Democrats Have SURRENDERED In Portland, Agree To Demands From DHS And Trump, Abandon Antifa Leftists
While Democrats are framing it as a victory this is actually a conditional surrender.Perhaps due to the far leftists making Democrats look bad and helping Trump they have agreed to the demands of the DHS and Trump to bolster local law enforcement and protect federal building.Oregon will deploy State Police to assist Federal law enforcement. If the Feds are convinced that the far left has been quelled and antifa violence will stop then they will remove the extra officers deployed.Essentially all demands of the far left have been crushed.Bill Barr warned just the other day that if the far left wasn't stopped by state officials it would get worse. Then the next day they announce exactly what Barr wanted, state officials will stop the riots in portland.
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Democratic politicians on the far left are declaring victory in Portland after it was announced federal law enforcement officers sent to the city to protect the courthouse would be withdrawn unconditionally.
And if it sounds too good to be true for the left, that's because it is.
In reality, what's actually happening is that the Democrats have agreed to surrender.
Now, early on, local law enforcement, the Portland police, were actually working side-by-side with the feds as violent riots persisted and damage was being done to the federal courthouse.
Fires were being set.
Cops and federal cops were being attacked.
Eventually, I guess because the Democrats thought they looked bad, the Portland police stood down, even issuing a statement saying, we had nothing to do with the violence last night, leaving the federal officers on their own.
The federal government surged the amount of federal law enforcement officers to protect the courthouse after 39 days of rioting.
You see, according to Secretary Chad Wolf, they just want Portland police to do their jobs.
If the Portland police were actually going around and arresting these rioters and stopping the riots, defending the buildings, including the federal courthouse, they wouldn't need to be there.
And thus, we have an agreement.
The Democrats have agreed to reinstate, in a matter of speaking, the Portland Police to do their jobs protecting these buildings.
And if they do, under those conditions, the feds will agree to pull out their excess officers.
That's right.
Federal law enforcement agents will remain in the courthouse.
The extra officers will leave only when the DHS feels comfortable that Portland Police are doing their job.
So why is it then that we have stories like this?
Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, excited for the work ahead as feds withdraw from Portland?
I think they're desperate to push the narrative that they've won to quell the riots.
Interestingly, Just the other day, the mayor of Portland said that he wanted to negotiate a ceasefire with federal law enforcement.
But under what authority could he even do this?
You see, he has no control over the far-left extremists that are showing up, throwing explosives at the building.
But he does have control over the Portland police.
In my opinion, they pulled the police back early on because they wanted Trump to look bad.
All of a sudden, the narrative emerged that federal law enforcement officers were secret police, blah, blah, blah.
And yeah, Well, it made Trump look bad a little bit.
Only then it backfired.
You see, people started to realize that Trump was the only one willing to enforce the law.
It started to make people oppose Black Lives Matter.
And all of a sudden, the narrative flipped.
They started blaming Trump, saying he wants the violence.
Sorry, it was Portland that pulled their police back.
So there it is.
This is a surrender from the Democrats, but still being framed as though they've won.
At the same time, Bill Barr testified just the other day that if the violence from Antifa is not stopped, it will metastasize, it will get worse, and it must be crushed.
Sorry to say, this is not a defeat for federal law enforcement.
This is them finally admitting defunding the police, withdrawing police, abolishing police does not work, and you need your police to do their jobs.
If the police do their jobs, then fine.
The feds will withdraw.
So sure, both sides are going to try and declare victory on this one, but in the end, it really does seem like it's the Democrats who've given up.
Now let's read the story and go through everything that's going on.
I'll break down for you exactly how this is happening, because of course, both sides want to say they won.
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Here's the story from K.O.I.N.6.
Wheeler excited for the work ahead as feds withdraw from Portland.
They say, the morning after Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler confirmed his office was in talks with federal officials about the tent situation in downtown Portland, Oregon, Governor Kate Brown announced certain federal officers will be withdrawn.
Governor Brown said federal officers will be withdrawn from Portland by Thursday at the latest.
She tweeted the news early Wednesday morning saying, quote, After my discussions with VP Pence and others, the federal government has agreed to withdraw federal officers from Portland.
They have acted as an occupying force and brought violence.
Starting tomorrow, all Customs and Border Protection and ICE officers will leave downtown Portland.
Leave downtown Portland?
I wonder what that means.
Because according to the actual agreement, they're not going to leave until they're satisfied.
This story from COIN6 is actually fairly biased.
In reality, the New York Times has the story.
Federal agents agree to withdraw from Portland with conditions.
Governor Kate Brown of Oregon said the teams will begin a withdrawal on Thursday.
Federal officials cautioned that they will withdraw only when they are confident the federal courthouse can be secured.
So maybe it is true that they will actually leave Downtown Portland, but it doesn't mean they're actually going to leave completely.
I think the Feds are going to pull back a little bit.
We're going to see Portland police come in, and if the Portland police do their job, then the extra forces that were brought in by DHS no longer need to be there.
Sounds like the Feds will have finally won, forcing the Democrats to bring the police back.
That's been the whole fight, right?
One of the demands from the far leftists has been defunding the police.
Looks like they lost that one.
I'll tell you what.
The New York Times says, Federal tactical teams that have clashed with protesters in Portland in recent weeks will soon begin leaving the city, Governor Kate Brown said on Wednesday.
Under an agreement between Mrs. Brown and the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security, the governor's office at the Oregon State Police will provide security for the exterior of the city's federal courthouse, while the usual team of federal officers that protects the courthouse year-round will continue to provide security for the interior.
And there it is.
The federal officers that work in the building will stay.
Hold on a minute.
Wasn't it another demand of the far left that the feds would leave?
Oh.
They're not.
So let's talk about their demands so far.
Did they defund the police?
No.
In fact, they're sending the police back out.
Are the feds leaving?
You could argue technically yes, but no.
The federal officers that are normally there will remain.
Are they going to?
Is Mayor Ted Wheeler going to resign?
No.
And are the protesters being released from jail unconditionally?
No.
The far left has lost completely.
The Democrats have realized they're looking worse and worse every day, especially with Bill Barr's hearing last night, when the Republicans showed all of the violence sweeping this country, including two months of violence in Portland.
It was making Trump look good, and they realized it.
So they decided, send in the police, we've got to stop this.
The Democrats were becoming this weird... Look, a lot of people were starting to point out that they were abandoning the Democratic Party, I'm not saying all or most, but many, because of this weird experiment in non-policing, forcing Trump to be the only one willing to enforce the law.
And then guess what people started thinking?
Maybe in the suburbs, where they're like, not in my backyard, right?
Well, if Trump's gonna be the only one who'll do it and the Democrats keep standing down, then why vote for the Democrats?
They realized they had to get tough.
Take a look at this statement from Kate Brown.
She says, after my discussion with VP Pence and others, they're gonna be withdrawing and occupying force.
You get it, right?
Our local Oregon State police officers will be downtown to protect Oregonians' right to free speech and keep the peace.
Let's center the Black Lives Matter movement's demands on racial justice and police accountability.
It's time for bold action to reform police practices.
I gotta tell you, it's not even about the Portland police.
They're sending in state police.
This is beyond surrender.
They're adding state forces.
The Democratic governor said, fine, we will send in more police, please.
Just make it stop.
I tell you what, man.
DHS has won on this one.
Acting Secretary Chad Wolf says, We're glad Oregon is now correcting their months-long error.
And he's right.
They are.
Play any game you want.
what we asked for since the nightly violence broke out two months ago.
We're glad Oregon is now correcting their months-long error.
And he's right.
They are.
Play any game you want.
They are.
He says, we will maintain our current augmented federal law enforcement personnel in Portland
until we are assured that the Hatfield Federal Courthouse and other federal properties will
no longer be attacked and that the seat of justice in Portland will remain secure.
DHSGov will not back down from our legal duty to protect federal law enforcement officers and federal properties in the face of violent criminal behavior.
POTUS made clear that this administration is ready and willing to partner with state and local law enforcement to protect every American, and you see that commitment in Portland with this plan.
In fact, they issued this huge list of facts and myths.
Saying that, you know, the myth, Trump administration deployed federal troops to the streets of Portland.
Fact.
DHS personnel sent to protect federal facilities in Portland are sworn civilian federal law enforcement officers, not military.
And they're protecting federal buildings.
They had to issue all of this because it's been one big game of propaganda.
But as we move on to the next and the most important subject, let me just make it very, very clear.
So we can say definitively, the Democrats have surrendered.
They have surrendered.
And dare I say, you could argue it's unconditional.
Maybe not, fair to say, because they want the Feds to leave.
But they have agreed that they will send in Oregon State Police to secure the building, and then, once they've proven it, the Feds will leave.
Sounds like the Feds are getting everything they've asked for in exchange for nothing.
Well, Bill Barr said it best the other day.
AG Barr thinks Antifa will spread if states don't squash the violence.
He's right.
He's absolutely right.
And that's why the feds were defending the courthouse.
You cannot allow these extremists to do whatever they want.
And look, the press made Trump look good.
Well, let's see exactly what Bill Barr had to say.
Attorney General William Barr is concerned that Antifa-led violence will grow and spread across the country if state officials allow riots to continue rocking their cities.
During a hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Barr pushed back on New York Rep.
Jerry Nadler's claim that violence in Portland by the extremist group is a myth.
I don't think it's a myth.
Barr said adding the violent far-left radical group was heavily represented in recent riots.
This is the important part.
Why is it that the DHS has demanded, demanded that Oregon send in more police?
Bill Barr made it clear yesterday.
If the states, if the state officials allow the riots, Antifa will spread.
So when the state officials in Oregon agreed to the demands of DHS to actually enforce the law, now they said, good, now we're happy.
Because like Bill Barr said, if they allow it, Antifa will get worse.
Now, this is a typo.
This is a mistake by the New York Post.
There's a quote here.
It's a national organization that moves nationally.
They tend to get organized for an event, and there's a lot of organization right before an event occurs.
But we see a lot of the organization during the mob violence.
This is actually a false quote by the New York Post.
I am going to issue a fact check here.
What he actually said was, I'm not suggesting it's a national organization that moves nationally.
Matt Gaetz then floated using RICO laws, famously used to prosecute mafia figures to prosecute an organization like this, and Barr agreed that Antifa attacking federal property was a problem that could metastasize if the government doesn't shut it down.
So Barr was actually saying, it's not a national organization.
It's a bunch of different organizations, but they will grow, they will be emboldened unless something is done.
We are concerned about this problem metastasizing around the country.
Barr defended his decision to deploy more than 100 federal troops to downtown Portland, where Oregon officials have allowed hundreds of demonstrations to riot for two months and repeatedly attempt to burn down a federal courthouse.
Yes, and the other day I said it.
Bill Barr obliterated the lies.
lawmakers insisted the protests were peaceful and a wall of moms as Barr reminded them that
demonstrators came armed with rifles and explosive devices and had injured multiple officers.
Yes, and the other day I said it, Bill Barr obliterated the lies. He said, since when
is it OK to try and burn down a federal courthouse?
Yesterday at the hearing, the Democrats desperately tried to make it seem like they were peaceful protests and
Bill Barr was deploying storm troopers around the country and it's all fake news.
And now even the Democrats in Oregon have agreed to the conditions of the federal government.
They say, When asked if federal troops should abandon the city and withdraw, Barr said he had no doubt the violence would spread.
We feel that we have to in a place like Portland, where when we don't have the support of the state, the local government, we have to take a stand and defend this federal property.
We can't get to a level where we're going to accept these kinds of violent attacks on a federal court.
In Portland, we have a relatively small number of federal officers who have been withstanding this for almost two months.
It's a great strain, but we cannot just stand aside and allow the federal court to be destroyed.
President Trump has tried to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization.
Well, Bill Barr said he doesn't think it's an organization in that capacity, but they will be investigated under these sort of terms.
So, I want to show you, well, here's a tweet from Michael Tracy before we move on to the next point, because he makes a great point.
He says, however exactly you want to define Antifa, it's not true that they are powerless saps.
Ideological insurrectionists helped spark the most widespread riots in at least 50 years.
Local governments are passing laws to accommodate their demands.
Democratic officials bizarrely defend them.
And he's right.
This is what I want to get to next.
Democrats seek to shame Barr over politics at the Justice Department.
Now, what I find truly fascinating in this hearing is that they didn't actually hear anything.
They spoke over Bill Barr, didn't give him a chance to speak, and actually engaged in complete and utter nonsense.
I want to read this for you from the Washington Post, but I got to show you this.
This post right here kind of proves everything.
The Washington Examiner has a snippet He was disrespectful, spoke over top of every one of us, in particular, he spoke over women.
He was flanked by at least 10 staffers, not a person of color among them.
Rep.
Dean, so this is Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, and I believe she's part of the, you know, yes, she's in the House Judiciary Committee, accuses Barr of being disrespectful and living in a bubble.
Listen to what she had to say.
unidentified
His willingness to say one thing and in a single statement flip his own answer.
He did that with me.
When I said, uh, do you believe it's ever appropriate to use pepper balls against protesters?
He said, no.
And then he wanted to flip back and he said, well, wait a second.
When asked if it was okay to use pepper balls against protesters, he said no.
And Bill Barr is 100% correct.
Peaceful protesters who are marching around, you don't fire pepper balls at.
Rioters, however, you do.
But you heard it from Madeline Dean.
He couldn't keep a straight answer.
I asked him, and he said, no, you can't against protesters, but yes, against rioters.
What?
Does she think that they're the same thing?
Because they're not.
And that was the problem with everything that happened at this hearing.
We need to get to the root of what's going on.
We need law enforcement to do their job.
Instead, what do we get?
The Democrats bizarrely defend the far-left extremists.
Mayor Ted Wheeler goes out and joins them.
And then they declare victory when they finally say, fine, we'll actually enforce the law.
They've been losing the whole time.
And they've had some victories, but I'll tell you what's really, really weird about everything they've done over the past several years is that they keep losing.
Impeachment was a failure.
The Covington thing was a disaster for the left, for the media, for the Democrats.
Ukraine gate fizzled out, ultimately, with impeachment.
Russia gate was a failure.
How many times do they have to be wrong, and how many times do they have to lose before they realize this stuff doesn't work?
You can't play these stupid games.
Their pathetic attempt at manipulation isn't working.
And by shouting down Bill Barr, they just look, well, rather unhinged.
But of course, I'll tell you what.
Democrats seek to shame Barr over politics.
Yeah.
You know what I think they were really trying to do?
I don't think it had anything to do with Bill Barr.
It had everything to do with them trying to get re-elected.
While Bill Barr was supposed to be talking about far-left extremism and the Portland riots, they were screaming about Roger Stone and Donald Trump, and they wouldn't even let him speak.
There's now supercut videos popping up of the Democrats saying things like, I'll reclaim my time, I'll reclaim my time.
No.
They've lost this one.
Absolutely lost it.
When the Republicans were questioning Bill Barr, they let him say what he needed to say.
The Democrats didn't.
You know why?
The Democrats knew that if Bill Barr spoke up, it would prove them wrong.
In one of the questions that's gone viral, he was asked about protesters in front of the White House that were cleared out by federal law enforcement and military police.
He was asked, or he was told, I believe it was a question, that some high-ranking religious officials had condemned The action in clearing out these protests, and Bill Barr said, was that before or after we put out the fire.
And that was a mic drop moment.
Yeah.
For political reasons, people want to scream Orange Man bad and Bill Barr bad.
But they have picked a fight they cannot win right now, especially against Bill Barr.
Bill Barr served as the Attorney General, and I believe it was 91 to 93, under George H.W.
Bush.
And according to several articles, I've looked back.
I'm thinking, look, they're all screaming, Bill Barr is the devil!
He is a crony mobster to Donald Trump!
I said, okay, if this guy has served as the AG before, and he's telling us right now these are violent rioters trying to burn down a church, we need to stop the violence before it spreads, and they're defending the rioters and condemning Barr, something doesn't make sense because they didn't condemn him last time.
Sure enough, back in the day, both Democrats and Republicans alike actually liked Bill Barr.
It was a genius move of Donald Trump, and I mean it, to bring Bill Barr on to deal with I mean, to be the Attorney General, because now it may be that he's biased against the left, but it seems like Bill Barr is biased against the left much in the same way I am.
I do not understand how you have someone trying to burn down a federal courthouse and the media and the Democrats actively lie for and defend these people.
One of the Democrats said, how did, you know, there was a group of armed men carrying Confederate flags, you know, demanding the governor be beheaded, protesting, and you didn't know about that one.
That says to me, blah, blah, blah, says nothing.
Peaceful protesters who are armed and probably saying some abhorrent things, sure.
Standing around and doing nothing does not require a federal response.
More importantly, it was on state property, not federal property.
Here's the reality, and the left is not telling... Look, man, I feel bad.
There are a lot of people that don't want to accept the truth.
And the truth is, Portland police stood down.
There were no state police, and it was up to the DHS to defend this courthouse.
So they send in more, more officers, CBP and ICE, to assist U.S.
Marshals who are being beaten back.
Why?
To prevent catastrophe.
Because if these swarms attacked a marshal and he was in fear for his life, and he used live ammo because he would rather not die, that would be worse.
Bringing in more officers, detaining people for questioning, and putting up barriers helped stop the extreme violence.
And the reality is now, the Democrats in Oregon have finally dropped to their knees for the DHS and said, we will do whatever you say, just please stop making Trump look good.
Yeah, because it was Trump who was saying, we are going to enforce the law.
And now Oregon State will be sending in state police, bolstering the police under their authority and their jurisdiction.
And that flies in the face of the narrative of defund the police.
It flies in the face of their narrative of Trump's secret police, because now they got their own.
They lost.
They lost everything.
The far left got none of their demands.
You can argue the Feds are leaving, but I'm pretty sure they wanted all of the Feds out, not some of the Feds out.
And for now, the Feds will only leave once they feel comfortable.
The demands from the far leftists, of course, are absurd.
And I can't tell you why it is the Democrats think it's a winning platform to adopt.
But unfortunately, perhaps, the real issue is people, they don't know anything about what's going on, and they just believe whatever they're told.
Now, you've heard all the stories about unmarked and unidentified police snatching people up, and of course it's fake news.
I mean, look, unmarked vehicles and plainclothes cops have existed for a very, very long time.
It's not a new thing.
But the media hypes it up to make the Democrats look good, just like this story here.
Jailed Portland protesters must agree to stop going to protests to be freed.
This is an extreme exaggeration that we see.
It's propagandistic warfare.
Newsweek puts this out either because the author is too inept to actually Google search how this works or what's really going on, or they want to take something that's actually normal and make it seem shocking and extreme.
Now, you may be saying, Tim, but wait a minute.
How could they be told they can't protest?
It's a violation of their First Amendment rights.
People who get arrested for committing a crime have bail conditions.
And yes, sometimes you have certain rights restricted.
This is not necessarily a violation of their First Amendment rights.
If they have been arrested for engaging in a violent riot, and a condition of their bail is, we're going to release you until your court date, but we don't want you to go to any more of these events because you were literally arrested for rioting there.
That's actually a normal thing, okay?
You can argue it shouldn't be allowed.
You can argue it shouldn't be normal.
That's okay.
That's fine.
Maybe I'll agree, right?
That's not the point.
The point is, this has been done over and over and over again, and it's part of bail conditions.
During Occupy Wall Street, they arrested tons of people on the Brooklyn Bridge.
I think it was like 800 people tried crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.
They all got arrested.
As part of their plea conditions, they said, okay, I'll tell you what.
Plead guilty, and you will get court supervision.
That's it.
However, you can't join the protests again.
That's your condition.
And most of the people said yes.
Now, a lot of people back then were also upset by this too, but the reason I'm bringing this up is that this happens.
You can't expect them to be like, look, imagine if you got caught robbing a bank, and it was like, you know, super duper national bank.
And then you get arrested.
They say we'll release you on bond under the condition that you do not return to that bank.
Is that a violation of their freedom of movement or their right to bank?
No!
You were arrested for allegedly trying to rob the bank.
So if they tell you not to show up to the scene of the crime again because you're facing trial, probably a good idea not to do it.
But of course, the narrative emerging is that it's a violation of their rights, and perhaps maybe fine.
The point is, it happens.
It happens all the time.
And you can't expect them to be like, we've arrested you, we're gonna release you, go ahead and go right back.
In Portland, they do, actually, though.
The Portland grand juries, the citizens don't want to indict these people.
They get released.
This is an ongoing problem, and it proves that Bill Barr is right.
Antifa violence will spread unless the state starts doing something.
That includes prosecuting, and that includes sending out the police, like they've now agreed to do.
So, dare I say, Bill Barr and the DHS have totally won this, an unconditional surrender by the left.
The DHS will only leave after they send their police in.
If the police agreed to leave, and then the state would send in police, I'd call that, you know, a kind of ceasefire.
But considering the feds have announced they will remain until they secure it, that's them saying, here are conditions to leave, give us what we want.
So okay, not an unconditional surrender, but a surrender nonetheless.
We'll see how this plays out tonight.
Next segment's coming up at 6 p.m.
over at youtube.com slash TimCastNews, and I will see you all there.
Oh, well, this has got to be embarrassing for the mayor of Seattle.
The other night she gave an interview where she said that Trump was doing a dry run for martial law at literally the same time Trump was withdrawing the federal forces from Seattle to avoid an escalation.
Oops, spoke too soon.
Well, here's the big news.
Donald Trump is now negotiating with Oregon to pull the federal officers out of the courthouse, the heightened officer presence.
I believe the U.S.
Marshals would still remain because Mayor Ted Wheeler called for a ceasefire, which is kind of funny because why would he have the authority to actually authorize a ceasefire?
Is he negotiating on behalf of Antifa?
Do they work for him or listen to what he has to say?
Apparently they do.
And now Donald Trump is talking about taking out the heightened presence from Portland.
Maybe that makes sense.
Maybe he got his message across.
I'm not entirely sure.
We've seen protests and riots across the country since then.
People have still been attacking and trying to vandalize statues, although things have died down quite a bit.
So I want to read you the latest on what's going on.
This is big news.
Trump, federal agents pull out of Seattle.
That's it.
Straight up, last night, the feds are out.
What are they going to complain about now?
But I've got to give one very important PSA to all, all of these activists who don't seem to understand anything about law enforcement or what's going on.
First of all, let me just say, unmarked vehicles are used by police all the time.
For decades.
For probably longer than decades.
Yes, that's right.
For as long as vehicles have existed, I'm sure police have had unmarked vehicles.
Guess what else?
Plainclothes police of- plainclothes cops exist!
That's right!
Sometimes you'll be walking down the street and there'll be a cop and you won't even know.
You know why?
Because you're wearing a t-shirt and jeans.
It's called a plainclothes police officer.
They exist.
Not only that, there are undercover police officers.
Why is anyone shocked that this is happening?
But more importantly, I have to say this because this is one of the most annoying things I keep hearing and it never goes away.
The police Do not have to read you your rights when you are being arrested.
That is a movie trope.
Stop getting your news from movies.
It's not how the real world works.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen stories like this with the feds in Portland or the activists and they're like, bro, the cops are arresting people and they're not reading their rights because they don't have to.
Mirandizing someone.
You know, when they say you have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do.
That is for the legal protection of the police.
It is for them.
Not for you.
For them.
They're trying to legally protect themselves in the event they want to go after more than just you.
If they want to investigate.
But if the police literally watch you throw a brick, they don't need to read you your rights because they know you did it.
In fact, they technically don't even need to read you your rights.
If you're out in a riot, they can be like, probable cause.
We had reason to suspect.
They were arrested.
And if you start talking and then trying to argue later that, well, I wasn't read my rights, it still might not even work.
The whole point of Mirandizing is, well, I don't say the whole point, but the gist of it generally is that they want to make sure that their arrest and conviction of you is clean.
And that you will have no arguments against them.
So please, stop pretending like unmarked vehicles is a new thing, stop pretending like cops wearing regular clothes is a new thing, and stop demanding they read you your rights when that's their legal protection, and they have no obligation to protect themselves from you unless they choose to.
But that's like one of the big stories happening right now in New York.
Apparently, during a protest the other day, an unmarked van pulled up, and plainclothes cops— I don't think they were necessarily plainclothes, I think they were, but they were wearing, like, vests with police on it— pulled up and arrested one of these protesters, or— I don't know what you would call it in New York, because New York really doesn't have rioting.
I guess they have, like, raucous protest.
I guess you can call it— It's hard to say, because, to be honest, like, is it a riot if a bunch of people are running full speed through the streets?
No, not really.
So call it whatever you want, but they arrested one of these people, and now there's like a big scandal where everyone's like, they didn't read this person their rights.
Why is the NYPD snatching people up with unmarked vehicles?
Like, dude, do you live in New York?
Like, every vehicle from the cops is unmarked.
Well, I guess maybe you don't notice.
They have cabs.
In New York City, there are taxi cabs.
They're actually cop cars.
It'll look like a cab, and then you'll drive past, you'll see a bunch of cops, and you'll be like, hey, wait a minute, what's up with that?
It's because they disguise cop cars as cabs.
It's even worse than unmarked.
So anyway, anyway, I digress.
There's my PSA to all of you.
Chill.
But here's the real serious maneuver that's happening.
The big major update.
Federal agents are pulling out of Seattle and thousands of protests in Portland for the 62nd night as the Trump administration holds talks to pull federal troops out.
And it's revealed the city is fining DHS $500 every 15 minutes for the unauthorized courthouse fence.
Good luck collecting on that.
Trump's gonna be like, all right, we'll pay up.
Through the federal funds we're already giving you.
Here's what we're gonna do.
That million dollars we're giving you in a grant for your law enforcement, we're gonna cut that in half and then give you the half back to pay the fine.
Congratulations.
You can't, like, get free money from someone and then say that they owe you money.
They'll be like, oh, okay, I'll stop giving you the free money.
I've paid you back.
Let's see what's going on in Seattle.
U.S.
agents deployed to Seattle to protect federal property have left the city after local officials complained their presence was escalating tensions, Seattle's mayor said on Tuesday.
U.S.
tactical forces arrived in Washington state's largest city last week and were on standby to protect federal facilities after attacks on a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon.
I gotta stop.
Listen.
Do you know why these were deployed?
The federal agents, officers, were deployed because they were expecting violence over the weekend.
Guess what?
The weekend has long since passed.
So now it makes sense that they're like, okay, weekend is over.
We didn't see the big bad riots.
We didn't need to come out.
Everybody come on back.
That's simple.
That's simple.
They keep trying to pretend like Trump is deploying, you know, the secret police across the country.
It's not happening.
Mayor Jenny Durkan tweeted Tuesday that the Department of Homeland Security told her that U.S.
Border Patrol Tactical Unit agents had left Seattle.
DHS did not immediately respond to her request for comment.
Then why was it that the other day she appeared on CNN saying, we are seeing a dry run for martial law?
Think about how duplicitous and deceitful these people are.
The mayor knows full well Trump was like, alright, send them all home, you know, there was no riot, we gotta go.
And she still wants to push the stupid narrative that Trump is trying to enact martial law while he simultaneously withdraws federal forces from a courthouse for which is their own jurisdiction.
It's all a big lie, isn't it?
A big game.
You know what, man, let me tell you.
The Miranda thing really gets to me.
Because it is the perfect example of all of these people being dumb as a box of rocks.
And you know, I often don't try to be overly disrespectful, but you could at least Google search it.
If you don't know, well now you know.
And if you didn't, why don't you just use Google?
It's amazing!
The summation of human knowledge accessed through a tiny little device you keep in your pocket and these people don't have the wherewithal to actually do it.
So, they go around making claims about things that are not true.
Trump is martial law!
An unmarked van came!
Have you ever- look at- look, you know what?
Look at it.
I- I saw somebody, you know, I made a comment, and they said, uh, you know, why aren't they reading the Miranda- Miranda Rights?
And I was just like, Stop getting your news from movies.
I'm sure many of these people also think that silencers go pew, pew, pew, because they've never actually investigated what these things really do.
You see a movie and, like, the guy puts on the silencer and goes pew, pew.
Like, no, that's not how suppressors work.
They don't know that because they get all their information from movies.
And in movies, they want to make the arrest look cool so the cop will grab them and go, you have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say or do.
Yeah, and that's what their basis for reality is.
Think about how messed up that is that we have a whole generation of people who base reality off of movie tropes that are meant to be shocking and sensational.
Durkin is among Democratic mayors who have called for an end to violence at protests against racism and police brutality after Republican President Donald Trump used images of destruction for his re-election campaign.
A whole bunch of Democrat resistance type people started tweeting that these far leftists may as well be wearing Trump badges because they're helping him get re-elected.
And then all of a sudden, these stories started popping up.
Actually, these people wearing black are Hell's Angels and white supremacists.
I kid you not.
There's a story right now going around that's claiming one of the dudes in Minneapolis was going around smashing windows, wearing all black, is actually a Hell's Angel.
And their evidence?
Somebody heard from a friend, and then sworn an affidavit that their friend said it, and that's it.
Yeah, that's the evidence.
No, oh please, dude.
No, no, no, no.
That is not what's happening.
What's happening is they finally realize, uh-oh, riots are bad, and they make Trump look good.
And people trust police, and people like seeing the rioters get stopped.
They like justice.
So when you, you know, everybody's trying to fight for the justice video, right?
Let me explain.
People love it.
This is what caused a lot of our predicaments today.
They love it when you see a video of someone getting served comeuppance.
There's subreddits, there's viral forums dedicated just to this.
You'll see someone like, you know, a bully will be yelling and then someone will walk up and punch the bully in the face and they'll go, justice served!
Woo!
People love it.
That's what they want to get out of all of these videos.
The rioters are fighting for justice, right?
Uh-oh.
Now people don't agree.
Now the police are trying to quell the rioters.
And where's the justice?
The perception is on the side of the police.
And it was bound to be because people just trust cops more.
They can try and push the narrative over and over again that these are like Gestapo secret police.
Sorry.
So as soon as they realized Trump was using the destruction to help him, they were like, no!
Oh no!
And now they're trying to accuse Bill Barr of helping Trump get re-election videos, and it's just the stupidest thing ever.
So we understand all this, but let's jump over to Oregon.
Donald Trump may actually withdraw the federal forces from the courthouse.
I don't believe he would, but he's talking about it.
Check this out.
The Trump administration has initiated talks with the Oregon governor's office about withdrawing federal agents deployed to quell protests as Portland officials reveal the city is fining the government $500 every 15 minutes for erecting an unauthorized fence around its courthouse.
The White House said it would agree to draw down the presence of troops if the state stepped up its own enforcement, an anonymous senior White House official told the AP Tuesday.
Now, what are the chances that Portland will send out its own police?
Probably slim to none.
That's why I don't think Trump will actually be withdrawing from the courthouse.
But look, man.
I think Trump can play it fair, and it won't matter.
They will try to manipulate the game to the best of their abilities.
Trump is doing the right thing.
Okay, look, we can take out these DHS guys, but they're only there because your police are standing down.
Bring your police back, and we'll take our guys out.
And they're gonna be like, no.
Because the Portland Police Bureau even put up an announcement last week saying, like, we are not engaging these protesters.
That's not us.
Don't look at us.
We're not escalating.
So if they won't come out and protect the courthouse and protect the downtown area, Trump will not withdraw forces.
They say the news came as the city of Portland announced its own action against the deployment of troops by fining the federal government until it removes an unpermitted fence around the Mark O. Hatfield courthouse.
Think about how insane that is.
How insane it is that they're like, we understand you've put up a fence.
Basically, on your property.
It is obstructing a bike lane because it's just off the sidewalk.
To protect your building from violent insurrectionists who are lobbing explosives and starting fires, but we are going to force you to remove what is protecting your officers.
You want to talk about escalation?
That is escalation.
Threatening the government with fines, although I really don't think they're gonna have strong legal standing.
We'll see how that plays out.
Because the federal agents are trying to protect themselves.
And yes, extreme violence is literally upon us.
So maybe they do need a fence, and maybe... You know, it doesn't matter.
It's war, baby.
I'm not going to pretend like it's the worst of the worst.
On a scale of 1 to 10, it's probably a 1 or a 2.
But it is.
Two factions fighting for control of a certain area.
The mayor of Portland is making it seem like he can negotiate on behalf of these people.
Trump is willing to pull the troops out if they step up enforcement, but they won't.
Why?
They're suing the federal government.
They're supporting these groups.
The mayor literally joins them.
Check this out.
Man, 32, who set fire to Portland's police headquarters during the city's riots is arrested after cops spotted his name tattooed on his back in security footage.
What a moron.
But so at least the police are arresting this guy, right?
So I believe it's probably Portland police who made the arrest.
A 32-year-old man has been arrested and charged with arson for allegedly setting fire to a Portland public building.
A police headquarters?
A public building?
During the early days of the George Floyd protests in Portland, Edward Thomas Shinzing, 32, is accused of using fire to maliciously damage the city's Justice Center, which houses the Multnomah County Jail and the Portland Police Bureau headquarters.
I have to imagine there were people in the jail.
Was he trying to hurt them?
And then we have over in Colorado, check this out.
Protester.
Oh, protester, you say?
23 is arrested for attempted murder after he shot and wounded two demonstrators at a Colorado rally while aiming at a Jeep that drove into the crowd.
Arrested for attempted murder.
So you want to complain about unmarked vehicles and Miranda rights and all this other dumb nonsense and claim Trump's doing a trial run for martial law when your protesters, I'm a protester in air quotes, are literally being arrested for attempted murder because they are shooting at people.
You know what, man?
I don't know what the solution to all this is.
I think if Trump backs down, they're going to rush forward.
I think we're going to see more and more of this.
It's going to be this way well after election day.
Well after.
We're not gonna know who won.
I mean, unless it's like a ridiculous landslide where literally every vote is for Trump, which I doubt will happen.
I think it's closer than people realize.
But, you know, there's a lot of things happening that conspire to, and I mean this figuratively, you know, shift your perspective on who's winning and who's losing.
And that's what it is.
It's a propaganda war.
You know, you see stories like this.
I see stories about a guy being arrested for attempted murder who shot protesters.
And I have to imagine regular people are saying, enough.
We don't want this.
But then you see other stories about people saying Donald Trump is a sick man.
Literally, it's a quote from some voters.
And that he's trying to enforce martial law and stuff.
And there's a lot of people who want to vote against Trump.
But I'll tell you what, to me, is the most worrying.
The police in Portland may, uh, well, not the police, the federal police, may use tactics that some people don't like.
They're being put in a decision dilemma, that's what the far left calls it.
The idea is to make it so that no matter what they do, they will look bad.
Lobbing explosives and injuring police, and then when they try and defend themselves, now they're the bad guys.
That's the point.
They, like, sneak up to you, hit you, and then as soon as you strike back, they yell, help, help, I'm being attacked, so you look like the victim.
So they look like the victim, the cops look like the aggressors.
It's the nature of the propaganda war, right?
People are trying to act like who, you know, the other side is the real big baddie.
And that's why, you know, here's what I'm trying to get to.
When I look at all the news all day, every day, and I see things like this, I'm like, the police clearly aren't the bad guys.
You know why?
Because the police have accountability.
Maybe not perfect accountability.
Maybe many, many, you know, cops often go, don't get held accountable for bad actions, but Antifa has zero accountability.
Zero.
If a cop does something, and it's bad, and people catch them, well this cop is going to get in trouble, there's internal affairs, they will be held accountable.
With Antifa, they literally all mask themselves in similar ways, and then use these tactics to make sure no one will ever hold them accountable.
Only the police will.
The protesters, the violent ones, are not the ones holding the cops accountable.
It's our own institutions.
It's like this.
A cop does something bad, then all of these activists scream and chant, and then finally, the institution itself goes in and arrests the officer.
Notably, what happened in Minnesota with Chauvin.
The activists didn't grab him and detain him and carry him away.
The police did that.
The institution of law, you know, our justice system did that.
And the guy, in my opinion, is probably going to get some kind of conviction.
We'll see how it plays out.
They may have gone a little too heavy-handed on the charges against that guy.
Because, you know, whether they can prove some of these things.
But when you look at the activists, there is not a single moment that I can point to where Antifa will stop some other Antifa.
No, they're proud of their destruction, but rarely you will see some protesters like we did, I believe it was in DC, where they grabbed the Antifa guy, threw him to the cops.
It is rare when the activists hold the extremists accountable.
And the extremists, they take charge, and the dumb people who get their views from movies and TV shows are the ones who now are enabling these people, and they're going to vote based on all of this.
So here's the point.
If you think that unmarked vehicles are new and shocking, you need to read.
You need to actually Google search things.
If you think that cops not in uniform is shocking, then I need to introduce you to every law enforcement agency literally everywhere.
All over the world.
So who are these people who are so isolated and so insulated they've never actually experienced regular policing?
The reality is this is the epitome of snowplow parenting.
That's why I'm not surprised many of these people get arrested.
Many of these far leftists are suburbanite, college-educated, making more than $100,000 a year, typically white.
They're the people who grew up in the suburbs who never actually saw real police work.
They've never seen someone get detained and searched.
They maybe got pulled over and then started throwing a hissy fit because the cop was like, your taillight's out.
That's not fair.
I shouldn't get a ticket.
Fine, ma'am.
You get a warning.
They're not used to actually being held accountable.
It's like AOC said.
She imagines reforming the police like the suburbs.
People ask her, what do you think abolishing the police or defunding them would look like?
It's just kind of like how the suburbs are.
Are the suburbs as population dense as Manhattan?
Are the suburbs as impoverished as parts of Manhattan where the crime tends to emerge from?
No.
These people are inept and clueless.
And that's the truly scary thing to me, is that you can see the ones who get in office.
It's almost like, I've mentioned this before, the internet has created two principal factions.
I recently took the eight values test.
I take these tests all the time.
I tweeted about it.
Guess what it says?
It says Tim Pool is a liberal.
The closest political ideology is liberalism.
Oh heavens!
Isn't that surprising to anybody?
I guess to the far left it actually paid attention.
But it said for the most part I'm like a centrist, actually kind of progressive, actually kind of an intern, you know, in favor of international diplomacy.
And there you go.
But here's what we see.
People like me, who would be a traditional liberal, standing side by side with someone who's like a Trump supporter, literally my buddy on the TimCast IRL podcast who was wearing a MAGA beanie last night, because we agree on certain things about what reality really is.
Like, you get arrested when you throw a firebomb at a police station.
The other side doesn't because they have no idea what's going on and perhaps they lack the cognitive faculties to actually break this down.
Now, I'll tell you this.
It's true that there absolutely are Trump supporters who also lack cognitive faculties, but the separation that's emerging is you've got a bunch of people who blindly support Trump and wave little MAGA flags and probably also don't know what's going on and don't care.
You then have a large group of people who read the news every day and say something like, Attempted murder is bad.
The man should be arrested.
But the other side, the bulk of it, does have... It's an inversion, right?
Check it out.
Here's the way I see it.
A certain portion of the right is mindless drones for Trump.
But the larger portion is rational, reasonable individuals who watch the news, have a general understanding of what's going on, probably most of the people watching, and recognize that freedom and liberty is right now not on the side of the Democrats.
And you may, whether you want to argue it's on the side of Trump or not, it's the best shot most people have at maintaining some kind of constitutional normalcy.
The left is inverted.
Most of the left are mindless drones who think you must berate your Miranda rights because they saw a movie that one time.
But a small portion are very smart and active and weaponize the ignorance for personal gain.
And they're very smart.
They'll accuse me of doing literally what they're doing.
Now look, when I do a story on, say, the Democrats being charged with fraud, I'm proud of this.
I said straight up, here's the Republican who was as well, and here's my reasoning for why I personally have this kind of bias.
Oh, they don't do that.
You'll see activists on the far left, I'm not going to name the guy, saying that Garrett Foster, I believe his name was, or Forrester, whatever, Foster, I think, the guy in Austin who got shot, was unarmed.
They lie, and it's overt.
And you end up with a large faction of people who don't understand why unmarked cars are used, why their rights aren't being read, and they literally don't read the news.
They just believe whatever trash is spit into their ears by these grifters.
So yeah, there's a problem on the right of people who are kind of mindless zombies for Trump, but it's the smaller portion for the most part.
There's a large, zealous base of Trump supporters.
There's a lot of people who believe a lot of crazy things.
But I'm not saying hard numbers.
What I'm saying is the majority of people who right now are saying Biden is bad, who find themselves more likely to vote for Trump, are not all blind zealots.
It's people saying this is the best chance we have, even with Trump's faults.
And boy, there are many.
Biden.
If you vote for that man, you've got a death wish.
Seriously.
The dude doesn't know where he is.
That's how insane some of these people are.
They just read the news, they're told things by activists, and they roll with it.
Well, we'll see how things play out, man.
Moving forward.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up at 1pm on this channel, and I will see you all then.
Did a grandmother publish a review for a fake vest for an Antifa extremist, thus kind of doxing him?
The answer is a maybe, probably not, but maybe.
The story is hilarious.
Many people are reporting it as though it's confirmed.
I can't say it's confirmed, but...
There's at least some reason to believe it might actually be true, and maybe this one will just make you laugh, I suppose.
Though listen, I'm leaning towards this not being true.
There is some reason to suggest this dude, okay?
He's this Antifa guy who was seen throwing an explosive of some sort.
He's trying to like White Knight for the Naked Athena Lady, and now a review has been found from about 8 or 9 days ago, actually 9 days ago at this point, claiming the vest is great and it was bought by Grandmother, who is in fact, according to this website, a verified purchaser, so it could just be a clever hoax.
Until I have harder confirmation, I'm just gonna say it probably is, but it's a verified purchaser leaving a review claiming to be the grandmother of this man who is seen in video throwing explosives and white knighting for Naked Athena.
So let's start from the beginning.
Okay.
You know the story of Naked Athena?
Why, she is the woman in Portland who stripped all of her clothes off for no reason, sat down in the street, and spread her legs for the police.
And, and, aw man, it was like ABC News, I think it was ABC, I can't remember which outlet.
They were like, she emerged from the tear gas, like some kind of naked Athena.
Yes, very weird, creepy, fine, she can do whatever she wants.
But, but along comes this fella right here, you see him on the right.
What he's doing in this photo is he's holding up a shield to protect naked Athena.
And it's one of the cringiest things I've ever seen.
Because she keeps trying to push him out of the way, clearly trying to do her photo op, but he keeps standing in front of her and pushing her back.
It's like, dude, stop touching the lady.
If she wants to walk around naked and do her photo shoot, let her do it.
This guy cringes me out, for sure.
But look at this photo on the left.
There he is sitting on this sports car, a red vehicle of some sort.
I don't know what it is.
With the mask on, wearing the same vest and the same shirt.
It looks like he either wears the same clothes or was taken on the same day.
In fact, that's why I think it may be a very, very clever hoax.
There's a couple outlets that are reporting on this.
I don't think it's confirmed.
But anyway, you have this guy.
He's the shield for Naked Athena.
Then you have another video that's been going around.
Actually, a couple videos showing different angles of this Antifa extremist lobbing something at the federal courthouse, followed by a big explosion.
I'm very careful in the language I use.
You don't actually see what he throws land, and then watch it explode.
So, I think it's fair to say he threw an explosive, but I just want to make sure that's clear.
In the video, he throws something, there's an explosion.
Probably from him?
Maybe not, though.
I don't know for sure.
Let's read a little bit of the story and I'll try and break this one down for you as to the veracity of this.
I do want to point out as well, however, as we move forward, I'm definitely going to be debunking the story of the NYPD van.
This whole segment is going to be about challenging the fake news narrative.
Let's start here.
An Antifa rioter in Portland who threw an explosive device at the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse has been identified in an online review of the vest he was wearing, presumably left by his grandmother.
The Postmillennial's Ian Miles Chong tweeted Tuesday night.
Apparently the guy who threw an explosive at the federal courthouse in Portland has been identified in a review of the vest his grandma bought for him to riot in.
You couldn't make this up.
There is a meme.
of this like punk rock looking dude with like mohawk spikes and there's like a very nice mom fixing the red mask and he's like come on mom hurry up I gotta go fight fascism that's the joke that these people are children they have never experienced the real world and they're they're LARPing essentially this fits that trope perfectly which is why I think people are so so ready to believe it They say the militant threw an explosive device at the courthouse on Monday night, which has been the site of ongoing rioting.
The review of the protest vest was written on Hibbit, the site that sells the vest.
It's called the Hudson Men's Icons Reflective Vest.
I got this for my grandson, who's a protester downtown.
He uses it every night and says it's done the job, Antifa grandma wrote under the product listing.
Another review asked, does this vest come with immunity from a federal indictment?
And another noted, the vest is good for protesting, bad for anonymity.
But it's just anonymous, so that's kind of unrelated.
The same militant can also be seen in videos acting as a shield for a naked protester.
Oh, jeez.
Yes, that's right.
The naked Athena saga continues.
So I have this video from Ian Miles Chong.
Twitter doesn't want to play or whatever, but I can't show too much anyway.
You do see the man.
It's the same guy.
Throw something.
So here's what happens.
This video is from July 28th.
Ian Miles Chong tweets, Antifa is trying to kill the feds.
People immediately started trying to identify who this guy was.
Because he threw an explosive.
What did they discover?
Well, here's a tweet from Cat Turd with three crying, laughing faces breaking.
Antifa terrorist who threw bomb at federal agents in Portland is identified by his grandmother.
And there is the photo, he's wearing the vest, he's got a mask up.
They were trying to identify him because he had thrown an explosive, not because he was the shield for Naked Athena.
And here's what we end up with.
This is an archive of the website Hibbit that sells this fake bulletproof vest.
I don't know, whatever.
It's a reflective vest.
I don't know, whatever.
Who cares?
You can see that it was archived on the 28th of July at 2106 Universal Time.
So on the 28th, they archived this.
It would seem that on the 28th, as they were tracking down who this guy was, somebody found this photo of him.
And I imagine they may have found it by a reverse image search, but here's the important detail.
The review was posted eight days ago.
Interesting.
Eight days before they actually archived the site.
And it says, Grandma F. Oregon with only one review.
I got this for my grandson who's a protester downtown.
He uses it every night and says it does the job.
Owned the product for less than one month.
Uses the product daily.
Incentivized review.
Yes, I recommend this product.
Interesting.
I'll tell you why this is very interesting.
It's a verified purchaser.
Now, I gotta be honest.
The first time I heard this story, I called BS.
I was like, no way, dude.
Somebody was joking around.
They saw the Naked Athena story.
They saw this guy.
They found a photo of him.
They posted a fake review.
Because I'll tell you what.
Eight days ago, that was the day it was archived.
This was archived on the 28th of July.
Eight days before that was the 20th.
You want to know what happened on the 20th?
The story of naked Athena.
July 20th, naked Portland protester does yoga poses in front of cops.
I'm not going to show you the photos.
They're calling her Naked Athena, the woman who faced off with armed federal agents, sporting heavy-duty riot gear while she wore nothing but a face mask.
The drama unfolded on the 50th consecutive night of Portland protests—riots, to be honest—where unidentified federal agents—not true, they're identified—have fired at protesters.
Reports and video of unmarked snatch vans—yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, here's the point.
On that day of the 20th, this review emerged.
It's a verified purchaser with an incentivized review.
I have been told that an incentivized review means that if you review the product after you've purchased it, you can get a discount of some sort.
So what are we seeing?
Well, here's what I lean towards, to be honest.
I still think it's probably just a hoax, but that would mean somebody saw this guy on the night of the news of Naked Athena, tracked him down, and made the post, and then walked away, and said nothing.
Or maybe nobody cared about the joke and didn't get any traction.
Or, it's actually Grandma who bought the vest, less than a month, and he was out using it.
I really don't believe it, man.
The Grandma account has one review, zero votes, it's inactive, not really doing anything, and the verified purchase could be someone actually willing to spend, I don't know how much it costs, it says N.A., but willing to spend feasibly about $100 or $60 to pass off this hoax.
Unconfirmed, to say the least.
Now, is it possible Grandma actually did this?
It is.
I just don't think it's likely, to be honest.
It was the night of the guy seen on camera with naked Athena.
Somebody wanted to mock and belittle him because they were calling him a simp and a white knight and all these other things, and lo and behold, someone's pretending that Grandma bought the thing.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone was willing to spend 60 bucks to claim this guy was, you know, Gammy's boy, and he was out protesting.
But hey, verified purchaser.
So, I don't know how else to, you know, verify it, but let's lean towards unconfirmed for sure, possible, but likely not true.
I know, I know, many of you are probably having a good time laughing about the stupidity of this guy, but unfortunately, unfortunately...
Well, I can say only so much.
Unconfirmed.
I'll tell you what I can confirm, however.
I can confirm that on the other side, as they're posting their stupid fake news, it is entirely fake news.
Chris Hayes says, this is kidnapping.
Kidnapping?
Oh no, what happened?
NYC is taking after Portland, says Michelle L. Hook.
A trans femme protester was pulled into an unmarked van at the Abolition Park protest.
This is at 2nd Avenue and 25th Street.
Why yes, we see it here.
Quote, it was like a kidnapping.
A viral video shows NYPD officers forcing protester into unmarked van.
How could this be happening?
I can't believe that police have just started using plain clothes officers and unmarked vehicles.
Could you imagine what life would have been like last year if police ever did something like this?
Yeah, I know, you get the joke.
They literally do it all the time.
Probably since the inception of vehicles.
And I gotta be honest, I'm willing to bet that, like, when they first invented cars, they didn't actually mark the cars or even have sirens on them.
They just had people jump in the car and go use it.
So yes, unmarked cars are a thing.
Now, the far left is trying to claim that this is Portland, it's them snatching up people, and this whole stupid narrative.
Propaganda.
I'm gonna break this down for you, but let me tell you what we're seeing in all of these instances.
Look.
Everybody is fighting a propaganda war.
I have found that typically when it comes to moderates and conservatives, which is now the bigger tent, you're more likely to get an honest breakdown, although many people have their biases.
There are certainly conservative outlets that just give you their conservative biased view, but even then it's still more likely to be closer to the truth.
A really good example of all of this is what happened with Bill Barr the other day as he was giving this testimony.
Bill Barr is basically shouted down by the Democrats who don't let him speak, and the Republicans let him speak.
What that shows me is that the Democrats don't want anyone else to share information and explain their point of view, and the Republicans are more than happy to say, here's what I think, and then have Bill Barr say his piece.
In fact, Bill Barr actually corrected the Republicans several times.
So here's what I see.
We got a couple stories.
We got this Antifa Gammys boy, and I'm leaning toward it's just a hoax, man, to be honest.
But I don't think the people sharing it are doing it because they want to mislead you.
I think they're sharing it because it fits their bias and it makes them laugh.
So they share it.
This story, where we see activists claiming they're being kidnapped, acting surprised that unmarked vehicles exist, Chris Hayes like, it's a kidnapping!
Chris Hayes knows unmarked police cars exist.
Now he's lying to you for political gain.
But it's all part of the information war, because let's be real.
If you can mock and ridicule Antifa and make them seem like losers, then people are going to be like, I don't want to be associated with these gammy boy losers.
And if you can make the police seem like fascists, then people are going to be like, you have to join us in our fight against fascism.
I posted something on Facebook where I said, oh no, I can't believe how bad it really is.
I just found out police use unmarked vehicles and they've been doing it for decades, and that plainclothes police officers arrest people, oh no!
And a bunch of the lefties on cue are like, I can't believe you're defending fascism, Tim.
What happened to you?
And I'm like, I'll tell you what happened, man.
This person right here in this article was wanted on a warrant for smashing like five lights or like security cameras or something.
They made an arrest.
Arrests happened.
In fact, this unmarked vehicle pulling up and arresting the person reduces the likelihood of violence.
OK, listen, the existence of law enforcement is not oppression.
There are concerns and questions about violations of people's rights.
I am 100 percent in favor of police reform.
I have routinely slammed the police for enforcing unconstitutional edict like they did in New Jersey when they arrested the small business owners.
And I have specifically referred to the McCloskeys as bootlickers for apologizing to the, for, for, for, I shouldn't say apologizing, but defending the police who illegally seized their firearms.
I say illegal because the AGS straight up said they had every right, this is the St.
Louis couple, every right to defend themselves.
So let's be real, man.
When the cops show up and they're like, we know it's unconstitutional and you're within your rights under Castle Doctrine to defend your property.
I'm taking your guns anyway.
And they say, well, the police were very apologetic.
I say, no, no, no, spare me your spineless drivel.
That's bootlicking.
When the cops come and willfully break the law.
This?
The cops are literally just arresting somebody for a warrant.
That's not fascism.
Law enforcement existing is not oppression.
The law existing is not oppression.
This is the narrative they're trying to play up.
Don't defend them, you bootlicker.
Oh, shut up.
You're the one out cheering for the state.
Okay, these same leftists are cheering for the state in St.
Louis to falsely and maliciously prosecute two people who are at their home defending it from an angry mob.
They'd have reason to do it.
They're saying, good, lock them up, they're crazy.
That's bootlicking.
The McCloskey's defending the police who illegally seized their firearms.
That's bootlicking.
And then you have the far left complaining that one of their comrades in Austin, holding his rifle, approached a vehicle and got shot several times, and they say that guy was a Nazi and a fascist for defending himself.
Spare me.
The left are the bootlickers.
I have every problem in the world with police officers around the country enforcing unconstitutional law, locking down churches and businesses and arresting people and seizing people's property.
That is unconstitutional.
And I am not going to defend any one of these officers for doing it.
But this?
You're romping around the city, okay?
You're literally committing crimes.
They issue a warrant for the arrest of this person, and you get arrested.
That's reality.
Take a look at this story.
Now, the Washington Post, to be fair, does show the NYPD statement.
They say, When an unmarked Kia minivan screeched to a stop near protesters marching in Manhattan on Tuesday evening, the demonstrators' surprise swiftly gave way to an alarm.
Several New York Police Department officers wearing t-shirts and shorts spilled out of the van and grabbed one of the protesters, dragging the trans-femme towards the vehicle according to videos filmed by bystanders.
I'm using trans-femme specifically because that was the language of the protesters.
I am trying to be as fair and balanced as possible.
The protester said, a trans femme protester.
So if the Washington Post wants to use other terminology, well that's up to them.
Videos of the chaotic scene, which bore a marked similarity to the controversial tactics used by officers in Portland—no, it doesn't, by the way—quickly went viral.
Protesters who witnessed the incident described it as a kidnapping, while a number of New York's elected officials, including AOC, decried the officers' actions and demanded further explanations.
Our civil liberties are on the brink.
This is not a drill, she tweeted.
These people are liars.
They are straight-up liars, okay?
Let me just tell you.
If the police issue a survey warrant, you can be arrested.
Now listen, I have a problem with two things the police do.
I mean, not just two things, but two specific things I can call out in regard to this.
Could you imagine sitting in your house, someone kicks your door in, and runs in, and they're in plainclothes with guns?
What do you think is gonna happen?
And then there are people who defend themselves from this, and then it's like, oh, but you shot an officer or whatever.
It's like, dude!
You're wearing street clothes and you broke into my house!
Yeah, I don't like no-knock warrants, and I don't like plainclothes officers in many circumstances, but there are reasons why they exist.
They actually help keep you safe.
I've personally been saved from a mugging by a plainclothes officer.
So, I can see why this may be alarming to some people, but they're serving a warrant, and they're doing this to avoid direct confrontation, and it worked, okay?
Now, there are issues, I will add, with a van of plainclothes officers just jumping out and grabbing someone, because that's the issue with, essentially, a no-knock warrant.
In this instance, the police jumped out and snatched the person.
However, they were surrounded by actual NYPD wearing uniforms.
Many of these people are very easily identified as police officers.
However, I would argue, if you're going to be pulling up in a van to make an arrest, the cops should be in uniform.
So I can criticize this, but come on, man.
A kidnapping?
Spare me, dude.
Here's the statement from the NYPD.
They say, in regard to a video on social media that took place at 2nd Avenue and 25th Street, A woman taken into custody in an unmarked van was wanted for damaging police cameras during five separate criminal incidents in and around City Hall Park.
The arresting officers were assaulted with rocks and bottles.
I want to stop there and say the activists have identified this person as a trans femme, not a woman.
NYPD minivan this evening, they were assaulted with rocks and bottles. The warrant squad
uses unmarked vehicles to effectively located wanted suspects. When she was placed into
the warrant squad's unmarked gray minivan, it was behind a cordon of NYPD bicycle cops
in bright yellow and blue uniform shirts there to help affect the arrest. That is true. One
hundred percent. Watch the video. Bicycle officers in vests and uniforms were surrounding
this. So please spare me your narrative about kidnappings.
Let me wrap all this up for you and explain to you why I'm doing these two stories.
In the initial story about the grandma guy, we are engaging in information warfare.
In my personal opinion, perhaps because I'm biased, fine.
The reason these stories get put out and they're not confirmed, they do say, to be fair, presumably left by his grandmother.
I think it would have been important for the post-millennial and many others to say that, you know, it may actually have been a hoax if they did a little bit more digging.
While wearing a vest grandma bought him for riding, they say it definitively.
I believe they did this because it fits their bias.
They believe many of these people are children whining and crying.
I think that's fair to say too.
And they thought it was hilarious.
I have a higher standard than that.
I'm not saying to be disrespectful.
I want confirmation.
I can't tell you this is true.
Actually, I lean towards it being not true just because it's funny.
The narrative about kidnappings, however, goes one step beyond.
This is... Kidnapping, says Chris Hayes, to 60,000 retweets.
This is manipulating the public into believing something absolutely insane, and the power of Chris Hayes and the influence of Chris Hayes is substantially greater than that of the 5,000 retweets that Cat Turd got saying this guy had his vest bought by grandma.
Either way, I don't like fake news.
Get your facts straight.
I don't care if you're on the left, you're on the right, up, down, whatever.
Get your facts straight, confirm it before posting it.
Fine.
But I believe what the left is doing with the kidnapping narrative is, for one, rooted in their bias, similar to what the right is doing, but more harmful.
Because it sows distrust in our law enforcement.
If some lunatic throwing explosives is made fun of because grandma bought him a vest, so what?
So make fun of the guy.
Fine.
It may not be real, but it doesn't do anything to anybody.
But if you want to destroy and damage our societal institutions, like police, because of your political agenda, or because you hate Trump, you are damaging our communities.
You are causing crime to skyrocket when these police get, you know...
Restrained due to the negative press.
We gotta call it out for what it is.
That includes the grandma's boy dude and the far left.
But I'll tell you this, I don't care if in the end people really do believe grandma's boy, you know, got a vest from GAMI and she embarrassed him.
Because it doesn't really do anything.
But if Chris Hayes gets 60,000 retweets, 10 million views, because the police surrounded a van as plainclothes cops in an unmarked van made an arrest on someone who they had a warrant for, They are lying to you and manipulating you to force you to hand over your vote, which is your voice, because they want power.
Don't be a stooge for these people.
Do your research.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment is coming up at TimCast.net at 4pm, and I will see you all then.
Today is the big day of the big tech hearing on antitrust, and I just turned it off.
It is stupid.
It is boring.
The Republicans are getting into the conservative bias narrative, the Democrats are going after antitrust, and I gotta say, the antitrust conversation is way more important because you're not gonna get anything out of these guys.
However, because I think censorship is a very important issue right now for the election, I do think it's something that needs to be brought up.
So, you know, take it or leave it.
You get what you get.
The Republicans are absolutely tearing into these big tech companies, but it would seem that many of them aren't actually asking good enough questions to do anything.
And I'll tell you what.
I don't care, man.
I'm sick of the Republicans the same as I'm sick of the Democrats.
They're not going to do anything.
They're not going to get anything done.
Asking these questions serves no real purpose other than putting on theatrics.
And in the end, nothing is going to change.
The big tech companies will continue to be biased.
They will continue to suppress the speech of certain individuals and ideologies they don't like.
And they'll just keep lying about it.
And then we'll have more hearings and nothing will get done.
But I can at least highlight for you some of the efforts so you can draw your own opinion.
The Daily Mail says, Conservatives tear into big tech CEOs, claiming Facebook, Google, and Twitter are censoring Donald Trump and right-leaning groups as billionaire bosses face Congress.
Republican lawmakers tore into big technology firms at the start of Wendy's.
House Judiciary hearing on antitrust laws claiming the platforms all exhibit anti-conservative bias.
They do.
That's a fact.
I'll just cut to the chase.
Big Tech's out to get conservatives.
That's not a suspicion.
That's not a hunch.
That's a fact.
Rep Jim Jordan asserted at the top of his opening remarks.
The Ohio Republican then launched into examples where conservative voices, accounts, posts,
and articles were either silenced or taken down, specifically voicing his concern that
these actions would have taken on an election year, not taken on.
We're 97 days before an election.
And the power, as the previous chairman and ranking members have said, the power these companies have to impact what's happening during an election, what American citizens get to see before their voting, is pretty darn important, he said.
If it doesn't end, There have to be consequences, he said of the tech companies trying to influence elections and silence conservative voices.
I appreciate the effort, but perhaps it's too little too late.
This problem's been going on for a decade.
News organizations have sacrificed journalistic ethics.
At the altar of clickbait nonsense trash to fit into the algorithm that Facebook proposes.
Twitter has gamified being a nasty, mean, disgusting, vile person and people love playing the game and they don't want to give it up.
It's probably too late, man.
If, depending on what happens right now, it is going to be because of these big tech companies that control the way that we communicate with each other.
That's a reality.
And if the left doesn't want to deal with it because they don't, no, it's a bit, but my private company, they would say, as everybody else was basically complaining about the bias.
Well, if Trump wins, that's your fault.
We could have had free open conversations, but no, but my private platform.
Right now, on Facebook, it's true.
Conservatives do very, very well.
And if Trump ends up losing, it'll still be their fault, because how many times have all of us on social media been screaming, get off your butts and do something about these problems?
And there's only a small handful of people who have actually done anything.
Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley tend to, you know, to be very active in trying to do things with actual legislation.
You get Jim Jordan, who's okay, but basically just grandstands, gives us his hearing.
I really don't think anything will come out of it.
They say, if it doesn't end, there have to be consequences of tech companies trying to influence elections and science conservative voices.
He specifically pointed to Twitter censoring Donald Trump's tweet last month when he asserted he would use force if rioters attempted to establish an autonomous zone outside the White House.
Former Facebook employees admit Facebook routinely suppressed conservative views, Jordan said.
He also insisted that excuses from tech companies asserting that post removals from conservatives are just a glitch are bogus.
If I had a nickel for every time I hear it's just a glitch, I wouldn't be as wealthy as our witnesses, but I'd be doing alright.
Now that one was pretty good, I gotta be honest.
That was pretty good from Jim Jordan.
Wisconsin Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, the ranking member of the Antitrust Commercial
and Administrative Law Subcommittee, said, Conservatives are consumers too, and they need the
protection of the antitrust laws.
Now, look, maybe it's not the right forum.
Maybe it's the only forum.
These big tech companies are too powerful.
YouTube dominates the space.
There's what?
I got to be careful because they'll ban me if I call them out.
They really will.
But there's only a handful of companies where we can have these real conversations.
And I run the risk every day of YouTube banning me.
Just the other day, I was talking about the doctors.
Donald Trump put up a video, nuked the video.
Donald Trump Jr.
put up the video, they suspend his account.
And just because I'm talking about it, I run the risk as well.
We cannot function this way.
The real issue may be antitrust.
It may be breaking these big companies up.
But it's also Section 230 that is being abused by all of these companies, and they're facing no comeuppance.
Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, and Sundar Pichai virtually appeared for the hearing and will argue that they face intense competition from each other and from other rivals.
I gotta be honest, man.
I'm not entirely convinced antitrust is gonna solve all these problems.
I think we need Section 230 reform, so sure.
You know, we had... I can't remember which politician it was, arguing that he couldn't find Gateway Pundit.
He had to type in, you know, the actual domain into the URL bar and the browser bar, and I'm like, that's not... What are we doing here?
Are we going to talk about the monopolistic power and the influence over elections due to their power in these monopolies?
Or are we going to complain that we can't find a website, man?
I'm not gonna be... You know what, man?
I'm not confident in any of this, to be honest.
Noticeably absent from the hearing will be Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Even though he and his platform face some of the most intense criticism from Trump, yes, but Twitter isn't necessarily a monopoly.
There are a bunch of services like Twitter.
Twitter doesn't do all that much, and its market cap is microscopic compared to the rest of these companies.
Jordan assured that Republicans wanted Dorsey to testify as one of their witnesses at the hearing, but said the request was denied by Democrats who control the Judiciary Committee.
President Donald Trump also railed against tech giants before departing the White House earlier Wednesday morning.
There's no question that what the big tech companies are doing is very bad.
President Trump told reporters when he was specifically asked about the U.S.
potentially banning TikTok.
Now, I want to be careful on that statement I just made about Twitter.
They're not a monopoly in the same sense as Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple.
These are big monopolies that do a multitude of things.
Twitter has a monopoly on political discourse, sure.
They've gamified the system in a very disgusting, disgusting way.
But they're not... Jack Dorsey's not on the same level as the rest of these guys.
I mean, Bezos is worth a hundred times what Jack Dorsey is worth.
And the conversation is about consumers, not about, necessarily, bias against conservatives.
However, when it comes to Facebook, Google, and Amazon, there is a real conversation about anti-conservative bias that needs to be brought up.
Notably, how, say, Amazon bans books.
How they banned Mike Cernovich's hoaxed documentary.
Mark Zuckerberg needs to talk about the banning of certain ads and his hate speech policies, which will negatively impact legitimate political positions, say, on immigration.
And, yeah.
Google.
YouTube.
We get it, man.
Now, I know Apple is there, too.
They're not really the worst when it comes to this kind of censorship and hate speech rules, but they have them as well.
All of these companies are adopting the hate speech policies because they're not beholden to the American government or the American people, and that is a very serious problem.
Their markets supersede the American people.
We have laws.
They don't care.
We have societal norms and standards, notably free speech.
They don't care.
You know why?
Because free speech is not a global standard.
There are very few countries that actually have free speech, and they don't care.
They want to make sure the authoritarian regimes, which make up a good portion of this globe, are happy with their product, so they're going to enforce laws this way.
I don't know how many of you use Twitter.
But every so often I'll get a notification from Twitter saying something like, we have received a report about your content and found no violation of German law.
Why?
I don't care about German law.
I don't live in Germany.
But I get these notifications.
I also get notifications from... I got one from, like, Qatar, I think, or Dubai.
I don't know where it was.
Why am I being informed about this?
Because the platforms are trying to follow a global legal standard, which means they don't care if their system unfairly favors certain elected officials and would, say, allow Joe Biden to win.
This is a problem.
It's a serious problem.
The left needs to get on board with the problems of these platforms, otherwise it's going to come back to haunt them, because I'll tell you what, conservatives are doing really, really well on Facebook, and they're starting to do really well on YouTube.
Now keep in mind, I think there's a reason for this.
These social media companies are absolutely biased against conservatives.
They will ban people who get too fringy in their opinions, creating a space of moderates and conservatives who are like-minded and normal-sounding.
Their bias allows the far left to taint the voter pool with insanity, and then the Democrats see psychosis and advocate for it, and regular Americans say, I don't want that!
That's the problem with the bias.
They're pressured by the far left, it is causing them problems, and they need to stop.
And I'll tell you what, that's what I've been saying the whole time.
Unfortunately, it's only the Republicans who are actually talking about it, and unfortunately, Republicans are only talking about it.
While I can give a shout-out to people like Hawley and Matt Gaetz, unfortunately, the rest of them are doing almost nothing.
Perhaps it's because they can't really do anything about it, but I think it has more to do with them liking the big tech companies, taking donations from them, and their unwillingness to actually solve these problems, so...
Look, the hearing's still going on.
We'll see how this plays out, but antitrust needs to happen, and they need to actually do something instead of just talking about it.
I don't know what the answers are, man.
I'm just a guy complaining on the internet.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up in just a few minutes, and I will see you all shortly.
You want to talk about big tech bias?
Let's talk about Mackenzie Bezos dumping $1.7 billion into charities, for the most part, that are intersectionalist and far leftist.
And you know what?
More power to her.
Guess what?
It's legal.
She's rich.
She can spend her money as she sees fit.
But once again, you have very powerful billionaires exerting their influence over the American people in ways I do not appreciate.
Listen, man, I will tell you why I am no fan of wealth inequality, and this is it.
This is why I've always been pretty much center-left on my political positions.
It's because I don't want Mackenzie Bezos to be able to snap her fingers and dump almost $2 billion into fringe politics, which will change the shape of this country for the worst.
Here's the story, and then we'll talk about this.
Mackenzie Bezos announced Tuesday that she donated $1.7 billion to charitable causes over the past year, a bulk of which went to racial equity and justice causes.
The ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who revealed Tuesday she'll now take on her middle name and go by Mackenzie Scott, is the second richest woman in the world with a net worth of $60 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The 50-year-old shared a Medium post listing out 116 organizations she supports and revealed she donated $586.7 million to racial equity causes as part of the Giving Pledge, which she signed following her 2019 divorce.
First of all, I like that she's giving away a ton of her money.
I do think we have a really broken system financially when you can have someone exert this much power over the rest of the country.
But you know what, man?
Look, it's a country where you can make money, you can be rich, and you can do these things.
I would like to have some kind of, I don't know man, restriction on this level of influence one individual can have.
And I defer to, I'm not going to name any names, but I can't tell you how many times I've heard conspiracy theories from the left and the right about their select group of billionaires who they don't like.
This one particular billionaire is hiring protesters.
Oh yeah, well those other billionaires are hiring these protesters.
And I'm like, stop dude.
Billionaires spend money as they see fit.
You got a problem with it?
Maybe we need to get cash out of politics.
Maybe we don't like the fact that this lady can just snap her fingers and give... Okay, I'm sorry.
It was about 600 million dollars to intersectionalism.
The pledge is a commitment among the wealthy to give away a significant portion of their money over the course of their lifetimes.
She's promised to distribute at least half of her fortune.
Like many, I watched the first half of 2020 with a mixture of heartbreak and horror.
My own reflection after recent events revealed a dividend of privilege I'd been overlooking.
The attention I can call to organizations and leaders driving change, she said.
She made a big blog post about who she was giving to.
So racial equity got, okay, here you go. Yeah, it's all basically, like, it's all far left.
basically the same thing. Economic mobility got 400. Empathy and bridging divides, divides 55.
Functional Democracy, 72.
Public Health, 128.
Probably sounds fine.
Global Development, 130.
Climate Change, 125.
She named specific organizations she donated to, as Black Girls Code, Futures Without Violence, Movement for Black Lives, and National Domestic Workers Alliance.
She also gave to several historically black colleges and universities, including Morehouse and Spelman College.
She did not specify the size of the individual gifts.
I'm seeing many people point this out, saying that she is now dumping ridiculous sums of money into the far left.
And I'm like, yeah, well, you know what?
Look, man, I've talked about progressive taxes.
I've talked about increasing tax brackets.
I've talked about why I don't like the idea that we have this dramatic wealth disparity.
You create a class of people.
who have no ties to reality because they can literally do anything on the planet and go anywhere, you can buy citizenship.
But they absolutely will give to their projects and they will crush your voice.
It's very difficult, in my opinion, to have a fair and honest open democratic system when a small portion of people can sell us out to multinational interests And then we are left holding the bag.
I'm talking about all of these wealthy billionaires that influenced politics over the past several decades, that sold all their manufacturing out to foreign countries.
This is what you get.
Throughout the 80s, it was the Republicans encouraging this immigration.
Even Bernie Sanders said it.
Now it's the Democrats.
Why?
Because they like suppressing wages so they can make tons more money.
Let's talk about where this lady gets her money from.
She married Jeff Bezos.
He made a ton of money off Amazon, and now she just gets to have it, because she was married to him, they divorced, she gets a big chunk, and all of this is fine and legal.
My complaint is, I don't like her politics.
I don't like the places she's giving money to, and I don't know what the solution is, but I'll tell you this, this is one of the reasons why I often talk about the problem of wealth inequality.
What do you do about it?
I honestly don't know.
I can tell you this.
Wealth tax makes no sense.
That won't do anything.
She's got, I guess, a stake.
She's got Amazon stock.
She can sell it.
She's giving a ton of it away.
I wonder exactly how she's dispersing this, but she is.
And this is going to create a massive surge in far-left politics.
They're going to have more resources for ad spending.
It's going to... You know, I'll tell you what, a lot of these organizations probably donate to Democrats.
They'll say it's part of their mission.
If we want to get... You know, look at this.
If we want racial equity, Democrats got to get elected.
LGBTQ, well that's Democrats, Democrats, Democrats, Democrats.
You get the point.
They're going to be influencing downstream the politicians who will guarantee them access to the things they're trying to fight for.
And you know what?
I get it.
More power to these NPOs.
But I don't like the idea of living in a country where I feel like a pawn to special interest billionaires who just say like, I'm gonna do the right thing and give to the fringiest, most extreme, nonsensical non-profit.
And then all of a sudden we're having a national debate about why our borders should be open.
That's where we're at now, because we've always had powerful multinational interests doing this.
So again, listen, I'll tell you what.
I'm anything but a socialist, but I am center-left.
That means I believe a mixed economy is the right approach, and I think there could be reasonable ways we can bolster the economy, either through a free market argument or, you know, a more regulated argument.
I don't know the exact answer, but I will tell you this.
I personally don't think we can function this way.
Because now each and every one of us that has spent our days trying to resist the far-left white supremacist left, the racist left, well, she's emboldening all of them with a snap of her fingers.
She's not the only one.
This is why I can't stand when people rag on, say, the Mercers or Soros or the Koch brothers.
I'm like, dude, they all do it.
I don't care about what their politics are.
I care about whether or not we're having honest conversations in this country.
Or whether or not massive multinational corporations, notably media companies, oligopolies, are going to be telling us what we can or can't say, and are going to be dumping money into organizations that can influence how we live our lives.
Again, I can't tell you what the solution is, but here's what she says.
In her post, she also reflected upon the society's system that has helped her amass a fortune and said she's giving back to give opportunities to other groups of people.
There's no question in my mind that anyone's personal wealth is the product of a collective effort.
And of social structures which present opportunities to some people and obstacles to countless others.
I began work to complete my pledge with the belief that my life had yielded two assets that could be of particular value to others.
The money these systems helped deliver to me, and a conviction that people who have experience with inequities are the ones best equipped to design solutions.
Interesting.
The money she earned came from Jeff Bezos' work with Amazon.
She played a role in this, absolutely true.
But to argue that the meritocracy that created her wealth would be better served, you know, the wealth would be better served going to people who have no experience doing this is just flat out wrong.
I don't have all the answers.
I don't know all the solutions.
But I will tell you this.
Somebody who just has this power, doesn't understand it, but is acting like we should live as they see fit, You know what?
Maybe that's the way it is, huh?
The people who earn the wealth can divvy it up however they want.
My question would be, how much did she contribute to the growth of this wealth?
It's an honest question.
I know I'll get a bunch of anger from feminists, but she is not Jeff Bezos.
She is not the founder of Amazon.
She played a role in encouraging him, sure, but should she earn or just take all of this power and then claim she knows how to make more of it when she didn't?
I don't know.
She got the money because she divorced Jeff Bezos, so to the extent to which she deserves it is entirely outside of my... Look, I don't know.
Maybe she was more involved than most people realize.
I don't know to what level she was involved.
But the problem ultimately comes down to, when I see her, when I see anyone else, it's just another story of people who can dictate the national conversation.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I don't know.
I'm sure there'll be a lot of people who disagree because maybe the reality is you should allow people who have, by whatever means, access to this money, the ability to just spend it as they see fit.
But I will leave you with one final thought.
I was talking with some Trump supporters about how I didn't like coercive force being placed upon people where their lives will be dictated based on someone tricking them.
Or, you know, manipulating.
The idea is a snake oil salesman, somebody who can just trick you into giving up your money.
And I had these these these young Trump supporters say, no, if you choose to give it up, then that's your fault.
And my response is, OK, you are going to have CNN, you know, MSNBC and to an extent Fox News, all of these massive billion dollar corporations doing the same thing she's doing.
Tricking people, manipulating them, sharing lies, and empowering your political rivals.
Maybe that's just a natural consequence of how the system works, and we'll always be, to varying degrees, living under the boot of the wealthy elites.
I don't know, though.
I thought we were seeing a populist resurgence between the left and the right.
Bernie Sanders has given up and is bending over for the elites.
Donald Trump seems not to be doing that.
But these are the people who influence your lives.
Welcome to the fray Mackenzie Bezos in spending tons of money to manipulate the public.
I guess it's a part of the system and there's no way to change it.
Just kind of frustrating.
I'll leave it there.
I got one more segment coming up in a few minutes and I will see you all shortly.
Donald Trump has vowed to pull our troops out of Germany?
12,000 troops from Germany?
In a move that will cost billions and take years.
And there's bipartisan opposition?
Why do we have troops in Germany?
I guess the issue is that it's NATO.
We provide defense to many of these countries.
I love it.
You know, the funniest thing they say is, they say, we should be able to have all of this health care and all these really great things.
And often people will counter with, the only reason we're able to have these things is because, I'm sorry, the only reason these countries are able to have these things is because we pay for their defense and they don't pay it back.
So Donald Trump has basically said they are derelict of their duties.
They're not paying what they owe.
So we will no longer defend them.
Why is America footing the bill for these countries that won't defend themselves or won't pay for it?
They can defend themselves, right?
I'll tell you what.
Maybe.
Maybe we'll be able to actually afford healthcare programs, I don't know about universal healthcare, if we're no longer paying for the defense of these foreign countries.
Doesn't that make sense?
Well, of course, there's opposition from both parties, CNN says.
President Trump's decision to pull thousands of troops will take years to execute and will potentially cost billions of dollars to bring about, according to U.S.
defense officials.
The plan to pull U.S.
troops from the longtime NATO ally has been met with broad bipartisan opposition amid concerns it will weaken the U.S.
military's position vis-a-vis Russia.
However, the Trump administration has decided to proceed with the move.
Approximately 11,900 US troops, a mix of Army and Air Force units, will be removed from Germany to meet Trump's mandated cap of 25,000 US forces in Germany.
You mean to tell me we have way more than that?
We have 36,900 US forces in Germany?
That's amazing!
We got like 8,000 in Afghanistan last time I checked.
Maybe I'm wrong about that.
That's truly amazing.
according to senior U.S. defense official, a number higher than the figure of 9,500 that
was used when the reduction was first announced. The formal announcement was made Wednesday during
a briefing at the Pentagon by Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
The current EUCOM plan will reposition approximately 11,900 military personnel from Germany, from
roughly 36,000 down to 24,000, in a matter that will strengthen NATO, enhance the deterrence
of Russia, and meet the other principles I set forth.
He told reporters, referring to U.S.
European Command, which oversees U.S.
military forces on the continent.
Officials said the discrepancy was due to the fact that following a review, it was found that there were slightly more U.S.
troops permanently assigned to Germany, about 36,000 than originally planned for.
Of the troops leaving Germany, some 5,400 will be staying in Europe, the official said.
The remaining 6,400 forces and their families will be returned to the US and will, in time, redeploy to Europe.
Defense officials said this will cost billions of dollars as new military construction will likely be required both in Europe and the US to house additional troops.
Key U.S.
command centers will also be repositioned as part of the move, Esper and top military leaders confirmed Wednesday.
General Todd Walters, the commander of U.S.
European Command and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said the U.S.
would be moving EUCOM Headquarters from Germany to Belgium as part of an effort to co-locate the command with NATO Military Command Headquarters that is based there, and that Africa Command Headquarters may be moving to a location to be determined as well.
We also intend to reposition three brigade-sized headquarters, an air defense artillery battalion, and an engineering battalion to Belgium from Germany, and two smaller support and contracting organizations to Italy.
Walters further specified that a F-16 fighter squadron would be moved from Germany to Italy, and that they anticipated moving two battalions from Germany to Italy as well.
I gotta say, I do find it really silly that they're arguing we will weaken NATO's defensive position, they say, as they publicly announce everything they're doing, and everybody knows how many troops we have and what bases they have.
It seems absolutely stupid and silly, in my opinion, that we maintain this world police position.
I don't understand, maybe I'm crazy, why NATO doesn't take care of their own defense, or at least why they don't pay for it.
That's Donald Trump's main complaint.
They're not paying for it, so you know what?
Take them out.
Trump said he directed the move because he believes Germany doesn't spend enough on defense.
However, Trump, who directed the move, said he did so because of Berlin's failure to meet the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defense, spending only about 1.38%.
One of the only countries that hasn't agreed to pay what they're supposed to pay is Germany.
So I said, until they pay, we're removing our soldiers.
The number of our soldiers by about half.
Then when we get down to about 25,000, we'll see where we're going, Trump said last month.
Defense officials, however, said Wednesday the decision as to where to house the U.S.
troops leaving Germany was not influenced by whether the new host country was meeting the 2% target.
In fact, Belgium and Italy, the two countries that will be receiving U.S.
troops from Germany, spend an even smaller percentage on defense than Berlin does.
Italy spends about 1.22 of its GDP on defense, and Belgium spends about 0.93 of its GDP on defense, ranking near the bottom among NATO members.
While Germany's national leadership has been largely silent on the troop cuts, local leaders representing the states where US troops are housed recently wrote to members of the US Congress asking them to help reverse the decision.
Oh, I love it!
I love it, man.
Gotta have our troops over on foreign soil, that makes sense.
Yes.
Because many of these people that are arguing in favor of having troops in all these other countries are internationalists.
Look, I get it, man.
I recently took the eight values test.
Lo and behold, Tim Pool is a liberal.
And I do very much favor international diplomacy.
But you're gonna have to greatly struggle to justify, first and foremost, our presence in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and then you're gonna have to talk to me about why we have our troops in Europe.
I get it.
NATO.
We got soldiers, we got military personnel all over the world.
We basically function as a kind of world police.
I've never cared for this, and most liberals never did either, yet that's where we are, and libertarians, for that matter.
Are we going to remain the world police?
You know what?
I'll tell you this.
Fine, in a sense.
If we are actually dealing, if we are dealing with countries that want to rely on our military superiority, well, at the very least, they could pay for it, right?
Why do we as the American taxpayer have to foot the bill for what's going on in foreign countries?
And this is why I bring this up.
There may be very good reasons for a military presence in Germany.
Hey, they say Russia.
I'm not super concerned about Russia.
That sounds like Cold War 1980s talk or before.
I'm more concerned with China, so maybe there's a good reason to have defenses in Europe.
China.
Okay, I'll tell you what.
We get a lot of people in this country complaining about our infrastructure, complaining about how many taxes we pay.
I'll tell you what, sounds like we can solve that problem for both sides.
What's that, Republicans?
You don't like how much you spend on taxes?
We could pull back some of those taxes if we weren't spending so much money on world policing other countries that won't pay the bill.
What's that?
Left, you say you want to fix the pipes in Flint?
Well, I got a solution for you!
Bring our troops back from all these foreign countries where they're not paying the bill, or we needlessly occupy these other countries, or have bases there at the very least, and we can use the extra money to send our troops, I don't know, maybe to fix the pipe in Flint.
This is the point I often make when it comes to military presence overseas.
I think our troops are great.
I think it is absolutely awesome that we have people willing to join the armed forces, go to these countries to serve our interests, in certain respects, and, you know, to give a simplistic view, defend our freedom.
To make sure that the things we believe in, free speech, are protected.
But I'm not entirely convinced having our military operate as private security for Germany who won't pay actually does anything to protect our interests.
I am absolutely of the opposite opinion when it comes to Afghanistan.
I don't think our interests are being served there anymore, and it's amazing to me that there's a bipartisan effort to stop our troops from coming home, and the worst part is, all them liberals that screamed and screamed for the longest time saying, bring our troops back, are nowhere to be found now that Trump is trying to do it.
I got a message from a friend, and they said, look at all these horrible things the United States does.
They're imperialists.
And I'm like, oh no!
You're right!
I guess we have to vote for Trump to make sure he brings the troops back.
What are they going to say to that?
Well, I don't know about Trump.
Why?
He's trying to bring the troops back.
You think Joe Biden's going to do anything about it?
No, Joe Biden's going to double down.
That's his plan, man.
Biden was part of the Obama administration.
This is what they did.
They bolstered our troops, drone strikes.
They called him Obama.
Obama was called Obama.
He killed American citizens.
I do not want that back.
And you know what?
Donald Trump is imperfect.
In fact, he's worse than imperfect.
Trump's kind of bad in a lot of ways.
But you know what?
Relative to the choices we have now, what am I supposed to say?
When it comes to war, when it comes to our troops, when it comes to withdrawal, I will take it.
Unless you justify to me a legitimate reason why we do this.
The public deserves answers on this one.
And we don't get it.
Coming to me and screaming that, but Russia!
Russia couldn't even take Eastern Ukraine!
So spare me, okay?
Nah, that's complete and total BS.
You just want to have our interests and the military-industrial complex wants to siphon tax dollars and keep pumping out these machines, then we put our honorable brothers and sisters in the armed forces, we put them in harm's way, or we send them over to foreign countries for some reason, that at the very least I can say they're not telling us.
Now look, Afghanistan, I understand.
Germany, there may be legitimate reasons for us to have bases there.
Perhaps.
I mean, Cold War, World War II, sure, fine, whatever.
But at this point, if we're gonna have allies, they can at least... They can at least pay what they're supposed to be paying.
Why do the American people have to foot the bill for this?
I want an answer.
Because then when someone comes to me and says, why don't we have universal healthcare?
I'll say, hey, well, at least some of the money is being spent in Germany.
I know a lot of the money from the military is spent here, but paying people who are overseas, where they spend this money overseas, is just taking U.S.
tax dollars and sending it overseas.
You may have a good reason.
Okay, I'm listening.
I'd like to hear it.
I'll leave it there, man.
We'll see how this plays out, but I'll tell you this.
As long as Donald Trump is talking about bringing our troops home, more so from the Middle East, the Germany thing, I'm kinda like, eh.
I'm gonna be, I'm definitely not gonna support Joe Biden on that one.
And if Joe Biden won't, I don't trust Joe Biden to do the right thing anyway, so I defer to Trump on that regard.
