40 Burst results for "Ben J."
Mark Levin
Why Is Semafor's Ben Smith Slobbering All Over Nikki Haley?
"Of course attacked my stepson and me because he works with DeSantis which the world whole knows but apparently they didn't but I make my own decisions I decide what I'm going to do you have adult children don't do what they want to do and that's okay you know I'm just thankful we don't have any kids that support Bernie Sanders you many callers come here and correctly say my god I've lost this kid didn't lost any of our four let me go on operations were initially supported stick me with you'll see how this works by twenty five million investment funding as well as revenue generated from advertising in person that investments you know their biggest initial investor was mr. producer Sam Bankman freed is in prison for ripping off god knows how many people that's inauspicious beginning I would say but this is 74 so their first investors in a 2023 semaphore raise $19 million in additional funding from investors to replace the money that they had received from Bankman free so what he was their largest external investor their largest external investor so that shows you some of their judgment now they don't put that up on their site they don't have a footnote so people quote semaphore go to semaphore they don't know these things there's more in March 23 semaphore launched its China and global business initiative quote -unquote a collaboration with the center for china and globalization ccga think tank registered as a non -government patient though its independence from the communist chinese party has been disputed semaphore has said the project's purpose is to offer quote a diversity of opinion unquote an alternative to washington's hawkish consensus on beijing now you know what that means of peace communist china for business the initiative would consist of regular events in new york and beijing and would foster dialogue between business leaders and increasing china u .s tensions now you see why they're promoting Nikki Haley if they don't present any of this on they the website don't reveal their connections they the don't other business model semaphore's partnership with the ccg has occasionally come under scrutiny semaphore's show justin smith said semaphore would go into the collaboration with eyes wide open that that it was under no illusion that chinese business leaders are other local groups operate he said they would
The Charlie Kirk Show
Fresh update on "ben j." discussed on The Charlie Kirk Show
"Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here. Are you new to investing and have savings you need to protect right now? With the Middle East war, the Ukraine war, and maybe Taiwan soon, you need a new playbook that is safe. Allocate some gold now and avoid the frenzied panic of the unprepared. When fear reigns, gold protects the wise. Noble Gold Investments offers a free 5-ounce America the Beautiful coin with new IRAs this month. Shield your savings with a Noble Gold Investments IRA. Go to NobleGoldInvestments.com. NobleGoldInvestments.com, the only gold company I trust. That is NobleGoldInvestments.com. Hey everybody, Kevin Tinter joins the program. Talking about how to live a better life. Break free of depression, anxiety, the heaviness this holiday or Christmas season. It's a great hour and check out his book, really important, we talk about it throughout the episode. Email us as always, freedom at charleykirk.com. Get your tickets today to America Fest, that's amfest.com, December 16, 17, 18, 19. Tucker Carlson, Patrick Bette, David Candace Owens, Glenn Beck, Rob Schneider, Roseanne Barr, Dennis Prager, Ali Beth Stuckey, Jonathan Isaac, James O'Keefe, Riley Gaines, Ben Carson, Michael Anton, Jason Whitlock, Gad Saad, Brandon Tatum, Seth Dillon, Jack Pessovic, Benny Johnson, Yanmi Park, Michael Seifert, James Lindsay, John Amichukwu, John Benzinger, Rob McCoy, Len Munsell, Eric Metaxas, Calvin Robinson. And for turning point action, Vivek Ramaswamy, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Corey Mills, Mike Lindell, and Alina Haba. We have a concert series with Big and Rich, Locash, and Raelynn. Wow, a lot going on everybody. Amfest.com, that is amfest.com. Email us as always, freedom at charleykirk.com. Buckle up everybody, here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie, he's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job. Building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Brought to you by the loan experts I trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandtodd.com.
Mark Levin
Outrageous Stalker Attacks Religious Jews for Their Traditions
"So I, minding my own business, I posted it on my social sites. Then along comes this stalker, who obviously has nothing to do with her life, hanging on the looking at. And what does she say? Well, what do you call her, Mr. British? She retweets or responds to my quote, quote, treated Now her. in 2010, as the New York Post points out, she considers herself to be a deeply religious Jew. Well, she's a liar, I doubt that. She quoted Jewish conservative commentator Mark Levin's video footage of rabbis, a quorum of Jewish adults traditionally male required for certain religious observances outside the White House. And you know what this dimwit said? Where are the women? I thought women or woman was a banned word now. I mean, when you have a Supreme Court justice, a can't define woman. But Weingarten can because she famously announced that publicly nobody cared. Nobody asked I that. think she was married to another woman, something like that. Now, I didn't ask her for opinion. I don't care for her opinion. I don't I don't care about her. In fact, I dislike her intensely given what she's doing to the young people in this country. Where are the women? So this was really an attack on Orthodox Judaism. She would never do that for the Muslims that have separate parents. No, no, no. Where are the women? I guess there I guess they're praying over in another direction, which is the way it works. sorry, I'm everybody can't be members of the American Federation of Teachers, aka the American Federation of Propagandists. About 35 % of teachers are Republicans, but I'm talking about the other 65 % that run the show. Orthodox Jews have gender separated prayers and they've had it for thousands of years. Thousands of years. So I decided to respond to her, and not in any substantive way, because I think she's got a negative IQ and it wouldn't matter anyway. She's a zealot. So I wrote, you're a contemptible moron, get off my timeline, you idiot. Isn't that pretty much what I would say on the phone, Mr. Producer? You're a contemptible moron. You're a contemptible moron, Ron Garton. Get off my timeline, you idiot. So, others joined in. The story exploded. So she blocked the comments, didn't she, Mr. Producer? She didn't want to hear anything. Brother Ben Shapiro jumped in. But I will tell
Bloomberg Daybreak Asia
Fresh update on "ben j." discussed on Bloomberg Daybreak Asia
"To go on the fourth the nets holding on to 100 to 96 lead over the raptors the nix with 48 seconds remaining in the game they are blowing out the hornets at masters regard to 112 to 87 tipping off in about 20 minutes warriors on the road at the sacramento kings i'm dan schwartzman that's your bloomberg world sports update paul all right thanks very much dan chinese president xi jinping is visiting shanghai for the first time since its covert lockdown he's making stops at the shanghai futures exchange and several tech giants operating in the mega city to try and boost waning private sector sentiment for more he had heard from msa capital managing partner ben harbor he joined bloomberg technology to explain why why he's
Crypto Altruism Podcast
A highlight from Episode 129 - Gitcoin - Elevating public goods with decentralization, quadratic funding, and community coordination
"You know, there are so many neat things that people are trying already. You know, like, for example, we ran around for a community group in Oakland, who had funding from their local government, it was basically all community organizations. You know, so really cool to see that play itself out. Even before we went down this road, Milwaukee was already doing some experimentation with quadratic rounds for very sort of niche applications, like helping people in Denver, Colorado, whose restaurants were struggling during the pandemic. We did a support for Ukraine round that was kind of a targeted approach at funding for that particular use case. But, you know, I think then another neat thing that's happening, which you may not even have heard about yet, is we now actually have a direct grants platform, which means it doesn't use quadratic funding. It's basically a way to use Web3 rails and all the existing tools, but just run more of like a traditional grants program. But I think we might start seeing things like people using quadratic voting to make decisions about how to give out the money amongst a smaller group of people internally. And so you might not be harnessing the wisdom of the crowd, but you can still have that transparency, that accountability, you know, all that kind of nifty stuff that comes along with using these tools. And also anybody who's created a grant proposal on builder potentially can apply to an even bigger number of different types of opportunities. So, you know, so I think, you know, we really, you know, are so just lucky to have such an innovative, creative, thoughtful global community. You know, like, we just saw a round run in Latin America where like the majority of the grant proposals were in Spanish, you know, and like we frankly, don't even have the resources internally to like provide support and documents and web pages. They just did it themselves, you know, which is so cool to see. And I think we're going to just see more and more of that. Like there's a Chinese community round that's happening. I've heard there's an African continent round that people are talking about, you know, basically any issue or cause you can think of, you know, there's probably somebody out there thinking about how they could run a grants program to do something about it. You know, and if somebody out there is listening and has some nifty idea, even without a big matching pool, like, you know, just like even a small amount of money that you put into a matching pool, or even just creating the space for people to give to something that matters, like even without a matching pool, I think can just be a really powerful thing. You know, there's something about just kind of creating the container for the conversation to bring the people together. And, you know, the neat thing about these grants programs is like the grantees are the ones who do a lot of that organizing, who bring their community with them, you know, and often do actually do a better job of supporting and onboarding people and creating guides and documentation and all that kind of good stuff in a way that makes sense to their community. So, yeah, I think it's super exciting and I definitely think about it a lot. Yeah, no, totally. I can see the excitement just as you talk about it now. And I think that, you know, what you said around the grantees is spot on too. It's just really cool seeing like how they've all kind of stepped up and contributed to the Gitcoin community in different ways, whether it's creating these educational onboarding materials, setting up one -on -one calls with people to walk them through getting a wallet set up and a passport set up, you know, which is fantastic. It's been really, really powerful. And, you know, obviously we have another Gitcoin granting round coming up November 15th, I believe you said was when it was starting, which is really exciting Gitcoin grant round 19. 56 million plus in funds allocated, really incredible. It's really been a catalyst for thousands of early stage Web3 projects. For those listening that haven't yet participated in a Gitcoin grant round, but are interested in maybe becoming a grantee, they have a really cool public good project, but maybe they're a little nervous. What advice would you give them? Yeah, I love this question. So a lot really depends on sort of what your starting point is, you know, so maybe slightly different advice, depending on like, you know, if you've already got a DAO that you're a part of, you know, you've got friends in the Web3 space, you know, I could definitely give some very specific advice for those folks, you know, versus like somebody who's brand new to the space, doesn't have an existing community. I think there's a place for everybody in Gitcoin grants rounds. And a big part of what we try to do as Gitcoin is like level the playing field, make sure that everybody has an opportunity to get in front of an audience, you know, that grantees can be discovered based on the kind of the quality and interest of what they're building. But yeah, I'd say the universal stuff, you know, it's very much like any community organizing or marketing. Like, you know, think about the picture that you put up as your picture, think about how you summarize the information in your grant proposal, think about the title that you use, good to have the name of your organization, and something to do with your value proposition. So people, maybe they're just looking for you by your name, and they know who you are, and they can find you that way. Maybe they've never heard of your project, but they're interested in your value proposition. So trying to be succinct and having both those things, kind of without needing to click away and go read it, you know, also that like, there's a bit of information that shows up kind of above the fold, as they say, like, you know, kind of in that little preview window, if you have a good little TLDR, that's like, this is what we're trying to do, this is how we intend to do it, this is why we're doing it, whatever you think is important for people to understand, like, I'm trying to raise this money so I can do this, you know, the more that you can be super clear about, like, by next round, or by six months from now, I hope to have accomplished this, and you can follow along and and sort of follow that journey. I think that's really important. Also, if you've been a grantee for more than one round, I know we're talking about new grantees, but updating people is super important, too. They sort of haven't seen that you've done anything with the funding, people start wondering, you know, like, you know, what are you really doing with this money? Should I give again? But I would say for like, people who in particular, who might be nervous, who don't have a web3 community, I would say like, there's a lot of people who are super supportive and helpful in our community. Like, so starting by coming to like our Twitter spaces, the Gitcoin hosts, which you can follow along at the Gitcoin Twitter account, and we're always announcing when the next ones will be. Also, you can usually find there's like a grantee support page, where we have like an event listing, which you can find linked to right off of the main Gitcoin website, gitcoin .co. So I mean, just follow along there, you know, and that can give you a sense of like, just if you just show up, you know, I can tell you that we are super friendly and supportive, you know, and you can just like come and talk about what you're working on, or even just listen for a while and see how other people are doing it and get comfortable, I think people will get a sense that it's a very welcoming and friendly space. You know, but also, like, there's a million, maybe not million, there's definitely tons of these Twitter spaces being hosted by people. If you're not already active on Twitter, I hear you, there's a lot going on in the world. And Twitter is not always my favorite place either these days. But, you know, it happens to be where a lot of the crypto community is, you know, definitely wherever your community is, like, try to bring them on board. But it's a lot easier to get donations from people who are already familiar with crypto, who are already familiar with Gitcoin than it is to like, you know, take somebody from never even having a wallet to like setting up their first wallet funding it, you know, connecting to passport going through all those stages. Definitely great guides out there. You know, I think it's a great idea to like host onboarding sessions or like office hours to help people in your community might want to support you. But definitely the lowest hanging fruit is the existing Gitcoin community that's quite active round after round. And you can find those people on our Twitter spaces, you can find those people, you know, in various discords, but also on the Twitter spaces that other people are hosting. And, you know, and I'd say one other thing I would throw out there is Telegram. All these tools that, you know, if you're from outside the web through space might be a little bit daunting. But you know, if you just join the Gitcoin Telegram group, there's so many people providing peer support, helping each other answering questions. Like if you just jump into that thread, which again, you can find it directly through our homepage, you know, you can from there, like find people who might want to help you with what you're building, or might have a similar project and want to collaborate with you, you know, or, you know, want to attend your Twitter space if you host one and invite other people. So yeah, I would say just like, focus on the people more than the technology. And like, figure out where the low hanging fruit is of like, where those people are that, you know, might be interested in working with you and supporting you. And don't hesitate to reach out and like DM people and, you know, and ask questions. You know, like, I'm always happy to chat if I can find the time. You know, definitely lots of people who are doing their project for the first time reach out. And like, you know, even share what you're thinking about posting in your grant proposal with others like, you know, there's no wrong time to do that. Even if you're listening to this right in the middle of an active grants round, and you missed the opportunity to apply, it's not too late to get involved to start listening to those Twitter spaces to join the Telegram. You can even post your grant proposal and then just apply three months from now in the next round. You know, so can't hurt to like, just moving start things forward, start onboarding your community, start playing with the tools yourself. Really helps to actually go and donate yourself to if you haven't before, because having done it yourself, you can then help other people do it more easily. Yeah, definitely. That's great advice. And you know, I think me personally, I only participated in two rounds, but was really kind of involved more as a community member and like just kind of listening in and being a part of the community before then, right. And it was a great way for me to learn and to kind of get my feet wet a little bit and to see what's going on before diving in headfirst. So great advice. Thank you so much for sharing that. As we near the end of our conversation, there's one thing I want to ask you about. I know that web3 can obviously be very stressful, fast paced, especially, you know, during Gitcoin grant season two, it can be feel like a bit of a sprint, especially for I imagine, the team that's working on the back end. You're also big, I know that you're a big advocate for getting outside for nature for laughter is the best medicine. I know you like to post some videos of you juggling, you know, by the lake is kind of a way to disconnect. Tell me more about how you stay grounded in this busy world of web3. Because I know that there's something that a lot of people struggle with. It's hard, man, honestly. And I can tell you, like, having spent much of my life working on, like, what feels like really life and death issues a lot of the time, like, this is definitely something I've struggled with for a lot of my life. I've definitely gone through cycles of burnout and like, you know, all that, you know, I would say just like, trying to not take everything too seriously, trying to take a step back and see everything in perspective, you know, surrounding yourself with like, friends and family that like, know you and love you and support you. You know, like, getting outside every day really makes a big difference to me. You know, my dogs are a big part of my life. You know, and they're, they're really a gift, because like, they demand that I take them outside. So even if I'm not feeling like going for a walk, they always do. And, you know, I feel like, basically, like, I having like a stressometer, you know, like, if you can sort of like monitor how you're doing, and when you get past like a certain threshold, like, just knowing that it's always okay to just like step away for a bit, you know, even just like, you know, just putting everything on pause and taking three deep breaths can go a really long way. But you know, like, I definitely feel like you really genuinely recharge your batteries by like going to a park or, you know, like the whole touch grass drink water thing like you have to take care of yourself to be able to like, you know, take care of business. You know, so like drinking lots of water or like, I mean, it sounds like, you know, sort of trite or soundbites or whatever, but I think it's really true. You know, and the older I've gotten, like the more just I haven't been able to just continue to like push indefinitely, you know, like that it used to be that I would just burn the candle at both ends and like, you know, it's like, I don't really need to go to bed at a reasonable time. I'll just stay up all night every day working and, you know, operate on zero sleep and not eat enough food and, you know, go for drinks at lunch and you know, like it just like all of that catches up with you after a while for sure. Totally. So I mean, like, as much as everything feels really urgent, like I think if you think back on what felt urgent, like six months ago, three months ago, month ago, even a week ago, sometimes, like a lot of the times things seem a lot more urgent and a lot more stressful in the moment that they really are. You know, so like just trying to have that perspective. And like, yeah, just, you know, take the time that you need to like pace yourself. That's, that's, you know, it's a marathon, not a sprint, that whole thing definitely can feel like a sprint. But, you know, even during the grants round, it honestly, it is a marathon. Like, you know, it's a, it's a couple of weeks with like, at least a week or two on either end of like, preparing and unwinding. And, you know, especially for our team, like, you know, I worry, even when I see like myself or other team members, like pushing a little too hard. And definitely, we see that with grantees too. But yeah, I mean, maybe just get off Twitter. I mean that, you know, the algorithms have a way of like, sort of sucking us back in, keeping us engaged. So, you know, like, you know, spend some time, more time on Farcaster or Lenster. You know, like, there's a lot of good vibes out there too, if you're in the web3 space. And honestly, I think there's a lot of alpha to be had in those social media networks too, that like, because it's a much smaller community, you can really focus on like talking to people who are working on similar things without a lot of the drama and chaos. And, you know, so like, even just making some little adjustments to how you're sort of spending your social media time, I find that pretty helpful for me. I actually hang out on Mastodon a lot recently, because it's an old school decentralized platform with all kinds of interesting people, and definitely different perspectives that I'm not hearing all the time in crypto Twitter. So yeah, I don't know. Everybody's got different things that are going to work different for them. You know, if you were having this conversation with one of my coworkers, you'd say meditation, you know, spend an hour at least every day meditating. You know, another coworker of mine would say, go dancing every night. You know, like, so I mean, you know, just like, I guess, like, figure out what it is that like, brings you joy outside of the space and like, force yourself to do a little bit more of it. And I think the end result is like, you'll actually find that your project is more successful, you're showing up with just like better vibes in general, and, and that resonates out and draws more people in and, you know, so, you know, there's even self -interested reasons beyond just like your health that I think, you know, people will notice if you if you make that little extra bit of effort not to burn yourself out. And if you are burning out, like, take some time away, like it, you know, might feel impossible. Like I definitely can relate to that. It feels like every time I take a week off at Gitcoin, I come back, it's a different organization that I left. But, you know, if you're in the right place with the right people, you need to trust that, you know, things are going to be okay. And, you know, if you're not feeling that way, like, maybe that's an indication that you should be thinking about if you are in the right place. And, you know, maybe there's a lot of different orgs, a lot of different, you know, things that you can get involved in, like, don't feel so trapped in the moment, especially for a lot of the younger people in this space, like, you know, don't have a mortgage or kids that they have to take care of, like, you can take those risks, you can make big changes, you can step away if you need to and experiment, explore other things, like, you know, give yourself that permission when the consequences are not nearly as severe as, you know, it will be like when you're, you know, in your 40s or 50s or whatever. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. That is some great advice. Well, thank you for sharing that, all that. And I can definitely resonate with a lot of that, especially the dog part. I have a very hyperactive black lab who I need to get outside at least for three or four walks a day. So it's been, oh, and there's my cat poking its head in the door right now, just on cue as we talk about pets. That's hilarious. So yeah, great advice. Thank you so much for sharing and so important in this, you know, rapidly growing, fast moving space. So it's been a pleasure just learning from you and hearing everything you've had to say. I've learned so much just from this short conversation. Obviously, we weren't able to cover everything. So for those listening along that want to follow you get in touch, learn more about Gitcoins work, what's the best way for them to do that? I am at Ben West on Twitter, because I was lucky enough to have a friend who registered my account for me in 2008. And I'm the same pretty much everywhere. I think Benjamin West on Telegram. I actually, if you go to my Twitter, I have like one of those link tree type things that you can click on it, I'll show you like a bunch of different places to reach me. But Twitter, Twitter definitely works. And probably most people listening to this are active on Twitter. So yeah, come find me there. That's probably the easiest one. Drew, thank you so much for doing what you're doing. By the way, I think you have crypto altruism is great. And the people the interview are super fascinating. And, you know, so so I'm, it's an honor to be part of your podcast. And thanks for doing what you're doing. Yeah, well, thank you. That means a lot. It really does coming from coming from you to hear that I really appreciate that. So thank you. And thank you for sharing all that information. I'll make sure to include that in the show notes for those listening along. And to wrap things up on this amazing conversation, I'm definitely going to have to take some time to reflect, you know, after after this conversation, because so many really cool things we've talked about. I like to ask everyone the same ending question. If you could name one thing that excites you most about the social impact potential of web three, what would it be and why? Hmm. And that's a tough one, because there's so many things that excite me about it. Truth be told, if I could pick one thing that excites me the most, but the thing that excites me the most is the opportunity for communities to empower themselves and accomplish their goals. Like I, you know, when I see projects come into reality that, you know, may not have otherwise that, like, are possible, because of, you know, whether it's Gitcoin grants, or just web three tools in general, you know, that excites me, there's, there's a lot of specific use cases that really are close to my heart. But like, I think the thing that's underneath all of it, you know, is that sort of cultural shift that, you know, that we talked about earlier, like that, you know, idea that decentralization really matters that, you know, individuals should not just be treated like cogs in a machine. You know, and I think for so many of us, we live in these worlds where like, our work day to day is not fulfilling. And, you know, we feel like we're not treated with respect. And to me, that just really sucks that that's fundamentally where we're at in our world. Like, you know, we've kind of democratized so much of our world. Yet, like, our work is this one place that is fundamentally undemocratic, fundamentally exploitative, often, and extractive. And, you know, and like, I think there's a way to change that, that's outside of these kind of old, like, left right socialism, capitalism paradigms. And like, to me, that's really exciting, because I feel like we've been trapped in this kind of debate that doesn't really go anywhere for a really long time. And like, there's a lot more nuance to be had in terms of like, how markets can be used by communities in positive ways, and how people can empower themselves, you know, by using some nifty tools and kind of working together. And, you know, really, just by all of us believing in this thing that we're doing all kinds of amazing stuff as possible. So yeah, I think that's really at the core of what excites me the most. Yeah, that's such a good one. And I couldn't agree more. I think that, you know, Web3 is such an interesting kind of confluence of so many different people and ideas and, you know, philosophies that it's really cool to just kind of be able to build and without kind of having to go through those same debates over and over again. So that's a great point to end on. Couldn't agree more. Ben, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed this conversation. And thank you for all you're doing to uplift public goods, Gitcoin and yeah, and to inspire so many early stage projects and builders. So thank you work you're doing. It's been an inspiration to me personally, and I know for many others as well. So thanks for being here today. My pleasure. Honestly, it's an honor and a privilege. And hello to your cat there who's joining us for the tail end. Yes, he always likes to make an appearance. Thanks, Ben. A huge thank you to Ben for coming on the crypto altruism podcast. Whenever someone asks me why I love the Web3 community so much, I typically point to Gitcoin grant season. It's a true testament to the power of decentralization and leveraging the wisdom of the crowd to fund what matters. Gitcoin is an incredible catalyst for public goods in Web3. And if you are listening to this between November 15, and November 29, then GG19 is live and you have an opportunity to participate by sending a VONATION to your favorite projects. So make sure to check out the show notes so you can follow along and get involved. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. Thanks so much for joining on the crypto altruism podcast. I had a great time and I hope you did as well. For more great content exploring the intersections of Web3 and social impact, check us out at crypto altruism .org. Also, if you love what you heard, I truly appreciate it if you rate, review, and subscribe to the show. You can also support the show by buying us a coffee or making a small crypto contribution. Crypto altruism runs on the support of community members like yourself and everything helps. Thanks so much for joining us and I hope you'll join us again for our next episode. Until then, let's keep showing the world the good of crypto. Thank you for listening to the crypto altruism podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you can stay up to date on new episodes as they're released and check out crypto altruism .org for more inspiring content.
Mark Levin
Fresh update on "ben j." discussed on Mark Levin
"And there have been other things. Thank by Lisa Monaco, the Deputy Attorney General, and, of course, by Mr. 8 -0, Monish by the US Supreme Court special prosecutor who was appointed really in violation of the Department of Justice violations because a special counsel is supposed to be appointed to investigate individuals at within your own administration, not your political opponent. That's not why we have a special counsel. Now why that is a problem? Because the special counsel is focused on one person. A US Attorney's Office is not focused on one person. They have a thousand cases, some of them going at the same time. So they can't put all the resources on one case. But a special prosecutor can get all the resources he wants focused on one person. You can use as many prosecutors, investigators, FBI agents, and as much funds as you want in pursuit of one man. And that's what they're doing. And this is only one case. That's what they're doing. This is only one case. So what this judge is doing, of course, the Biden administration, but they don't care what this judge is doing. let And me be clear about this. I wish it weren't the case, but they're doing it, not me. Is she from her perspective that Donald Trump will be convicted of at least one count? That's her goal. That's her purpose. So that when Donald Trump runs in the general election or doesn't even complete the primary election, he will be called by Jake Tapper, Wolf Blitzer, and all the others, and this is intentional, they're all waiting, they're all salivating, a convicted felon. So in addition to Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini, worse than Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini, and his obvious intent to imprison and execute people, according to Joe Scarborough. and his mentoring capacity, according to John Carle, an ABC reporter, and on and on and on! He's a convicted Now why is that important? Why is that important? Because everybody doesn't think like we do. Everybody doesn't see this as a complete outrage, we do. And there was a survey done, a fairly elaborate one, in September, late September of this year, if Donald Trump is a convicted felon, on any count, just one. That's all they need, one. And that's why there's 91 counts against him in different jurisdictions. He will lose the general election to Biden by 10%, and the other one says by 10%. So in addition to all the shenanigans that's going to go on with changing the election laws and all the rest of it, and the efforts to keep Donald Trump off the ballot so that far have failed, 0 for 4, which I told you was preposterous, Larry Bob said, hey, you know, that could work, moron, clown. There's this. Convicted felon, that's what they want. They do do not want a debate on Joe Biden's policies, domestic and foreign. They do not want people to remember what he's done to this country and he's done to Israel and other countries. They do not want you remember to the price of food, the price of heating oil, the price of everything through the roof. They want you to be scared that you might elect Hitler or worse, Stalin or worse. He's a convicted felon, duly convicted by a jury. Oh my God. And he's going to people imprison and execute them versus the price of a McDonald's meal. Now what is more concerning to you? I'll be right back. Mark Ben on 77 WABC. And picked for by Case Legal Media. Attention Marines, military personnel, families and contractors who were stationed at Camp Lejeune. Were you present at Camp Lejeune between August 1953 and December of 1987? You may be entitled to significant compensation. For nearly 34 years, those on the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune were exposed to contaminated drinking water, resulting in devastating injuries, including forms several of cancer, adverse birth outcomes, Parkinson's disease and more. Until now, North Carolina's procedural laws have prevented victims from getting the justice they deserve.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"The media will not get out the truth about Nixon. They never will. I mean, I'm 78 years old. I'll be 79 in a few weeks. I doubt if I will, pretty sure I will not live to see the media ever get to a state of honesty about who Richard Nixon was. I don't know who Donald Trump was or who Donald Trump was and is. And it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy that the American people are so misled, hoodwinked, lied to about who conservative candidates are and who conservative people are, who will do anything to behave. And as you put it rather well, perfect, perfect adjective, statesmanlike fashion. The amazing courage of a Trump or of a Nixon goes totally unnoticed in the world today. Well, I mean, look, we've seen this before. You talked about how Nixon was hated. I'm old enough to remember that. I'm old enough to remember how Reagan was despised. And whenever you have a strong America first, patriotic, conservative leader, they are vilified by the left-wing press led by the New York Times, which by the way, is now dead as far as I'm concerned. They were always really, really sick, but they are effectively dead. They threw journalism out the window because they had to save the world from Donald Trump, who's Hitler 2.0. So they had rules. But I was a columnist. Sure. I was a columnist for them for two or three years. I've forgotten now how many, maybe three years, I'm not sure. And I was writing about economics. And this is a good one. These are pretty non-controversial things. But I produced, helped to write and start in a movie called Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed, about how the media will not allow anyone to question Darwinism or gradual creation of life on the planet. And for saying I believe that God did it. There was, there is, there's always been a God and God did it. And for that, I was kicked off the New York Times. Ben, I cannot believe that in my introduction, I did not mention Expelled. It's very kind of you to say that now. And anyway, and they said, not only that, they said, yeah, we're doing this because without telling us you are a highly paid spokesman for, I think they said Goldman Sachs, some big investment bank. And you never told us that. You're not supposed to be a spokesman for an investment bank if you're also doing columns about investment banking and finance on Wall Street. And I said that I've never gotten one penny from Goldman Sachs, not a single cent. And I'm not sure what you're talking about. And they just ignored me. And I mean, I might as well have been spitting into the wind. Well, that is the New York Times and that's if I may say so Wall Street. The New York Times is a joke.They had Walter Duranty covering Stalin, covering for Stalin. He got a Pulitzer Prize. They were the people behind the 1619 project. Ladies and gentlemen, the headline, the New York Times is dead more with Ben Stein on the other side. I want to get promoted based on my chromosomes. When I grow up, I want to be offended by my coworkers and walk around the office on eggshells and have my words policed by HR words like grandfather, peanut gallery, long time no see, no can do. When I grow up, I want to be obsessed with emotional safety and do workplace sensitivity training all day long. When I grow up, I want to climb the corporate ladder just by following the crowd. I want to be a conformist. I want to pronounce what are pronouns. It's time to grow up and get back to work. Introducing the number one woke free job board in America, red balloon dot work.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Fresh update on "ben j." discussed on The Charlie Kirk Show
"If you want to just get fired up about the future of the country. Filled with spirit and optimism. Amfest.com, it's unbelievable. We've got Steve Bannon doing the keynote on Turning Point Action Day on Sunday. We've got Tucker Carlson, Patrick Bette, David Candace Owens, Glenn Beck, Rob Schneider, Roseanne Barr, Dennis Prager, Riley Daines, James O'Keefe, it's just one after the other. And by the way, now Michael Anton, who's a totally amazing guy, really smart, is coming. Jason Whitlock, Jack Pessobic, Benny Johnson. So check it out. Amfest.com. By the way, we are being used to help raise money for media matters. Put that up, 62. Ah, there we are. Ben and Jesse, Judge Laura and Sean. Don't let right wing lies set the agenda in 2024. Donate here. And what a miserable existence those people have. Joining us now is Cash Patel.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Well, first of all, the idea of this, it doesn't seem to be well enough known, because I'm not familiar with this. Of course, and you're a smart and well informed guy. I try to be well informed. This is in my book in considerable detail. At the time it was happening, we Jews were on our hands and knees, thanking Nixon for saving as we Jews saved the Arab Israel. And he did it. Meanwhile, as I said, all these Jews in the media and in Congress were calling him terrible names telling the world what an anti-Semite he was. And God bless his soul, he risked everything to save Israel. That's an astonishing, unbelievable act. No other president has ever done anything like that. He did it. If he were such an anti-Semite, I'm not sure that he would have had Henry Kissinger as a Secretary of State. Or Herbert Stein as the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Which is your father, or you as a speech writer. This is fascinating. And again, so part of the news of your book, The Peacemaker, is to get out the facts on how Nixon seems to have saved Israel from annihilation. He didn't seem to, Eric, if I may say this, he didn't seem, he did it. He did it. Who else in the history of the world has ever done anything like that for the Jewish people? Now bear in mind, I'm an American. I'm not an Israeli. America is my first priority. It's my wife's first priority. No doubt about it. Forgive me for coming up. We're going to go to a break. We'll be right back with Ben Stein on the other side. Welcome back. We're talking to Ben Stein, the new book about Richard Nixon. This seems to me to be a significant book for many reasons. It's called The Peacemaker. Ben Stein, you just told us about how Nixon in a moment of genuine leadership and statesmanship saved Israel in 1973. Yes. But my question is, why isn't this more well known? This is a reason we don't know about this. What is that? Well, same reason that we don't know that Mr. Trump created, made it happen. Namely, the, the, sorry, the Accords with a number of Arab neighbors of Israel, the so-called Abraham Accords. And these were incredible breakthroughs in terms of working towards a lasting peace in the Middle East. You never hear about it. The media never talks about it. The media might as well be describing Trump as the head of the American Nazi party.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Fresh update on "ben j." discussed on The Charlie Kirk Show
"Dr. Peter McCullough says the most common question he's asked is how do I get this out of my body? Spike support formula is the only product that contains ingredients researched to block and dissolve spike protein in the bloodstream. So whether you got the shot, had a bad bout of COVID, or are worried about shedding, there is something you could do now to protect yourself. Head to twc.health slash kirk to buy the wellness company spike support formula and get back to feeling your best. Use promo code kirk at checkout for 10% off your order. That is promo code kirk for 10% off your order. Hey everybody's here on the Charlie Kirk show. The Koch network has made their selection. They have decided on a candidate for 2024 and we unpack that. Email us as always freedom at charliekirk.com. Get involved with the nation's most important organization Turning Point USA at tpusa.com. That is tpusa.com. This Giving Tuesday, chip in if you can at tpusa.com. Give what you can at tpusa.com. Email us as always freedom at charliekirk.com. That's freedom at charliekirk.com. Okay, I want to encourage you guys. You have got to get your tickets today to Amfest. It's been there for a couple years. It is a game-changing, life-changing event. It has secured the title of the largest multi-day conservative gathering in history. You know, over 10,000 people attend. You better get your tickets. They're popping. Amfest has an electrifying environment, leads the charge to fight the American culture war. As we bring you to the epicenter of freedom, the speakers are unbelievable. You might ask, well, when is it? It's December 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, and come on. I mean, these speakers, hold your phone. Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, Patrick Bet-David, Candace Owens, Rob Schneider, Roseanne Barr, Dennis Prager, Ali Beth Stuckey, James O'Keefe, Riley Gaines, Ben Carson, Jason Whitlock, Gad Sad, Brandon Tatum, Seth Dillon, Jack Pessobic, Benny Johnson, Yanmi Park, Michael Siefert, James Lindsay, Steve Bannon, Eric Metaxas, Donald Trump Jr., Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz, and bigger names than even that to be announced soon. So get your ticket today, amfest.com. That is amfest.com. You're going to really love it. I think when you come, you'll meet new people. Maybe you want to find a husband or a wife, come to Amfest. Find a best friend, come to Amfest. Have kids that you're afraid are slipping to the liberal side, go to Amfest. Have conservative kids that you want to give them the best Christmas gift ever, amfest.com. Meet your heroes, see them in person. Plus there's breakouts and media row. It's an incredible, incredible day. Amfest.com, just coming in a couple weeks. Phoenix, Arizona. We're doing our show live, by the way, from media row. Love seeing all of you taking selfies. It's great. We spent a couple hours there last year. It was really amazing. amfest.com. This four-day event is packed with empowering speakers, hundreds of patriotic partner organizations, and the America-loving community that you have been searching for. Don't miss on the amazing concert too. And let me, come on, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Rob Schneider, Roseanne Barr, Dennis Prager, Ali Beth Stuckey, James O'Keefe, Patrick Bet-David, Glenn Beck. I mean, just drop everything and come to Phoenix.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"I hope that's right. And you know, I think I think I can get it on DVD. I'm not positive. I think I can. And if I can, I will, because it is a great super show. Well, there's there's there's so much to talk about. I will be in touch with you about getting you back on the program. Let's just close with Richard Nixon here. You what led you at this point in your life, you said you're going to be 79 in a few weeks to write a book about Richard Nixon. I mean, why didn't you write it 10 years ago? What led you to write this book now? I'd say because he was the most important person I've ever met. I think winning, at least for a time, the Cold War, explaining how the communists were ruining America, explaining how the government had been taken over in large part by the deep state of very important thing to do. I'm not going to live forever. I've had a very tragic year. My son died in July, worst thing by far has ever happened to my wife and me. And why I did not know how much longer I would live and I wanted to get it done. So we had a president in this country who is a genuinely great man. I'd like to be some there to be some recognition of him. I'm just I'm thrilled you've written the book. I really I cannot wait to read it. You've you've whetted my appetite on this program. And I hope we together have whetted the appetite of many of our listeners to get a copy of the book, The Peacemaker. But I will I have a copy on my desk in the studio when I get back to New York. I will get that book and read it. And we will continue the conversation. It's in California for the next number of weeks. Are you going to be flitting someplace else? I'm going to be here most of the time, although I think I told you maybe I didn't say we have a home, a couple of homes actually in northern Idaho on a big, big, big lake. And we have well, we have a lot of homes, but I'm going to be selling most of them because I hurt my knee really badly. I can't go up and down the stairs very well anyway. But I'll be here most of the time. And I will be very, very honored to take you to lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel where I hang out. Okay. You've got a deal there, sir. Thank you, sir. God bless you, Ben Stein. Thank you so much. God bless you, Eric. Thank you so much. God bless you. And God bless America.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Welcome back. Talking to Ben Stein about Richard Nixon, his book. He knew Nixon, was friends with Nixon. You, Ben Stein, have written a book called Peacemaker. Tell us about- The Peacemaker. The Peacemaker. Sorry, The Peacemaker. I assume we're talking about the Yom Kippur War of 1973? Yes. Israel had won a smashing, incredible, unbelievable victory in 67th. They had taken over all of the Sinai Peninsula and the Negev, and they had fortified, supposedly impregnably, the east bank of the Suez Canal. It turned out Mrs. Meir had totally screwed that up, just unduly mind-bogglingly screwed that up. When you say this, so the Prime Minister of Israel at the time was Golda Meir, and how did she screw that up? She neglected to keep the repairs in terms of manpower and equipment on the east bank of the Suez Canal in tip-top shape, so that then when the Arabs, the Egyptians primarily, Egyptians were always the top grade of Israel's hostile neighbors. Anyway, when they wanted to cross with Russian help, of course, lots of Russian help, they found that the east bank was nowhere near as well fortified as the Israelis had claimed it was, and the Arabs could cross it, banks of the canal, and flood like waters into Israel. Mrs. Meir really should have been arrested, maybe in prison for her negligence. But anyway, the Israelis generally could stop any invasion by the Arabs with their superb air force that just pound for pound the best air force in the world. But this time the Russians, who are wizards at this kind of thing, had given the Arabs, especially the Egyptians, a super good anti-aircraft missile. I believe it was called the SA-7, and they could shoot down the Israeli planes fighter bombers at will. That means the Israelis were losing their planes very, very fast, and their tanks and other armored vehicles could cross over, start zooming up the pathways into Sinai. And Israel, there was nothing basically to stop them. Once the Israeli air force was out of business, well, Israel had good tanks, good artillery, but the airplanes were their main card, their primary card. If that was gone, they were in terrible shape. Mrs. Meir and her colleagues begged the Americans for the so-called black boxes, which were devices that could jam the Russian super sophisticated anti-aircraft rockets. The people at the Defense Department said, no, no, no, no, if one of them falls out of the sky and falls into Russian hands, they'll be able to learn from it and manipulate it and create impregnable, fabulous anti-aircraft rockets that can shoot down anything they want, I should say. Mr. Nixon said, I don't care what you guys at the Department of Defense say, I want Israel to have those black boxes. And the people at the Defense Department were shuffling their feet, sitting on their hands, and Nixon said, look, I want those planes, planes carrying those black boxes, to be taking off right now, right now from Andrews Air Force Base. I'm not going to get off the phone until I hear those planes going down the runway with those black boxes. They had to do it, Nixon ordered them to do it. They did it within, I don't know how long the flight is, maybe seven or eight hours. Within seven or eight hours, the Israelis had the boxes, they could stop the planes from getting, stop the rockets. It was just a horrible situation now suddenly for the Egyptians, because now the Israelis could jam their anti-aircraft rockets, and the fabulous Israeli Air Force could do pretty much whatever it wanted in terms of knocking out Egyptian armored vehicles. Suddenly, the Israelis could push back the Arabs. And what they did is not only push them back, but they went south of the Suez Canal, crossed the Red Sea, came up behind the Egyptian Seventh Army, and surrounded Cairo, not completely, but almost completely. And the Russians were frantic about this. And they said, if you keep doing this, we're going to drop our super skilled Russian paratroopers into the Sinai and go to war with you Israelis. And we don't promise that we won't use nuclear weapons. And Nixon went to what I think was called Defcon 2 or Defcon 3, very high state of readiness, which was just one step away from using nuclear weapons on the Russians. And this was a big, big thing to risk nuclear war to save Israel. No other president, no other world leader, no other leader of a country had ever, ever, ever done anything like this. Nixon literally risked the nuclear annihilation of Israel, and maybe of the whole Mideast, in order to save Israel. Nobody else had ever done that. And yet, at the same moment, people were saying Nixon was the anti-Semite. What a colossal, horrible lie.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Al Burton, comedy, television comedy producer on a very high level, but a genius. What shows did Al Burton put in? Now you got me wondering. Almost all, the best one was a very short live one, but a wonderful one called Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Hilarious comedy. Are you kidding? No, he invented that. He's a genius. With Dodie Goodman. No, no, it wasn't Dodie Goodman. I forget her name now. Louise Lasser played her mother. Oh my God. You have a hell of a memory, my friend. Anyway, actually it was Norman Lear's show, but he had, well, I can't remember them all at once. He had six or seven of them going simultaneously, but he was probably the smartest man I ever met. And among the other things he invented was Win Ben Stein's Money, which was a quiz show. Very, very difficult. Ben Stein had to play against three contestants coming in from, I'd say, from the outside world. And I had to beat all of them in order to win any money. And it was very competitive and difficult, but I did it. I won something like 85, roughly, not exactly, percent of the games. And that's the most percent of the highest percent of game shows in a series anyone has ever won. I was very proud of myself for that. You should be proud of yourself for that. I'm proud of myself that on a program where I was expecting mostly to talk about Richard Nixon, we managed to work in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. That's the title. Well, Mary Hartman was a work of genius. And you know that Norman Lear could not sell it to the networks. And I was then writing about television for the Wall Street Journal. And I wrote about it. And that very same day, some network people saw it, bought it, picked it up, and it became a huge hit only for like three years or four years. But a work of unique genius, just fabulous, fabulous. Some people remember Martin Moll. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He was hilariously funny. Hilariously funny. He was a fantastically brilliant guy. Painfully funny. I mean, it was just unbelievable. I just still can't believe that we're talking about Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. We're going to have to get together in person. And my audience is kind of like they're thinking, Eric, I'm not sure where you're going with this, but it's just a comedy classic. It was like a cult classic in the in the 70s, mid 70s. And it was just absolutely brilliant. And there was a spinoff show from it, too. But so that's so it was your friend, Al Burton, who produced was one of the producers on that show, who led you to do the film Expelled, because many people in my audience will be familiar with that film.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"I used to cry. I used to bow our heads down, wonder why. Folks, welcome back. I am talking to Ben Stein. You may know him from the game show, Win Ben Stein's Money. You may not. You may know him from other places, but the point is he was a friend of Richard Nixon wrote speeches for Nixon. And right now has a brand new book out called the peacemaker, which is about Richard Nixon. So listen, I was saying to you earlier, my dad who's 96 was a great admirer of Nixon principally because as my father always said, Nixon was a staunch anti-communist Nixon understood the wickedness of the communists. Excellent. Excellent. Oh my God. Are you ready? May I now jump in here? This is, you're my guest. Don't even hesitate. You're younger than I am. I don't have very long to live compared with you. Nixon understood that there was not much difference between Bolshevism and Nazism. Both were fraudulent promises of a paradise on earth. And if you do the slightest thing, even if you did nothing, you could be executed, tortured, starved to death, beaten to death by the powers that be. And that was the greatness of the communism. Promised a great life for everybody. It was the biggest lie ever in history. The second, the word Nazi comes from national, that's NA, socialist. And the party under Mr. Disgusting Hitler was national socialist party. And that's what Nixon understood right away about both socialism and Nazism was they're out to kill you. They're going to grab you, squeeze you, shake you, torture you, kill you. But at the end of the day, you were going to be dead. And I guess we're all dead at the end of the day, but you're going to be dead. But you're not a Keynesian. I am. I am a bit of a Keynesian. I want me to take you down that rabbit trail. But the point you're making is that Nixon understood the evil of communism. I mean, this is just one of the things. Yes, he understood a lot. He understood a lot. The history. But the title of your book is The Peacemaker. I want to start there just because we're in such difficult times. And the hoodlum, I apologize, the husk of a man in the White House today, who's still very good. Wait, wait, Eric, don't leave that phrase. That is a great, great phrase. The husk of a man. Very, very good phrase. Very good. That's a very technical, scientific term. I am very good. The husk of a man known as Joe Biden. But we're talking about statesmanship. When we think of Nixon, of his ability as a statesman to be a peacemaker and to lead and to think wisely on a global scale, his foreign policy was genius. We're living in a time right now where we have the exact opposite. I'm an admirer of Trump's foreign policy. And by God's grace, he'll get back in. But in the meantime, we have a nightmare of an administration almost seemingly intentionally doing every single thing wrong. And so let's talk about Nixon as peacemaker. For an audience that's, many people listening are too young to remember this era, talk about him as peacemaker, because that's the title of your book. Well, Mr. Nixon had two primary wars to deal with. There were many other wars, but the main one was, of course, for him, the war in Vietnam. And that was a nightmare, because people have been completely hoodwinked into thinking that the communists were the good guys, and that our side were bad guys. The communists would win, they would bring peace to Vietnam, they'd bring a paradise life on earth, that phrase again, for these poor, but very good looking people in Vietnam. But that turned out to be completely wrong. It turned out to be, as all communists always are, mass murderers, terrible mass murderers. It's an interesting thing, Eric. But people may or may not remember the Tet Offensive in 68 slash 69. The main feature of that was, first of all, Walter Cronkite said that proved they had won the war, which is a total lie. But the second one was, they killed a lot of civilians, hell of a lot of civilians. But the other war that was incredibly important was the war between Israel and Egypt and other Arab states. And I want you to imagine that you, like me, are a Jew, and you're seeing the world around you disintegrating as the Arabs, Egyptians mostly, make a gigantic push into Israel because of the negligence, incredible negligence of Mrs. Meir, and are about to win that war and crush Israel, and Nixon saves them. And everybody's saying, oh, he's an anti-Semite, he's an anti-Semite. No, he stepped up, he saved Israel. He went to the Jews of the world and said, I'm going to save you. Everybody said, oh, no, no, you can't do that, you're an anti-Semite. No, Nixon loved Jews. He was the savior, the literal savior of the Jews. I have to pause for a second. My dear friend, sir, you, that's you, my nurse, somebody's at the door, I don't know who, whoever it is, let's add him in, my physical therapist, Laurent, please let him in right away. Thank you. Sorry. That's okay. We have doors in our houses and people come to us. It's a perfectly human thing, and we're going to let it go. I will allow it. Now, listen, what you just said, this is one of the reasons I'm excited about your book. I have a copy of it back in our studio. I don't have a copy here. I'm in Dallas temporarily. But when you talk about Nixon as a peacemaker, and when you talk about Israel, I don't know that story. So when we come back from the break, I want you to tell the story because I'm a little bit surprised that I don't know it or I don't remember. You're going to hear it, sir. So we're going to be right back, folks. We're talking to Ben Stein and the book, brand new book, The Peacemaker, about Richard Nixon. Don't go away. We'll be right back. 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The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Oh, there's absolutely no doubt about it, but I kind of think it's a badge of courage. It's a mark of honor when, you know, the cognoscenti go after you. They go after Donald Trump. They went after Nixon, whom you've written about, but it's something that you see it over and over again. So if you want to know who the good guys are, whom are they attacking the You bet, you bet, you bet. And it's kind of fascinating to me that if you are rich, good looking, don't even have to be that good looking, and you are a stud, you can get away with bloody murder. But if you're just a hardworking guy like Richard M. Nixon, no, you can't get away with anything. And Nixon didn't want to get away with anything. Nixon wanted to be a peacemaker. He didn't care if he was regarded as a beautiful person. He wanted to be a peacemaker. And his mother, I think this is in my book, I'm pretty sure it is, his mother had told him when he was a child, she was a great fan of the Jews. You will someday be in a position to do great things with Jewish people. And that will be an incredible opportunity for you to walk in God's footsteps. And Nixon remembered that during the Yom Kippur War, and did incredible, incredibly great things for Israel. And still, people call him anti-Semite. It breaks my heart just because when I see Jews describing him in that way, I mean, he couldn't have been a better friend to the Jewish people than he was. Nobody else has ever been like that before. But they said the same thing about about Donald Trump. Oh, my God, that's right. When I came out publicly for Trump, just as a conservative, I thought he's the nominee. And I was attacked. I was attacked for having anti-Semitic leanings. And the funny thing is, you don't know this about me, but I wrote a 600-page book about a German pastor who was murdered by the Nazis. The whole book is about the evil of the Nazis. So even having written a book about that, they will accuse, in other words, people will just use these terms to demonize whom they dislike. But the idea of what's called Donald Trump somehow- I know, incredible. Incredible. And Trump was a huge, huge fan of the Jewish people, he was a huge, huge fan of Israel. What the heck more do they want from him? I mean, what more could they ask of him? Well, they're obviously not interested in the truth. I mean, I think that's the bottom line. Sir, you have said a mouthful. The left is not interested in the truth. That is, the truth is the last thing they want. Well, and that's why we have to stand firm and put our faith in God and keep marching because this happens over and over and over again. But I do think that we're going to go to a break here. We've just got one final segment. But I'll just say in closing that I think that what's called legacy media, the New York Times, the Washington Post, all of these Ivy League schools, their brand has been so tarnished. I think it gives me hope, honestly, that people are seeing what they're actually made of. It's been bad for decades, but it's gotten infinitely worse. We'll be right back talking to Ben Stein. The new book is The Peacemaker. With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, lots of companies are coming out saying they'll pay for employee abortion, travel and expenses. Most of you have heard about some of these companies. You've decided to stop shopping or doing business there. But did you know that you most likely own stock in those companies through your 401ks, IRAs and other investment accounts? Folks, this is a huge problem and we need to do something about this to send a message to Wall Street through our investments. You need to go to inspireadvisors.com slash Eric and get a free inspire impact report. This biblical investment analysis will educate you on what's really in your investment accounts, like companies paying for abortion travel. You need to go to inspireadvisors.com slash Eric to connect with an inspire advisors financial professional who can run your report and help remove companies paying for abortion travel today. Go to inspire advisors.com slash Eric. That's inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. Advisory services are offered through Inspire Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the SEC.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"And a man this fine, who is just that fine of a father, cannot be bad. He cannot be all bad or even largely bad. This was a man who loved his family, loved his children, loved his wife. I've never heard of a president as devoted to his wife as Mr. Nixon was to Pat Nixon. OK, we're going to we've got more with Ben Stein. The brand new book is The Peacemaker about Richard Nixon. Don't go away. Tell me why Relief Factor is so successful at lowering or eliminating pain. I'm often asked that question. Just the other night I was asked that question. Well, the owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right. Designed to heal. And I agree with them. And the doctors who formulated Relief Factor for them selected the four best ingredients. Yes, 100 percent drug free ingredients. And each one of them helps your body deal with inflammation. Each of the four ingredients deals with inflammation from a different metabolic pathway. That's the point. So approaching from four different angles may be why so many people find such wonderful relief. If you've got back pain, shoulder, neck, hip, knee or foot pain from exercise or just getting older, you should order the three week quick start discounted to only nineteen ninety five to see if it'll work for you. It has worked for about 70 percent of the half a million people who've tried it and have ordered more on one of them. Go to relief factor dot com or call eight hundred for relief to find out about this offer. Feel the difference. Hey, folks, Eric here. Mike Lindell is always looking for ways to solve everyday problems. So have you ever picked up a towel set because it felt really soft in the store? But then when you go to use it, it's not very absorbent and doesn't actually dry you. Well, that's why my pillow has developed the my pillow towels. This six piece set has one hundred percent long staple sheer poor cotton. It's a combed ring spun cotton that makes the towel softer and more absorbent than ever tells it actually dry you. And right now you can receive a six piece set for only twenty nine ninety eight with promo code. Eric, go to my pillow dot com right now. Click on the radio podcast specials to receive this amazing offer of only twenty nine ninety eight on the six piece set from my pillow towels. Just go to my pillow dot com. Click on the radio podcast specials and enter promo code Eric or call eight hundred nine seven eight three oh five seven. That's my pillow dot com promo code Eric. My pillow dot com promo code Eric or call eight hundred nine seven eight three oh five seven. I use these towels. They work. I promise you.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"He had people in the White House saying terrible Landers things. He had no connection with the truth at all. He had some health problems. I don't think that was widely known, but he had some health problems. Phlebitis is all I remember. I'm sorry? Phlebitis is all I remember. That was later. Now, he had some problems, some musculoskeletal problems. But I don't remember their exact nature. But I just remember, we had inflation, the war, crisis after crisis, crisis after crisis in the Middle East. And he was just doing a great job. He was just all hands on deck, one might say, doing a great, great job. And he had great, great people in his cabinet. Not like today, whether selected on the basis of their race. These were selected on the basis of their ability. And he did an incredible job with them. And I was impressed as hell then and now with what high-end people he had, working for him. I never will forget the fact that he had in the room, in the cabinet room, people who were undoubtedly geniuses, working for and with him. And I thought, wow, what an incredibly impressive guy. And we had, I think it may be wrong, sir. I think that very morning we had a sermon by Billy Graham, who I had always loved. I am a Jew. My family have been Jews since the beginning of Judaism. But I love Billy Graham. I just love him. If you could look to my right here, you would see a picture of my father with Mr. Graham and Mr. Nixon. I loved him and I love Mr. Nixon. I just loved everything about him. And Julie just blew my brains out. She was so beautiful and so sweet and so nice. I'm still so impressed by her. I can't even start to tell you. Well, listen, it's just fun to talk to you on many, many levels. I had the privilege of being friends with Chuck Colson. I loved him. I want to talk to you about all this stuff. One of the folks is called the peacemaker, Nixon, the man president, my friend by Ben Stein. We'll be right back with Ben Stein. Tell me why Relief Factor is so successful at lowering or eliminating pain. I'm often asked that question. Just the other night I was asked that question. Well, the owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right. Designed to heal. And I agree with them. And the doctors who formulated Relief Factor for them selected the four best ingredients. Yes, 100% drug free ingredients. And each one of them helps your body deal with inflammation. Each of the four ingredients deals with inflammation from a different metabolic pathway. That's the reason many people find such wonderful relief. If you've got back pain, shoulder, neck, hip, knee, or foot pain from exercise or just getting older, you should order the three week quick start discounted to only $19.95 to see if it'll work for you. It has worked for about 70% of the half a million people who've tried it and have ordered more on one of them. Go to relieffactor.com or call 800 for relief to find out about this offer. Feel the difference.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Folks, welcome back. As promised, I don't know how to put it. I'm not going to mince words. My guest is Ben Stein. At least he identifies as Ben Stein, the actor. You remember him from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He's a writer. He's a speechwriter, was a speechwriter for Nixon. Not many people have been in popular films with Matthew Broderick and were friends with Richard Nixon. I don't think there's anybody except for Ben Stein. Ben Stein, welcome to this program. You're very kind to say so. I'm happy to be here. The acting was the most fun part of my life, but a very, very small part of my lifetime was mostly I'm a lawyer, economist, commentator on financial fraud. I spent a large part of my life writing and talking and speaking about financial fraud. I spent really probably 40 years doing that. I don't do it much anymore because they don't have the big audiences for it anymore because of the fake pandemic. I got to ask you, are you renting your voice from Harvey Fierstein? No, I've heard of him, but I'm not renting. I think I'm older than he is, so I think I probably had this voice before he did, but God bless him. All right. Well, we won't talk about Harvey Fierstein. That's a policy on the program not to talk about him. That's funny. I know he's a famous person. I think he's famous for being gay, but I'm not sure what he's- I was going to say, if you remember Torch Song Trilogy, and I certainly don't, but we're here to talk about you, and we're here to talk about Richard Nixon. That's what I like about Nixon. I want to say that some people will know you from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but you were a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and I can't imagine anything less fun than being a speechwriter for Gerald Ford. Well, you're wrong. It was the greatest possible respect, Eric. He was a great guy to work for and with, and I enjoyed every minute of it, and I really was sorry when Donald Rumsfeld called me and told me that I was going to be moved to somewhere, as you said, in a bureaucracy, and so there you are, but I love- Well, he likes getting a call from Rumsfeld. Let's be honest. That's quite funny. Well, I was saying to you before we went on the air, I had the privilege of meeting you in Las Vegas. I hate Las Vegas, but I had the privilege of meeting you there at the Mark Scuson event. George Gilder was there. He's been on this program. John Cleese was there. I had a joy of meeting- Love him. Love him. Love him. Love him. Love him. Love him. Love him. Then that you were writing a book about Richard Nixon. So, folks, the principal topic of conversation is Ben Stein's brand new book. It's called The Peacemaker, Nixon, the Man, President, and My Friend. Tell us, Ben Stein, when did you meet Richard Nixon? Well, the first time I ever met Richard Nixon was when he came to speak in my hometown, Silver Spring, Maryland, at an authentic whistle stop in Silver Spring, at what was then called the B &O Railroad. He was speaking in a small crowd, and my mother lifted me up to see him, or maybe it was my father. That was when I first met him. I thought he had a very nice face. And all my neighbors- Since your mother lifted you up, I assume you were not a teenager at the time. No, no, no. She was strong, but not that strong. But anyway, and I just loved him from the minute I saw him. And if I may say this, all my neighbors hated him. I don't know why. I still don't know why people hated him. I really don't. I think he was a genuine savior of America in several different ways. But a lot of people in my neighborhood hated him and broke my heart. I really, really loved him. My father, who's 96, loved Nixon and made me love Nixon, and we can talk about that. But what I wanted to say, just to get the dates correct, when you say your mother lifted you up, I'm assuming this was during the 1960 presidential election. No, if you assumed that, you would be wrong. It was during the 1952 election because he was Ike's vice president. Okay. Exactly right. That's why I bring it up. I want to get the dates correct. Exactly. And then I was seven. Now we know exactly how old you are. So I can tell you, I can tell you 78. You can tell me 78. That's how old I am. I'm 78. I'll be 79 at the end of the month. God allows me to live that long. Amen. So you were a kid in 1952. Ike is running his vice president, of course, Richard Nixon. So that was your first introduction to Nixon. What were you doing in the early years of your life that led you to a career as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, the president of the United States? Well, it was not a career, really. I only did it for about a year, a little longer than a year. What led to it, I said, one, I loved him. I just thought he was an honest, stand-up guy. To me, Kennedy always had a kind of a snake oil salesman about him that I didn't particularly care for. But Mr. Nixon stood out as an honest man, very rare in Washington, very rare in politics, period. But what I was doing when I first met him, in enough of a sentient capacity to actually make conversation with him, was I was a lawyer. I had just graduated from Yale Law School. And I know you went to Yale, too, God bless you, but I don't know whether you went to Yale as an undergraduate or a college graduate. I went as an undergraduate, and that did sufficient damage. I think it was kind of fun. I was not an undergraduate there, but I think it would have been a lot of fun. But anyway, I met him mostly, I think, because my father, God bless his soul, Herbert Stein, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under Mr. Nixon. And he, Mr. Nixon, invited my father and mother and my sister and me, although my sister never went, to go to one of their Sunday prayer meetings in the East Room of the White House. And he was standing out there shaking hands with high-ranking people. And I saw this incredibly beautiful girl, incredibly, Julie Eisenhower, his daughter, with her dog, at least one of her dogs. I think it was just King Timo, or maybe Pasha, or maybe Vicki. And I was just stunned by how beautiful she was. And I smiled at her, and she smiled at me. And Mr. Nixon smiled at us both. And my father was probably saying something to me like, don't dare talk to her. But I did talk to her. And she and I have been very close friends ever since. And I said to him something along the lines of, I know a lot of people don't like you, but I love you. And I think you're wonderful. And I think you're the best president there's been in my lifetime. And I still, I would still make the same assessment. What year was it that you met him at the White House? Let me think. He was elected in 68, sworn in in 69. So probably would have been 71 or 72. And he was president. He had a very full plate. He had a war in Vietnam. He had tremendous amounts of anti-Nixon, anti-American demonstrations.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"And what else should we talk about? We just got about two minutes left, but I do want to, oh no, we're out of time. Sorry, folks. We will have more. Do we have time? We have time. We have two minutes. What should we talk about in the two minutes? Sorry about that. Go ahead. Okay. One thing I really want to emphasize, and you said a little bit about it, is that everything's like short and pithy. Like if you pick it up, you can start in the middle. You could start at the end. There's short little parables, some of them funny, some of them you might've heard of before, but you realize, oh yeah, there was a cartoon that I could not find, but I kind of described it here in the beginning. There's a bunch of sheep and there's this mean shepherd with a whip. And the one sheep stands up and the shepherd looks at him. And then the next panel is all the sheep have stood up and the shepherd drops his whip and he's, he's scared. And I'm like, that's an example of one person. And I've had this happen to me too. Sometimes even in public, there was a guy harassing my wife by actually blocking the doorway and not giving her room. And I asked him politely to move. And he said, you white people think you own everything. And this was a white kid saying it. And I said to him, oh, so you're a racist, eh? So the next stop, people get off the subway and one young black woman walks by me, smiles and says, have a nice day. And I said, you too. She was like, yeah, somebody said something. There are good people everywhere. And when you speak up, uh, it's happened to me a few times. They're listening, they're watching, and every one of us can be that person, uh, and needs to be that person. And so this book is a great encourager, I guess I would say, uh, along those lines. Just the cartoons and the memes I've found. Well, there's a lot, there's a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun stuff in the book. And by the way, folks, in case you were unaware of the title, it should be obvious. And it actually is obvious, obvious by Albin Saydar. Albin, congratulations. Thanks very much, Eric. For 10 years, Patriot mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. And when I say only trust me, they're the only one Glenn and the team have been great supporters of this show, which is why I'm proud to partner with them. Patriot mobile offers dependable nationwide coverage, giving you the ability to access all three major networks, which means you get the same coverage you've been accustomed to without funding the left. When you switch to Patriot mobile, you're sending the message that you support free speech, religious freedom, the sanctity of life, second amendment in our military veterans and first responder heroes. They're 100% U S based customer service team makes switching easy. Keep your number, keep your phone or upgrade their team will help you find the best plan for your needs. Just go to Patriot mobile.com slash Metaxas or call nine seven to Patriot get free activation. When you use the offer code Metaxas, join me, make the switch today. Again, go to Patriot mobile.com slash Metaxas or call nine seven to Patriot, Patriot mobile.com slash Metaxas legacy. Precious metals has a revolutionary new online platform that allows you to invest in real gold and silver online. In a few of these steps, you can open an account online, select your metals of choice and choose to have them stored in a vault or shipped to your door. You have access to a dashboard where you can track your portfolio growth in real time. Anytime you'll see transparent pricing on each coin and bar. This puts you in complete control of your money. The platform is free to sign up for visit legacy PM investments.com and open your account and see this new investing platform for yourself. Gold hedges against inflation and against the volatile stock market. A true diversified portfolio isn't just more stocks and bonds, but different asset classes. This new platform allows you to make investments in gold and silver no matter how small or large with a few clicks. Visit legacy PM investments.com to get started. You're going to love this free new tool they've added legacy PM investments.com legacy PM investments.com. Check it out.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Folks, welcome back. In this brief segment, I'm going to talk to the author of a brand new book. Now, the title of the book should be obvious. In fact, not only should it be obvious, it is obvious. The title of the book is obvious. Albin Sator is the author, obviously. Albin, everything in the book is the statement of things that we've got to say over and over because they're true and we're living in a time where people are trying to shove lies down our throats. So the book is humorous, pithy, and unfortunately important. Obvious, seeing the evil that's in plain sight, doing something about it. There's something in here, the beautiful part of this book, one of the beautiful parts of this book is your kindergarten picture. You actually, in the book, there's a picture of your kindergarten class. I could cry. It's so cute and beautiful. I know. The children are so cute, especially those two twins in the back row. I'm my identical twin brother is standing right next to me. I think I can't tell because I can't tell us apart, but wait, are you both identical? Yeah. My, my, my, my mother and father assured us. Let's just put it that way. So because it doesn't really, if only one of you is identical, then you can't be identical twins. That's just the way at the end of the, that aisle. And I think it's just, but anyway, it's a picture of your kindergarten class. You and your twin brother are in the back row. So go ahead. Yeah. And this is okay. I'm going to give a little bit about my age here. This was the East street school that doesn't exist there anymore. They tore it down for I-279 or something like that in Pittsburgh. Anyway, but we're all lined up. This is May of 1960. Okay. This was as early as you can get in the sixties. And I talk about the specific things in the photo itself. It's besides the fact that everybody's cute and none of the kids is overweight. We're all, you know, we're all in our Sunday best as it were. There's like 22 of us. And there's, there's another era. None of these kids is doing blow. I mean, it's an era where kindergartners are not doing cocaine. But seriously, it really it's so it's such a beautiful picture. I really could get choked up looking at it. Yeah. And I, it's so funny cause I'm even looking at the little girl that I found so cute. I was like, boy, I'd like that. I'd like to marry that one down there. And here I am five and a half years old, of course. There's even in the middle, there's even this is 1960 folks. There's a black baby doll among the toys in the front of the picture. I thought Mattel in 1990 came up with black baby dolls. What they had them actually in the 1960s. Oh yeah, folks. And there's like four black children in the group. And then, you know, at the time it was probably, I don't, you know, which was about, what is that 15, 20, 20% of the, the, the, the children. And we're in a neighborhood. It's like the lower middle-class neighborhood where that kindergarten was. So it was representative. And this is 1960 folks. Remember what happened at the end of 1960, how all H E double toothpicks broke out. Yeah. But anyway, that's why I love that picture. You should really spell out the word toothpicks, if you don't mind in the future. Well, or, or hockey sticks too. So this is a picture of your kindergarten class. And what is the larger point that you're making? Because that's, I mean, the title of this chapter, these are all very short chapters, is what a difference a decade makes. Yes. One of the obvious things I'm stating and the reason why I have the children there, there's an article that goes along with that. And it, I think it's titled one of the chapters, racism is for losers. And my, when my mother was picking us up at the kindergarten one day, another mother, I overheard this said to my mother, Oh, look at, look at your twins. They're playing with that little black boy over there. And I overheard this. I'm like, what, what do you, what do you want? What is she talking about? Cause our best friend there was one of the little black boys in the school. And we didn't, we're not aware of him as being black. He was just your friend. Yeah. Because he played with the same toys and had the same, you know, kind of sense of fun that we had because we were children and nobody was saying, Hey, you know, you may think you're a little boy, but you twins, you're not identical twins. Want to use a little girl and want to use not a little girl. You see what we're talking about? Nobody was shoving any of this stuff down anybody's throat back then. This is 1960 folks. What happened at the end? Where are we today? How far we come? Like how far backwards have we gone? And I get fired up about this stuff, right? Well, no, it's just astonishing that the, the innocence, this is one of the great crimes of our time. And this is why. Ladies and gentlemen, you need to be doing your part in the war against evil, whatever that means running for school board homeschooling your kids, being a poll watcher, whatever God calls you to do. Cause God has a job for every one of us, but to combat the lies, you have to face the fact. And again, this is one of the points of the book that one of the things that is obvious is the loss of innocence. And that to me is one of the most heartbreaking, maybe the most heartbreaking thing is the loss of innocence that little kids, because of the madness on the left, they're growing up in a world where they're being made aware of things that they should never be made aware of at a young age. They should not hear about this at a young age. They shouldn't be confused about sexual identity. It shouldn't be even introduced to them. And little kids are being forced to deal with this. They're being forced to deal with the concept of racism. It is so wrong to impose this kind of stuff on children. It's bad enough when you try to impose it on adults, but the idea, just looking at that picture in the book that it really was a more innocent time. And again, we're not saying things were perfect back then and perfect for everybody. That's certainly not true, but we were making progress. Too slow for some people. That's true, but you don't go where we are today. It's like, I don't like you unless you say Black Lives Matter the way I say it. And to me, that's a chapter in the book too. It's like, we can't say all lives matter. Did God not say, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only begotten son, the world who's in the world, past, present, and future, all people. So do they matter to the living God that loves us? I think so. So they should matter to us. So when these people yell in your face, they're trying to convince themselves. They don't think that's true. We think it's true. They don't think it's true. So get off your high horse and maybe learn something. These really are very short chapters. I want to say you did that intentionally. So you could read this, for example, if you fall out of a building on your way down, you could probably read a chapter before, well, I guess before you die. But anyway, the point is that they're short chapters. You could read them fairly quickly, but everyone wants to, is a statement of the obvious that needs restating. That's why the book is titled Obvious.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"ben j." Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Welcome to The Eric Metaxas Show. Have you heard that some people have a nose for news? Well, Eric has a nose for everything. That's why this is called The Show About Everything. Now welcome your host, who definitely passes the smell test, Eric Metaxas. Folks, welcome to hour two. It is my privilege to continue talking to Ben Stein, who has been reminding me of many things that I'd forgotten. First of all, we're talking about his brand new book about Richard Nixon. It's called The Peacemaker. I cannot wait to read it. I'm I would love to do that once I have read it. But I want to tell you, when you just mentioned your role in the film Expelled, I cannot believe I forgot about that, because that is a film that a lot of the people that I'm friends with have been in that film. And it makes the case clear as a bell that there's no way that we got where we are without a creator. You know, you don't have to believe it's the same creator that I do. But the idea of atheism is dead. I wrote a book called This Atheism Dead. I'm going to send you a copy. But I love all that. And I forgot that you were in the film, Expelled. A lot of people listening to this audience saw the film Expelled. And so I want to talk to you about everything. Let's go back to the malfeasance of The New York Times and other former journalists. Sure, sure. They've always been creeps. And as you so aptly said, they were defending Stalin's mass, mass, mass murders. Their columnists, who I think I think it was later revealed was an actual, either an actual member of the Communist Party or was in some way paid by the Communist Party, Mr. Duranty. This is like you're making it up. I'm not making this up. No, we're not making this up, no. But what I'm going to say, because we've talked about on this program, there's a there's a fantastic film about this, about Duranty and the Ukraine famine. It's Mr. Jones, directed by Agnieszka Holland. Tremendous film, came out about four years ago. And it talks about this. I want to get this. Walter Duranty, not only was he, you know, how do you put it? I mean, he was working for The New York Times, living in Moscow. He was openly a Satanist. That sounds like something you'd make up, right? There was there orgies. It's obvious that Stalin was, I've read about this, yeah, was paying him off and so on and so forth. But the point is that he was reporting for The New York Times, won a Pulitzer Prize for this propaganda. They never rescinded the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times, of course, was behind the 1619 project. So it's it's it's painful to think it's very painful.
The Eric Metaxas Show
A highlight from Ben Stein (Continued)
"Welcome to The Eric Metaxas Show. Have you heard that some people have a nose for news? Well, Eric has a nose for everything. That's why this is called The Show About Everything. Now welcome your host, who definitely passes the smell test, Eric Metaxas. Folks, welcome to hour two. It is my privilege to continue talking to Ben Stein, who has been reminding me of many things that I'd forgotten. First of all, we're talking about his brand new book about Richard Nixon. It's called The Peacemaker. I cannot wait to read it. I'm I would love to do that once I have read it. But I want to tell you, when you just mentioned your role in the film Expelled, I cannot believe I forgot about that, because that is a film that a lot of the people that I'm friends with have been in that film. And it makes the case clear as a bell that there's no way that we got where we are without a creator. You know, you don't have to believe it's the same creator that I do. But the idea of atheism is dead. I wrote a book called This Atheism Dead. I'm going to send you a copy. But I love all that. And I forgot that you were in the film, Expelled. A lot of people listening to this audience saw the film Expelled. And so I want to talk to you about everything. Let's go back to the malfeasance of The New York Times and other former journalists. Sure, sure. They've always been creeps. And as you so aptly said, they were defending Stalin's mass, mass, mass murders. Their columnists, who I think I think it was later revealed was an actual, either an actual member of the Communist Party or was in some way paid by the Communist Party, Mr. Duranty. This is like you're making it up. I'm not making this up. No, we're not making this up, no. But what I'm going to say, because we've talked about on this program, there's a there's a fantastic film about this, about Duranty and the Ukraine famine. It's Mr. Jones, directed by Agnieszka Holland. Tremendous film, came out about four years ago. And it talks about this. I want to get this. Walter Duranty, not only was he, you know, how do you put it? I mean, he was working for The New York Times, living in Moscow. He was openly a Satanist. That sounds like something you'd make up, right? There was there orgies. It's obvious that Stalin was, I've read about this, yeah, was paying him off and so on and so forth. But the point is that he was reporting for The New York Times, won a Pulitzer Prize for this propaganda. They never rescinded the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times, of course, was behind the 1619 project. So it's it's it's painful to think it's very painful.
The Eric Metaxas Show
A highlight from Ben Stein
"We get it. You're busy. You don't have time to waste on the mainstream media. That's why Salem News Channel is here. We have hosts worth watching, actually discussing the topics that matter. Andrew Wilkow, the next D 'Souza, Brandon Tatum, and more. Open debate and free speech you won't find anywhere else. We're not like the other guys. We're Salem News Channel. Watch any time on any screen for free 24 seven at snc .tv and on local now channel 525. Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxas show sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacypminvestments .com. That's legacypminvestments .com. Welcome to the Eric Metaxas show. Did you ever see the movie The Blob starring Steve McQueen? The blood curdling threat of The Blob. Well, way back when Eric had a small part in that film, but they had to cut his seed because The Blob was supposed to eat them, but he kept spitting them out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest. Eric Metaxas.
Awards Chatter
A highlight from George C. Wolfe - 'Rustin'
"Monarch Legacy of Monsters, an Apple Original Series. The world is on fire. I decided to do something about it. On November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me. The most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything, I promise. Oh my God, go, go, go! Monarch Legacy of Monsters, streaming November 17th. Only on Apple TV+. My guest today is one of the great storytellers of Stage and Screen, which is why it's only fitting that he's here at the Fest to collect the Storyteller Award. He's a playwright best known for writing 1986's The Colored Museum and co -writing 1992's Jelly's Last Gem. He's a theater director best known for directing the original Broadway productions of Angels in America Millennium Approaches and Angels in America Perestroika, two landmark plays in 1993, and a host of Broadway musicals, including 1996's Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk, 2004's Caroline or Change, and 2016's Shuffle Along. And he's a screen director best known for directing the 2005 limited series Lackawanna Blues and the films Night in Rodanthe from 2008, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks from 2017, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom from 2020, and this year's Rustin, the story of Bayard Rustin, the gay civil rights activist who organized the 1963 March on Washington. Over the course of his career, this 69 -year -old has been nominated 15 times for a Tony Award, winning three for best direction of a play for Angels in America Millennium Approaches in 1993, best direction of a musical for Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk in 1996, and best special theatrical event for Elaine Stritch at Liberty in 2002. He was nominated for an Emmy best directing for a limited series for Lackawanna Blues in 2005, and he has twice been nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for outstanding directing of a miniseries or TV film for Lackawanna Blues in 2006, which resulted in a win, and for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in 2018. The New York Times' Ben Brantley has described him as a brilliant stage director, arguably the best now working in the American theater. The Los Angeles Times declared, there are few living talents who could be viewed as as much of a New York theater institution. Interview Magazine said it would be difficult to overstate his status on Broadway, and Tony Kushner proclaimed that he is the premier theater artist of my generation. And those are just the quotes about his work in theater. There are many more about his work in film. But without further ado, would you please join me in welcoming to the SCAD Savannah Film Festival and to the Hollywood Reporters Awards Chatter Podcast, Mr. George C. Wolfe. Mr. Wolfe, thank you so much for coming to Savannah. Glad to be here, glad to. Let's just start at the very beginning. Where were you born and raised, and what did your folks do for a living? I was born and raised in Frankfort, Kentucky. My mother was a teacher, and she later became a principal of the schools. I went to that school. She taught me. It was horrifying. My father worked for the state government, and that's that. For the first eight years of your life, the town in which you grew up was segregated. Yes. You have spoken about wanting to go see a movie, 101 Dalmatians, and not being able to do that because of your race. Well, my grandmother was this incredibly ferocious figure who would take on anybody. I telling remember her that I wanted to go see 101 Dalmatians at the Capitol Theater. I remember her calling and them telling her no. It was sort of startling and shocking and fascinating because it was the first time I'd ever see her come into contact with a no. So that was fascinating. But then it integrated, and then at one point, when I went to high school, I was editor of the high school newspaper, and I went and convinced the man who ran the Capitol Theater that I should go see movies for free so that I could write reviews. He said, but by the time the review comes out, the movies will be gone. I said, but it's cultivating a love of movies, and so that's what my column will do. It was my slight payback because then I got to go see movies for free. I love it. Let's talk, though, there's a moment you've described over the years. You were in fourth grade, and your, at that time, all black grade goes to an all white class. But that time, I think it was probably a little bit older, so I got about the PTA and the singing. Well, I think by that time, Frankfurt was integrated, but I still went to this black school which was connected to a university there. And the principal, this woman named Minnie J. Hitch, you told us, because we were going to be singing a song, and the lyrics were these truths we are declaring that all men are the same, that liberty is a torch burning with a steady flame. And she told us that when we got to the line that liberty is a torch burning with a steady flame, we should sing it with a ferocity and that we would shatter all racism in the room. So I literally remember these truths we are declaring that all men are the same, that liberty is a torch, you know. And then racism was gone. And racism was gone, exactly. They were all transformed. But it sort of was like so cluelessly wonderful for somebody to tell someone that young that if you say words and if you say them with power and conviction, you can change people. And that sense of potency of conviction and language was embedded in me, and it's never left. When did you see your first theatrical production that was done professionally? When I was 12 or 13, my mother went to do some advanced degree work at NYU, and she brought me a log, and it was one summer. And so I saw a production of West Side Story that was done at the State Theater at Lincoln Center. Then I saw a production of Hello Dolly with Cab Calloway and Pearl Bailey. And then I saw a production, as it turns out, from the Public Theater and Mobile Unit that Cleavon Little played Hamlet. Wow. And it was done in Washington Square Park. Wow. And some in respect, each of those three productions had, I think, a lasting impact on a kind of aesthetic. Right. And the thing interesting about the Mobile Unit, it was free. And so it was seeing the rawness of that energy of the audience was also very, it was very, very, really wonderful and really interesting and great. So the throughout rest of your time in high school, you were increasingly involved in theater and school. I don't know if it was specific, I think, was it writing, directing, acting? What were you focused on at that point? Acting and directing. And also it's very interesting because when I went to that high school, I stuttered really intensely. So this is one thing I was talking about earlier. So they decided that I was stupid because I stuttered. And so they called my mother over to the school to say, and they wanted to put me in remedial classes. And she says, are you crazy? No, that's not happening. And so I developed an Evita complex. So I said, by the time I leave this school, I will be running it. And so I was editor. I was drum major. I was the worst drum major since the dawn of time. I just, you know, I was editor of the newspaper, of the literary magazine. I just did all these stubs just to, you know, how dare you dismiss? I could tell. And I never heard the story about them calling my mother over, but I could tell I was being disregarded. Right. I sensed it. And I went, no. So you start college in Kentucky and then move to Pomona and California. What at that time? This is there. Oh, yeah. We're doing the whole thing. Exactly. What was the idea of going out to California? Was it just to have a change of scenery or did you were you already thinking maybe that's where you go if you want to be in show business? No, not at all. I had always dreamed of going to New York. I would I would watch, you know, TV shows that were set in New York, like the Dick Van Dyke Show. And I remember this is kind of neurotic and crazy. But I what I really I was obsessed with Disney and I wanted to have my own amusement park. But I wanted money. I knew you need a lot of money. So I decided that actors made a lot of money. This is when I was seven or eight. And so and I knew the actors starved. So when I was seven or eight, I used to practice not eating. So that when I went to New York, this is insanely true that, you know, that I so I could deal with it, you know. Well, little did I know one doesn't need to practice starvation. So you graduate from Pomona, go to L .A. for a little while to do theater, to do theater. OK, now theater, as I guess you quickly concluded, is primarily in New York. Well, yeah, I mean, at one point I did shows and I started to get some good reviews in the L .A. Times. And then I got called in. I don't even remember for to be a writer on a sitcom. And and I and I said something funny and they said, oh, he's quick. We're going to have to tie one hand behind his back. And I took that literally. And that's when I went I'm moving to New York. You know, I just was it was like time to go time to go time to go confront a whole bunch of other stuff and things I need to learn and get smarter about. Well, so, OK, you move. It's 1979. You're in your 20s. You moved to New York. Early 20s. Early 20s. Right, right, right. Very early. In fact, I was 19. I was just pretending to be 20. Something like that. Yeah. You moved to New York. There are a number of years then after moving there that were we can say lean. You got to put into practice not eating so much. You what said once quote, I came to New York to write and direct. And when I got here, a lot of my rage came out. Close quote. What do you mean by that? Well, it's so interesting because in L .A., it's you know, it's you know, there's more space. So so, you know, poverty and wealth are very much so separated. And then in New York, it's, you know, they're next door to each other. And the intensity of the inequity at the time, plus the fact that I had no real power over my existence, sort of magnified all of that. And I remember I remember seeing I remember at one time seeing this image of this of this woman in a fur coat. It was winter and eating chocolates and there was a subway vent and there was this homeless woman sitting there. And she had newspaper wrapped around her legs instead of boots. And she was like like crazy and was like and just seeing those two images next to each other. It's you know, it's the thing about New York. Every single time you step foot outside your front door, you see somebody who is worse off than you and you see somebody who is living a completely different life to you. So you have you get instant perspective whether you want it or not. So in those those leaner years, you are teaching a little bit. You're going to get your own MFA at NYU Tisch in dramatic writing, your... Dramatic writing and musical theater and a double MFA. And then there's a opportunity to have a work of yours produced for the first time at Playwrights' Horizon, which is a big deal. Playwrights? No. And how did that go? Well, it it was interesting. It was it was ultimately the best thing that could have happened for my career. I didn't direct it. I wrote the I wrote the book and I wrote the lyrics for it. And it and there were things that in the rehearsal process that I. And also, when I first came to New York, I said, I'm a writer and director, and they said, no, you can't do both. You have to focus in on one. I said, but I could do both. And they said, no, you can't. So I focused just on the writing. So then I there were things that were happening in the rehearsal room that I knew weren't right. But in the spirit of ra ra ra, getting along and being good guy and all this sort of stuff, I didn't object. And then I remember there was a tornado passing through New York City on the day my bad review came out. So I'm standing on the corner of 95th and Broadway with the winds blowing. I'm reading this hate review. And it was so very painful. But it was really interesting because it was very good for me because, you know, I went, oh, if this happens again, if I get another bad review. And of course, I've gotten bad reviews. But if it's going to be because it's my vision. Because it's I because I put every single thing I had on the line. Everybody, we're only in the room to make a very beautiful baby. And if we become good friends as a result of that, that's fine. But we all have a responsibility. The people that you're collaborating with to do their finest, best work. And you have to do your finest, best work. And it was interestingly enough, when I was at NYU, the piece that I wrote that bombed, I went, oh, this is going to be successful. And then there was this play that I wrote just for myself called The Colored Museum. And yeah, none of y 'all applauded when I said the title of the other thing, Paradise, did you? No. But that's what happened. It was the most interesting thing because I wrote one for success and I wrote one for myself. And that was the thing that succeeded. And so it was a very deeply, deeply, deeply valuable lesson. It was just like, and then eight weeks later, all those people who trashed, eight weeks, no, eight months were that it were eight weeks. Eight months later, all those people who trashed me were going, oh, where has he been? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And I'm so glad it happened that way. I'm so glad that the first piece was treated that way so that therefore it gave me a clarity and a sense of responsibility. And doing and doing work that I believed in and and that was that I believe mattered as opposed to something that was going to lead to success. It was just one of those slap you in the face and get smart, George. So you mentioned The Colored Museum, which let's just say, though, you know, you had you're coming off the rough review. How did you even get the opportunity to do The Colored Museum, which is going to as if you don't know, it was the first big success for Mr. Wolf. So how did that opportunity even come out of that? Well, it came out of that because I was at Playwrights Horizons because the guy named Lee Richardson, who was running a theater called Crossroads, said you're at Playwrights Horizons. And I don't think there's ever been a black playwright at Playwrights Horizons. Do you have something else that you've written? I said, well, funny you should ask. Dada, Colored Museum. And so that's how it happened. So there is there were they were both connected in a in a in a way that didn't seem so at the time, but was sort of brilliantly perfect. I want to ask you. So The Colored Museum is produced at Crossroads in 86 and then moved to the Public Theater in 87, which you'll notice the Public Theater, the great off Broadway institution, is going to come up quite a few times in this conversation. But for people who weren't around at that time or don't know or whatever, can you describe what The Colored Museum is about and what the controversy backlash that that provoked was? Because it was you you had to develop thick skin early on because it was not all fun and games in response to that one either. Well, but that was different. That was called pure unadulterated jealousy. So that was that was that was just, you know, I came from nowhere and all of a sudden I'm at the Public Theater. And Frank Rich wrote a wrote a review, a rave review, and said it's the kind of playwright who takes no prisoners. And people thought and that meant he kills people. The language kills them. And people thought that that meant I was soft. So it was just like that was just dumb cluelessness. That was very that was very easy to dismiss. And and, you know, and it was it was just jealousy. It was and that I, you know, I went, oh, my feelings are hurt. Oh, I'm over that. OK, go to hell. You know, it's just sort of like I didn't I didn't sweat about that. Well, tell us a little bit about the show, because this is your big success. First. Yeah, it was first. Well, it's it's interesting when I was at NYU. In the dramatic writing program, there are about three or four people writing plays about old black tap dancers, and they didn't happen to be old black or tap dancers. And so and I was just I was just I just thought about it. And I said, so somebody has figured out, has made a decision or dynamics have been created so that people have decided what black is. And I'm going, I'm black, I'm black my entire life. And I view it as this ever changing, complicated, insane, brilliant, amazing thing. So it was an effort to shatter, shatter any preconceived notions that I thought were going to stand in the way of what I wanted to create. So I wrote this play, which was eight exhibits set inside a museum. So I wanted to shatter all the perception, any perceptions that were in my head. So it's to liberate me to go in any direction that I wanted it to. And that's what happened. And it became this and it became this very successful show. It played, I think, for I think for 10 months at the Public Theater. Then it went to the Royal Court in London. Then it toured all around. And now it's it's high schools do it now and stuff, which is great. So it's in. And then as a result of it, then I started getting interesting from that. I went from, you know, being completely flat broke to then I met the kids of studios. I got Mike Nichols wanted me to write a movie for him. Robert Altman wanted me to write movies. So all of a sudden, you know, these job opportunities happened. But it wasn't for many years that you actually went into film. In the meantime, you were kind of seizing this interest in the theater, this opportunity now in theater. There was a person who is legendary by the name of Joseph Papp, who founded and ran the public, who took a great interest in you and, you know, brought you in there. And and we can say, you know, in addition to producing the colored museum, right. Named you one of three resident directors there offered to have a producing entity within the public for you. This was a big champion to have. He then passes away in 1991. He gets succeeded by a lady who was there for only 18 months. And then in August 1993, this institution of the sort of first thing that comes to mind when you think, at least for me, off Broadway comes looking for a new director. How did you become aware that there was interest in you for that position? And was it was that job, which you then spoiler alert, got and held for the next 12 years? Was it what you thought it would be? Nothing is ever what you think is going to be. But that's the point of the journey. It was actually it was I was I directed a Broadway show called Jealous Last Jab. And then I was then offered Angels in America. And and then I was in the middle of directing a seven hour play. And then they called up my lawyer and said, we want to talk to George about running the public theater. And I went, well, I'm kind of busy right now. Can they come back after? And they said no. And so they wanted to make a decision. So when I was in rehearsal, it was announced that I was running the public theater. It was I loved the thing which I loved. I loved, loved about running the public theater was giving artists money, giving artists money and spaces where they could go do work. It was that, you know, because I after after Jelly, I went, oh, this is hard. Surviving Broadway and dealing with all of these all of the dynamics and the money and the audiences and all of that stuff. This is really, really hard. And you have to be really, really tough. And so I knew all these artists who were really gifted, incredibly gifted people, but maybe weren't as tough. Can we can I just mention a few? Because these are shows that were given a spotlight by you in those years, which, in fact, several of them were just revived in the last couple of years. So decades later, people are, you know, coming back to them. But let's note, Twilight, Los Angeles, 1992. This was a dear, dear, very Smith and important show there. That was 1994. We had Top Dog Underdog, Suzan -Laurie Parks wins the Pulitzer for that 19 excuse me, 2002. Take me out again. Just revive. So these are the kinds of people who were talking about where you can. And this the public was not particularly known for its being inclusive prior to your tenure. Well, I'd say it was I think probably yes. I think it's also a place that gave us, you know, for colored girls and it's also a place that gave us for short eyes. So I'm so I would I wouldn't totally agree with that. And also these were very smart artists and these were tough artists. But there were, you know, it's just you people when you're beginning, you need a place to play, which means you need a place to fail so that you can get smarter. Like I had with Playwrights Horizons, you need you need to to do the work and not feel the pressure of it being the biggest hit in the world because you're growing and you're learning and you're getting smarter and you're getting tougher and you're learning more savvy. Just like the things that I allowed on the first production that was done, I didn't allow on the second one. And so you get, you know, so you're growing, you're growing all these muscles. It's not just your talent muscles. It's your your ability to defend yourself and to protect your work and to go, I disagree with that. And, you know, I remember one time there was a writer who was doing a play and a couple of things got really wonky at rehearsals. And I said, well, why didn't you speak up? He said, well, I was just scared that I was actually doing a play at the public theater and somebody was going to discover I didn't know what the hell I was doing and throw me out. And it's that fear you have to get. You have to realize that fear and doubt and other stuff, all that stuff is a part of growing and you have to have permission to grow. And so that's that's what I took on very much so, which is creating a space that was there. I wanted the I wanted the audiences and the artists there. I wanted it to look like the subway at rush hour in New York. I wanted to have all kinds of people there. So that was the thing that I loved after a while. It became very, very clear to me that as much as I was creating spaces for other artists, it was very challenging to be one. And while being in charge. Well, let's go back to, again, what you were doing when you got that opportunity to go there, because this was the beginning. While you're creating these opportunities for people off Broadway, you were making your first inroads on Broadway. As you mentioned, Jelly's Last Jam, 1992, you co -wrote and directed this about Jelly Roll Morton and the birth of jazz. Your first Broadway show musical with Gregory Hines and small role the first time you're working with Savion Glover. And this gets 11 Tony nominations, wins three and sort of leads to Angels in America. Now, this is it's been looked back at. I think the New York Times looked at it as the greatest show on Broadway of the last 30 years. It's an all timer, obviously, but you first saw it as a spectator in Los Angeles. It started at the Mark Tabor Forum. There doesn't sound like there was even a thought in your head that you might ever have anything to do with this. How did that change? Well, Jelly had opened up and I worked with a producer named Margo Lion, who passed away, who was a very dear friend of mine. And everybody, you know, and there were some changes that were going to be made from the Tabor to when it moved to Broadway. And she brought my name up and Tony Kushner and someone called me up and said, Tony Kushner wants to come and talk to you. I said, OK. And he came over and he talked and I had never read the play. I had only seen it. So I talked to him about it and just gave him my observations.
The Refiners Furnace
A highlight from THE CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH
"Hi everyone, good morning. You're welcome to the Refiners Funnest podcast once again. Yes, it's a new week and we're praying the Lord's blessing, we're praying the Lord's favor, we're praying everything, I mean everything that the Lord has a portion for us, we're praying that it's going to manifest in our lives. And the Bible is speaking, I think in Psalm 89, it says, the Lord loads us daily, daily, daily with benefit and it's a new day and we are trusting that the benefits of the Lord will encompass the totality of our existence. Yes, and the Bible also speaking, and I think Psalms chapter 16, I think from verse 5, it said, the Lord is the portion, the portion of our cup and He, our inheritance, our inheritance is assured in Him. Yes, so I want you to understand that for every new day, for every new week, there is always something new from the Lord that has been apportioned to every believer, for everyone that believes in Him, the Bible says should not perish but have everlasting life. Yes, so I want you to understand that it's a new week and you should be expectant, that you should expect something good from the Lord, you should believe in God, yes, and you should have so much faith in Him that He's able to do exceedingly, abundantly, all you could ever ask or think of Him, no matter what you're passing through, no matter how you're feeling, no matter how, no matter what is happening to you right now, I want you to understand that the Lord understands, the Lord feels what you're feeling, for we have a high bridge, we start by what? The feelings of our infirmity, He was 100 % man, He was 100 % God while He was on earth, and I tell you the truth, He understands every bit of things you're going through, He understands how you feel, He understands man, believe me, He understands everything, and I want you to have that faith in Him that there's nothing He cannot do, the Bible says, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, it was an assurance of rest, just come to Him and there is rest assured for you, yes, there is rest, I just want to encourage you this morning, I just want to let you know that there is everything planned out, I mean everything has been planned out for you, I mean from the Lord, and please do not relent in your pursuit, do not relent in your services, do not relent in everything you can do for the Lord, because I tell you the truth, I tell you the truth, the Lord cares about you, the Lord loves you, the Lord is thinking about you, I said the thoughts I have for you are of good and not of evil, is it to give you an expected end, yes, the Lord knows that you have expectations, the Lord knows that you have plans, I mean the year is coming to an end, the Lord knows you have plans, and I tell you the truth, God cannot be wrong, God cannot be late, no matter what you're feeling, no matter how you're feeling, I just want you to understand that God cannot be wrong, okay, alright, I'm your host, Ben Niza Basi is my name, and today I trust the Lord to touch our heart, I hope you understand that, whenever we come to this platform, whenever we come here, we are trusting the Lord to revive our heart, draw us close to him, and you see, the Refinance Finance Podcast is a medium where the stairs of revival, intimacy and transformation will consistently stir the heart of men back to God, and if we are not doing that, it means that we are failing on the mission God has given to us to, I mean, execute, okay, so I trust that our heart, our heart will be consistently stirred to God, and that we will be revived, we will be transformed, and most especially we will get intimate, I mean, extremely intimate with God, yes, so today I, I don't know, I've been thinking within the week, I think something happened last week Sunday, I mean Monday, I don't know, and last week something, a lot happened, and I'm trying to, you know, still get over it, but you see, it is better I share things, I mean, a lot of things with, with, with us here, so that, you know, I trust and I believe that the heart of men are, are getting, are getting revived on, on daily basis, I trust that the heart of men is getting revived on daily basis, and the essence of this podcast is, is most especially for me to, to share some of the dealings of the Lord I'm permitted to, you know, personal experiences I'm permitted to, and even the things that happen around us relating to, to Christianity, as relating to our work with God, and the aim of this is not to castigate or, or make a joke or a caricature of anyone, but we are hoping and trusting that at the end of your paying attention and listening to the podcast episode that your life, your life can be transformed, your life can take a new shape, and your heart will eventually born for the Lord immensely.
Mutually CoDopendent
A highlight from Adam and Jen Vs the Apocalypse
"Hey guys, welcome to Mutually Codependent with Adam and Jen. I'm Jen. I'm Adam. Welcome, welcome, welcome. How is everybody? I hope you're doing well. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, we're going to enjoy this strain of the show, which today is Mac one, uh, which is a short for miracle alien cookies. Yes. All right. Um, Mac one, according to this is an out of the world experience with powerful mood lifting effects and a bodily relaxation. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. So, uh, it's a labeled as a hybrid. You got another spilled drink. Nope. Just a couple of drops, just a couple of drops. It's just like six counted, um, T H C a 23 .6 % plenty. Little dab will do you, uh, the, uh, Delta nine is a barely legal 0 .29%. That's about as close as you can get. Did you know you can actually go slightly above 0 .3 if it's within the, um, the, the minimum quantification of the tool that you're using. Oh, so, uh, cause there's, each tool has kind of a margin of error, if you will. And if you're within that margin error, then they're like, yeah, it's fine. It makes sense. Yeah, it does. It's, uh, one of the few things that I've been like, oh yeah, that did make sense. Maybe they do know what they're doing. But, uh, yeah, so that's our strain of the show. Mac one, miracle alien cookies. How do you like it? We've had this a few times. Yeah. Not on the show, but we have on the show, but we've personally had it a few times. It's a, it's a good string. I like it. It's a solid hybrid. A solid, it's a solid hybrid as opposed to a liquid. No, like it's a good hybrid. It's not a weak ass hybrid. It's a, it's a good one. I am just looking for my lighter. Cause I want to smoke some. Yeah, you should tell people what, what, what we have coming up for them. Okay. I will do that. So today on mutually codependent Adam and Jen are going to talk about the apocalypse. No, seriously guys. Like a lot of shit has happened in the past three years, like since COVID hit. And like, I don't think our world is ever going to be quote unquote, normal again. And just with everything that is going on with, I mean, for the past year with Ukraine and Russia to Israel and Gaza and the Palestinians, like all the sadness and death and destruction, like I feel as if, and I've seen it on social media. Like there's a lot of people that feel like the apocalypse is inevitable. Like it's coming. The people who aren't crazy. People who aren't crazy, like normal people who are not preppers. They're not people who are just becoming preppers or they're like just normal everyday people that don't buy into any conspiracy theories and stuff. That's what I've been seeing. Like all of those people are starting to be like, what the fuck is happening in our world and should we be afraid? And yes, I think everyone should be, to be honest, I always have trouble getting raps King size lit. So it's taken me a little longer than normal. Not to, not to take away from what you were talking about. That's kind of what the weed does though. Yeah. So we're going to talk about that and we're going to, we can just, we're going to talk. We got a new shit. The kid did. Yeah. We got a new shit. The kid did. I'm going to, I'm going to start with that cause that's super happy. Not that this isn't a happy episode, but cause it's kind of silly, but yeah. Um, so Landon on Saturday, our middle son Landon, he's 17. He has an electric bike that he rides to and from work and going to and from work. He passes by the skate park, which he frequents because he's a skateboard. Um, and he has friends there. Well, their internet was down at his restaurant job on Saturday night. So door dash in like Uber eats, couldn't come pick up their orders. So he took like over well over a hundred dollars worth of food and he just took it and he went to the skate park on his way home and he passed it out to some of the people that he knows that are there staying the night because they're homeless. They don't have anywhere to go and he knows they're hungry. So he went and he passed out this food to them because otherwise it was just going to get thrown away. Yeah. So cause they couldn't come get it and I was really proud of him for that. Cause I feel like, yeah, not all, not everybody would choose to do that. Certainly not every 17 year old, right? He's a good, he's a, he's an amazing kid. Sometimes kids, the shit the kid did is good. It's a good thing. We wanted to have a good, yeah, the kid did good shit. The kid did cause I got a short other shit. The kid did. I went downstairs to make some tea and our coffee maker rinsing out the little bowl, make sure and get all the coffee grounds out so that don't affect my tea. And, uh, I, I, there was a precariously perched pan on the drying rack atop several other pans, all of which was being leaned on by a cutting board. Oh, yeah, that sounds, yeah. And on top of the cutting board was one of my knives. So when I bumped the pan, the knife fell and almost hit my foot. Was that Ben? Yeah. Yeah. He heard me cuss him out from the other room. I didn't even know he was in there the first time. Yeah, no, I didn't cuss him out. I just said, Ben, like you heard that just happened, right? He's like, yeah, it was like, you need to not stack the shits dangerously. Like I need you to do things in a safer way, please. That's what I actually said. That's not what I wanted to say. I wish, I wish we could see both sides of our children. You know, like if, if we had just like, okay, we're in the middle, right? We make these choices back and forth regularly. We're, we're on the mean side. Sometimes we're on the nicer side. Most of the time I want to, I want to view, I want to see what our kids would look like if, if we chose one side strong or the other. Like your light side, dark side child. Um, well, I can tell you how different would your kids be? You think, um, well, if I only chose the dark side, their anxiety would be like way worse and they would hate me probably. Um, but if I only chose the light side, they would just be dirty slobs out of control, like because they wouldn't have learned any kind of discipline, no discipline, no manners, like, so no, that wouldn't have never worked. Yeah. Oh, but I mean, for a lot of, to see what, how bad would they be if we were just like assholes all the time? I don't know, but like people who are terrible to their kids and the kids grew up with like complex PTSD, like it's pretty severe, like it's a constant fucking cycle, like that person then treats their kids shitty and so on and so forth and their friends and their coworkers and the people around them. And so, you know, you have one shitty person, you know, breeds, and then they have a shitty kid and if a person is raised shitty, then they become a shitty person, which affects everybody around them. What I've seen though, like in the past few years, as I've like, as I've spent a lot of time on my personal growth is that a lot of people are breaking that curse, that generational curse of treating their kids badly or being the cycle. They're, they're breaking that and they're trying to be that parent that wasn't there for them because they grew up into this person realizing how desperate they were for attention or love or support or somebody being proud of them. So there's actually a TikToker who is one of my favorites and I've sent her, she has POTS, which is a dysautonomia disease condition. That helped. Um, yes, I know I was going to go. So dysautonomia is a disorder that some people have and it causes like, you can't breathe in the heat, you can't walk upstairs, you'll just randomly faint because of blood flow issues. You're, you're dizzy a lot. It's, it's a, it's pretty severe. It's usually, it affects women, usually younger girls like teenage years, but if you get it when you're older, like you're kind of fucked, which is what happened to my mom and why she's had so many issues. But so this girl named Kimberly is, she has POTS, but she does skits as her cigarette mom. Her mom, both of her parents are dead, but she uses a straw and she acts like her mom did. And it's her way of therapy because she said, I had a horrible childhood. It was abusive. And my parent, my dad was a drunk, my mom was a drunk and they smoked constantly. But like she uses it as like therapy to not, she'd be like, I will never be this shitty person. Like my mom was. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's kind of sad, but I have seen that. I mean, and that's, I thought about that as a kid. Like if I ever had children, I would be the kind of mom that I wanted as a kid. Cause I mean, for lots of reasons, your mom just didn't understand you, let alone have a good idea of how to, you know, raise you. But yeah, I was different. Yeah. Now, now that I'm diagnosed with autism, I look back at my life and I'm like, how in the fuck did people not know? Like my own self, my therapist knew two and a half years before I did. Yeah. Well, and they were pushing for it. They were asking to get a different diagnosis from the beginning. Yeah. I don't think you're bi -boliced. She keeps saying, I just, I don't think you're bi -boliced. Have you ever had a manic episode? No, never got the good stuff. When I was 19 and I had to leave it. We come to, we don't even think it was mania. We just think it was maybe a 19, a little out of control, a little party girl. It wasn't technically like, yeah. So I don't know. Yeah. You, you were just a, a monopolar instead of bipolar. Yeah. Monopole. Monopole. So any who, but yeah. But I think that people are kind of changing that and being better parents now, I hope, I mean, I know some people are still absolutely terrible parents. You know, so I think, uh, our kids' generation are going to be some of the most prepared parents. Well, yeah, I agree. No, but it's not just the most recent magazine that you may or may not have grabbed at the grocery store or picked up at the doctor's office. You know, like that's literally, you know, reading a book on how to raise your kid was like looked down on. Yeah. And, uh, you know, but with us, we've encouraged that kind of behavior and our children will, will encourage it even more. And it's because our world is fucked and our generation and the next generations are seeing that firsthand, how the people before us really screwed things up and not just financially. I'm not talking about economy and politics. I'm talking about mental health, mental health, ethics, the way we live life, the kind of human being you're supposed to be like, that is so much more important than learning some, you know, I wish that that was what was taught to people, like the common sense to be a decent human being that should have been health class. That should be other side of health. I mean, that should, I've always told my boys and you know, I know that you're, you're the same way, like being a good kind person and being nice to people is more important than being right or being really smart or, you know, having a lot of money. I mean, all those things are great, but at the end of the day, the kind of person you are when you go to bed at night is what really matters. I feel like, yeah, your happiness and how appreciative you are of your life or not. Cause it, that reflects outwards. So yeah, I want that for our kids and for people in general and for the future generations, for our grandkids and great grandkids. If we get there. Yeah. Or if the apocalypse comes. Yeah, fun, fun fact. When I was in like sixth, seventh grade, I was so obsessed with Buffy, the vampire Slayer and the apocalypse that I wasn't allowed to say the word in my own home for a few months. The word apocalypse or apocalypse. She, how often were boards banned for certain amounts of time? Like, what is that a regular thing? Yeah. How many words do you think got banned over the years? About 20. Oh yeah. How many of them do you remember? Exuberant. Oh, that's a weird one to say a lot. Five was five. Why your mom started banning words at five? I was younger. Oh gosh. I wasn't allowed to say, um, diaphragm. Oh God. Which I've probably, I may have told you about this. But when I was seven, I drew like a head and like a neck and a chest, like of a person and I drew body parts in it and I was labeling it because I wanted my own little like human poster of somebody. So I like copied it out of the world book and I went to show her and was explaining how your diaphragm works. And she told me that we didn't have a diaphragm in our body, that that was a word again. Who was that? My mother. Your mom. Yeah. Dang. And so that I wasn't allowed to say diaphragm exuberant because I, I looked it up in the dictionary and then I would use it all the time. Um, was your dad upset by these words? I don't think, no, I don't, I, he, he worked so much when I was little. Like, I don't remember him and I have been like a whole lot of heart to heart conversations. I get that. Um, I like, I don't remember what else it was. Lackadaisical. I wasn't allowed to say that for a while. Lackadaisical. And none of these were small words.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from CARPE CONSENSUS: Moving on From Sam Bankman-Fried
"This is Carpe Consensus. Join hosts Ben Shiller and Danny Nelson as they seize the world of crypto. Hello and welcome to Carpe Consensus. This is a podcast from the CoinDesk Podcast Network. I am Benjamin Shiller, Features Editor here at CoinDesk. And joining me today is Danny Nelson. He is the co -host. And also Helene Braun. She is a reporter here at CoinDesk. And we're going to be talking about the SBF trial, which just wrapped up last week with the former founder of FTX being found guilty on seven counts of federal fraud and related charges. And that was a pretty big deal for the crypto industry and certainly here for CoinDesk as we broke the story originally. So Danny, what was it like to be there at the end of the trial there with the verdict? Yeah, I got to say it was unexpectedly emotional, right? So for five weeks, we heard all these co -conspirators, these insiders who pled guilty to various crimes, testifying against Sam saying he made me do this, he told me to do that. Caroline, Nishad and Gary all coming with their very powerful stories. And then at the end, Sam testified and then he was bad for him. I know, weird thing to say. I don't feel like he is innocent or I don't think he's not guilty rather. He's definitely guilty. He's guilty as hell. But watching him in the courtroom, watching his parents there, I just felt like this sense of, wow, I felt the gravity of the moment. And I don't know, we should lock him up, but we shouldn't give him 115 years. This is a hot take, I know. Maybe we can get into the rights and wrongs of how long he's going to get. Helene, what about you? How did you feel when you saw the verdict being read out? Yeah, I did not feel bad for him at all, especially after we heard all the closing statements. We heard two different closing statements from Assistant US Attorney, Danielle Cezune, and they were very compelling and very convincing. And I felt like there was this moment in her closing argument where I looked at Sam and it just felt like he finally realized that this was it for him. There was no going back. His defense was just not good enough. And I think the jurors knew too. And at that point I was just like, I hope he gets 150 years or 200 years. I don't feel bad for this guy. All the evidence that we've heard was just crazy to me. So no, I totally disagree with Danny. I think he deserves to be in prison for the entirety of his life. Right. So you mentioned the defense there. I mean, there seemed to be a consensus amongst lawyers that we spoke to about the trial and the defense that he didn't get a very good service on that score. I mean, how much of a difference do you think that actually made? I mean, it seems like a structural set of circumstances where he would get a guilty verdict anyway, and most people expected him to go to jail. But do you think if he had a better defense, he could have gotten a better sentence or a better verdict? Yeah, I think it's interesting because in the beginning of the trial, it sort of felt like the defense wasn't trying very hard. And I think it must be so funny if you're Mark Cohen, the defense attorney that Sam was represented by, to read all these articles about you and bad of a lawyer you are and how bad of the defense strategy you have from all these, you know, journalists that have nothing to do with the law and are attorneys themselves, and they're just judging your work, basically. But I think in his closing statements, I could see that he was trying really hard and that I think he was he had hope for his defense. I don't know. He's supposed to be good. I don't know. I was wondering that, too, if is he supposed to be a really good lawyer or is he just the guy that all the bad guys go to? He's the only one who is willing to defend them. From what I've heard, I think Mark Cohen is a fine lawyer, but that's the name of the game when you're a defense attorney. Your clients, especially the more outspoken ones like Sam Pink and Fried, you're not going to win all your cases. And if you have a really bad deck, well, that's the deck you have to play with. And he went to trial with this guy who had so much evidence against him. I think it was very insurmountable. So, sure, maybe he wasn't as quick on his feet with some of the strategic and tactical things in the courtroom, like objections and phrasing of questions and things like that. But if you have all these people testifying against your client, and then when your client takes a stand, you can't get him to sound the way that an innocent person would sound. And also, you have to remember, before the trial even began, the trial would go. The judge wouldn't allow the defense to bring in all of Sam's philosophical arguments. They wouldn't allow him to bring defensive counsel arguments. He went to trial with a losing hand, and it's not completely his fault that the trial ended up going against his client. Right. I mean, I have to say I agree with you, Danny, about feeling a little bit sorry for SBF. I mean, both things can be true. On the one hand, you can say this guy was a fraud, he was a criminal, he took a lot of people's money, and he spent it lavishly and irresponsibly. On the other hand, he is a human being. To get this huge sentence, he could go away for 115 years at maximum, seems like a rather excessive amount of time. And there is an argument out there that he is very much the fall guy for the industry, and the guy who's kind of taking the rap for a lot of cultural problems in the industry and a kind of lax, general corporate governance culture out there. I mean, there were VC funds that put millions of dollars, billions of dollars into FTX without doing any due diligence. And that's not a criminal act, but it was an act of cultural indifference or negligence that you could say contributed to this enormous folly. So, you know, I think there's a reasonable argument to say that he is taking the rap for the entire industry when maybe he doesn't quite deserve that kind of level of status here. What do you think about that, Danny? I don't know. I think it's a special kind of stupid to set up a company in the way he did. And sure, there's a lot of follies that crypto in general has committed, but just the arrangement between Alameda and FTX, and that's this whole case, right? That Alameda spent all this money from XTS customers. That is so unique, right? That doesn't even have to do with crypto. The way that this fraud was committed was mostly because people were wiring their money into Alameda Research to get it into FTX. So there was also the allow negative code and the let's borrow $65 billion code that was more crypto native, but I don't know. And, you know, look at me, I'm contradicting myself again, right? Because earlier in the episode, I'm saying, well, I feel bad for Sam and here I'm saying, well, he's guilty as hell. I don't know. I think there's room for both statements because it's very hard to watch someone's parents in the room when a guilty verdict is handed out. Like they're older, right? He's going to be locked up probably for the rest of their lives. I don't know. I just, I can't get over that scene in the courtroom. I did feel guilty. I'm sorry. I did feel bad for him. Did you steal the money? I did feel bad for him up until his testimony, because up until that point, all these people that he used to be friends with that were all part of the scheme to like, he wasn't just the only one that committed this fraud. All these other people, Caroline, Nashad, Gary, they're all part of this. And they all were put up on the sand as the good guys, so to say, just because they cooperated with the government and they told their side of the story. But his then testimony just showed that he is not remorseful at all. He still is trying to lie to people. He's still trying to talk himself out of this. And at that point, I was just like, it's too late for this. You're already in this trial. You're on the stand. It's time to look back and be a little bit remorseful and stop thinking that you're smarter than everybody else. I mean, do you think it would have made a difference if he was remorseful? Well, if he was remorseful, he wouldn't be convicted even faster. Yeah, except because he can't really be remorseful because in his opinion, he's not guilty. Right? So what's he going to say to the jury? He could say something like, I'm sorry, the people got hurt and I made mistakes and something like that. Well, he did say that. That was the very first thing he said, basically. And then after that, everything was basically, I don't remember. He decided to say it because he had to. Helene, among the witnesses that flipped on Sam, who's the biggest villain? Like you sat through that whole thing too. Who do you walk away feeling the least bad for and who do you feel the most bad for? I feel like there are easy answers here. I feel the least bad for Caroline just because literally just because of that tape that we heard from that meeting in November where she told her employees that it was kind of fun to, you know, steal money. She obviously didn't explicitly say it like that, but she said it was fun. She sounded a little crazy in that recording. So after her testimony, after hearing that recording, I thought, wow, she's definitely not the innocent little girl that everybody says she is. She certainly knew what she was doing. And she certainly, you know, she's certainly guilty as well. So I feel the least bad for her. The person that I felt really, really bad for wasn't a shot. Okay. But I also don't know if that's just because he's very soft spoken. He has a very low voice. He seems like a very sweet guy. So it could just be a front that he put on for his testimony. I have the opposite answers, actually, like a complete opposite. I feel like Caroline from reading the Michael Lewis book, which is sympathetic to Sam, but also some of the things that were said about Caroline were repeated by the government in their narrative. Caroline just comes off to me as someone who was completely, I guess the word I would use is submissive in every aspect of this business and personal relationship. And I don't feel bad for her at all, but I feel the least bad for her, even though she did big fraud. I think that Nishad, though, is next level evil. He presents himself, like you say, as this guy who is soft spoken. Oh, by the way, after he learned that the companies were stealing money from customers, he took out $3 million to personally buy a house. This wasn't like in furtherance of the scheme to keep it all afloat. This was so he could have a house, like personal enrichment. So I think it's all just a front. And Gary, I don't know how to read him. I think he just doesn't talk much. And he took the deal as soon as his lawyer said, we should make moves here. Do we know what the deals are with those collaborators who turned on SPF? I mean, will they be getting any jail time? We don't know that aspect of it. I would imagine that Gary will get the best deal because he offered himself up to the government before the government was even investigating. Caroline, she didn't speak until they raided her house. So you get negative points for that. And I don't know about Nishad, but I would expect Gary to get the best deal. Gary said he hopes that he doesn't get any jail time, though. And I think that could actually be the case, because we see in a lot of these white cases that those people or the witnesses that cooperate with the government actually get zero jail time. So I think that's a possibility, which would be crazy to me. Yeah, we'll probably get years of probation. So if they would violate the deal, then they would go right to jail. But I think Caroline might get some time. I don't know about Nishad, and I would expect Gary to get no jail time. Could we even see them back in the crypto industry? I highly doubt that that seems exceptionally unlikely. I think they want nothing to do with this. In fact, in other cases, the government, like for securities fraud, so some of them have some of them pled guilty to securities fraud. When you plead guilty to securities fraud, the government often makes you say, I will never work in the securities industry again. That probably means they shouldn't work in any of crypto, because most cryptos are securities. Bitcoin's not a security. Well, Bitcoin's not a security, too, and neither is Ether. But a lot of the other ones probably are. So if I were them, I would steer clear. I don't know. I think they've had their fair share of the crypto industry, and I don't think anybody needs to see them back in the industry. I think Adam Yedidia, who was one of the first witnesses, who was a senior software engineer at FTX, I think, or Alameda, he is a high school teacher now. Yeah, he's a math teacher. He seemed a little traumatized by this whole experience. Well, maybe in a few years' time, we can do a sort of where are they now article.
Woz Happening!!!!
A highlight from House (1977) (Japanese) (Horror/Cult film) Movie Review
"What's happening everyone, Kira and Ben back again. This is the horror house, haunted house, why did I call it a horror house? This is the haunted house week. Previously we had covered house from 1985 and today we're covering house from 1977. Now I did recommend this movie. This is one of my favorite movies. I revisit it every spooky season, sometimes even not in spooky season. I think it's a really fun film. Ben, I know I recommended it to you, but tell me your history with the film. I had never heard of it. I recommended the house of 85 that we just did. I actually watched this one and I was cracking up laughing. I was like, this is hysterical. It was a fun watch. It's a fun watch, but I think similar to house of 85, when you get into what the story is and into what they're talking about, there's a lot more there. This is a Japanese film from 1977. When it came out, it was not very well received when it came out and I can see that it blends a lot of styles, which I appreciate in a film, so obviously it's very realistic, but then we see these moments of animation and fantastical kung fu stunts. We see this kooky, anime style background and I like how he blends all of these together. It does remind me of the fantasticalness of the original Suspiria. For those who have listened to our Suspiria episode, we did cover the new one from 2019, but if you watch the original, the Dario Argento one, you'll see the same fantastical colors and color schemes used in this surrealist background for a story, which I like, so this is probably why I like this movie because I like that movie so much, but it is a movie and it follows this one main girl, Gorgeous, and then her six friends, and we're going to get into their names as we talk about the film, and it's summer vacation and she's so excited to go away with her dad because it's just her and her dad because her mom died, and then the dad actually reveals that he has a new girlfriend who he wants to marry, and I always think it's so funny, he's like, alright, this is my girlfriend, she's going to be your new mom, and it's kind of just like, and you can kind of see Gorgeous sort of go back within herself and be like, huh? My mom? No, my mom is dead, who is this woman? It felt very Disney princess to me, but so now Gorgeous is very upset. Her friends are supposed to go away to this inn with one of their teachers, Mr Togo, who I cannot wait to talk about, and it then comes about that his sister had a baby, she runs the inn, and the inn is closed because she just had a baby, so he's like, can't go there, and then Gorgeous comes and says, you know what? I don't want to go with my dad, let's go see, let's go to my mom's hometown, she's feeling very nostalgic for her mom, she's like, let's go to my mom's hometown and visit my aunt, my aunt still lives there, she writes her on a letter being like, hey, showing up with six of my friends, can't wait to see you, I haven't seen you since I was six years old, and the aunt's like, okay, no worries, can't wait for you to come, so we see this journey of the six girls going, and they get to this house, and it is very kooky and weird, and it is already kind of like, hmm, something is not as it seems, so the seven girls' names, as we've talked about them, we obviously have Gorgeous, and then we have Fantasy, Sweet, Melody, Prof, Math, and Kung Fu, now, on the surface, I feel like these names come off as very generic, because they do tie directly into the character traits and personalities of these girls, also, it's like, why is a girl reduced down to just one personality trait, oh, a woman can only be one thing, we're gonna get into that later, guys, I got a lot to say, but, we have these girls with these very symbolic names, and they embody everything that they are, Gorgeous is beautiful, she's always doing her makeup, she's always keeping up with herself, Fantasy is always living in a fantasy world, she's always daydreaming, Sweet is like, she's the housekeeper, she's trying to maintain the home, she's very kind and gentle, Prof is obviously the smart one, Kung Fu is the fighting one, and then, the one that gives me the most issue, oh, Melody is the music one, I forgot her, and then Math, who is considered the fat one, which I was like, well, she's not fat, first of all, she is not a fat woman, or girl, in the movie, and her characteristic is that she likes to eat, so, that one really made me mad, because everyone else's names and personalities are based, everyone else's names is based off of their personalities, and Max is based off of her body type, and it kind of solidifies this idea, grow it from earlier, I would definitely say growing up, and we've just only started to combat this now, is that fat people don't deserve anything other than being fat, which I hate, I think that is so regressive, and it's so harmful, and it's like, you are more than your body type, and in this, she was not, whereas everyone else is, because they are thin, and I hated that, because guess what, she's still thin, she is still a thin actress, yeah, her name's what, Stomach, so they call her Math, yeah, it was stupid, I didn't like that either, I thought that was kind of mean, it's icky, it's not good, because everyone else, like, everyone else, Prof is the smart one, yeah, does she wear glasses, okay, yeah, but that's like, I mean, this all the time, she's like, I'm so strong, and I can fight anything, so, but these are characteristics, these are personality traits that they have deemed and grown into for themselves, and Mac is just, oh, you like to eat, and I think it's so like, it's so reductive, and it is so harmful, and it's so hurtful, she's always eating, she's always carrying food, she's always talking about food, and it's like, she is more than this, like, because we, I don't know, it felt very reductive to me, even to the point where, when she is killed by the house, she is then biting her friend, trying to eat her friend, like, I was like, okay, the hunger is not this insatiable, like, she is more than this, so, I understand why they did it, because, actually, no, I don't understand why they did it, they could have had literally any other personality trait, but I guess, if you had to write, no, I can't even justify it, like, I'm not, I can't even, in my head, as I'm trying to say this, I can't even justify it, no, Mac was done dirty.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A highlight from An NBA Power Poll, Plus Malcolm Gladwell Plays Sports Czar
"Coming up, an NBA Power Poll, Malcolm Gladwell. This podcast is an A plus. Next. This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by Airbnb. Maybe you're traveling to see friends and family for the holidays. When you're away, your home could be an Airbnb. Whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home or spare room might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb .com slash host. We are supported by McDonald's. This month, McDonald's is upping its game by introducing two beloved sauces to its lineup. Mambo sauce and sweet and spicy jam. Hmm, why do I love these? Well, they both pack a spicy punch. They let you switch up the flavors in your usual order. I like having more choices. You know what, if you're gonna give me eight choices, why not give me 10? The sweet and spicy jam sounds delicious. These two sauces are only available for a limited time and participate in McDonald's. So make sure to try them while you can. Tap the banner to learn more. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. If you missed it, we started, wait, that movie made how much money? Month last night on the rewatchables. We did Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, me, Chris Ryan, Van Lathan, it was a wonderful experience for all of us. Van looked at Chris at one point and he said, everything I do, I do it all for you. Oh no, that was Bryan Adams, but we had a great time. Coming up on this podcast, I'm gonna do an NBA Power Poll at the top because there's no games as I'm taping this on Tuesday. So let's, where are we after two weeks? I tried to fly through this. I limited myself to 22 minutes. I think I went two minutes over, but I flew through it, tried to get off as many comments as I possibly could. And then our old friend Malcolm Gladwell is gonna come on and do some sports hour stuff. There's some things that he's noticed about direction sports are going in that he doesn't like, and we're gonna try to fix it. So that's the podcast, first, our friends from Pearl Jam. Here we go. All right, I'm gonna throw an NBA Power Poll at you. I'm not sure I'm gonna do this every Tuesday, but I definitely wanna do this some Tuesdays. I'm gonna go through all 30 teams as fast as possible. And I'm gonna throw things out that I feel like are important when necessary. Pot shots, important comments, things I've noticed, some fake trades, you've known me for a while. It's gonna be all the typical stuff. Going backwards from 30 to one, I'll give you the groups as we go. The first group is called the Dregs. That's Washington number 30. They are 30th in defense. And the only reason they're 30th in defense is because we only have 30 teams. I actually think there's some way they could have been 36th in defense. They're the only team in the entire league that I do not wanna watch on league pass for any reason at all. They're one and five, 15 .6 point differential against them. Shoot this team into the sun. I cannot believe House thought this team was gonna go over 24 wins. They might not go over 14 wins. They're awful. I never want them on my TV. Next group, probably the lottery. I say probably, but I'm gonna zip through these teams and then go back to somebody. 29 Utah, 28 Portland, 27 Detroit, 26 San Antonio, 25 Charlotte, who is way more fun than I expected they would be to watch, and 24 Chicago. It just feels like the lottery's in the future for all these teams. I wanna talk about San Antonio really quick. Three and four, kind of a sneaky, tough schedule. They played Phoenix twice, the Clippers, Dallas, that goofy Indiana team, Houston, and Toronto. They're minus 8 .6 point differential because they've gotten blown out a couple of times, and they're 29th on defense, which I was surprised by per 100 possessions. The thing that I wanted to point out here, because this one Benyama thing is super important. This is the best teenager that's come into the league, at least since LeBron. We can debate. LeBron, I think in year two, for two months at least, was a teenager when he was putting up 27, seven, and seven. When he started his 27, seven, seven cycle. Wembe might be the best teenager I've ever seen. They're starting Jeremy Sohan at point guard, and Pop's been transparent about this. No, no, we know we're gonna take some lumps. We're trying to figure this out. I went to the game when they played the Clippers, I talked about it in a previous pod, and it was just an absolute debacle, watching poor Sohan try to run the offense, bring the ball up. Now we're seeing teams starting to pressure them because he's not a point guard. He's a small forward. There's crazy stats now. Trey Jones, just by being on this team and not being Jeremy Sohan, is now one of the best advanced metrics point guards of all time. Right now, his per 100 on -off is plus 28 .3 because Sohan is minus 22 .7. That's how disparate the two things are. Which brings me to my point, this is too important. You have the best teenager maybe ever. You have one of the best league pass players already in the entire league in Wimby. I have no idea how long he's gonna stay healthy, knock on wood, hear me knock really loud. I just got my dog going. No, that was me, dumb ass. They need one more point guard. TJ McConnell is on Indiana, and they have Halliburton, who's averaging a 24 -12. He's awesome. They have Nembhard, who's great as a backup. McConnell's like, he's 13 minutes a game. He's clearly a trade piece for them. Just go get him. I'm not saying San Antonio has to make the playoffs, but they need to be entertaining, and Wimby needs to play with point guards. He clearly needs just to play off people, high screens, all that stuff. They need one more point guard. TJ McConnell is my choice. They have all their own firsts. They're not gonna trade those obviously, but they have some goofy picks. They have Charlotte's top 14 protected first. They have a pretty good Chicago first that I wouldn't give up. They have a first swap with Boston. There's ways to do this. I would just put that Charlotte pick next year on the table and just grab them because you guys hit the lottery. Literally, with Wimby -Dyama, literally hit the lottery. You hit the lottery and you hit the lottery. Get to do two point guards. We're not asking for much here. I wanna watch this guy. I wanna enjoy him play basketball. All right, next section is panic time. Number 23, Memphis. They're one and six. They finally got out to Schneider. And number 22, Sacramento, who lost twice to Houston in three days by 18 and 25. No Darren Fox for either game. Panic time in this respect. I know we're six games in the season, seven games in the season, but the West is one of those things where you're gonna look up and the car is left. The car has left the driveway and your family is gone. You're gonna be basically Kevin and home alone if you don't get your shit together. And I don't even wanna be two games under 500 in the West. That's how deep and good the West is. So when you're one and six, like all of a sudden two and 12, two and 13, Sacramento could all of a sudden be three and nine. I would just be nervous constantly. This is not like last year when the Lakers started out two and 10 and ended up making the playoffs. Nobody is doing that this year. The cutoff line is gonna be 46 wins. Memphis looks, they just can't score. And I think it's gonna be really, we talked about this verno last week. It's gonna be really hard for them to crawl back and be at least like 11 and 14, something like that by the time Ja comes back. The Sacramento thing, we predicted this when we did the over -under preview, like the conference is way better and they stayed basically the same. And now Fox is hurt. So it can take Fox going out for 10 games and all of a sudden you're not even in the playing game. I would just be nervous, so it's both of those teams. Again, it's early. Next group, friskier than we hoped. We have number 21, Brooklyn. Ben Simmons averaging almost 11 rebounds and seven assists a game. And yet you can't play him at crunch time, bizarre. Number 20, Orlando. Number 19, Houston. Number 18, Indiana. And number 17, Toronto. Just quickly on Houston, a delightful league pass team. I had no idea. It's like being at a buffet dinner and somebody brings like some, have you ever had a fried oyster? It's like, great, I'll try that. And then it's delicious. They play hard. I like watching them. And I did not expect a Shungun to be a potential all -star, but that's where we are. They're three and three. Again, they beat Sacramento twice, we'll see. But Orlando at number 20. Every time I do this, I'm gonna have a BS all -star of the week. I used to do this when I wrote my column back in the day. I used to call them the Bill Simmons all -stars, just people that I just liked for whatever reason. I love Jalen Suggs. I don't really know fully what he is. He tries harder than everybody on every other team. He really gives a shit. He feels additive in all these different ways. And yet at the same time, he'll absolutely like airball a three in one of the biggest moments of the game. But that guy cares. I watched a game where he got this hustle rebound. Can't remember who they, they lost at the buzzer. Get this hustle rebound and dribble back out and took a three and missed it and put his jersey over his head for like the next minute and a half. I actually think he might've been crying. He was so upset they lost. He is the most competitive random guy in the league. I love Jalen Suggs. Oh, as Saruti said, it's the Laker game. I love Jalen Suggs. I don't know what he is. He might just end up being like a seventh man on a championship team at some point. He's gonna have a moment on a good team. I don't know if Orlando's gonna be the team, but it's gonna happen for that dude. I also really like Anthony Black more than I thought, but we'll see. It's early for this team. Palo hasn't gotten going. Somehow they're four and three. We'll see when the schedule gets harder. Toronto at number 17, just the Lakers miss Schroeder. And I like what Schroeder's doing in Toronto. They're three and four, but they easily could be five and two. I've been watching them because I have their over under, I bet on. And I like where Toronto's at. I think they're better than they were last year. I think they're at least a playing team. Number 18, Indiana though. So their second in offensive rating and 25th in defense. In the 25th, I was actually surprised it wasn't worse. They can't guard anybody. They're shooting 43s a game. Their top six guys are all over 40 % three point shooting. They're kind of like the 80s Nuggets, but with threes. And they just play with a certain pace. And some days it's going to be bad. Like the Celtics put 155 points on them and it probably could have been 160 if they'd made some shots. Hal Burton's special. He's a 24 -12 this year. But the crazy thing about their offense is that Matherin's been terrible. And Matherin was a guy that they were like, this is going to be our guy. He's making a leap. We're going to trade Buddy Heald. We got to give the card keys to Matherin in that spot. And he's been bad. And their offense has still been pretty good. This is a team that anytime you see them, I don't know if you bet basketball, but if they're like plus 11, plus 12, it's like they could beat anybody any night. I'm just telling you. I'm not saying they're going to win a round in the playoffs, but just night to night, that's a team that they could just go 22 for 45 from three, make some shots. And Hal Burton, they actually should be five and two. Hal Burton blew the last possession against Charlotte the other night. But I've enjoyed watching them. I've watched an insane amount of basketball, by the way. All right, next group, the wildcards. I don't have a lot to say about these teams, but we'll go in order. Number 16, New Orleans, just seem jinxed. I'll come back to them in a second. Number 15, Cleveland. I want to see them with Garland and just, I want to watch them for a couple of weeks. I like the Struce edition, but we'll see. The Knicks, they're three and four. Nice win against the Clippers. The Randall thing continues to be nuts. Now he's taking out guys in the other team. Clippers 13, just traded for Harden. We talked about the Knicks and Clippers last week. Look, the Clippers, they played one game and they got killed by the Knicks. They're worse. I told you that last week. Still feel that way. Guess what they can't do now? Any transition stuff. The Knicks, 26 to six in fast break points last night. Rebounding. They got out, rebounded by 17 by the Knicks. Harden just brings so many things that you don't want in a starting five, but then he brings the great passing and the scoring and he can have the ball all the time. They don't need anyone to have the ball all the time because they have all these other guys who need the ball. I just don't like the trade. I continue to not like it and I don't understand it. I actually liked the team they had before they made the trade. So congrats again, Clippers. Number 12, Miami. 28th offensively. Kind of feels worse when you watch them. They haven't had their full team for a couple weeks. I'm not gonna judge them at all until December. I'm not gonna judge Dallas either. Dallas I have at number 11. They're six and one, fourth in offense. They've had a really easy schedule. So that's why, let's see what happens. Their one loss is to Denver. Let's see what happens when they play some tough teams all in a row and have one of those four games in six nights or three on the road. One of those situations. But they are in better shape than they were last year. And you look at the Grant Williams piece, which I'm not spiteful when I watch my old players. I'm rooting for Grant Williams. It's like seeing somebody you dated that you still have a good relationship with. It was nice to see him do well for them. Derek Lively seems like they have something. We talked about him last week, but he's at least like a rim runner in that kind of Nick Claxton world, but maybe a little more violent alley -oop or a little young Clint Cappelli. The Kyrie thing is the piece that I'm really interested in this. He finally had a good game last night, but for this season, 24 % shooting, 3 .8 free throws a game, which are always the two numbers to look at with Kyrie. What's he shooting threes? Is he getting in the line? And so far it's been neither, but he seems happy. When you watch them, they've been a surprisingly pleasant watch, and he seems like in a good spot. So I don't want to jinx it because as annoying as he's been over the years, and you know my stance on Kyrie, I just don't trust him. And I just feel like a seven -year track record of imploding kind of has to start to mean something after a while, but it is fun to watch him play basketball. And it does feel like he's got a specific spot on this team. They don't have to rely on him too much. It's very similar to where he was in 15 and 16 and 17 with the Cavs where he could kind of float in and out like a cat with LeBron. It's like, I'm feeling it. Oh, all right, let's give Kyrie the ball. The shooting going down though, it's a small sample size, but they also haven't been playing tough teams yet. And I'm just monitoring that because with guards, it can kind of sometimes go sideways pretty fast, and you don't realize it happened until after it happened. Just quickly going backwards to number 16, New Orleans, because they lost Ingram, they lost McCollum already. And they have this Hawkins who they drafted that everybody liked coming out of the draft, but the fact that he can play right away has actually kind of saved them a little bit. I just, I still feel like we need to do some sort of ceremony or something with them. Like we need the people from the Conjuring to just do something with New Orleans basketball. It just shouldn't be this bad every year. Your team shouldn't have two, three major injuries every year. You should have good luck at some point. And this goes back to the seventies. Remember, when they moved, when they became the New Orleans Jazz, their first major, major giant trade was for Gail Goodrich with the Lakers. They had to give up two first rounders, and he immediately blew out his Achilles. He played, I'm gonna say, less than a season. And one of the picks turned out to be Magic Johnson. So that's where we started with New Orleans, and it's been awful ever since. Nothing good has happened in this team other than they've won a couple of lotteries, but even the lotteries they won, the Davis, Anthony when they were in Charlotte before they got to New Orleans, they bring him to New Orleans and he wants to leave. And then they win the Zion thing, which seemed like the luckiest thing that ever happened to them. And meanwhile, we're still waiting for him to play two straight months. So Conjuring people, something. We need something to happen with that team. All right, the top 10. We're at a good pace right now. Where are we at? Yeah, feeling good. This is working. Young and hungry is the next thing. We got Oklahoma City at number 10 and Atlanta at number nine. If you remember, Atlanta was one of the, these are the two teams I was going nuts for before the season for their over -unders. I love the Atlanta over -under. I love the New Orleans over. And I like what I've seen from both. OK sees four and three, Atlanta's four and three. Atlanta's sixth in offense. And that's notable because Trae Young has sucked again shooting west. He's 28 % from three. Last year's 33 % from three. This might not be happening the next Steph Curry thing. Like what age does he have to hit where we have to go? All right, he's not the next Steph Curry. Because I think I hit that age last year at age, when I was age 53. I think I hit that for Trae. They killed Minnesota, which is notable. We'll talk about Minnesota in a second. But they really, I watched that game and they really, really, really handled them. I like this Atlanta team. And I think there's a path for them to be a three or a four seed if Trae can get going. And then OKC, trade for a big already. You're a guy short, like stop. You guys have a chance to be like a 50 win team. What are you doing? I want to see what's going on with Josh Getty in about two weeks. Whether it looks different than it has for the first couple of weeks here. I don't like, he's not going in the free throw line at all. 1 .3 a game. 26 % three point shooting, which we knew. He can't shoot threes. But there's also like the Chet piece of it. Seems like it's throwing them off. And I've watched games where they've taken them out at crunch time.
The Tennis.com Podcast
A highlight from Executive Director of The Bush Tennis Center Tim Stallard Talks Bringing The Pros The Texas
"Welcome to the official tennis .com podcast featuring professional coach and community leader Kamau Murray. Welcome to the tennis .com podcast. I'm your host Kamau Murray, and we are here with all things tennis. Mr. Tim Stoller, Tim is the general manager and director of the Bush tennis center down in San Antonio, Texas. And they are hosting a really cool tennis event this weekend. It is the, Tim, go ahead, give us the name. Yes, the San Antonio International Team Tennis Championships, and it's at Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio. However, the Bush tennis center is way out in West Texas, about 300 miles away in Midland, Texas. So that's kind of an interesting dynamic of this event. Yeah, we want to hear a lot about that because I'll be honest with you. You know, I built 27 tennis courts in the city and the Bush tennis center has the exact same mission as I do, and I'd never heard of it. So we want to dig into that. But first, let's dig into your background. You have put on more than 50, you know, ATP, USDA, Pro Circuit events, assistant coach at University of Texas, spent time on the court with Andy Roddick. Tell me about your pedigree, where you come from, how you got in the game, and how you were able to travel through so many different levers of the sport. Well, I actually, it started in Rockford, Illinois, way up north, and started playing tennis and just, it was one of those things after my parents got divorced a couple of times. I love baseball, but trying out for baseball teams was more problematic than just entering tennis tournaments. So I kind of fell into tennis through that and loved the sport. And you know, like you said, went on to coach at University of Texas and started, you know, just had some great players. And that's really how I got into starting to run events is I was trying to get wildcards and help out players that I was coaching. And way back in the day, I had two really great players in Texas. One was Julie Scott, who is an All -American at Stanford. And, you know, I couldn't get wildcards. And the other one was Elizabeth Schmidt, who played at UCLA and went on, now she's a head coach at Rice. And very deserving kids. And the USDA said, you know, if you start running tournaments, you get the wildcards. So at one point, I had 13 challengers across the U .S. And some of those challengers, like Champaign -Urbana, are still moving along. So it was an interesting process. So we've held calendars the last two years. And it is a tough business model. To have 13 of them, you know, they struggle to make money. They break even at best. To have 13 of them, you must have had a model that worked because no one would ask for it 13 times if you don't. So tell us about your experience with challengers because we see challengers in the U .S., you know, come on and off the calendar, right? And it hurts our U .S. players from, like you said, creating that vertical for where they're in, you know, the collegiate pathway, they want to try to hand it to Pro Tour, they can't get a wildcard, not enough events to spread the wildcards out. How did you make the challenger model work? Yeah, you know, I was able to get national sponsors. I mean, it covered everything. So I had great sponsors, AOL, Porsche Cars North America, Bear Stearns, HealthSouth. So I just went out. I had a great mentor, a big advertising company, GSD &M. The founders of that really kind of showed me how to put media value behind packages. And I found a kind of a good formula. So you know, I would have literally just, you know, Porsche would say, we need these markets and I would jump on a plane and go to Miami and find facilities. But it was a nice problem because I had all the financials together. You look at the challenger that was in Dallas for years, that was over 20 years that they had it at TbarM. So lots of great challenges throughout the years. Now when you would sell those packages, would the sponsor take all 13? Or like the major sponsors take all 13, then you add on locals? Or was it, you know, and the people would pick off whichever ones they wanted in the markets? Yeah, for the most part, you know, we'd have our major sponsors would take all the markets and then we'd sell kind of patron, local, because you always want the local community involved. So we'd have local patron packages. And we really did our best to make it a fun event, you know, pro -ams and music and access to the players. And, you know, for me, a big part of it was telling the story of the challengers. I mean, I love challengers because you have the veterans that are hanging on that come to get the points. You got the top juniors in the world and they clash at the challenger level. And you know, I'll never forget, I was in a drive -through at McDonals in Austin, Texas, and I got a call from Andre Agassi's brother asking for a wild card into Burbank. And at that time, I'd already, I'd committed, I had a player, Brandon Coop and Robert Abendroth, I committed my two wild cards, so I couldn't give him a wild card, but I was hoping the USTA would. And you know the story, I mean, he got a wild card, he played against Sarga Sargisian in the finals. They called it the Battle of Armenia. And it was a great tournament and it was great to see him come back a year later. He was already back to number four in the world. So it was really just an inspiration to see Andre. Yeah, so, you know, I think that one of the things we us to underestimate is like really the job of these challengers, right, especially in the US soil, is to help promote the next generation of player, right? So I always like to hear a famous story. So our challengers, our wild cards went to Ben Shelton last summer. That's awesome, man. I always hit the semis, obviously got to perform, got a wild card into, got to upgrade a wild card, got originally got a wild card in the Qualities of Cincy because he was in Chicago so long, upgraded to the main draw. And this year, Alex Mickelson wins our event, goes on and plays Newport, right, gets the final to Newport, loses to Manarino, I think. So tell me about another famous wild card story where you see, you gave a wild card to someone that has some potential. And then other than the story you told us where you're like, you know, we had a hand in that person's career. Well, a couple of them, one in Rockford, Illinois, back to Rockford, Illinois, I had a challenger there in February following the Midland, Michigan challenger that's still going. And I got a call from one of my idols, Nick Boletary, and said, I've got this girl, she's number one in the world. And she's not going to make the cut for the challenger. And we think she has a lot of potential. It was Anna Kournikova. So I gave her a wild card and she won it. And you know, I believe, you know, five months later, she was in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. And what's cool about Anna is Anna came back and we've done a lot of charity events. And following, we did an event in Beaumont with Pete Sampras. And she flew after that over to Horseshoe Bay to do a free clinic with my wife and kids. And it was the first kids courts, it was the Andy Roddick kids courts out at Horseshoe Bay. But she flew over, you know, did it absolutely for free to give back to the kids. And she's amazing. But it's really funny that, you know, that started when she was 13 years old in frigid Rockford, Illinois, in February. So you mentioned your wife and kids, do your daughters play at all? They did. They're older now. They're once graduated from A &M. She's an architect and my other daughter is about to start her master's in communications at A &M. Now, did you tie your hand at coaching them? You know, obviously, I'm trying to coach my kids. And I'm trying not to let what happens on the tennis court blend into the car ride home or blend into the dinner table. But sometimes that's really hard. Did you try your hand at coaching them? And how did that go? Yeah, I did. My wife was really their primary coach. And my wife was a great player, all American at Texas, coached at Texas. She's number one in the Southerns, finalist at the Easter Bowl, just a great player. And we are very different coaching styles. My wife is very, you know, very, very fired up with the girls. I was a lot more laid back. And you know, when I go to their matches, I'd have the newspaper, my Starbucks, and they go, Dad, you're not even watching my match. Of course, I'm watching every point. But when they look at me, I've got my newspaper up and my coffee is kind of downplaying it. But they were great, you know, we're really proud of our daughters. And we officially became grandparents about a little over a year ago. But, you know, tennis was just a great experience for their life. And it, you know, for me, it changed my life. You know, growing up in Rockford, Illinois, my dad was an automaker, tool and die maker, neither one of my parents even know how to keep score in tennis. And like I said, after a couple of divorces, I had a wonderful coach, Pat Wicks, that gave me a lot of free lessons and I just worked my butt off and it opened doors. And, you know, that's what we're really inspired to do with the Bush AIDS Outreach Program is create that opportunity. And I mean, we have 100%, any kid that comes, we provide full scholarships, partial scholarships, we turn down no one. That's our mission. So we're real proud of that and we've helped a lot of kids and we're expanding that throughout the state of Texas and then happy to really help, you know, great foundations like the Ryan Brothers Foundation, John Isner. My wife and I, we went out and helped Sloan. Sloan had over 300 kids bust in from Compton at USC. My wife and I went out and helped with clinics out there to help Sloan, but she does amazing work year -round. So there's a lot of great stories and a lot of great things that, you know, people see these great players on the court, but I'm really inspired for a lot of things they're doing off the court. So tell me about the Bush Tennis Center. I would say I didn't even know it existed. I didn't know that the Bushes were big tennis people. I knew the Koch Brothers were big tennis people down there in Texas, but didn't know the Bush Tennis Center existed. So tell me about how the Bush Tennis Center came along and how you ended up taking the job. Oh, it's, in 2015, I had John Isner, Sam Querrey, and the Bryans, and we did a four -day run where we did Atlanta, Nashville, Midland, and then Camarillo, California to do something for the Bryan Brothers for their foundation. So those four guys, 2015, went through just to do a one -day event and just started talking to the people that founded the Bush Tennis Center and they were having some challenges with the business model, asked me to, hired me as a consultant initially. And I just said, you know, here's all the things that need to be done. And they're like, well, we want to hire you. I'm like, well, I don't live here. I live in Austin. My wife's director of tennis at Horseshoe Bay Resort. My company's in Austin. They're like, well, we don't care if you live here, just come and check into the Double Tree Hilton downtown Midland and come and figure this thing out. And you know, it was really neat because at that point I was working, I was trying to build a similar facility next to Dell Diamond with Reed and Reece Ryan, Nolan Ryan's kids. They owned the Minor League Ballpark there and we were kind of going down that road to maybe buy the ATP event in Memphis, build a facility like this. And you know, we're going down that road, but there was a lot of politics and just dealing with governments and stuff. I go out to West Texas and they're like, you know, here's the keys to the place. How much money do you need? Let's get it going. I mean, it's just an amazing opportunity. And we're on 35 acres. We've already on the far west side, we just opened a $4 million park designed for special needs children. So we've got zip lines. Everything is set up where kids can play just despite, you know, physical challenges. They can play side by side with all kids. We have a $4 million park. We just broke ground on a new 90 ,000 square foot athletic center, which will have five indoor basketball courts, 15 volleyball courts, a 75 yard turf indoor field. And then Lance Hooton, who I actually met through Andy Roddick, who's traveled with Andy. It's going to be a sports performance training center. And Lance Hooton's coming in and using his expertise to develop that as well. So, you know, it's a big campus and it's all set up as a nonprofit. It's a legacy for the Bush presidents. And you know, I feel like to some degree I get to be Santa Claus because I get to really help a lot of kids. And that's super important to me. And we've got a staff that is just amazing, that just cares so much about helping kids and really developing a great event, a great product. Now you're also building indoor tennis courts. And what people don't know is like in these southern markets, right, places where you just say California, Texas, Atlanta, Florida, even, he's like, why do you need indoor courts in those markets? Sometimes it is so hot, right, that you just need the, you need the roof for the shade, right? Or sometimes like in Florida, it'll rain all day, right? And you need the roof for the rain. So tell us why you would need indoor courts in West Texas. Well, a lot of times it's just too windy. I mean, we're just out in the middle of nowhere. It's flat as can be. And, you know, as they say, there's not a lot out there, but there's a lot under there. I mean, we're on the biggest reserve of oil on planet Earth, the Permian Basin and the Delaware Basin, you know, come right out of right out of Midland, West Texas. And but it's flat, high winds. So we lose a lot of days where, you know, the wind gets up above 25 miles an hour. It's not playable. Dust is blowing. And then, you know, we have one hundred and one hundred and ten hundred and fifteen degree days in the summer, and then it drops to twenty five degrees. That's just all over the map. So indoor courts will definitely help us. We're looking at doing eight indoor hard and four indoor clay, and there's no way to do outdoor clay. It would just blow away. So it would be so dry and you'd be you know, every year we bring in twelve tons of clay to sort of re -top off our red hard shoe courts. I mean, I would only imagine how much money you spend on. Oh, yeah. It wouldn't last.
Bankless
A highlight from Solana is Winning Right Now | Anatoly & Austin
"Bankless Nation, I'm coming to you from Solana breakpoint in Amsterdam. This is the third breakpoint that has ever happened in the year 2023, and this one is a little bit different. The first breakpoint happened in 2021 in the second half of the year, absolute peak froth of the bull market in Lisbon, followed by the second Solana breakpoint in 2022 also in Lisbon, which happened right before the collapse of FTX. And here we are, a new venue, a new city, Amsterdam, for Solana breakpoint number three. And this one has a little bit different of a vibe. This one is deep into the bear market, perhaps coming out of the bear market, and the Solana community has been cultivated as such. As you would imagine, the people that went to the 2021 Solana breakpoint when sole price was over $200, a lot of them didn't make it. And the third Solana breakpoint, instead what you have left is the low level devs that comprise the majority of what I would say is the Solana community. Over the last year or so, I've dabbled with Solana, being Solana curious, I guess you would call it, mostly fighting, but I've definitely learned that if I want to learn about Solana, it's not going to happen through the filter that is crypto Twitter, or probably not inside of any of my Ethereum native circles either. But since I'm on my way to East Lisbon, I'm taking a flight here shortly, I decided to pop over a little bit early to Amsterdam to check out Solana breakpoint for myself. In this episode, I talked with Anna Tolley, the founder of Solana and Austin, of course, from the Solana foundation, just to kind of get a vibe check over the arc of Solana breakpoint, what this conference means to the Solana community and overall what people are getting excited about as it stands today in Solana and a totally is persistently busy, of course. So we had him and Austin for the first 30 minutes and then until they had to run. And so then me and Austin had a chance to chat about all of the different rabbit holes and things that are going on in Solana. I do my best to compare them to what people on this podcast might be familiar with in the Ethereum world. So for example, that they have Solana fire dancer. And in terms of significance, that's kind of like EIP 1559, or the Ethereum merge, at the Solana community are interested in. And so I do my best, actually, I do the only thing that I know how to do, which is compare evolutions and progress in Solana and kind of use Ethereum as a frame of reference just to gain my own understanding. And since you are likely a longtime listener of this podcast, it's probably useful for you as well. So if you are curious about what is going on in the state of Solana, or you weren't able to attend breakpoint, and you just want to kind of catch a vibe, this episode is for you with Anna Tolley and Austin of the Solana ecosystem. So let's go ahead and get right into that conversation with Anatoly and Austin. But first, a moment to talk about these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible, especially Kraken, a preferred exchange for crypto in 2023. If you not have an account with Kraken, what are you waiting for the bull market is about to get started and you need a centralized exchange like Kraken to buy some of your crypto assets. There is a link in the show notes to getting started with Kraken today. Kraken knows crypto. Kraken has been in the crypto game for over a decade. And as one of the largest and most trusted exchanges in the industry, Kraken is on the journey with all of us to see what crypto can be. Human history is a story of progress. It's part of us, hardwired. We're designed to seek change everywhere, to improve, to strive. And if anything can be improved, why not finance? Crypto is a financial system designed with the modern world in mind, instant permissionless and 24 seven. It's not perfect, and nothing ever will be perfect. But crypto is a world changing technology at a time when the world needs it the most. That's the Kraken mission to accelerate the global adoption of cryptocurrency so that you and the rest of the world can achieve financial freedom and inclusion. Head on over to Kraken dot com slash bankless to see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Cryptocurrency services are provided to U .S. and U .S. territory customers by Payword Ventures EEC, PVI doing business as Kraken. Celo is the mobile first EVM compatible carbon negative blockchain built for the real world. And now something big is happening. Introducing the Celo Layer 2. It's a game changing proposal that's going to bring Celo's rapidly growing ecosystem home to Ethereum. Vitalik has shared his excitement for the Celo Layer 2 on the Celo Forum. So has Ben Jones from Optimism. But why? The Celo Layer 2 will bring huge advantages like a decentralized sequencer, off chain data availability and one block finality. What does all that mean? Rock solid security, a trustless bridge to Ethereum and more real world use cases for Ethereum without compromise and real world adoption is happening. Active addresses on Celo have grown over 500 percent in the last six months. With the Celo Layer 2, gas fees will stay low and you can even pay for gas using ERC 20 tokens. But Celo is a community governed protocol. This means that Celo needs you to weigh in and make your voice heard. Join the conversation in the Celo Forum. Follow at Celo Org on Twitter and visit Celo .org to shape the future of Ethereum.
Dennis Prager Podcasts
A highlight from Dennis & Julie: Humility and Rationality
"Hello there all, all as I should say having been in Mississippi last week. Y 'all, y 'all, I love y 'all by the way. It works better than you. Hi, Dennis Prager and Julie Hartman. Shalom. And after spending great amounts of money on research, they came up with the name Dennis and Julie. Yes. It was well worth all the money spent. Well, you know what, better simple than bad. Better simple than something stupid. Well, you know, Einstein had a great line about that. I'm curious if you know this. Things should be as simple as pop made as simple as possible, but not simpler. That is a good line. So why did I share it with you? You know, there are a few things like... Isn't it amazing, she's actually starting in on that line. I was sure that that would basically die and we'd move on. Nothing dies on Dennis and Julie. It always starts with an anecdote. It is really funny. Like, you know, the sun was shining today and then... Oh, well, let me tell you about the sun. Yes, yes. And then you go, I have a theory on that. And then I'll tell you I have two suns and it'll just go God knows where. All right, go ahead. As a total aside, it's amazing. You're one of two suns. You have two suns. Oh, no, you don't know. Your son has two suns and Sue has two suns. You never heard me tell you this? No, I think you have. Yeah, my father had two suns, I have two suns, my son has two suns and my wife has two suns. That's all I know. I don't know three and I don't know daughters. Okay, go ahead. You're probably lucky. You're probably lucky that you don't know daughters. My dad is listening like he's lucky. No, I'm not complaining. Okay. I was going to say about names, because obviously when I was naming my show Timeless, I didn't want to call it the Julie Hartman show. No offense to people who call it the insert name show. You can do it because you're famous. It makes sense for you to call it the Dennis Prager show. You were right. Or the Ben Shapiro show. Because people will be like, who the hell is Julie Hartman? And I think it's a very kind of everyone does that paradigm. And again, if you're famous, it makes sense. When you're a little plebeian like me, you probably shouldn't do that. But when I was thinking about names, you know me. I get so intense and think it's this name would be the end of the world if it were bad. And then I kind of came up with this, shocker, theory about names, especially names of talk shows. Unless it's really, really, really bad and stupid, I actually don't think it matters that much. Excellent point. I really don't. I'll tell you, the name of a book is incredibly important. And I say it both as the author of titles that were great and titles that weren't great. That means... So that's interesting. What titles do you not think were great? Well, I don't believe it or not, still the best hope. I think the subtitle should have been perhaps the title. Why the World Needs American Values. I agree with that. Because it doesn't tell you anything. If the title doesn't tell you anything, it's not good. I hate to say it, but I agree. It's not a bad title. No, I know. But I agree with you. It hurts me. Well, it's okay. Clearly people have read and were very influenced by the book. You did. That was your book that influenced me the most. That's why you wrote me and then the rest is history. So at the risk of making it about me for just a moment, I think that God does play a role in each of our lives. If you're aware of it, you can sometimes see the hand of God in the way that he leads you. You certainly saw the hand of God the day that you met your wife because you do all these meet and greets and you stay after to talk to every single person who is an attendee and then literally the last person in line was the best woman you could have ever found and married. So the point is, I think, again, if you look around, you'll be able to see God's hand and things. I think God leads and influences me through book choices. I really do. Because your book, you don't understand, when I was in that time in my life, I didn't read books very much. I'm a fiend now with reading books, but back then I didn't so much. It's amazing to me that I discovered You and PragerU and then I decided to order that specific book. And I think that was kind of divine. And then when it showed up, I actually was going to return it. Not because there was something bad, not because I saw it was still the best hope, but I thought that's a bad title, but because I thought, oh, I ordered too many things. I want to save money. I'm going to return this book. I'm probably not going to read it. And then something told me to read it. I'll give you another example. About a year and two months ago, I literally woke up one morning. This was shortly after I graduated from college and in that summer before I started my job. I literally woke up one morning and I thought, I should reread The Scarlet Letter. And why would I have that thought? I hadn't read it since ninth grade. But something, I literally woke up and I said, I need to reread it. I went into my bookshelf. It was there from high school. I reread it. And now it's one of my favorite books, a big part of themes I talk about in my show. And I did a PragerU book club with Michael Knowles on it. I could give more examples. But anyway, it just made me think that that is the book that led me here. That's still the best hope. Well, let me see since you mentioned it, just for those listening or watching. There is a book of three books about America, about the left, and about Islam. And what a time to read this book. And if you want to understand all three, I think it's the best book that does all three in one. Yes. Okay, still the best hope. Thank you for that. But back to the names thing, I actually don't think names of talk shows matter that much. I that suspect you're right because I can't think of anyone that stands out. It's always either I like the individual or you're right. It matters in books and I don't know where else it matters. It's an interesting point. Even, and this is said with so much respect for The Daily Wire, if you look at the name The Daily Wire, it's not a particularly... Sexy name. That's correct. It's kind of just there. But it doesn't matter. But it doesn't matter because it's... It's exactly right. All right, well said. Anything else on your mind? I got a lot on my mind. So I have an interesting thought for you. So it's been a very difficult time because of the monstrosities in Israel. And this is a good example of... When I tell people about Dennis and Julie, who are big fans of mine and my shows and my writings and so on, I say, I promise you that things as open as I am, and I really am on my own show, things are brought out about me in Dennis and Julie that otherwise just don't get mentioned. And it's not because I'm hiding it, but because in dialogue with someone in particular you... So here's a good example of something I didn't mention on the show. I did tangentially, but not the way I'm going to mention it now. So it's been a very intense time since the horrible attacks on Israel, the greatest loss of Jews in a day since the Holocaust. It's really been difficult. And the world changed. Well, I hope it changed, to be honest. We'll see. I don't know how long human memories are, but maybe it did. We'll get to that in a moment. But this is actually just a personal and professional note, not a big macro note, but it is interesting. So I always go over with Alan, my producer, the show, but basically not so much the show because I don't know what I'll talk about until five minutes before. No, that is literally true. Yes, it is literally true. It used to give me a heart attack, but now I know it's just you. There are times I come up with the subject as the theme music comes on. Oh, I am aware. So what we talk about is, I will say, who were any guests today? So he said to me, again five minutes before the show, at the middle hour of the show, I asked Jerry Zucker, David Zucker, and Jim Abrams to come in. The book about their movie Airplane, which happened 43 years ago, has just come out, their memoir of the movie. And I said, wait, Israel has just undergone the most horrible attack in its history, the greatest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, and I'm going to talk about Airplane? And he said, people need a respite. where So here's I say I'm being open to the point that I wasn't even on my own show. I didn't agree with Alan, but I didn't say anything because, A, he's the producer, and unless I'm passionate, I'm not going to override a decision he makes. And he has excellent judgment. And that's the whole point. That's right. You hit it on the nose. And he has excellent judgment. So there are a lot of lessons in this. I think, in retrospect, he was right that we needed a respite. And this was as far afield as you could get. The 43rd anniversary of one of the five most successful comedies ever made into a movie. And with the authors and the three authors and the writers and the all three were also the directors. So a few lessons, because I'm very big, if I can't learn a lesson from something, it's like it didn't happen. So one is, you really do have to know in life whom to trust over your own judgment. If you think you're always right, even about your own life, forget about politics and stuff, you're not going to lead an enriched life. You will make a lot of boo -boos. Oh, this is so important. It's a great subject. Yes, so this is a gift, I admit, I don't even consider it praiseworthy. It's just a gift that I was given to always ask, what can I learn from X and Y and Z? But the reason is so that I could share it with the public. I want to help people lead a better life. That's my corny ambition with my life. So that's a very, very big one. And I have great faith in my judgment. We're not talking to Mr. Silly Putty here. I have strong convictions, but I trust him.
What Bitcoin Did
A highlight from Bitcoin vs the Infinite Money Printer with Luke Gromen
"They're not going to cut the entitlements. They're going to print the money. And they're going to print the money with oil at 90. They're going to print the money with Bitcoin at 35 ,000. They're going to print the money. They're going to print the money. Happy Monday. How are you all doing? Did you have a good weekend? I did. OK. Real Bedford. They won on the weekend and were top of the league. So that is Real Bedford men and Real Bedford ladies both at the top of their respective league. What a start to the season. We've both got massive cup games this weekend. Get anywhere near Bedford and you want to come down, especially on Saturday, because before the men's game at 12 o 'clock, we've got a meet up. And I'm going to be joined by Robert Breedlove. So please do come down to Bedford. Come down to McMullen Park, enjoy some football, enjoy some Bitcoin, and hang out with the man Breedlove himself. Anyway, welcome to the What Bitcoin Did podcast, which is brought to you by the massive legends at Iris Energy, the largest NASDAQ listed Bitcoin miner using 100 % renewable energy. I'm your host, Peter McCormack. And today, we've got macro genius Luke Gorman back on the show. Now Luke is one of our absolute favorites here at WBD. Me, Danny, and producer Ben all love Luke, and he brought the fire this episode. We get into the infinite money printer, the bond market getting crushed, inflation, and social unrest in the US. We covered the lot. I know you're going to love this one, but if you've got any questions about this, any feedback, anything else, please do hit me up. It's hellowhatbitcoindid .com. And if you haven't checked out our event next year in April, Cheat Code, please head over to cheatcode .co .uk to get yourself a ticket. All right, on to the show. Luke, how are you? I'm doing well, Peter. How are you today? Yeah, I'm doing well. I do wonder if we'll ever jump on one of these calls. We do every six to 12 months and be like, yeah, do you know what? The economy's good. The banks are making good decisions. The government's doing well. It has no inflation. The world's all right. That would be nice, you know, we could all go to the beach and have a margarita or something. Yeah, it's a bit weird. It seems like everything's just getting worse. We had planned all these things to talk about and just while Danny was setting up the cameras, I was flicking through, I hate saying X, I'm going to keep it to Twitter. And our mutual friend Linaldin tweeted out that the Treasury expects to borrow nearly 1 .6 trillion in net new debt during the six month period covering this quarter and the next quarter. Is there no limit to how much money they're going to borrow? It seems like the bond market is maybe making the early noises about attempting to restrict what they can borrow without Fed help, but it's really ultimately a function of what's the dollar, what's the bond market doing, what's the dollar doing? It's that classic rates versus currency decision. Can you explain that? Can you walk us through that? What is the bond market saying and explain it so I understand. Sure, so there's sort of the case for most places and then there's a case for the US because where the reserve currency is sure. And you also have this giant offshore dollar borrowing market, right, the euro dollar market, but there's 13 trillion dollars in offshore dollar denominated debt according to the BIS. So means that the implications of that are that as the dollar goes higher, so the Fed raises rates, the dollar goes up, dollar goes up, the foreigners who have borrowed in dollars see their effective borrowing rate go up, the cost of servicing that dollar debt goes up and so they need to somehow raise dollars. Well, they can't print dollars like the Fed, so where do they get their dollars from? Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on which side of it you're on, foreigners have run surpluses against the United States by virtue of how the system works for a long time and particularly in the last 25 to 30 years. And so foreigners have about 18 trillion dollars net, so I don't want to say it's closer to 40 trillion gross, but I think it's 18 trillion dollars net in US dollar assets more than we have of theirs. It's this net international investment position I've talked about. So they have 18 trillion dollars of dollar assets, about seven point six trillion of that are Treasury bonds. And so, yes, they are short dollars, but only to the extent they are unwilling to sell treasuries to get dollars or sell stocks to get dollars to defend. And so what you see is this virtuous or vicious, I guess it is vicious cycle where the dollar goes up. Foreigners are forced to sell treasuries that rates go up as rates go up, the dollar goes up. You wash, rinse, repeat until we either get a calamity or more likely more. The way it's worked really increasingly frequently is the US Treasury market gets dysfunctional. And there's an index we follow called the move index. It's the volatility of the Treasury markets created by a gentleman named Harley Bassman who pointed out once that index goes over 150, the Fed has lost control of the bond market. And October 3rd of this year, it was 141. All of a sudden, everyone and their mother on the Fed came out and said, well, maybe the bond market's done our job for us. Maybe we're done raising rates. They tried jawboning the dollar down. It's it's sort of worked. It's stopped the dollar going up like every day, but it's it hasn't really gotten the dollar down. But that's ultimately as it relates to this situation for the US that as long as the dollar's going up, given this massive offshore dollar denominated debt and this US massive dollar asset net position that foreigners have that they can sell to get dollars. Ultimately, it's sort of all fun and games until the Treasury market loses an eye. And once the Treasury market loses an eye, the volatility gets to a point where it is indicating that the Fed is losing control of the Treasury market. That has been the point over the last four years. Where the Fed steps in and says no mas and at that point, they kind of say, well, it's not QE, we're growing our balance sheet, but it's not QE. You know, Jackson Hole, a couple of guys gave a speech that said it was a presentation. It was, you know, it's possible the Fed might have to do non -monetary policy purchases of treasuries. But it's important that we sort of lay that out that, you know, it's it's almost like, you know, those are those are trading sardines, not eating sardines. It's it's, you know, they're printing money for for market functioning reasons, not for monetary purposing reasons. And the market's not going to care. But that's ultimately that do they want if they want the Treasury market to function really well, given these levels of debt, they need the dollar to be a certain level lower than it is. If they want the dollar here, then they're going to need to restrict how much they're trying to borrow or be willing to lose control of the bond market and the Treasury market specifically. I'd like to pretend like I just understood all of that. I would. I really want to say I pretend I can understood all of that. But but it sounds complicated for the layman like me, the everyday guy, I can't interpret what that means. So basically what it means is unless the Fed prints the money to buy the rate down, then the rates are going to go up on the government until the government until rates ostensibly extremes inform the means. In theory, we the bond market could run away and then all of a sudden. The in theory, you can get to one hundred percent of your revenues in interest expense, nobody, nobody for anything else, in which case either the Fed prints the money or we say, sorry, Ukraine, sorry, Israel, sorry. Everywhere we're bringing our boys home. And in fact, they have to book their own tickets because we don't have the money. And boomers, you're on your own. I know we promised you hip, sneeze, drugs, docs, all that, but sorry. All we have is money is to pay the interest. So this is an issue of supply and demand in bonds. And the big risk is they cannot afford the interest on the debt they have themselves, because what is it like 30? Where are we at now on the debt? Thirty three trillion themselves? Thirty four. High interest rate is so it becomes unaffordable themselves. It's the only way to see that is it's more QE. Yeah, that's exactly I mean, it's ultimately a supply demand problem of of debt versus not just existing debt, new debt, and then also against the supply of balance sheet. Right. There's only so much global private balance sheet that can that the capacity to buy the stuff and continue to hold the old stuff and the balance sheet capacity increases as the dollar goes down, it decreases as the dollar goes up. And ultimately, that balance sheet capacity has repeatedly needed to be supplemented by the Fed's balance sheet, which is infinite. They can buy as much as they want. They will never run out. The flip side is, is that has implications for the dollar because you're effectively printing money to finance deficits. But if they do do that, would it be a case if they're trying to bring down the interest rates and they're using QE to do this? Isn't this just the cycle we've been going through over and over again? This will lead to more inflation and more inflation will lead to them having to raise interest rates again. You know, isn't this just a cycle that gets worse every every time we go through another cycle of this? Yeah, oh, it's to me, it's been a very it's a very I think it is the most important macro cycle. It's a very obvious cycle. In 2014, global central banks stopped growing their holdings of FX reserves. And what that means in plain English is foreign central banks stopped adding to their supply of treasuries. So if if one of your biggest marginal buyers stops buying, somebody else needs to buy. And as that happens, a couple of things, a couple of things happen. Number one, the dollar starts going up and number two, rates start going up. And that can manifest given the omnipresence of the dollar and the centrality of the dollar to the system that shows up a lot at different places. But dollar up rates up. And we've seen this sort of at first we regulated the banks in 2014 into, you know, it's a little bit like the cracks in the dam. Right. So the first crack in the dam is like, OK, foreign central banks are buying the debt anymore. OK, what are we going to have by what we have regulate the banks into doing. So they do that. And that works for a while. And then because the supply of water, which is U .S. federal deficits, just keeps growing and growing and growing. Right. Inevitably, the pressure from the water growing, growing another crack, money market funds. We're going to regulate them into that was 2015, 2016. Again, both of these things crowd out global dollar markets. They send LIBOR short term rates up. Then you end up driving the dollar up to levels that start creating problems around the world. What do we do? We weaken the dollar in 2016. We weaken the dollar in 2017 with the Treasury general account. Basically, the Treasury's checking account starts to inject our liquidity to kind of manage this process. 2018, more cracks, especially now that the Fed's QTing in earnest. We start regulating Trump, regulated U .S. corporate pensions into buying more treasuries, gave him a tax break. OK, now we've got our thumb in the in the in the wall. So and, you know, 2019, we get another crack with repo rate spikes. OK, oh, now the Fed has to step in. Now the Fed's growing their balance sheet. But it's not QE. It's just fixing the fact that repo went from two to eight overnight because there's too much supply of water and not enough demand for the water that kind of holds. That breaks again in March 2020 at the depths of the covid crisis. The Fed does mega QE. They call it QE. OK, leads to inflation. 2022, we're going to start backing off, we're going to tighten. They get, you know, whatever they really start getting aggressive in March, April of really tightening. And by September, the UK gilt market blows up. Uh oh. They all get together in Washington in October of 2022. And they give Janet Yellen, what we used to call on the desk, a hey MF 'er conversation and Yellen comes back and runs on the TGA. The dollar goes down 15 percent, buys time. Another, you know, so it's just this you it is a constant cycle that started 10 years ago, but it keeps getting faster and faster. Right. That 2014, we regulate the banks. We worry about it again to like 2015, 16 with money markets. And even then, you know, you didn't have to worry about the the dollar was not too high in that case till 2016, 2017 and had to be addressed. Then it was already end of 2018. The Fed had to stop raising rates. Then it was September 2019. Then you kind of covid sort of screwed up the pacing of it in terms of of getting a clean apples to apples read. But since then, it's accelerated, it's September 2019, you had March 2020, you had September as soon as they started raising rates, March 20 or September 2022, March 2023, September 20 or October 2023. Now, it just it's getting faster and faster. And so, yeah, it is really it fundamentally the problem is very simple, way too much U .S. deficits, not enough global private sector balance sheet unless the Fed is in there helping to buy this stuff of printed money. That's at the end of the day, that's it. That's the problem. Is it essentially paying off your credit cards with a new credit card? Absolutely. While the rates going up on it, if the Fed does step in and start buying bonds in that way, does the U .S. just turn into Japan? Japan? No, we turned into Argentina. Japan, Japan is. Night and day different than the United States in this situation, right, so Japan is a net international investment position, remember, so I said we have foreigners own 65 percent, that 18 trillion, 65 percent of US GDP. So the U .S. net international investment position is negative. Sixty five percent of US GDP. Japan's is positive. Sixty percent. So for starters, when Japan runs into that problem, the first thing they can do is ring, ring, ring, hey, Washington, it's Japan. Those dollar assets we have to the tune of 60 percent of of our GDP, we want to start selling five percent a year because we need to finance our our fiscal deficit of three percent a year and do two percent of stimulus. And they can do that for a long, long time. That's number one. Number two, they run a current account surplus, right, their trade surplus. So they are running the surpluses on the current account versus us running deficits. We need number three. OK, the deficits we're running, the twin deficits historically have been foreign financed. They have financed internally. So you can run you if you're financing internally as Japan, deflation is an option you're when you're financing internally. Right. Because now you can pay your people, you know, zero percent interest on long term bonds because the cost of living is fear and deflation. Your cost of living is falling. Living standards are rising politically. That works. You cannot do that when you're in the United States. If you're financing externally, you start running deflation as a twin deficit. You get into a debt spiral. Your debt pile gets bigger and bigger and bigger nonlinearly every year. And pretty soon you run into debt credibility issues. You also, as Japan, do not have to provide most of your defense because your friends, the United States, have provided it for most of the last 80 years. We have to provide our own defense and that defense appears to be getting much more expensive by the minute. And then lastly, the United States is very heterogeneous in population. And Japan is very homogeneous in population. So it's a lot easier to sort of get people to sort of, you know, go along to get along and take one for the team. Culturally, there's much more of a willingness to take one for the team. I think their government has probably all in all done probably a better job of maintaining their credibility or maybe losing their credibility less fast than ours has with its domestic populace, maybe a better way of putting it. And so when you roll those things together, but especially the net international investment position, the current account, you know, Japan can say ring ring Washington send us our money. We need it to finance ourselves. And that throws that, you know, sell treasuries. We're going to bring back the dollars and defend the yen with those by selling dollars and buying yen. And they can do that for a while. They have 60 percent of GDP in that area. There is no there is no ring ring for the U .S. The ring ring. They don't call anybody overseas. The ring ring is, hey, Fed, start printing again. And when you say when they have to do that again, whenever that is, because they're going to have to do that again. Yeah, then that's why it gets much more into an Argentina like dynamic. And as I've said, Argentina with U .S. characteristics, not Japan is what is going to be the outcome. I was out in Argentina recently, was it three or four months ago, Danny? And I made a documentary while I was there about inflation. And one of the interesting things about being in Argentina is if you're certainly in the middle class, you have access to dollar products, whether it's cash dollars or digital dollars or crypto dollars or U .S. equities or U .S. bonds, you have access to dollars to mitigate against inflation. And most people just get rid of their peso and get some kind of dollar products as soon as possible. But if if you're an American, there is there is no equivalent. I mean, yes, there's gold and yes, there's Bitcoin. And, you know, we've seen this rise in both gold and Bitcoin recently. Perhaps that's it. I mean, is that it? The short answer is yes. You know, you can kind of see right who is who has won over the last 10, 20 years in the U .S., right? It's if you if you own a lot of stocks, you're doing great.
Bankless
A highlight from 195 - The Bull Case for $COIN | Michael Rinko & Jay
"And that being said, I think there's definitely a portion of folks that won't trust any exchange. But given how long Coinbase has been operating in this space and how trustworthy and how by the books that they've done things, I think there's certainly a portion of these folks that would be a lot more comfortable leaving their capital on Coinbase's international exchange versus an exchange like Binance or BitMEX and the like. Yeah, and just to add to that quickly, this is something Jay and I were actually riffing on the other day, but I'm looking at a Reuters article now, Binance stops accepting new users in the UK. I believe that came out yesterday. So just to take a step back, like what's kind of happening right now, I think there's a realization in capitals all around the world that crypto is not going away. You know what I mean? Maybe half of it scams, maybe more, a larger percent of crypto scams, but Bitcoin, Ethereum and maybe a few others are not going away. They're going to be here and they're going to be an integral part of our new financial system where they're going to come into the existing world, whatever. It's taken a while for these politicians and these lawmakers to realize that, I think, but they're slowly starting to realize that. So what's happening now is they're saying, well, all right, if crypto is going to be a thing going forward, we want to control it. We want it to happen on our shores. We want it to follow our laws. And we do not want some unregulated kind of shady actor that we're not sure who it's regulated by to be controlling all of it. So you guys just have Nick Carter on. He's talked a lot about Operation Choke Point. I think he's done a great job on that. And essentially how I see this playing out is that the U .S. and kind of the West, broadly speaking, its allies are going to say, we want to control crypto. We want some say in what happens. We want these big, massive public companies like Coinbase to follow our rules. And we're going to actively squeeze out other participants, a la Binance, out of our markets and essentially make way for someone that we have some sort of control over. So I think a bold case for Coinbase is actually that it's so highly regulated, despite having all these court battles with the SEC. The SEC probably has a better opinion of Coinbase than Binance or some of these other exchanges. So, yeah, I think there's kind of a regulatory tailwind, a geopolitical tailwind there as well. Yeah. So basically there's a lot of kingmaking going on on behalf of kind of regulators. And it seems like we could have kind of the crypto banks of the West, right, that are basically knighted by the powers that be. And then we'll probably have international crypto banks or kind of like Eastern crypto banks as well. But it does seem like some of the regulators are targeting non -U .S.-based exchanges far more aggressively than maybe they are. As aggressive as they've been with Coinbase and a Kraken, they seem to be even more aggressive on these offshore exchanges. So it's very interesting. Borderline unfair at times. Yeah. Like who said any of this was fair? I don't know that any of this is fair. It's just kind of like analyzing what is happening. Yeah, no, and I don't mean to endorse the strategy at all. This is just kind of what I'm perceiving. And I think it kind of fits with this like broader narrative that we're going through of technology increasingly being viewed through like a zero -sum geopolitical lens where there's kind of two camps. There's like the U .S. and its allies, and then there's maybe China, Russia, whoever else. We're seeing this go on with like semiconductors, AI. My opinion is crypto is just as important as those technologies. Politicians might not realize it yet, but I think that they will. I think things like stablecoins will make them realize that sooner than later. So, yeah, I think this is like a big tailwind, I guess, most potently for Coinbase's offshore purpose exchange. So this offshore purpose exchange, there seems to be just a crazy alignment of the stars. First, it's a massive market with massive volumes and has been proven by other businesses to make a lot of revenue. That's star number one. Star number two is that things like BitMEX and FTX just collapsed. So really a lot of the competition just died. Binance is still standing, but it has all of the regulatory pressure, which is the third star. And so Coinbase has regulatory alignment, this massive market that is perps and all the dead competition. I just see like a lot of alignment of stars, which onshore United States regulated exchange can go capture this thing. Whoever can get there first can probably capture a lot of incoming revenue. Is this conclusion naive or this seems to be just right for the taking by Coinbase? I think that's well said. Yeah, that was my conclusion as well after looking at it was it's wide open. This specific market is wide open for the taking. And now we're just going to have to watch. I mean, can Coinbase kind of execute and capitalize on it? And, you know, that's TBD. But I think they have a pretty decent track record so far on executing on some of their other business line items. Are you launching a token? Is it already live? How are you managing the legal and tax for providing token awards for your team? Toku simplifies everything about managing token grant compensation and you can get started with them for free. You'll have access to top notch legal and tax support to handle the distribution and management of tokens for your team. Toku caters to every step in the process from user friendly legal templates for granting tokens to tracking vesting periods and calculating withholding taxes. 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And you can seamlessly swap on Mainnet, Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism. On the Uniswap mobile wallet, you can store and display your beautiful NFTs and you can also explore Web3 with the in -app search features, market leaderboards and price charts. Or use Wallet Connect to connect to any Web3 application. So you can now go directly to DeFi with the Uniswap mobile wallet. Safe, simple custody from the most trusted team in DeFi. Download the Uniswap wallet today on iOS. There is a link in the show notes. Cello is the mobile first, EVM compatible, carbon negative blockchain built for the real world. And now something big is happening. Introducing the Cello Layer 2. It's a game changing proposal that's going to bring Cello's rapidly growing ecosystem home to Ethereum. Vitalik has shared his excitement for the Cello Layer 2 on the Cello Forum. So has Ben Jones from Optimism. But why? 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CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from CARPE CONSENSUS: SBF's Testimony Demonstrated He Was (at the Very Least) a Bad CEO
"This is Carpe Consensus. Join hosts Ben Shiller and Danny Nelson as they seize the world of crypto. Hello and welcome to Carpe Consensus. This is the best podcast about crypto in the world and Carpe Consensus is a podcast from the CoinDesk Podcast Network. And my name is Benjamin Shiller. I am the features and opinion editor here at CoinDesk. And joining me today is the unerring presence, Danny Nelson. Danny, how are you doing today? You know, Ben, first off, it feels great as always to be the best crypto podcast in the world and by default, therefore also the best crypto podcast in the CoinDesk Podcast Network. But I've been better, quite honestly. I have, we're recording this on Tuesday, October 31st, very spooktacular episode. And I have been up both days this week, 1am, actually 12 .20am, to get to the trial of Sam Bankman -Fried. God, you really are pushing the boundaries here. Have you gotten any sleep over the last few weeks, Danny? Yes. Well, the last, the trial has become, the last few days, a race to the bottom among the press corps where we just undercut each other just to see who is, I guess, the toughest as to who gets to court first and therefore gets the best seats possible. And on Monday, it was essential to get there early. So I got, I think, three hours of sleep so I could get to court at 1am, stake my claim, get my seat. Oh my God. 1am for... Yes. When were they opening the doors? The first doors open at 7 .45, usually. So I was outside in the rain. It was raining from 1am to 7 .45. And it's worth noting that our dear former colleague Sage De Young was the first one in line. He got there on Sunday at 10 .40 at night, pm at night. So he was just sitting out there all night long. I joined him three hours into his endeavor and I did it again today on Tuesday and it was terrible. So does everyone who wants to get in need to be in line or can you save a space for somebody? Well, we've actually constructed a system, us journalists. We've, the SBF press corps, we're getting smarter as the weeks go on. We devised a list system rather early on. When you get there, the first person to get through the day becomes, let's say the line dictator for the day. They create a list and everyone who arrives after that signs into the list. We usually go up to around 25 or 30, but you want to be in the first 21 because there are 21 seats available for the general population in the courtroom. And because the journalists are always the first ones, because we're the craziest, everyone, including just onlookers, comes to us to sign into the list. Well, so dear listeners, we are discussing the trial of Sam Bankman -Free, the fallen crypto king and founder of FTX, which was once valued at an incredible 32 billion dollars. His trial is currently taking place in lower Manhattan and is wrapping up this week, we think. So today, Tuesday, SBF has been on the stand. He's been testifying in his own defense and you've been down at the courthouse, as you say. What did you make of SBF today? Do you think he did anything to persuade the judge and the jury of his innocence on these multiple fraud charges? So it's I would say not. He was finishing up his cross -examination today and it was a brutal one. The federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, she really puts him in a corner, made him not admit to, but reveal a lot of inconsistent statements. She places highlighted in his testimony where he may have been lying and did a pretty good number on whatever defense Sam had attempted to mount in his direct testimony when he took the stand. Now, it's never a good idea to take the stand in your own criminal trial. What the reason why Sam may have done it was simply because the trial was going so poorly for him. He had nothing left to lose. Right. I like the bit in the testimony which I was reading from Coindesk reporting, of course, where Danielle Sassoon asked SBF whether he'd ever asked his lieutenants at FTX what had happened to the $8 billion that went missing from FTX's exchange. I shouldn't laugh about it because it was $8 billion of somebody else's money. But that was quite an eye -opening moment when he said he couldn't really recall ever instructing his or asking his lieutenants where this money had gone. Yes. One of the things that is definitely clear and that no one is refuting, and perhaps even the defense is relying on, is the fact that Sam was a bad CEO. Right. If you steal money from your company, you're a bad CEO, probably also criminal. If you just don't really give people direct instructions, don't ask questions and don't look into things, well, then you're a bad CEO. You probably may also be criminal, but he's definitely a bad one. Right. So we should explain to listeners. I mean, a key question in this case is about intentionality, not whether this money went missing, but, you know, whether SBF knew what was going on and he can be held accountable for the fraud charges that he's had levied against him. So do you think he's managed to tread a line here between coming across as the kind of hapless, incompetent CEO that he needs to present himself as and also a credible witness? That's quite a hard balancing act to strike, isn't it? It was incredible how little he remembered. He was saying, I do not recall, and many variations of that phrase so often, dozens of times from the witness box, when he testified on cross -examination, he just couldn't remember a lot of the statements, whether it be to journalists or to Congress, any time that Sam seemed to have an opportunity to not remember something, he took it. Now, that might be because he just was a busy guy. He really was. He was working 20 hour days pretty often, I think, and just doesn't remember things. It might also be because it's a classic defense tactic to basically say, I do not recall when faced with testimony that is disadvantageous to you. Right. I mean, the do not recall line has become infamous from a famous hearing in Congress in the 80s with the Iran -Contra controversy with Oliver North, where he repeatedly said, I do not recall, you know, basic facts, even his name, maybe. You're right. That's a familiar defense tactic. But do you think it will actually help SBF? Do you think his decision to take the stand in his own defense will ultimately be seen as a good one or not? Well, I'm certainly appreciative of it because it's added a whole new dimension and a whole new chapter to his court dates. I don't know if it's going to make a difference. When I look at the jury box, because I'm getting to court so early each day because I want to be in the room itself, not in one of those overflow rooms. When I'm looking at the jury box and the jurors, I'm seeing a lot of bored faces, but I'm seeing a couple of people who definitely look like they're ready to convict him. It's hard to explain how I'm so sure of it. It's just the way people react to certain cues, whether that's smiling and shaking your head after hearing about something really stupid. That occurred, you know, it doesn't mean that you're definitely going to vote to convict, but it probably does. Some of these people are not good at playing poker. Others are, right? So while I can be pretty sure at this point that the jury is not going to vote to acquit him, the question remains, is this going to be a hung jury? Are they going to vote to convict on all accounts, on some accounts? What happens next? Right. So just take us forward in that. I mean, say there is a majority in favor of convicting him. What happens next? Then it's up to the judge, presumably to decide on sentencing.
The Eric Metaxas Show
A highlight from Joseph Arthur (continued)
"Welcome to The Eric Metaxas Show. Do you like your gravy thick and rich and loaded with creamy mushrooms? If no one was looking, would you chug the whole gravy boat? Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Stay tuned. Here comes Mr. Chug -a -lug himself, Eric Metaxas. Hey folks. Welcome to hour two. I'm talking to Joseph Arthur, singer, songwriter. We're talking about so much. But one of the things that intrigued me was I realized when the Nazis, the thought police shut you down, you were really, and are, you're well known, especially in the music world. You've worked with everybody. Peter Gabriel championed you early on, like 25 plus years ago. I was good friends with Lou Reed. He was my brother. I loved him a lot. And you obviously lived on the Lower East Side. Yeah, we would hang out every day. I mean for a time, not every day of his life. There was a period there. I've been in bands with Jeff Ament from Pearl Jam, like you mentioned Danny Harrison and Ben Harper. Also Peter Buck and I have a band, Arthur Buck. But the thing is, me speaking outside of the narrative, that would frighten most people in the music business. It's so strange because I don't care what other people think to the degree that I could possibly have an emotional reaction from it. It just doesn't strike me that way. So I don't understand that in other people. I could disagree with you, but it wouldn't make me say, okay, I no longer want to go bowling with you because you think something different. You could tell me I love Biden, and I'd be like, okay, I think you're not seeing things clearly. But that would just be my opinion, and who cares? We can still be friends. Seems like you're a big -hearted person, and I think that those of us who would say we're Christians or whatever, we're supposed to be big -hearted and open and understand that there are going to be people that are going to disagree with us, and we're supposed to love them and whatever. But that's what's so interesting to me is that when we're talking about this kind of stuff, how people wanted to cancel you or cancel me or tons of people that I've had on this program, they're just like, we're going to crush that person like a bug. We do not want them to have a voice. So they took this, you know, the air taxi show was on YouTube. We had a huge following, and it was completely wiped out because I had Naomi Wolf on to talk about the vaccine. Love Naomi Wolf. I've had her on my show before, too. She's amazing. And she's been on the show many times. But just the idea that we had a conversation about vaccine mandates, not even the vaccine, but the mandates, and they were like, And you thought, okay, who would do that? Would nice people totally shut down a show because we had a conversation? No. And also, nice people shouldn't hate you for having a different opinion. But this is a media invention, and media keeps doing this and keeps influencing people this way. Like, for instance, if you take something like gender reassignment surgery for kids, say you think that's a bad idea. Like, you don't think 12 -year -olds should have gender reassignment surgery. I personally think that's a bad idea. I don't think kids are ready to make that kind of permanent decision about something like that. Because they're not. At that age, that's my opinion. But then somebody would say, oh, that means you are intolerant of gay and trans people. And that is not true. That's conflating things that are not true. And it's happening now. But what's happening with Israel -Palestine right now, too, the same thing and a different thing. If you think, you know, Israel's response to what they're doing to Gaza right now is not right or not what they should be doing, that means you're pro -Hamas and that you hate Jewish people. And those things don't mean the same thing. You might think, hey, I don't think that's the right way to respond. That doesn't mean you hate Jewish people. I don't think kids should have gender reassignment surgery. It doesn't mean you hate gay people. But that's what the media does. They go, this means this. And then you should hate. It's all very black and white and extreme. There's no room for nuance. In some ways, it's not necessarily even the media. It's social media. Really what you're talking about is a mob mentality. It's a mob mentality without nuance. And I see both sides doing it. It's like, why are you doing that? Like, we are sensitive beings that can think deeply about things. These are complicated situations that require a lot of nuanced conversation. And it's not this black and white thing. Well, OK, you know what I mean? It's crazy. I mean, it's so interesting because in our lifetimes, we haven't seen this. And so suddenly a few years ago, I mean, talking about the election, like, I mean, I just saw clearly, I said, wait a second. This looks fishy. It's fishy to say the least. Even if I'm wrong. Right. You're not going to tell me I can't talk about it. I mean, you can't say it looks fishy. You can't say it looks fishy. Biden got more votes than Obama in his heyday by a lot like that guy. I mean, that looks fishy. You know, I'm sorry if you're like crazy because that looks fishy. I want to tell you, this is this is to me the worst part of it in a way. Right. Right. Is what is it? What this kind of stuff has done is it has made people cynical. In other words. Yeah. There are people who say like, well, yeah, the election was stolen, like whatever. Who cares? And you think, who cares? How emotionally dead are you that you don't care that, you know, the greatest nation in the history of the world that has freedom where every person is supposed to have a voice. It's this beautiful idea. And you don't even care if some people just said, well, not this time that, you know, Trump is Hitler and we're going to do whatever it takes. And you think, well, no, that's that's not really that's up to the American voter to decide. And they said, well, we don't we no longer trust the American voter. We don't care. It's wild. So do you still you still like Trump, right? Do I still like Trump? Should we not talk about that right now? I love Trump. I mean, I think he's he's he's amazing. Does his vaccines stance bug you out? Well, look, just because I would vote for somebody or like somebody doesn't mean I agree with them on everything. And there is zero doubt that on that issue, I would disagree. I don't know where he stands on that now. In other words, because a lot of his base, I think, has given him a ton of pushback so that he's but, you know, he's not the kind of guy to easily say, oh, yeah, I made it wrong. It's a beautiful, beautiful job. Yeah. No, listen, I almost find it funny because he's not he doesn't seem capable of saying like, oh, yeah, I got that wrong. Which he should. Obviously, he should. But no, I mean, I think that I mean, I said this before, but I think, listen, people can can think what they want. But I, I do think it's true that Trump is a very different person than he was in 2016. In other words, the stuff that has happened, he was very naive. He came in like, OK, I was elected president. Now I get to. And it's kind of like when you think of Lincoln. You know, he wanted people that opposed him politically to be in his cabinet because he thought, you know, I want to get along with everybody. So Trump did that. And he invited in naively some people who were running. Yeah, well, thought he's just one of the worst examples, but there's many examples of people that he just said, like, you know, you know, come on in and we can all reason together. And he didn't know that they were not there to reason together. They were there to take him out. And so I think he's been so relentlessly attacked that I think he's kind of awake to this stuff in a way that he was not at all. Let's hope so. Yeah, well, I mean, we'll see. But I mean, that's my that's my sense. But but it's just it's interesting because we were talking about the vaccine, talking about election fraud. Trump is another one of those triggers for people that they can't have a conversation. They just go crazy. Yeah, it's nuts. And I'm not interested in, like, arguing with somebody. Again, it's a media invention. You know, it's it's the media. We're finding out how susceptible humanity is to propaganda in ways that I don't think we could have fathomed. There's a story of like Russian people coming over here and going like, oh, yeah, like your propaganda is so much better in America than in Russia. Yeah. And the guy goes like, oh, well, wait a minute. Russia is famous for propaganda. It's like, yeah, the difference is in Russia. We all know it's propaganda. Wow. Right. And and we got to we got to go to a break. We'll be right back. I'm talking to Joseph Arthur, singer, songwriter, radio host. We'll be right back. For 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been America's only Christian conservative wireless provider. And when I say only trust me, they're the only one. Glenn and the team have been great supporters of this show, which is why I'm proud to partner with them. Patriot Mobile offers dependable nationwide coverage, giving you the ability to access all three major networks, which means you get the same coverage you've been accustomed to without funding the left. When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you're sending the message that you support free speech, religious freedom, the sanctity of life, our Second Amendment and our military veterans and first responder heroes. They're 100 percent U .S. based customer service team makes switching easy. Keep your number, keep your phone or upgrade. Their team will help you find the best plan for your needs. Just go to Patriot Mobile dot com slash Metaxas or call nine seven to Patriot. 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The Garden Report | Boston Celtics Post Game Show from TD Garden
"ben j." Discussed on The Garden Report | Boston Celtics Post Game Show from TD Garden
"And choose Seattle? What do you think? I think he does not get claimed. I think he hits free agency. I think he, I think he determines his destination. But I just don't know if the Seattle thing is necessarily true. I'm not a vacuum guy anyway. I mean, I'm not owed that background, but if you're a patriots fan, you obviously want him because you're a wide receiver could be a hell of a lot better. So we work the risk. I think he's washed, but I also think the fact that the thing where he's most effective is just a little quick slant root and then get it and run underneath. I mean, he can just he can bury people there, just catch it and go. And that's kind of what the Patriots are running. I think he could wreak havoc in the middle of the field. I also think he's good with contested catches. So I just think, you know, and Mac is pretty accurate. I do think it's good. I mean, I get it if you're OBJ, you're thinking I'm I want to run down the field and I want touchdowns and Russell Wilson throws a meaningful and I want to join an offense. It has a passing attack with the receivers. So that way, I don't draw number one corners, and those guys can guard DK and I'm just going to be beaten up on number three guys, you know? Yeah. That would be to be a smart individual choice, but I mean, as much as I like Seattle, and I kind of do, they're in the hardest division in a while. I'm like, they don't even make the playoffs. Patriots probably have a much better chance to make the playoffs in Seattle. Seattle will be fine. But I didn't expect unbelievable division though. But yeah. If OBJ wants his targets and he wants his value up, obviously, Seattle might not be great. You know, so he's gotta balance it. What does he want most? You know, does he want a winner? A team that he thinks he can put over the top does he want to rehabilitate it? Yeah. I do get what Jimmy's saying that. It'd be much harder to win the Super Bowl with their Seattle than the Patriots actually have a decent like path to being compared. Well, they're in the AFC east, which is the worst division in all of sports for late last 20 years. Even including this year too. Yeah. So there's always the Patriots are always going to have a chance to make the playoffs. And once you're in the playoffs, anything can happen. OBJ could have a huge role for them, too. I will say I'm not worried about diva issues. Most people who have shoot themselves out of one place and act really petulant and immature are on their best behavior at their next destination. At least for a short period of time. So the tie in here is terrific. Tomorrow, Simmons and OBJ are both in Boston. Crazy. How are we going to do two streams at the same time? I told lazaro. I was like, standby, dude. I was like, the second we know. And you know me. I said Bradley Beal was a 100% done. I'm texting with Lazar earlier today. I'm like, it's 90 ten Beckham is coming. So get ready. And he's like, come on, man. I'm like, it's happening, you know? No, they cleared out. They cleared a roster spot for him today. I was ominous. Yeah. I mean, they just didn't like that center, offensive. No, no, no. That's procedural. You got probably guys coming off the pup. You cut, you cut ferns, you put them back on the practice squad..
The Garden Report | Boston Celtics Post Game Show from TD Garden
"ben j." Discussed on The Garden Report | Boston Celtics Post Game Show from TD Garden
"So just get them. Ray J's company. I didn't even know that. Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, that should be enough. All you need to know is that it's ray J's company. That guy knows music, you know, sound audio all that stuff. And I would just say go for it. Thanks. I'm Jimmy toscano knows. Of course I say the wrong thing. No, he's got the goods. Right, it just don't let Bobby say he hates it like he does with our other sponsors. You know? I'm all for it. All right, ready? Here we go. Marcus smart for OBJ. Who says no, right? This story is going to blow away tomorrow, huh? No. Honestly, I don't think OBJ's coming. You don't think so? Nah, he already said his preference to Seattle I'd be stun if it doesn't happen. But you Smith whatever. Anyway. Rusev russes back this week. Oh, great. All right. So what happened today, the Internet exploded as it does every single time that the Celtics are tied to reports of Ben Simmons. There was a story in the afternoon. I got a zanis called this morning and every day I get this call. I'm like, what's happened now? So the arc of this story is shams at ten o'clock. Post a story that where the Ben Simmons trade market is. And Celtics are interested, okay? Interesting. That's it. Just throws it in. Among other teams. But the Celtics have inquired in our interested, but talks have gone. Talks have gone nowhere and yet you should inquire about everybody always at all times. You should never not inquire about a day. Have the conversation? Yes, oh, you're selling this $2 million house? Would you take 5? Would you take it for a 100,000? No. All right, cool. Have the conversation, though, okay? So that happens and then obviously the Internet explodes in every green tumor is like no. Never. And sorry, the report says the report says, and it doesn't even say anything other than obviously in order to make this work, the sellers would have to throw in someone like jaylen Brown because they just don't have other matching pieces, which we know. You're not picking up the phone and saying, I'll give you Marcus and nee Smith and whatever. It's just not gonna happen. So every time Simmons name comes up times the Celtics Jalen gets attached. The Internet explodes every Twitter into a tizzy. Oh my God, the worst thing ever. How short would this conversation be? It was ridiculous. We never happened. Never ever ever. This is sit down. And they're like, right, right guys? Right? And then a bunch of national people weigh in and say, I can see this working out and then that makes the Celtics fans even frothier and then a bunch of Celtics media go and they get people on the salts to say these rumors are untrue. We've seen this cycle, and it's fine. It's just happens. So we have to before we have any conversation we have to put in this disclaimer. Not a single member of the garden report advocates a straight up trade. There you go. For Ben Simmons versus jaylen Brown. So anything we say moving forward are hypothetical discussions that we're going to have for the purposes of discussion..
The Young Turks
"ben j." Discussed on The Young Turks
"Our first story. Conservative commentator ben shapiro is noticing a little bit of backlash by his own viewers his own supporters because he keeps doling out anti union propaganda and turns out even conservatives understand the importance of strong labor unions. Now ben shapiro has done a number of different videos attacking unions and putting out propaganda against unions. One of the more recent ones Is this which is a video talking. About how public sector unions lead to a lot of bad as ben shapiro rights and the caption just like the real reason. Your kids aren't in school. And so what. Honestly people should not be surprised by is the fact that you have socially conservative individuals in this country who are yes. Blue collar workers in many cases who have union protection and they understand the importance of it so Some of the responses to this video were just delicious. I wanna give a quick hat tip to nathan robinson. Because he's the one who drew attention to this He's from current affairs. You should check out his magazine now. Christopher reynolds is one of the people who is watching ben shapiro's content apparently and disagrees wholeheartedly about this notion regarding labor unions. He says yeah. My family has probably only prospered as well as it has. Because of teamsters union. I'm not really down with anti union propaganda. Someone needs to stand up for the working class against the abusive and notice that it even has to likes there Another comment is from jake. Right who says nothing is perfect but since joining the i. b e w in two thousand fifteen. After eight years working nonunion in the electric utility industry lineman he says my income has doubled some years tripled. My family gets employer paid health care insurance versus nearly one thousand dollars a month premiums for trash coverage i have over one hundred. Fifty thousand dollars in employer paid annuity in just five years. That's the last statement he says and Us the workers get a say so on jobs And quite often get what we asked for. If it's reasonable so you can read the rest of the comment for yourselves. Everyone but what i particularly loved about this is that it draws attention to something that i at least been trying to articulate on this show which is while we disagree wholeheartedly on a number of social issues with with right wing voters conservative voters while we might be culturally socially different at the heart of it i think most americans agree that our current economic system and this growing wealth and income inequality ever-growing wealth and income inequality in this country has been a net negative for the majority of workers and so if we can reach out to those who might be socially conservative and try to find common ground on economic policies that we tend to agree with on labor rights that we tend to agree with. I think that we can actually accomplish a lot of wonderful things But was i wanted to bring you into this conversation. Because i know that this is a point that you've been trying to make for for quite some time as well. I'm not gonna live. You can see it almost brought a tear to my and read those comments. And that's because look the thing about class sollidarity think about labor unions. That's beautiful the beauty in all of it is that if you're muslim or christian or you're gay or you're a man or woman is not hard to understand who it is exactly. That's trying to stop you from getting that house. You wanna rent or buying that house. That you want are getting a car or putting your kids to college going on a decent vacation or being able to pay your medical bills or not going bankrupt from paying your medical bills. We all can understand that. It's the bosses and conversely if you already had those things the reason why able to stay up on your mortgage stay up on your rent is because you had this solid job and the people who want to take it away from you are. The bosses is not your fellow. Gay co worker or muslim co worker or black co. What have you what have you. It's very easy to understand and draw the lines as to who the problem is who the enemy is the people who want to keep me from living a dignified life and we all know who that is. That's the bosses. And guess what i love that i because he said i remember what it was like working not with the union and guess what it sucked pay is going up. We get our demands met when they're reasonable. Things are on the up and up before that it was completely horrible. It's just beautiful to illustrate acas. Even ben shapiro. Fans can understand all on second man. This is how i pay my mortgage yet know exactly and do you guys understand why it is that right wingers latch onto. I mean like with all of their might with all of their strength. This culture war nonsense because it's meant to divide us and also deflect from the fact that the right wing has absolutely nothing to offer in terms of materially benefiting the lives of workers in this country. That's the reason why. Ben shapiro focuses on the transgender issue for instance transgender athletes Being able to play sports in the gender that they identify with part of the reason why. Because i think the ben shapiro is genuinely socially conservative. But he has an inherent interest in avoiding topics that actually do i think unite many americans many members of his audience many members of our audience now again on social issues. I have no doubt that. There's pretty significant disagreements when it comes to reproductive rights when it comes to a whole host of issues. I'm not discounting that however we need to be able to find common ground on these incredibly important issues. The economy being one of them workers rights being one of them and just focus on how we can work together to ensure that the electoral system actually represents a candidates and congressional winners that represent our best interest to ensure that we do what we can to get things like. The pro act passed which only strengthens the ability for workers to form unions and hopefully potentially in the future do strikes if if they don't get what they need and what they demand from their employers and i also want to go to this other post by ben shapiro because first of all it's it's a lie but secondly It gives me the opportunity to talk about why it is that labor unions Have lost so much power in this country. Really beginning in the nineteen fifties. He wrote on twitter. The law is stacked in favour. He claims in favor of labor unions. The fact that americans have dumped unions at an astonishing rate since one thousand nine hundred eighty is doing the fact that the vast majority of employees aren't all that interested in them despite democratic party and media wish casting. now that is a complete and utter lie. There is a reason why labor unions lost quite a bit of power Really beginning in nineteen fifties and it had to do with a law that was passed in one thousand nine hundred. Forty seven called the taft hartley act. What was it well. Why don't we hear from richard wolf. And he'll explain what it did. Under the taft hartley law then and to this moment that union must must dear anything wins with the employer to all the workers there whether they're in the union or not whether they joined the union or not whether they pay union dues or not whether when the union thought it had to call the.
Trek Capsule
"ben j." Discussed on Trek Capsule
"Nanri maps and for the book. Did you talk to some of the behind the scenes. You mentioned brannon braga some of the other young too. I think every right so which is a few yeah avenue. I obviously wanted to put a few years ago. But i knew magas well and had talked to him about roy during the pause but yet jerry ken. Billet of brennan to Nick sagan two and so on. And so on i think cons the anyone that in and then yeah we ought to talk to come back to nice steve bug makutu. Doug drexler Batman mike west down hurry employ more people. Mike wes moore had some fun with those makeup's that in in void or because they weren't adult in the delta quadrant man. He came with some amazing aliens. He's an extraordinary man. He has he keeps Everybody why he was decided. You exactly how many days out from Voyager because he would put his touchy one in south Every cat tonight and he did the same thing with the with that with taxes. Where you're going to put a number on the shock notre exactly where it but for an so you how many times he done the done. The were free on started out with a template but after awhile you just can just do it. What's it like personally for you to do this. Book and and to go back and revisit voyager and take a deep dive into it i was one of them is actually Professionally i mean what was great was the adoped to the costs. Pretty much fianna site. I did all those in the space of among. Wow and everybody because everybody was available. At a lot of time i was incredibly charming and ending gates. An interesting it was. It was really nice from that point of view. And what's great about. It is when you can tell people things that maybe they owed himselves one of the things. I'm proud of the book. Is the when you talk about a car until we just talked about it. We took the rights is about and then we say the nicest signed this. The axis was that wind. I that's what they were trying today or the white sox was saying i didn't actually. That's a good idea. So one example eyebrows took into by martha Session with robin and i was to. You can't delancey. Never be felt the key thing because they would go for the.