in public.
Oh, yeah, we're fighting Russia over there so we don't have to fight them here.
How does that sound in Russia?
Sounds like an offensive move.
Do you think that putting a NATO cap on Ukraine is a defensive move or an offensive move?
In the comments. Is that a defensive or offensive move to bring Ukraine into...
I see it as offensive.
I see it as offensive.
Now, I'm not on Russia's side.
Do you believe that, first of all?
I'm not sure if anybody believes anything at this point.
But do you believe I'm not on Russia's side?
I hope you do. But even though, to me, it looks like America caused this problem.
I also think that Trump wouldn't have caused it.
I don't think he would have.
Because I think Trump can read the room better.
I'm not saying Trump is perfect and Biden's all bad.
I don't do that game.
I'm just saying that Trump can read a room like nobody can read a room.
Like he can really read a room.
And I feel like he would have figured out some way past this because it's a psychological problem.
It's not a physical problem.
It's a physical problem if the psychological part spills over into it, which it usually does.
But if you solve it psychologically...
You don't get the physical part.
And I don't think Biden has those capabilities.
I think Trump did.
I think Trump had the ability to just shake the box until the box lined up the way he wanted.
So it's not like he would just do, like, a strategy that's different.
I'm not saying that. I'm saying that whatever Trump did wouldn't look anything like this.
It would just be different.
He would say different things.
He would push different buttons.
What would we get?
I don't know. I think he'd shake the box and see what happened.
And if we liked it, we'd keep it.
And if he didn't like it, he'd shake it again.
I think he'd just keep shaking it until he got a situation he liked.
And that's just not a capability that Biden has.
Biden has the...
We're the adults in the room, so the way we've always treated things is the way we'll continue treating them, be nice and predictable, so they know exactly what you're going to do.
Trump would have been unpredictable as hell...
Unpredictable as hell.
You wouldn't even know what side he was on after a while.
You don't think that would help?
Of course it would help.
Of course it would help. You don't think Trump could get a message that would land on the public of Russia?
Yeah, he could. Can Biden create a narrative that actually takes hold in the people of Russia?
Yeah. Maybe, but he's not good at it.
Who's good at that?
Trump. Trump is good at that.
He wouldn't have to get all of Russia to believe him, but if he got 25% of them, that's a pretty big problem for Putin.
Now, of course, it's always unfair to say the other person would have done it better.
It's sort of the grass is always greener sort of thing.
So you should be aware that there's a bit of an illusion that follows all of this.
We don't know that Trump would have done a better job.
We don't know that.
It's just that his personality appears more fit for the task.
That's all you can say for sure.
All right, here's the thing that is making me wonder how much our own fake news is faking us on this story.
Let me do a fact check with you.
Fact check for those who have been watching the news.
Is Ukraine infiltrated or does it have too many neo-Nazis in the government and military itself?
Yes or no? Is that a real charge that the number of neo-Nazis, actual neo-Nazis, in the Ukrainian military and in the Ukrainian government, true or false?
Most of you are saying no.
Oh, a few yeses.
Now, those of you who are saying no, where did you get that information?
What is the source of your information that the Ukrainian government and military are not Not filled with, but let's say, does not have a significant amount of neo-Nazis in it.
Where did you learn that?
Did you learn that from Western press?
You did, right?
So if you believe that there is not an important neo-Nazi problem with Ukraine, you got that from your own press.
Are they credible?
Not really. Not on war stuff especially.
Anything about war, there's no press that's credible.
Basically nobody. But we all believed it, didn't we?
I believed it. I would say that it's just one of those things that didn't rise to the level of questioning it.
But here's the counterpoint.
I got this from Brian Berletic on Twitter.
I don't know what his background is.
And let me say something very clearly.
I don't know who this individual is, Brian Berletic, but he promotes an argument or a point of view that I think you should see.
Now, when I tell you this, you might think that I'm a Russian spy.
You might also think that poor Brian Berletic, who did not ask for me to talk about him, you might think he's also a Russian operative.
Just because of the way the argument's going to go.
Now, I'm not going to claim any of that is true.
Certainly not about me.
But I don't know anything about Brian.
So I'm not going to accuse him of anything.
I would just want to acknowledge that it's going to look like propaganda when I tell you what he said.
So he's using only sources from the West.
He's using the United Nations as a source, Reuters, basic standard news sources.
And he says... The following.
That Russia didn't start a war in Ukraine.
Again, this is the part that sounds like propaganda.
You can use your own opinion.
He said, the war has been going on for eight years, spearheaded by literal Nazis, killing 14,000, including 3,000 civilians.
In other words, that the Ukrainian military has neo-Nazis in it, or actual Nazis, and they have killed 14,000 people, including a lot of civilians, in the, I guess, the so-called independent zones, the Donbass region, I guess, mostly. Now...
Is this true or false?
Is it true or false that the Ukrainian military...
Forget about the Nazi part for a moment.
We'll get back to that. But is it true that the Ukrainian military killed 14,000 people in the Donbass area?
Now, did they have a good reason?
In other words, if the Donbass...
If the Donbass area was, in fact...
Let's say occupied by enemy troops, doesn't the country have a legitimate war there?
So I'm not sure there's anything wrong with fighting to capture back territory that was captured from you, but Brian puts it in a way that sounds like an offensive instead of a defensive thing.
And then he gives his sources, BBC, United Nations, NBC, etc.
So... Here is something that blew my frickin' mind.
We're used to fake news and CNN and other outlets, so you know what it looks like.
But when you watch it, you don't always know how fake it is.
Sometimes you need some context to know how fake it is.
But I was pointed to the RT, Russia Today, RT website, or actually the YouTube feed website, And if you watch 10 minutes of RT, which is a propaganda organ from Putin, which, by the way, let me pause to give you a full disclosure.
I have appeared on RT. So RT has interviewed me and included my content.
Now, at the time, we were not having this kind of problem with Russia, and this was early in, I don't know, if I had to guess a year, it might have been 2016, something like that.
2016, I'm guessing.
Now, at the time, I knew it was called Russia Today, so I wasn't really surprised that they would have a propaganda element to them.
But at the time, I didn't have any trouble with Russia.
And I thought, oh, it's just more publicity.
It doesn't matter where it comes.
So I was just doing anybody who asked at the time, because I thought what I had to say was worth saying, so I didn't care who asked me to say it.
Now, subsequently, once it became more obvious what RT was up to, they've also asked me for content since then, and I've turned them down.
So I want to give you, that's my context, that I have appeared on there, completely aware of what the situation was and what the risks and rewards were.
But at the moment, I wouldn't take that chance.
So I would never appear on RT again.
Everybody okay with that decision?
That makes sense, right?
Now, I'm not sure I regret having done it the first time, because it worked for me, it worked for them, and I got my message out.
It didn't matter. But I definitely wouldn't do it now.
I mean, I wouldn't give them any attention whatsoever.
By the way, the only place you're going to see RT.com right now is on YouTube because I tried to look at their website last night and it was...
We're in trouble. So apparently Anonymous, the anonymous hacker group that is international and don't know too much about them, have targeted Russia and Russian-related websites, including RT. So a number of websites in Russia are down, and I don't know how long Anonymous is going to keep at them, but that's worth watching.
The thing I don't know is, does Anonymous have the good tools?
How close to a government hack could Anonymous get?
Because I think there's a big difference, right?
Between the best amateur hack and the best military hack, there's no correlation there.
They're like worlds of difference apart.
So I don't know how much difference they can make.
It's probably just denial-of-service attacks, that sort of thing.
I doubt they can take equipment offline.
In other words, I doubt Anonymous could crash their grid.
What I would imagine...
Oh, RT is up again?
Let's see. This will be interesting.
All right, let me test it right here.
RT. You're probably doing this right as I'm doing it.
and you already are printing the answer in your comments.
Nope.
Is RT up where you are?
Thank you.
Because I'm getting a blank page.
Oh, you're on it now, really?
Is it just RT.com?
It's RT.com, right?
So apparently it's offline in certain places.
Let me refresh, see if it changes.
Yeah, no, the refresh didn't work.
It's up in Florida.
Okay. I'll be darned.
All right, so some can reach it and some can't.
So what does that mean? Does that mean denial of service?
Your ISP blocked it.
That's what it looks like. It doesn't look like a denial of service.
It looks blocked. It looks blocked.
Yeah, it's up on YouTube because...
And why?
Why... Wait a minute.
Wait a minute. Are you fucking kidding me?
YouTube? YouTube is running Russian propaganda during the war?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Oh, you think it's only the iPhone that's the problem?
Maybe. I mean, I'm on Wi-Fi.
How should that make a difference? Wow.
I think you'd have to say that YouTube is supporting Russia in the war, wouldn't you?
Isn't the number one thing that YouTube does is get rid of content that's inappropriate?
What is more inappropriate than war propaganda during a war from the other side?
YouTube, you've got a lot of explaining.
Do you know who got demonetized a few times this week?
Or last few weeks?
I did. I did.
YouTube is censoring me?
Are they not doing any censoring of war propaganda from Russia?
Like, I hope I'm wrong about that.
But, hey, YouTube, if you censors are watching me right now, and I know that they have to do manual reviews almost every time, but what the hell is going on?
I think you need an explanation for the public.
I think the public would like to know why my content is often demonetized without any reason that I can see.
At the same time that RT is just up and running with their feed?
Seriously? And that's okay with you.
YouTube's okay with that.
Google is okay with that.
I think we need an explanation.
Don't you? Don't you think somebody needs to ask YouTube what the fuck is going on?
What the fuck is going on?
Seriously. And that's mind-boggling.
Just mind-boggling.
Well, you think this war in Ukraine is bad, but it's way worse than you think.
Joy Behar is concerned about the effects it will have on her vacation to Italy that she's planning this summer.
And she's been trying to get there for four years, damn it.
And the pandemic slowed her down, and And now, in somber tones appropriate to the situation, she complains that her vacation to Italy might be postponed.
Might be postponed.
So, if we could have a moment of silence for Joy Behar's vacation.
Moment of silence, please.
Okay, that's enough.
All right, here's something else that the fake news caused.
A war in Ukraine.
A war in Ukraine. War in Ukraine.
Have you wondered why Putin can get away with saying ridiculous bullshit about why he's going into Ukraine?
Have you wondered why he can say such ridiculous things that are so obviously untrue and apparently half of his country believes it?
Like half of the country believes it.
Now why is that?
Could it be because there are no sources of legitimate news?
Yes, it could be that.
Because even Russia has access to the Internet.
You know, there's some things censored, etc.
But they can get to CNN.com, can they not?
Can somebody do a fact check?
If you live in Russia, you can get to CNN.com.
Is that true, by the way?
It is true, right? So if you can get to Western news sources...
Why don't those Western news sources reprogram the Russian public into a more accurate view of the world?
Well, maybe it's because when they watch CNN, they can tell it's fake news.
Because it is. Maybe there are no sources of reliable news.
So when the Russian public sees RT, they don't see it as any different than anything else.
Because everything's propaganda.
That's a pretty bad place to be.
Wouldn't it be a better world if there were at least one place you could see both sides and the Russian public could say, you know, I don't believe RT. I also don't believe CNN. Can I just go look somewhere and find out what's true?
I think that the fake news industry in the United States, the fact that it lost all credibility, is a much bigger problem than we imagine.
It's not just about who believes bullshit and votes wrong.
It's about starting wars.
I would argue that this is a war of disinformation, meaning that the soldiers fighting it don't know why they're fighting it.
Maybe Putin knows, but he's not saying it directly.
So if you could fix disinformation, you could probably take a big bite out of any future wars because they depend on disinformation.
The entire thing depends on that.
All right. What do you think of temporary sanctions on stuff as a way to stop a war?
Doesn't really work, does it?
Because everybody thinks, well, it's temporary.
I can keep Ukraine forever, but the sanctions will be temporary.
If I just told you that, doesn't it look like a good investment for Russia to conquer Ukraine?
If the only thing you knew...
Was that the sanctions, whatever they are, are probably temporary, but the ownership of Ukraine is probably closer to permanent.
That looks like a good deal.
So why do we create a situation that makes it look like a good deal to conquer your neighbor?
Maybe we should create a situation where it doesn't look like a good deal anymore.
Now, I floated the idea that maybe some of the sanctions should be permanent.
Like as in forever.
As in never fucking change.
Now one of the questions somebody asked me was, but Scott, what about if Putin leaves office and if you could imagine he's replaced by somebody who's not a problem, we don't have a problem with him, then would you drop the permanent sanctions?
To which I say, no, do you know what permanent means?
Permanent means you don't drop them ever.
Now the financial ones, of course, will get dropped eventually.
That would make sense. You know, propaganda could get dropped.
You know, there's lots of things that could get dropped eventually if the government became more friendly to the United States, etc., or to the West.
But here's one.
I think you have to give them one permanent stain.
Take Germany as an example.
Did Germany bulldoze the concentration camps from World War II? They did not.
They did not. And wisely, I think.
Instead, they kept the concentration camps because they never want to forget.
And Germany, rather than running from its history, has simply embraced the shame and said, that's who we are now.
That's who we are. We just have to deal with that.
That's who we are now.
Meaning the brand of the country.
And I feel as though we should consider we the...
The rest of the world.
Banning international sports from Russia forever.
Because international sports doesn't change your finances or your access to energy or your national security.
Those things have to be flexible because people are going to do what makes sense always.
But if you tell the population of a country that you will be banned from international sports forever...
That actually is something that will touch them on a regular basis.
Because I'm pretty sure soccer is popular.
I'm pretty sure, you know, sporting and being part of the sporting world is important.
But if it were me, I would say...
And, of course, there's no way to do this because all the sporting groups are independent people.
But I would say there will never be another international game in Russia, nor will you ever be invited to any.
Not the Olympics, not anything.
You're just out of sports forever.
Now, you might say to yourself, but Scott, how much does Putin care about that?
That's not going to change anything.
To which I say, it's about the next one.
I agree that it wouldn't change anything on this war.
You're right. But it's about the next one.
I think you have to set a standard that some things are permanent.
And that those things should be things that affect the public, but not in a life-or-death way.
Let me ask you this.
Suppose you're just an American sitting at home watching the Ukraine situation.
How much do you care about it?
It's different, right? People care, people don't care.
But suppose you found out that supporting the war in Ukraine would mean you could never watch professional sports in America again.
How much do you care now?
Well, you might not care about Ukraine at all, or the war at all, but how many people build their lives around watching sports?
A lot. It would actually really, really affect people.
Now, it wouldn't affect me because I don't watch sports, but it would really affect a lot of people who it's their only entertainment and it's free.
If you take away their only free entertainment, the thing they care about and look forward to, it's a big deal.
It's a big deal. It's just not life or death.
So I think you could find some things which are big deals that you could say, you know, this one's just permanent.
This one's just permanent.
There's nothing you can do about it.
That might get the public involved, but if not, who cares?
Who cares in the sense that it's about the next public?
It's not really about this public.
All right, so Ukraine officials have told the public to make Molotov cocktails and get ready for the Russian incursion into Kiev.
So it looks like it's going to be a trap-and-burn strategy.
And I don't know why this wouldn't work, but if you could imagine that every third window in Ukraine had a Molotov cocktail, and there seems to be tall buildings on the sides of these streets, wouldn't they be able to trap, you know, you blow something up in the beginning and the end of the...
The troops coming in.
Couldn't you trap them there and just throw Molotov cocktails out the window until they're all burned up?
Or what is the defense against it?
Is the defense that the military would just, like, blow up every building?
Because they'd have to, right?
They'd have to blow up all the buildings.
Or even just, like, spray gunfire into them.
But, I don't know, would that stop the Molotov cocktails?
Would they just blow everything up?
They'd probably start executing civilians or doing something pretty big.
Blow up the pipelines.
Now, apparently, Ukraine has also asked for private drones to be donated to the cause.
So one thing that's possible...
Will the city of Kiev have communication?
Because I'm not sure that a Molotov cocktail attack works unless it's coordinated.
Somebody throwing one once in a while doesn't change anything.
But if you trapped the soldiers into a street, you trapped the beginning and the end, and then you just rained fire on them from above, and you took video of it on your phone, and you made that video available to the Russian public, do you think the Russian public would like to see...
There are young people incinerated in a fire slowly on a Ukraine street.
Because that's the video you need.
The video you need is of young Russian soldiers on fire and running around and no place to go.
You give me that video, and the Russian public will turn on Putin.
If you have more than one of them, if you can do that twice, you probably will protect Kiev.
Because I don't know that the Russian public could handle watching the slow-motion burn of their young people on the Kiev street.
I don't think they could handle it.
And I don't think that even Putin could keep that image out of Russia.
But we'll see. Now, let me be very clear.
I'm not even sure I care who wins.
Is that fair? Yes.
Is it fair to say I don't care who wins?
Because so far, Ukraine has been nothing but a pain in the fucking ass to America.
Am I right? So far, Ukraine has been nothing but a thorn in our side.
If Russia owned it, it would just be sort of the same risk we had with Russia, just more of it, I guess.
But not more of it enough in the way that matters.
I don't know. Are we worse off if Putin owns Ukraine?
I don't know. I have no idea.
But I do think it's interesting that Putin and Biden both shut down each other's banks.
You know what I mean? Biden shut down business with a number of the top Russian banks, and Putin is closing Ukraine so that the Bidens can't use it as their personal bank anymore.
They both ended banking for each other.
How much do you care about that?
I don't. I'm happy that Putin can't bank as well, and I'm happy that the Bidens don't have that bank anymore.
So, I don't know.
Does the United States come out behind?
Check the stock market.
Let's see. How's the stock market doing?
I'll tell you if the United States is going to come out behind.
It's up. It's up.
So, Russians are in Kiev, and the American stock market is up.
Now, it was down a lot, so this might be just a fluctuation.
So you can't say anything from this one-day change.
But is Ethereum up or down today?
Crypto is up.
I saw something about Ethereum as a trending story.
How much is Ethereum up?
A lot? We'll find out.
Anyway, this Molotov cocktail situation is going to...
They need to produce video.
It's all about the video.
So if you hear Molotov cocktails, that doesn't mean anything.
Molotov cocktails plus trapping them, plus getting phone video.
That's the way to make a difference.
ETH isn't mooning, if that's what you mean.
It's at 2800. So it's just up a little bit.
Ethereum? All right.
So apparently RT is showing a Tucker Carlson show pretty much every day.
So that's interesting.
The one thing I think you can be happy about in the United States...
Is that you can have somebody in this country who's, you know, that much against war as Tucker is.
And Tucker's been pretty consistently against war, so...
Somebody's worried about getting cancelled for being a Russian puppet.
I don't think that's a risk.
I think you could actually be a Russian puppet and you wouldn't get cancelled.
But I'm not... All right.
One of the things that Tucker mentions, and there isn't enough talk about it, and I think it's because it's complicated, is that the real risk is to the American dollar as the currency of choice.
Because if anything that comes out of this causes China and Russia to say, you know, let's use the Chinese yuan as the main currency for buying oil and stuff, and then the Middle East starts accepting the yuan instead of the dollar, Then the value of the U.S. dollar tanks and our debt crushes us and we become a third-rate country.
And it looks like we're heading in that direction.
So I'm not smart enough to know how big of a risk this is.
This is a little above my pay grade.
I've got a degree in economics and still, unless you're neck deep in this stuff, you don't really know what's going on.
All right.
So I guess that's the scariest part of this thing, at least for the United States.
Why did Russia capture Chernobyl early on in this move?
So they captured the...
I assume it's a completely decommissioned site.
There's nothing happening there now, right?
Chernobyl. Chernobyl. But one of the things that was reported is that radioactivity is higher in that area, and that might be because the military operations are kicking up some radioactive dust.
Are there Russian soldiers who are in the middle of that extra radiation dust?
Are they all going to die?
Or has Mark Schneider been right all along that we always overestimate the danger of nuclear, and it's fine.
Maybe you can just...
You know, obviously the Russian army thinks they're safe.
Why does the Russian army think it's safe to be there, of all places?
I mean, I don't even know what...
I can't even imagine what military benefit they get from it, but there must be some.
Or they become Russian mutant soldiers and they have spider powers and they're even harder to beat.
Hmm. So, and I also wondered if maybe Russia was capturing Chernobyl to make sure it didn't become a source of dirty bombs.
Is that even a thing?
Is there anything left at Chernobyl that somebody could have, I don't know, harvested to turn into a dirty bomb?
I've seen a lot of people say yes.
But I don't think I know enough to confirm that that's true.
I'm seeing some no's, seeing some yes's.
It sounds like the technical...
Without knowing anything, I would imagine that the technical complexity of that would make it impractical.
I don't think you want to let any of that out.
In order to get to it, you're probably going to let some of it out.
And I don't know that anybody would take that risk.
Maybe as a PSYOP... Nuclear waste from the leak could be dispersed if it's bombed.
Dirty bombs are a great terror weapon, but they're not great to use them at home.
Well, that's a good point. You don't want to use that kind of a terror weapon at home.
But does the Ukrainian military shell the Chernobyl to kill the military there?
What if they did? Is that even a thing?
Or is Chernobyl hardened against attack?
Like if you hit it directly with some shells or some missiles, would it leak its contents?
Soldiers can wear protective suits.
There are not enough protective suits.
I don't think they brought enough protective suits for that.
It gets boomers to care about war.
Boomers always care about war.
You can't stay in the Chernobyl area for more than six hours?
I don't know. We'll find out, because I think they will.
Watch the miniseries about it?
Okay. All right.
What do you think of the usefulness of temporary sanctions?
You would agree that any temporary sanction looks like it won't work, right?
Because if the other side says, I'll keep Ukraine forever, but your sanctions are temporary, okay, that's a good deal.
But what if any of the sanctions were permanent?
According to Jeffrey Miller, he says game theory says that a permanent sanction won't change anybody's behavior.
Because it won't change the sanction.
Which makes sense.
Oh, well, if the sanctions are going to be permanent no matter what, why would I do anything differently than I'm going to do?
So I guess that makes sense.
But it depends on the sanction.
Like I said, if the sanction that's permanent is no international sports ever...
That might work. That might work.
But at least work a little bit.
Nothing's going to change what's happening.
All right. Yeah, this SWIFT... You know, I think there was never really an option for turning off Russia's gas because we didn't have a backup plan.
There's no backup plan.
Russia will sell energy to Europe, especially Germany.
That's just going to happen.
And... Yeah, and blocking the SWIFT could damage the US as well, and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And probably at least part of the reason that the stock market in the US is going up is that we...
I never finished the Nazi story.
What part did I not finish?
What did I not finish?
Thank you.
I guess you don't know. Well, okay, let's see if I can finish it.
The point is that Russia says it's Nazis.
Maybe it is, maybe it doesn't.
But since we don't trust the news, and we don't trust Russian propaganda, I don't know, how do you factor that in?
Let me give you my bottom line.
Because I have literally been called a neo-Nazi for six years, or I guess I've been called a neo-Nazi sympathizer for six years, because I said anything good about Trump once.
That's all it takes. What do I think when I see somebody else called a neo-Nazi sympathizer?
Right? So this is another cost of the fake news.
If the fake news spends six years calling people who are clearly not neo-Nazis, such as myself, if you spend that much time...
That's more social media than the news.
But I think the neo-Nazi lost all of its power.
I think that in the United States, if you look at some other country saying that there's some neo-Nazis in the government, you just yawn.
Not because you're not worried about neo-Nazis, but because you don't believe it.
Do you believe it?
Now, I know there's plenty of reporting about actual Nazi sympathizers in Ukraine, but do you believe it?
And what percentage?
Have you ever heard of percentage?
Because do you think, is there any reporting that says the number of neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian military, for example, is greater than the number of neo-Nazis in the U.S. military?
You don't know that, do you?
You don't know that.
I'm hoping we have fewer neo-Nazis in our military, but if it's 1%, If it's 1% in the Ukraine military, and maybe it is, and it's 1% in our military, why are we even talking about it?
Like, that's not the key issue.
It's an issue. All right, don't ignore it.
But it has nothing to do with why we have a war or anything.
So, my take on the neo-Nazi thing is that it's effective, because it gives Putin some excuse to do what he's doing.
I think some of his public will believe it, and that'll be enough to cause confusion.
But I don't think it's the real reason.
And I think the only reason that he can get away with it is that we're so accustomed to calling each other neo-Nazis in the United States, it just lost its meaning.
I just don't think it means anything in the United States anymore.
Not compared to what it used to.
Wake up, they are desperate.
Doesn't the military have 1% of everything?
Yup. Yup.
Yup. Oliver Stone has a documentary on the 2014 coup in Ukraine.
It's called Ukraine on Fire.
It explains the radical right militias like Azov Battalion that carried out the coup.
Well, the radical right was instrumental in the coup, but they weren't the only ones in the coup, right?
Did the Donbass get controlled by neo-Nazis?
Actually, I don't know.
Let me ask you that. So before Russia came in, was the Donbass controlled by neo-Nazis?
know the opposite, right?
Yeah, define neo-Nazis.
Yeah.
Ukraine is doing memes about Russia.
Nazis were attacking the Donbass.
All right. Well, you know, this whole Nazi thing works so well for Putin, because he can just say, I'm getting rid of Nazis, and 50% of the public will just say, that's fine.
I don't need the details.
Getting rid of Nazis, that's fine.
So, it's looking like Putin will be successful in taking Ukraine.
I think his public opinion will take a hit, of course, but he'll stay in office, looks like it.
All right. Good day for a booster sip?
I think you're right. Shall we end today's program with the additional sip?
Yes, I think we should.
Oliver Stone's facts aren't meant to be trusted, somebody says.
I would echo that thought.
A person making documentary is not a credible source.
This has nothing to do with Oliver Stone.
In general, person makes documentary.
Not to be trusted.
Don't trust it. And now, the closing simultaneous sip, in which afterwards I will stay with the locals people for a minute and excuse you on YouTube, but it's time for the closing simultaneous sip.
Go! Of course my mug is heated.
If you don't have a mug heater next to your computer, well, you're not even trying to work hard.
You're not even trying.
A documentary on the war that apparently just started two days ago.
