36 Burst results for "Iran"
Mark Levin
Saudi Crown Prince: If Iran Gets a Nuke 'We Have to Get One' Too
"Destroy their It's Ronald Reagan's approach to the old Soviet Union. How cause uprisings? Not to give them tens of billions of dollars let them sell their oil on the open market to support China of all countries as well as Russia to negotiate with Iran to beg Iran beg them Come back to the negotiation table and the reason for all this and it's been written about by people smarter than I about the Middle East is because Biden and and Blinken Sherman the other half wits knit wits and no they want to change the whole approach to the Middle East where are Arab ally countries in Israel no different than all the other countries that that it is a regional regional approach that we have to have and that we can persuade the Islamic Nazi regime in Tehran to participate like nice little terrorists in the region so they're trying to remake the entire Middle East and by making the entire Middle East we may have multiple nations that have nuclear not just power but nuclear weapons as I say I have I don't have all the facts nobody does it's possible to get them because they're doing all this in secret but the Biden administration has been put in the arm to the Netanyahu government now since Biden became or the occupant of the Oval Office they're still a pushing two -state solution which would
News, Traffic and Weather
Fresh update on "iran" discussed on News, Traffic and Weather
"At the US -Mexico border. The Biden administration also deployed 800 additional troops at the border and granted nearly 500 ,000 Venezuelan migrants temporary legal status all so they can go to work here in the US. ABC's Jacqueline Lee says other cities also are grappling with the surge. Multiple cities across the US now feeling the ripple effects. In LA dozens of migrants arriving on buses waiting to be processed. New York City overwhelmed with migrants for months updating its policy issuing 30 -day notices to adult asylum seekers to help them reach their final destination in transition to alternate housing. In Chicago the situation so bad the surge of buses bringing migrants into the city forcing them to sleep on the floors of police stations. Ceasefire agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Iran has been reached to end fighting in the separatist region. Secretary State of Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. We want to make clear that the use of force is unacceptable and it runs counter to the efforts that we've been engaged in but more important countries both have been engaged in to find a just and dignified peace in the region. New speeches at the UN General Assembly continue today. World leaders wrapping up their gathering this weekend. This is ABC News. This is Northwest News Radio. AM 1000 FM 97 .7 here in the Seattle. We get rolling here for the seven o o 'clock hour. I got sunrises moments ago so now yeah I can see a little bit of the Olympic Mountains here but we do have a lot of clouds. We'll get the Theron forecast in a moment. Here at the station for breaking news traffic
Mark Levin
Is Biden Working on an Israel-Saudi Arabia ‘Normalization’ Deal?
"Recognize Israel diplomatically now that would be a game -changer no question about it and the truth is had there been a second Trump administration on the heels the of first this would have happened already under the Abraham Accords that a whole bunch of concessions to the Palestinian terrorists and even to the Saudis but the Saudis have said over the last several months if years that they're very interested in pursuing nuclear power even though they have more oil than one can imagine and the Saudi prince told Brett Baer that if the Iranians develop nuclear they will have no choice so I'm sitting here thinking to myself I don't have all the facts I just know what's out there in the media and the fact that I don't have all facts the and you don't have all the facts and Congress doesn't have all the facts demonstrates that Joe Biden has no interest in being transparent about what he's doing you know we have a treaty clause we have all these other obligations ensure to Congress is involved and to ensure that the public knows what's going on it's not left to one man or a group of men who take it upon themselves to cut international deals that's a clear violation of the Constitution which Democrats do you know as often as they breathe I'm truth but thinking to myself isn't that the reason isn't that a motivation for taking out Iran's nuclear system Mr. producer there you have Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia wants to to pursue nukes there's nothing that can stop them they've talked about making deals with the Communist Chinese they've talked about making deals with the fascistic Vladimir Putin they've talked
The Financial Guys
A highlight from Growing Unease: Current Administrations Approach to Security and Travel with David Bellavia
"What do you think they're doing with cash, right? What deal do you make where someone says, I'll bring a box of money to you? Yeah. What do you, it's, this is a state sponsor of terrorism. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests and my fellow citizens. America's comeback now. starts right Welcome back Financial Guys podcast. Mike Speraza in studio live today with a guest in the studio. I haven't had this in a long time. Staff Sergeant medal of honor recipient David Bellavia joining me for about a half hour today. David, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Absolutely. So I'm going to stick based on your background. I'm going to stick with a lot of military stuff today and I want to start, we'll go all the way back to the beginning of the Joe Biden presidency. The Afghanistan withdrawal, in my opinion, did not go very smoothly. I'm sure many people listening agree. What were your overall thoughts of that withdrawal and how it actually ended up happening? I know we lost, you know, sadly lost 13 soldiers in that, in that withdrawal. People say we went off the wrong air base. People say that we shouldn't have gone out in the middle of the summer. There was a lot of different things there. What were your overall thoughts on that? I think it's like the worst day in American history since Market Garden. Just absolutely. And the reason why it was so difficult was it was totally unnecessary. So let's rewind to the Obama trade, Bull Bergdahl and the three first round draft picks. They get Marshall, they get MacArthur and they get Patton that end up the resurgence of the Taliban. These men not just go back to the enemy, they go back to the battlefield. They're in power when the government falls. You have misinformation coming from the White House that the president of Afghanistan is leaving with billions of dollars on his plane, which wasn't true. And then you leave the equipment, the cash. There's no recovery. We're getting reports of sales of American equipment left in Afghanistan in Southeast Asia. We're moving material across the globe. Our children will fight and pay and have to atone for these miscalculations. Let's talk about that. You being in the military and you knowing that area too, why did they just find it the easiest way out to just say, you know, just leave that billion dollar billions of dollars of equipment there and not think, again, if it was me and I'm speaking that someone that's never been in the military, but if it's me and I'm the president, I'm thinking, OK, I don't want to leave all our weaponry there. I don't want to lose any of my men. Number two. And number three, I want to make sure that everybody knows when and how we're getting out of there. And it just felt like poof. One day they said we're getting out of here. Well, it's because the military didn't make any of those decisions. I mean, look, Millie, it can criticize him. You can criticize Secretary of Defense worthy of criticism. However, none of these individuals are making decisions. This is about NGOs on the ground. This is about the State Department. So you've got Bagram Air Base, the equivalent of JFK. You've got Karzai International Airport, the equivalent of Teterboro. Right. Why would you ever do an exfil out of Karzai International Airport? It makes absolutely no sense. It's tactically unsound. But and then you've got all the ISIS -K. We retaliate from the murder of 13 of our bravest and we drop a bomb on a guy delivering water. He's on our payroll and we kill children on that. Then we take out Borat on a tuk tuk driving around like that wasn't even really what was happening. It's just a den of lies. And Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, all the heroes that brought us, you know, the Bergdahl deal, the Iran nuke deal. This is these. They the State Department is running all foreign policy, including what the DOD used to run. Well, that's I was going to say. I mean, I know Biden's the president, but do you blame him at all or is it everybody underneath him that, you know, maybe was giving him bad information? And again, some of these decisions, David, is Biden even involved in some of these decisions? Like, I don't even know anymore. Is he around? Is he paying attention to anything going on? Well, I mean, just from the press conferences, it was apparent he didn't know what was going on. And the great irony is that they actually were predicting that Ukraine was going to be invaded and, you know, no one believed them. So it's like you can't influence your friends. The allies don't trust you. The enemy doesn't respect you. You know, I mean, you've got Ben Rhodes is really proud of this State Department. Susan Rice loves what they're doing. But, you know, again, Americans died. And, you know, and what is the perfect culmination of the adventure in Afghanistan? Looking at your watch at Dover Air Base when bodies are coming home. I mean, nothing could you couldn't ask for a just it's it's a debacle. Yeah. And it's sad that that's that's the leader of our country there. Let's move in. You brought up the Ukraine there. So the Russia Ukraine conflict will get to Zelensky in a minute. He is as we speak in New York City right now. But so Trump's in office. We don't see many of these conflicts or any conflicts actually started under his watch. And then we have the Biden administration come in. And a year later, we have Russia invading Ukraine. Why did this happen and why? Why the timing of February of 2022? So let's go back to when we were fighting ISIS. Trump engaged and destroyed estimated some say 300 members of Wagner forces. But those were Russian nationals. We engaged. We destroyed them. What was the response from Putin? Nothing at all. So what do people in that section of the world, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, what do they respect? They respect power. They respect authority. You're not going to get any respect if you don't engage the enemy when they present themselves. I don't understand the calculus of again, I'm trying hard to figure it out. I don't get it. I don't. You know, Romania and Hungary and Poland, you're letting them unilaterally decide whether or not they want to send reinforcements into Ukraine. That's an act of war. If NATO members engage the enemy, all of NATO is engaged against the enemy. Poland doesn't unilaterally make that decision. Hungary and Romania don't unilaterally make that decision. We can't even articulate what the mission is. And if you look, go to the Institute for the Study of War, there's a plug for them. Check out their overlay from when the battle started, when the war started with Russia. And tell me what success this offensive in Ukraine has produced. I mean, let me ask this question, because I get confused. The answer is nothing. I asked this on Twitter, X, whatever it's called, all the time. What is the end game and how do we get there? Because all I see the answer is, hey, just blank checks. Hey, just write a check. Hey, here's a billion. Hey, here's 20 billion. Hey, here's another 10 billion. I don't actually see a look. I mean, like anything, right? If I write a business plan of what I want to do in 2024, my goal is X. I write down my steps to get X. I don't just write down X and say it's going to happen. I don't really know. And then the answer always is, well, we have to fight. We have to back Ukraine. Okay. But when does that end? Because the Afghanistan war and the war in Iraq lasted 20 years plus, right? And was there a real end to it? I don't know. That's where it gets frustrating for me, Dave, where I'm like, how do we know what the end game is? Do you win or lose? When does that happen? I don't know. I don't know. At least you're thinking about it. And I have fear that our leaders aren't, and that's the problem. So here's what this comes out. You're going to get a negotiated settlement out of Ukraine, right? But you talked about the billions of dollars that we're spending and giving to Ukraine as a blank check. First of all, Zelensky visited Ukrainian soldiers in the United States. Did you know that there were wounded Ukrainian soldiers in the United States? I did not know that. Well, today he visited them. So what's happening there? So that's a cost that no one is putting on the ledger. So now let's look at the blank check that Ukraine is getting. And by the way, I'm pro Ukraine. I want to fight communists all day and night. So let's punch Putin hard in the face. However, you're giving them a blank check and you're giving them munitions. Now here's the problem. We have to replace those munitions. Those munitions were purchased for 20 year global war and terror. And let's be honest, inflation is involved. So what you purchased for $10 is now $17. So you're not just giving them the money. You're giving them the equipment and the munitions that you have to replace yourself at the value of what is valued today. We haven't scratched the surface for the amount of money. CBO absent at the wheel. No one is tracking this. 2024 can't get here fast enough. How does this work, though, when you talk about some of these NATO nations coming together and making decisions, but us not just giving weaponry, giving everything money, whatever we're giving there? Is that not an act of war, too, though, David, at some point? We're continuing to fund Ukraine continuing the war in Ukraine. I mean, that to me seems like we're backing a war. Well, I mean, by the letter of the law and NATO charter, it's not. But here's the problem. It's schizophrenic because we were told that what was an offensive weapon was going to mitigate, you know, that wasn't going to help peace at all. So we went from, I don't know if they should get tracked vehicles to I'm not sure an artillery piece is what they need to high Mars rockets being launched. And let's be honest. I mean, the Ukrainians are I mean, the payload that they're going through, what you would have to have cataclysmic casualty numbers to be able to to the spandex that they're doing on the ground that they need to replace Patriot. If you're going through thirty five Patriot to, you know, missiles, I would expect to at least the C 20 makes that are shot down. They're using them for air artillery. They're using there for indirect fire. I don't know what they're doing, but this is going to end with Don Boss going to Russia. This is going to end with that land chain that Putin wanted through Crimea. And again, our friends in NATO, what are they even doing for Ukraine? What? Look, if you they said that Trump wanted to kill NATO, Biden did it. Right. Biden did it. And now Germany. And so Putin was selling oil at thirty dollars a barrel. What's it at ninety six? Yeah. He's making more money than he did before. And he's financing a war and killing innocent people. You mentioned before, too, and I think this is a good point. Everybody on the left and I'll say the media, the establishment, whoever you want to say, says that if you don't agree with the war in Ukraine, you're like pro Putin. Right. And that's just the most outrageous thing in the world, because I agree with you. I feel for the people of Ukraine. I don't want this for them. I don't want this for innocent people. However, at some point, the world's every every one of the world's problems can't be America's problem when we have a border crisis. And then I think they said yesterday ten thousand people came across. They got, I think, eight thousand of the ten thousand. But you see the numbers day over day. It's a problem. We have crime that's rampant. We have overdoses that are at record numbers. We have we have suicides at record numbers. At some point, we have to maybe just think about ourselves and not everybody else, because if we fall, sadly, I think the world falls at that point. Amen. The thing that I would add is I love the way the Ukraine refugee has been crowbarred into the migrant crisis in the United States. New York leaders from the city to all over Kathy Hochul, the governor of the state of New York, mentioning that, you know, like the Ukrainians in Poland, the the Polish have no intention to keep Ukrainians forever. That's a temporary you know, they're leaving a conflict to return to their country after the conflict is over. Again, this is just we're we're putting a round peg into a square hole and just hammering it away. But but there's no the media. There's you're our destroying military. I go to parents all the time around this country and ask them to give us their sons and daughters to join the military. And the one thing they bring up is Afghanistan. It's not about anything. It's Afghanistan. How are you going to assure us that you're going to maintain your commitment to our son and daughter when you betrayed us in Afghanistan that has lasting effects? And there's not a I'm trying to find a segment of our of our of our nation that's functioning. I don't know what it is. I saw in Chicago, they're going to have municipally owned grocery stores. Maybe that will figure it out there. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Real quick, do you think and we'll finish up on this topic, but do you think that they will we will ever have boots in the ground on Ukraine? I mean, I hope not, because I just don't know what the I mean, look at I'm I'm we're getting ready for China. We're trying to revolutionize everything. I don't know what the what the plan is. I mean, again, if you want to put a base in Ukraine, and you want to make that a sustainment operation going forward, that I here's the point. I don't understand what the inactive ready reserve call up was for. Why are you bringing those troops in the non combat support? Why are they going to Ukraine? What are you building infrastructure there? Here's what I do know. We're talking a minimum of $11 trillion to build Ukraine back. That is cataclysmic amounts of money. There isn't water, electricity, internet, you know, you want to help Ukraine. You're going to Russia is not paying for that if you negotiate a settlement. So I don't know what the plan is. But I hope we never see boots on the ground. I could guess what the plan is. I won't I won't say for sure. But I could guess that we'll be paying a chunk of that. And I do have one last one. So I did interview Colonel Douglas McGregor a few months back. And he talked about he's a real optimist. But he is really very, very bullish on Ukraine. Yes, very, very optimistic. I'm dropping some all over the place. But he brought up some staggering numbers, though. And even if they're half true, it's a problem. The amount of casualties and wounded soldiers on the Ukrainian side that we're not hearing about the media. I don't know if you agree with some of those numbers or not. But he's saying, I mean, it's people are acting as if this is an even war right now. And it's not even close. First of all, McGregor's a stud. I mean, he's an absolute, you know, that we're glad he's on our side. He's a military mind. I don't know if those numbers are accurate. I could tell you they're juxtaposed to almost everything we're hearing from every institution that we have, including a lot of our intel from Germany and England. But again, I don't know what to believe. So when you don't have when you don't have transparency, when you're not holding regular press conferences, when your Pentagon spokesman is now working in the White House and now you're getting a triple spin. I mean, the U .S. Open double backspin. You've gotten so many spins on the narrative. I don't know what to believe. But if he is even close to what is a segment of truth, you know, then look, Ukraine needs an investigation. There's a lot of investigations. We've got to start on Afghanistan. We were promised that by Speaker McCarthy. We need a hot wash on Afghanistan. And then we need to go to what who is oversighting the money that's going to Ukraine. And what have we got for our return on investment? Yeah, I'm not asking for much. Really, all I'm asking for in this conflict is can we just talk about what the end game is? And to your point, can we get an accounting of where the money's going and what's being spent in a real accounting of it? The Iran deal that just happened last week. First off, the fact that that was negotiated and completed on 11th September to me is just the ultimate slap in the face. But you again, you know more about this than I do. We do a five for five trade. OK, I'm going to use sports analogies. We trade five for five. And then we also approved of six billion dollars that apparently wasn't ours, but it was in a fund that now they can release to Iran. How are we winning on that one? Well, first of all, I was hoping that at least it was a digital transfer. The fact that it went as euros in cash through Qatar. And OK, so what happens the 24 hours after that deal is made? We're now getting issues in the West Bank. We're now hearing about issues in Yemen. We've now got Hezbollah that's reinforced. I mean, look, what do you think they're doing with cash? Right. What deal do you make where someone says, I'll bring a box of money to you? What do you it's this is a state sponsor of terrorism. They haven't changed. By the way, their president is now in New York City addressing the United Nations. This guy's killed 6500 of his own people. He admits to it. He killed the students that revolted and wanted democracy when we did nothing. He killed 5000 of his citizens in 1988. He's killed over 300 Americans. There's no accountability whatsoever. I don't understand what it is about Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken that believe that Iran is a partner. All you've done 10 years ago, they were refining 10 percent of their oil. And now they're a force. Now they're working with Maduro in Venezuela, and they're a huge part of their members of of the international community. They're in good standing there. I don't get it. Does anyone believe that the Iran nuke deal? Look, we got hit with cruise missiles under Trump in Iraq. How did they have those cruise missiles? Those cruise missiles were illegal under the Obama nuke deal. So how are you refurbishing missiles in two years? Do we believe that their centrifuges have stopped? That they won't have a program if they don't have one already? No, I mean, I guess my question, David, is how I mean, I know that you pay a lot of attention to this stuff, but how do people like in the media not ask these questions? Right. I mean, these are legitimate. I mean, we just traded to I put this on my notes here. This is on the heels of trading a WNBA basketball player for the Merchant of Death like six months ago. Right. I mean, and again, I'm glad Americans are coming back to America. I don't want to sound pessimistic on that. That's great news. But we also I mean, this this stuff just seems like I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. It warrants questions, but nobody seems to care. I'm in the world that if you take hostages, we take hostages. You want to exchange people? We'll exchange people. You know, we definitely have the partners in the area to do that. For whatever reason, this administration, they're they're they're contrarians. They're contrarians to you know, they claim Bush and Cheney are their best friends, yet they just go 180 degrees from that doctrine. I don't know what the Biden doctrine is. I don't know what Bidenonomics is either, but I could tell you that they believe that Iran is a partner. Now, here's another thing. Our envoy to Iran not only is no longer the envoy, he doesn't have a security clearance. Does anyone curious at The New York Times as to what happened to the lead negotiator in Iran that is escorted off a bus, taken into American custody, given a job at Yale or Princeton or wherever he's working now? I've never heard of a person going from top secret classified negotiations to no clearance whatsoever and in the custody of American intelligence community. No one cares. No one cares at all. It's fascinating. And again, for me, I mean, these are big decisions that we're making. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it used to be, you know, maybe we did a two for five deal and then we made the six billion. Now we're like, we're giving stuff away and we're on the losing end. Correct me if I'm wrong, but America was never, you know, America losing. It was always America winning, right? America getting the best of deals. At least McDonald's has a five for five. We didn't even get that. You know what this does though? Honest to God, if you're thinking about traveling overseas, things go sideways, cartel, South America, Mexico, wherever you're going, you have a price in your head now. No one in their right mind is going to bring you back whether it's Haiti or wherever you are, you're worth $1 .25 billion. And thugs and scumbags are going to take advantage of that. I mean, that's a great point too. Do you think about leaving the country? I don't know anymore. That's a little bit concerning. I don't care where you're going, right? That's concerning. This one I just had to bring up because it happened two days ago or yesterday. How do we lose a plane? And I heard that's like a third one in the last six weeks that something like this has happened. How are we losing $80 million planes? Well, they're not $80 million anymore because they've got a new engine and all this other stuff. Look, the F -35 program is a complete disaster. You want to talk about why our allies think we're crazy. We sold them a plane. This program has been around since the early 90s and we've got nothing on return for it. So basically two planes are flying in a buddy team. They're doing training and a guy punches out. We don't even know why he punched out, but that plane could have easily hit a building. It didn't, thank God. But the wingman didn't follow where his buddy went. So what is he doing? He just kind of went on and did his own thing. And now the Marine Corps put a Facebook post like a dog is missing. We're expecting the Ukrainian farmers to carry the F -35 out with their tractors. I don't know what the point of it's wild. Look, stop embarrassing us. Just stop humiliating us. That's all I'm asking. Just be the army and the Marine Corps that we know our men and women are capable of being. Get out of their way. This gender garbage, this social experiment nonsense, stop humiliating our military. That's all I ask. Why can we not get the... I mean, I know why we can't get the answer, but I'm asking this to you. But why can't we, at a press conference at the White House, why can't we say, I want to talk to the guy that was in the other plane, or you can tell us the transcript of what happened when that happened. Talk to the guy who jumped out of the plane. Why did you do that? And again, I'm not trying to put our military on the spot, but these are kind of big questions to ask, right? I mean, if I do something in my business, I have to go face the music on that. Why doesn't everybody have to face music for their decisions or why things are happening? I think it's kind of important. Well, you don't want to talk to generals because they're going to tell you the truth and they won't be generals anymore. True. And you don't want to talk to enlisted people. Because look, I mean, let's be honest. How many people are... Is this a merit -based military anymore? Do we have a meritocracy? Are we promoting people based on pronouns? Go figure. When we're putting politics above military strength, accidents happen. We don't know the facts, but the fact that nobody cares about getting to the bottom of it, the day of the Pentagon paper reporters are gone. Yep. Yep. Let's just talk about the 2024 race quick, and then we will wrap up for today. So your thoughts on the Republican primary so far, I'll stay away from the Democratic side till the very end, but your thoughts on, you know, there's obviously Trump who is now in a, has a huge lead. Ron DeSantis seems to be crumbling underneath himself. Vivek Ramaswamy has jumped up in the polls. Nikki Haley's there. Tim Scott's there. A few others that probably aren't going to get a lot of votes. Chris Christie's the anti -Trump candidate. Mike Pence is, I don't know what Mike Pence is. I'm not really sure. Your thoughts about the whole field so far? I mean, look, it's impressive. They've got a deep bench. There's a lot of diversity. I, you know, none of it matters. Trump is the guy. The more you indict him, the more you empower him. You know, I'd like him to work on his communications a little bit better. You know, but if Trump is Trump, Trump is a Frankenstein monster of Barack Obama. As long as you have that faction, you're going to get, you know, Trump is going to be empowered. I just don't want to see Governor Noem anywhere near the White House. And I, if he's going to pick a running mate, you know, it's hard to find an ally here, you know. But it would be nice to find a governor. I don't want to take anyone from the Senate. I don't want to take anyone from the House with the margins that tight. But I mean, the idea that Governor Noem is being floated right now. I mean, I'd rather take North Dakota. Yeah. A little sled there. You know, it's funny you mentioned that because I saw a lot of that this weekend. I mean, can we just, for lack of a better term, keep it in our pants for about a year and then do what you got to do? It really is. I mean, every time you turn, somebody's doing something idiotic, whether it's Boebert. And again, I say this, David, a lot of people know who you are. A lot more know who you are than they'll ever know who I am. But when you go out in public into a movie theater like that, and I'm going to Boebert, not Noem for a second, you're, you're extremely well known. I don't care if it's dark or if it's as light as it is in the studio right now. What are you thinking? I, you know, she's, she's, she's an embarrassment. She is. She's bad, too. Who would have thought that Marjorie Taylor Greene would have been the, the oasis of the Maryland? I mean, seriously, I, again, you're, you're in Congress every day. You're out in public, you're on the job. You know, at least she wasn't wearing a hoodie, you know, that's all in shorts. She was at least dressed for the occasion, but I, it was, it's wildly embarrassing. Vaping, singing, whatever you're doing. Getting groped. Yes. Who is your VP candidate then? Because I think, you know, you have names thrown around. There's, there's, the vague has been thrown around in there. You know, Byron Donald's has been thrown around in there. Carrie Lake has. I don't know. I love Carrie Lake. I just don't know that Trump needs to go with somebody so divisive there. I think he's got to go with somebody that's, that's firm in their beliefs, but also not maybe going to turn off half the country. Well, you know, it's, it's impossible. One of the, one of the problems with making Trump, you know, the, the enemy of the state that the left has done is that you've really made it difficult for him to even put a cabinet together. You know, I mean, what are you going to do with it? You've got a lot of loyalists out there. You know, the vague is, is I think maybe the most intelligent dynamic candidate we've ever seen run for president, but experience does matter. But you know, I love the way he thinks. I love the movement. I don't know if he would even take the job to be honest with it. I don't think he needs it. But you look at a Tim Scott, I think Tim Scott is, you know, there's a whole lot to his message and I think he's, he's got the experience in the Senate, but honestly, you could literally take the Clint Eastwood chair and, and throw it in there as vice president. I'm going with that because this, this from top to bottom, we have to have seismic change in 24. Do you think he would ever choose Kristi Noem at this point with all that now? Yeah, no one knew Mike Pence was a, was a 24 hour story and then he was the vice president candidate. So who knows? I mean, a lot can happen between now and then, but I just, I don't need, you know, let's just pick people on their merit. Let's pick people that are ready to be the president. Imagine this, imagine picking a vice president that can lead the country. If something happens to a 75 year old president, you know, like Kamala Harris. Yeah. Someone like that.
Mark Levin
U.S. Makes $6B Deal With Iran to Swap American Prisoners
"Money belongs to the islamic republic of iran and naturally we will decide the republic islamic of iran will decide to spend it wherever we need it how to spend our money of course it is under the here's what he's really thinking to himself when he says this you stupid americans we are going to use the six billion dollars to put them to put them on the ground technology that we stole from you six billion dollars well if we spend as we wish now they define humanitarian as killing us the bite administration as an enormous amount of blood on its hand hands crime on its hands I want to ask Lester Holt a question why won't you go down to the border with your elaborate staff investigative and show us the women who are being being raped and brutalized show us the conditions under which tens of thousands little kids are being are being stored show us what's going on with the kidnappers and the drug the gangsters the southern border United States is now the most
Paul Vato Presents: A Celebrity Centric Podcast!
A highlight from Exploring Art, Laughter and Resilience with Illustrator, Jason Seiler!
"Y en ese hombre, hold another bottle. Look a little closer, cigar and Moscato. An actor in improv coming from Chicago. Auto, make way for Paul Vato. Bravo, and welcome everybody to another episode of Palo Alto Presents. And today my very special guest is Jason Seiler, who, judging by your Instagram, instagram .com slash Seiler pants, you make pants. Oh yeah, yeah, I got mostly made in Wisconsin, yeah. Wisconsin, Wisconsin, China, Jaina, Jaina. No, it's Seiler Paints, Paints. Seiler Paints, I think I got the wrong guy. I need a pair of pants and I thought you could hook me up with a pair of pants, nevermind. Folks, I'm just kidding, of course. I'm not the pants guy. I'm not a pants guy either, now in the time of Zoom calls and COVID and whatnot. No need to wear pants. No. My guest is Jason Seiler, who paints. He's an illustrator, he's an artist. He does caricatures. He's done the cover of Time Magazine various times with people like the Pope. And who was your other cover that you did? I've done Trump and Pelosi and a bunch of other political people, Biden and Kamala, person of the year. I think I've done about 10 covers for Time. That is amazing, congratulations. So I thought I'd spend a few minutes talking to Jason about his art, talking to him about his standup comedy. And we have a connection in the world of standup comedy as well as the Chicago connection. So folks, please give Jason a very warm round of applause. And thank you, Jason, so much for being here. Thank you, thank you. Oh, nothing better than claps and laughter. That must be so different, the fact that you're getting claps and laughter on stage. Sure, that's almost not in fact, but that when you're painting or drawing it's such a solitude thing, that you go from one world to the other where you're very solitary and concentrating. Not that you don't in standup, but you're not getting that immediate reaction until afterwards while standup, you're getting it right away. You're getting the applause, you're getting the laughs and all that. And the groans. Well, a reaction is a reaction. I love it. Have you got any groans for your artwork? Oh yeah, yeah, I was just about to say, I do get reactions pretty quickly when I share work. It's kind of funny, because I have done a lot of political type work, but I can't stand politicians. The left or the right, they're all lunatics as far as I'm concerned. So I have no problem illustrating for anybody, because I don't have a horse in the race really. I don't worship politicians, let's put it that way. Every once in a while I'll paint a certain politician and I'm trying to take care of my family. It's my job, I'm painting to somebody and I will get the nastiest messages from people just angry so that I, how dare you even work for that publication or draw that person or whatever it is. I've gotten pretty serious. One time I painted the president of Iran, this was years ago and I got some serious, nasty messages from people trying to curse my family and writing me crazy things. I actually even got a care package in the mail from Iran. This was like 15 years ago and it freaked me out so much because it was just after I got all these threats. So I gave it to the police and to the FBI in Chicago. I just told my story and they took it and they came and got it, I don't even know what was in it. And then maybe, I don't know, like a month later, I got a call and they told me it was mixed nuts. It was a bag of mixed nuts. I thinking was that there was maybe gonna be like, man, those are some delicious Persian cookies. Yeah. But sorry, you didn't want, but same thing, mixed nuts. But then I found out from someone from Iran that that's actually like a gift of love or whatever, like that's a common thing to be, so it was probably a fan, but it still weird me out. I was like, okay, I don't know. People are saying death to you and your family, here's some nuts, enjoy. Maybe they thought you had a peanut allergy, so maybe it wasn't. He's American, send him some gluten, that'll kill him. Send him some gluten and a shoe. We couldn't throw it at you, but here it is. No, until somebody's paying your mortgage and your rent or your bills, they can't exactly tell you how to do it, but that's the thing, you're not a hypocrite. You're only going like, oh, I'm only drawing Republicans or I'm only drawing Democrats. You're going across the board and all showcasing your beautiful talents and artwork, so you can't let that, of course, stop you, and it hasn't, so that's wonderful. It is a little bit tricky because there's some artists that I know that only will work for the left, and then they criticize me if I do anything for a right -wing publication. But the thing is that I don't illustrate something if I don't, if it's over the line in any way that I don't, otherwise, mostly it's just like, whatever. There's a story about this person and I'm just doing a painting of them. Chill out. I'm recording history, okay? This is something that is happening right now, and whether you like it or not, that person exists, and recording I'm history with my painting. That's basically, and I'm also taking care of my family and doing what I love, so chill out. Yeah, agreed, and that is 100%. You're not doing the political commentary. No. You're just doing a painting for whatever article that is, be it right, left, so no, I don't think that you should ever, of course, need to explain yourself. I know that we're just dialoguing, but no, you can't listen to what other people say. And then, I'm friends with a pretty well -known cartoonist and he's very left -wing. His name's Lalo Alcaraz. He's an award -winning cartoonist, and I co -hosted the show Pocha Hour of Power with him on KPFK in LA, as you know, that's very left -wing radio. And he, you know, he'll go at both sides, but he really, of course, goes after the right, and especially Trump and whatnot, but I think he would appreciate your work because we also know people on both sides of the aisle, and yeah, that's just incredible. You're taking shit from all sides. And even in comedy, too, like I don't really get into politics too much in comedy because it just divides the room right away, but I like to make fun of myself or kind of make fun of both sides at the same time, you know what I mean? Like making fun of Trump and Biden together, you know what I mean? Like that's more fun to me, like if it's a fun joke, but yeah, it's different with the illustration because it's, you know, a client will call me and tell me like someone they want me to paint. They'll tell me the story. If it's a caricature -type editorial illustration where they're like wanting me to draw a situation, if it was something that I didn't agree with, I just wouldn't do it, and I've done that before. I'm like, eh, I don't really want to do that. And that's fine. They'll find someone else. But mostly it's just in the last three years or so with the heightened wokeness thing that's been going on where people are seeing them being a little bit more sensitive about things, that caricature, which is what I've been doing since I was like nine, 10 years old, has not been used as much in editorial work. And I've actually been called out a few times now for doing caricature that I'm a bully, that it's mean, and that they're like, how could you do that to people? And it's just like, it's ridiculous. And it's funny because it really, the caricature illustration and comedy, it's always been like very similar to me. The difference is when I do comedy, people go to the show to see comedy. So I actually feel like I have way more freedom to express myself. And it's like, hey, shut the fuck up. You decided to come to a comedy show. So get over it. But like with the art, it's like you're kind of just putting it out there and then anybody feels like they can say and they know what they want. And now everyone has access to tell you what they think. So it's a - Of course, of course. Yeah, everyone's got a platform. Now you're saying that you're being called a bully or you might be because you're exaggerating features of people's faces? Because I think that's what caricature is, correct? I mean - Oh yeah. There's been people that take it in that way, that like, I've been called a bully basically, which is kind of crazy. Cause it's like, they look at what I'm doing as super mean or that's like insensitive or racist or whatever, just as like, because of how I draw somebody and it's like, no, that's what they look like. It looks more like them than a photo sometimes. A good caricature. It really can capture someone's essence. But I've definitely noticed in the last few years, this shift in this, like people are like walking on eggshells about everything. So - Yeah. We especially notice it in comedy or satire and whatnot, you know, but I hear you. So keep fighting the good fight. Now you mentioned you take commissions. Now, if I wanted you to draw either myself or something for a book, that's a project that you would possibly take on, you would consider? Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm a freelance artist. So if you have monies, I provide the honeys. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Because I was going to offer, you know, I'd love for you to draw me. It'll bring you great exposure. I feel like a lot of people make that offer. Like, oh please, you know, do work for me. And you'll get a good exposure. So sorry, but I can't tell that to my mortgage company or my landlord. Do you charge different rates, say for individuals versus like corporations, like to draw the cover of Time Magazine, do you have a set rate? Is it the same as other artists? And you know, if this is proprietary knowledge, then by all means, you don't have to share it. But I think people would be very interested to know what can an artist make? Obviously you've dedicated what, 20 plus years to your craft? Well, yeah, I mean, it's different how it works. Because basically from magazine to magazine, the way it works usually is they have like a set amount for cover or for spot illustrations, inside the illustrations. And they offer you the job, you either take it or you don't. You know, so that's usually how that works. And a magazine cover can be anywhere from, you know, 1 ,800 to 2 ,800 to 3 ,500. It depends on who it is. And then it varies for different other projects. Like I recently did background paintings for an upcoming Disney movie. And that was different. That was more of, I got paid every two weeks. And so I had a set amount where I was paid. And so it's never the same. Like sometimes I do, sometimes for clients or for private commissions, I'll do a day rate, you know, which is usually I'll charge like 1 ,000 to 1 ,200 for a day rate. And so it just depends on what the project is and also, especially if it's a private commission, I usually, I ask for like half upfront for something like that. And then because I'm also taking on, you know, editorial work while I'm doing that, you know, so it really just depends. That's, it's not, there's not like a set thing. Yeah, I mean, and it's different also for, because when I do my editorial work, I work digitally, but when I do private commissions, well, I also work digitally for that as well, but sometimes I'll do oil paintings, gouache or things like that. Those will cost a lot more because they're traditional and they're huge and they take a long time. So that's, you know, again, it's all over the place. So it depends on what it is. Like if it's an album cover, let's say I've done a few album covers before, that can be a lot more than like a book cover or, but in the industry itself, there's not like a set thing, you know. Wonderful, well, thank you for sharing because I think that we get a lot of listeners that are getting into the arts or enjoy the arts or artists themselves. And I think that's one of the important things is, you know, monetization and can I make a living at this? So thank you for being free with your information and sharing, so much appreciated. And then how did you get into standup comedy? It's kind of crazy, but we kind of have a connection. You mentioned Steve Byrne before, but basically, so I've always wanted to do comedy. Ever since I was a little kid, I know he's not so popular right now, but Bill Cosby was my favorite comedian. When I was a kid, I would watch it over and over and over again. And as I got older, I just, you know, every comedian show I could see, I would watch. Saturday Night Live, anything comedy. And then of course I was really into Mad Magazine and that kind of stuff. So it's always been a huge part of my life. And I've always, I wasn't really like a class clown. I was definitely a weird, quirky artist guy that loved to make people laugh. And I would be silly with my friends and I always wanted to get people to laugh. Like it was, I would, you know, whether I was like walking, I used to sometimes for just for fun, I would walk around my high school like Charlie Chaplin. And I would just do the Chaplin walk for hours. Like I was just weird, I don't know. Like I've always just loved comedy. And then as I got older, I moved to Chicago when I was 18 and I joined, I was in a bunch of punk bands and metal, like hardcore bands really. And so I spent years touring and putting out albums with bands. And then eventually I quit and focused like on my art full time.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Crypto 2023: Even Vitalik Is Getting Hacked
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Monday, September 11th, and today we are catching up on everything in the cryptosphere from last weekend, including the founder of Ethereum getting hacked. Before we dive into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello friends, hope you had a great weekend. Like I said, today we are doing a grab bag, catching up on just a ton of news, and let's start with the weird one. On Saturday, Ethereum co -founder Vitalik Buterin's Twitter account was compromised. The attacker used the account to tweet about a time -limited NFT promotion. Users that followed the link that tried to mint the NFT instead had their wallet drained. Around 700 ,000 in crypto tokens and NFTs were stolen. Now, the attack followed a similar pattern to many SIM swap attacks which have plagued high -profile crypto figures recently. An attacker fraudulently obtains control over the target's phone number and then uses two -factor authentication to gain access to Twitter or other services. The attacker then posts a link to a poison transaction for victims to sign. According to Unchained Sleuth's ZackXBT, there have been more than 53 SIM swap attacks over the past four months which have led to the theft of over 13 .3 million in crypto assets. Now, at this stage, we don't know exactly how the attacker gained access to Vitalik's Twitter account. Some assumed that Vitalik would be using more complicated security design than simple phone number based 2FA. If so, this attack speaks to much more sophisticated attacks targeting crypto figures. What was particularly insidious about this attack was how believable the fake communication was. The attacker's fake message was promoting a Q &A on a forthcoming Ethereum feature known as proto -dank sharding. Numerous high -profile industry figures were taken in by the fake message and signed transactions with their wallets. The highest profile NFT that was drained was the very first crypto punk to be claimed, valued at around $250 ,000. To some, the attack demonstrates a clear change in targets for scammers. DC Investors said, Still, others pointed out that it could have been a lot worse. Coin Bureau tweeted, Putting it more simply, CL207 tweeted, While Mac's short ETH, dude would have made $100 million, not $1 million. Still to others, this was just an example of how difficult it is still for normal people in the cryptosphere. Harrison at PompPunk on Chain wrote, Next up, staying in and around the Ethereum ecosystem, consensus -owned blockchain infrastructure firm Infura have announced plans to release a decentralized version of their service by the end of this year. Infura provides a range of blockchain infrastructure but are most well known for their Ethereum RPC nodes. As much as 50 % of Ethereum transactions are routed through Infura infrastructure, making their centralization an ongoing risk. As regulatory efforts move from enforcement to compliance, it's anticipated that regulators will look for intermediaries within the crypto ecosystem to deputize. And to many, a centralized Infura would be a natural fit for compliance enforcement. Indeed, we've already seen multiple instances of Infura being used as a tool for compliance. Last November, the firm announced that some 20 million Metamask users would have their wallets and IP addresses tracked using Infura. Consensus pushed back on the controversy by noting that Metamask allowed users to opt out by switching to a different RPC provider. In March, consensus blocked IPs from certain regions in an effort to comply with sanctions requirements. Also, in March, consensus blocked IPs from certain regions in an effort to comply with sanctions requirements. Users from Venezuela and Iran were among those who complained they could no longer use Metamask through Infura. At the time, consensus were criticized for restricting access more broadly than the sanctions called for, including blocking some U .S. residents who had emigrated from sanctioned nations. Still, it appears that consensus and the Ethereum ecosystem at large have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the censorship risk of RPC nodes. And Infura have been working on this decentralization project for over a year now. Now, the project will be rolled out in a number of phases. Infura refers to the first stage as the quote federated phase, where trusted partners will be brought on to run redundant versions of key infrastructure. Tom Hay, decentralized infrastructure product lead at Infura, said in a statement, We're looking to launch something later this year, and that is going to be a federated phase. The federated phase will last at least six months and will provide the network with the insight on how to build a sustainable model before introducing further decentralization. Now, according to the team at ConsenSys, aside from censorship resistance, adding more diversity and redundancy in RPC infrastructure could also improve the robustness of Ethereum in general. ConsenSys head of strategy Simon Morris said, If you have different people setting up their infrastructure in different ways on different cloud providers using different node software, then you can start to build antifragility into the system. Next up on this breakdown, a regulatory roundup. On Friday, the SEC filed their response in the Ripple lawsuit, arguing that the case should be allowed to proceed to appeal. Ripple had previously objected to the appeal, stating that the regulator had not made a sufficient argument to ground an appeal. The SEC is filing hitback, stating that, quote, The defendants themselves say that the issues have industry -wide significance and are of special consequence. They claimed that this pivotal decision should be subjected to the scrutiny of an appellate court to ensure a clear precedent is made. The SEC is filing hitback, stating that, quote, The defendants themselves say that the issues have industry -wide significance and are of special consequence. End quote. They claimed that this pivotal decision should be subjected to the scrutiny of an appellate court to ensure a clear precedent is made. The SEC noted that one judge has already rejected the Ripple decision as a persuasive precedent, opening the door to contradictory rulings. The regulator further argued that halting the rest of the Ripple case to deal with the appeal immediately would, quote, preserve the resources of the court. They even went so far as to take a swipe at Ripple, claiming that the firm was deliberately dragging out court proceedings. Speaking of the SEC, Republican House Whip Tom Emmer has introduced an appropriations amendment to rein in the SEC's crypto enforcement agenda. In a tweet, Emmer wrote, "...Gary Gensler has abused his authority to grow the administrative state to the detriment of the American people. Congress must use all our tools, including the appropriations process, to restrict Chair Gensler from further weaponizing taxpayer dollars." The appropriations amendment would limit the SEC from utilizing funds to pursue digital asset enforcement until comprehensive rules and regulations are put in place. Now, of course, Emmer has long been critical of the SEC's approach to crypto regulation. In June, he supported fellow Congressman Warren Davidson's SEC Stabilization Act proposal which would limit the authority of the SEC chair by introducing a sixth commissioner to require bipartisan support for regulatory actions. Gensler is scheduled to appear at an oversight hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. The House Financial Services Committee, meanwhile, will hold their SEC oversight hearing on September 27th. So we should get a chance to hear more about whether there has been any shifts in the Gensler -SEC attitude since some of these court proceedings have gone through. Now, moving over to the Fed. In a speech given at a fintech event on Friday, Fed Vice Chairman of Supervision Michael Barr made a number of comments about CBDCs and stablecoins. When it comes to CBDCs, Barr emphasized that the Fed is still firmly in the quote basic research phase and is far from making any decisions. Barr said that quote, Investigation and research are very different from decision -making about next steps in terms of payment system development and we are a long way from that. By way of detail, he explained that the research is currently focused on system architecture and tokenization models. Barr continued to reinforce the idea that the Fed won't make any decision on CBDC issuance without quote, clear support from the executive branch and the authorizing legislation from Congress. On stablecoins, Barr said quote, I remain deeply concerned about stablecoin issuance without strong federal oversight. If non -federally regulated stablecoins were to become a widespread means of payment and store of value, they could pose significant risks to financial stability, monetary policy, and the U .S. payment system. It is important to get the legislative and regulatory framework right before significant risks emerge. Now, Barr has recently spearheaded the Fed's Novel Activities Supervision Program, which requires banks to obtain a written non -objection before they can interact with stablecoins. He claimed that the safeguard was in line with previous guidance issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Barr argued that strong federal oversight of dollar -backed stablecoins was in the Fed's interest, arguing that the tokens quote, borrow the trust of the central bank. Now, of course, federal oversight of stablecoin issuers has become a line in the sand for establishment Democrats who sought to hold up the progress of stablecoin legislation back in July. Barr also reflected on the July launch of FedNow, which is the new instant gross settlement system operated by the Fed. He said that FedNow has been made available to depository institutions of all size, but quote, while current volumes on FedNow are small, I expect that participation will grow over time. Now, next up, one we talked about a bit in the weekly recap, but giving the details just for completeness. On Thursday, the CFTC announced enforcement actions against three D5 firms — Open, 0x, and Derridex — all settled lawsuits for offering unregistered derivatives products to U .S. customers. The fines were relatively small — $250 ,000, $200 ,000, and $100 ,000, respectively — but the message was clear. CFTC Director of Enforcement Ian McGinley said in a statement, Somewhere along the way, DeFi operators got the idea that unlawful transactions become lawful when facilitated by smart contracts. They do not. The DeFi space may be novel, complex and evolving, but the division of enforcement will continue to evolve with it and aggressively pursue those who operate unregistered platforms that allow U .S. persons to trade digital asset derivatives. Now, while both Open and Derridex were offering derivatives trading, the situation around 0x was a little more complex. 0x is an Open DEX platform which allows anyone to list tokens. They attracted the attention of the CFTC by simply having derivative tokens with embedded leverage listed. The CFTC claimed that simply retaining the ability to draw fees from the trading, though not actually profiting from the platform and having access to shut down the platform, was sufficient to be held liable for how other developers use the platform. Now, one CFTC commissioner offered a scathing dissent to the enforcement action. Commissioner Summer Mersinger wrote, Although each case presents different facts, they have been lumped together for commission consideration and vote, presumably for messaging purposes, as quote -unquote DeFi cases. She added that, I am concerned that the Commission in these cases is taking another step down the path of bringing enforcement actions when we should be engaging with the public. It is important to emphasize that Enforcement First has not always been the CFTC's default position. These cases are especially concerning in that they represent a significant shift in position on the merits of engagement with DeFi market participants. Finally today, over in the UK, the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority have pushed back the commencement date of some elements of strict new crypto advertising rules. The core rules will come into force on October 8th. They require advertisements to be clear, fair, and not misleading. In addition, risk warnings will now be mandatory in incentivizing platform use with both monetary and non -monetary rewards is prohibited. Other parts of the regulations could be pushed back to as late as January according to the FCA. Individual firms would need to apply for additional time on a case -by -case basis. The regulator explained that firms are running up against technical issues implementing some parts of the new rules. In particular, a 24 -hour cooling -off period which would allow customers to ask for full refunds is proving difficult to comply with. It would require programming changes to platforms at a minimum, if not an overhaul to business models. Lucy Casseldine, Director of Consumer Investment at the FCA said, As a proportionate regulator, we're giving firms that apply a little bit more time to get other reforms requiring technology and business change right. We'll maintain our close eye on firms during this extended implementation period. Now, the FCA's strict new rules have been criticized for their broad scope and draconian punishments. Foreign firms that advertise to UK customers would be covered by the regulations, which capture social media posts, websites, and in -app advertising. Influencers would be held liable for their promotion of crypto products, and the failure to adhere to the new regulations could result in criminal charges. The maximum punishment for breaches includes an unlimited fine or even jail time. The FCA has said that the strict rules are designed to Prevent harm to consumers from investing in crypto assets that do not match their risk appetite. The regulator added that It is up to consumers to decide whether they buy crypto assets, but they should do so based on fair and accurate information that helps them make effective investment decisions. So friends, this is the other side of the prepping for the next bull run. It is going to be a much tighter environment, certainly for any types of promotions. Although whether that will end scams given where we started this episode, I think that remains to be seen. However, that is going to do it for today's episode. I appreciate you guys listening as always. Until tomorrow, be safe and take care of each other.
The Crypto Overnighter
A highlight from 663:BRICS Currency Launch and CFTCs DeFi Conflict
"And it's 10 p .m. Pacific on Friday, September 8th, 2023. Welcome back to the Crypto Overnight, where we have no sponsors, no hidden agendas and no BS. But we do have the news, so let's talk about that. Tonight, we're diving into a geopolitical shakeup as the BRICS nations reveal their own banknote. Will this be a challenge to the US dollar? The CFTC is setting its sights on DeFi firms. What does that mean for the future of decentralized finance? We'll also discuss a new pilot program proposed by CFTC commissioner, Caroline Pham. Is this the road to regulatory clarity? Then, library is taking its fight against the SEC to the next level. What could this appeal mean for the crypto community at large? In international news, Thodex CEO gets a jail sentence that's hard to fathom. North Korea's Lazarus Group pulls off a staggering $41 million dollar heist. Can the crypto world ever be safe? Plus, the UK's FCA makes a U -turn on crypto advertising regulations. Is this relief or a trap? Stick around to find out. I do believe that this is a first for the Crypto Overnight. You see, this is the first story suggested by a listener. Wong Johnson left me a message on my YouTube channel suggesting I look into this story, and it's a good one, folks. So, thanks for the suggestion, and keep them coming. The first variant of the unique currency for the BRICS Association has been unveiled. The Russian ambassador to South Africa showcased the BRICS 100 banknote at a ceremony in the UAE Embassy in Pretoria. The banknote features the flags of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Now, if you're listening in on YouTube, look up at the screen and you're gonna see a copy of the currency. After the demonstration, the banknote was handed over to the ambassador of the UAE. The recent BRICS summit announced six more countries would become full members by January 1st, 2024. Those countries are Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE. The expansion has led to concerns about its impact on the U .S. economy. However, internal unrest within BRICS makes it hard to see it as a serious threat to the U .S. BRICS holds over a third of the global GDP after the expansion, raising questions about its potential impact on the U .S. dollar. Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya expressed skepticism about BRICS nations working together. He highlighted the regional rivalries and differences in democratic governance among the member nations. He doubts that BRICS could develop a currency framework to compete against the U .S. dollar due to these internal conflicts. That said, the unveiling of the BRICS 100 note is a significant step towards financial autonomy for these emerging economies. It's a direct challenge to the U .S. dollar's global dominance. The expansion of BRICS to include six more nations amplifies this challenge. Imagine a world where a third of the global GDP is conducted in a currency other than the dollar. That's a potential upheaval of the existing financial order. However, it's not all smooth sailing for BRICS. Internal strife and skepticism from influential figures indicate the road ahead is fraught with obstacles. And that skepticism isn't unfounded. The member nations have conflicts of interest, which could hinder their collective goals. But let's not forget, these are the same nations that have been systemically marginalized by existing financial systems. Their distrust of the West could be the glue that binds them. Any move away from the dollar is a potential win for decentralized currencies. If BRICS succeeds in establishing its own stable currency, it could set a precedent for other alliances to do the same. And if that happens, the U .S. dollar's monopoly could crumble, opening the door for cryptocurrencies to step in. But for now, it's a waiting game. BRICS has made its move. Let's see how the world responds. As we navigate the unfolding drama around BRICS and its potential to shake the very foundations of the U .S. dollar, let's pivot to another sphere where the status quo is under threat, decentralized finance. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission set its sights on the DeFi world and the implications are staggering.
The Crypto Overnighter
A highlight from 660:BRICS Challenge to Dollar Dominance and EUs Digital Euro Gamble
"Good evening and welcome to The Crypto Overnight. I'm Nickademus and I will be your host as we take a look at the latest cryptocurrency news and analysis. So sit back, relax and let's get started. And remember, none of this is financial advice. And it's 10pm Pacific on Tuesday, September 5th, 2023. Welcome back to The Crypto Overnight, where we have no sponsors, no hidden agendas and no BS. But we do have the news, so let's talk about that. Tonight we're diving into a whirlwind of stories that are shaking the very foundations of the financial world. Can bricks outmuscle the G7 nations? What's the European Union's grand plan for a digital euro? And in the crime sector, a $40 million exploit rocks the crypto betting platform. Ma firms are raking in big bucks in the wake of crypto firm collapses. Meanwhile, Singapore's new president casts a skeptical eye on crypto and Japan is making some intriguing moves in the crypto tax landscape. Stick around, you're not going to want to miss this. So are they going to have to change the name bricks? Here's why I ask. India is a founding member of the Bricks Alliance. Well, they're planning to change their name to Bharat. This decision will be discussed in this special parliament session on September 18th. The Bricks Alliance itself has been growing, recently adding six new countries, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Argentina, Egypt, Iran and Ethiopia. I suppose Iran could be the new eye in bricks. The US dollar is losing its stronghold in the global oil sector. Bricks aims to use local currencies for oil trade, challenging the dollar's dominance. Reports from JP Morgan indicate that the dollar's influence in the oil sector has been waning even before Bricks initiated the de -dollarization process. Bricks' GDP and purchasing power parity now accounts for 37 .3 % of the global economy, surpassing the G7 nations. The alliance controls 42 % of the global oil markets and has a combined GDP of 31 .75 trillion. The bloc covers 36 % of the Earth's surface and consists of 45 % of the global population. So this isn't just a small -time gathering. The Bricks Alliance is not just expanding in terms of member countries, it's also challenging the very foundations of global economic power. The planned name change of India to Bharat is more than symbolic. It's a statement against colonial legacies and a move toward asserting a new identity on the world stage. The decline of the US dollar in the oil sector is a seismic shift. The dollar has been the global reserve currency, especially in oil trades. Bricks is not just aiming to dethrone the dollar, it's aiming to rewrite the rules of global trade. This is a calculated push by Bricks to take control of a sector that's been long dominated by the West. The GDP numbers are staggering. Bricks now controls more than one third of the global economy. This isn't just a challenge to the G7, it's a challenge to the entire Western economic system. The Alliance's control over such a significant portion of the world's population and natural resources gives it an unprecedented leverage. Before we move on, if you're riveted by these geopolitical shifts, hit that follow button. And speaking of power shifts, let's fly from the East to the European Union. The EU has its own grand plan to shuffle the deck with a digital euro.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Markets Shrug Off Predictable Powell at Jackson Hole
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, N .L .W. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Friday, August 25th, and today we are doing a macro roundup. Before we get into that, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, today, the big thing, of course, is Jackson Hole and Powell's speech therein. And so I thought it would be good to put that in a wrapper of the stories that have been going on around and outside of the industry, things that have been impacting traditional markets to put that news of what Powell said in its proper context. And for that, I want to start with a story that those of you who have been listening to the AI Breakdown will be quite familiar with. That is, of course, Nvidia. Nvidia absolutely blew earnings out of the water after the market closed on Wednesday. Their Q2 net income came in at a staggering 6 .7 billion, which was a 422 % increase from the same quarter last year. Sales growth shot up by 171 % on an annualized basis to reach 13 .51 billion. Profit came in at 270 per share. Now, compared to analysts' estimates, those figures represented a 30 % beat on profits per share and a 22 % beat on sales. That is massive, especially considering how much hype and anticipation Nvidia had going into this. Now, overnight on Wednesday, shares rocketed up over 6 % and hit a high point of $517 per share. That pushed the stock up more than 220 % on the year. The company also announced the approval of a ridiculously large $25 billion in buybacks, representing a little over 2 % of the total market cap at current prices. Now, this is the second quarter in a row with blowout earnings for Nvidia. Q1 sales came in at 10 .3 billion, outperforming analysts' estimates by almost 30 % again. During their Q1 report, Nvidia had guided 11 billion in revenue for Q2, which was an estimate that exceeded analysts' forecasts by over 50%. And it turns out even that was far too conservative. Now, of course, Nvidia's success has been coupled to the rise of AI. The firm's H100 GPU is the top of the line in AI computing, and it's not particularly close. Individual units range in price between $25 ,000 and $30 ,000 with a volume discount, but that isn't even really the highest end product being demanded by the world's largest tech firms. That distinction goes to the HGX box, which is essentially eight H100s assembled into a single unit of raw AI computing power. Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang said of the product line, We call it H100 as if it's a chip that comes off of a fab, but H100s go out really as HGX to the HGX unit's require a supply chain of 35 ,000 parts to put together and are sold at the lofty price tag of $299 ,999 per unit. And even at that price, Nvidia are struggling to keep up. Huang said, We're not shipping close to demand. Now, in a lot of ways, there really has not been anything like this phenomenon in recent memory. Nvidia has built their firm around the transition away from GPUs as just being used for graphics processing and video games to focus on more generalized use cases for that style of chip architecture. That transition started many years ago. For example, in 2012, researchers used Nvidia chips to achieve previously unheard of image recognition. Since then, the firm began working alongside AI researchers to optimize their chips for the tasks demanded by high -end AI models. They took on an explicit AI focus starting around 2017. That process of iteration has led to Nvidia being the singular leader in AI chips with a wide gap between them and their nearest competitor. During a recent interview, Huang said, This type of computing doesn't allow for you to just build a chip and customers use it. You've got to build the whole data center. And indeed, the customers seem perfectly willing to spend the high -end dollars for premium performance. One high -profile startup, for example Inflection AI, recently raised $1 .3 billion in funding to finance the purchase of 22 ,000 H100 chips. Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO at Inflection and previous co -founder at Google DeepMind, said that none of Nvidia's competitors could offer a comparable solution. Huang broke down the math of his company's product offering like this. He said, If you can reduce the time of training to half on a $5 billion data center, the savings is more than the cost of all the chips. We are the lowest cost solution in the world. This year, Meta has committed to spending $30 billion on data centers, with much of that capital likely to be spent with Nvidia as just one example. Now, Huang was not at all bashful on this week's earnings call, stating that a new computing era has begun. Many others agreed with him. Dan Ives from Wedbush called it a 1995 internet moment and said it was the guidance heard around the world. Indeed, so far this year, the market has been responding as if a paradigm -shifting technology change is underway. Nvidia is by far the best performer in the S &P 500, and alongside Nvidia, six other big tech firms have been benefiting from the AI enthusiasm as well. This includes Meta, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, which is Google, Microsoft, and Tesla. Together, this group, which has now become known as the Magnificent Seven, have outperformed the S &P 500 over the past year. Historically speaking, this narrow range of market breadth is typically only seen in the wake of a massive market downturn, and even then only briefly. The only really comparable era of the last decade when market breadth had maintained such a lopsided slate for so long was in the second half of 2020. During that period, both Etsy and Tesla were added to returns respectively. The rest of the top performers that year were rounded out by L Brands, PayPal, and of course, Nvidia. As another comparison point, so far this year, the median S &P 500 company is up only 2 .34 % compared to the 16 % returns for the overall index. What's more, 228 companies in the index have seen their share price decline year to date. Now, the high -flying Nasdaq 100 index is a little bit more evenly spread. The index saw the best first half returns in its 52 -year history this year, notching up a 30 % gain. 32 firms are outperforming the index this year so far, while the bottom quarter declined in price. Now, these periods of narrow returns don't typically precede a major market correction. However, this situation is somewhat unique. It's rare that multiple companies across a leading sector are so reliant on a single company to supply a critical component. But that's a situation we find ourselves in right now. Now, part of why this matters, of course, is that, as you just heard numbers around, AI has effectively been keeping markets afloat this year. One of the most dramatic moments of this was during the battle around the US debt ceiling. This is a time that the market should have been, by all accounts, incredibly nervous, significantly wobbly. I mean, hell, we had our debt downgraded when all was said and done. But it couldn't beat out Nvidia and AI enthusiasm. Now, that wasn't exactly the case yesterday. A lot of the reporting on Thursday was about how concerns over what Jerome Powell would say at Jackson Hole on Friday were tamping down any particular bump from that Nvidia earnings beat. You'll remember that the annual Jackson Hole Symposium is a big central bankers event that focuses on the long term of monetary policy. It's a chance for the Fed to signal where things are going more than just in the next couple months. At least that's what it's historically been. Last year, it was notable because at the last minute, Powell decided to rip up his speech and give a terse eight minute diatribe that basically said that markets were getting way out ahead of themselves, effectively ending a late summer rally. Powell said at the time in no uncertain terms that the inflation fight was not over and stated explicitly that, quote, there will be pain. Now, coming into this, Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said there's no way Powell's speech can be that tight and clear this time because the economic outlook is genuinely more uncertain. Central bank decision making in some sense is easier when you have policy wrong and you have a long way to go to where you should be. It's more difficult when you have to sort through being close to the right policy, but not sure you're there and that's where the Fed is now. And so a year later, the inflation fight is still underway and it was anticipated that Powell would use his appearance to reinforce the Fed's commitment to finishing the job. Up until now, the policy choices have frankly been somewhat obvious. Continue raising interest rates until inflation cools or something breaks. And even when something breaks, try to fix it without changing interest rate policy and see if that works. However, with inflation now moderating to its lowest level in almost two years, there is a lot more potential for disagreement among FOMC members. Powell was expected to give his views on whether rates should continue to go higher into the end of the year, as well as to sketch out how the Fed would determine when the time would come for rate cuts. Forecasts from Fed members have generally called for rates to be held higher for longer, but with pressure on the banking sector, it's unclear whether policymakers would be on board with sticking to that strategy. Now, as well as the rumors of dissent among FOMC members, the economic establishment is beginning to question whether the inflation fight is even worth taking all the way to its conclusion. Responding to a Wall Street Journal article published on Monday, Paul Krugman tweeted, I agree with Jason Furman's call for a 3 % inflation target. The rationale for 2 % has been overtaken by a couple decades of experience. So if you think 3 % is the right target, shouldn't we be declaring victory? Or to put it a different way, if 2 % was a mistake, how many people should lose their jobs for a mistake? Now, Yuga Kohler, senior staff engineer at Coinbase, captured much of the sentiment in the crypto space when they wrote, the difference between a 2 % and a 3 % inflation rate over the course of 75 years is literally 100%. Raising the target is a sleight of hand to inflate away national debt. Stephen Geiger, an economics commentator and Paul Volcker fan, said, or, and stick with me here, we keep it at 2 % and the Fed and federal government can just do their job. So what did we actually get? Well, in this case, it was much what we expected. Bloomberg's headline reads, Powell signals Fed will raise rates if needed, keep them high. The Wall Street Journal writes, Powell, Fed will proceed carefully on any rate rises. And as per Bloomberg, the key takeaways were that 1. Powell acknowledged that the economic backdrop is better than it was a year ago, but he said that the Fed stands ready and willing to raise interest rates further if they need to. 2. He continued to focus that everything going forward will be data driven, but he did not put the possibility of cuts on the agenda, saying based on this assessment, we will proceed carefully as we decide whether to tighten further or instead to hold the policy rate constant and await further data. Third, Bloomberg says the comments are consistent with expectations that the Fed will leave interest rates unchanged at the next meeting with the possibility of another rate hike later in the year. Fourth, Powell acknowledged that interest rates are now high enough to be restrictive, meaning that they are weighing down on growth and inflation. And finally, Powell said 2 % is and will remain our inflation target, throwing some damp water on that part of the conversation. Nick Timiros from the Wall Street Journal, widely viewed as the Fed whisperer, called it a risk management speech. He quoted Powell as saying, given how far we have come at upcoming meetings, we are in a position to proceed carefully. The Kobayisi letter pointed out some data from bond traders around what their predictions are. They write, odds of a 25 basis point rate hike in September more than doubled, 21 .5 % after Powell's speech. Odds of an additional rate hike this year just hit a two -month high of 52 .1%. Rate cuts are now not expected to begin until June 2024. Doug Bonaparte hit it out of the park again with another great headline. Breaking! Stocks fall as Fed Chair Powell signals he's willing to destroy the economy. But in point of fact, stocks are actually leveling out and even going up slightly, based I think on expectations being met. So all in all, a much less dramatic speech than last year, and frankly just a real continuation of what we've gotten from Powell for the last two years. Blockworks Jack Farley wrote, Powell chooses to close his speech with Paul Volcker's phrase, we'll keep at it for the second year in a row. And that is pretty much the story. Now the last interesting thing that I wanted to point out for this week just by way of closing is that the three -day BRICS summit came to a close on Thursday in South Africa with news that six new members would join the loose economic bloc. Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have committed to join in January. This adds to Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — there's BRICS — bringing the ranks of membership up to 11. President Xi Jinping called the expansion historic and said it would be a new starting point for BRICS cooperation. Still, while the addition of new nations to the Economic Cooperation Group does add strength, the announcement falls far short of the hype that we had seen coming into it. There had been rampant speculation this year that the group would unveil a common trade currency backed by gold, which frankly rumors of a BRICS currency have been persistent for over a decade but have so far never materialized. So all in all, the world continues to be interesting but doesn't look all that different than it did heading into the week. AI is up, inflation is down, interest rates are flat, but maybe up. And so, as so often has been the case for the last few months, the best thing to do is go touch grass. Until next time, be safe and take care of each other.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
A highlight from FUTURE OF CRYPTO IS AT STAKE! (The Most Important Election EVER)
"Welcome to BitBoy Crypto! My name is Ben. And today, we've got to talk about something extremely serious. Now, if you watched the Republican presidential debate last night, or if you watched Donald Trump's interview with Tucker Carlson, you'll know things are getting pretty serious when it comes to the presidential election heating up. Now, I've said, guys, this is the most important presidential election we've had in, I'm going to say it, the history of the United States of America. I know that sounds dramatic. I know that sounds drastic. But it's kind of like this. It's like, you know, let's talk about working way up through a company, okay? You work up through a company. Like, you know what? Let's use sports as an example because I know y 'all are nerds, you don't understand sports. But some of y 'all might get this, and it's a really good reference, okay? Like, let's say you got a player for an NFL team, a player is at the end of his career, he's the backup quarterback, and, you know, he's always looking at the books, looking at the plays, or looking at the playbooks, and he knows a lot. And what happens is he retires, well, he gets to come on the coaching staff, well, he comes on the coaching staff as a low -level coach, right? And then eventually, he rises up through the ranks, comes the linebackers coach, and he's the, you know, the defensive coordinator, and then eventually he's the head coach. Now, a lot of times you'll have a head coach in the NFL and their team's terrible, okay? But the fans like the coach, the team's just bad. He did a better job when he's the defensive coordinator. You can't, once you get to a certain level, move backwards because you lose all respect. Now, this is how it is with the dollar, okay? The dollar started, worked its way up the ranks, and, you know, after World War I, it became, or before World War I, somewhere thereabouts, actually, it became the world reserve currency. And that's at least the process that kicked it off and started rolling towards the dollar getting world reserve currency. Now that the dollar has world reserve currency, that it is, if we remove that, then the dollar collapses completely, right? You can't go back to the defensive coordinator. You can't go to just being a popular currency that's not the world reserve currency. Now, what's the timeline on this? It could heavily depend on the presidential election and whether or not we, this actually happens or not, we do lose the world's reserve currency, which most people around the world would say, probably like 75 % chance we're going to lose it at this point. I want to go back to what caused this, guys. And I don't want people to think, I talked to a guy the other day, and he seemed to be under the impression that I'm like pro -Russia and anti -Ukraine. It could not be further from the truth. But what I am is I'm talking about I'm anti -Russian sanctions when it comes to the dollar because now that we've seen, we've seen what happens. Joe Biden single -handedly made the dumbest decision in the history of the United States of America when he put Russia on sanctions. Not regular sanctions like we put on Iran or Chris. Literally, they can't use their money. They froze their bank accounts, okay? So they can't use their US dollars. Guys, it's not about Russia. It's not even about the Russian people, which is sad for Russian people, too. It's about all the places that you do business with. Who does Russia do business with? You're not just cutting off Russia from the financial system. You're cutting off all of their training partners as well. So you're cutting off, obviously, the BRICS nations. Guess why the BRICS nations rose up and created this dual economy? Brazil, BRICS, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, those five countries all affected by the Russian sanctions. Guys, about a third of the entire world probably was affected directly by Russia getting their assets frozen. And so you can't have a world reserve currency that's a standard across the world that people can expect to trade with and then pick and choose who can trade with it regardless of what they've done. Now, look, if it was a tiny small little country, maybe you could have gotten away with it. But Russia is very, very important to the world stage. You couldn't do this worst decision a president's ever made. It's leading to us losing the dollar as a world reserve currency. Okay, now, I say all that because now we've got major news with BRICS. They've now invited two more countries and two countries that I knew traded with Russia. And I was wondering why they were included. Saudi Arabia and Iran. You got your money, you got your power in the Middle East right there. And, you know, it's the kind of thing where when the money from these countries come in, this is not good for the United States. The BRICS is getting stronger while we're getting weaker.
Mark Levin
Wagner Chief Assassination Shows Who Putin Really Is
"Jewish and he lost family members in the holocaust if you believe in that stuff there's nothing i can do for you seriously you're probably in the wrong place doesn't actually mean you have to agree with hundreds of billions of dollars going into ukraine and so forth that's not what i'm talking about you gotta know right from wrong moral from immoral evil from good totalitarianism when you see anyway we're not crying any tears here that the head of the wagner but it just demonstrates what Putin is pewton overthrew the democratically elected government in nigeria nigeria was one of our closest allies on the continent of they allowed our special operations our special forces operate from there such as activities there we're able to land our not anymore because through that government cuteness back syria the water that's going on over there and of course iran's backing cute i mean let's let's stop playing games i mean don't i understand the well i do understand it these cycles happen like i said
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 00:00 08-23-2023 00:00
"Interactive brokers clients earn up to USD 4 .83 % on their uninvested instantly available cash balances rates subject to change visit ibkr .com slash interest rates to learn more conversation on the latest edition of the masters in business podcast subscribe on Apple Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts plus listen anytime on the Bloomberg business app and bloomberg .com broadcasting 24 hours a day at bloomberg .com and the Bloomberg Business Act this is Bloomberg radio This is Bloomberg Daybreak, Middle East and Africa, our top stories this morning. Mixed trading as we await Nvidia's results in Jay Powell's Jackson Hole. Elevated bond yields continue to cause concern as foreign investors ditch short Treasuries. -dated Meanwhile Chinese stocks failed to sustain Tuesday's bounce while the PBOC continues its battle to prop up the Yuan. Wall Street still sees plenty of room for the Chinese currency to fall. Commenzac steps up the pressure on staff to return to the office full -time as frustration grows on the reluctance of some workers to come back in. And Iran plans to keep raising oil production as backdoor diplomatic efforts with the US appear to be pressure easing on the Middle Eastern nation. It's got 8 a .m. across the emmer at 6 a .m.
Mark Levin
Sebastian Gorka Reacts to Vivek Ramaswamy's Stance on Israel
"Into the rest of the Middle East. needs Israel to stand on its own two feet and then stop providing it with military support. And I said, well, wait a minute, we're giving $6 billion to Iran, Israel $3 .8 billion. Yeah. And they have a very important role in our national security and our diplomacy. And so if you just walk away, how do you just walk away from these allies? He said the same thing about Taiwan that once they teach us how to make computer chips, then we leave them. Why would they do that? So here's a kind of, you know, flip it on its head. about not How this pie in the sky of Israel should integrate into the Middle East? How about the West of the Middle East should integrate into Israel, where we're talking about a country of 9 human beings surrounded mostly by nations that have wanted to destroy it or president Trump came along. I was on the ground floor in the White House when he came up with the Abraham Accords and God bless him. He the State Department was telling President Trump. Oh, oh, you can't have peace in Middle East until you wreck Palestine. And he said, Why? Because and he said, No, no, we're going to work with Israel. We're going to have Jared travel out to the Middle East. And what does he do? He brings a peace accord with the UAE with Bahrain with Sudan with
MiraStar Podcasts
A highlight from #47: The Gameshow - Part 1
"Welcome guys to another podcast. This time I am hosting this one. Miracle's finally taking the break because he's got too much stress. So I'm going to host three episodes. And also three episodes are going to be game shows. We're going to have part one, new people. We're going to have part two, returning people. We're going to have part three, the finale. So we're going to have three people competing. Only two will go through to the final and one will win the final. So let's introduce the competitors. Salva, you've got your stage. Salva says laggy, compile. Introduce yourself. Hi guys, I'm the best one here. Better than my own lot. I think I'm going to win this and get five off Marvin. Oh, I got that. A fiver. Yeah, I want the money Marvin. Alright then, alright then, alright then. Alright then, so I'll say the format and how it'll go. So we'll have three rounds. Round one will be trivia, chosen by one of the competitors, Salva, Kyle and Lillie Agnew. Round two will be another chosen one. And round three will be another chosen one. The winner of each round will get a point. And the one with the most points goes through to the final. The second most amount of points will go to the final as well, but as a qualifier, as like a runner up. Alright, does that sound good? Yeah. Alright then, so Salva's going to come back in a sec. So let's have... Lillie, since you were there first, pick a topic. Countries. Countries. Alright, I'm very smart at that. Alright then, let's ask Kyle first, since it's Kyle. Oh, hi Salva. Can you hear us? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, Salva's here. Finally, man. Alright, Salva. Finally in it. Thank you. Salva, introduce yourself. Salva, hello? Yeah. Introduce yourself. Aye, aye, so, so, so. I'm, I'm Sexy Chex here. And I'm here on a beautiful podcast. Thank you, thank you. And Miracle, yeah. Thank you. And I feel honored today on this fine evening. You're welcome, Salva. Alright, the first topic is countries chosen by Lillie Agnew. So Kyle, you're, you're, you're the one who has the first question. Okay, okay. So you have three choices. You want to start off with hard, you want to start off with medium, or do you want to start off with easy? Well, I think I'm a bit of an idiot, so I'm going to go with medium. Medium? Alright, alright. Alright then, so continent. Alright then. What's Africa. the name of some countries? What do you want me to do, Matt? Alright, so in Africa, which country begins with the letter A and borders Morocco? I know such and go. I know this one, by the way. Same with me. Kyle, don't set it up. Don't have a clip. Alright, just guess. I'm stupid. I need to give you four options. Right, is it A, Libya? Is it B, Algeria? Is it C, Andorra? Or is it D, Australia? Option B. Option B. Kyle, you just got yourself a point. That's correct. Are you like writing down the scores? I have a nice memory, but I'll have to write them down. Right, next. Selva, you want easy, medium, or hard? A proper easy remark. Alright then. What country is the legend himself, Oliver, from? Selva. You better not get this wrong. What country is Oliver from? Oh yeah, Poland, Poland, Poland. Okay, okay. Alright then. Okay, that's the name of Selva. Alright, next Lily. Easy, medium, or hard? Easy. Easy. Wait, no, medium, medium. Medium, medium. Alright. Which European country, I mean not European, which Asian country is in between India and Russia? Is it A, Australia? Is it B, Kazakhstan? Is it C, China? Or is it D, Iran? China. You got it correct. Lily, you got a point. So now we are all on one point. Kyle and Lily don't have the medium option, whereas Selva has the medium and hard option. Yay. Kyle, easy or hard? What's the topic? Countries. Which countries here? Iraq. Easy. Alright then. Which country is on top of the USA? Canada. Correct. Correct, Kyle. Two points for you. Selva, medium or hard? Medium. Selva, you got to get cooked. So, which country is the second largest in South America? Is it A, Peru? Is it B, Bolivia? Is it C, Venezuela? Or is it D, Argentina? Bro, I know I'm gun thrown. Just guess. If you want me to repeat them again, then I can do it. Yeah, go on, repeat them again. Is it A, Peru? B, Venezuela? C, Bolivia? Or is it D, Argentina? I'm going to go with B. B. Yeah. And you got it wrong. It is Argentina, D. Yeah. Next, Lily. Easy or hard? Hard. Hard. Okay. This will be my style of hard. I guess. Next, we'll do Africa again. Which country got independence from Sudan in 2011? What did you say? Which country got independence from Sudan in 2011? Is it A, Chautily? Is it B, Niger? Is it C, Libya? Or is it D, South Sudan? South Sudan. I kind of gave the answer away, but it's correct. You got it wrong. I swear that was meant to be easy. No. No, it's not. I kind of gave it away. Or should I do a new one? No, that's kind of easy. I don't mind. You don't mind? Alright then, so we'll do it again then. Which country is in between? Which country is literally like in South Africa? Is it A, Eswatini? Is it B, Swaziland? Is it D, Switzerland? Or is it D, Swaziland, Nigeria? whatever it is. Swaziland. Oh, where did Lily go? I'll get her back. You can see me. Marvin, I swear I lost. Where did Kyle go? Oh yeah. Oh, Lily's back? Sorry, my phone turned off. And the answer was... Eswatini. You got it wrong. Because Eswatini used to be called Swaziland but they changed their name. So that counts? If they changed their name, it's supposed to be hard. That counts then? Because it's the same. Stop thinking Marvin. Kyle, do you... Alright then, we'll check the VAR Miracle then. Miracle, there's a country which was like formally named like as like Eswatini or Swaziland. Yeah, does that still count? No, not really. Not really? Alright then. Lily, we checked VAR, back it to Miracle. And the answer was, Miracle, do it. Yeah, that is incorrect. Alright, unfortunately, Lily, you... I mean, it's the hard round. So, fair enough. So Salva lost in the medium round, so it ain't that bad. No, but it's over. I'm dumb like that, man. You're giving me... No, Marvin, you're targeting me, man. No, I'm not. Not because I can answer any question that you ask me, but the question that you ask me specifically. Alright, Salva. Alright, next. Kyle's on two, Lily's on one, Salva's on one. Alright, Kyle, if you get this one correct, then you get a point and you advance. And you're in the lead. Kyle? Yeah? This is the hard one. Okay. In Central America, which country is beginning with P in Central America? I'm not looking at a map. Is it A, Peru? Is it B, Poland? Is it C, Palau? Or is it D, Panama? B. D, D, D, D. Yeah, D. What is it? D. Bro, he knows that. Yeah. Kyle, you got a point, you now got the advantage. Which means that Kyle's got one point into the final, which is very good for Kyle. I like mine very good. Alright then, since we finished this, Kyle's now on one point, Lily's on zero, Salva's on zero. Next, Lily, when I'm not Lily, Kyle, pick your topic. Queen songs. Okay, I don't know how to do that. Alright, Kyle, maybe not queen, maybe like general pop songs. Thank you, you little rat. Oh, we have the room. What? We can't speak pop songs. Alright, what's going on with queen? We can't just speak of animals then. Animals? Alright, okay, that's easier. Alright then, first one to answer gets a point. We'll do three of these questions and the first one to answer will get generally a point. The first one to answer, alright? Yeah, I got you. Alright then. I'll give out options and I'll make it four options. What is, which animal have I seen lately? Is it A, Oliver? Is it B, Oliver? Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. Is it B, a bird. Is it C, a dog. Or is it D, um myself. Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye, Aye, Aye, Aye. Aye, Oliver. I was correct. It was Oliver. Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye. Sugar, I think he was silver, it was silver.
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
A highlight from Nikki Haley calls for trial of former President Trump to be moved out of D.C.
"Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College, all things Hillsdale, Hillsdale .edu. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there. And of course, listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at Q for Hillsdale .com or just Google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale. Morning, Gloria America. Bonjour, hi, Canada. It's Hugh Hewitt from Studio North. Good morning. I'm pleased to welcome back former UN ambassador, former governor of South Carolina, and Nikki Haley. Ambassador Haley, good morning. Welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Good morning from Manchester, New Hampshire. Oh, you're not too far away. I'm up north. Quite a storm going on right now. Ambassador Haley, I want to begin. I've complimented the former vice president, Pence, because he has a son and son -in -law on active duty. I've complimented Ron DeSantis. He's a veteran. You are a veteran military spouse. I believe your husband is deployed as we speak, correct? Yes, he is currently deployed. Okay. So is he an officer? Yes. Well, I am talking, I just talked with Mike Gallagher about this. Senator Tuberville has a hold on more than 300 general officers, colonels who want to promote to general, captains who want to promote to admiral, and then everyone, one star to two star on up. We don't have a commandant in the Marine Corps. We do not have a chief of staff of the army for the first time in 200 years. More than 300 vacancies. It's a mess. And I know that the Pentagon has violated the Hyde amendment and I know you're pro -life, but would you call Senator Tuberville and ask him to stop screwing up the military because we're on the brink of a conflict with China and we cannot have this. Well, you know, I mean, look, this just goes to show how messed up our country is. I mean, you look at the fact that the Department of Defense shouldn't be doing this in the first place, but there's got to be other ways to go about doing this. You know, I mean, in a time where our recruitment's 25 % down and, you know, 80 % of those recruits typically come from military families and military parents are telling their kids not to go into the military. It's because they don't feel like anybody's got the military's back. They look at the fact that 33 ,000 veterans are homeless. They look at the fact that they're, you know, dangling these promotions out there and using them as fodder. I mean, they're looking at the fact that people don't see these, you know, men and women who serve as heroes anymore, and that's sad and it's terrible. And, you know, I appreciate what Tuberville's trying to do. I do. Like, it's totally wrong that the Department of Defense is doing this, but have we gotten so low that this is how we have to go about stopping it? I mean, at what point can we not go and have, you know, congressional members go to the Department of Defense and say, look, you have to go through Congress if you're going to do this. You can't suddenly, you know, decide you're going to do this. Don't hold, you know, don't make us have to do this. I just think it shouldn't get to this point. And, you know, for my husband who's serving overseas and for all those military men and women, the idea that this is what they're looking back and seeing, and this is what they are dealing with on top of the stresses of keeping themselves safe and being away from their families, it's wrong. You know, Ambassador Haley, thank you for saying that. I talked to an officer last week who told me not about himself, but about a friend who is facing a one -year deployment in tough circumstances. I don't know if he's going to Djibouti. I know where they're going. There are some tough places to serve a year. And it's not Navy because usually they do six -month and nine -month deployments, but a year in a tough place, but they can't start. So the family's in limbo. You've been there, right? You know what that month is before deployment. Now that month is six months. Now it's for the family, but it's incredibly stressful for the service member because their life is on hold. And you're, you know, it's enough to try and get ready for something like that. But, you know, for any military family, they can agree with me that once they have had the assignment that they have to go, they just want to go and get it over with. They just want to go ahead and get it done. And, you know, it's just, it goes to the heart of we don't treat our military men and women, service men and women well. We don't treat our veterans well. And, you know, my parents always taught us, you take care of those who take care of you. And I think it's shameful from the way that, you know, we're making veterans have to wait 29 days to get a doctor's appointment to the idea that, you know, you're dealing with a department of defense that's not focused on making sure that our military has the equipment, ammunition up to date that they need. Instead they want them taking gender pronoun classes. We've got a serious problem when you've got China threatening us, Russia threatening us, Iran threatening us, and we're going to sit there and play games like this. It's just wrong. On a political level, I also think it's completely disastrous for anyone on the Republican side, the party of defense, to have a Republican senator doing this, but I'll come back to that. China ran 11 ships in concert with Russia down past the Aleutians last week. I said last night, I'm Brett Barash, I want us to send 11 ships to the Taiwan Strait in response. I don't want to, you know, they didn't come into our waters, but I think we're on the brink of a conflict with China, Ambassador Haley. What do you think? I think that we should make sure we're not in a conflict with China, and I think that President Biden's doing everything he can to make sure that we walk into it. You don't run scared from China. You have to be strong. You have to make sure they know, you know, what we're focused on. We know this all started with Afghanistan, but it didn't end with Afghanistan. We've continued to see Biden go and send Blinken over there and try and make nice. Send Yellen over there, try and make nice. Send John Kerry over there and try and make nice. And in all these things, why are you doing that when they literally are responsible for killing 75 ,000 people last year because they're sending fentanyl across the border? Why are you doing that when they, you know, basically send a Chinese spy balloon over our airspace and they're buying up land next to our military? They've bought the largest pork producer in our country. You know, all of these things that they continue to do, why are we doing that? We now have malware that is in our systems that is going to basically, we don't know where the code is, but we know it's there, that's going to disrupt our power grid, our communications, our water supply. That's what China's done. So quit playing nice with them. And I think that's the problem is, you know, America has been too nice to these people that want to kill us. And that's just not the way you handle it. You handle it with strength. You let them know what you expect of them and you respond and let them know there's a price to pay if they do anything to challenge, threaten us, or any of our allies. Ambassador Haley, like I said, 11 Russian and Chinese ships sail close to the Aleutians, but not into our water. It's the third straight year China has done this. Every time we send one ship, President Biden and Secretary Austin send one ship to the Taiwan Strait, the Chinese Communist Party goes nuts. I like the fact they sent 11 ships near us so that we can just flood the zone in the Taiwan Strait. Would you order that if you were the president in response to this? Well, this is actually in response to the fact that we had exercises going on in the Taiwan Strait, that we had exercises going on in the, you know, South China Sea. That's why China's doing this is because they're upset. But understand, you look at a map and see how close they came to Alaska and you combine that with the Chinese spy base that they're putting up in Cuba, which don't think that they won't send Chinese military there soon. You add that and look at how close they are to our soil. And if that doesn't send a chill up every American's mind, I don't know what will. So yes, if we need to go and put, you know, ships there to show them what we're doing, but it's not so much that you do a tit for tat like that. It's fine. We can do that. But what I'd rather us do is have America strategize to get strong. You know, the fact that China has the largest naval fleet in the world. They have 350 ships. They'll have 400 in two years. We won't even have 350 in two decades. Let's focus. The one thing that will scare China is to watch us strengthen our military because they know that we have the best military in the world. If they start seeing us modernize our equipment, if they start seeing us focus on our navy, our air, our, you know, to make sure that we're doing artificial intelligence, cyber, space, all of those things, they will suddenly start to realize that we need business. Right now, they're just not scared of us.
The Eric Metaxas Show
A highlight from Sam Sorbo
"Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to listen to a man of grace, sophistication, integrity and whimsy. Oh, well, so are we. But until such a man shows up, please welcome Eric Metaxas. Folks, welcome back. I continue my conversation with Jason Jones coming up after this segment. We're talking to our friend Sam Sorbo. OK, so, Jason, so it sounds like you're making the case that the United States should back up Ukraine in war. this I'm not clear. In other words, are you sure? Most definitely we should. We're obligated to. And John John's Merrick disagrees with you. So what is your disagreement with him on that? Where do you think John and I agree? I think the main point I don't want to get lost is we need a cease fire immediately. And I would like how Eric does it not strike you as bizarre that there is no one in the world calling for a cease fire? I mean, you can't find any center of power in the world advocating for a cease fire, even from the anti -war right that John and I are a part of. And our friendship was built on in our opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Are they? They've become Putin apologists. And I think they're falling right into the you know, I went to graduate school for military science, operational studies, international relations. I should have just listened to more Bob Marley, because in his song Ambushed in the Night, he says they always get us. They always captures with their propaganda so they can sell their weapons, spare parts for money. And, you know, rather than fomenting empathy for the people of Ukraine who are being crushed. What we're doing is we're we're creating indifference. And so the anti -war right has vanished. They've sort of become the Gnostic right. And no one's calling for a cease fire agreement. I want a cease fire agreement. And my Ukrainian friends don't like that. And they're ready to fight to the last Ukrainian. They're ready to fight to the very end, as you and I would be if our country was invaded in a similar manner. But I think it's in the interest of the United States. And it's it's it's. And I do believe it's in the interest of the people of Ukraine that we will work for a cease fire, but we cannot abandon them to be ground into dust and to dirt. We have to put this in the historical context. In the 1920s, Lenin decriminalized abortion and sought to ethnically cleanse the Ukrainian people with abortions. In the 1930s, Stalin engineered a famine that killed eight million Ukrainians, the Holodomor. And people wonder why they fought alongside the Germans against the Russians. Well, because just like a few years earlier, they lost all of their children to famine. There was an engineered by Russia. And you look, you know, and this is not just an invasion from Russia. Let's be clear. This is Russia, China and Iran. And Iran is providing the drones, the parts are from China. And I have not heard that. We've not talked a lot about this war on this program. I had not heard that China and Iran were involved. Say more about that. Yeah. These drones that are slamming into Ukrainian buildings are Iranian drones with Chinese parts. And this is where it gets spooky. You know, a lot of conspiracy theories swirling around Ukraine. Here's some conspiracies people need to remember. Um. Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner. You remember that in 19 and 20, 20, they quickly after Zelensky was elected and looked west, a Ukrainian airliner gets shot down in Iran. It's a little fishy. And you can you you can Shanka was poisoned to death like Ukraine elected a pro Western guy. He was poisoned. Then Russia rigged an election. And 19 percent of the people of Ukraine went to the streets. Nineteen percent were on the streets protesting Russian interference in their elections. This is Russia, China, Iran. Russia's allies in this war are Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Nicaragua, all of them hostile to Christianity, all of them actively persecuting Christians in their community. And yet we're told that somehow a KGB lieutenant colonel of Vladimir Putin is like leading a crusade to save the West from the trans. This is such a fantasy. This is so bizarre that that it's it's really almost impossible. John was talking about that yesterday, how people on the right with whom we would agree on many things are taking this final fatal step into somehow praising Putin and not seeing him as the monster that he is. Yeah. And, you know, you've been and I'm looking at your books behind there. Letter to the American Church, Bonhoeffer. And my favorite memoir ever is your fish out of water. It's so much fun. But what is the escape from Gnosticism? And the right is collapsing into Gnosticism. It's Orthodox Christianity. It's humility. It's a simple family life. It's a prayer life. It's it's leisure. It's quiet. And we have a movement that's been swept away by technology. You know, we talk about how the medium changes the message. The medium has changed the messenger. Twitter has changed people. It's changed our movement. It's changed the church. And we need to retreat. We need to escape from Gnosticism. We need to look to the cross. We need to look to Jesus Christ. We need to look to Orthodox Christianity and look to serving the vulnerable, not to be swept away by blood, lust or violence or this this lack of empathy that I see across the spectrum. When we talk about war is startling to me. Maybe it's because I've had the the sorrowful privilege of being around war so much in my career. But it startles me and it startles me to see it in people like General Milley. And it startles when I see little old ladies that comment on petitions we have. We have a petition at the great campaign dot org calling on Biden to advocate for a cease fire. And I'll see little old ladies on social media saying, we don't need a cease fire, let them fight it out. And you're like, what? You know, I can take you there, miss. And you can see what fighting it out looks like to children and to women and to human beings. But the only hope for this republic, the only hope for the West is a return to Orthodox Christianity, return to the cross. And and that's that's our only hope.
Dennis Prager Podcasts
A highlight from Reality Check
"Dennis Prager here. Thanks for listening to the daily Dennis Prager podcast to hear the entire three hours of my radio show Commercial free every single day become a member of Prager topia You'll also get access to 15 years worth of archives as well as the daily show prep subscribe at Prager topia calm Hello, my friends, I'm Dennis Prager great to be with you. I hope the feeling is mutual And I assume to a large extent it is because that's why you're tuning in America has been Divided often there always been people if you will on the left people on the right Certainly, there was a division over slavery. That was dramatic to the point of hundreds of thousands of Americans slaughtered in a civil war What is new in the division today There are a number of things and it's a worthy topic Certainly come to the fore because of the indictments or the charges brought against The leading Republican contender and a former president unprecedented actions in the United States Presidented in virtually every dictatorship What is new is that the two sides have a different perspective Have not just a different perspective that's much that's much too mild The two sides have a different perception that's the word I wanted of reality See the north and south did not differ on facts They differed in values, but not on facts We have today not only Values that are diametrically opposed to one another between left and right We we don't even agree and this this is what is the first on reality If you think it is fair For biological men to compete in women's sports. It's not a matter of values Where where where why is this a values issue? This is a reality issue either. It's fair or It's unfair. That's that's a fact either men have an advantage Whether or not they call themselves women or they don't have an advantage whether or not they call themselves women either men who say their women should be put in women's prisons and women's locker rooms or they shouldn't That is not a difference in values that is a difference in reality We perceive reality differently. I read the New York Times editorial defending Jack Smith We don't agree on on reality. It is not again only an issue of values There is a values issue you better have a massive massive reason unprecedentedly serious reason to arrest a former president and the leading contender of the opposition or you are communists or Fascists or any term you wish to use for people who wish to have dictatorial rule in a country There isn't outside of Alan Dershowitz there isn't a liberal let alone a leftist of whom I am Oh, yeah, there is a Jonathan Turley right Jonathan Turley is another liberal And I say that despite the fact that Jonathan Turley attacked me many years ago Bizarre it just shows you how deep this stuff is because he writes a lot of very good stuff He called me a Judeo -Christian fascist. Did you know that? That that was a new term I've been called everything but Judeo -Christian fascist Because we know the history of Judeo -Christian fascism is so long and dark what It's Yes Anyway another by the way, it's another example of we know what they know and they know they don't know what we don't They don't even read our perspective or hear it or watch it. We we have all we know theirs. I read the New York Times How many New York Times readers read the Wall Street Journal editorial page? This is a terrible a terrible day in America, I Wrote 20 years ago that we're having a civil war and I said and I pray it remains nonviolent I'm not sure that this is not an act of violence isn't isn't every arrest an act of violence Now it as I have I wrote many years ago. There's moral violence and immoral violence So you may say it's moral violence arresting people and it usually is But it is violence and if it's not moral You you have Done something that only the Lord knows what it can lead to It's a very very very very bad thing in American life He told pernicious is that the word what was the adjective for the word lies In the indictment that the headline of the New York Times yesterday We'll find it He was let's see This Is the wrong one I want to get today's Column from the new the or the way the New York Times has reported it There we go You should know by the way, this is very distressing Judges signed to Trump Trump federal case Tanya should come shut Ken Has sometimes handed down sentences tougher than the one sought by prosecutors The woman is a left -wing activist That is who the judges the federal judge The federal judge assigned to former President Donald Trump's latest criminal case Has been publicly critical of January 6th as imposed lengthy sentences on Trump supporters Who went into the Capitol I Know one such John strand who's in not only prison but a particularly Severe prison and all he did is video of him. All he did was enter the Capitol These Most of the the vast majority of the people who went to the Capitol that day went to demonstrate Not to insurrect the day they used insurrection I Realized we're entering The realm of propaganda I He's used the Reichstag fire and I was right The German Parliament was burned in 1933 just as Hitler assumed power in Germany and The Nazis used that fire as an excuse to jail opponents and and rule by Dictatorial decree Ever hear of the term state of emergency Yes, that's what they did Should come a former public defender has shown a scrupulous concern for the rights of criminal defendants During the final years of the Trump administration. She repeatedly frustrated Justice Department efforts to accelerate the execution of federal inmates The Supreme Court reinstated the executions she blocked Supreme Court has overturned her Chitkin would oversee a trial into the case Which she hasn't yet scheduled Trump will make his initial appearance in the case Thursday afternoon. That's today, correct? That hearing is expected to be overseen by US magistrate judge Moxilla Upadhyaya Upadhyaya The indictment unsealed on Tuesday Which accuses Trump of criminal scheme of a criminal scheme to stay in power? after his election defeat the reading from the Wall Street Journal has been randomly assigned to Chutkan a 2014 Obama appointee Who was confirmed by the Senate on a 95 to 0 vote Like to know who the five were Who voted against her? She's not inclined to give people involved the benefit of the doubt Said Douglas Berman a professor of criminal law at the Ohio State University Two worlds in one country Gold dealers are a dime a dozen. They're everywhere what sets these companies apart and whom can you really trust? This is Dennis Prager for am fed coin and bullion my choice for buying precious metals when you buy precious metals It's imperative that you buy from a trustworthy and transparent dealer that protects your best interests So many companies use gimmicks to take advantage of inexperienced gold and silver buyers be cautious of brokers offering Free gold and silver or brokers that want to sell you overpriced collectible coins Claiming they appreciate more than gold and silver What about hidden commissions and huge markups Nick Grovitch and his team at am fed always have your back. I trust this man It's why I mentioned him by name Nick's been in this industry over 42 years and he's proud of providing transparency and fair pricing to build trusted Relationships if you're interested in buying or selling call Nick Grovitch and his team at am fed coin and bullion 800 2 2 1 7 6 9 4 American federal .com American federal .com So the judge that is overseeing the Prosecution and I would say persecution of Donald Trump is a left -wing activist She was part of lawyers for Obama She's the person overseeing the trial she's the judge She is regularly handed down sentences in line with or above what prosecutors recommend That is very rare. By the way making numerous statements concerning the seriousness of the attack on the Capitol and the future threat of political violence driven by Anti -democratic sentiments said John Lewis a research fellow at George Washington University's program on extremism This is all reported in the Wall Street Journal The New York Times is livid with regard to Donald Trump and The his lie that the election was dishonest Let's say it was a lie Do you understand that you're allowed to lie except under oath You're allowed to say a lot of horrible things Nazis demonstrated in front of a Georgia synagogue last month and when the police were asked why they didn't stop them they said because they're exercising their free speech and I am a Jew and I agreed with the police If free speech is allowed it allows for terrible speech it even allows for lies. I Am allowed to say the earth is flat. Is that a lie? Can I be arrested if I get a public forum and say the earth is flat? No First of all, sometimes lie is not clear. Sometimes lie is used as a political weapon We're told that we lie by saying that men and women are basically different. That's a lie It's a lie. We're told by the American Medical Association That it is a lie that men have an advantage in sports Right, these are all lies The stabilizing that's right. Okay, you're allowed a lie, but you can't tell a destabilizing lie to Say that this is not the America I grew up in is like saying that it is cold in the North Pole It is not, you know, I do a podcast with a 23 year old young woman Dennis and Julie it's called and you would love it. It's It's quite remarkable. She's quite remarkable. So I have Philosophized over the following question Who has it worse emotionally? young people Who never saw a free America? Or those of us who are old and did see a free America and are watching it disappear. I Don't have an answer to that question Mm Memories are very powerful and can be a source of comfort and they can be a source of distress if the memories are Over I Don't have an answer to that question. She doesn't either She sort of doesn't understand the America that I grew up in. She believes me. She understands the words When I was a kid, I remember this so vividly I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, we would play stickball in the street So, you know the guys would yell at each other and some guy would say something stupid or mean or whatever and somebody would say shut up and That kid would say Hey, it's a free country That was the answer of the guy who said stupid things are even cursed It's a free country. It was built in you could say anything Even things that are wrong or at least perceived as wrong The president of the United States and the leader of the opposition is going on trial Because he said things that the opposition doesn't believe are true The my favorite is Jack Smith wrote in the indictment That Trump knew that it was a lie that what he was saying was a lie Really then why don't we put Donald Trump on a lie detector There was no doubt in my mind that he is a certain That he was defrauded of the election as you are that Of your name. He is as certain of that as you are of whatever your name is This is what we've come to It has been a revelation to me in my older age You know, you think you know a lot especially if you spend your life thinking and writing and talking I Never realized until the last few years How many people are governed by emotions Trump is the perfect example People I respected voted Democrat because they hate Donald Trump It is better to ruin America then vote for a man. I hate I Feeling is another country where this is happening. Well, we'll talk about that in the next segment But that's it people are emotionally driven One of you wanted a lie, here's a lie. I'm about to tell you a lie that the Enlightenment ushered in the age of reason I Wish we were living in the age of reason If we were living in the age of reason forget a Judeo -christian age just the age of reason Donald Trump would not be on trial It is pure undiluted Passion So here's the question Is there a more powerful force than hatred? Another Question I don't know the answer to People are willing to destroy this country because they hate one man That's fascinating All right, we continue To remind you that August is fundraising month for PragerU. Please make a donation during the break a Meliorate thank you amelia rate. Excellent Sean Sean has a slight OCD problem, but it's very slight If you realize what I've accused Sean of white supremacy OCD My guests are true experts on the Middle East they're in from Israel Felice and Michael Friedson, I've known them for years. They're wonderful human beings and they're honest You know if I didn't ask you personally and I'm not even sure now I know your politics Which is such a credit to you to you both So Israel has been wracked with unprecedentedly large Demonstrations, so I'm curious you heard me you were in the studio and I said, oh Maybe you didn't might have been right before you came in I said America is now one country and two worlds. Is that true for Israel? Is it that severe? Israel is fighting Internally, I'm not so sure that they're trying to Undo what was done as much as they're seeing openings to pick up the power that they might be able to get their hands on so each side is looking for the mechanics of Functioning in a government where they say things are unconstitutional and yet there's no Constitution or laws Go through on the way to being approved as a law of the country Goes through a system whereby somebody will yell it's unconstitutional and have to go through the Constitution committee But yet there's no Constitution. Yeah, that's a phenomenon I will admit but I am curious about the depths of the division what I described about America Do you would you say that about Israel today? It's two countries or two worlds People won't talk about it. It's the kind of discussion that certain things are off limits nobody wants to be accused of doing something because they don't like the sardine where the Ashkenazim where they're taking those kind of intranasian battle Decree you have the phenomenon and I I I shudder to ask the question Do you have the phenomenon that we have in America and I'm telling you it is widespread of Children, I don't mean five -year -olds or ten -year -olds I mean 20 and 30 year olds who will not speak to a parent because of how they voted It's starting to seep in that's what I was about to add and you are beginning to see this happen. Really? Yes Yes, so this has been very divisive But you know Dennis I have to say there are issues here that are far more serious. You're looking at Iranian nuclear proliferation Imagine around October November it could happen and Israel has to go solo Something kicks up off the war. There's been all kinds of tests on borders with Israel whether it's Lebanon It's all of Iran's proxies and all of a sudden you have reservists right now that are saying that we're not going to show up Because of the judicial reforms and we're talking about 10 ,000 or more reservists. We're talking about Air Force pilots We're talking about those that manned drones we're talking about intelligence officers and you can read this every day This is getting to the heart of the nation so I ask you that even if Prime Minister Netanyahu may be correct and if even if you agreed with Prime Minister Netanyahu in terms of the fact of how judicial reforms should play out and when Sometimes the timing for the sake of a nation's security Might be more important and I'm throwing that out because I think people sometimes stop short and don't look at the big picture So even if Netanyahu and his supporters are right It's not it may not be the time because of the security issue. It's one one I have to admit I read that there were people members of the Air Force for example who threatened this and I couldn't believe it because Iran doesn't care if you're pro or anti Netanyahu pro or anti judicial reforms They want to kill you like the Nazis did not distinguish between left -wing and right -wing Jews secular and religious Jews They don't see it that way. They are willing to jeopardize Israel These reservists because of politics. Yes That's how bad it's gotten. So I think that Israel is at a very dangerous moment Where there's such a discomfort look you have high -tech Israel with many of the techies taking their companies already and moving out Now I hear it's happening now too with the doctors and I think that's probably less so but when you have two industries That are so vital to the state of Israel. Then you have to ask yourself why now? You have to ask yourself if you're an activist in Netanyahu's camp, yes you do So the question that many are asking is why now Well, the opportunity presented itself now Yeah Because he won with the elections were coming and going coming and going and finally you got a chance to put the numbers together Right. What's what has people? Pounding their heads against the wall is wondering why when the For example, we're now at something like 30 or 29 consecutive weekends of multi tens of thousands of people marching in the streets We fly in an airplane headed to Israel and we hear the conversations like oh, we'll meet you after the demonstration Or you know, I'm coming to visit Israel I may not go to the Western Wall this time, but I'm not going to miss the demonstration on Saturday night it's become the culture of the country and as it spread each sector within the nation is putting their hat in the ring to be the deciding factor of pushing the Numbers over the top. I guess you'd say what do the supporters of the current situation? Of the the anti -netanyahu folks, what is their argument with regard to the Supreme Court? That they should be allowed to rule on anything without reference to any Constitution Well, I give the this Constitution that aspect of it has fascinated me free free decades Now the idea that when they say it they believe they're talking about something being unconstitutional But they don't take the next step to describe how it becomes unconstitutional because that's their opinion That's why we have what's called the reasonable yes, that's that the reasonableness clause Yeah, all right, we're gonna be back in a moment Folks two great countries are in trouble That's the bottom line the US and Israel to democratic The editors of the editors of the media line org a source of non -biased news about the Middle East Michael and Felice Fritzen are in town from Israel and What they're describing? I mean we have not reached the point where we have Members of the armed forces taking a political position and saying they they won't show up That's I have to say that's that's scary and we're not threatened with existential annihilation like Israel is If these people don't show up a Hesitation is everything and if they're not practicing it's a big problem What is their what is their statement This is not a country worth defending if we don't get our way on the on judicial reform That's basically this the gist of it if you will leave that part of the imagination, but clearly that's what they're saying It's not a democracy anymore and because it will cease to be a democracy if these So if this this notion it will cease to be a democracy That's what they say here on the left.
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
John Kerry's Illegal Shadow Diplomacy Exposed
"Released yesterday the story that it had foiled more than 50 attacks Iran had intended to carry out against Israeli and other Jews across the world in recent years Defense Minister Gallant said in a visit to Azerbaijan yesterday so I'm thinking to myself why in the world do we do anything with them why would you want to be in the same room but they're all killers turns out John Kerry was on the hill yesterday the John Kerry I served in Vietnam John Kerry was on with Michael Walt's congressman who pressed him on the fact that John Kerry not only dealt with the Iranians while he was president Biden's secretary of state he dealt with the Iranians when he was out of office and he continues to deal with the Iranians and that's illegal by the way conducting diplomacy in the name of the United States and so Michael Walt's grid and give earth him here's the congressman and John Kerry yesterday this is cut number nine would you find it appropriate if a former Trump administration official traveled around and talked to the same officials you are and said you don't have to abide by these agreements hold fast till 2024 a new regime or a new administration may be coming in and therefore undermining current administration diplomacy would you find that appropriate I'm not going to speak to any hypotheticals but I can tell you I never engaged in shadow diplomacy undermines American goals shadow diplomacy depending on what involved shadow diplomacy has also saved us from a war if you look at 1963 with Jack with the Cuban missile crisis it was behind the scenes back to me I would say I would I would posture that your shadow diplomacy now has us on the bird I wasn't acting out of diplomacy I was at a security that is now exploding as they race towards full enrichment from twenty percent to sixty percent on the verge of having a nuclear weapon and a nuclear arms raid in the Middle East and the reason that has happened is that Donald Trump pulled out of the other administrations the reason that happened my friend is because Donald Trump pulled out of that agreement there was no way they could have had a nuclear weapon under the agreement that existed and even in Israel the security establishment of Israel believe that agreement had done the job at your you know President Trump just pulled out chair now recognizes mr. Schneider you know what's fascinating about that is John Kerry first says I didn't do it then he says we did it during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963 wrong year mr. Kerry
The Economist: The Intelligence
"iran" Discussed on The Economist: The Intelligence
"Since then. <Speech_Music_Male> Thank <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> you so much for joining us, <Speech_Male> <Advertisement> Ted. <SpeakerChange> Always <Speech_Male> a pleasure. Thank you. <Speech_Music_Male> <Music> <Music> <Music> <Music> <Music> <Music> <Advertisement> <Music> <Advertisement> <Music> <Advertisement> <SpeakerChange> <Silence> <Advertisement> <Silence> <Advertisement> <Music> <Advertisement> <Music> <Music> <Advertisement> <Music> <Advertisement> <Music> <Advertisement> <SpeakerChange> <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> That's all for this <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> episode of the intelligence. <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> Let us know <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> what you think of the show <Speech_Female> <Advertisement> by dropping us <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> a line at podcasts <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> at economist <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> dot com. <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> And if you're not a subscriber <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> to The Economist, <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> you really are <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> missing out. <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> Dive in. <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> Get a free <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> 30 day digital <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> subscription by <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> going to economist <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> dot com slash <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> intelligence offer. <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> The link <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> is in the show notes. <Speech_Music_Female> <Advertisement> We'll
The Economist: The Intelligence
"iran" Discussed on The Economist: The Intelligence
"First up, though. Last week, a drone strike in northeast Syria killed a U.S. contractor and left several others wounded. According to The Pentagon, the drone itself was Iranian made and was launched by a militia group affiliated with the Islamic Republic. Last night, U.S. Military forces carried out a series of air strikes in Syria. Targeting those responsible for attacking our person. The American response was swift. And on Saturday, president Joe Biden fired a warning shot of his own. Cautioning Tehran to rein in its proxies. Does not does not emphasize seek conflict with Iran. But be prepared for a strike forcefully protect our people. That's exactly what happened last year. The tit for tat strikes are just the latest in a series of events that highlight the growing threats that Tehran poses. In recent months, Iran has supplied Russia with hundreds of kamikaze drones and conducted naval exercises with Moscow and Beijing, all while expanding its nuclear program. But despite all this, Iran appears to be making new friends, or at least making amends with old ones. You've got earlier this month, the government agreed to restore diplomatic ties with one of its greatest regional rivals. Saudi Arabia. The deal negotiated in Beijing and the 7 year lapsing relations. In public, White House officials made positive sounds about the agreement. Look, we welcome any efforts to help end the war in Yemen and deescalate tensions in the Middle East region that is one of the reasons why the president. But privately, there will be skepticism about any deal involving Iran. Especially one that signals the growing influence of China in the region. The deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia on March tenth seemed to come out of nowhere. Greg carlstrom covers the Middle East for The Economist. There was a lot of excited commentary afterwards about whether it would transform the Middle East, whether this was a blow to the west, which was something that ironically both the Iranian regime and Republicans in Washington found agreement on. I think a lot of that talk was overblown. This is a return to the status quo of 2015 before Iran and Saudi Arabia severed ties. But it does raise some interesting questions about both the future of the region and America's role in it. Okay, so before we talk about the future, let's take things back a bit. Why did Iran and Saudi Arabia come to the table? The short answer, I think, is that both countries are exhausted. If you take Iran, the regime is in arguably its worst shaped since the very turbulent time after the Islamic revolution in 1979. Its legitimacy with the public is at an ebb. We saw that, of course, 6 months ago with the nationwide protests that broke out across Iran, the economy is amassed the currency is all but worthless, inflation is running above 50% per year. And so Iran wants a degree of political stability right now in the hope that will also deliver some economic stability. For the Saudis, they want stability as well. Their top priority is to end the 8 year war in Yemen, which has been a failed effort on their part to dislodge the Houthis from power and reinstall a pro Saudi government in control of Yemen. They want to get out in large part because they want to focus on vision 2030, which is their wildly ambitious, wildly expensive plan to diversify their economy away from oil. They need lots of foreign investment to do that. They need to attract tourists to do that. That's very hard to do when there is a war going across the border. And so as part of this deal, officials in the region say they've secured a pledge from the Iranians that they will stop supplying weapons to Houthis in Yemen. There's reason to doubt whether or not they're going to deliver on that pledge, but that is something that the Saudis hope came out of this agreement. And so for Iran, how much will this deal help resolving its domestic issues? My guess would be not much. To be honest, I think on the political side, it's not going to get much popular legitimacy or public support out of striking a diplomatic agreement with Saudi Arabia. On the economic front, I think the problems are just really too deep. The real Iran's currency dropped to an all time low against the dollar in February. It's lost 94% of its value over the past ten years, 55% over the past year alone. Similarly, we've heard the Saudis talk about maybe being willing to invest in Iran. Now that this agreement has been signed, but I think that's unlikely to happen while American sanctions remain in place. So the economic benefits from this like the political benefits likely to be fairly limited. The one thing the Iranians are really hoping to get out of this is regarding Iran international, which is the Saudi backed Persian language news channel that broadcasts to Iran via satellite, which has done wall to wall coverage of the protests over the past 6 months, the economic situation. It's a very anti regime channel. And this is something that the Iranians, when they were talking to the Saudis, one of their conditions was to have this channel muzzled as a condition of the deal. And so they're not expecting too many tangible benefits, I think, from this, but there is perhaps the possibility that some of the media criticism aimed at them will be muted as a result. And you mentioned the U.S. sanctions could these sanctions be lifted. I don't see much appetite in America for lifting these sanctions. The Iranians, by all accounts, are no longer interested in returning to the deal. They have instead accelerated their nuclear program to unprecedented levels. The IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says it has found traces of uranium enriched up to 84% purity, which is just a hair's breadth below weapons grade, Iran has also restricted the IAEA's ability to monitor its nuclear facilities. The regime from the supreme leader on down seems to have decided that it doesn't want to negotiate with the west anymore. They think they have built a so called resistance economy that can endure indefinite American sanctions. They're growing closer to China, closer to Russia as well, now sending drones to support the Russian war in Ukraine. Iran is not willing to go back to the deal and as long as they're not. There's going to be no appetite in America for easing sanctions. And so if Iran isn't prepared to come to the table, what can the west do to curb the development of nuclear weapons? There's no easy answer to that question the west has a series of bad options to choose from. One of them is to continue diplomacy, either to try and revive the original nuclear deal and those efforts have failed or to negotiate a lesser nuclear deal, but it's not clear anyone the Iranians a Gulf states Israel even many people in Washington would go for a lesser agreement. The second option, which has been floated for years, is a military strike, either by Israel or on Iran's nuclear facilities. That would do damage. It would set back Iran's nuclear program, but only for a short time. That damage could be repaired, and it would reinforce the very rationale for having that program in the first place. And trying to cultivate a nuclear deterrent, which leaves a third option, which is to continue with the status quo to accept that the regime is at least a year or two away from being able to produce and deliver a nuclear weapon and even if it were able to produce one. It's not suicidal that wants it more as a deterrent than something it would actually use. That seems like the most likely option, but it's a source of huge anxiety for other countries in the Middle East. And so why have the Saudis looked to Beijing instead of Washington to
Monocle 24: The Foreign Desk
"iran" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Foreign Desk
"I think <Speech_Male> this is a bit of a <Speech_Male> simplistic <Speech_Male> view of this. <Speech_Male> China will always <Speech_Male> intervene in the Middle <Speech_Male> East in a <Speech_Male> very limited <Speech_Male> way. They are not <Speech_Male> going to <Speech_Male> intervene military. <Speech_Male> They're not going to <Speech_Male> involve even sending <Speech_Male> weapons <Speech_Male> to the Middle East. But <Speech_Male> they want <Speech_Male> to use more and more <Speech_Male> soft power. And <Speech_Male> this put them in a <Speech_Male> position that <Speech_Male> they can be there. <Speech_Male> Peacemakers <Speech_Male> in the region. <Speech_Male> So from <Speech_Male> especially after Xi Jinping <Speech_Male> won the <Speech_Male> <Speech_Male> unprecedented <Speech_Male> term <Speech_Male> as China's <Speech_Male> leader, I think <Speech_Male> he would like to play <Speech_Male> this role <Speech_Male> internationally. <Speech_Male> But on this sense, <Speech_Male> what they've done <Speech_Male> between the Iran <Speech_Male> and the south <Speech_Male> is a great achievement, <Speech_Male> but first <Speech_Male> of all for most, is <Speech_Male> because both <Speech_Male> <Speech_Male> were very much <Speech_Male> interested in <Speech_Male> this as is the basis <Speech_Male> of finding good negotiation. <Speech_Male> <SpeakerChange> <Speech_Male> Volley, there's <Speech_Male> another, I guess, <Speech_Male> somewhat concerning <Speech_Male> aspects <Speech_Male> to a lot of the actual <Speech_Male> people of the Middle <Speech_Male> East and indeed to the <Speech_Male> rest of the world if <Speech_Male> China becomes <Speech_Male> the interlocutor <Speech_Male> of choice <Speech_Male> because you can see that <Speech_Male> one of the things about <Speech_Male> dealing with Beijing <Speech_Male> that might appeal to <Speech_Male> both Riyadh and Tehran <Speech_Male> is that <Speech_Male> they know that they're <Speech_Male> not going to get yelled <Speech_Male> at about <Speech_Male> human rights by <Speech_Male> China. Is <Speech_Male> there a concern <Speech_Male> that the nature of <Speech_Male> this deal, the way <Speech_Male> in which it was <Speech_Male> done shores <Speech_Male> up, dictatorships <Speech_Male> like <Speech_Male> the ones in Saudi <Speech_Male> Arabia and Tehran? <Speech_Male> <SpeakerChange> I <Speech_Male> don't think that's the dimension <Speech_Male> right now, <Speech_Male> because as yours said, <Speech_Male> you know, China is <Speech_Male> not the most <Speech_Male> important player. Iran <Speech_Male> doesn't have many <Speech_Male> relations <Speech_Male> with Europe and the United <Speech_Male> States. But Saudi Arabia <Speech_Male> definitely <Silence> does. <Speech_Male> And <SpeakerChange> once Xi <Speech_Male> Jinping got <Speech_Male> involved, <Speech_Male> then the right <Speech_Male> wing. <SpeakerChange> <Speech_Male> That's the supreme leader <Speech_Male> revolution regard <Speech_Male> that people who are <Speech_Male> most likely to violate <Speech_Male> the deal <Speech_Male> basically <Speech_Male> had to throw the line. <Speech_Male> <SpeakerChange> They're <Speech_Male> not given that <Speech_Male> much Iran depends <Speech_Male> on China these <Speech_Male> days. The only <Speech_Male> way that you're going to keep <Speech_Male> Iran's feet to the <Speech_Male> fire on a deal <Silence> <Speech_Male> is through <Speech_Male> China being <Speech_Male> not Europeans, not <Speech_Male> anybody that Iraq could <Speech_Male> easily feel <Speech_Male> comfortable violating <Speech_Male> the deal with. <Speech_Male> But with the <Speech_Male> Chinese. And <Speech_Male> the Saudis <Speech_Male> essentially wanted <Speech_Male> the Chinese to <Speech_Male> play this role. <Speech_Male> And why would the Chinese <Speech_Male> agree to the Saudis <Speech_Male> is because <Speech_Male> if they want <Speech_Male> more energy <Speech_Male> deals from <Speech_Male> Saudi Arabia if <Speech_Male> they want <Speech_Male> Saudi Arabia to <Speech_Male> resist decoupling <Speech_Male> from China <Speech_Male> with Washington if <Speech_Male> they want Huawei <Speech_Male> and Saudi Arabia, <Silence> they <Speech_Male> have to basically <Speech_Male> do this favor for <Speech_Male> the Saudi. <Speech_Male> So in a way, <Speech_Male> unlike other times <Speech_Male> when the Chinese <Speech_Male> insert themselves <Speech_Male> in, <Speech_Male> here actually, the <Speech_Male> countries in the region <Speech_Male> are understood that <Speech_Male> China can play <Speech_Male> this role, <Speech_Male> I do not believe <Speech_Male> it was Xi Jinping, <Speech_Male> that was pushing the two <Speech_Male> sides to do this. I <Speech_Male> think Muhammad bin salmon <Speech_Male> essentially <Speech_Male> asked <Speech_Male> him that <Speech_Male> if he wants to build <Speech_Male> these relations with the <Speech_Male> gulf, he needs to <Speech_Male> solve <Speech_Male> a big <Speech_Male> security problem with the <Speech_Male> goal, which is <Speech_Male> Iranians <Speech_Male> have said they're willing to <Speech_Male> do these things. <Silence> <Speech_Male> Now your job is <Speech_Male> to make sure that <Speech_Male> they actually do it. <Silence> <SpeakerChange> Following <Speech_Male> our <Speech_Male> thank you <Speech_Male> very much for joining <Speech_Male> us on the foreign desk. <Speech_Music_Male> That's it for this <Speech_Male> episode of the foreign desk, <Speech_Male> <Advertisement> we'll be back next <Speech_Male> week and look out for the <Speech_Music_Male> <Advertisement> foreign desk explainer <Speech_Music_Male> <Advertisement> available every Wednesday. <Speech_Male> <Advertisement> The foreign <Speech_Male> <Advertisement> desk was produced by <Speech_Male> <Advertisement> Emma sale and Christie <Speech_Male> <Advertisement> o'grady, Christie <Speech_Male> <Advertisement> also produces the <Speech_Male> foreign desk explainer. <Speech_Male>
Monocle 24: The Foreign Desk
"iran" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Foreign Desk
"Other conflicts which might be thought of in that respect very much include Iraq and valley obviously people have been talking a lot recently about the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and one of the upshots of that, of course, was that it substantially delivered Iraq into the hands of the Iranians who were the great victors ironically of that conflict they saw their adversary Saddam Hussein toppled and Iraq left right there for them to turn it into an Iranian client state. Does this change anything? Does it perhaps even solidify the Iranian presence inside Iraq? I don't think the Iranian presidency inside Iraq was ever in jeopardy. Unless something really tumultuous happens in Iraq, the current Shiite control of the country ultimately has deep ties to Iran needs Iran and it's not going anywhere. I think where it makes a difference is that if there is at least some degree of agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, that they're not going to use Iraq as a proxy place to fight one another. Then it opens all sorts of possibilities for Iraq to sort of develop towards greater civility. The same goes with Syria, Iranians are a big presence in Syria. I don't think Bashar al-Assad is going to get a divorce from Iran anytime soon after the Iranians help save his neck, but Bashar al-Assad also wants to be part of the Arab world Saudi UAE money to rebuild the country, and again, if Iran and south ready or not quite in over Syria, it opens certain possibilities. I just would give one example historically. It's good to keep in mind that once upon a time in early 1990s, Iran and Saudi Arabia made an agreement Iran obviously indirectly over ending the Civil War in Lebanon, the famous typic ring. I think both sides understood that neither one is going to wait everything they want. An agreement that ends the war brings conflict with some rules of the game, rules of the road on the ground is better for both sides. And the type agree and pretty much has helped in Lebanon. Obviously, it's not a basis for a prosperous democratic, stable Lebanon, but we haven't had Civil War either. So it is possible to think that Iran and Saudi Arabia could arrive at some things they agree on in Iraq and Syria. In Yemen, and step by step that at least they won't use these countries to tear each other apart. You'll see at which point we should discuss the interlocutor here, IE China. They're following up on this. They are planning to host an Arab Iranian summit in Beijing later this year. What's the angle for China here? Is it just that it's easier for them to build and develop and profit from an orderly and peaceful Middle East? I think more and more how the United States with those from the Middle East and China and enters into the Middle East energy and other places we saw with Xi Jinping visits to Russia and trying to resolve both contribute to the situation there in one way or another.
Monocle 24: The Foreign Desk
"iran" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Foreign Desk
"And I think this is shared, by the way, in the United States, that the Americans are not reliable guarantors of the security of the Persian Gulf, and of the regimes in their countries. So they're pursuing a hedging strategy. So putting some chips on a few other superpowers, China being the principal one. But also developing stronger ties with the French with the British and when it comes to weapons purchases in order to diversify some of their potential allies who could help them defend themselves. But is there any possibility if this agreement sticks if the friendship may be too strong a word, but if this agreement to put up with each other holds that the Saudis could actually prove useful interlocutors between Iran and the west, especially if there is any attempt to revive the nuclear deal. I'm not sure I can see the Saudis as being interlocutors. I think there are lots of other interlocutors between Iran and the west, the omanis, for instance, you know, the Iraqis. But my sense is that in two months they will reopen embassies and they will give haj visas, by the way, to Iranian pilgrims who have not been able to go to Saudi Arabia and pilgrimage. So these are very important steps that will also be followed up with two very important sort of unstated conditions in the agreement. The first is that the Houthis of Yemen will stop attacking Saudi Arabia, and the second is that in return for that, the Saudis will tone down some of the media attacks on Iran in particular by one station based in London called Iran international over which Saudi Arabia has considerable influence. We'll see small baby steps being taken by both sides, but nothing that will lead to a great sort of warm relationship at all. Bernard, thank you. That was professor Bernard heichel of Princeton University, his book Saudi Arabia in transition is available in paperback.
American Scandal
"iran" Discussed on American Scandal
"Evening of April 19th, 1953 and Tehran. On a dark, narrow street, a man walks under the pale glow of the city street lights, positives to look up at the addresses, posted on a row of identical apartments. Knows most people would be surprised to find him skulking through the shadows alone on a Monday night. This is the head of Iran's police, and the great uncle of Iran's prime minister Muhammad mosaddegh. His career is on an upward trajectory, and he's expected to soon become the leader of Iran's army. And while a man with his political power should be traveling with a large entourage, a sharpness has come here alone. It's been a bruising few months for the prime minister, with mobs coming after him at his own house. And the crisis only appears to be getting worse. So when one of most of dags upon reached out for a private meeting late at night, of sharks said yes, it seemed like an opportunity to forge some peace. So now our chartist continues wandering through the dark street, looking up at the addresses, trying to find his destination. Soon he finds it, a small apartment that looks just like all the others on the block. Offshore enters a dim hallway, begins climbing a staircase. It's quiet, other than the flickering of an overhead lightbulb. And when he reaches the landing of the apartment he's looking for. Of sharpness notices a sweet smell, almost like something you'd find in a hospital. Of charters turns the knob and enters the apartment. But when he steps inside, he finds the unit empty, while shark just calls out a greeting, worrying he's in the wrong place. But as he fishes out a piece of paper to check the address again, there's a creek on the wooden floor. Before he can turn around a group of men suddenly pounce on him. Of shortest thrashes trying to break free, but he's outnumbered. He calls out for help, but one of the men strikes him violently, and orders him to stay quiet. Still, a sharpest keeps yelling, though, hoping someone in another apartment will hear his cries and do something. But the man strikes him again harder, with his back, pressed to the ground, suddenly after his notices that sweet, chemical owner, but much stronger than before. When he turns his head, he sees one of the men reaching forward with rag. The man presses it against F sharp to his face. Before he can let out another crime, a shark just feels himself growing weak. The whole world suddenly goes black. It's June 14th, 1953 in The White House. Allen dulles stands outside the Oval Office, waiting for a meeting with president Eisenhower. The two are slated to talk again about Iran. And while the president still hasn't given formal authorization for a coup, dulles beliefs today, he could change the president's mind. Increasingly, Iran appears to be heading toward a crisis. The country's top police official, mahmud of, was recently murdered after being kidnapped from the apartment of one of his political enemies. It was a brutal crime, carried out in a cave outside Tehran, but it sent a clear message that the country was spiraling into a new era of chaos and lawlessness. Dulles knows the Americans have some responsibility for the murder. He himself authorized the spending of $1 million for the overthrow of Iran's prime minister Muhammad mosaddegh. And seeing tangible proof of the American's commitment, the British foreign office told their assets they'd now be working with the CIA. A group of Iranian operatives apparently got the message too, and began deliberately sowing chaos, including the kidnap and murder of the country's top police official. Dallas doesn't take any pleasure in such a brazen crime. But he and his brother and the Secretary of State want to launch a full scale operation to overthrow Iran's prime minister. The CIA and State Department had developed a detailed plan, and they've already committed American money. But if they're going to pull it off, they still do need authorization from the commander in chief. And that means somehow convincing Eisenhower that something needs to change in Iran. The president's secretary gives dulles the sign that he can head in. As Dallas steps into the Oval Office, he finds president Eisenhower sitting behind his desk, his eyes Bloodshot, and glazed over. Well, mister president, when was the last time you got a good night's sleep? If I may say so you look exhausted. Well, Alan, you're right. This situation in Iran, I'm losing sleep over it. Well, I understand, sir, there's a lot hanging in the balance. You and foster have been warning about this for a while. And I was resistant. I'll admit. Well, the deck seems like a good guy. Well, mister president, good guys aren't necessarily good leaders. I mean, first people start riding in the streets, then they kidnap and murder the chief of the country's police. What does that say about the future of Iran? Well, to me, it says that the government could easily collapse, and when it does, the communists will be primed for a take home. Well, that would be the worst possible situation, wouldn't it? The Soviets taking over another country. Except this time they'd have oil and lots of it. Dulles knows that this is his chance to make his pitch. Well, mister president, we do have options. I don't see it. We've given support to most deck. What else can we do? I don't think we can do anything with most attacking power. On this president, we have the ability to offer Iran and new leader. What are you talking about? Backing an opposition party? A little more than that. We don't talk to the British, and we have a plan. If we pull it off, most of that would be gone. Eisenhower stares at the CIA director. His mouth slightly ajar. You're suggesting a coup. Remove a political leader elected through a democratic process. Yes, sir. But I wouldn't focus on how he came to power. Instead, I'd like you to think about what happens if he remains in power. And if the Soviets get their way. Right, so tell me, you're confident this would be successful. Mister president, we have friends in the Iranian press and the clergy. We would lead a campaign of psychological warfare, breaking most of that without firing a single gun. You've got a network of assets and a candidate. Oh, fine. Okay. Look, I don't need the details. All I want to know is whether you can pull this off. Yes, sir. We can pull it off, and we will. Eisenhower pauses, grappling with a heavy decision. Well, okay, then. You got my blessing. But don't you let me down? Dulles nods and thanks to president for his leadership. As he walked out of the Oval Office, the reality of the moment sinks in. Dulles is about to go to war with a foreign government. The CIA has never done anything like this, working to remove an elected leader. But Dallas wasn't lying to the president, he does have faith his agents can pull it off. Still, that doesn't change the essential facts. The CIA is about to embark on a perilous operation. Agents could lose their lives, Iran could descend into Civil War. But whatever the branching chain of events turns out to be, the U.S. now has to achieve its mission, removing Muhammad mosaddegh from power and charting a new future for the Middle East. From wondering this is episode one of America's coup in Iran from American scale. In our next episode, Kermit Roosevelt lands in Iran and begins executing the mission, but a surprise development forces the CIA to rethink its plans. Hey, prime members, you can listen to American scandal ad free on Amazon music, download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen ad free with one plus an Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wandering dot com slash survey. If you'd like to learn more about operation Ajax and the coup in Iran,
American Scandal
"iran" Discussed on American Scandal
"His vision for Iran's future, Muhammad mosaddegh has earned a large following, including this mass of protesters who've gathered for his march on the royal palace. Mosaddegh is an Iranian politician and came of age during one of the most important moments in the country's history, a period in the early 1900s, now known as the constitutional revolution. For centuries, Iran had been ruled by kings known as Shaw's. These monarchs exercised absolute power, and were often prone to vice and corruption. But by the early 20th century, the Iranian people began to demand change. Most dagg was a young man at the time, and he watched awestruck as a political movement took shape and quickly transformed Iran into a democracy. The country went on to adopt a written constitution. Citizens would get to vote in national elections and choose their leaders. There was even the guarantee that Iran would have a free press. Still, most of that always knew that his country's government was a work in progress. In large part, it had to do with the way power had been divided after Iran became a democracy. Even with a constitution, the elected parliament still shared some of its powers with the Shah. It was an arrangement that might have been tenable, except that the current monarch, a 29 year old named Muhammad Reza Shah has begun to undermine the foundations of Iran's democracy. He's been parceling out bribes and even committing fraud, all of the means to tilt the scales in Iran's democratic elections. It's not hard to make sense of the Shah's motivations. He's received backing from the British government and to repay his debt, the Shah is trying to secure victories for members of parliament who are more friendly to the British. Most attack can not stand this kind of corruption, so he released a statement calling on his fellow citizens to join him in a protest, descending on the Shah's marble palace. Once there, they wouldn't leave until the Shah agreed to their principal demand that Iran have new elections free of any interference from the monarchy. Mossadegh and his crowd of supporters reached the gates of the royal palace. Most attack won't deny he's feeling nervous. But he's hoping the shawl will see the light and agree to sit down for a meeting, instead of ordering his guards to open fire. As mossadegh stands surveying the palace, the Gates swing open, and one of the Shaw's aides comes hurrying forward. What are you trying to accomplish coming here with a crowd like this? What we are trying to do is get the shot to listen. Sean listens to reason. It doesn't engage with threats. A peaceful demonstration is not a threat of attack you brought a mom. Now tell me what do you want? We want to present our demands to the shock, and we want promises he'll take action. We all know your demands, free and fair elections. You say over and over. But the Shaw maintains the elections were held with the utmost integrity. They were free and fair. Let's drop the pretense. We all know what happened. Most of that, whatever you think, just know that the Shah is more than willing to investigate any claims of fraud. But he's also certain no one's going to find any evidence of foul play. You expect me to believe that. The Shaw interfered with the democratic process. He's mantling with both hands, one for him, and the other for England. Oh, well now you're making it sound like a big conspiracy. It's not a conspiracy. It's self interest. The Shah is trying to hold on to power and the British are trying to hold on to our oil, but it is our oil, and we will renegotiate with the British. The Shah can not undermine this democratic process, installing his lackeys in parliament. The Shaw installed no one. Those were free and fair elections, and many of us believe the British have been more than accommodating. Most of deck shakes his head. He can't believe these bald faced lies. Schools and hospitals, the British said they would build schools and hospitals, but they have not. And while Iranian oil is funding the British Royal Navy, our country is living in poverty. We barely get a fraction of the profits. Is that fair? Is that accommodating? Most of that, I'm not going to argue about trade agreements here when you've assembled a mob. What can we do to end this before things take a violent turn? Give us an audience with the Shah? No, you're not getting inside the palace. And we will stay here. For as long as it takes. The Shah's aid looks conflicted. Mossadegh knows the Shaw could just order his guards to start firing on the crowd, and end this protest with a bloody massacre. But the Shah's associate takes a different approach. He tells most a deck that the entire crowd can not come in, but the Shah is willing to discuss the matter with a small delegation. Mossadegh nods. This is all he needed to hear. The Shaw is willing to negotiate. So as the aid heads back inside the palace, most of the deck feels a glimmer of hope. Still, even with this first step. Most knows he and his supporters are going to have to do more. It's going to take a lot of organizing. They'll have to build a coherent movement if they want to protect Iran's democracy and do something about the British and their control of Iran's oil. It's April 1951 about a year and a half later. Muhammad mosaddegh straightens his suit jacket as he staffs into Iran's parliament building in Tehran. In the legislative chamber, mosaddegh's fellow members of parliament are huddled together, whispering nervously. Political aids, race across the room, delivering handwritten notes. The chamber is buzzing with a frenetic energy, but when mosaddegh enters and begins making his way into the heart of the room, the other legislator suddenly grows silent, stopping, and staring, waiting to see what most the deck is about to do. It's only been about a year and a half since most of the deck led a march on the Shah's palace. But in the time since, he's gone on to become one of the most powerful politicians in Iran. Mossadegh helped found a political party known as the national front. It's made up of unions and a wide range of civic groups, and the party has been pushing to make Iran a more resilient democracy. One less beholden to foreign powers. Already, the national front has grown incredibly popular, and was a dag isn't surprised. Voters are invested in these issues. But the public does seem especially drawn to one of the party's top priorities. Nationalizing Iran's oil industry and reclaiming the wealth that Britain has been siphoning from them for years. And in a few minutes, the members of parliament are going to vote to select Iran's next prime minister, whoever wins the votes will be able to push their agenda, ambitious proposals that could reshape the country, including the way Iran deals with oil. But one of the leading candidates is favored by the Shah, and if he wins, he could stall the political agenda the most deck is trying to advance. So mosaddegh came up with a plan. It's unconventional and could possibly backfire. But if he pulls it off, mosaddegh himself could emerge as the next leader of Iran's government. So
American Scandal
"iran" Discussed on American Scandal
"Its October 1949, four years before America launched a coup in Iran. It's a windy fall day in Tehran, and out on the streets of Iran's capital, a large crowd is marching toward the country's royal palace. There are thousands of people. Many of them are raising their fists and yelling out that they are tired of political corruption and hungry for change. At the front of the crowd is an older man, Finn and balding. He doesn't cut the most formidable figure, but with his vision for Iran's future, Muhammad mosaddegh has earned a large following, including this mass of protesters who've gathered for his march on the royal palace. Mosaddegh is an Iranian politician and came of age during one of the most important moments in the country's history, a period in the early 1900s, now known as the constitutional revolution. For centuries, Iran had been ruled by kings known as Shaw's. These monarchs exercised absolute power, and were often prone to vice and corruption. But by the early 20th century, the Iranian people began to demand change. Most dagg was a young man at the time, and he watched awestruck as a political movement took shape and quickly transformed Iran into a democracy. The country went on to adopt a written constitution. Citizens would get to vote in national elections and choose their leaders. There was even the guarantee that Iran would have a free press. Still, most of that always knew that his country's government was a work in progress. In large part, it had to do with the way power had been divided after Iran became a democracy. Even with a constitution, the elected parliament still shared some of its powers with the Shah. It was an arrangement that might have been tenable, except that the current monarch, a 29 year old named Muhammad Reza Shah has begun to undermine the foundations of Iran's democracy. He's been parceling out bribes and even committing fraud, all of the means to tilt the scales in Iran's democratic elections. It's not hard to make sense of the Shah's motivations. He's received backing from the British government and to repay his debt, the Shah is trying to secure victories for members of parliament who are more friendly to the British. Most attack can not stand this kind of corruption, so he released a statement calling on his fellow citizens to join him in a protest, descending on the Shah's marble palace. Once there, they wouldn't leave until the Shah agreed to their principal demand that Iran have new elections free of any interference from the monarchy. Mossadegh and his crowd of supporters reached the gates of the royal palace. Most attack won't deny he's feeling nervous. But he's hoping the shawl will see the light and agree to sit down for a meeting, instead of ordering his guards to open fire. As mossadegh stands surveying the palace, the Gates swing open, and one of the Shaw's aides comes hurrying forward. What are you trying to accomplish coming here with a crowd like this? What we are trying to do is get the shot to listen. Sean listens to reason. It doesn't engage with threats. A peaceful demonstration is not a threat of attack you brought a mom. Now tell me what do you want? We want to present our demands to the shock, and we want promises he'll take action. We all know your demands, free and fair elections. You say over and over. But the Shaw maintains the elections were held with the utmost integrity. They were free and fair. Let's drop the pretense. We all know what happened. Most of that, whatever you think, just know that the Shah is more than willing to investigate any claims of fraud. But he's also certain no one's going to find any evidence of foul play. You expect me to believe that. The Shaw interfered with the democratic process. He's mantling with both hands, one for him, and the other for England. Oh, well now you're making it sound like a big conspiracy. It's not a conspiracy. It's self interest. The Shah is trying to hold on to power and the British are trying to hold on to our oil, but it is our oil, and we will renegotiate with the British. The Shah can not undermine this democratic process, installing his lackeys in parliament. The Shaw installed no one. Those were free and fair elections, and many of us believe the British have been more than accommodating. Most of deck shakes his head. He can't believe these bald faced lies. Schools and hospitals, the British said they would build schools and hospitals, but they have not. And while Iranian oil is funding the British Royal Navy, our country is living in poverty. We barely get a fraction of the profits. Is that fair? Is that accommodating? Most of that, I'm not going to argue about trade agreements here when you've assembled a mob. What can we do to end this before things take a violent turn? Give us an audience with the Shah? No, you're not getting inside the palace. And we will stay here. For as long as it takes. The Shah's aid looks conflicted. Mossadegh knows the Shaw could just order his guards to start firing on the crowd, and end this protest with a bloody massacre. But the Shah's associate takes a different approach. He tells most a deck that the entire crowd can not come in, but the Shah is willing to discuss the matter with a small delegation. Mossadegh nods. This is all he needed to hear. The Shaw is willing to negotiate. So as the aid heads back inside the palace, most of the deck feels a glimmer of hope. Still, even with this first step. Most knows he and his supporters are going to have to do more. It's going to take a lot of organizing. They'll have to build a coherent movement if they want to protect Iran's democracy and do something about the British and their control of Iran's oil. It's April 1951 about a year and a half later. Muhammad mosaddegh straightens his suit jacket as he staffs into Iran's parliament building in Tehran. In the legislative chamber, mosaddegh's fellow members of parliament are huddled together, whispering nervously. Political aids, race across the room, delivering handwritten notes. The chamber is buzzing with a frenetic energy, but when mosaddegh enters and begins making his way into the heart of the room, the other legislator suddenly grows silent, stopping, and staring, waiting to see what most the deck is about to do. It's only been about a year and a half since most of the deck led a march on the Shah's palace. But in the time since, he's gone on to become one of the most powerful politicians in Iran. Mossadegh helped found a political party known as the national front. It's made up of unions and a wide range of civic groups, and the party has been pushing to make Iran a more resilient democracy. One less beholden to foreign powers. Already, the national front has grown incredibly popular, and was a dag isn't surprised. Voters are invested in these issues. But the public does seem especially drawn to one of the party's top priorities. Nationalizing Iran's oil industry and reclaiming the wealth that Britain has been siphoning from them for years. And in a few minutes, the members of parliament are going to vote to select Iran's next prime minister, whoever wins the votes will be able to push their agenda, ambitious proposals that could reshape the country, including the way Iran deals with oil. But one of the leading candidates is favored by the Shah, and if he wins, he could stall the political agenda the most deck is trying to advance. So mosaddegh came up with a plan. It's unconventional and could possibly backfire. But if he pulls it off, mosaddegh himself could emerge as the next leader of Iran's government. So
Altamar - Navigating the High Seas of Global Politics
"iran" Discussed on Altamar - Navigating the High Seas of Global Politics
"That israelis would love for on to do something that would shift the discussion away from the nuclear talks to iran's behavior and would in fact get it in the united states into a direct confrontation with your off so they don't wanna play israel's game but i guess there is a call for retaliation from within iran that even the general iranian public is angry at the impunity with which israel operates in iran. But it's more important for iran to create deterrence against israel that unless the israelis wadi about some kind of backlash that they will just continue doing this unimpeded savelli. Let's move a little bit to the issue of the talks with the united states and the vienna coversation wrapped up. Recently with movie critics would call it mixed reviews. So what's your assessment of the meeting and its potential outcome but the meeting was it was an important breaks because it hadn't been any meeting at whatsoever since president biden took office. This was the first meeting. But i would say that progress was very slow so there were to sort of discussions that happened in vienna in tandem. One one was on what iran needs to do in order to get back into full compliance. And what is it that the united states needs to get get back into compliance and as what set of sanctions that it does it have to lift and the iranians believed that all trump era sanctions were put on iran. In bad faith. Iran was in full compliance according to international atomic energy january twenty seventeen and trump moved out of the deal and with sanctions on iran. So they basically mean full. American compliance means going back through twenty seventy but the. Us is reluctant to do that. Because it wants iran to exceed to expanding the deland be willing to negotiate on other issues and secondly as a poison pill that the trump administration multi designated sanctions. So let's say an iranian ship will be designated under the nuclear the for not selling oil..
Altamar - Navigating the High Seas of Global Politics
"iran" Discussed on Altamar - Navigating the High Seas of Global Politics
"Hello and welcome to tomorrow. I'm peter sector. And i'm looney johnson. Every other friday we together navigate the high seas of global politics today. We're here to talk about the changing dynamics. In iran the current controversy surrounding potential reset of the us iran nuclear agreement and the forces within and outside the middle east. That are shaping. The conversation a good time to talk about iran given developments. That have happened of late with the nuclear power plant in towns..
Republic Keeper - with Brian O'Kelly
"iran" Discussed on Republic Keeper - with Brian O'Kelly
"And yeah you have to go outside the us for new sources about this stuff because the us media does not want to cover There's a looming disaster in the middle east as iran gets stronger. If iran gets stronger they just will continue to stir the pot and it's going to be trouble more. Be right back. You're listening to republic keeper and now republic keeper with brian. Kelly welcome back and yeah the address on the screen there for those. You want to send a check. Help out its republic keeper broadcasting pillbox four nine one woodinville washington ninety zero seven two dash zero four nine one and i'll just reiterate. Hey if any money comes in because you senate in no fox news. There's no nbc. There's nobody behind this. It's you and me together do the work and I depend on you guys. So thank you for those of you in some new sponsors this week supporters in a super grateful. Just no i see everyone. I do send you notes back i. I'm trying to get to those fast as i can I'd give shout outs on the air. But i don't want to threaten you home. Boy you want. Is your name associated with a right wing broadcast. Maybe in america today so the this is really an important thing on this around thing i want to. I can't emphasize enough for those of you. Who are not and i. I'm sorry those somebody. I know you know this. I know a lot of you know this. I'm sorry if you wanna make sure that that it's clear. The idea that islam is monolithic. And that we can think about the saudis and the iranians in the same sentence is it's ridiculous. It's as ridiculous as the idea that the pulp. And and benjamin. Netanyahu are going to be the same religion. They're just totally different. And the iranians see the saudis as illegitimate want them off of the arabian peninsula. The iranians believe they are the rightful owners and managers of mecca and medina and every holy site in islam. And they think that the all of the arabs that's jordan cutter egypt saudi all of the arab countries. The iranians think that they are wrong and that they are ultimately destined to be under the domination of iran Boy i'll tell you. I miss mike pompeo more than ever. I miss somebody who had a clear. I'd understand this and here it is. Here's pompeo responding to their. Are recent motions airbase loop gone on them. See if i can do those sort. What do you make of the attack that landed on the us forces What they're leading there in erbil You know there's a lot of speculation that iran is behind them If they are what is the proper response with the biden administration shannon we. We saw this time and time again when we were in charge of the iranians since weakness though what we did is that when they came after an american we made this very clear whether they attacked in american through a proxy force in iraq where they attacked in american through hezbollah in syria wherever it was wherever around responsible. We were gonna hold the iranians accountable. That's the kind of strength that built the deterrence model that we had with respect to iran. I hope that the this current ministration won't give up on that. We we know that. Under president obama they coddled. The iranian regime. Signed up for deal that presented a pathway a clear pathway to a nuclear weapon of the iranians will sense that. That's the deal they can strike. They'll continue inflict costs on the american people. We we can't go back when he's president biden. Talks about going back. The american people can afford to go back to those policies. I don't want to be insulting insulting. But truthfully democrats approach to this. Like five year olds. Well they said they wouldn't do it anymore. So we're going to believe they literally approach it like five year olds. Whatever the iranians say the democrats all right and those who don't who know that they're lying. Don't care because they need. They need iran. They need iran to launder. Money through a tall has gone into a program bitcoin. Why is it that. Bitcoin spikes every time there's a change in us administration's why is that. Could it be that. A lot of corrupt officials need to move their money. So something else said secretary blinken said today with respect to the iran deal and where they are with regard to a nuclear weapon He says having pulled out that actually lifted the restraints on them that got them this much closer to a nuclear weapon. He says iran is closer today to having the ability to produce material for weapon. Then when the deal was enacted and puts the blame there on the trump administration essentially look so secretary of lincoln's right about their amount of fissile material but this highlights the failure of the deal that they struck him and it was just a crappy deal. it's created a clear pathway for nuclear weapon allowed the regime to have one hundred fifty billion dollars worth of cash. You remember remember the pallets of cash. There were transported to the regime as a result. This deal now. The iranians knew that they had the capacity to push president obama around to get a deal that gave them the pathway to a nuclear weapon and hard. Ministration didn't permit that to happen. We put real costs on them with the regime under enormous pressure and we reduce the rest for the american people that iran have a nuclear weapon whether it was the strike. The president took against chemical weapons in syria making clear when we drew a red line. We meant it whether it was the strength. We took to destroy. Qassem soleimani the leading progenitor of iranian terrorism. I think the iranians came to understand that we were serious about protecting america. I'm counting on this next administration to do the same again. This is up. Pompeii illustrates so well. I say they're like five year olds. They say they're not gonna they're not gonna produce fissile material they were producing it the whole time. And so the only difference between us pulling out of the deal and us being in the deal is by pulling out of the deal. We didn't keep the charade going that they weren't producing nuclear material. We let the world know that they were in fact producing the nuclear material that they said that they weren't and that there was no reason to stay in a deal that they weren't honoring and what the biden administration wants to do is go back into another deal. These people won't honor and it's kinda like you know if if you've got a girlfriend or boyfriend or a husband or wife cheats on you you know. And they say they won't do it again and they say they won't do it again and they.
Republic Keeper - with Brian O'Kelly
"iran" Discussed on Republic Keeper - with Brian O'Kelly
"With iran and china russia. Everybody locked out now more. Be right back. You're listening to republic keeper and now republic keeper with brian kelly. I welcome back. The republican broadcast on saturday edition Trying to get something up on the screen haircut. This is javad-zarif the Whatever he is foreign minister of iran says us acknowledged pompeo's claims regarding resolution. Twenty to thirty one had no legal validity. We agree in compliance with twenty to thirty one. Us conditionally effectively lift all sanctions imposed reimposed or relabeled. By trump. we will then immediately reverse all remedial measures and so twenty to thirty one. U n had issued sanctions on. Iran said. Hey if if if you do this with your nuclear development than these sanctions will happen right the g. Jcp elway came along. The iran deal the biden niran. The obama iran the old they fell in love with and The jcp away caused the un to say well. Those sanctions are suspended because of this joint cooperation joint. Whatever council on proliferation of actor. Jason whatever it is stands for the no nuke deal chain. Can't get new. That's what the deal supposedly says trump comes along and says well that's great. You made a deal but these guys are frigging liars. And they're still developing a nuclear bomb so since they're still doing the nuclear development and they've got centrifuges spin it at a high rate of speed to try and build bomb. I don't think there's any reason for us to hold up our end. So the deals off or trump's us off guys aren't keeping up. Your end deals off so twenty.
Republic Keeper - with Brian O'Kelly
"iran" Discussed on Republic Keeper - with Brian O'Kelly
"The the piece that the literally that you know i can see why would we want to change directions from the trump administration. I mean all. These peace deals in the middle east. We can't have that one. We've got people in war. Inc that need contracts and money to launder through around the right back. You're listening to republic keeper and now republic keeper with brian kelly. So welcome back those. You were new to the broadcast. Keeps a quick and dirty look. It's a listener slash viewers ported broadcasting so Means i need your help to do it. So i need a couple of things from yet from you. If you could help out three things number one. Pray for me if thinking. I'll do that later. Just do it. now take a minute Pray for me. I need that. On number two is subscribing share the content and number three is up. the thing needs money to run. So you can find the addresses in the in the text of the of the show starting all that and ahead and send that on on through if you want to support the show at mo at republic keeper or Patriots dot com slash republican for that really helps So the iranians are inside of iran. If there's going to be i gotta justice things. driving crazy. servant has inside of iran. There is a resistance movement right. A freedom movement a group of people that want say free iran and wants them to be free of the mullah's and This group is and i'm not forget the exact name of it but they are They call themselves the mood. Mujahedeen people's mujahedeen or something like that speak farsi. But it's a it's a movement inside of iran for freedom and that group. It's it's not just inside of iran. of course it's a lot of ex patriots right people who are iranians who have fled the country who live around the world and in one of the things that we have to understand. Sometimes we think of. And i say we us as americans we think of iran as just one of those or their countries and because we see the mollahs dressed in the traditional islamic garb we think of it as maybe a primitive country and and it is a primitive country now in terms of the way. It's because it's so poor and the healthcare so terrible right but before the mullah's before the mullah's iran was an unbelievably wealthy cosmopolitan country with you know museums and theater and a great ballet and everything that you would expect from a developed first world country and so that's part of why the people in iran especially the ex patriots who are trying to bring about freedom want their country back we talk about you know we hear people here saying take our country back. They really want to take their country back from the religious extremists. Well there was a meeting in paris of the resistance. Group was thousands of people from around the country and the iranian leadership. The president of iran the atala. How many Zarif the foreign minister the president. They sent an assassin to bomb. The thing was just convicted. Judges have convicted an iranian diplomat for an attempted bomb attack on a rally in paris in two thousand eighteen. The court handed asadullah assadi a twenty year jail sentence for his role in the foiled bombing which was meant to target iranian opposition figures. Three accomplices of jewish romanian and belgian nationality also given prison sentences and stripped of their european citizenship for more on that story correspondent in brussels. Dave kissing joins us. Now hello dave now to give us a little background on this story. Can you tell us about the event here. In france that a saudi was convicted for targeting. And why that was yes. This is an organization called the people's mujahedeen organization of iran was the political wing of that group. That was holding that rally. That has been one of the chief. Opposition groups to the iranian government for decades it itself in the past has been classified by western governments as a terrorist organization. They were having this rally against the iranian regime in a suburb of paris. Plenty of western dignitaries. Were either there. Were supposed to be there Particularly from the us and the uk now the man who has been convicted here assadi. He was actually a diplomat posted to austria. So you might question. Why was this case happening in belgium. Well that's because he was accused of hiring to belgian citizens of iranian descent. A couple a to transport this bomb from belgium to this rally happening in france and detonate it there but the couple was stopped by belgian police. Before they arrived in france they found the bomb and they were arrested. The key question here was weather. A belgian court could tie saudi specifically to that bombing attack a tempt rather and therefore connected to the iranian regime itself. Today we got the answer they did say. He is accountable and the ruling really suggests that the regime in tehran orchestrated this bombing on french soil. So this has huge huge implications geopolitically. I think that the fallout from this is going to be seen in the coming days. Indeed goes much further beyond that simple attack in terms of today's verdict. What did we have in the jurors about the wider implications of this full bombing. Well you can read the ruling as saying certainly that the this bombing was ordered by the iranian government itself and comes at a really sensitive time because right now the biden administration in the us is trying to decide what it wants to do about the iranian nuclear deal that donald trump pulled out of the e. You want the us to reenter that that deal to stop iran's efforts to build a nuclear weapon the biden administration seems to be hesitating. And this could. Majorly complicate factors. Think particularly in france because president macron has been a supporter of the iranian nuclear deal. But now with this news that the iranian government this belgian court says that it was planning a bombing a terrorist attack on french soil. I think it's hard for president macron to continue with that supports. We'll see what effect that has on the nuclear deal as well during this trial there were lots of revelations about studies travels around europe and who he met with and just the extent of this iranian intelligence network that seems to exist in europe. This is a case that involved. Many many countries in europe outside europe united states iran germany austria belgium france. And so we're going to be feeling the ripple effects from this ruling. I think For quite some time to come. Thank you very much. Dave and the thing. That's important here guys that that i want you to really pick up on. Iran was doing this in france. Came and this is much like the chinese national security law right there there there you know security law and the iran. Iranians have the same idea. And that's that all governments other than ours are illegitimate. The problem with the us in the iranians view is that we haven't yet submitted to their brand of islam and to the i'll it'll meinie as its rightful leader. That's the problem with the us. In the view of iran and the chinese have basically the same view. The problem in the us is that we don't recognize the rightful position of the chinese as leaders of the world. That's how they view things right and so.
Republic Keeper - with Brian O'Kelly
"iran" Discussed on Republic Keeper - with Brian O'Kelly
"Intention is to end you and your children to end your future and especially intend to do that primarily by by having a conflagration in the middle east right back. You're listening to republic keeper now. Republic keeper with brian kelly. Your onions believe the in the panoply of islamic religion there are more than one More than one sect right more than one denomination if you will more than one way of looking at things and You know to bring it into the end of the christian parallels if you will there are some people who believe that we are fast approaching the end times and some people don't within the christian camp and different denominations view the end times differently and have different explanations for revelation and things like that and the same is true within islam. there are different ideas about how the world will come to an end in one of the ideas in of the shiite. Persian version of islam is that there will be a thirteenth imam and the thirteenth is a messiah figure who will deliver the world to islam and the the persians the iranians believe this with all their heart and the absolutely believe that what is necessary to precipitate that is that they to end israel. Okay and they have to end the and then by extension the us the when. Israel's the little satan the. Us is the great satan. Right and the reason we're the great satan is because we support the little satan okay. So that's the that's the idea in. How iran we need to understand what kind of curriculum it is that the biden administration is considering getting back in bed with the reasons why they're considering getting back in bed with them and so here is an. I'm sorry if you have kids watching or if you're squeamish person you may not want to watch look at the screen right now. Here is a photo from iran. This is just taking a couple of days ago In just outside of tehran and what you see is a man tied to a tree. And he is being flogged by the iran security services. And they're a bunch of photos of this and the crowd is gathered at the edge of this public square and this is what the iranian regime does. And so a man and woman were tied to a tree and they were given lashes on adultery. Charges women's husband suspected her having extramarital relations with relatives and his relatives and the case was taken a court she and the man identified By his first name As solarge denied the charges said they were just friends however insistence of her husband Her smartphone was examined and they had had text messages that were incriminating. And so they were sentenced to two years of forced labor six hours a day and ninety nine lashes to be delivered in public. So that is. That's the regime that we are Considering going back into a relationship with and just continuing. Because i want to reinforce these are not. There's no scenario where iran could be considered a a reasonable country that we could work with. This is a repressive terrorist regime as repressive as the nazis ever maybe more Here is another photo that Gives you an idea of The kind of culture inside of iran. This girl is thirteen years old and she is there with her baby. Iran leads the world in child marriages proximity forty thousand. Young girls under the age of fourteen. Were were arranged marriages. Last year around the world thirty nine thousand according to the u n nine thousand of those were in iran iran is they have seven percent of the world's mineral mines nev- nine percent of the world's oil and eighteen percent of the world's iran has more oil and gas than anybody on the planet. This is an unbelievably rich country. The people of iran should live. They all drive cadillacs or lexuses. A nation all live in big houses. The country is on believably rich. But what the what the regime does take all of the money that's generated and it all goes overseas in a terror operations to destabilize the world instead of to their own people they have more natural resources than all of europe. All of the e. us own. You add it all together. And their natural resources don't equal around yet their ninety third in healthcare in the world.
Makom Israel Teachers Lounge
"iran" Discussed on Makom Israel Teachers Lounge
"Being part of the npt. Israel said the united states said. You're the senate isn't that anybody is actually saying that. They're not trying to go down the nuclear power but they've been deviating as members of this treaty about mom proliferation but they have also been trying under the radar to develop nuclear capabilities and there are a lot of different opinions pay. This is about opinions. We don't know. How do you stop the iranians from going down the nuclear military path. Okay do you say okay. But you can't have the civilian pie thir- allowed to have the civilian path allowed what we call it peaceful use. They're allowed to have nuclear scientists allowed. I've international relations and to do with nuclear. That's the peaceful path and the question is whether deviations come and the international community. The strong army will but western one mainly the united states and europe and for that matter even russia and china are much more challenging when it comes to their relationship with one. Nobody wants iran to how nuclear military capabilities and under the previous previous administration. I'm not really sure. The words nowadays what we say. But under the obama administration the obama choice was to go into a negotiation which is one way of going about it specifically and only on the nuclear issue and they signed a treaty in the summer of two thousand fifteen and israel at the time. Under netanyahu saint prime minister very much opposed not even necessarily the details of that treaty that the international community signed with want to say that iran would not go down the nuclear military five. Okay they still go down the nuclear civilian path but when they sign that in two thousand fifteen israel said you can't believe iran iran or selling you guys stories. And they're telling you that they won't go down the military path we israel santa's of existential threat in rethink the agreement. That you've arrived in two thousand fifteen is actually enabling the iranians to do whatever they want that was israeli. We never jcp juicy jcp away. Which is july twenty fifteen that had enormous implications. Not just on nuclear rerun. Okay because there's no question whatsoever that iran signed it. And now i now i get into the murky arena because here we are six years later two years after the united states signed it after the and diamond it was it was six leading countries. It was a whole group of countries together. That signed and the idea being that if they don't go down a nuclear con the van then only then they would lift economic sanctions. It would make it easier. Realtor path a nuclear military constantly. I get. I want to be very clear to most people. Iran continues to go down the civilian nuclear plant. The whole idea of the agreement was to stop them. Nuclear military power and in the two thousand fifteen and until trump came into two thousand seventeen. Israel said they're going around to pathak going around about. We were very worried about it. Having said that. I want to be very clear. We did not ever us israel okay. We're the ones who were threatened. We never showed in those years after it was signed before the us administration left it under trump but out of raymond. We never showed that they were breaking during those years. The supervision say maybe they're going on the spouting it it worked. What was the main problem that is set at the time. Is that okay. Maybe you're supervising the nuclear but the military. We don't believe iran. That's what we said but we haven't done anything about iran exporting terror about iranian missiles about iranian supporting. She's bella and we order disturbed and the us administration under obama at the time said. Listen we can't do everything let's at least do the nuclear and there was a huge difference of opinion at the time. Okay here will. It's twenty twenty one and under trump trump left that agreement and said we don't believe the iranians we will do harsh economic sanctions. Left the agreement and i want to be very clear to everybody under the agreement. It didn't stop them going on trying to continue on the path under the economic sanctions of the last four years. It didn't stop in them at all. Nobody was there to supervise under. That agreement was type of supervisor. 'cause they're signed on the empty. It allowed people to come in okay. I'm not saying once. Once america broke their part. There were multiple countries that signed it. It wasn't just united states. The united states. that's it. It broke it for iran is no longer only. The united states broke but as soon as the united states broke. Iran committed anymore because the united states is the main force behind all of these different things so now the question is are flanked short clarify shoot. We had we had no. We have no proof between the years. Where america and iran were still committed to it that they were breaking the agreement. Meaning going down a nuclear military path. There was no proof for that. No there was. I mean we were worried about it but we never showed both we never show proof and now have we have proof that wants. America left it that they did go down that path of the military. That was easy in that sense for iran. Iran said the united states left and we left it from soon as the united states left around said. We're not committed so there's no question that in the last certainly in the last few months. Okay but even before that and this is under. The years of the very harsh economic sanctions can meeting yeah economic sanctions and they went down to clear about so. I'm going to say a number one didn't stop it. Having said that it was a kind of agreement. I hated it in two thousand fifteen most definitely part of that israeli security personnel. That said really want to be clear. It was only about the nuclear. Most of our israeli security challenge was because it did not cover the other aspects where iran really threatens us and put it up to everybody right now again. Okay so you can arrive at. I'm asking you okay. I'm asking all this right now. You're all sitting and listening to this and going. What can we do. And i'm asking you. What do you think you can either ride agreement. Only on the new clear the not means lifting whoops economic sanctions on iran. Sorry but have a love. Hate relationship with my Earpods we all we all do. Not even technology with me. It's really the physical aspect of electro pop out of the year. But that's you know little aspects that we have a day to day. Life happens through an. I'm teaching and everybody's looking. I'm like oops wedding and so you know it's like things. I have in corona times. Were all used to it and we all. That's where everyone's doing their. Yeah so. I'm gonna go back to our plus shit here. We are ladies and gentlemen. It's time to make policy. How do you make policy. Try decide yourself. You won't be able to arrive at an agreement with evil limits military nuclear which is bats an existential threat and limits their expert of tear in his beila and their creation of missiles that reach israel. There's a three different aspects. So do you do the nuclear or not. And i'm asking a question. I really am not saying right now. Okay go do it or joan to it. it's a real question and while you're going to hear from israel is overwhelming. We're going to be these rarely voices. Don't go back to the negotiations and certainly don't sign one because it's only gonna be about the nuclear. That's what we're going to hear from this or why no one already already here. The usual suspects.
Makom Israel Teachers Lounge
"iran" Discussed on Makom Israel Teachers Lounge
"By four different health. Hmo's up to providers. Sorry what that means for many years. This isn't new. Israel has provided the data. Not what mary doing. What to make us stewart but what happens to be nice fifty and sixty year olds. How's that okay. If we all have okay so what happens to fifty to sixty year old men or women and that's data that the entire world can use and i'm proud of the fact that we do so it's a very different from other countries. It does not about my personal information but it is really helping health in the world. That's because there's a lot of people who are claiming what about personal vision of privacy and that because they're taking mining our our health data on our health data for years. We just weren't aware of it in that sense again it's the data and and you're always gonna have dot question. You're always going to have that type of tension okay. Because yes they are mining. My your data. But they're not using it about me and you they're using about the big numbers in those big numbers make a really big difference because they can to to a certain degree that what they're saying is ages gender and all of our medical history and in that sense immediately means you can cross. It isn't about one hundred people out of a hundred thousand. This is the data and the nine million citizens of the state of israel millions of whom have already received over two million by now have received at least the first shot of the vaccination so that's a huge data pool it is and there's nothing comparative to it and and we're already rapidly rolling out the continuation. I said this has an impact on world health. Not just on. Israel's well yeah. A light to the nations that israel please do you think this is. Why as much as you know. My students are always so concerned. Like oh everybody's against israel everybody and yet israel plays a really normal part in the world economy in world science information. Do you think it's the israel that's the reason no not at all we're also at the forefront of the actual inventions thinking about certain within the technological world and that includes within the technological world the health world finding vaccines trying to contend with illnesses. And not just about are being the guinea pig database. This has to do with the fact that we have leading scientists and so many different facilities in israel universities tanks in a variety of arenas and that's our firt forte. We do have that. We may not be number one but are combination in. That sense really puts us ahead of most countries in the world. we're punching above our weight class. I like that. Yeah so we the reason we want to talk to you. This week was with the new biden administration with it. Looks like iran is pretty. I mean other countries are talking about francis france. Well france is one of the countries that mentioned that iran is developing nuclear weapons. Where are we going. It's been popping up in the news and has been causing us concern and with now a new administration and it was in the confirmation hearings yesterday of the new secretary of state undivided iran was. Yeah that was. That was actually kind of exciting. It was exciting and he also said things that it's not gonna make anybody who's worried less worried but what he actually does is that the united states was not about to do big things without consulting with israel. So should i give a little bit of context for people who may not have been following the rainy nuclear issue. Like i have lost thirty years please. The great plains. So i don't wanna give a history but i do need to give some background. Iran has been going down the nuclear path for over thirty years this issue of iran trying to turn nuclear something that israel and the rest of the world have been watching and worrying about from the early nineteen ninety s and here. We are thirty years old. So the good news for all of our listeners is that they're not there yet. The bad news. Which could be expected that they're still trying so here. We are after four years of the trump presidency where there was a very drastic change of you as falsity towards the iranian nuclear issue in here. There's no way to disconnect the changing the transitions that happened from the obama administration to the trump administration now from the trump to the biden administration because the united states had very different policies. In a moment. I'll talk about israel's policy but for israel nuclear iran as an existential throat. But let's be clear everybody for the rest of the world. Nuclear iran is. I want to say existential. But it is a very clear-cut threat. It isn't that the world is ignoring it. There the challenge that he rolm as a country and it's a big country. We just said israel over nine million. Iran is over eighty five million people. It's very large country. We talked about science technology developments. Iran is an educated science motivate of country. Contrary again joel. Most people think of you know the mullah's and a slum in that runs iran that is the regime but you have a very advanced on educational system nuclear scientists and they have this for a long time and they're trying to go down the nuclear pathan israel and the united states and the western world are all very worried about that because all of a see what happens when somebody has a nuclear weapon and that immediately means that you treat them differently. North korea's the obvious example let on pakistan or india but he ron is different from the three. I just mentioned. North korea pakistan and india are not signed on the non proliferation treaty. Why does that matter because from the start by the way israel is also not signed treaty. Okay let's be clear when you are signed on the empty the nonproliferation treaty which has been for fifty years in that sense of who hasn't doesn't have nuclear weapons when you're signed on it. The international community has a say and a discussion and a dialog. Basically says hi. I won't go down the military nuclear badge path. But i am signed on because i do want peaceful nuclear capabilities and that's the catch our plants. Yes and that's the catch twenty. Two many people don't understand because we always look nuclear is only being about the threat of nuclear weapons. But let's be clear. Japan liz off of nuclear capabilities. Which are what we call peaceful nuclear capabilities nuclear power plants power plants and iran has been building for many many years many many years. You can't imagine how many i germany was on board and the majority left and russia stepped. They've been 'bout building a power plant on the shores of the persian gulf. Really i've been in the intelligence community for so many years. They've been building out for a good thirty to forty years and it's never come to fruition but parallel to have a.
Makom Israel Teachers Lounge
"iran" Discussed on Makom Israel Teachers Lounge
"Welcome to the mccomb is real teachers lounge podcast where we connect students and listeners. To what's happening in israel and give you instructions behind the headline. I am your host michael unterberg here as always with co host our goldman. How're you doing our excellent excellent. Wow that's great and we have with us today expert. Mary is on. We had some questions about looking forward to what's going on with iran. How're you doing mary. Great i'm supposed to get my second vaccination soon allow me to this very exciting it is. It's.