True Anon Truth Feed - Episode 350: The New York Crimes
Aired: 2024-02-01
Duration: 01:13:59


=== Donkey Brain Mystery (01:29) ===

[00:00:01]  What's up with you and the donkey?
[00:00:03]  This is the second time.
[00:00:07]  Wait, stop.
[00:00:08]  This is the second time in our recording session today you mentioned donkeys.
[00:00:11]  What's up with that?
[00:00:12]  I just think they're crazy.
[00:00:13]  No, why you got donkey brain?
[00:00:15]  What?
[00:00:15]  Why you got donkey brain?
[00:00:16]  Why are you on the donkey?
[00:00:17]  Why are you donkey?
[00:00:18]  I'm just thinking about you trying to get me to say it.
[00:00:22]  I'm saying, what video of donkeys were you looking at before you came here?
[00:00:25]  I don't even want to know.
[00:00:26]  Or who were you talking about donkeys with last night?
[00:00:30]  Last night?
[00:00:32]  Why does this have to be an evening act?
[00:00:34]  What is that?
[00:00:34]  I don't know, because you hang out with people and then you go to sleep and then you come here.
[00:00:40]  And so I feel like, you know, donkey on the brain, and I want to know where it's going.
[00:00:46]  I have a personal thing involving a donkey that happened to me recently, and I don't know if it's super appropriate for the podcast, but you are about to witness a future viral star's rise to fame.
[00:01:08]  Go to the barnyard, motherfuckers!
[00:01:26]  My name is Brace Belden.
[00:01:28]  Was it a chicken?
[00:01:30]  That's a pig.

=== Farms and Price Pressures (03:20) ===

[00:01:31]  Uh-huh.
[00:01:32]  Look, I'm good at this.
[00:01:36]  Like a fucking baby.
[00:01:40]  What is that?
[00:01:42]  You know what that is, right?
[00:01:43]  No.
[00:01:44]  You know what I'm hitting with?
[00:01:46]  That's your cow?
[00:01:47]  That's a fucking moo.
[00:01:48]  You don't say moo.
[00:01:49]  They go.
[00:01:52]  It's a realistic cow.
[00:01:54]  Cows are, that's one of my guys.
[00:01:56]  I fucking love cows.
[00:01:57]  Like, I'm crazy.
[00:02:00]  You love cows?
[00:02:01]  Yeah.
[00:02:01]  Those big faces.
[00:02:02]  They have the biggest faces.
[00:02:04]  They're so cute.
[00:02:05]  I love them so much.
[00:02:07]  It's really hard for me to eat beef.
[00:02:08]  What are the little guys they got on the farm?
[00:02:11]  That's the crow who lives in the barn.
[00:02:13]  You're kind of scarecrow-esque.
[00:02:15]  Me?
[00:02:15]  My name is Liz.
[00:02:17]  You already said your name.
[00:02:18]  You're scarecrow-esque because you're so skinny.
[00:02:20]  I'm not acknowledging that.
[00:02:22]  We are joined, of course, by Professor Young Chomsky.
[00:02:27]  The bull.
[00:02:30]  And this is Tronan.
[00:02:31]  Welcome to the farm.
[00:02:33]  The funny farm.
[00:02:34]  The fucking farm.
[00:02:40]  Hello, everyone.
[00:02:40]  You know, I was reading about farms earlier, actually.
[00:02:42]  What were you reading about them?
[00:02:44]  About all the shit going down in France, the farm protests.
[00:02:48]  Yeah, European farmers, they're kind of, I'm hearing about them all the time.
[00:02:54]  Well, it's a pretty fucking big deal.
[00:02:55]  What's going on?
[00:02:55]  What are they doing?
[00:02:57]  In France?
[00:02:58]  Yeah.
[00:02:58]  Well, they're starting to blockade Paris after negotiations with the prime minister tanked the new prime minister, a very young new prime minister.
[00:03:09]  But before that, it's been like weeks and weeks of different blockades in the south, but now they've moved up to Paris and the North and they're blockading the entrance to Paris.
[00:03:18]  They've been destroying imports.
[00:03:22]  It's all about price pressures and regulations.
[00:03:25]  European farmers.
[00:03:26]  Yeah, the EU is like currently negotiating.
[00:03:29]  It's actually really interesting.
[00:03:30]  The EU is currently negotiating new free market imports.
[00:03:34]  So they would be bringing in a bunch of stuff from South America, but they wouldn't be holding the South American farmers to the same regulations that EU farmers are held to, including a bunch of environmental.
[00:03:45]  Classic EU.
[00:03:46]  Classic.
[00:03:47]  And so that, along with other price pressures, inflation going insane, and changes in consumer tastes, there's just a lot of shit happening with farmers.
[00:03:58]  You know, what an apt name for an organization.
[00:04:00]  EU.
[00:04:02]  Yeah.
[00:04:03]  It stinks.
[00:04:05]  I think that there should be, I think that Europe should join Asia.
[00:04:10]  Interesting.
[00:04:11]  Little Eurasia.
[00:04:12]  Yeah, I think it should just all be Asia.
[00:04:14]  Eurasia has weird connotations to me.
[00:04:17]  It does.
[00:04:17]  Kind of everybody who starts talking about Eurasia turns out to be a freak.
[00:04:21]  I think that if you could make, if you make Europe Asia, that doesn't include England.
[00:04:28]  Well, of course not.
[00:04:30]  England's Anglo.
[00:04:31]  Yeah.
[00:04:32]  That's the Atlantic.
[00:04:33]  It's the Anglo-Americans, which, by the way, should be American Anglos.
[00:04:37]  I know it doesn't sound as good, but who's the big dog?
[00:04:41]  It's another barnyard motherfucker.
[00:04:43]  Rishi Sunak.
[00:04:44]  I'd love to see Joe Biden ride on him like a little fucking, like a mule.
[00:04:48]  Yeah, well, Sunak would let him do it.
[00:04:50]  Is Sunak short?

=== Niners vs. Dodger Dogs (05:03) ===

[00:04:52]  He's got to be like 5'6".
[00:04:53]  I don't think he is, actually.
[00:04:54]  He's very tall.
[00:04:55]  I can see him being weird tall, like a...
[00:04:57]  I thought he was very tall.
[00:04:58]  Like one of those alternative but still popular depictions of space aliens.
[00:05:02]  5'7?
[00:05:03]  Oh, that's fucking huge.
[00:05:05]  He looks tall because he wears the short suits.
[00:05:08]  It is interesting.
[00:05:09]  He wears short suits.
[00:05:11]  What do you mean, short suits?
[00:05:12]  Early 2000 Tom Brown style.
[00:05:14]  Oh.
[00:05:15]  So it looks like he's a tall guy.
[00:05:16]  What?
[00:05:17]  With tiny suit.
[00:05:20]  So if I wore like a tiny shit.
[00:05:21]  It's a little top shop gambit from 15 years ago.
[00:05:24]  If I wore a tank top that was really tight on me and like low-rise jeans, people would think I'm like 5'5 ⁇ .
[00:05:31]  I don't know, but I think you should try it.
[00:05:33]  I could do that.
[00:05:35]  You could do a lot of it.
[00:05:35]  The king of Thailand, if I dress like him, this shit would be over.
[00:05:41]  I don't know.
[00:05:44]  But something would end, I think, and then something crazy would start.
[00:05:48]  But yeah, that's a good question.
[00:05:49]  I just think that I've never worn a tank top in a spaghetti strap style before.
[00:05:53]  Oh, like a camisole?
[00:05:55]  That's a word that I'm not sure the meaning of, so I don't feel comfortable saying yes.
[00:05:59]  Interesting.
[00:05:59]  I've never worn a camisole.
[00:06:00]  I'll say that.
[00:06:01]  What about a white ribbed tank top with thicker straps and a scoop neck?
[00:06:06]  Ribbed.
[00:06:07]  Ribbed fabric.
[00:06:08]  Ribbed fabric.
[00:06:09]  Well, I love that you, I love, I love when I say something that's like perfectly normal, that everyone knows what it is.
[00:06:15]  And you look at it and talk to me like I've just spoken like Swahili.
[00:06:19]  Are you talking about the lines on wife beaters?
[00:06:21]  Yes.
[00:06:22]  Oh, there's a corduroy's.
[00:06:24]  What?
[00:06:24]  It's a version of a corduroy.
[00:06:26]  No, it's a corduroy means stripe.
[00:06:27]  No.
[00:06:28]  To me, in my shorthand, in my brain, that's the best.
[00:06:31]  I don't know that.
[00:06:32]  I didn't know that they made tank tops that didn't have that.
[00:06:35]  So I guess that's what tank tops are.
[00:06:36]  Well, for a while, they shouldn't because I think all tank tops are better ribs.
[00:06:39]  Ribbed for her pleasure.
[00:06:41]  Yeah.
[00:06:43]  I'm about to get on a plane.
[00:06:44]  Where are you going?
[00:06:45]  I'm going to Chicago.
[00:06:47]  For hot dogs?
[00:06:49]  Yep.
[00:06:49]  I'm going to, I'm going to just suck on them, motherfuckers.
[00:06:52]  You don't suck on a hot dog.
[00:06:53]  What?
[00:06:55]  No, You got to stop doing that.
[00:07:00]  I really, I'm 34, Liz.
[00:07:02]  This is where the best hot dog is.
[00:07:05]  I'm going to say it, and everyone's going to get mad.
[00:07:07]  What?
[00:07:07]  Which I love saying things that make the people angry.
[00:07:10]  She's about to say tofu pup.
[00:07:11]  Great for engagement.
[00:07:13]  I had, and I have been going to a bunch of different New Jersey hot dog places, as you all know.
[00:07:18]  I didn't know that, but what?
[00:07:21]  It's not reflected in your figure.
[00:07:22]  I've been hot dog Johnny's.
[00:07:24]  That's like my spot.
[00:07:25]  You didn't, you've never said that.
[00:07:26]  Are you kidding?
[00:07:27]  I've got a hot dog.
[00:07:27]  I'm not kidding.
[00:07:28]  Why am I in the trouble?
[00:07:29]  You've got a shirt with a hot dog on it.
[00:07:31]  I've never seen it.
[00:07:33]  I've talked to you guys.
[00:07:33]  You know how.
[00:07:34]  Come in here wearing like six sweaters because you're cold.
[00:07:36]  Well, it's freezing.
[00:07:37]  I've never seen a shirt.
[00:07:38]  Anyway, I got to say, the hot dog at Madison Square Garden, fantastic go.
[00:07:43]  Really?
[00:07:43]  It's really good.
[00:07:44]  And I'm going to say this: better than a Dodger dog.
[00:07:47]  Better than what?
[00:07:47]  Than a Dodger dog.
[00:07:49]  All right.
[00:07:49]  Well, I'll get two in front of me.
[00:07:51]  I'll suck on those motherfuckers.
[00:07:52]  And I'll show you which one's better.
[00:07:54]  I'll slurp them up like a noodle.
[00:07:56]  Did you ever go to Dodger Stadium when you live in LA?
[00:07:58]  No.
[00:07:59]  No, I never did.
[00:08:00]  Go Niners, by the way.
[00:08:02]  Hey, Go Niners.
[00:08:03]  Go fucking Niners.
[00:08:04]  Purdy, the angel of history.
[00:08:08]  Go, yeah.
[00:08:10]  I just, listen, I know they're not San Francisco anymore, but if they're getting doing well, then they are again.
[00:08:16]  I saw a guy, I told you, I was on a walk the other day.
[00:08:20]  I saw a guy on the street wearing full Niners gear.
[00:08:25]  So sick.
[00:08:26]  Big old scarf, big floofy hat.
[00:08:29]  He was on the phone, and I was like, Yeah, go Niners.
[00:08:31]  He was like, Yeah, go Niners.
[00:08:34]  Niner gang, bang, bang.
[00:08:36]  E40 versus Taylor Swift.
[00:08:38]  Easy.
[00:08:38]  No, a Taylor.
[00:08:40]  Really?
[00:08:41]  I think in physical combat, she could probably have the stamina to do that.
[00:08:44]  The thing is, is E40, as much as I find him very charming and fun, he kind of, you know, real overexposed.
[00:08:54]  He's at all the Warriors games.
[00:08:56]  He's at all the Niners games.
[00:08:58]  I'm jealous.
[00:08:59]  I mean, yeah, I would like to be at all those games.
[00:09:00]  Except for football.
[00:09:01]  I really just like, I don't think watching football in person is the way to watch football.
[00:09:06]  It's not as fun.
[00:09:07]  I think I went to games, a couple games at Candlestick when I was a kid.
[00:09:10]  So cold.
[00:09:11]  I did too.
[00:09:12]  Yeah, very cold.
[00:09:12]  So cold, but that was part of it.
[00:09:13]  Yeah.
[00:09:14]  You kind of like wrap up and you get chilly and you can't see shit because Candlestick was the worst stadium ever, but also fucking rapid.
[00:09:19]  But he's like, when you're sucking on the hot dog, your saliva freezes.
[00:09:21]  Stop doing that.
[00:09:22]  Okay.
[00:09:23]  Go Niners.
[00:09:25]  It's us against the world, baby.
[00:09:27]  It is us against the world.
[00:09:28]  Everyone wants Mahomes back to back.
[00:09:29]  You know who doesn't?
[00:09:31]  This asshole right here.
[00:09:32]  Fuck them.
[00:09:33]  Fuck this coastal fucking elite drives her San Francisco fucking team to win the fucking Super Bowl.
[00:09:40]  I just feel like a certain guy on that team doesn't respect women as much as I do.
[00:09:46]  And that, like, sometimes someone could be happier if other things were different.
[00:09:51]  He seems like a real dum-dum.
[00:09:53]  Well, that's just a football.
[00:09:54]  I mean, come on.

=== Interview with Daniel Bogus Law (02:59) ===

[00:09:55]  Why not?
[00:09:55]  No, it's not.
[00:09:56]  We're not.
[00:09:57]  That's not the.
[00:09:58]  I'm talking about Kelsey, not Mahomes.
[00:09:59]  Although, have you heard of Mahomes talk?
[00:10:00]  Yeah, he sounds like a freak.
[00:10:03]  Anyways, circle of prayer that nothing, that I'm back from Chicago and nothing bad happens to me.
[00:10:08]  Nothing bad's going to happen to you.
[00:10:09]  Now that I said that, I feel like something bad will happen in this video.
[00:10:11]  Why do you even put that out there?
[00:10:12]  I'll take that back.
[00:10:13]  Nothing bad's going to happen to me.
[00:10:15]  Nothing.
[00:10:15]  No, that's even worse.
[00:10:17]  That guarantees.
[00:10:18]  What kind of plane are you flying?
[00:10:19]  I'm flying at American Airlines.
[00:10:20]  No, dude, what kind of plane?
[00:10:22]  I don't know.
[00:10:23]  They don't tell you.
[00:10:24]  Do they do?
[00:10:24]  What do you think for you?
[00:10:26]  What do you see?
[00:10:27]  Is it a Boeing?
[00:10:29]  What other kind of planes is there?
[00:10:31]  Well, Timu?
[00:10:32]  Sorry.
[00:10:33]  I love that.
[00:10:34]  It's a T-Airbus, but it does not say it's a class economy and then a parentheses, V. Not.
[00:10:42]  No, that's the ticket, not the plane.
[00:10:44]  Well, where does it say the plane then?
[00:10:46]  It just says a bunch of stuff about the Join the AAA Advantage program.
[00:10:49]  All right, everyone.
[00:10:50]  We have an interview for you today because this is getting real tedious.
[00:10:54]  This is gaslighting me.
[00:10:55]  Yeah, we have an interview with the sound of me throwing my phone.
[00:10:58]  Non-gaslighting.
[00:10:59]  Liz is gaslighting me like an abuser would.
[00:11:02]  But Liz isn't an abuser.
[00:11:03]  She's just kind of doing what an abuser would do in this situation.
[00:11:07]  But it's cool because I've gone through a lot of things.
[00:11:09]  This is gaslighting.
[00:11:10]  Interesting that you would say that to what do they call it?
[00:11:13]  Darvo?
[00:11:14]  Darvo?
[00:11:15]  But it's not.
[00:11:15]  That's not.
[00:11:16]  It's not really.
[00:11:17]  What's Darvo?
[00:11:19]  Now that's gaslighting.
[00:11:21]  You definitely know what Darvo is.
[00:11:22]  What is that?
[00:11:24]  It's a NORAD kind of adjacent thing.
[00:11:26]  Darvo, I don't remember.
[00:11:28]  Collect, accuse something, something.
[00:11:31]  Oh, you know, they instituted all these HR shit after I got out of corporate.
[00:11:34]  Yeah.
[00:11:35]  Yeah.
[00:11:35]  Facts.
[00:11:36]  I don't know if that's.
[00:11:38]  Well, anyways, we have an excellent interview about the motherfucking media.
[00:11:42]  And it's before you're like, oh, the media.
[00:11:44]  This is a really, I think this is a good one.
[00:11:46]  Yeah, we're talking about New York Crimes.
[00:11:47]  Everyone's favorite criminal enterprise.
[00:11:51]  Lies, perfidy, and the soft power of Israel.
[00:11:58]  And let's start the show.
[00:12:22]  Welcome to the Donkey Barn, motherfuckers.
[00:12:24]  Today, here with us in the manger, stroking little Christ's baby little head like one of them freaky looking wise men from way back when, we have with us Daniel Bogus Law, aka the 2019 law in Kentucky banning bestiality, the most bogus law I've ever heard of.
[00:12:46]  Just kidding, his real name is Daniel Bogus Law, investigative reporter at The Intercept, here to talk to us about a lot of things.

=== Concerns Over Sexual Violence Reporting (14:58) ===

[00:12:55]  This is going to be a rocking episode.
[00:12:56]  Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know why I'm saying, ladies and gentlemen, I'm addressing you, Daniel.
[00:13:00]  Daniel, welcome to the show.
[00:13:01]  Thanks for having me.
[00:13:02]  Thanks for coming on.
[00:13:04]  So we should start off right off the bat.
[00:13:06]  We'll say you just published, along with Ryan Graham, a piece in the intercept, talking, and this will just start off our conversation, talking about how the New York Times pulled some of its reporting on, I don't know, Israeli rape allegations of Hamas members during October 7th.
[00:13:27]  Maybe we should start there.
[00:13:28]  Sure.
[00:13:29]  Yeah.
[00:13:30]  So, well, I can talk a little bit about the origin of my reporting on that reporting.
[00:13:34]  Yeah.
[00:13:35]  Which was this article came out.
[00:13:38]  They said that it had been the product of 150 interviews, you know, that had taken two months.
[00:13:45]  And I was sort of, I think I was reading on the subway and I was just thinking about how I would put together that article if I had had 150 sources, if I had had the full resources of the New York Times.
[00:13:56]  And reading through it, it just was, you know, it was a very few number of named sources for the number of sources they interviewed.
[00:14:03]  There was a lot of hedging language around all the major claims that they made.
[00:14:07]  Like what?
[00:14:07]  I think there was language like seems to be identified at seven locations.
[00:14:12]  And each like big claim felt a little hedged.
[00:14:15]  And so I think like when you're a reporter and you're thinking like, okay, this is a massive story.
[00:14:19]  This is like a lot of information.
[00:14:21]  How would I put this together?
[00:14:23]  And you're reading through it and you're reading, you know, they're trying to, you know, kind of put forward this idea that there was a systematic instructed campaign of sexual violence.
[00:14:34]  And so just from the start, from the get-go, I was kind of like, this feels, there's something off about this piece.
[00:14:39]  something.
[00:14:40]  These pieces don't fit together the way they normally would, especially at a place like the Times where they have the resources and the personnel to do something that thorough.
[00:14:51]  So me and my colleague Ryan, we started trying to interrogate those strange elements and contact as many people at the Times as we could.
[00:15:02]  I think it was challenging to do because The Times is sort of like siloed.
[00:15:08]  Yeah, I was going to say a bit of fortress.
[00:15:10]  Yeah, it's a fortress.
[00:15:11]  A colleague of mine, former Times reporter, described it as the Vatican, where you have like different little fiefdoms and you have these intense power struggles.
[00:15:19]  Sounds healthy.
[00:15:20]  Yeah, so but ultimately we found that a lot of the concerns that other readers had found, specifically about the named sources and some of the sort of open source research that people had done on them really called into question the accuracy of the claims that they made.
[00:15:39]  So we started calling around and we discovered that much like outside of the Times, there was a lot of concern about the piece inside the Times, and specifically that episode of The Daily, which was planned sort of based off the piece.
[00:15:54]  Yeah, so the Daily, which is Liz's favorite podcast.
[00:15:57]  I love, you actually do listen to it.
[00:16:00]  I don't listen to it often.
[00:16:01]  I listen to it sometimes.
[00:16:04]  Listen, I always get a little glimpse into the competition, which is they're our number one competition.
[00:16:10]  But it is a, it sort of like functions as like a way to like, it's like a New York Times story, but in like this American lifestyle format or whatever.
[00:16:20]  Make sure everyone's commute to just take into the day.
[00:16:23]  One of the most charismatic individuals to come out of the news business in centuries, Michael Barbados or Barbadoro or whatever.
[00:16:33]  One of the baddest, meanest motherfuckers in the news.
[00:16:38]  But I do want to contextualize this a little bit before we go a little further.
[00:16:43]  So the big story, I mean, this was like a huge, this was what they call an A1 story, right?
[00:16:48]  Like this was a front page New York Times story.
[00:16:50]  A blockbuster.
[00:16:51]  A blockbuster story about Hamas's targeted specific campaign of sexual assaults as a weapon of war on October 7th.
[00:17:01]  This, I think, to The even semi-astute observer outside, this had kind of come after the claim of 40 beheaded babies, which you remember was a very, very, very tenaciously held claim.
[00:17:15]  President Biden echoed it.
[00:17:17]  Echoes.
[00:17:18]  He said that he saw the photos.
[00:17:19]  He saw the photos.
[00:17:21]  By the way, we know don't exist.
[00:17:23]  There was, yeah, after that had been basically, it hadn't been put to bed as in there was no like real Maya copa from anybody, but after that stopped being effective because the names of the dead came out and it turned out to be mathematically impossible for that extraordinary claim to be true.
[00:17:37]  The new claim was that Hamas had engaged in this sort of rape warfare.
[00:17:44]  And with the subtext being that these are, this is an unspeakable evil that we have to do whatever we have to do to take care of.
[00:17:52]  And so this was like really sort of like the banner mainstream media news article kind of coming out in support of this.
[00:18:00]  And in fact, we also obtained an email from the executive editor basically saying that explicitly, saying this is the type of reporting that the New York Times makes its name off of.
[00:18:10]  This is an example of the type of powerful research reporting intensive story that we can do.
[00:18:18]  And then immediately, even casual observers start just going on Instagram and finding these witnesses' Instagram posts and showing the discrepancies and also looking into their backgrounds as in one case, one of the key named witnesses was a former IDF member serving in the intelligence directorate.
[00:18:41]  So yeah, it starts to crumble pretty quick.
[00:18:45]  And so what did you find with this story?
[00:18:48]  Because this was like, I mean, the whole thing with, I remember when this came out, it was like, you know, this is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter that got behind this.
[00:18:55]  And it's like, I looked through it and it was the same.
[00:18:58]  I think I encountered the same thing as you.
[00:18:59]  I was like, this is not very like, it hedges quite a bit.
[00:19:03]  And there are like essentially no first person really accounts of this happening.
[00:19:08]  There's people saying they witnessed something that could be, or like maybe an aftermath of something that could be, but like there wasn't anybody being like, I was raped by Hamas during this.
[00:19:17]  Right.
[00:19:17]  And in fact, like the banner kind of like the banner source basically, which were family members basically of a woman who was killed on October 7th, they basically came out and said, your timeline's all wrong.
[00:19:33]  Yeah.
[00:19:33]  And you mischaracterized what we said.
[00:19:36]  And we're not saying that maybe there wasn't some sexual violence that occurred, but you got it wrong with the person that you contacted us for.
[00:19:46]  So just, you know, this was just like at the basic fundamental level of the building blocks of this story, all of them seem to have holes in it.
[00:19:55]  And I think, what's today?
[00:19:57]  The 30th.
[00:19:58]  So yesterday there was this reporter, same lead reporter published what was supposed to be like the follow-up, the shoring up of the article.
[00:20:06]  And basically the article was like, a lot of people criticize this article.
[00:20:10]  And there's going to be another investigation.
[00:20:16]  And that's it.
[00:20:17]  And that's the best they could come up with as an assigned rebuttal, apparently, to the criticism.
[00:20:22]  Yeah, I mean, the rebuttal article that you mentioned mentions online criticism.
[00:20:26]  And it basically poses the article as being this truthful thing that had kind of come under attack by essentially online trolls who were trying to.
[00:20:35]  Right, because of the partisan nature of the subject matter.
[00:20:38]  Yeah.
[00:20:39]  We should back up though a little bit and say, so the Times response was to pull this episode of the daily that was supposed to come out that was basically telling, again, all of the American commuters out there on their way to their email jobs or whatever, as people love to say.
[00:20:55]  But, you know, that everyone's listening to this in the morning, they get the kind of daily digest of the big Times piece.
[00:21:00]  This was set to run January 9th, I think.
[00:21:04]  And they pulled it because of not just those online trolls, but of internal pressure as well.
[00:21:09]  Yeah, I mean, from our reporting, you know, it was like, and this has been a constant theme with all the outlets and media companies that I've reported on, is like just people on the inside who are in the news business can feel the discrepancy between what they're seeing in real time from Twitter and other social media outlets and their ability as people, as reporters to parse what's real and what's not and the stuff coming out of their publications.
[00:21:38]  And I think across the board, it's reaching a boiling point where people are willing to push back internally on things that they don't want to be their legacy.
[00:21:46]  They don't want to have their name on.
[00:21:49]  And so, yeah, so there was a big internal uproar.
[00:21:54]  There was a message that the Times said was coincidental, but that was basically saying you can't attack your colleagues on Slack.
[00:22:00]  Yeah.
[00:22:02]  Which everyone knows you can.
[00:22:03]  Yeah, you can.
[00:22:05]  That's what Slack's voice.
[00:22:06]  So, yeah, and so ultimately the episode was, you know, the Times spokesperson told us that, you know, news is always evolving and we're always adjusting things and revising things.
[00:22:20]  But ultimately, we're just refining our process.
[00:22:27]  So we're just like sitting on this.
[00:22:28]  I know that's the funny thing about like, I mean, I don't know if it was in a statement to you guys or I think it was in your article where somebody from the Times says like, well, it's not final until like the actual podcast drops.
[00:22:41]  But I think it is a good indication of your confidence of the story that you're basing a podcast episode about if it couches itself in heavy caveats that the story itself, an A1, page one, front page story, did not fucking contain, right?
[00:22:58]  And like, it's clear that there is some dissent here.
[00:23:01]  And like, it's, it's, it's, and this is a major, I mean, I, you know, this isn't just like us talking about like a story that has some controversy around the way it was reported.
[00:23:10]  Like this is a major piece of the information war, I guess, that's going on sort of in the background and in the press in America and just in the ether between Israel and Palestine.
[00:23:22]  This, you know, this provides major ammunition to people who want to defend the flattening of Gaza.
[00:23:28]  And it should be great caretaken with it.
[00:23:33]  And it really seems like at first there was this rush to publish and now that there's this sort of walking, behind the scenes walking back.
[00:23:40]  Yeah.
[00:23:40]  And I mean, like, you could see this sort of push.
[00:23:43]  I think there was a lot of campaigning kind of for, you know, on the one hand, it was like the IDF and Israeli government had really failed to provide its own investigation into the claims of sexual violence.
[00:23:59]  And then that sort of opening like created this wave of people saying like there's this like mass rape denialism happening when really I think a lot of people were sort of saying like, well, the government and IDF haven't provided concrete evidence and people asking for that evidence sort of got picked up as this wave of denialism.
[00:24:22]  And then it sort of seems like the Times set out to say like, okay, we're going to do the conclusive story showing this.
[00:24:28]  And, you know, and they stuck this Pulitzer Prize winner on it who, you know, talking to a lot, a lot of people, like I talked to probably 20 people, you know, who have had touched this person's reporting or interacted with this person.
[00:24:44]  And like, you know, you can go back and read his memoir, Love Africa, to get a sense of.
[00:24:49]  Crazily enough, the same name as my fucking memoir, which is just really aggravating.
[00:24:54]  I mean, I would suggest, you know, checking out that, check out the Times review of that book, too, if you want some good.
[00:25:00]  I'm putting Exclamation point at the end of Africa on mine.
[00:25:04]  Oh, yours is the United States of Africa.
[00:25:06]  So it's a little different.
[00:25:07]  But I honestly think putting him on that story is really fascinating given the fact that, okay, he won this Pulitzer, but also like if you were a critical editor or reporter, like looking at this guy and looking at his track record and his reputation as honestly a shoddy reporter, and you're like, okay, we're going to bet it all on him doing the definitive article on this extremely sensitive, you know, it's not just Israel and Palestine.
[00:25:35]  You're also talking about sexual violence too.
[00:25:38]  Yes.
[00:25:38]  Very sensitive, maybe the two most sensitive topics you could possibly combine.
[00:25:45]  And, you know, and I think it's clear that it really blew up in their faces.
[00:25:49]  Well, I'm curious, what do you think happened?
[00:25:50]  I mean, I don't know if you probably don't want to speculate.
[00:25:53]  I'm not going to put you in a position where you feel like you have to say, I don't want to speculate.
[00:25:57]  But if you were going to speculate, I mean, I'm curious how something like this happens.
[00:26:03]  Because I think that, you know, for myself, for our listeners, you know, we don't work in a newsroom.
[00:26:10]  I think that there are various points through the, if we want to say like the assembly line of a story getting published, you know, where pressure can be kind of exerted, whether it's like at the point of the story, like we want to put you on this story, or we want you to not look at this side of the story, or we want to carve out some of these, whatever it is.
[00:26:33]  But I'm curious because like if you can give us some insight into some of those possible kind of pressure points, you know, you've been covering for the intercept since October 7th, a slew of stories at different publications, whether it's at Art Forum or CNN or Axelspringer.
[00:26:54]  Axelspringer, which is still a crazy ass fucking name for a publication.
[00:26:58]  There's the hint of the heil behind it.
[00:27:00]  They do things a little bit differently in Germany.
[00:27:03]  But all of these different kind of internal and external pressures that various publishers are feeling or exerting on this specific topic and journalism covering Israel and Palestine.
[00:27:19]  I'm wondering if you can give us a little bit of an insight on some of this internal machinations here.
[00:27:24]  To get it, I might talk a little bit about like this sort of second half of the New York Times article, which was about the sort of long history of this pro-Israel watchdog group, Camera, which basically just has this mass membership.
[00:27:39]  They claim 65,000,000, who just like will, they'll call editors, they'll incessant emails, hundreds of emails.
[00:27:51]  And they've been doing that for decades now.

=== Pro-Israel Watchdog Influence (15:51) ===

[00:27:54]  And by the way, Joe Kahn, executive editor's father, was on the board of Camera.
[00:27:58]  I want to put a little magnifying glass over that sentence right there.
[00:28:02]  So Joe Kahn, the executive editor of the New York Times, the newspaper.
[00:28:07]  You got it.
[00:28:08]  His father was on the board of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, which is part of the broader ecosystem of like Canary Mission, APAC, all these kind of like pro-Israel, very aggressive advocacy groups with big online footprints.
[00:28:28]  Big online footprints.
[00:28:29]  And his father was on the fucking board of that.
[00:28:32]  And their whole thing is to criticize newspapers for not taking a pro-Israel slant.
[00:28:38]  Yeah.
[00:28:38]  But within the language of by it's neutral, right?
[00:28:42]  Because they start from the position that all these newspapers are pro-Palestine.
[00:28:46]  And so they're trying to get them back to the center, which is pro-Israel.
[00:28:50]  Right.
[00:28:50]  To be clear, Leo Kahn, who in the article heralding Joe Kahn's appointment was described as dissecting news articles with his son, left the board when Joe stepped into an edit position.
[00:29:06]  So it should just be really clear.
[00:29:08]  Yeah, to be completely clear about that.
[00:29:10]  So there's nothing to worry about here.
[00:29:12]  No confusion.
[00:29:13]  But I mean, this is pretty, I had not known this, because this seems pretty extraordinary.
[00:29:18]  No one, I don't think anyone really knew that, but it goes to your point, Liz, about the way that, like, there are these sort of unspoken standards that have been established, partly through just like the pure miasma of ideology, of how people internalize what is appropriate coverage for a topic.
[00:29:40]  But then there's also, you know, these glimmers where you can see the way that that standardized, you know, kind of base level of ideology is established, camera being part of it, where they're constantly hounding.
[00:29:53]  But I think that what we're seeing right now is this moment where all of a sudden that midpoint of coverage, that middle ground of how all kinds of news coverage is editorialized, what's allowed in, what types of words you can use to describe the conflict, all of a sudden, that whole thing is being shaken to its core.
[00:30:16]  And I think a lot of the leaders in newsrooms are being kind of blindsided by it.
[00:30:21]  I think that what my reporting has demonstrated outside of the internal workings of these newsrooms is that people are at a breaking point where both inside the organizations, they're willing to share internal documents and directives with me, but also the masses on the outside are holding these organizations to a level of scrutiny that they've never been held before.
[00:30:45]  It's constant.
[00:30:46]  And it's reached a critical mass where the leaders can no longer ignore it because you have so many people constantly on social media picking through every article, criticizing certain claims, doing their own, at times, open source reporting on the claims, and then funneling those critical claims back into the mainstream news where reporters like myself or even mainstream reporters are picking them up.
[00:31:14]  So I think really there is just a complete sort of realignment happening in the global perspective on this.
[00:31:25]  And it's just reached such a fever pitch that the people who are normally able to hand down the editorial line are just seeing a total reversal both in their readership and in the staffers who they rely on to get that editorial line out.
[00:31:42]  Basically, people are not taking it anymore.
[00:31:44]  Do you think it's shaking their confidence?
[00:31:48]  I mean, I think it varies kind of place to place, but I also think there's a reflexive element where I think when people on the inside see colleagues speaking out about stuff, they get incentivized and empowered to push back and push back against that sort of senior edit, executive edit behemoth.
[00:32:15]  But also to address the other point you raised, I think it's critical that people understand that the way that this power mechanism works is not like you come with an article about a hospital bombing in Gaza and they say, we're not running that.
[00:32:31]  It's like, okay, we're going to put this through 15 sets of review.
[00:32:34]  We're going to shave off certain words.
[00:32:36]  We're going to put the IDF spokesperson line at the top of the piece.
[00:32:40]  It moves things down to paragraph 20.
[00:32:43]  That's always my favorite.
[00:32:45]  But it also creates a situation.
[00:32:46]  It's paragraph 20.
[00:32:47]  It creates a beating down of reporters where you're like, am I going to take a risk going into Gaza, going to Nablus, putting my life on the line, fighting, staying up late to edit this piece, put my heart and soul into it?
[00:33:00]  Missing my kids' recital.
[00:33:02]  You're just missing my kids.
[00:33:06]  Well, don't miss the wife, but miss the kids.
[00:33:08]  It's like, no, the answer to that question is, no, you're not going to keep beating your head against the wall when you know how much shit you're going to have to go through.
[00:33:14]  Well, so it's this sort of like unspoken, I guess, like funnel into conformity.
[00:33:20]  And like whether it's like a worn-down conformity or one that like people are sort of striving towards, it amounts to the same thing where like, we talked a little bit before recording.
[00:33:31]  You're like, yeah, people, I think, really just want a smoking gun of an editor being like, this story is not pro-Israel enough, so we're going to kill it.
[00:33:38]  And like, these people are not fucking stupid.
[00:33:40]  You know what I mean?
[00:33:42]  And some of them, I'm not going to say all of them, but some of them probably don't even really realize they're doing it because they also have this reflexive thing in their head.
[00:33:49]  And frankly, I think people sometimes make the mistake of assuming that everybody has these good politics, but they're being tricked by somebody else into having bad politics.
[00:33:59]  When it's like, no, many people at the times probably firmly believe that Israel is in the right or whatever.
[00:34:04]  I mean, that's a fairly mainstream opinion in a lot of circles.
[00:34:09]  And so, but they also know that they can't like, you know, they have this kind of play acting like dedication to the news and the truth.
[00:34:20]  But if the truth and the news don't exactly suit their ideological aims, they'll do these sort of like shavings and mess around the articles.
[00:34:30]  I will say to contradict myself a little bit.
[00:34:32]  Like, I do think that there's one point, though, where people also have like, going back to like the Vatican metaphor, it's like people also have like a religious commitment oftentimes to, I mean, especially the New York Times.
[00:34:44]  Yes, I've heard that.
[00:34:45]  But also like, I think like probably the same at like CNN or like, you know, the Post or something, where it's like the institution has this like weird like life force energy that people become obsessed with.
[00:34:56]  And I do think sometimes people will make the justification of like, well, this place is the guardian of truth.
[00:35:02]  Like Trump is always calling it like the lying New York Times or whatever.
[00:35:05]  So Entranon.
[00:35:07]  Yep.
[00:35:07]  Yep.
[00:35:08]  And so like they will, I think sometimes there also will be a step taken where like some big hitter comes and calls up a member of the editorial board or whatever and is like, you guys are fucking up and like we will fuck you.
[00:35:22]  Yeah.
[00:35:22]  And so I think sometimes it does.
[00:35:24]  It is like that old school like mafia stuff.
[00:35:26]  But I think on a day-to-day basis, it's much less of that and much more of this like soft power.
[00:35:32]  It's coming at all angles and it's just like exhausts you and wears you down.
[00:35:35]  Well, it's funny too because there was so much reporting about this like woke rebellion at the New York Times, which is so, was so fucking funny to me.
[00:35:46]  Because it's like, come on, you guys, like you guys work at fucking Der Sturmer, you know, like, but it's like there was so much like in like a couple years, I think probably during 2020 when everyone went insane.
[00:35:56]  But in like 2020, there was like this crazy like upheaval in all these newsrooms with all these sort of like woke, you know, college former college, I guess I'll probably everyone who works at these place is a former college student.
[00:36:07]  But you know what I mean?
[00:36:08]  Like these kind of young people are like, we're going to like, you know, this newspaper is supposed to be like anftist or whatever.
[00:36:15]  Like we're going to do the leftist New York Times.
[00:36:17]  Was that like when they were like bullying Barry Weiss?
[00:36:20]  It was nice at the opinion section.
[00:36:22]  Yeah.
[00:36:23]  Yeah.
[00:36:23]  Really in the newsroom.
[00:36:24]  Which is they've really been replaced Barry Weiss and her kin with some really great communist op-ed writers.
[00:36:31]  But it's so hard to take seriously because it's like you work at like you work at the New York Times, you know, but it's it's like it's like the staffers for Biden being like, we're for Gaza.
[00:36:43]  We work for Biden.
[00:36:45]  But it's funny because that stuff is like, has been brewing in newsrooms because like a lot of young people are kind of more, for lack of a better word, woke, I guess, than older people.
[00:36:55]  And part of that is like Palestine has been kind of folded into that.
[00:36:59]  And so I think you're coming up against like real ideological like barriers for a lot of people who work at these at these news outlets where like they're like, this comports, I mean, I'm sure a lot of some, not a lot, maybe not a lot, but I'm sure that some of these people are genuinely like think about this and believe in this in a real way.
[00:37:16]  But I think for like maybe a lot of people or whatever it is, they kind of come up against these ideological barriers where the career path that they've chosen does not match with what maybe their political opinions.
[00:37:26]  And the career path that they've chosen, like at the New York Times or these media institutions, is a lot more powerful force than the ideology that they might hold.
[00:37:36]  Yeah, and it's crazy talking to people at legacy media institutions.
[00:37:40]  Because to get through the door at one of those places, you need to have some crazy last name or you need to have just fucking just done the internship and kept your nose clean and just done every step.
[00:37:56]  And it's fascinating talking to people at these legacy institutions where it's like, they're like, they're completely torn.
[00:38:02]  Because on the one hand, they're like, oh, I thought I made it.
[00:38:05]  I made it into this thing.
[00:38:06]  I did the thing.
[00:38:07]  Now I'm at the arbiter of truth for America.
[00:38:11]  And then they're also usually pretty intelligent.
[00:38:13]  I mean, depending on the last name.
[00:38:15]  They're usually pretty intelligent people.
[00:38:17]  And they're like, and especially if they're younger people, they're just exposed to social media in a way.
[00:38:23]  I mean, it's such a boring fucking explanation to always put it in.
[00:38:27]  It's just to be like social media changed everything.
[00:38:29]  But it's kind of, in my experience, it's true because you have these shitheads at the top of mastheads, right?
[00:38:35]  And they aren't really, they're like, fuck this.
[00:38:37]  I don't believe in this.
[00:38:38]  This is dumb.
[00:38:39]  This is for the Scrabble.
[00:38:42]  But it's like, so they're just not even exposed to it in the same way.
[00:38:46]  But then when you just have people a decade or two younger than them, it just completely rewrites the code.
[00:38:52]  Well, especially when so much reporting now is done through social media contacts, right?
[00:38:57]  I mean, like so many people reach out via social media because how else do you cultivate sources?
[00:39:02]  I mean, it's a way to cultivate sources and talk to people in so many ways.
[00:39:06]  I met Sidney Sweeney.
[00:39:08]  Yeah. Never mind.
[00:39:13]  I was going to say, I think I couldn't source for me.
[00:39:16]  But I think that just thinking about the times, this Vatican metaphor, which I do think is very spot on.
[00:39:23]  It makes total sense.
[00:39:25]  And then seeing, I would imagine, a kind of like the disillusionment of this sort of like bureaucratic, the way that the newsroom is set up, which is very structured, very bureaucratic in its way, where some of the sort of parts where this kind of power can be exerted, it's like what you were saying, that sometimes it's not that everyone has this ideological belief or whatever, but they have a belief in the institution,
[00:39:52]  which pushes them to kind of, well, maybe this reporting feel, like even if it's right and the language that's being used is correct, it doesn't feel right in this situation because it's so raw.
[00:40:04]  And there's something about this specific situation.
[00:40:08]  I don't know why I keep calling it a situation.
[00:40:10]  something about the fucking, you know, the war in Gaza that is so brutal and is so like, you know, we were talking about this with John Dolan the other day, where it's just like there is something about the war in Gaza that is destroying a lot of 20th century, like artifices from the 20th century.
[00:40:31]  Some of that being, I think, in this instance, these, you know, what maybe beliefs that young people might have within these institutions of journalism for holding up on, you know, some of the promises of the good 1970s journalists holding truth to power.
[00:40:50]  Yeah.
[00:40:51]  Yeah, totally.
[00:40:52]  I think.
[00:40:54]  But there's something about, you know, in both like Beebe's complete flouting of all kind of international law.
[00:41:01]  The U.S., I mean, I was listening to John Kirby on the way here and his answers to the story about UNRWA and their alleged employees being Hamas supporters or whatever.
[00:41:15]  And his response to the ICJ hearing and the way that it's just a complete and total fuck you to these real supposed hallmarks of international justice, humanitarian, et cetera,
[00:41:31]  peace, all of this stuff that has been held up for so long, that there's something about this that is so fucking like the brutality is so in your face that it cannot be ignored, that it's just like stripping away whatever is left of these things.
[00:41:46]  Yeah, and I think, well, I was just going to say one other thing on that note of like how some of this could change those monolithic structures of like the times or whatever, where, I don't know, I think it's interesting, like I think the IDF will often feed news in the same way that the U.S. military will to like large publications, which is that they'll offer an exclusive.
[00:42:11]  Yeah.
[00:42:12]  Right.
[00:42:12]  And then it'll be like, well, you just have to like, and it's a way of controlling the narrative by being like, okay, you got to publish what we say now, or we're going to give it to someone else.
[00:42:20]  And that's starting to be a lot of fun.
[00:42:21]  That's very classic.
[00:42:22]  Yeah, it's very classic.
[00:42:23]  But now all of a sudden, it's just like, it's just, they can't, the time lapse between that statement getting written up in a major publication and then like someone immediately disproving it is getting narrower and narrower.
[00:42:38]  And it used to be that like it would stretch out a little bit and they could do some follow-up and they could sprinkle some more distraction into it.
[00:42:44]  Right.
[00:42:44]  Or pull a retraction even and no one would notice.
[00:42:47]  Exactly, or stealth edit.
[00:42:48]  But now that's breaking down.
[00:42:50]  I think it'll be interesting to see if it changes any of the other, you know, if it has a rippling effect to other kind of newsroom practices of changing the fundamental way that like, you know, types, these types of reports get transferred in and republished.
[00:43:08]  It's so interesting too, because I think that we are, and we've talked about this in the show a bunch.
[00:43:12]  I think social media, I'm not just talking about in relation to Israel-Palestine now, I'm talking about in general.
[00:43:18]  There's a lot of noise and bullshit and smoke and mirrors and just fucking fake shit out there.
[00:43:24]  Fake shit that a lot of people buy into.
[00:43:27]  And we talked about sort of the permeability of reality and that breaking down for a lot of people, both in the sense of the news and information that they consume, which goes like essentially gives everybody schizophrenia.
[00:43:40]  And it's funny because not that I think the New York Times is an arbiter of truth.

=== Constant Propaganda Noise (15:48) ===

[00:43:45]  I don't think that.
[00:43:46]  But it becomes so glaringly apparent that there are very few arbiters of truth, which is really like, it's almost like there's no good solution, right?
[00:43:55]  Like there's no like there's none of these institutions that can, that, that you can rely on to like give you the straight facts or whatever.
[00:44:04]  Yeah, it's like what I was telling you the other day.
[00:44:06]  You can get any opinion you want on the internet.
[00:44:08]  You can get any opinion from fascists to, I don't know, whatever.
[00:44:12]  Ultra Maoists.
[00:44:13]  Yes.
[00:44:14]  And everything in between.
[00:44:15]  But you can't actually get the, you can't read anything about what's actually just going on.
[00:44:20]  You can get everything else.
[00:44:21]  But getting, you know, getting the news is impossible.
[00:44:24]  So like it seems like within these institutions, a lot of these, like it's like they're already pretty degraded in a lot of the public's eyes, right?
[00:44:31]  Like I feel like very few people under the age of 40, I mean, that's probably not true, but very few people I know under the age of 40 like take the New York Times at face value or you know with good faith or anything like that.
[00:44:43]  But it seems like within these institutions as well, there is this sort of like generalized discontent.
[00:44:48]  And it's like almost like a sort of fun funhouse mirror of what's happening on the outside.
[00:44:54]  Yeah.
[00:44:55]  And I think, I mean, I don't know.
[00:44:57]  I mean, I think, yeah, I think it's like it almost gets at a broader issue with just like the people who have climbed to the top of literally all publications.
[00:45:08]  Like, I think you can make the argument too with a lot of like left-wing, like old school or just generally like left-wing publications, like the ones that are even remaining.
[00:45:18]  Like, the people running those places are old as shit.
[00:45:22]  And like, they do not understand what is happening.
[00:45:25]  They don't understand the point you just made about young people being able to go out and just get whatever they want.
[00:45:31]  They still view themselves as part of this coherent ecosystem.
[00:45:36]  And so I think there's a piece of it too that is just like we're in this weird moment where I was telling someone else this other day, but we're in this weird no man's land where the old institutions have not completely failed yet,
[00:45:52]  but also like the new base of people who are coming up who are going to eventually be people with Disposable incomes and people who are going to be like fund like funders, like upper middle class and middle class people, like are no longer really attached to any of this shit.
[00:46:10]  And so it's just everything feels like it's constantly breaking down because we're watching these systems like fall apart in real time, but somehow they keep, they're still standing after just like perpetually embarrassing themselves over and over again.
[00:46:22]  So decaying or so.
[00:46:24]  Or decadent in a way.
[00:46:25]  Yeah.
[00:46:26]  Yeah.
[00:46:26]  So I don't know, as someone like as a relatively young reporter trying to navigate this like collapse, that's kind of what I see where you have this, and you have this new generation coming into these places being like, okay, we want to change it, but also it's almost too fucked up to change.
[00:46:43]  So we kind of just have to like talk about that.
[00:46:46]  And there's not, there can't really be a coherent vision for what replaces it yet because, you know, like it's not going to be pure social media because like what you just said, it's completely all over the place.
[00:46:56]  Totally.
[00:46:57]  But also it kind of feels like the old model has to be completely torn up because it's not working.
[00:47:02]  Well, and it's, it's especially this hat, that sort of phenomenon occurring at the same time as this like information war is happening in Israel and Palestine is really astounding to see, right?
[00:47:13]  Like, and it's, it's, you know, we've talked about this in the show several times, but like Israel's response to like Israel's public public messaging and it's like its propaganda that it's putting forward is so ineffective to anybody but those who are like most receptive to it in the first place and who it is not necessary for that, that it's it's, it's it's sort of astounding, because that is also like one of the big sort of institutions which is like the Israeli propaganda machine and like Hasburst,
[00:47:42]  and it is not, it is not functioning as well.
[00:47:45]  I mean, they have fucking Brett Gelman there, for Christ's sake, you know, like that is my God, but at the same time, like a lot of this mainstream stuff, I think, like I just the other day, on Friday morning, last Friday morning, I was having a conversation with someone and they mentioned to me and it was about an hour or no no, it was like three or four hours after the ICJ ruling dropped, and they said to me, oh, did you see that the US found that UNRWA employees were Hamas,
[00:48:16]  you know, were Hamas members, and that's what they had heard.
[00:48:19]  They hadn't heard anything about the ICJ.
[00:48:22]  They hadn't heard anything like that.
[00:48:23]  And so I do think that For not clued in or not super like.
[00:48:29]  Yeah, You know social media, I mean people who are not like very, very ideologically invested in the conflict, Which includes probably most of America.
[00:48:41]  Yeah, What they're hearing is filtered through.
[00:48:44]  I mean, they're gonna get the news from that daily episode that was pulled, and so like, I do think that This kind of shit really is still.
[00:48:53]  It's like, in a way, it I guess maybe that the decadent descriptor works then, in this sense right, because it is effective up to a point and up until like, a certain population maybe.
[00:49:04]  Yeah, I think there's a risk of overexaggerating, like how and I'm I'm talking about myself here like of how ineffective this stuff is because it is still effective because, like the article that you know you're criticizing the, the Jeffrey Gettleman fucking article, which is I reread it this morning, or actually last night and this morning, and it is just sort of astounding but that stuff does get a lot of purchase right and and more than that, like it's not even retractions,
[00:49:34]  don't what's retractions?
[00:49:36]  No, no one remembers when a story is retracted.
[00:49:39]  No, of course not.
[00:49:40]  But like uh, unless it like gets its own warrants, its own story, but that's a very rare occurrence, especially with THE NEW YORK Times but, like this stuff is, also provides cover for the US government right, and so, like you can have, you know Kirby, go up there.
[00:49:56]  Such an unpleasant looking individual.
[00:49:58]  I mean, he looks like Josh, what's his face the?
[00:50:01]  He looks like the, the little, the little baby son from what's that fucking show with the family they live in the house god, it's a very popular TV show.
[00:50:10]  Not young Sheldon no no, he looks like the Trump, the Trump family.
[00:50:14]  Kid Baron.
[00:50:15]  He does look no, not Baron.
[00:50:17]  The fucking Junior, oh my god, the one married to Ivanka what's his fucking face?
[00:50:22]  Oh, Jared Kushner.
[00:50:24]  I was gonna call him Josh Kushner.
[00:50:26]  He looks like Jared Kushner, I don't know.
[00:50:27]  He looks surgery.
[00:50:29]  He looks like what?
[00:50:30]  The family that lives in.
[00:50:32]  It's like a house that's under construction and it's like a sitcom that's like funny or whatever, and it has David Cross in it.
[00:50:38]  Now the story of a wealthy family who lost everything.
[00:50:41]  I have no idea what you're saying.
[00:50:42]  Arrested Development.
[00:50:44]  He looks like the little baby guy from Arrested Development.
[00:50:46]  Michael Sarah, not Michael, fucking Sarah.
[00:50:48]  Dude, the dude, he's like an adult, but he's like Buster.
[00:50:51]  He looks like Buster.
[00:50:53]  He looks like that.
[00:50:53]  I think he looks like Jared Kushnar because he's very vimpiric as well.
[00:50:57]  Anyways, I think a lot of this reporting doesn't, it's like, like, I have to remember that, like, Brett Gelman isn't trying to convince me or whatever, right?
[00:51:05]  And Brett Gelman maybe is a bad example here, but like, a lot of this propaganda isn't trying to convince me.
[00:51:10]  Like, they're like, they gave up.
[00:51:12]  They're like, if you have a critical eye, it's a way for the U.S. government to be like, well, you know, there's some credible reporting on this topic, but it's also a way, like you said, for be like, for the Israeli kind of propaganda machine to be like, you're a rape denier now.
[00:51:28]  And that was, that replaced completely, you're a beheaded baby denier.
[00:51:32]  Yeah, I mean, I don't think the quality of the propaganda has necessarily changed.
[00:51:36]  I've spent a lot of time in Israel and like I have Israeli friends and like, you know, like looking at their feeds, it's like you, you just would have no, it's not, it's such an extreme level.
[00:51:50]  It's, it's, it's so lacking in context that it actually, when you see it in that vacuum of their algorithm, it's like, it actually doesn't seem that fucking crazy because there's no one in the comments being like, uh, like this, this guy was arrested for like lynching Palestinians.
[00:52:08]  It's just like he's like, yep, like we, we, we have to go, you know, we have to go settle it so that we can put in plumbing.
[00:52:14]  There's no plumbing there.
[00:52:15]  Yeah.
[00:52:15]  You know, we got to get some plumbing in there.
[00:52:17]  So I think that it, the, the propaganda has always been completely insane.
[00:52:22]  Yes.
[00:52:23]  But now it's just like for the first time, you have so many people paying attention day after day, opening up social media, self-educating people.
[00:52:29]  The society of cougars.
[00:52:31]  Yeah, honestly.
[00:52:32]  And I think that's the big change because the shit is just being contextualized for the first time.
[00:52:37]  Well, and it's also, I think you run up to this point where it's like every day, if you use social media in a way that isn't just like looking at Stanley Cup videos or whatever, but even probably if you do, like every day you're presented with images that like evoke the running, the girl running in front of the napalm in Vietnam, right?
[00:52:55]  Of like dead children, like ad nauseum, dead children, dead children, dead children, dead children.
[00:53:01]  You know, adults, maybe adult men in their underwear with their heads behind their heads, which is, I think, to a lot of people sort of subtly reminiscent of those ISIS execution videos as well, because that's a pretty, I mean, that's where my mind goes.
[00:53:14]  And Abu Ghraib.
[00:53:15]  And Abu Ghraib, exactly.
[00:53:16]  You generally don't see that in the context of a good thing happening.
[00:53:22]  And I think that like, you know, for a lot of people seeing this, it's like, well, I'm seeing these like horrible, horrible, horrible images.
[00:53:30]  And then like, you know, it's, it's, if you're, if you're not even really a young person anymore, Netanyahu has been the leader of Israel for like most of your life.
[00:53:39]  Well, Vietnam's a great example.
[00:53:41]  Like you think about the pictures from Vietnam that like, you know, won Pulitzers and shit.
[00:53:44]  And it's like now every day there's like 15 of those pictures.
[00:53:48]  And I think also, like, I've never been like, I, you know, I love all the president's men or whatever as much as the next guy, but I've never been like, journalists are like the fucking journalists of the world.
[00:54:01]  Like, I've never been that guy.
[00:54:03]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:54:04]  But, um, or like, or like, journalists' job is so hard.
[00:54:07]  But I will say that I think part of the change you're seeing in newsrooms is that, like, when you're a journalist, like, you are, like, you're just, you are looking at that shit all the time.
[00:54:14]  And if you're not, you're like, okay, I can take a day off.
[00:54:16]  But I think that also has had an effect where it's like, just like, even for myself, it's just like looking through this shit every day.
[00:54:23]  It's like, it is just so fucked up.
[00:54:25]  And I think that also, again, that goes to the like social media is the main catalyst for all this shit.
[00:54:30]  Is like, you know, that's just like, as a human being, like that volume of death and suffering is not normal.
[00:54:35]  And it's also like, you know, you'd have a couple of those pictures in the print times or whatever, right?
[00:54:41]  Like in the early 70s, and like that would have this explosive effect because people didn't have access to anything.
[00:54:49]  And the TV completely changed.
[00:54:51]  TV, yeah.
[00:54:52]  But it's like now Israel is like the biggest provider of snuff films in the fucking world, you know?
[00:54:56]  And like that has an effect on people.
[00:54:58]  Yeah.
[00:54:58]  And especially I just think like, you know, these people in the newsrooms who are forced, you know, it's there's an irony of them being forced to look at it over and over and over again and then just basically losing their fucking minds.
[00:55:08]  I mean, most people at the publications I've reported on, basically talking to them, you can feel in them that like something broke.
[00:55:15]  Yeah.
[00:55:16]  And they, many of them were like long career people at a single organization who had been there for years or decades in some cases.
[00:55:25]  And they had seen all kinds of horrible coverage.
[00:55:27]  They, some of them had lived through Iraq.
[00:55:30]  And this broke them.
[00:55:32]  Yeah.
[00:55:33]  Yeah.
[00:55:33]  I mean, what kind of stuff are you hearing from these people?
[00:55:36]  You know, you can speak in obviously.
[00:55:39]  I mean, I don't think it's more, it's that much more complicated than what I just said.
[00:55:44]  It's really the day-to-day grind for them.
[00:55:46]  And the feeling of like this feeling, there's a new type of feeling, which is not just like we're conveying the egregious sentiments of our respective political leaders anymore.
[00:55:58]  It's like we are directly implicated every day in pushing this shit out.
[00:56:04]  And I think they can feel how day to day the conflict is shifting.
[00:56:10]  They can feel that feeling of when history happens, when you can like feel that everything is up in the air and that small changes can like really affect whether another 5,000 people die,
[00:56:24]  whether 500,000 people starve or a million people starve, where the whim of MBS could shift a mass biblical level exodus into the Egyptian desert or a Arab sanctioned reflourishing in Gaza.
[00:56:42]  So I think like, I think there's also this feeling of feeling the daily 24-hour news being so responsible for what's happening in a unique way and so much changing.
[00:56:54]  I mean, this feels like the longest news cycle I can remember in my life.
[00:56:58]  Yeah, unending.
[00:56:59]  Shocked by how, like, because even with other wars and stuff, like Ukraine, you kind of stopped hearing about until they're like, hey, look, we're going to do an offensive.
[00:57:07]  But like, and then it was just, it failed.
[00:57:10]  But it's like, this is really, it stayed on the top of the news every single day.
[00:57:14]  Yeah.
[00:57:15]  Yeah.
[00:57:15]  And there's always something new.
[00:57:16]  And there's, and there's a constant, I think also part of it is just like how out of control Israel has gotten from under like any.
[00:57:26]  I mean they're just so clearly like acting without with, like no regard for anything and, I think, anyone with any kind of sense.
[00:57:33]  I mean it's funny because, thinking back to the way in which journalists conducted themselves during the Trump admin versus now, like I'm curious because my feeling is that I think a lot of people in that profession had a feeling that like okay, once democracy has been resurrected from darkness or whatever, like now that Trump is out and Biden's here, not like our work is finished, because our work is never done as journalists,
[00:58:02]  but maybe some of the aggressive, like aggression from these sort of centers of power, the White House DOD, whatever it is like are you know it would maybe ease up, like maybe one there's more access, or maybe things will kind of chill for a bit, and yet it's been total, like you say, like the, the most non-stop news cycle.
[00:58:23]  But also, I think, like, listening to, like I said, I was listening to the State Department briefing and listening to those pool reporters.
[00:58:29]  Like, you can hear in the questions that they're asking and the stonewalling that they're getting from state where, like, literally, like, you listen to these briefings and it is, these pool reporters are not fucking stupid.
[00:58:42]  You know, like, it takes a long time to get through and get that kind of access and all of that kind of shit.
[00:58:46]  And it's a very specific type of reporting.
[00:58:48]  But, like, you are getting, like, pissed on and being told it's raining.
[00:58:53]  Like there is a complete and utter denial coming from the White House and State Department of like reality and what's happening in a way that like I don't.
[00:59:02]  My suspicion is that a lot of these people did not anticipate from the Biden administration.
[00:59:07]  And that is adding to a lot of disillusionment about either what people maybe thought about the partisan nature of politics or about how things would change or these sort of promises and like or Trump being this certain kind of aberration or whatever it was.
[00:59:27]  Like you know, you ask these questions saying like, does the U.S. have a response to BV?

=== Election Denial And Media Realignment (12:20) ===

[00:59:34]  It was just today to BV saying that, you know, we're blowing up hostage negotiations and just like a complete denial of what's actually going on and what Israel is doing.
[00:59:46]  And I, you can hear in their questions that they're breaking.
[00:59:49]  Yeah.
[00:59:49]  And also like there's just been unprecedented leakage out of out of state for this administration.
[00:59:54]  I mean like I'm blaming on his name, but there's this tremendous HuffPo reporter who's just been like a guy they called a liar.
[01:00:02]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:00:02]  Yeah.
[01:00:03]  And I don't remember that dude's name, but yeah.
[01:00:04]  And like there was that really, really high profile State Department resignation.
[01:00:08]  Yeah.
[01:00:09]  And the wave, there's all the waves of kind of whistleblowers coming out and saying, you know, that people are attempting to stop State Department or like, you know, change State Department policy and are getting stonewalled.
[01:00:19]  Yeah.
[01:00:21]  So yeah, I think it, yeah, but it's all combined with like everything.
[01:00:26]  You know, it's like one more step of the Biden administration just going into this election and just being like, nope, we're holding the old school Democratic Party line, even as the world is like falling down around us.
[01:00:37]  Yeah.
[01:00:37]  You know, they're still in the bunker just like being like, okay, this is going to get us through.
[01:00:42]  And I was talking to a colleague yesterday who was like, I think you can feel this like a lot of the press are like holding their breath for this election.
[01:00:51]  And like on the one hand, it's like all this horrible shit is happening.
[01:00:54]  On the other hand, it's like, all right, like let's just fucking get over the finish line of the election.
[01:01:00]  And the point he was making to me was like, it's really important for the press to hammer these people now who are doing all this horrible shit because there's a good chance that Biden does eke it out.
[01:01:12]  And if he does eke it out, then the line is going to be like, all right, we have to double down on anti-immigration.
[01:01:15]  We have to double down on bombing the shit out of Yemen.
[01:01:18]  We have to double down on all of these failed policies that have brought us to this point because that's what won us the election.
[01:01:24]  And so I think it's good to see some people in those pools like, you know, hammering, but also it's clearly like it still hasn't fully broken through where you just have the press just nailing Biden to the wall.
[01:01:37]  Like, you know, if this was post-election, it would be a bloodbath.
[01:01:39]  Well, that's the wild thing about this, right?
[01:01:43]  I think it's because a lot of reporters genuinely think that like if Trump becomes president, it'll end democracy.
[01:01:50]  And I think that we've talked about this on the show before.
[01:01:52]  It's the fifth time I've fucking said that this episode, but we have talked about this a bunch in the show before.
[01:01:57]  I think a lot of these reporters who are sort of like the type that are kind of high on their own supply, I guess you could say, view themselves as like the frontline warriors in between like, you know, Trump and ending democracy.
[01:02:10]  And so like part of that project is like, yes, this sort of like truth is like maybe not for now.
[01:02:16]  Yeah, well, yeah.
[01:02:16]  And just, oh, God, I mean, this is a tangential, but just like, go for it.
[01:02:20]  The number, the number of fucking outlets that hire just like right-wing extreme extremism reporters being like, this is hitting back at Trump and Trump's base and the world that Trump created when it's like you are just taking the bait.
[01:02:34]  You're failing to report on any of the shit that led the basic underlying conditions that led to all this shit.
[01:02:40]  Just have those guys are federal departments anyway.
[01:02:42]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:02:43]  And it's like, and just get a DOJ report.
[01:02:47]  So many Twitter bios that's like right-wing extremism expert.
[01:02:50]  I'm also a right-wing.
[01:02:51]  SQL C intern.
[01:02:53]  It's like, what about just old school reporting about like corruption and like the Democrats and Republicans who are just skimming off the top and like allowing their communities to fester and evolve?
[01:03:03]  Well, I think the problem too is like, I mean, speaking for myself, like I looking at this election, like I really, I mean, I don't think this is controversial.
[01:03:11]  I really don't want Donald Trump to be president again.
[01:03:14]  And I think that that would be very bad as much as I hate all available options.
[01:03:20]  But I think that the press and kind of Americans in general have like run into a problem, which is the sort of like boy who cried wolf situation, like, which we've talked about, which is that like, like you say, the press say like, oh, democracy is going to end and they want to like, you know, stop this hole from happening.
[01:03:36]  Just like, oh, but democracy didn't end last time.
[01:03:39]  Like we already did it and democracy didn't end.
[01:03:40]  And I mean, just speaking as like American Joe, like, oh, and the stock market did pretty well.
[01:03:45]  Like, you remember that?
[01:03:45]  Like, you're sort of dividing those two things.
[01:03:48]  Yeah, totally.
[01:03:48]  Even if you can kind of, I think a sophisticated person can look down the fucking barrel and see what would be there possibly on the other end.
[01:03:57]  You know what I'm saying?
[01:03:57]  Yeah.
[01:03:58]  And I don't know.
[01:03:59]  What does what does a Biden, what does the second Biden term look like?
[01:04:03]  Like if he dies.
[01:04:04]  He dies.
[01:04:05]  No, but if the lesson they learned is like you can fuck every major constituent and still win.
[01:04:10]  Like what does what does that mean?
[01:04:12]  While campaigning via Zoom or whatever they're going to have him do.
[01:04:15]  Oh yeah, when they put COVID-20 out.
[01:04:18]  Yeah.
[01:04:18]  No, I agree.
[01:04:19]  I think that it's going to be, it's so funny because it's like, I don't want Trump to win just because I can't do people being self-important again for four more years.
[01:04:31]  But I also don't want Biden to win.
[01:04:34]  So I would like to announce here that I'm endorsing RFK Jr. for president.
[01:04:39]  But no, it's I my thing is it's like it's it's it's such fucking bullshit, right?
[01:04:45]  Like we all know it's bullshit.
[01:04:47]  We know that like, yeah, Trump didn't end democracy in fucking 2016, 2020.
[01:04:52]  Biden's like, you know, promised new era of the most progressive president in history, shit sucks right now.
[01:04:58]  I'm sorry, whatever.
[01:05:00]  It fucking does suck right now.
[01:05:01]  And especially when it comes to the way that the U.S. is interacting with the world, even if all the other shit wasn't happening, the very fact that Biden is co-signing the absolute carnage and bloodthirst coming from the Israeli government and the Israeli army is fucking, it's just completely intolerable.
[01:05:21]  And that's one of these things that you will tolerate.
[01:05:24]  And journalists are kind of caught in this position where it's like, I think a lot of people at these liberal outlets have to essentially, they have to co-sign Biden because that, like, you kind of have to put your money where your mouth is.
[01:05:37]  And so we aren't going to get, I mean, but all this just turns into, like we were saying before, the unraveling of these institutions, the loss of trust in these institutions.
[01:05:46]  Not that we thought these institutions should, you know, people like us, I guess, thought these institutions should be trusted in the first place, but for the general public, and then we just have more of this sort of chaos, too.
[01:05:55]  Yeah.
[01:05:56]  And I think, like, I don't know, I think there were interesting off-ramps for the press in the past year.
[01:06:01]  Like, I think one, yeah, like, I think that like, like, Dean Phillips.
[01:06:08]  Yeah.
[01:06:08]  I know.
[01:06:09]  I know.
[01:06:09]  I guess I don't really know much about him.
[01:06:11]  But his story is interesting where he just like fucking went on a suicide mission because he thought he would kind of like break the firewall, you know, like he thought he would be the tip of the spear.
[01:06:21]  And like watching the powers that be just like rat fuck him and everyone else, you know, who even stepped a little, you know, same thing with like Newsome, Pritzker, Whitmer, you know, those people were all sniffing around.
[01:06:33]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:06:34]  And like that shit just got fully shut down.
[01:06:36]  And there was so much out there on the table for people to pick up.
[01:06:39]  And like, but I think again, it was like, it was just this feeling of like, well, nope, Biden's incumbent.
[01:06:44]  And like reporting on that would be, would be silly.
[01:06:48]  Which is a funny mirror to the way that the press was handling a lot of the stuff about Hillary.
[01:06:54]  When you go back into 2016, 2015, there was a sort of sense of, well, we don't want to report on some of this stuff because it might give too much ammunition.
[01:07:05]  And then afterwards, a big sort of like, well, maybe that was wrong that we had done that and we should do it.
[01:07:10]  You know what I mean?
[01:07:10]  And so we're kind of back to where we were.
[01:07:12]  Yeah, totally.
[01:07:13]  But with, it seems like, you know, Brace, as you keep saying, like, with people getting more and more collectively insane.
[01:07:21]  I just want everyone to be normal.
[01:07:25]  But that's not going to happen.
[01:07:26]  Well, what does this look like moving forward?
[01:07:28]  What's your sense of how this looks like moving forward?
[01:07:31]  I mean, I guess not just at the times, but like in terms of reporting on the war on Gaza, like, do you feel any kind of mainstream shift happening or?
[01:07:45]  Yeah, no, definitely.
[01:07:47]  I mean, I think, Yeah, I think that this whole subject is never going to look the same in reporting.
[01:07:56]  I think like you just have a base of people.
[01:07:58]  You know, you look at the polling on like Democrats who think that Israel is committing genocide.
[01:08:04]  It's like, I think the last poll I saw, I think it's like 70% or something.
[01:08:08]  Jesus Christ.
[01:08:09]  Like we've undergone like a full-scale realignment in opinion on this.
[01:08:15]  It is pretty shocking.
[01:08:16]  Yeah.
[01:08:17]  Just in my lifetime, seeing the kind of sea change that's happened.
[01:08:22]  And so my question is also like not just about this subject, but like what does this look like for other for other conflicts or just any other news event where you just have this kind of eyes on the ground, like mass information distribution.
[01:08:44]  That's the other just interesting piece to me.
[01:08:46]  I feel like a leg of legacy media has just gotten knocked out where you've just seen like a you've seen like a almost populist force of opinion change.
[01:08:59]  I do think that some of that is particular to this, to like the invasion of Gaza and that, like everyone in Gaza was just the people there reaching for whatever they could, which a huge weapon of theirs was social media and getting as much footage out, and that they were because of how long the blockade has been, because of how.
[01:09:25]  You know it's hard, you know it's very difficult to even find the words to describe the situation in Gaza pre-the invasion.
[01:09:33]  Yeah, how the level of destitution and like depravity, but it's that's not the same in other like conflicts conflict zone is the wrong word, but in other kind of it's a very unique place and a very unique situation that has kind of acted as a catalyst for all of these other things kind of exploding in their own way.
[01:09:59]  You mentioned before we started, you have a story about Seymour Hirsch and I'd like you to elaborate well, so I wanted to mention his article from a couple weeks ago.
[01:10:11]  I, when I first moved to DC and I was trying to crowdsource information, I showed up to Sy's house unannounced and he basically told me to get the fuck off of his lawn and send him an email or a phone call like a normal person.
[01:10:24]  To be fair, you got to show up three times before he lets you in.
[01:10:26]  Yeah, I got two more in the two more in the pocket, but uh, he on his sub-sec he had a piece about when he was at the Times and he was.
[01:10:34]  He was trying to report a story that that was gonna rely on US intelligence sources and he was coming up blank.
[01:10:40]  So he asked someone in the office, I guess, what to do.
[01:10:44]  And they recommended this Israeli ambassador by the name of Netanyahu.
[01:10:50]  So he calls up Netanyahu and he tells him what he's looking for.
[01:10:55]  And they have a conversation and it's very pleasant.
[01:10:57]  And the next day, satellite images of chemical weapons in Berlin, classified intelligence information shows up at Hersch's desk at the time.
[01:11:07]  Somehow that floated under the radar, which is surprising given the current moment, but I think it also gets at a piece of how the New York Times functions sometimes.
[01:11:16]  That must have been when Netanyahu was living in Philadelphia cheating on his Jewish wife with a goy, just which is just interesting.
[01:11:26]  Little hot tip from Brace to the Rest.
[01:11:28]  It's true.
[01:11:29]  It's proven in fact.
[01:11:31]  He was doing that.
[01:11:32]  He was pumping away at a goy.
[01:11:36]  Daniel, thank you so much for joining us.
[01:11:37]  This was a lot of fun.
[01:11:39]  I would recommend if you want more on especially the first part about the Times, the recent article that you co-wrote with Brian Grimm in The Intercept about the October 7th rape attack article.

=== Big Camera Scandal (02:04) ===

[01:11:54]  But really, a lot of the stuff is most of the article is about the camera, which should be a huge scandal.
[01:12:00]  I mean, I don't know, huge, but a pretty big scandal.
[01:12:04]  I really recommend that our listeners check that out.
[01:12:07]  That will link that at the bottom here.
[01:12:09]  And thank you so much.
[01:12:10]  Thanks for having me.
[01:12:26]  Well, I'm about to fly to Chicago, and boy, are my...
[01:12:29]  What kind of juice is that?
[01:12:30]  I'm so tired.
[01:12:30]  What are you talking about?
[01:12:31]  Oh, it's called Rock and Beat.
[01:12:33]  I got beet, carrot, apple, lemon, ginger.
[01:12:36]  Rock and beat.
[01:12:37]  And I drank half of it because that got me too.
[01:12:40]  That's good, baby.
[01:12:40]  That's a third.
[01:12:41]  That's almost exactly half.
[01:12:44]  What do you think?
[01:12:45]  Are you kidding me?
[01:12:47]  Yeah.
[01:12:47]  Okay.
[01:12:48]  Well, maybe you guys are definitely never letting you guys do my piece.
[01:12:51]  I think it's great.
[01:12:52]  You're very optimistic.
[01:12:54]  If you drink too much juice, you get too hypey.
[01:12:58]  Because of the sugar.
[01:12:58]  Because of the suggie.
[01:12:59]  Yeah.
[01:13:00]  A little suggie.
[01:13:01]  Yeah.
[01:13:02]  But I'm probably going to drink the rest of this on the motherfucking plane so I can get up and vape in the bathroom.
[01:13:07]  And you know that I'm vaping straight fentanyl.
[01:13:10]  I am going to cause a scene and have a viral video of someone hitting me with that motherfucking Narcan and I go, and I come back to life like a vampire.
[01:13:20]  And then I start biting people.
[01:13:21]  And then, bam, viral news story that fentanyl now makes you into the undead.
[01:13:28]  Like Dracula.
[01:13:29]  That's a great plan.
[01:13:30]  I'm Liz.
[01:13:31]  I love you.
[01:13:32]  My name is Brace.
[01:13:33]  We're joined, of course, by producer Jan Chomsky.
[01:13:36]  And the podcast is called True Nan.
[01:13:38]  We'll see you next time.
[01:13:39]  Bye-bye.
[01:13:58]  Come out.