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Content:
Politics, TikTok Ban, Senator Rand, Jake Sullivan, China's Trump Return Reaction, Jim Acosta Time-slot, Time Magazine, Fine People Hoax, Mark Pincus Red Pill Moment, Conservative Culture Rises, Snoop Dogg, Carrie Underwood, Speaker Johnson's Silence, Biden LNG Pause, 28th Amendment Hoax, Democrat Image Focus, MSNBC Plucky Losers, Rachael Maddow, Trump Bump, $TRUMP Meme Coin, Gaza Ceasefire, Trump Inauguration Rumors, Scott Adams
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Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization.
So far, if you'd like to take this experience up to levels that nobody can even understand with their tiny, shiny human brains, all you need for that is a cup or mug or a glass of tank or chalice, a stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
Good stuff.
Delicious.
All right, I'd like to start out with two corrections.
These would both go into the category of, man, I'm stupid.
So yesterday...
I confused the two assassins because they're both white guys with rifles who didn't get it done.
And I thought that the...
I'd forgotten for a moment that the first one was dead on the scene and it was only the second one who survived.
So no, there's no way that Trump could go talk to the guy in prison because he's pretty dead.
So that's the first correction.
The other one...
I can't believe I just found this out today.
That when I said that David Axelrod was the attorney for CNN and Jake Tapper in their lawsuit, I just assumed it was David Axelrod, the one who's on the show, and they just figured, oh, you're an attorney.
I didn't know he was.
Maybe he's not.
But it turns out it's a whole different David Axelrod.
So David Axelrod on TV, on CNN, is a different one from David Axelrod, the lawyer.
Who defended them from the lawsuit.
Now, that's my fault, of course.
But I just have to say there are too many David Axelrods associated with CNN. They just need fewer of them.
That would make everything better for us.
If you're not following Dilbert, which you can only see on subscription these days, either on X, subscribe on X, under my account, or on Locals, you would know that today is the day the fire reaches his house.
And Dilbert is going to stay behind and try to save his house.
So I don't want to give you a spoiler, but he might die.
And he might not.
You never know.
It's a comic.
I can kill him anytime I want.
Well, you'll be amazed to learn, according to Nutrients, some publication called Nutrients, coffee intake makes males more sociable and women more attractive.
According to studies of mice, how do they know that the mice think each other is more attractive?
I don't know.
But I don't care.
If it says coffee is good for you, I'm all in.
Did you know, and again, this is a big surprise, according to Suray Live and Samantha Leathers, it turns out that exercise is good for your mental health.
Huh.
Huh.
Just like every single day, we hear another study.
But here's the interesting part.
It's not every kind of exercise is equally good, but rather, for men, it was better to do yoga and qigong.
I'm sure I pronounced that right.
Qigong.
Qigong.
Weigong.
You know, that's where the old people get in the park and go, like that.
That was my impression of Qui Gong.
I don't know if I'm pronouncing that.
That's a word I've read a million times, and I've never heard a single person say it out loud.
Anyway, so it's better for men to do yoga and this Qui Gong stuff, and for women, it might be better to do strength training.
But jogging and walking are good for everybody.
Did we really need a study when you can kind of just look around and the people who exercise every day are clearly happier than the people who don't?
Is that not screamingly obvious in your own life?
If you see somebody who's really fit because they exercise every day, they're almost always in a reasonably good mental health.
Now, some of this is cause and effect being reversed.
If you're depressed, it's pretty hard to work out.
Impossible, really.
If you have actual, you know, real mental depression, getting out of bed is almost impossible.
So some of it is the correlation is backwards, but some of it is clearly causation.
You know, if you've been exercising since you were a kid, you're almost certainly to be better off mentally.
The TikTok ban has gone into action, and the TikTok lovers are hoping that Trump will save them when he's officially in power tomorrow.
And I think he will, but at least with a 90-day presidential extension.
I don't know if you knew this, but the ban has built into it that the sitting president, whoever it is, can extend it for 90 days, extend the pause before the ban.
So he can put off the ban for 90 days, which would be reversing it for 90 days.
And he can do that under the condition...
That there's some kind of deal or sale being worked on, and it's not complete.
Now, it's not exactly true that anybody's maybe getting close to negotiating a deal to buy it, but there are two possibilities out there.
The Perplexity app, which is an AI app on a search engine.
It's the best thing ever.
I recommend it all the time.
Jeff Bezos is one of the backers of that, and they've offered to somehow merge With TikTok, but not take the algorithm.
So some think the algorithm is the expensive part.
And so they would pay less.
They'd build the algorithm themselves.
I don't know if that's going to happen.
But at least it would be enough for Trump to say, oh, well, somebody's noodling on a deal.
That's close enough.
I'll give them 90 days to see if they can do it.
But also, Kevin O'Leary, the Shark Tank star and entrepreneur, he's working with some group of investors and billionaire Frank McCourt, and they put together a $20 billion cash offer, which I think TikTok has just rejected.
Some people think it's worth $50 billion if you bought the algorithm with it.
But here's the thing that's puzzling me.
Senator Paul Rand, who...
In my opinion, is almost always right and well-informed, unlike some of his peers.
But he said that the real reason, to use his words, the real reason for the TikTok ban was censorship.
Is that what you think?
Do we ban it for censorship?
Meaning that, oh, man.
I just suddenly got really sick, so I might have to cut this short.
If I cut it short.
Wow.
I'm having an event here live on livestream.
Let's see if I can make that pass.
But Rand Paul says that the real reason for the tic-tac ban was censorship.
That's sort of true, but it's not the big picture.
The sort of true part is that the Israel stuff, When TikTok turned more anti-Israel than pro-Israel, some say that the Israeli lobby kicked in and got the Congress to ban it.
I think that's true as the trigger.
That was like the final straw or something.
But it's not the big reason.
The big reason is you don't want China to have a button they can push to change America's minds.
Apparently that has happened.
There was a study that showed that TikTok was pretty anti-Israel in terms of the quantity of content in one direction versus the other.
So, I wonder if, does Rand Paul not know that the real problem is the persuasion risk in the future?
It's not so much that there was one particular issue about Israel and the propaganda on that.
So, I don't know.
What is up with Rand Paul?
Why doesn't he just say, Or does he not know?
Is it possible he doesn't know that the real risk is future persuasion?
I just don't know.
And why would you equate a free speech platform that could be manipulated by your adversary with a free speech platform that could be manipulated, potentially, by your own country?
How in the world does anybody think that's about the same?
Let me give you an analogy.
Would you hand a gun to your friend before you would hand a gun to your enemy?
Which one makes sense to you?
It's the same gun?
Wait, wait, why would you trade it differently?
People.
Don't censor it.
It's the same thing.
It's the same exact thing.
A gun.
So why would you discriminate who you gave it to?
An enemy who wants to shoot you versus your friend who wants to protect you.
Why is it different?
I don't see any difference.
Do you?
I'm Rand Paul.
I don't see any difference.
Well, it's gone both times, right?
I don't get it.
So what's up with that?
Now, to be fair, when he says it's censorship, he's probably talking about the specific, you know, Israeli situation.
But is he using censorship as influence?
And he didn't think that the influence should be canceled?
I don't know.
If it was organic, then it's a free speech issue.
So maybe that's the way to put it.
If the thing it got canceled for was actually just happening on its own and China didn't push any buttons, it was just a natural phenomenon of what the TikTokers thought because they're a certain age.
And then below a certain age, they're not as pro-Israel.
So maybe it was organic.
If they stopped something that was organic, That's just pure censorship.
If they stopped something that was because China had already pushed a button and we have no way to know, well, then we'd be stopping a weapon of mass destruction.
Pretty different.
Anyway, it opens the question, what would happen if AI starts saying bad things about Israel?
What would happen if AI... Start saying bad things about Israel.
We know what happens when TikTok does.
That's pretty clear.
But what happens when AI does?
Well, maybe we'll find out.
Because it turns out there's a school that was using an AI emulation of Anne Frank to teach the kids about that situation.
Except this is reported in The Bite by Joe Wilkins.
He says that because AI likes to show both sides...
See, you know, the AI doesn't like to say somebody's right and somebody's wrong.
So the AI Anne Frank, it seemed to be trained to avoid blaming the Nazis for what happened.
And it tries to redirect the conversation into a more positive light.
Let's not be so divisive about this.
Well, let's try to treat this one right down the middle.
All right, well, I'd assume that's not going to last very long.
But it does, it begs the question, if we can, you know, get out of the Israel Nazi mode, just in general, news in general, can AI ever be the one who tells you what's true?
I don't think it can.
Because whoever makes it and owns it and benefits from it has an opinion.
And they're going to want to put their opinion in the AI because they're going to think it's a real one and all the other opinions don't count.
So no, there's no way that AI is ever going to be able to tell you the truth.
There's no way.
There's not any logical way it could ever do it.
It could know the truth.
That's a thing.
It could know the truth.
It can't possibly tell the truth over time.
Anyway, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was...
Saying that it was his last time at the podium, and then he dropped this little scary thing.
He goes, I hope this is my last time at this podium, because, you know, last day of the administration.
He says, the only thing that would bring me back is an unexpected event in the next few days.
Wait.
What?
What?
The National Security Advisor?
The guy who has access to all the secret stuff?
Top secret clearance, knows exactly what the Democrats are doing, knows exactly what foreign countries may or may not be planning.
The only thing that would bring me back is an unexpected event in the next few days.
What?
So it does sound scary.
It sounds scary like...
You know, he knows of some plan to do something bad.
But the other possibility is that he did it before his last day.
If he said that before his actual last day in office, then if there was some big event and Trump had not been inaugurated yet, presumably he would come back.
So I don't think he meant it as some kind of scary, you know, something's coming foreshadowing.
I think he just meant, I'm not officially done with the job.
Is that fair?
Because he wasn't officially done with the job, so if something big happened the next day or so, he would in fact come back.
So that's my interpretation.
It didn't turn into a bigger story, so I think it's just an interpretation thing.
Meanwhile, CNN did a big story yesterday that just blew my mind.
So it was Aaron Burnett was talking to a correspondent who knew how China was reacting to Trump's election.
And it's not what you think.
How do you think the Chinese citizens are reacting to Trump's election?
Well, according to CNN, and this is part of the story, it's CNN saying it.
That's almost bigger than the story itself.
Watch this.
CNN did an extended segment in which the entire point of it was that the Chinese public really likes Trump.
And he's sort of a celebrity star over there.
They're making merchandise with his face on it.
In China, they have merchandise.
And a lot of it is pro-Trump.
And so he even has positive nicknames.
So over there, they have some kind of very positive nickname for him, and they're all talking about him.
And President Xi is sending the highest-ranking person who's ever gone to an inauguration, his VP. And, wow.
So, CNN definitely seems to be trying to adjust and find that middle ground where they're not so just always anti-Trump all the time.
More to that point, Jim Acosta, the correspondent slash host, who had been Trump's biggest nemesis and one of the biggest liars on CNN, he got moved to the midnight hour.
So he went from 10 a.m.
where he was doing so well he was beating some of the primetime shows.
So there was nothing wrong with his numbers relative to the other numbers.
And so...
That seems like a pretty big Trump win.
If CNN wants to move their most ridiculous guy to midnight where nobody will watch him, and nobody's going to watch him at midnight.
He's done as an influence.
That's a pretty big deal.
But Time Magazine is handling it differently.
So Time Magazine has an article in which they're helpfully suggesting to Democrats who are going to be very sad on Inauguration Day.
Maybe they should cope with it by forming crying groups so they can get together and cry together.
And also, something about walking through the forest.
I think they call it a forest bathing or something, where you just hang out in the forest for a while and try to get your mental health back.
Anyway, I have a better suggestion for Time Magazine.
Instead of recommending that the losers go and cry or walk in the forest, you know what would be really helpful?
Why doesn't Time Magazine debunk the fine people hoax so all those people who are going to cry don't have to?
Wouldn't it be better to remove the reason for the crying?
Because the reason for the crying is the fake news.
If the news had ever been honest about the fine people hoax or any of the other hoaxes, people wouldn't be crying.
Nobody would be crying over the reality.
They're only crying over this weird...
Media-created Trump monster thing that not everybody has heard was fake.
So Mark Benioff, who's the founder of Salesforce, I believe owns Time Magazine now.
So I tagged him in my little comment on this, saying that maybe they should just debunk the fine people hoax, because you may have heard that yesterday the fine people hoax got another one.
A billionaire, tech billionaire, Mark Pincus.
I think he still lives in the Bay Area.
And he's been a lifelong Democrat and was all in on the Democrats.
But he was talking to Chamath on the all-in pod.
And he said he basically changed his mind on Trump.
And Chamath stopped him and said, what was the moment?
Like, what was the thing that made you change your mind after?
And he started talking generically.
But then he said, okay, there was one thing.
It was, I read an article that debunked the fine people hoax.
And that was it.
And then it opened up his mind to all the other hoaxes and he could see it all.
Now, that's my words, not his, but that's essentially what it was.
And this is amazing.
So in May 2024, he said he read an article that talked about and debunked the hoax.
Now, I'm really curious.
Which article was it?
Because there have been lots of articles that I've been associated with, Joel Pollack, Steve Cortez.
I wonder if it was one of those.
It could have been anything.
It could have been the Daily Wire or something.
But how often would a lifelong Democrat read any press, any, that was just really identified with the right side of politics?
So I'd love to know what was it that broke through the bubble that he thought was worth reading as a lifelong Democrat, and that it actually just shattered his whole story.
So remember I've been telling you that was the tentpole hoax, that if you can just debunk that one, all the rest just fade, and that's what happened.
So more to that.
I was wondering, do we have a pretty good list of all the people who have been converted by the fine people hoax?
I was trying to do it mentally, but if somebody could pull that together, I would love to see that as a post on X. How many well-known people were converted by just that one thing, the debunk of the fine people hoax?
Because I think Chamath said it himself.
So we got Pincus.
I think Elon said it.
I thought Joe Rogan said it.
Did Zuckerberg say it?
I can't remember if Zuckerberg said that, but I feel like maybe that was part of it.
The assassination attempt seemed to be persuasive with him as well.
So if we could put together, ideally, it would be a clip where you showed each of the people saying what it was, oh, the fine people hoax, and then one after another, so you can see how powerful it was.
That's what I want to see.
Wall Street Journal is going further and saying not just that Trump's kind of popular, but he's turning the culture.
The entire culture is turning conservative.
Do you see that yet?
It feels like it.
Once you get the richest entrepreneur in the world, Musk, you get the all-in pod guys, you've probably noticed a number of comedians that I would call mainstream are now turning at least a little bit Trump.
You know, they're willing to say things that are positive about Trump.
They got at least one cartoonist.
Snoop Dogg and Carrie Underwood are going to perform.
And that's a pretty strong signal.
And by the way, Carrie Underwood?
Oh my God, do I have respect for that?
You know, Snoop is a unique character.
There's nobody like Snoop.
He's the only person who could do all these bad things and be popular with everybody.
Now, I don't know exactly his secret, except that his charisma is apparently just off the charts.
There's something about him that allows him to break every rule, kind of Trump-like.
So Snoop went from making a video where he was assassinating Trump to performing at his event.
And he's the perfect crossover person because when you see him do anything, you say, well, is that something that only Snoop could do?
Because he lives in this weird world where respectable people like him.
I do.
If you ask me why I like Snoop so much, I don't know.
I don't know.
It would be hard to come up with a reason.
Maybe it's because he's unapologetic and he doesn't apologize for anything.
That's pretty popular.
Maybe it's because he's just his own person, and he's unforgiving in his effort to just be who he wants to be.
We kind of like that.
I don't know.
There's something about it that just reaches people.
But also, Carrie Underwood, that's a brave move.
I will always respect that.
And I think people like winners, and they like strength, and there was a manliness.
Kind of a male energy that had been missing from the country.
And I think we could feel it.
I think both men and women, Republicans and Democrats, could feel the just extraordinary lack of male energy.
But it's back.
It's back.
The male energy, as I imagined, couldn't be stopped.
It would be like putting the toothpaste back in the tube, you know.
It could be somewhere.
Well, that's a bad analogy.
Forget that analogy.
But anyway, the New York Times shows in polling that Americans now overwhelmingly support GOP positions on numerous trans issues.
So Daily Wire is reporting this.
Amanda Prestagiacomo.
Wow, what a nice name.
Amanda Prestagiacomo.
That's just a great name.
I can't pronounce it, but I feel like if I could, it would sound extraordinary.
Anyway.
She's writing that, according to a New York Times Ipsos survey, 79% of Americans...
I looked at myself in a recording and I realized that I looked down too much.
You're just looking at the top of my head.
So I'm going to lift up my notes so it's not as egregious.
79% of Americans believe males should not be able to participate in female sports, even if the athlete identifies as transgender.
79%.
79% are on the same page.
Now, obviously, it's weighted toward conservatives, but even the Democrats by majority.
So yeah, even 54% of Democrats were against medication for minors.
So converting minors wasn't popular with the majority of Democrats or Republicans.
And look how far it got.
I mean, everything was broken.
Everything was just broken.
And the reason it was broken is because honesty wasn't allowed.
You just couldn't be honest about it without getting canceled.
So honesty is making a comeback, and that changes a lot.
And then 77% of respondents agreed that society has, quote, gone too far to accommodate trans people.
Well, only 21% will say we haven't gone far enough.
21%.
A little bit more and it'd be one quarter.
Couldn't even get up to 25%.
You know, I joke if you're new to me, I always joke that 25% will get every poll question wrong.
Like, no matter how easy the question is.
The poll question is, is it better for the economy to be strong or for the economy to be weak?
25% weak.
What?
No, this isn't really a question.
Strong is the only right answer.
Weak, 25%.
It's just so consistent.
Couldn't even get 25% to say that we hadn't gone too far.
Mike Johnson talks about Biden not even recalling that he had paused some LNG shipments.
So first of all, I'm a little angry at Mike Johnson for not telling us this until it didn't matter.
It wasn't that long ago, so maybe it never mattered because Trump had already been elected.
But apparently Biden insisted to Johnson that he never issued the order to freeze new liquid natural gas export permits, even though he had just signed off on it.
Now, that tells you a lot, doesn't it?
It means that Biden certainly wasn't in charge.
Maybe there were specific topics where his influence was bigger.
But when it came down to the nuts and bolts of running the government, he didn't even know what he was signing.
They didn't even tell him what he was signing, or he couldn't remember it, which is, I guess, equally bad.
Yeah.
Johnson should have said something before, but I don't think it mattered.
But we would have felt better about Johnson if he said it.
Of course, let me revise this.
If it didn't really make any difference, because the election was over, and it would just make it hard for Johnson to work on the transition, I probably wouldn't have said anything until I was sure the transition was working okay.
Because it would have been creating a problem with Biden that didn't need to be created.
Because there was no benefit from it.
It was good that we found out eventually.
That part's good.
I'm going to say Mike Johnson probably played it correctly because getting the transition right was, at the moment, more important than just one more piece of evidence that Biden's brain was shot.
We already knew that.
But it was funny seeing a video from the time of this in which Corinne Jean-Pierre, the spokesperson, was asked, You know, why does Biden even care about this?
Like, what's behind this?
And she tried to explain it without knowing anything about the topic.
It was like, well, it's because the importance of it to the public, to the way we, the public, and also the very, he cares about it, he cares about it, and it's because the importance, it's very important.
So the importance to the public and the importance of it is what, and it was just hilarious.
She didn't even know what the issue was.
So who the hell was in charge?
Anyway.
So you put it all together, and you can see that there's a complete collapse of the Democrat Party.
And I have a theory about what causes the acceleration of the crash.
If you divide voters into two types, there's the people who follow politics, and maybe that's 5%, and they kind of...
They would be influenced by seeing both sides of an issue.
So Mark Pincus probably followed politics enough that he would read an article about the fine people hoax and change his opinion based on new data.
That seems to be true for some of the tech leaders who were leaning Trump, that they did follow politics, as they should.
It's part of their job.
And so they saw earlier that factually, They can make a change because the facts were now different than what they once understood.
But most people are not in that category.
So my hypothesis is that for the vast number of people who vote but really couldn't answer any question about politics, if you went to the average person and ask any question, just any question about anything in politics and look what comes out of their mouth, it doesn't matter who it is.
You just look what comes out of their mouth and you go, ah.
Do you follow the news at all?
You know, that's what it feels like.
I think that that group, the people with weak preferences or don't follow the news that much, that for them, their choice of candidate and choice of party is closer to a fashion accessory.
It's a way to support their brand.
So if you thought one side was the evil side and one side was the...
Good and open-minded side, and you thought you were good and open-minded, you would back the good and open-minded side as you had been taught to.
But I think at this point, Biden and Harris have so destroyed the brand.
I mean, just absolutely destroyed it.
And there's nobody on deck.
It's not like everybody's waiting for Pete Buttigieg to step up.
There's absolutely no character in the Democrat Party.
None.
Which anybody can say, yeah, there's my inspirational leader.
It's interesting that Hillary Clinton was once that person.
But at least she had potentially the first female president thing going for her.
So she had the Bill Clinton glow.
So she had all the right people.
So even though she was a terrible character, and she probably lost because she wasn't a good character, At least she had something you could grasp onto if you're a woman in particular.
But now what would they grasp onto?
Harris was the biggest incompetent we've seen.
Biden's brain wasn't there.
Nobody's on deck.
What exactly are you going to hitch a wagon to?
Nothing.
There's nothing there.
So people who want to brandish their brand are not going to look for the failed, completely collapsed.
Democrat Party with unpopular views on everything.
There's no way you can just associate your brand with it.
The only reason it worked before is that the fake news had created such a bubble that you couldn't tell the difference between good and bad.
Literally.
Couldn't tell the difference.
So under that world, you can say, oh, these are the good ones.
I want that associated with my brand.
But now...
When even Snopes is debunking the fine people hoax, and we can see the total collapse of the traditional news, specifically because it's fake, then there's nothing to support the bubble anymore.
The podcasters broke the bubble.
I think that's what it was.
I think the Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, the communication skills of all these people just broke the bubble.
Now, what do the Republicans look like?
Let's see.
You've got Trump who survived an assassination attempt in the most remarkable way.
People like to be associated with bravery and manliness, which they missed.
But also you have the smartest, most successful people in the world taking sides with him, or at least not resisting.
So now you're hearing good things from everybody, from Bill Gates to...
Bezos to Elon kicking it off, the all-in pod guys.
I hate clumping them all together, but it's faster to say that way.
So now, if you wanted to be associated with something where the most awesome people in the country are associated, to me, the most awesome people are the ones who are making the biggest difference.
Positive.
And they seem to be almost universally moving toward Trump.
Everybody from Jamie Dimon saying, hey, hey, those tariffs are actually a good idea for negotiating.
It's really everything.
So everybody who's smart and capable, and especially manly, because that matters.
No matter what you think of manliness, it matters to politics, so it has to be mentioned.
Trump has it all.
China loves him.
The public loves him.
You can wear a red hat now.
And I think that means that what it looks like is a complete collapse on the Democrat side.
But I think you're also going to see it in polls.
You're going to see that they're just not going to vote for the ridiculousness anymore.
Or at least enough of them won't.
And here's just such a good example of the total collapse of the Democrat Party.
I always talk about two movies on one screen, how you can watch the same thing and come up with two different views.
As Owen Gregorian was saying on X yesterday, it seems this 28th Amendment story has formed into two movies, against all odds, because it's a pure factual statement that is super easy to check.
Does the 28th Amendment exist, or does it not exist?
In a confirmed, proved way.
And the answer is it's not.
It's not confirmed, and therefore it doesn't exist.
But because both Biden and Harris posted on X and social media that it was real, and that they're responsible for making it real, Democrats think it's real.
Republicans know it's not.
So, of all things, it's literally the easiest thing you can check.
Is this part of the Constitution or not?
One Google search would be the same answer every time.
It's not even being covered up by part of the news.
So it's not like MSNBC is saying it's real.
Even they're not saying it's real.
I need a fact check on that, but they're not saying that's real, right?
And still, it creates two movies.
Half the country probably thinks it's real.
Anyway, Democrat strategists are whining about the future of the party.
And one of my favorites was Jamal Simmons, one of the Democrats' strategists.
And he said that their vibe is off.
Our vibe is off.
Got to burn down our image.
See how we talk about image?
He didn't say we have to improve our policies.
He didn't say our policies need to match the American public.
He's completely aware that their policies don't match the majority of the public.
So instead of saying we need better policies, he says we have to work on our image.
That's what I'm saying.
I'm saying that they treat it like it's an image problem, and it worked.
You know, under Clinton it worked.
But you're going to need a real candidate.
If you don't have a candidate, image is not going to get you anywhere because your policies are dead on arrival.
So the fact that they haven't figured that out yet is amazing.
But when you poll Democrats about who they'd like to see run next time, and you include, let's see, Newsom and Governor Whitmer, and then Harris, if she ran again, the preference is none of the above.
Even Democrats don't want any of the three leading, likely candidates to come anywhere near the presidency, or at least to run for it, because they know they won't win.
So that's pretty bad.
Even, according to Breitbart, after the election, there's been a crash in public tolerance for illegal immigration.
So now just 10% of Americans oppose Trump.
Deporting illegal migrants with criminal records, according to a New York Times poll.
Only 10% oppose getting rid of the criminals.
Again, you couldn't even get 25% to support keeping criminals.
Because it's just stupid.
So the 10% who say, yeah, let's keep the violent criminals, I mean, those are not serious people.
They're not serious people.
Anyway.
And just 19% strongly oppose deporting all immigrants who are here illegally.
It's a complete victory.
Trump took the hardest topic and just owns it now.
He won.
Even CNN showing a recent poll shows his approvals at 48%.
It's up from 39% just last year.
Days before taking office.
A new high.
Highest approval while Biden's the lowest approval.
Everything's going his way.
Even the Washington Post has decided to soften its coverage.
I guess both Washington Post and CNN decided they didn't want to do the over-the-top thing where everything is negative Trump no matter what is happening.
And it looks like they're going to cover it more both sides-ish.
Which I see has already started.
It's already begun.
I think it's real.
Because, for example, Washington Post says Trump already conquered D.C. and the tech leaders are flocking to him.
Now, normally that story would turn into, that's how he's going to steal your democracy, right?
Instead of just saying a lot of tech leaders think he's on the right path, he'd be good for the country, that would be the story.
But normally you'd expect the Washington Post to flip it into, And with the help of all these tech leaders, that's how he's building his dictatorship to steal your democracy.
But they left out that crazy part and just told the story.
And the story was, yeah, he's doing really well converting people to his side.
That's the story.
And so they're just telling it.
But MSNBC, I love their plucky loser.
I don't think there's a single smart person who works at that network, in management or anywhere else.
But they're going to bring back Rachel Maddow for 100 days.
Let me make a long list of all the things you shouldn't do if you're trying to stay in business.
Don't bring the person with the most obvious mental health problems on to be the only person who still thinks that the Democrats are...
Our heroes and Trump is going to steal your democracy.
The ridiculousness of even planning to do this is so beyond any reasonable thing that a reasonable person would do.
It's just purely stupid.
But they're going to do it.
And I kind of like the fact that they think that Rachel Maddow, who I think has been honest.
I think she's been honest about a lifetime of mental health, depression issues, maybe some other stuff.
So I'd never like to be the person who criticizes somebody for mental illness because nobody picks mental illness, right?
That's just something that's there.
So I prefer to be nonjudgmental, but I don't know that the management has a mental illness.
Shouldn't management...
Be the one to decide maybe they shouldn't bring back the person with obvious mental health problems and some kind of a weird kicker to her mental health because of Trump derangement syndrome.
How in the world does management think this is a good idea?
In what world?
Anyway.
I'm sure they think that behind closed doors, like Joe Biden, she's perfectly fine.
Perfectly fine.
The Trump bump, which all the media is hoping for, because, you know, in his first administration, the news got more audience.
So they've all been drained of their followers for a while now.
But there's some thought that maybe the traffic will go up.
But other people say, yeah, there will be a Trump bump, but it might go mostly to the independents and fully starve the networks.
Well, I don't know what's true.
I can tell you it seems like the ratings for the major networks are all down.
And I can tell you that my own traffic is up about 50% since Trump was looking like he would win.
Up about 50%.
Now, I would guess that that's the same for any political-oriented podcasts.
I'll bet you they're all up 50%.
So, yes, I'm the canary in the coal mine.
So, yeah, the corporate media doesn't seem to be what anybody trusts at this point.
Just old people, I guess.
I'm old and I don't even trust it.
Well, as you know, Trump launched a crypto coin and it went to the moon.
It's worth billions of dollars, and some say Trump's going to sell it and make $5 billion, and others say it's a crap coin, and it's a scam, and people should not be buying crypto unless it's Bitcoin, and everybody's got their opinion.
Let me say that my opinion on this is completely timing-related.
If Trump had done this even just a few years ago, I would have said, oh, that's a little too scammy.
Now, he did do the...
What is it when you buy the art?
It's got a word for it.
In the crypto world, if you buy some digital crypto art, somehow they can tell you it's exclusive.
He did that.
And I didn't mind that because that was just a fundraiser.
And I think people saw it as a fundraiser, which had the extra element that, well, maybe you can make some money, but probably not.
Just a fundraiser.
NFTs.
Thank you.
NFTs.
So he's got some history, and he's pro-crypto.
Now, if this had been when we knew less about crypto and he launched this thing, I would have said, okay, don't do that.
That looks too scammy because people don't understand that they could lose money on crypto.
It's not like other things.
It could go to zero tomorrow.
Bitcoin probably can't, or at least not as easily.
But a new issue?
It can go to the moon and then go to zero the next day.
There's nothing that would stop that.
So, under normal conditions, and maybe a few years ago, I would have opposed this as a bad idea.
Bad messaging, bad look.
But I think everybody understands crypto if they're going to buy some.
Buying crypto is just hard enough that if you didn't know anything about crypto, you'd probably prevent yourself from buying it because you don't want to look into it.
You know, it's not like you just go to your broker.
Well, you could, but not this particular coin.
So, as long as people know exactly what they're buying, and I think in some cases they're just gambling, but they know it.
They're gambling, but they know it.
And other times, maybe it's just an expression of support for the president, which they know.
And maybe they treat it like a, some of them might treat it like a donation.
Because if it pumps it up and then Trump gets to sell his before you sell yours, Well, your money might go to zero.
His might go to $5 billion.
And if you treat it as a donation, you'd think to yourself, all right, I don't mind that he gets some of his money back after being abused by the government for so many years.
He probably lost a ton of money in his business just because of his politics.
So I don't mind if he makes $5 billion off the coin as long as everybody knew what they were doing.
Pretty close to true.
I think everybody knows.
Anyway, there's a Gaza ceasefire, allegedly, in effect.
And this would be the opening to allow Hamas to release the, I guess, 33 hostages they promised to release.
I think there's going to be a whole bunch of problems with that.
I'm not sure Hamas is organized enough that they can even just, you know...
Say yes, and all of a sudden all the hostages are released that they were going to release.
I feel like they're all spread around and it's hard to communicate and maybe some of them are dead that they didn't even know were dead.
So I feel like it's not going to go smoothly.
It's the easiest prediction in the world.
Let's see.
It's Gaza and Israel have made an agreement.
Will it go smoothly or will there be some bumps?
Yes, the easiest prediction in the world.
It's not going to go smoothly.
And I don't know if there'll be any after this if it doesn't go smoothly, so we'll see.
What I'm interested about is, I feel like reporting from that area kind of stopped.
Did you notice that?
If you ask me, what is the Israeli military doing in Gaza, let's say two weeks ago before this hostage deal started to solidify, I would just add, I don't know.
Why did I stop seeing news about that?
Are they killing as many as they used to kill?
The reporting, which is not reliable, is that 46,000 Palestinians were killed.
Now, I say it's not reliable because it won't be the same estimate that Israel has, and you and I can't tell the difference.
It's just people telling us what's true and we don't know.
So I wouldn't believe any war death claims, except that...
I feel it's almost certainly in the tens of thousands, but beyond that, any kind of accuracy would be ridiculous.
So, is Israel still making legitimate military progress of wrapping up the Hamas fighters?
Is it just every day they get a few more, so they should just keep grinding until they're done?
Or did they reach some kind of wall where the harder they fight, They're not really getting any extra Hamas fighters because they're all dug in better or something.
And I also don't know how much of Gaza is even left.
In the best case scenario, when we talk about the fires in L.A., we're talking about five years before anybody can maybe get back in the house.
Are we talking about that in Gaza?
That there's nothing left, there's no electricity, there's no water, everything's polluted and toxic.
How could they ever resettle it?
And it's not like Israel is going to be working as hard as they can to get it ready for resettlement by Hamas and their supporters.
So I feel like there's no real hope that Gaza turns back into anything like it used to be.
But to be fair, Israel said that from the beginning.
They said when we're done, Gaza won't be anything that you're used to.
And I think we interpreted that exactly the way it's turning out.
So, I guess my only point is that we've hit some kind of a, I don't know if it's because of lack of interest or lack of access, but we just stopped getting really interested in what's happening on the ground there.
And that's weird.
Anyway, researchers, according to Louisiana State University, there are some researchers that found a way to Recycle plastic.
They use electromagnetic waves to melt the plastic from the inside out, which requires far less energy.
Yeah, so they can reuse it.
Now, it's a ways off, but they can do it in lab.
And if it's way less energy, it's way less expensive.
And so there might be a way to recycle your plastic.
You know, I've thought for a long time that what I really want...
It is an electromagnetic plastic melting technology that would turn plastic into something that I could use in my 3D printer.
So I'd like to take all my plastic bottles and throw them in a bin, and then at the end of the month, push a button, and it just crushes them into basically ink for the printer, but they would print goods.
So you'd make yourself some...
I don't know.
You wouldn't want to do dishware because maybe you don't want to eat off of plastic.
But you could probably find things you would use.
Make some goods out of it.
Sell them.
Maybe.
Who knows?
All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have for this Sunday.
The rumors about the inauguration appear to be fake.
So yesterday there were some rumors.
That even the indoor rotunda inauguration was going to be moved yet again for security reasons, people speculated.
But I don't think that's true.
I don't think that's true.
I think it's going to be in the rotunda, and the Capital One stadium that the overflow people are going to be in is covered.
So people are going to be warm.
And they're going to be with each other, which is almost as important as being with Trump.
And then Trump's going to show up at the stadium where everybody's warm and they've been partying and they're just dying to see him.
So I think Trump's going to make this even better than it was.
I don't think he gave up anything.
I think packing him into the stadium and keeping them warm was the right answer in every way.
Not just for safety, but also for...
Weather and keeping everybody safe and happy, giving them a good memory of the event.
So to me, that's all positive.
And we'll be paying attention, especially for the security concerns.
I don't want to see anything like that.
All right.
Now it's going to be two rallies, Owen says.
So there's a rally today.
Is there something happening today and then another one tomorrow?
All right.
What about the poor CIA who wanted to kill him?
Well, allegedly.
We don't know that for sure.
Got a screen for micro-drone swarms.
Well, if they could get inside the building, yeah.
But they'd have to...
So one of the things I worry about micro-swarms is, let's say you have a door to a secure place.
And it's guarded well, and they're searching everybody, so nobody can get in unless they're searched.
But the door is open.
It's just that it's guarded by people.
How hard would it be for a drone swarm to just go right through an open door and just knock the guards out of the way?
Feels like it'd be pretty easy.
Maybe the first one just explodes and kills the guard.
But after that, the swarm just goes right through the door or the window.
So that's what I'd be worried about.
don't think we're quite there but right on the edge of it.
Yeah of course they would also have drone anti-drone technology I suppose.
All right, what's this?
So Keith Boykin goes on CNN and he says, Any black person who performs at Trump inauguration dishonors black families he refused to rent to in the 1970s.
Now, do you know that story?
Do you know that there's no evidence he was aware of it?
It's true that his staff was discriminating.
So the court found that the staff discriminated.
It was never tied to him.
And the staff would absolutely have an incentive to discriminate.
Because they were, you know, they were, well, their incentives were that they thought they could do a better job of filling the building if they discriminated.
Now, that was illegal, but there's no evidence that Trump ordered it.
The black kids who wanted to execute in the Central Park case, that's fake news.
He never said he wanted to execute those black kids.
He said that the crime rate should be triggered to bring back the death penalty.
But he wasn't talking about them.
And we don't know for sure that they were innocent or not.
I'll presume they're innocent because they're Americans, but I don't think it was proven.
And then the black Haitian immigrants he lied about.
Okay, does anybody care about the Haitian immigrants?
Forget about the race.
Does anybody care about the Haitian immigrants being offended because he said they might eat your pets?
I think the Haitian immigrants have so different problems.
I don't think it probably...
I'd be surprised if they even care.
I mean, it might be something that just didn't even affect them.
So I think this is just a desperate attempt to not lose the black vote.
I guess Nellie is also.
So Snoop Dogg and Nellie are both performing.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
That's all I got for now.
So I'm going to talk to the locals people for a few minutes privately.
