Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 4: Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints. Ryan is in Mexico
Speaker 4: and his annual fish vacation, so I'm so happy to
Speaker 4: be joined for a girl show by Crystal today. How's
Speaker 4: it going, Crystal?
Speaker 3: Very good, nice to be here.
Speaker 1: I actually love that Ryan does this every year, Like
Speaker 1: has this thing and like commits to it so so
Speaker 1: much deserved time off. He's been working hardbarding the candle
Speaker 1: at both ends, so hope he's having a great time.
Speaker 4: That's for sure. He is a busy man. We have
Speaker 4: a great show for everyone today. We're going to start
Speaker 4: with a Supreme Court ruling in Alabama that if you
Speaker 4: haven't heard about it really is huge, huge news. So
Speaker 4: we're going to go through that. We're going to talk
Speaker 4: about Nikki Haley almost fooling the media yesterday into thinking
Speaker 4: maybe she was going to drop out of the race.
Speaker 4: She did not spoiler alert, but will break down what's
Speaker 4: happening in South Carolina. Their primaries on Saturday. So there's
Speaker 4: a lot to talk about. We're also going to talk
Speaker 4: about the affirmative action non ruling decision by the United
Speaker 4: States Supreme Court not to take up an important affirmative
Speaker 4: action case that has would have had big implications across
Speaker 4: the board, and the same way that the affirmative action
Speaker 4: case that they took up last session did have big
Speaker 4: implications across the board. Crystal is going to break down
Speaker 4: some developments out of Israel in the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 4: Big stuff to talk about. The assage hearings have begun
Speaker 4: Julian Massange in London over a potential extradition. Lots of
Speaker 4: sound Crystal sound bites from the demonstration outside the courtroom
Speaker 4: yesterday to break down as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there have been huge protests there.
Speaker 1: This could be his last chance to block an extradition
Speaker 1: to the United States. He's of course being charged under
Speaker 1: the espionage with devastating potential ramifications for the First Amendment.
Speaker 3: So we'll bring you up to date on that.
Speaker 1: And also we had to give you a little update
Speaker 1: on John Stewart. He's back, he's responding to the critics.
Speaker 1: He's also going after Tucker Carlson. So there was kind
Speaker 1: of something for everyone there. And we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking to a guy named Ja D. Belcher. He's an
Speaker 1: incredible videographer. He's actually out with the new podcast. He's
Speaker 1: former coal miner who taught himself as the coal mining
Speaker 1: industry was declining, taught himself all of these video and
Speaker 1: production skills. Incredibly talented guy, and he's got a new
Speaker 1: podcast that's very important that looks back at that Upper
Speaker 1: Big Branch mining disaster. I don't know if you guys
Speaker 1: remember that digs into what happened, the investigation and how
Speaker 1: basically greed costs these miners their lives.
Speaker 3: So super excited to talk to him as well.
Speaker 4: Just for a reminder to subscribe at breakingpoints dot com
Speaker 4: so you can get the full Counterpoints show. It goes
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Speaker 4: and you get to see every clip from counterpart. So
Speaker 4: breakingpoints dot com to do that. Let's start in Alabama.
Speaker 4: We can put the first element up on the screen,
Speaker 4: which is a tear sheet here from the Washington Post.
Speaker 4: The headline Alabama Supreme Court rules frozen embryos are children
Speaker 4: Comma imperiling IVF. That's the two parts of the headline there.
Speaker 4: So on the one hand, you have the Alabama Supreme
Speaker 4: Court making that ruling. On the secondhand, their implications for IVF.
Speaker 4: Let's put the second element up on the screen. This
Speaker 4: is a two a tweet from Ron Brownstein who said
Speaker 4: the Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker quoted the
Speaker 4: Bible to justify his decision in this case. The quote
Speaker 4: is human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the
Speaker 4: wrath of a holy God who views the destruction of
Speaker 4: his image as an affront to himself. The judge, again,
Speaker 4: Chief Justice Tom Parker, before that quote, writes that we
Speaker 4: all agree basically the law is that a human being
Speaker 4: is made in God's image. And so then you can
Speaker 4: see how the logic continues in that quote. If we
Speaker 4: go and dig into this, I will say one of
Speaker 4: the things interesting here, Krystal, is that the Wrongful Death
Speaker 4: Act is what's implicated. So that's a civil liability and
Speaker 4: negligen negligence statute. So it's not to the point where
Speaker 4: the destruction of embryo's equals murder. It's to the point
Speaker 4: where the destruction of embryos could implicate somebody in civil
Speaker 4: liability and in negligence. So obviously this does have massive
Speaker 4: implications for IVF and the entire industry, which I will
Speaker 4: say as jarring as it sounds to hear the Chief
Speaker 4: Justice of Alabama right in terms that sound closer to
Speaker 4: what you would have heard, you know, maybe around the
Speaker 4: country's founding and a lot of the founding fathers kind
Speaker 4: of wrote about law natural law as though it was
Speaker 4: something obviously and we kind of all agreed derived from
Speaker 4: one God. So it's jarring to hear that now in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three. Still, this case, the case of embryos,
Speaker 4: is an odd one because from the perspective of somebody's
Speaker 4: pro life and I know a lot of people disagree
Speaker 4: with me on this issue, it is the logical extension
Speaker 4: of the argument that life begins at conception. So if
Speaker 4: life begins at conception, then embryos are unique human beings,
Speaker 4: and a unique human being, unique genetic, genetically unique human being,
Speaker 4: and the destruction of a genetically unique human being, destruction
Speaker 4: of a life, and so it's complicated for people in
Speaker 4: pro life circles to kind of not take that logic
Speaker 4: to its conclusion. I think, if anything, it would be
Speaker 4: sort of it would be what's the right word, hypocritical
Speaker 4: or contradictory for me, for example, to be like, well, no,
Speaker 4: it's all fine, thrown away, Tossom. And even for some
Speaker 4: women who have gone through this. This is maybe a
Speaker 4: silly example, but one of the Real Housewives actually has
Speaker 4: her frozen embryos etched into like a window on one
Speaker 4: of our houses like the rest of her children, which
Speaker 4: again sounds crazy. But for a lot of women and
Speaker 4: men who freeze their embryos and maybe never get a
Speaker 4: chance it's so expensive to implant and to go through
Speaker 4: the process, they do still feel an emotional connection to
Speaker 4: the embryos. What did you make of this decision, Crystal.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're right that if you do
Speaker 1: take the pro life position to its logical conclusion, this
Speaker 1: is exactly the sort of place that you end up,
Speaker 1: which probably ninety five percent of Americans would find absolutely preposterous.
Speaker 1: The idea that a frozen embryo is the same as
Speaker 1: a child. And you're right this decision right now, the
Speaker 1: implications are I won't even say they're limited, because I
Speaker 1: do think that this completely upends IVF treatment in the
Speaker 1: state of Alabama, makes it potentially impossible, and if it
Speaker 1: still continues, extraordinarily even more expensive than it already is,
Speaker 1: because as part of that process, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: just one egg that you seminate, you have multiple that
Speaker 1: you store in case the first attempt doesn't work, so
Speaker 1: you have multiple attempts, or if later down the line
Speaker 1: you want to have a different additional children. And so
Speaker 1: if you're saying that the destruction of these embryos is
Speaker 1: equivalent to killing a child effectively, then of course IVF
Speaker 1: is no longer going to be possible in the state
Speaker 1: of Alabama, because what are you going to do. You're
Speaker 1: going to just hold onto these eggs. And definitely, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just on a basic rational, instinctive level, it seems
Speaker 1: completely insane. Alabama has been the state that has perhaps
Speaker 1: gone the furthest in terms of banning abortion and in
Speaker 1: terms of criminalizing action surrounding abortion. In that piece we
Speaker 1: had up they said, in Alabama, voters pass a ballot
Speaker 1: measure in twenty eighteen that granted fetus's full personhood rights
Speaker 1: but did not mention frozen embryos. After the fall of
Speaker 1: Row and your Total Abortion man went into effect in
Speaker 1: the state, Alabama now accounts for nearly half of all
Speaker 1: criminal cases related to pregnancy across the country, according to
Speaker 1: itally by Pregnancy Justice. Now, it's possible this gets taken
Speaker 1: up at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: It's possible it doesn't.
Speaker 1: The other thing that we have to look for is
Speaker 1: what other states, now that Alabama has sort of gone
Speaker 1: in this direction, are going to push forward through the courts,
Speaker 1: through the legal system in a similar direction. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I think this is another example, Emily of how ending
Speaker 1: overturning Roe versus Wade has sort of opened Pandora's box
Speaker 1: in ways that were almost completely unimaginable, in ways that
Speaker 1: even in a very conservative red state like Alabama, I
Speaker 1: guarantee you if you were to put this to the voters,
Speaker 1: they would also find this insane. That's why you've seen,
Speaker 1: you know, the pro choice position backed in every single
Speaker 1: state where it has been put to the voters, including
Speaker 1: states like Kentucky that are very religious and our very
Speaker 1: conservative you only have eight percent of the public that
Speaker 1: agrees that abortion should be banned in all circumstances. So
Speaker 1: this is the fringe, fringiest of the fringe type of
Speaker 1: position that you could have. And I do think that
Speaker 1: it is ironic that, you know, a pro life movement
Speaker 1: that is, you know, supposed to be very supportive of families,
Speaker 1: very supportive of you know, families having children.
Speaker 3: This is effectively an.
Speaker 1: Assault on couples who are struggling to you know, to
Speaker 1: get pregnant and to have that child, because it will
Speaker 1: either make this procedure IVF procedure much more expensive or
Speaker 1: potentially impossible altogether.
Speaker 4: Another thing to think about is it comes at a
Speaker 4: time when a lot of women will say, you know,
Speaker 4: because they got married later than they wanted to, they're
Speaker 4: having fewer children that they wanted to, that they turned
Speaker 4: to IVF as a major option. And that's a huge
Speaker 4: problem for conservatives. But I'll add this case is such
Speaker 4: an interesting one. So it goes back to twenty twenty
Speaker 4: and I'm reading from my colleague in the Federalists now,
Speaker 4: Jordan Boyd, who writes when a patient at Mobile Infirmary
Speaker 4: Medical Center wandered into the cryogenic portion of the Center
Speaker 4: for Reproductive Medicine's facility and tried to remove three separate
Speaker 4: couple's embryos from freezer storage. The subzero temperatures, according to
Speaker 4: the lawsuit at which the mbros had been stored, freeze
Speaker 4: burned the patient's hand, causing the patient to drop the
Speaker 4: embros on the floor, which killed them, which ended the embryos.
Speaker 4: So the couple that paid to create and store the
Speaker 4: embryos actually sued the center under Alabama's Wrongful Death of
Speaker 4: a Minor Act for failing to protect what they believed
Speaker 4: to be their last shot at biological children. The Mobile
Speaker 4: County Circuit Court Judge Jill Parish Phillips, however, tossed the
Speaker 4: case in twenty twenty two because she believed that cryo
Speaker 4: preserved in vituro embryos involved in this case do not
Speaker 4: fit within the definition of a person or a child.
Speaker 4: So this case actually comes down to someone reaching to
Speaker 4: a cryogenic secure area, having their hand freeze burned, and
Speaker 4: dropping embryos. I mean, it's just an incredible kind of
Speaker 4: glimpse into the technology and the strange places that it
Speaker 4: brings us to. Crystal. There's no doubt though that this
Speaker 4: is absolutely a position where it's not politically a palatable
Speaker 4: position for the vast majority of people. I try to
Speaker 4: be logically consistent on these things, and I know that
Speaker 4: it leaves me, you know, in a minority of a
Speaker 4: minority position. But for Republicans in Alabama, which is the
Speaker 4: state that has already clamped down an abortion in ways
Speaker 4: that outpace other red states, definitely not going to be
Speaker 4: helpful for the prospects of the Republican Party in Alabama
Speaker 4: or nationwide. That's for sure.
Speaker 1: I think the Republican Party is probably okay in Alabama.
Speaker 1: But I mean, this isn't This isn't an isolated instance.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The even though the goal over many was the overturning
Speaker 1: of Roe versus Wade, now that Row versus Weide is overturned,
Speaker 1: as I said, it sort of opened this Pandora's box,
Speaker 1: and anti abortion activists are pushing things as far as
Speaker 1: they can go because they, like you, you know, believe
Speaker 1: that even a frozen embryo is a child, and believe that,
Speaker 1: you know, dropping frozen eggs on the floor constitutes murder.
Speaker 1: Now the case, I'm glad you brought it up, because
Speaker 1: the details of it are incredibly sad. Like there's no
Speaker 1: doubt that I think that this couple and the other
Speaker 1: couples that were affected by the negligence shown by this
Speaker 1: facility in you know, allowing this person in and not
Speaker 1: making sure that these frozen eggs, which are a precious thing,
Speaker 1: that they were protected. I don't think anyone would deny
Speaker 1: that they are owed some sort of you know, civil
Speaker 1: restitution or the the you know, the destruction of their
Speaker 1: property and the negligence that led to that.
Speaker 3: But you don't need to view.
Speaker 1: These frozen eggs as actual children in order for them
Speaker 1: to be deserving of, you know, a reward and of
Speaker 1: compensation for what was done to them here and for
Speaker 1: the negligence that cause that. There are already laws on
Speaker 1: the books that would be sufficient in order to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, to try to compensate this couple for the loss. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I just think it's emblematic of the wild
Speaker 1: West that we have now that Rowe is overturned of
Speaker 1: the incredibly unpopular and extreme positions that you know, politicians,
Speaker 1: anti abortion activists and you know, basically theocratic judges as
Speaker 1: in this case, will push things towards and as much
Speaker 1: as we cover here, and this is a good segue
Speaker 1: into the next part of this. As much as we
Speaker 1: cover here the many manifest problems that Joe Biden has
Speaker 1: in terms of his reelection, you know, this issue is
Speaker 1: really the one that has kept Democrats in the game
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, the midterm elections, in terms
Speaker 1: of all of the special elections, certainly the ballot initiatives
Speaker 1: that we have seen, because people just find this so
Speaker 1: extreme and so insane on its face, Yeah, no.
Speaker 4: Question about it. Let's put this next element up on
Speaker 4: the screen from the New York Times that goes into
Speaker 4: and this is a sweeping report about some allies of
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, not Trump himself, and an important part of
Speaker 4: the story from the New York Times actually shows where
Speaker 4: there's disagreement between Donald Trump and some of the Trump
Speaker 4: allies and kind of the conservative legal world who are
Speaker 4: already making plans for what his administration potentially if he's
Speaker 4: elected president, could do on abortion. And one of those things,
Speaker 4: I like what you said, chrisl the Wild Wild West.
Speaker 4: One of those things actually would be the Comstock Act.
Speaker 4: And that's not just according to the New York Times,
Speaker 4: that's according to Trump ally Jonathan Mitchell talking himself about
Speaker 4: these potential plans. Now, the Comstock Act, some people might know,
Speaker 4: or some nerds might know. The sagers out there definitely
Speaker 4: know all about the Comstock Act, which basically criminalizes luder lascivious.
Speaker 4: It's only eighteen seventy three louter lssivious stuff through the mail.
Speaker 4: And so Jonathan Mitchell is saying, because the Comstock agazon
Speaker 4: the books, all you have to do is basically interpret
Speaker 4: it more broadly to include abortion medication, so that the
Speaker 4: kind of myth of pristone that's already up at the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court for a ruling. If Donald Trump is elected
Speaker 4: and office again just broadened interpretations of the Comstocked Act,
Speaker 4: no new legislation has to be passed on the books
Speaker 4: except for you just have to reinterpret Comstack now. NBC
Speaker 4: also says policies under consideration by Mitchell and other conservative
Speaker 4: legal people that might be in a second Trump administration
Speaker 4: include banning the use of fetal stem cells and medical
Speaker 4: research for diseases like cancer. We're scinding approval of abortion
Speaker 4: pills at the FDA and stopping hundreds of millions in
Speaker 4: federal funding for planned parenthood. Such an action that Times
Speaker 4: continues against planned parenthood would cripple the nation's largest provider
Speaker 4: of women's healthcare, would is already struggling to provide abortions
Speaker 4: in the post Row era. Just some like inside politics
Speaker 4: on the Trump stuff, he reportedly is okay with a
Speaker 4: sixteen week federal band, So Lindsey Graham has that plan
Speaker 4: as the fifteen week band that a lot of Republicans
Speaker 4: in Washington, kind of establishment circles said, this might be
Speaker 4: a good political way to deal with the question because
Speaker 4: that puts the United States in line with Europe and
Speaker 4: gives Republican politicians the talking point that it puts the
Speaker 4: United States in line with Europe, and this is sort
Speaker 4: of a point of consensus that everyone could rally around
Speaker 4: and doesn't get Republicans into todd ake and territory, but
Speaker 4: gives them just an easy, sort of end Row type
Speaker 4: talking point like they had before Row. Donald Trump himself
Speaker 4: has elevated people like Chris las Savida and others that
Speaker 4: probably agree with him on abortion, don't want to push
Speaker 4: it too far. A lot of reporting from inside Trump
Speaker 4: world that he finds the kind of anti abortion activists
Speaker 4: in Republican circles be a little weird and you know,
Speaker 4: politically dangerous. I think that's probably true. Nevertheless, Crystal, if
Speaker 4: you're installing the conservative legal movement in your administration, things
Speaker 4: like reinterpretations of the Compact Act are not hard whatsoever
Speaker 4: to expect.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought this piece was really interesting because the all
Speaker 1: of the media attention and the public attention and the
Speaker 1: scrutiny of candidates is around the legislation that they might
Speaker 1: pass around a ban. So, would you pass a six
Speaker 1: week ban, would you pass a sixteen week ban? You
Speaker 1: know where would you draw the line? Would you sign
Speaker 1: that legislation, et cetera. I am, you know, opposed to
Speaker 1: a fifteen or sixteen week ban. But it's also worth
Speaker 1: noting that ninety three percent of abortions happen prior to
Speaker 1: that time, so actually would impact relatively small number of cases. Now,
Speaker 1: I think we've already seen post row that some of
Speaker 1: those cases are incredibly important and you know, put women's
Speaker 1: lives at risk and cause incredible trauma and grief around
Speaker 1: forcing women to carry to term fetuses that they know,
Speaker 1: for example, aren't viable. So I don't want to downplay
Speaker 1: the brief, the trauma and the suffering that would occur
Speaker 1: if you instituted that ban. But what this article points
Speaker 1: out is that the real action may not be through
Speaker 1: the legislative process, because the truth of the matter is,
Speaker 1: any of those bans are very unlikely, almost impossible to
Speaker 1: actually pass through Congress. You'd have to have Republicans not
Speaker 1: only having the White House and the House as at
Speaker 1: the House they have currently, but they'd also have to
Speaker 1: have either a filibuster proof majority in the Senate or
Speaker 1: they would have to get rid of the filibuster in
Speaker 1: order to move this legislation. Again, very unlikely that you
Speaker 1: would actually see any of that come to fruition. However,
Speaker 1: this movement and these thought leaders in the anti abortion
Speaker 1: movement are ready for an extremely aggressive set of procedures
Speaker 1: and changes to rules and regulations in order to push
Speaker 1: forward their agenda without having to passing through Congress. I
Speaker 1: mean the enforcement of the Comstack Act. Just to underscore
Speaker 1: for everyone, if they actually went in that direction, I mean,
Speaker 1: that is a de facto national abortion ban. If you
Speaker 1: are now criminalizing making illegal the mailing the shipping of
Speaker 1: any of the materials that you would need to perform abortions,
Speaker 1: and you basically banned abortion nationwide, and that also could
Speaker 1: apply to.
Speaker 3: Birth control by the way.
Speaker 1: So that's the train that we're talking about now, you
Speaker 1: might say, and Emily, you I think you know laid
Speaker 1: this out quite well. Trump used to be a planned
Speaker 1: parenthood supporter, Like I don't think anyone believes that near
Speaker 1: and dear to his heart is this issue or that
Speaker 1: he necessarily views the world the way that anti abortion
Speaker 1: activists do. However, we know in his first term in
Speaker 1: office was very important to him to install on the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justices who are going to be part of
Speaker 1: overturning role versus the way they did exactly that he
Speaker 1: had some of these same you know, religious right conservative
Speaker 1: activist types in his administration. They did, in fact use
Speaker 1: executive action to push forward the pro life agenda at
Speaker 1: that time. And now that you have Roe overturned, you
Speaker 1: have so much more that they are able to do
Speaker 1: in order to push forward that agenda. So it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily the question of does Trump himself believe this is
Speaker 1: Trump himself going to be championing this? Where does Trump
Speaker 1: draw the line in terms of what type of a
Speaker 1: band he would enact? The question is who's he putting
Speaker 1: in these positions and how much free reign is he
Speaker 1: going to ultimately give them, And I think based on
Speaker 1: the track record of the first administration, it looks like
Speaker 1: he would give them quite a lot of room to maneuver.
Speaker 3: And it would be, you know, a.
Speaker 1: Huge boon to the anti abortion movement to have him
Speaker 1: back in office in ways that you know, I think
Speaker 1: most Americans would be kind of horrified and shocked by.
Speaker 4: And not just the anti abortion movement. We can put
Speaker 4: the next element up on the screen here. This is
Speaker 4: dive from Politico into Russ Vote, who runs the Center
Speaker 4: for Renewing America, which is trying to he was Trump's
Speaker 4: O and B director. He's seen as somebody who's and
Speaker 4: I actually like Russ Vote. He's seen as somebody in
Speaker 4: conservative circles who's like a policy wonk and is trying
Speaker 4: to put a blueprint together for what a policy age
Speaker 4: and through some of the administrative agencies might look like
Speaker 4: in a second term for Donald Trump, but even another
Speaker 4: Republican president in general. A lot of these plans are
Speaker 4: generic enough that they're sort of plug and play with
Speaker 4: a potential Republican presidency. But Politica looked at what Russ
Speaker 4: means when he talks about Christian nationalism. And I do
Speaker 4: think there's something interesting here because basically Chevron Doctrine is
Speaker 4: at the Supreme Court right now, which is some people
Speaker 4: say it will be more if it's overturned by Supreme Court,
Speaker 4: as is expected, it'll be more influential. Others people say
Speaker 4: it actually won't be as influential as a lot of
Speaker 4: conservatives think it will be. But basically the ambition of
Speaker 4: conservative in the conservative legal movement, which is long sought
Speaker 4: to overturn Chevron Doctrine is that it curtails the powers
Speaker 4: of the administrative state. One of the big debates during
Speaker 4: the Trump administration was why don't conservatives come in and
Speaker 4: start using the powers of the administrative state through ways
Speaker 4: like reinterpretations of the Comstock Act, all these laws that
Speaker 4: have been on the books for a really long time.
Speaker 4: And so Politico is saying that russ Vote is trying
Speaker 4: to reinterpret all these kinds of statutes. They say, for example,
Speaker 4: top priorities could include the insurrection invoking the Insurrection Act
Speaker 4: on day one to quash protests, and refusing to spend
Speaker 4: authorized congressional funds on unwanted projects, a practice banned by
Speaker 4: lawmakers in the Nixon era, but one of their bullet
Speaker 4: points is just broadly Christian nationalism. So russ Vote has
Speaker 4: written that Christian nationalism is actually rather benign and useful
Speaker 4: description for those who believe in both preserving our country's
Speaker 4: Judaeo Christian heritage and making public policy decisions that are
Speaker 4: best for this country. The term need not be subjected
Speaker 4: to such intense scored due to misunderstanding or slander. But Crystals,
Speaker 4: it's true that the broad label of Christian nationalism has
Speaker 4: connotations that range from QAnon to the description that rush
Speaker 4: just wrote, which is fairly benign mainstream conservative position, not
Speaker 4: broadly representative of the country, and maybe a slice of
Speaker 4: thirty five forty percent of the country would say, okay,
Speaker 4: that sounds fine. But Christian nationalism has different connotations based
Speaker 4: on which audience you're speaking to. So using it definitely
Speaker 4: opens up yourself to not yourself, obviously, Crystal, but russ
Speaker 4: Vote to stories like this one in.
Speaker 1: Politico, Well, it's open opening all of us up to something,
Speaker 1: for sure. I mean, it's you know, it's very reflective
Speaker 1: of like the way that that judge wrote his decision
Speaker 1: concurring opinion on the Alabama you know, eggs are children
Speaker 1: decision where he is, you know, feels comfortable directly invoking
Speaker 1: his own personal religious beliefs, which I think is totally
Speaker 1: out of line in terms of just interpreting the law
Speaker 1: and a pluralistic society that you know, a key value
Speaker 1: is separation of church and state, and ci key value
Speaker 1: is pluralism and the acceptance and equality of all people,
Speaker 1: regardless of their religious beliefs. So I think that's where
Speaker 1: a lot of Americans react very negatively to the idea
Speaker 1: that you're going to infuse an official government with an
Speaker 1: official you know, religious policy. And some of the things
Speaker 1: that you know come out of this movement. Also, one
Speaker 1: of the key allies of Russvoyd is the sky something
Speaker 1: wolf and he what's his first name?
Speaker 3: Is it Ryan Wolfe?
Speaker 1: I want to say Tom Wilf, but that's the author anyway.
Speaker 1: You know, some things that he supports are like ending
Speaker 1: sex education in schools, ending surrogacy, ending no fault divorce
Speaker 1: throughout the country. So those are the types of ideas
Speaker 1: that are associated with this movement. And then there's also,
Speaker 1: to me, very counter to what I know of Christianity,
Speaker 1: this incredibly hard line anti immigrant policy as well, you
Speaker 1: know that is voiced and articulated and would be implemented
Speaker 1: by someone like Stephen Miller, who wants to end asylum
Speaker 1: all together, and you know, take even more draconian measures
Speaker 1: than were taken in the first Trump administration with regard
Speaker 1: to immigration. But you know, on some of those things
Speaker 1: that the ending of no fault divorce, the ending of surrogacy,
Speaker 1: you know, the imposition of a religious view on people
Speaker 1: who don't necessarily share that religious view. It makes me
Speaker 1: think emily of the backlash to Democrats and the you know,
Speaker 1: woke left about this feeling that they were getting too
Speaker 1: involved in people's lives, policing their words, policing their behavior
Speaker 1: all the time, and there was a huge backlash to that,
Speaker 1: And I think similarly, there'd be a huge backlash to
Speaker 1: the idea of delving into people's you know, personal and
Speaker 1: sexual affairs in this same way that I mean, frankly
Speaker 1: we saw with like nineties era conservatism and all of
Speaker 1: the moral panics around that. So you know, it's hard
Speaker 1: to say. I think you would have to expect that
Speaker 1: because of the way that Trump ran his administration last time.
Speaker 1: Because a number of these people actually in the administration
Speaker 1: last time that you probably would give them a lot
Speaker 1: of bandwidth. And I think that that is very scary
Speaker 1: and very uncomfortable for a lot of people who do
Speaker 1: not want to go in this particular direction.
Speaker 4: There's so much to talk about there. I mean also,
Speaker 4: by the way, William Wolf, not Ryan Wolf. Sorry that's
Speaker 4: my bad. But Sager's formulation of barstool conservatism is very
Speaker 4: much understood, and I bet you has been circulated by
Speaker 4: people in the Trump orbit, not the rest votes of
Speaker 4: the world so much as the political side, people who
Speaker 4: are you know, running campaigns and thinking about how best
Speaker 4: to run campaigns, and they definitely understand that there's this
Speaker 4: weirdness that can be kind of associated with conservatives who
Speaker 4: are pursuing these ends. On the other hand, you have,
Speaker 4: you know something, I think this is a good point.
Speaker 4: Like sam Alito when he wrote his opinion in Wade,
Speaker 4: was looking back at natural law and how natural law,
Speaker 4: absolutely the Western formulation of natural law, hinges on this
Speaker 4: idea that people are endowed by rights from their creator,
Speaker 4: by a God. And so you have that tension with
Speaker 4: people like russ Vote, with conservative kind of intellectuals in
Speaker 4: that space who say, well, if we're pursuing this to
Speaker 4: its logical end, and if we really believe this, then
Speaker 4: there are all kinds of mechanisms that we should be
Speaker 4: really looking at instead of just kind of A lot
Speaker 4: of people will kind of mock the National review slogan,
Speaker 4: standing athwart history, yelling stop, why don't you actually do something? Now,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of conservatives who feel like the you know,
Speaker 4: under the Bush administration, the first Trump administration, everything was
Speaker 4: allowed to continue metastasizing, and there should be levers pulled
Speaker 4: instead of being ignored. So there's there's a huge tension
Speaker 4: there that needs to be resolved within the conservative movement,
Speaker 4: and it may be resolved in a administration, which you
Speaker 4: know is entirely plausible at this point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, if conservatives want to go in the direction of
Speaker 1: you know, thinking that frozen eggs are kids, and ending
Speaker 1: fall divorce and trying to roll back gay marriage and
Speaker 1: you know, ending surrogacy, etc. Banning porn, et cetera, good
Speaker 1: luck electorally. I don't think the American people are with
Speaker 1: you on that.
Speaker 4: One one candidate who would not be interested in pursuing
Speaker 4: the vast majority of these policy proposals is Nicky Haley,
Speaker 4: who kind of pulled a fast one yesterday. Though it's
Speaker 4: not entirely surprising that some members of our whys and
Speaker 4: just sagacious media were easily duped by a political candidate.
Speaker 4: Let's take a look at Nicki Haley's speech yesterday, where
Speaker 4: a lot of people in the press actually thought because
Speaker 4: she's called for the speech in the middle of the day,
Speaker 4: meant she was dropping out of the South Carolina primary,
Speaker 4: which is set to happen this Saturday. Let's take a
Speaker 4: listen to what Nicki Haley.
Speaker 5: In a general election, you're given a choice in a primary,
Speaker 5: you make your choice. Make sure you make the right choice.
Speaker 5: Make your voices heard today, tomorrow, and on Saturday. Some
Speaker 5: of you, perhaps a few of you in the media
Speaker 5: came here today to see if I'm dropping out of
Speaker 5: the race.
Speaker 3: Well I'm not.
Speaker 5: Far from it, and I'm here to tell you why
Speaker 5: I'm running for president, because we have a country to save.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, okay, I didn't know that. So Nikki Haley
Speaker 4: also thought, let's put this graphic up on the screen. Well,
Speaker 4: Nikki Haley claims that people just need a choice. This
Speaker 4: USA Today pull from her own home state. Take a
Speaker 4: look at this if you're listening and can't see this
Speaker 4: on the screen. Donald Trump, according to this new USA
Speaker 4: Today poll, is up sixty three percent to Nikki Haley's
Speaker 4: thirty five percent in South Carolina, just absolutely getting trounced
Speaker 4: in her homes in her home state. They both have
Speaker 4: net favorable ratings according to the Suffolk University USA Today poll.
Speaker 4: That's actually kind of an interesting point from this. He's
Speaker 4: more popular though, so while both of them have a
Speaker 4: favorable rating among Republican primary voters. And this is this poll.
Speaker 4: The numbers we just showed are among very likely primary voters,
Speaker 4: which is different than how a lot of polls will
Speaker 4: find likely voters very likely is it could depart from
Speaker 4: the finals, you know, based on people who actually end
Speaker 4: up coming out but very likely to vote in the
Speaker 4: state's Republican primary. She's trailing two to one. Trump is
Speaker 4: at sixty four percent popularity. She's at forty seven percent
Speaker 4: popularity among primary voters, which is another really interesting point.
Speaker 4: So well, just about half of voters find her favorable
Speaker 4: Republican primary voters very likely Republican primary voters, He's at
Speaker 4: sixty four percent. She holds a wide lead according to
Speaker 4: USA Today like she did in other states. Among those
Speaker 4: quote who identify themselves as liberals or moderates, she's up
Speaker 4: fifty nine percent to thirty eight percent, and she has
Speaker 4: a narrow lead among those who are voting in the
Speaker 4: GOP primary for the first time. So probably a similar
Speaker 4: demo that would be a lead of fifty one to
Speaker 4: forty nine percent, surely within the margin of error. In
Speaker 4: this poll, she has her biggest advantage over Trump sixty
Speaker 4: three to thirty seven percent. Quote among those who say
Speaker 4: the most important issue is the future of democracy for
Speaker 4: that for them on Saturday, only thirteen percent of those
Speaker 4: surveys say democracy is their biggest concern, though ranked at
Speaker 4: top was immigration and border security that was at forty
Speaker 4: two percent. Some more on why Nikki Heely is actually
Speaker 4: running for president despite what she said about people desperately
Speaker 4: needing a choice. Let's put this sex element up on
Speaker 4: the screen. This is some more plans. This is from
Speaker 4: Steve Peoples of the Associated Press reported that she's Nicki
Speaker 4: Haley and her campaign are dropping more than five hundred
Speaker 4: thousand dollars on a new TV ad that is set
Speaker 4: to begin running in Michigan on Wednesday. So in Michigan.
Speaker 4: South Carolina is on Saturday. She's running ads in Michigan
Speaker 4: starting on Wednesday. Her post South Carolina travel schedule features
Speaker 4: ten high dollar fundraising events as part of seven day
Speaker 4: campaign swinging across Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, Virginia, Washington, d C,
Speaker 4: North Carolina, and Massachusetts. She said she is not leaving
Speaker 4: the primary even if she's blown out on Saturday. She
Speaker 4: vowed to stay in the fight, according to Peoples Against
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, at least until after Super Tuesday, if not longer. So, Crystal,
Speaker 4: I think that tells you everything you need to know
Speaker 4: about the Haley candidacy at this point, which is attempting
Speaker 4: to I think, let's say, help Nikki Haley's brand among
Speaker 4: the sort of never Trump elite media donor class who
Speaker 4: will now see her as their last best. Help maybe
Speaker 4: shower her and some money so that she can make
Speaker 4: a stand, get her numbers up on Super Tuesday. She's
Speaker 4: certainly not going to win South Carolina. She's not going
Speaker 4: to Even if she won South Carolina, she would not
Speaker 4: be able to win the Republican primary. Mathematically might give
Speaker 4: her some momentum going into Super Tuesday, but even then
Speaker 4: the polls would have to change dramatically for her to
Speaker 4: mathematically have any path to Republican nomination. So I'm curious
Speaker 4: if you agree with me, Krystel that at this point
Speaker 4: she's just kind of running a campaign for the elite media,
Speaker 4: kind of virtue signaling crowd.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's part of it. You know, early on,
Speaker 1: I had actually predicted that she may, excuse me, hang
Speaker 1: around in this race in spite of the fact that
Speaker 1: it's increasingly humiliating. I mean, to lose to Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: probably by a margin of two to one in your
Speaker 1: home state, even a place where you know you're still
Speaker 1: pretty popular and where you governed in a very conservative
Speaker 1: way like that is incredibly humiliating. But I thought she
Speaker 1: might hang around for two reasons. The one is the
Speaker 1: one you laid out, which is, you know, to secure
Speaker 1: her brand and potential like either corporate or media gigs
Speaker 1: moving forward. Or two, with the thought of, hey, he's
Speaker 1: got all these criminal cases hanging out there. Maybe something
Speaker 1: happens before the Republican nominating convention, and then I'm the
Speaker 1: one who's you know, they're still in the race and
Speaker 1: has you know, potentially picked up some delegates and I've
Speaker 1: got the inside track then to pick up the pieces
Speaker 1: if some black Swan event occurs and Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: no longer in the race and there's an opening for that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's why donors continue to give
Speaker 1: to her. I think that's a big part of it,
Speaker 1: just to have that sort of option open. Although I
Speaker 1: have to say, I'm not sure that really would work
Speaker 1: out even if you know, something crazy did happen and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump dropped out of the race, Like, it's not
Speaker 1: clear to me that she would be just by merit
Speaker 1: of the fact that she's still hanging out getting embarrassed
Speaker 1: and stayed after state that she would be the person
Speaker 1: that would be the go to if you know that
Speaker 1: eventuality was to come to pass. So I can't say
Speaker 1: I totally understand it at this point, which is why
Speaker 1: so many in the media were like, she must be
Speaker 1: dropping out, right, because this just doesn't really make sense anymore.
Speaker 1: But nope, not only is she not dropping out, she
Speaker 1: is proceeding on and spending money and doing fundraisers, which
Speaker 1: I think is kind of like the key part of
Speaker 1: her quote unquote campaign. At this point, I do want
Speaker 1: to say, I mean, I just think that the Nicky
Speaker 1: Hayley that she has become viewed as this sort of
Speaker 1: like liberal.
Speaker 3: Or moderate or whatever within the Republican primary.
Speaker 1: It just shows you how the whole of our politics,
Speaker 1: really on the Republican and the Democratic side, has just
Speaker 1: become defined by Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: And so even though on a lot.
Speaker 1: Of issues she's at least as conservative as Trump, perhaps
Speaker 1: more conservative than Trump, and governed in a very you know,
Speaker 1: traditional right wing kind of a way when she was
Speaker 1: governor of South Carolina, just the fact that she'll say
Speaker 1: anything even moderately critical of Trump makes her re as
Speaker 1: like this resistance lib and not just on the Republican side,
Speaker 1: you know, but also, uh, you know, that's why she
Speaker 1: would have this media career. And we've seen this trajectory
Speaker 1: a million times, from like the rehabbing of George W. Bush,
Speaker 1: Nicole Wallace having an MSNBC show and all of these things.
Speaker 1: Your position on Donald Trump is like the totality of
Speaker 1: how you end up getting defined and viewed in the
Speaker 1: political sphere at this point, which is one of the
Speaker 1: more uh, one of the things that I have found
Speaker 1: most distressing about the Trump era and been most frustrated
Speaker 1: within the Trump era because it just means any sort
Speaker 1: of like real policy considerations just don't even exist.
Speaker 3: It's just all about how do you feel about this
Speaker 3: one person.
Speaker 4: You forgot resistant resistance, lib Jump Bolton, Bill Crystal, who
Speaker 4: we can add to the list just stallwards of progressivism.
Speaker 4: At this point, you said something so interesting about how
Speaker 4: it's like obviously humiliating for Nikki Haley with like the
Speaker 4: vast majority of the country. And I think there's a
Speaker 4: I mean, getting trounce in your home state, which you
Speaker 4: really staked out as an important part of your campaign,
Speaker 4: and then you know, apparently being down by thirty points
Speaker 4: heading into election week. What's interesting about that is Nikki
Speaker 4: Haley doesn't care about the demographic that is going to
Speaker 4: find this embarrassing. She cares, to your point, Crystal, about
Speaker 4: establishing herself as the air apparent, the kind of Republican
Speaker 4: establishments air apparent to Donald Trump. And you can do
Speaker 4: that by continuing to like make this brave stand with donors,
Speaker 4: so the donor class and people in the media, the
Speaker 4: Morning Joe sect. And the last point I want to
Speaker 4: make Crystals that that is so true. She did govern
Speaker 4: and Jacobin has actually had some really good coverage Branko
Speaker 4: over there has had some good coverage of Nikki Haley's
Speaker 4: policy record. She did really govern as a traditional conservative,
Speaker 4: and by that I mean a crony capitalist who was
Speaker 4: showering boeing in the tax breaks and subsidies, and then,
Speaker 4: obviously everyone knows from your guys's excellent coverage, jumped on
Speaker 4: over to their board. That's as traditional conservative as it gets.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Crystal, Yeah, well, it's not like Trump doesn't do
Speaker 1: that same crap.
Speaker 3: You know they'll do it.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, So it's not like she's different from him
Speaker 1: on that issue. Obviously, his he passed a very traditional
Speaker 1: tax cut for corporations and rich people, authored effectively by
Speaker 1: like Paul Ryan, as his major act in office.
Speaker 3: So you know.
Speaker 1: The thing with Nikki, though at this point that still
Speaker 1: doesn't even really make sense to me, is I don't
Speaker 1: even think the Morning Joke people really like her either,
Speaker 1: because she was part of the Trump administration. I mean,
Speaker 1: she was licking those guy's boots up until three minutes
Speaker 1: ago and still is very very tempered in her criticism
Speaker 1: of him.
Speaker 3: And it's not like she went full.
Speaker 1: Chris Christie and even with Chris Christie because he hung
Speaker 1: with Trump for so long, even among the resistance lives,
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of skepticism of him. So even
Speaker 1: in a lane of like let me puss myself or
Speaker 1: my resistance lib media gig post campaign, like, I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure that she's even accomplishing that.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: The best I can figure is the donors want are in,
Speaker 1: and she's willing to take the humiliation because they're her
Speaker 1: meal ticket after this embarrassing campaign is over, and they
Speaker 1: just want her there as like a potential option in
Speaker 1: case in the one percent chance that something crazy happens,
Speaker 1: and maybe that gives her an inside lane. Maybe it doesn't,
Speaker 1: but at least they've got like an option on the table.
Speaker 1: That's the best that I can do to make sense
Speaker 1: of what she's doing at this point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's trying to impress them and people in the
Speaker 4: in the suburbs so that she can point and say
Speaker 4: that she's a viable candidate in the post Trump Republican Party.
Speaker 4: It may be that she's more palatable than a lot
Speaker 4: of people like a Doug Mastriano in the Republican Party,
Speaker 4: but she's looking for ways to appointed that. But of course,
Speaker 4: when we saw in Iowa. She she even got trounced
Speaker 4: in the suburbs. She even got trounced in areas that
Speaker 4: like she got trannscedent areas that were less affluent and
Speaker 4: more affluent. She won one college town county. So that
Speaker 4: argument for Nikki Haley, I'm curious if she becomes more
Speaker 4: Christy esque after the South Carolina primary, and if you know,
Speaker 4: in order to stanch some of the bleeding in South Carolina,
Speaker 4: She's continued to be a little bit tempered in her
Speaker 4: criticism of Trump, and then after the South Carolina primary,
Speaker 4: it s takes out a position that's more similar to
Speaker 4: Chris Christie. I think that would make sense because she
Speaker 4: knows she's not gonna win any of these races. So
Speaker 4: we'll see Crystal about that. More court news yesterday, in
Speaker 4: this fascinating Virginia case, Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax,
Speaker 4: that the Supreme Court decided not to take up in
Speaker 4: a big decision yesterday that actually the decision not to
Speaker 4: take up this case involved descents. Alito and Thomas wrote
Speaker 4: a descent on the Court's decision simply not to take
Speaker 4: up the case. Let's put this first tear sheet on
Speaker 4: the screen. This is from the New York Times, the
Speaker 4: headline Supreme Court won't hear new case on race and
Speaker 4: school admissions. The decision, along with an order this month
Speaker 4: declining to block West Points admissions program, suggests that most
Speaker 4: justices are not eager to immediately explore the limits of
Speaker 4: its ruling from June. We can move on, actually, and
Speaker 4: put this next tweet up on the screen. This is
Speaker 4: from Ed Whalen, who's someone fairly big and conservative legal circles,
Speaker 4: and he noted that this reflected from his position timidity
Speaker 4: among the conservative court justices in taking up certain cases,
Speaker 4: so deciding which cases to make determinations on and two
Speaker 4: weigh that might seem kind of crazy to people on
Speaker 4: the left who would say, well, this court took up Row,
Speaker 4: it took up the Dobbs case, and then made a
Speaker 4: sweeping judgment on Row, which didn't have to be the
Speaker 4: case in Dobbs didn't have to completely overturn Roe, and
Speaker 4: it did. So there's a lot going on here. Again,
Speaker 4: this is a case out of Virginia. I just want
Speaker 4: to talk a little bit about it. So they ruled
Speaker 4: back in June on students for fair admissions. Via Harvard
Speaker 4: and you know there's a petition or there's a coalition
Speaker 4: it's called the Coalition for TJ that's based out in Virginia,
Speaker 4: who said, because they didn't take up this Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 4: High School case, it might mean little if schools could
Speaker 4: accomplish the same discriminatory result through race neutral proxies. And
Speaker 4: that is an interesting segue into the argument about the
Speaker 4: TJ policies, which, just to get into a little bit,
Speaker 4: the school says are both race neutral and race blind.
Speaker 4: Their new policy was not designed to produce and did
Speaker 4: not effect produce a student population that approximates the racial
Speaker 4: demographics of Fairfax County or any other predetermined racial balance.
Speaker 4: The Times notes after the changes went into effect, So
Speaker 4: this is, again, according to critics, proxies instead of directly
Speaker 4: using race, using factors that are sort of the wink wink,
Speaker 4: you know, determination, the wink wink proxies for race in
Speaker 4: order to, according to critics of the policies, create the
Speaker 4: same racial outcomes. So the Times notes, after the changes
Speaker 4: went into affection twenty twenty one, the percentage of Asian
Speaker 4: American students offered admission dropped to fifty four percent from
Speaker 4: seventy three percent, The percentage of black students grew to
Speaker 4: eight percent from no more than two percent, the percentage
Speaker 4: of Hispanic students grew to eleven percent from three percent,
Speaker 4: and the percentage of white students grew to twenty two
Speaker 4: percent from eighteen percent. In the Fairfax County school System
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty, about thirty seven percent of students were white,
Speaker 4: twenty seven percent with their Hispanic, twenty percent were Asian,
Speaker 4: and ten percent were black. Alito's descent said. What the
Speaker 4: Fourth Circuit majority held in essence is that intentional racial
Speaker 4: discrimination is constitutional so long as it is not too severe.
Speaker 4: This reasoning is indefensible and it cries out for correction.
Speaker 4: Even though the new policy bore quote more heavily on
Speaker 4: Asian American applicants, the panel majority held that there were
Speaker 4: no there was no disparate impact because they were still
Speaker 4: over represented in the TJ student body. That is clearly
Speaker 4: a mistaken understanding of what it means for a law
Speaker 4: or policy to have a disparate effect on the members
Speaker 4: of a particular racial and ethnic group. He sounds a
Speaker 4: little bit there like critics from the left actually of
Speaker 4: a lot of policies that end up having a disparate
Speaker 4: outcome even if they have equal opportunity. Sort of policies that,
Speaker 4: even if they're sort of staked on equal opportunity legally,
Speaker 4: will have a disparate impact in the outcome. Crystal, what
Speaker 4: did you make of this decision?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, just to give a little bit more background.
Speaker 1: As a Native Virginians attended University of Virginia, I'm very
Speaker 1: familiar with Thomas Jefferson High School, or TJ as it
Speaker 1: is effectively known and affectionately known.
Speaker 3: It is one of, if not.
Speaker 1: The top public high school in the entire country. Is
Speaker 1: famously very selective. It takes students from Fairfax County, Alexander, Arlington,
Speaker 1: sort of like the northern Virginia, you know, immediate suburbs,
Speaker 1: and so it is has been very highly selective. And
Speaker 1: the previous criteria for admitutes was basically, I mean, there
Speaker 1: were a number of factors, but it was basically an
Speaker 1: exam process.
Speaker 3: And there were few.
Speaker 1: Middle schools in the region that became known as like
Speaker 1: feeder schools for TJ.
Speaker 3: And so if you had.
Speaker 1: The money to be able to, you know, live and
Speaker 1: move into those districts where you could attend those middle schools,
Speaker 1: you had a huge leg up. So what they decided
Speaker 1: to do, and this came in the wake of George
Speaker 1: Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protest, which is part
Speaker 1: of what raised suspicions that this had more to do
Speaker 1: with racial rebalancing and potential affirmative action than with you know,
Speaker 1: this sort of like race blind approach that they are claiming.
Speaker 1: But what they decided to do is rather than relying
Speaker 1: on this exam process, which left a lot of students,
Speaker 1: there were I think eight middle schools in the region
Speaker 1: that wouldn't send any students, none of their kids would
Speaker 1: get admitted to TJ, they decided to adopt something that's
Speaker 1: actually very similar to what Texas does with regard to
Speaker 1: their public university system. They said, we're going to look
Speaker 1: at taking the top students from every middle school and
Speaker 1: when we're doing our evaluations, because it's not just your GPA,
Speaker 1: there are a couple other factors that are considered, so
Speaker 1: there's still is an evaluation process. We are not going
Speaker 1: to know your name, we're not going to know your race,
Speaker 1: we're not going to know your gender, so that we
Speaker 1: can really try to be sure that we're not being
Speaker 1: discriminatory in any manner. So for me looking at this
Speaker 1: as someone who doesn't support racial affirmative action, who is
Speaker 1: actually glad you know that the Supreme Court ruled the
Speaker 1: way that it did, this is much closer to almost
Speaker 1: like class based affirmative action. That reflects that, you know,
Speaker 1: kids who grow up with fewer means in a tougher
Speaker 1: neighborhood have extraordinary challenges to overcome, and so if they
Speaker 1: are the top students in that neighborhood, they are still
Speaker 1: extraordinary and deserving of entrance here. To me, if the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court had come in and struck down this admissions
Speaker 1: process just because it's somewhat changed the you know, racial
Speaker 1: demographics being admitted to the school, that would effectively be saying, well,
Speaker 1: you can't change your admissions policy ever, no matter what
Speaker 1: if it changes the current racial quota whatsoever. So in
Speaker 1: a way, it would make it once again like racially obsessed,
Speaker 1: like we have to stick to this current but you
Speaker 1: know racial quotient that we have right now in the school,
Speaker 1: and you can't change the admission process whatsoever if it
Speaker 1: is going to change that at all. So I think
Speaker 1: it made a lot of sense. I support the fact
Speaker 1: that they did not decide to intervene here, and that
Speaker 1: this admissions process, which again doesn't even allow them to
Speaker 1: know the race of the kids that they are considering
Speaker 1: for admittance, and will likely lead to more broad demographic
Speaker 1: not just racially, but also in terms of class representation.
Speaker 1: I fully support that, And just to reiterate one thing
Speaker 1: Emily that I had just said. In Texas with regards
Speaker 1: to their public university system, they admit the top I
Speaker 1: believe it is ten percent of Texas high schoolers throughout
Speaker 1: the whole state for a very similar reason to try
Speaker 1: to have class diversity and other forms of diversity, as
Speaker 1: well as a reflection of the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: depending on the zip code you're in, we wish that
Speaker 1: everything was equal, but we know that it's not, and
Speaker 1: if you're coming up through in a certain neighborhood, through
Speaker 1: a certain school system, you may have additional odds and
Speaker 1: different additional challenges to overcome. So they want to have
Speaker 1: the total demographic and class class dynamics reflected in Texas
Speaker 1: in their public universities, and I think they're doing a
Speaker 1: similar thing here with TJ.
Speaker 4: The TJ story has been in credit because you have
Speaker 4: a lot of minority parents who have rallied and in
Speaker 4: some ways, you know, become affiliated with conservative groups despite
Speaker 4: not having a lot of conservative leanings over their frustrations
Speaker 4: with some of these initial policies that we've seen that
Speaker 4: happen with affirmative action cases a lot. The continue issue
Speaker 4: that I imagine people like Ed Whalen are talking about
Speaker 4: is a lot of universities hopefully, hopefully there's some real
Speaker 4: class diversity that comes through these policies. When I've looked
Speaker 4: at how some universities have used these proxy policies, it
Speaker 4: seems like they're still trying to do the same thing
Speaker 4: with race. Like some of their outcomes look really suspect
Speaker 4: rather than like they're using them for the good. But
Speaker 4: I actually think in paper, I agree with you. On paper, Crystal,
Speaker 4: I agree with you these policies should allow for more
Speaker 4: class diversity, and hopefully that's the case. It doesn't bother
Speaker 4: me that the Supreme Court decided to stay out of
Speaker 4: this one, but I think some of the conservative critics
Speaker 4: are right that deciding to stay out of this one
Speaker 4: will allow you know, diversities to continue making policies like
Speaker 4: this that could still have similar ramifications to what happened
Speaker 4: in students for the students for fair missions case. But
Speaker 4: hopefully those policies actually work out better. But you know,
Speaker 4: it's just depending on how each school determines they should
Speaker 4: be implemented.
Speaker 1: Let me just say one more thing about this, which
Speaker 1: is that I do really empathize with the I mean,
Speaker 1: it's mostly Asian parents who are pushing back against this,
Speaker 1: who feel like Asian kids are being discriminated against that
Speaker 1: the sentiment was there's you know, it's seventy three percent
Speaker 1: of Asians, you're being admitted to this school, and it
Speaker 1: needs to be more represented.
Speaker 3: Like if you are that parent who you.
Speaker 1: Know scrimped and saved and moved into that neighborhood to
Speaker 1: get your kid in that feeder middle school and do
Speaker 1: all the test prep, and like you've been lining this
Speaker 1: up for years and you've been focused on it, and
Speaker 1: now they're changing the rules of the game.
Speaker 3: I do deeply like that is a lot. I do
Speaker 3: deeply empathize.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to press like I'm callous to
Speaker 1: the fact that you know you had a plan, you
Speaker 1: may have sacrificed to try to get your kid into
Speaker 1: this position, and now you feel like they're being put
Speaker 1: at a disadvantage, whereas if they had gone to, you know,
Speaker 1: a different middle school in a less expensive area, now
Speaker 1: they'd be on kind of the inside track to get
Speaker 1: into teaching. I understand that that is experienced and is
Speaker 1: potentially a genuine loss. However, I do think that just
Speaker 1: on the face, you know, the fact that the public
Speaker 1: school board decided we're going to change our admissions policy
Speaker 1: in this way, that it's important to have the you know,
Speaker 1: class and demographic and other demographic characteristics more fully represented,
Speaker 1: and they're doing it in a way that is race blind.
Speaker 1: I do think that that's a superior outcome in the
Speaker 1: long term, even as I understand that for many of
Speaker 1: these parents this is being experienced as a real loss
Speaker 1: and dramatically unfair to them in the short term. And
Speaker 1: the last thing I'll say about that is, you know,
Speaker 1: it is a problem in and of itself to have
Speaker 1: a few middle schools in the county and in the
Speaker 1: region as like the top middle schools that all of
Speaker 1: the you know, wealthy families want to go to with
Speaker 1: the top students want to go to, and that creates
Speaker 1: a self fulfilling inequality amongst the schools in the whole district.
Speaker 1: So I also think over the long term this will
Speaker 1: likely bring up the level of all of the middle
Speaker 1: schools in the district as you have more sort of
Speaker 1: broad sorting across the county. And you know that has
Speaker 1: been shown studies have shown that having more racial and
Speaker 1: class in particular of a mix in schools improves the
Speaker 1: quality of those schools for everyone. So I also think
Speaker 1: that that will likely be an outcome of this policy
Speaker 1: as well. So in that way, I see it as
Speaker 1: an improvement. And I'm glad again that the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: did not intervene here and allow them to make this change.
Speaker 4: That is such an important broader point. And the last
Speaker 4: thing that I'll say is I also I think the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court decision last Yune probably did have a chilling
Speaker 4: effect on houseos are implementing race blind policies. So hopefully
Speaker 4: that's some good news for the sake of fairness and
Speaker 4: justice in this case as well.
Speaker 1: So some big news yesterday at the UN with regards
Speaker 1: to Israel. Let's put this up on the screen the
Speaker 1: US once again, this is the third time now blocking
Speaker 1: a ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council. By the way,
Speaker 1: side note, The framing of this Guardian headline is very strange.
Speaker 1: They say US veto's Arab backed UN resolution demanding ceasfire
Speaker 1: in Gaza. Of course, the reality is that everyone in
Speaker 1: the Security Council voted for this resolution save for the
Speaker 1: US and the UK, which abstained. So I don't know
Speaker 1: why they described this as quote unquote Erab backed, but anyway.
Speaker 3: We'll put that to the side.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, this was the third time the US
Speaker 1: has blocked a ceasefire resolution. We were the loan vote
Speaker 1: against this resolution that was put forward by Algeria. We
Speaker 1: said that this could get in the way of negotiating
Speaker 1: a hostage and ceasefire deal. I don't really understand why
Speaker 1: it would get in the way of that, but that
Speaker 1: is what they are claiming they are putting forward. And
Speaker 1: Emily we talked about this some yesterday as well. They
Speaker 1: are apparently drafting a separate, weaker resolution that the US
Speaker 1: intends to actually vote for and try to push through
Speaker 1: the UN Security Council. Doctor Tree T Parsi looked at
Speaker 1: that draft resolution and raised a few red flags about it.
Speaker 1: I'll just read from a little bit of a tweet
Speaker 1: bread that he put out he said he looked at
Speaker 1: the draft resolution on Gaza.
Speaker 3: Few things stand out.
Speaker 1: The language on Rafa is strong for Biden's standards and
Speaker 1: should be welcomed. That was saying that they should not
Speaker 1: invade Rafa at this point under current circumstances. But he
Speaker 1: says the language on a ceasefire is borderline insulting.
Speaker 3: The US draft does not.
Speaker 1: Demand a ceasefire, but instead underscores it's support for a
Speaker 1: temporary cease fire. Moreover, it does not require one immediately,
Speaker 1: but rather quote as soon as practicable. This, he goes
Speaker 1: on to say, is a comparatively unusual formulation. He says
Speaker 1: he hasn't found that formulation in any other UN Security
Speaker 1: Council resolution on ceasefires. As a result, Biden seems to
Speaker 1: aim to delay a ceasefire while pretending to secure one.
Speaker 1: That is, he says, beyond shameful despite the relatively strong
Speaker 1: language on Rafa and Emily, I mean, I'm curious your
Speaker 1: reaction to this not as surprise that the US is
Speaker 1: once again blocking a ceasefire, even as you know we've
Speaker 1: heard increasing leaks behind the scenes and expressions of concern
Speaker 1: about the potential ground invasion of Rafa. You know, in
Speaker 1: escalating concerns of the direction of the net Yahoo government,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But you know, actions speak louder than words,
Speaker 1: and here we are once again saying, listen, we are
Speaker 1: going to go against the entire rest of the world
Speaker 1: and say no, we do not actually want a ceasefire,
Speaker 1: even as the you know, horrific slaughter and brutal humanitarian
Speaker 1: conditions which are already leading to children literally starving to death,
Speaker 1: even as all of those things persist and continue.
Speaker 4: It's not a good split screen for the Biden administration,
Speaker 4: that is for sure, and supporters of the Biden Administration's
Speaker 4: policy on this, that's for sure. And I think it
Speaker 4: just speaks to, as you were saying, the completely muddled
Speaker 4: messaging in an election year from the Biden administration, which
Speaker 4: really wants to have its cake and eat it too,
Speaker 4: wants to have its cake being you know, voters, certainly
Speaker 4: in college towns in Michigan and Dearborn, think that Joe
Speaker 4: Biden is genuinely trying his best to push beibing at
Speaker 4: Yahoo away from some of his aims and some of
Speaker 4: you know, his allies aims. Obviously, he has a really
Speaker 4: fragile coalition in his own government to deal with, and
Speaker 4: so they want, you know, voters to believe that Joe
Speaker 4: Biden is out there doing his darnedest to push back.
Speaker 4: And that's where all the leagues come from. As you
Speaker 4: guys have covered very well. And I think this is
Speaker 4: just you know, you can take the split screen exactly
Speaker 4: as it is. It's the split screen of the Biden
Speaker 4: administration itself that you know doesn't have the courage to
Speaker 4: I don't even know what it actually believes. I mean,
Speaker 4: we know Joe Biden is a long term two state
Speaker 4: solution guy and Netan Yahoo is a long term one
Speaker 4: state solution guy. But what Joe Biden himself actually believes
Speaker 4: at this point, you know, if if he has the
Speaker 4: capacity to believe anything about this current situation, it's just
Speaker 4: it's up in the air, and he seems to in
Speaker 4: the in the interim of anything happened, just by default
Speaker 4: side with and maybe that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 4: It's it's you know, with Israel by default in public
Speaker 4: and then sort of you know, leaking private things. We
Speaker 4: don't actually know what's been said in private. We know
Speaker 4: what's been leaked about what's been sent in private, but
Speaker 4: it's completely muddled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's absolute, you know, unconditional, consistent support. Whatever Israel wants,
Speaker 1: Israel ultimately gets, and you know, he's They felt pressured
Speaker 1: because of the horror that has become completely undeniable and
Speaker 1: really can't be justified in any circumstance. I mean, every
Speaker 1: day the State Department grules are asked to justify or
Speaker 1: respond to some new atrocity that the entire world witnessed,
Speaker 1: and so they found it increasingly untenable to not at
Speaker 1: least express some sort of squeamishness around what's going on.
Speaker 1: That's how you end up with the you know, weak
Speaker 1: sanctions against four violent settlers.
Speaker 3: That's how you end up with this.
Speaker 1: You know, now attempt to weaken the resolution and at
Speaker 1: least signal like, oh, well there's something we can get behind,
Speaker 1: and oh, we're really just concerned about this current hostage
Speaker 1: negotiation that's going on. We don't want to blow that up,
Speaker 1: which again, no one ever explains how actually passing Algeria's
Speaker 1: resolution would undermine those negotiations.
Speaker 3: They're just we're just supposed to take that on face value.
Speaker 1: But you know, there was a pretty remarkable exchange at
Speaker 1: the State Department yesterday that really put into relief the
Speaker 1: difference in the way that the US respond to atrocities
Speaker 1: committed against Israelis versus atrocities committed against Palestinians, and the
Speaker 1: level of proof that is required to accept the claims
Speaker 1: of those various atrocities. This has to do with allegations
Speaker 1: of Israeli's committing sexual assault against Palestinians. Let's take a
Speaker 1: listen to this exchange at the State Department where they
Speaker 1: were pressed on the different ways that they're handling those situations.
Speaker 3: Take a listen.
Speaker 6: The UN experts said that Palestinian women and girls in
Speaker 6: detention have been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assaults
Speaker 6: by male Israeli Army officers. At least two of them
Speaker 6: were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence. Have you
Speaker 6: seen those allegations so you have any reaction.
Speaker 7: I have seen the allegations. I cannot independently confirm the reports.
Speaker 7: I will say that we have been clear that civilians
Speaker 7: and detained individuals must be treated humanly and in accordance
Speaker 7: with international humanitarian law. We strongly urge Israel to thoroughly
Speaker 7: and transparently investigate credible allegations and sure any accountability for
Speaker 7: abuses and violations.
Speaker 8: When you said you had no independent confirmation of what
Speaker 8: the UN experts found.
Speaker 9: I mean the underlying the idea.
Speaker 8: But did you ever get did you ever have confirmation
Speaker 8: of what Amas allegedly did to Israelis who were women?
Speaker 8: Girls who were uh?
Speaker 7: There are there are Israeli medical experts who have testified
Speaker 7: to that, and that is something we can we consider credible.
Speaker 8: Yes, so you have you consider those instances to be confirmed,
Speaker 8: but not what.
Speaker 7: We have seen this report, and we have called for
Speaker 7: an investigation to confirm whether the allegations are true or not.
Speaker 8: I get it.
Speaker 2: And who?
Speaker 8: And if you're willing to take a word of Israeli
Speaker 8: and I'm not saying you shouldn't, but if you're willing
Speaker 8: to take the word of Israeli medical experts on what
Speaker 8: happened to the people who were abducted on October seventh,
Speaker 8: whose word are you willing to take? If not the UN?
Speaker 7: Who A full, independent, credible investigation we are calling for
Speaker 7: that in a no, of course, would not have to
Speaker 7: be in Israelian A credible medical expert, a credible a
Speaker 7: credible I don't want to. I don't want to prescribe
Speaker 7: who it would be a credible metal medical expert that
Speaker 7: can testify to it would be something we would.
Speaker 1: Look at, of course, So they really kind of have
Speaker 1: him dead to rights their emily because on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you have allegations leveled by the Israelis that you know,
Speaker 1: the Biden administration immediately took at their word, didn't require
Speaker 1: further independent investigation, have felt very comfortable, you know, condemning that,
Speaker 1: calling that out from the podium, et cetera.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, when you have the UN, which.
Speaker 1: Is I think kind of the definition of an independent body,
Speaker 1: saying putting forth claims of sexual assault against Palestinians, then
Speaker 1: they're calling on the Israelis to do an investigation and
Speaker 1: they can't say whether this really happen, and they need
Speaker 1: further proof in order to you know, really condemn it
Speaker 1: or say anything about it. I mean, if you're going
Speaker 1: to judge between the UN and the Israel, and Israel
Speaker 1: which is a less directly interested and more independent body,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt you would take the word of the
Speaker 1: UN and the investigation that you know, they have the
Speaker 1: proof that they have already seen over the word of
Speaker 1: the Israelis in this matter, so he has really no
Speaker 1: way to wig a lown of this. It ends up
Speaker 1: being incredibly awkward and just once again puts their extraordinary
Speaker 1: hypocrisy on display, which is something that's been a consistent
Speaker 1: theme since the beginning of this conflict, you know, even
Speaker 1: you know previously we've talked a lot about how when
Speaker 1: it was Russia doing war crimes, everyone knew what the
Speaker 1: definition of what a war crime was, everyone knew what
Speaker 1: the definition of genocide was. They had no problem saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this is a war crime, this is an atrocity, this
Speaker 1: is outrageous. Suddenly, when it's Israel it's side and see
Speaker 1: those reports, I call for an investigation.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I'll get back to you.
Speaker 1: And the blatant hypocrisy just could not be more clear
Speaker 1: for our own public or the world to behold.
Speaker 4: So yeah, and that was obviously Matt Lee from the
Speaker 4: Associated Press, who I think myself and many others enjoy
Speaker 4: when he presses people to push their logic to its
Speaker 4: ultimate conclusion. And he absolutely had them. There was no
Speaker 4: wiggle room there, and he didn't give any wiggle room
Speaker 4: whatsoever for the administration to come out of that one.
Speaker 4: And I think it's another sort of thirty thousand foot view.
Speaker 4: And obviously, you know myself and you and Ryan and Sager,
Speaker 4: we all have different perspectives on this particular conflict. But
Speaker 4: it's a reflection on propaganda too. I think Crystal that
Speaker 4: it can sometimes be so powerful, and that long New
Speaker 4: York Time story on sexual assault on October seventh, which
Speaker 4: I think has you know, I don't think that disqualifies.
Speaker 4: As Ryan has said, you know that the likelihood that
Speaker 4: there was no sexual assault on October seventh is very minimal.
Speaker 4: I think that's clear. But when you have people from
Speaker 4: the family that were interviewed by New York Times pushing
Speaker 4: back on what was ultimately reported in the New York Times,
Speaker 4: I think it does speak to how easily we can
Speaker 4: all kind of be whipped into a frenzy by wartime propaganda.
Speaker 4: And great for the Associated Press and other journalists who
Speaker 4: are pushing the administration to transparently walk through what they're
Speaker 4: talking about. When they, you know, push some of these claims,
Speaker 4: and when they don't, when they push back on some others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this was a key part of the early
Speaker 1: days post October seventh. You know, the allegation which has
Speaker 1: not been proven that hamas not only that there was
Speaker 1: you know, some instances of sexual assault, which I agree
Speaker 1: with Ron I think, you know, I would be very
Speaker 1: shocked if there weren't, but that it was actively systematically
Speaker 1: used as a weapon of war. That was the allegation
Speaker 1: post October seventh, and the proof has not emerged, has
Speaker 1: not been put before the public to justify that sweeping
Speaker 1: allegation that along with other stories that we know for
Speaker 1: a fact were false, the beheaded forty beheaded babies and
Speaker 1: you know, other pregnant woman having her feetus cut out
Speaker 1: of her things that the Israeli media was able to
Speaker 1: fully debunk. These were used to try to justify the
Speaker 1: ferociousness and the brutality of the Israeli response. So that's
Speaker 1: why it was important to even though it felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously October seventh was horrific, there were genuine atrocities.
Speaker 1: You know, those atrocities were enough for people to understand
Speaker 1: the horror of that day. But there was a reason
Speaker 1: why those particular stories, you know, many of which now
Speaker 1: were proven to be complete fabrications, were pushed to the public,
Speaker 1: and it was to try to justify what is now
Speaker 1: clearly a response that is wholly unjustified in terms of
Speaker 1: the collective punishment of the civilian population. Speaking of that,
Speaker 1: you know, CNN's Jeremy diamond I have to say, has
Speaker 1: done a number of extraordinary reports at this point. We
Speaker 1: covered and I think you guys did as well, some
Speaker 1: of his reporting on the cemeteries that were desecrated. You know,
Speaker 1: I think sixteen different cemeteries in Gaza that were desecrated
Speaker 1: by the IDF. He has another report just to remind
Speaker 1: you of what we are not only providing diplomatic cover
Speaker 1: for at the UN, what we are enabling and supporting
Speaker 1: with our weapons shipments. There was a strike that had
Speaker 1: recently had a tremendous horrific toll on children, largely. Let's
Speaker 1: take a look at that report from Jeremy Diamonds at CNN.
Speaker 10: One after another after another after another. The victims of
Speaker 10: the latest Israeli airstrike flood into this hospital in central Gaza.
Speaker 10: They're mostly children, some of them still clinging to life,
Speaker 10: others bloodied and limp in the ruins of the Albaraka
Speaker 10: family home, the target of Sunday's airstrike. The desperate search
Speaker 10: for survivors is underway. As one man dives into the rubble,
Speaker 10: another shouts, get out of there, you'll die down there.
Speaker 11: We could only pull two alive from under the rubble,
Speaker 11: and the wrists are all missing. We don't see safety
Speaker 11: in a mosque, or in an unerous school, or in
Speaker 11: a hospital. The word safety is not something that exists anymore.
Speaker 11: They evacuated us from place to place, claiming it's safe.
Speaker 11: There is nowhere safe.
Speaker 10: Shouts praising God rise as a girl is pulled from
Speaker 10: the rubble, but her body is lifeless, added to the
Speaker 10: list of more than twelve thousand children killed in Gaza
Speaker 10: Bystanders try and cover her body, but the man carrying
Speaker 10: her throws the blanket off.
Speaker 3: And you heard that, one man saying.
Speaker 1: You know, they tell us to move and move, But
Speaker 1: the reality is that there is nowhere safe. That has certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, never been more clear than right now, Emily.
Speaker 1: Is they're threatening this, you know, very rapidly approaching deadline
Speaker 1: for a full invasion of Rafo, where one point three
Speaker 1: million Palestinians are clustered in already imporrent conditions, and where
Speaker 1: many have already lost their lives from, in particular the
Speaker 1: bombing that was used as what they described as a
Speaker 1: distraction in order to be able to secure the release
Speaker 1: of two hostages and some over sixty plus Palestinians killed
Speaker 1: in that quote unquote distraction.
Speaker 3: But you know, this is the reality.
Speaker 1: If you're blocking a ceasefire resolution at the UN, to facto,
Speaker 1: this is what you are supporting. And of course we're
Speaker 1: going beyond that, not just providing diplomatic cover at the UN,
Speaker 1: but also shipping the weapons that are being used to
Speaker 1: kill the defenseless children. At the same time, in terms
Speaker 1: of Israel accomplishing their so called objectives of eliminating Hamas,
Speaker 1: they have not been successful. There is now a report
Speaker 1: that the Israelis are denying. By the way, but I
Speaker 1: did want to put this up on the screen so
Speaker 1: you can take it for what it's worth. But there
Speaker 1: was a report that Israel fears that the Hamas chief
Speaker 1: Sinwar had actually escaped to Egypt. There was an Arabic
Speaker 1: media report suggesting Sinwaar took hostages when fleeing the Gossas
Speaker 1: trip for Egypt via a tunnel. No idea whether this
Speaker 1: is accurate or not, but whether or not it is Emily,
Speaker 1: the reality is they've been wildly unsuccessful at securing the
Speaker 1: safe release of their hostages. In fact, there's just a
Speaker 1: new report that it's been confirmed that at least ten
Speaker 1: of the hostages were killed by Israelis directly, and the
Speaker 1: suspicion is that there were actually many wars. The Israelis
Speaker 1: believe somewhere between thirty and fifty of the hostages have
Speaker 1: died during this time period, and it not be surprising
Speaker 1: if some, if not all of them were killed in
Speaker 1: the you know, in the aggressive Israeli response here. So
Speaker 1: they haven't been successful at securing release of the hostages
Speaker 1: outside of a negotiated seaspyer context. They've not been successful
Speaker 1: at destroying the tunnel network, they have not been successful
Speaker 1: at destroying hamas or capturing their primary leaders. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of what are the alleged goals
Speaker 1: of the operation, they have failed. Their economy is in shambles,
Speaker 1: they're increasingly heading towards absolute pariah status, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's become quite clear to the world that the real
Speaker 1: goal here is ethnic cleansing and complete annihilation of the
Speaker 1: Palestinian civilian infrastructure of the Gaza.
Speaker 4: Strup Well, and I think there's a real possibility this
Speaker 4: also leaves the people of Israel in more danger in
Speaker 4: the long run. And I think it's it's very unclear,
Speaker 4: it has been. You know, we have Joe Biden again,
Speaker 4: we just mentioned this, Joe Biden and dedicated two state solution.
Speaker 4: Man has been committed to that position for decades and
Speaker 4: is very proud of it, funding a war and providing
Speaker 4: equipment for a war that it's chief prosecutor Bbing at
Speaker 4: Yahoo is committed to his end being a one state solution.
Speaker 4: And when you have a situation like that, I mean
Speaker 4: it's just of course the outcomes are going to be
Speaker 4: as muddled as they are with Hamas moving into northern
Speaker 4: Gaza because Israel is not providing civilian infrastructure and the
Speaker 4: legitimate challenges of what to do with unra an AID
Speaker 4: when you're in a situation like this because of a
Speaker 4: ground invasion and before that large aerial bombings and you
Speaker 4: have to there is no civilian infrastructure left over, and
Speaker 4: the only place that a civilian infrastructure could possibly come
Speaker 4: from is the terrorist group that attacked you, and there's
Speaker 4: no sort of will to provide it, there's no ability
Speaker 4: to provide it. It's entirely possible. Again Hamas moving back
Speaker 4: into northern Gaza already, it's entirely possible that this outcome
Speaker 4: ends up not being in literally anyone's interest, let alone.
Speaker 4: And I said this a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 4: I think people misinterpreted what I meant by this. I
Speaker 4: mean the the tragedy of Israel even claiming that they
Speaker 4: were going to prosecute a war that involved massivilian casualties
Speaker 4: and mass destruction that solved the problem, and then clearly
Speaker 4: that not even solving the problem. That is just incredibly
Speaker 4: incredibly sad in and of itself, because even you know,
Speaker 4: by the sort of if you put stock in the
Speaker 4: kind of good faith position, if you take that position
Speaker 4: as a good faith one and you take it seriously,
Speaker 4: not even that having the outcome that allegedly it was
Speaker 4: supposed to have, that's incredibly tragic because it means that
Speaker 4: all of it was I mean in vain. In vain,
Speaker 4: there's no there's no increased enhanced safety, there's nothing. And
Speaker 4: that's just if you take that position in good faith,
Speaker 4: which I'm not saying that I do, because obviously that's
Speaker 4: not true. Obviously there were aims that were broader than
Speaker 4: just solving this individual conflict or responding proportionately to what
Speaker 4: happened on October seventh. Obviously there are broader aims to that.
Speaker 4: And if it turns out that it's killed tens of
Speaker 4: thousands of people and left everybody less safe in the end,
Speaker 4: and that looks like exactly where it's heading, that's an
Speaker 4: incredible tragedy. And it's happening not in slow motion and
Speaker 4: fast motion every single day.
Speaker 1: I just saw a pull this morning and believe the
Speaker 1: number was two thirds of Israelis don't believe that the
Speaker 1: goal of eradicating Hamas is possible, that they're not likely
Speaker 1: to see that. I mean, the US administration acknowledged there
Speaker 1: is no military solution to Hamas, which of course raises
Speaker 1: the question which I think anyone with eyes and years
Speaker 1: at this point can easily answer, what are we actually
Speaker 1: doing here?
Speaker 3: What are we doing here? What are the Israelis doing here?
Speaker 1: If it's not quote unquote hunting for Hamas and eradicating Hamas.
Speaker 4: And hostages right right? The precision of rescuing hostages.
Speaker 1: Well, because we know at this point, I mean, that
Speaker 1: has been a real refrain of oh, well, if you
Speaker 1: want a ceasefire, then you just you know, you don't
Speaker 1: want the hostages to return. Well, it's quite the contrary.
Speaker 1: The only time when hostages have been you know, exchange
Speaker 1: in significant numbers, when hostages have been returned, is through
Speaker 1: a negotiated ceasefire process, when we had that brief ceasefire
Speaker 1: early on. So if your concern is for the hostages
Speaker 1: and your concern is for you know, civilian populations on
Speaker 1: both sides, that only leads to one place, which is
Speaker 1: a ceasefire. Not to mention, you know, the way that
Speaker 1: this war has spread far beyond the borders of the
Speaker 1: Gaza Strip, as far afield as places like Pakistan, but
Speaker 1: certainly Yemen, the Red Sea, Lebanon, etc. A rack Syria
Speaker 1: with grave consequences for our own service members. So one
Speaker 1: other thing, Emily that I wanted to pick up on
Speaker 1: that you mentioned was Netnahu's desire for quote unquote one
Speaker 1: state solution. And this is not, of course, the one
Speaker 1: state solution that some lefties and Palestinians would like to
Speaker 1: say see of one democrat actually democratic country with everyone
Speaker 1: having equal rights. No, his is either Palestinians gone pushed
Speaker 1: out entirely or continued apartheid conditions and strengthened apartheid conditions,
Speaker 1: because you know, apartheid only goes in one direction. You
Speaker 1: have to further militarize, you have to further crack down,
Speaker 1: you have to further repress the rights of the population
Speaker 1: that you view as a demographic threat to your society.
Speaker 1: He came out once again, not that this should be
Speaker 1: any mystery to anyone, because he's been saying it for
Speaker 1: decades now at this point, bragging about how he is
Speaker 1: the one who can block a Palestinian state, leaning very
Speaker 1: heavily into that mess and claiming credit for blocking Palestinian
Speaker 1: state over all of these years. So you know, the
Speaker 1: Biden administration likes to live in this alternate fantasy world
Speaker 1: where there is some partner in the Israeli government that
Speaker 1: is interested in a negotiated settlement, that is interested to
Speaker 1: state's illusion or some sort of you know, just lasting
Speaker 1: peace to the benefit of not just the Palestinians, but
Speaker 1: to your point, to the safety and securities of Israelis
Speaker 1: as well. And Netnahu is bound and determined to burst
Speaker 1: that bubble and make it incredibly plain to absolutely everyone
Speaker 1: that he will fort a Palestinian state if it's the
Speaker 1: last thing that he does and he has absolutely no
Speaker 1: interest in going in that direction. At the same time,
Speaker 1: there was an extraordinary communicate released by the Chief of Staff,
Speaker 1: Major General Hertzi Halevi sent this out to a communicate
Speaker 1: to IDF commanders yesterday, put this up on the screen,
Speaker 1: emphasizing to them that they should not be doing war
Speaker 1: crimes and they should definitely not be publishing to the
Speaker 1: world those war crimes as they have been. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've all seen the tiktoks of these ideas.
Speaker 9: Soldiers.
Speaker 3: I'll show you a little bit of that in a moment.
Speaker 1: Who are bragging about stealing from Palestinians and who are
Speaker 1: you know, blow but doing exposees on how to blow
Speaker 1: up a musk and destroying civilian infrastructure and incredibly proud
Speaker 1: of it and just like literally doing war crimes on
Speaker 1: camera to the celebration of some in the Israeli domestic audience.
Speaker 1: So part of what they said here in this communicate
Speaker 1: that when out the idea of commanders is quote, we
Speaker 1: are not on a campaign of killing, revenge or genocide.
Speaker 1: He also urges soldiers not to take anything that isn't
Speaker 1: ours or film revenge videos. Pretty extraordinary when you have
Speaker 1: to tell your soldiers, by the way, guys, we're not
Speaker 1: doing a genocide here. Only shows you the commitment to
Speaker 1: the rules of war when you have to at least
Speaker 1: publicly tell people stop doing war crimes and we're not
Speaker 1: doing revenge and we're not doing genocide. Just as a
Speaker 1: reminder of a little bit of what has come out,
Speaker 1: just you know, this has been this has been a
Speaker 1: part of this war from the beginning. These IDF soldiers
Speaker 1: just very proud of some of the horrors that they
Speaker 1: are committing. This is another report actually from Jeremy Diamond
Speaker 1: that we have a piece of over at CNN.
Speaker 3: Let's take a look at that.
Speaker 10: This is a how to video on how to blow
Speaker 10: up a mosque in Gaza. Format is Internet fluent. The
Speaker 10: content is very real, filmed, edited and posted on Instagram
Speaker 10: by an Israeli soldier. It's one of dozens reviewed by
Speaker 10: CNN for many in twenty twenty four. Social media is
Speaker 10: everyday life. Israeli soldiers are no different, except they're fighting
Speaker 10: Israel's largest and most brutal war in decades. In video
Speaker 10: after video after video, soldiers document the destruction of Gaza
Speaker 10: and rejoice. They filmed detonations to use as wedding invitations.
Speaker 10: I hope among them are would be comedians whose videos
Speaker 10: satirizing the war showed the devastation in Gaza.
Speaker 3: So you get a little bit of a sense there.
Speaker 1: And if we could go to the next piece from
Speaker 1: nine to seven to two magazine, there's an increasing focus
Speaker 1: on the endemic of theft of IDF soldiers just stealing
Speaker 1: whatever they want from bombed down Palestinian homes.
Speaker 3: Actually Haretz basically celebrated this.
Speaker 1: I did a monologue on this last week about soldiers
Speaker 1: going into Palestinian kitchens and stealing food. And you know,
Speaker 1: they were doing this glossy lifestyle magazine piece about all
Speaker 1: these incredible culinary creations the IDF soldiers from the theft
Speaker 1: of you know, cooking supplies and food from a Palestinine
Speaker 1: population that's literally starving to death. But this expos from
Speaker 1: nine to seven to two talks about not just you know,
Speaker 1: these aren't just isolated incidents, but this is just basically accepted,
Speaker 1: they say. Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza have not been
Speaker 1: shy about posting videos on social media, gleefully documenting their
Speaker 1: wanton destruction of buildings, humiliation of Palaestinine detainees. Some of
Speaker 1: these clips were even exhibited at the ICJA as part
Speaker 1: of South Africa's presentation. But there's another war crime being
Speaker 1: readily documented by Israeli soldiers that has garnered less attention
Speaker 1: and condemnation despite its prevalence, and that is looting.
Speaker 3: They go on later on, they.
Speaker 1: Say soldiers who return from fighting in Gaza confirmed to
Speaker 1: Plus nine seven and two magazine and local call that
Speaker 1: the phenomenon is ubiquitous and that for the most part,
Speaker 1: their commanders are allowing it to happen. Quote people took things, mugs, books,
Speaker 1: each one the souvenir that does it for him, said
Speaker 1: one soldier, who admitted that he himself took a quote
Speaker 1: souvenir from one of the medical centers that the army occupied.
Speaker 1: So that is part of the context in which this
Speaker 1: IDF communicate went out reminding soldiers that they are not
Speaker 1: doing a genocide and to please not commit war crimes.
Speaker 4: These these types of videos, these optects will continue as
Speaker 4: long as the war goes on, obviously, because there's no
Speaker 4: obviously no appetite to crack down on this type of conduct,
Speaker 4: and so as long as this war is happening, this
Speaker 4: is going to continue happening as well, and then you
Speaker 4: will continue to have the split screens of what's happening
Speaker 4: at the UN what's happening from what's happening at the
Speaker 4: Hague juxtaposed with this, So no end incite sadly to
Speaker 4: this crystal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm going to go one step for because
Speaker 1: a lot of people have said, like why do they
Speaker 1: let them film these things? You know, why are they
Speaker 1: willing to put this image out to the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, the first question is why are these wargarmes
Speaker 1: being committed in the first place, But then there is
Speaker 1: another level of astonishment of like, why don't they crack
Speaker 1: down on whatever the hell is going on here? And
Speaker 1: it finally clicked for me in a report about that
Speaker 1: quote unquote resettlement or ethnic cleansing conference that a bunch
Speaker 1: of Lakud members of the Kanesset and I think eleven
Speaker 1: Security Cabinet members attended, where the biggest applause, they said,
Speaker 1: came from exactly these types of tiktoks they would show
Speaker 1: these soldiers, especially ones that had to do with we're
Speaker 1: going to reoccupy and talking about the previous settlements and
Speaker 1: this is all ours and there are no uninvolved civilians.
Speaker 1: That was the content that got the biggest cheers at
Speaker 1: this conference of everything that was going on. And the
Speaker 1: reason that was an AHA moment for me was because,
Speaker 1: as we were just discussing, Israel is not going to
Speaker 1: eradicate Hamas. They have already failed and you know, been
Speaker 1: dramatically inept in their key actual stated objectives of you know,
Speaker 1: eradicating Hamas, killing their fighters, getting rid of the tunnel system,
Speaker 1: capturing their leaders.
Speaker 3: They haven't done any of that, and so in.
Speaker 1: Liu of that, what they can bring to their population
Speaker 1: is devastation, destruction, and revenge. That's what they're trying to
Speaker 1: substitute in for victory since they're failing on all these
Speaker 1: other fronts. So when you see these things not only
Speaker 1: being committed, but being publicized and celebrated, you know, at
Speaker 1: a certain point you go, this is not just like
Speaker 1: a one off accident. This is something that someone in
Speaker 1: leadership is actually fine with, happy about, and you know,
Speaker 1: permitting to occur, if not actually encouraging, because that is
Speaker 1: the only thing that they have that they can bring
Speaker 1: to their population now in lieu of actually you know,
Speaker 1: accomplishing their objective, let alone making the Israeli population more
Speaker 1: safe and more secure, which, as you, I think accurately
Speaker 1: pointed out earlier, Emily, I mean, this has done nothing
Speaker 1: but to further imperil the security, long term security of Israelis,
Speaker 1: because how many Palestinians are going to be incredibly radicalized
Speaker 1: by what you have done to them, to their family,
Speaker 1: to their children, to their homes, stealing their belongings, blowing
Speaker 1: up their cultural institutions, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And you know, you have Israelis fighting and dying in Gaza,
Speaker 4: and so it embitters everyone. So like that's that's where
Speaker 4: you know, Israeli is cheering at some of the videos,
Speaker 4: some of them have recently lost young family members, and
Speaker 4: it just it embitters everyone going forward and with no
Speaker 4: end in sight. I mean, it's just endlessly depressing to
Speaker 4: watch these news cycles. It just again feels like no
Speaker 4: light at the end of this tunnel whatsoever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Indeed, all right, let's move on to some extraordinary proceedings
Speaker 1: in London right now with regard Toane. So this week,
Speaker 1: Julian Assange is in court fighting extradition to the US
Speaker 1: on espionage charges, which as you know, we have covered extensively,
Speaker 1: and which we're not the only ones. Press Freedom Foundation,
Speaker 1: you know, foundations around the world talking about how this
Speaker 1: is a dramatic threat to freedom of the press.
Speaker 3: He is there in court this week.
Speaker 1: Actually he's not able to attend because his health is
Speaker 1: so ill that he wasn't even able to attend remotely. However,
Speaker 1: there have been huge protests in London. We want to
Speaker 1: show you a little bit of that. What I'm going
Speaker 1: to show you for those who are listening is you'll
Speaker 1: get a little bit of a taste of the sounds
Speaker 1: from the protests. Then you'll hear Assange's wife Stella speak,
Speaker 1: and then a little bit also from journalist Chris Hedges.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to all of that.
Speaker 10: Your where Hardy kayos Harty.
Speaker 12: In the United States is abusing its legal system in
Speaker 12: order to hound and prosecute and intimidate all of you.
Speaker 12: What's at stake is the ability to publish the truth
Speaker 12: and expose crimes when they're committed by states.
Speaker 9: The only fair.
Speaker 12: I shouldn't even talk about fairness at this stage, because
Speaker 12: the country.
Speaker 4: That's trying to extradite him thought it to murder him.
Speaker 13: Justice will come for Julian Assange, but it will not
Speaker 13: come from within those carts. It will come with you,
Speaker 13: It will come with us in these streets. They know
Speaker 13: how corrupt this process is. They understand fully the judicial
Speaker 13: pantomime that they have engaged in from the inception to
Speaker 13: crucify the most courageous, most important journalists of our generation,
Speaker 13: and they are hoping they will.
Speaker 4: Not be called out.
Speaker 1: This, of course, just as a reminder, emily dates back
Speaker 1: to some of the Bush era revelations of Assange and
Speaker 1: wiki leaks exposing war crimes. It also, you know the
Speaker 1: logic that is being used here, which was initially initially
Speaker 1: the Obama administration said we can't prosecute him because of
Speaker 1: the threat to freedom of the press. The Trump administration
Speaker 1: came in with a different theory and said, yes, we
Speaker 1: are going to prosecute him, and the Biden administration has continued.
Speaker 1: US representatives are in court arguing for his extradition. So
Speaker 1: you now have a bipartisan commitment to imprisoning this man,
Speaker 1: whose life is also literally on the line here by
Speaker 1: the way, guys, I mean he has his health is
Speaker 1: failing in prison to the extent that one of his
Speaker 1: appeals working its way through the British legal system actually
Speaker 1: went his way just out of concern for his health. However,
Speaker 1: right now this is likely his last chance to block
Speaker 1: the extradition process. Let's go ahead and put the New
Speaker 1: York Times report up on the screen that breaks down
Speaker 1: how this is all going to unfold, because it is
Speaker 1: a little bit complicated. Their headline is beginning of the
Speaker 1: end as Assange case returns to court. Julian Assange, the
Speaker 1: Way he Leaks founder has been in prison for nearly
Speaker 1: five years by a US extradition order. A hearing is
Speaker 1: his last chance to be granted an appeal in Britain.
Speaker 3: They go on to stay.
Speaker 1: On Tuesday, mister Sossane at this case returned to a
Speaker 1: British court for a two day hearing that will determine
Speaker 1: whether he has exhausted his right to appeal within the
Speaker 1: UK whether he could be one step closer being sent
Speaker 1: to the US. There are a few potential outcomes. The
Speaker 1: judges could allow mister Assange to appeal as the extradition order,
Speaker 1: in which case a full appeal hearing would be scheduled,
Speaker 1: opening the door to a new decision about his extradition
Speaker 1: or if mister Soane's requested your appeal is denied, he
Speaker 1: could be sent swiftly to a plane bound for the US,
Speaker 1: his legal team has said. But his lawyers have vowed
Speaker 1: to challenge his extradition in the European Court of Human
Speaker 1: Rights in France. Theoretically that could block his extra day
Speaker 1: from Britain until the case has heard in Strasburg, France,
Speaker 1: because Britain is obliged to follow that court's judgment.
Speaker 3: As a signatory.
Speaker 1: Alice Jill Edwards, the UN Special Rappertoire on Torture, has
Speaker 1: urged Britain to halt mister Assange's extradition, citing fears that
Speaker 1: if extradited, he would be at risk of treatment amounting
Speaker 1: to torture or other forms of punishment by the way
Speaker 1: Julian Assange, an Australian citizen. The Australian government has also
Speaker 1: weighed in here expressing their concern. They've called for Assange
Speaker 1: to be sent to his home country, where it's parliament
Speaker 1: passed emotion last week calling for his release. Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Anthony Albani said he had discussed the matter at a
Speaker 1: meeting last fall with Biden and on Thursday, Albany's told
Speaker 1: the Australian Parliament it is appropriate for us to put
Speaker 1: our very strong view that those countries need to take
Speaker 1: into account the need for this to be concluded. And
Speaker 1: as I reference before, rights groups like Amnesty or National
Speaker 1: Advocates for Press freedom, including Reporters Without Borders, have long
Speaker 1: called for the US charges against mister Assange to be
Speaker 1: dropped in the extradition order canceled. I want to give
Speaker 1: a shout out to independent journalists like Richard Medhurst who
Speaker 1: has been on the ground doing extraordinary coverage here. If
Speaker 1: you guys are interested in more details, definitely give him
Speaker 1: a follow on Twitter. He reported yesterday that Julian's lawyers
Speaker 1: and tend to argue two key things over the next
Speaker 1: two days. They want permission from the High Court to
Speaker 1: appeal the decision of the former Home Secretary to sign
Speaker 1: the extradition order. And they also want to appeal the
Speaker 1: decision of the Lower Court to block the extradition. Why
Speaker 1: would they contest this even if it blocked Julian's extradition, Well,
Speaker 1: basically that judge blocked it just as I referenced before,
Speaker 1: on health grounds, only agreeing with all the political and
Speaker 1: bogus charges against Julian to set up an easy appeal
Speaker 1: when for the US, allowing them to overturn the decision
Speaker 1: and proceed with extraditing Julian. The judge also equated national
Speaker 1: security journalism with espionage under the Official Secrets Act in Britain,
Speaker 1: setting an extraordinarily dangerous precedent for journalism. So that is
Speaker 1: basically where we are and what we know at this point,
Speaker 1: is this appeal from Julian likely to succeed. I have
Speaker 1: to say, you know, my hopes are not high, just
Speaker 1: because I think Britain probably very likely to do whatever
Speaker 1: the US wants it to do here. But it is
Speaker 1: an incredible crime against press freedom and it is an
Speaker 1: incredible act of hypocrisy for the US to prosecute Julian Assange.
Speaker 1: And by the way, just to underscore that, you know,
Speaker 1: we all watch that Tucker Carlson interview with Putin. The
Speaker 1: very logic, outrageous logic that Putin has used to imprison
Speaker 1: a Wall Street Journal reporter is very similar logic to
Speaker 1: what is being used here to prosecute and attempt to imprison,
Speaker 1: and of course he has been in prison for years now.
Speaker 1: Julian Assange for the crime of journalism. There is a
Speaker 1: reason why the Obama administration said we cannot charge him
Speaker 1: without also implicating publishers like the New York Times.
Speaker 3: So that's where things stand.
Speaker 4: Emily, Yeah, I'm so glad you said. That's an exactly
Speaker 4: what I was going to point out. The logic is
Speaker 4: basically what Vladimir Putin said when he was defending the
Speaker 4: imprisonment of a Wall Street Journal reporter amid arguments from
Speaker 4: Tucker Carlson that he should let him go. Putin basically said, listen,
Speaker 4: he was trafficking in confidential, national security classified information without authorization,
Speaker 4: and Tucker said, well, that's journalism. Yes, that is journalism.
Speaker 4: And just one quick point on that, Crystal. The Obama
Speaker 4: Biden administration had what they called the quote unquote New
Speaker 4: York Times problem, and then Donald Trump came in and
Speaker 4: obviously Mike Pompeo. There was I think it was a
Speaker 4: Michae liskof story in Yahoo that Stella Osonge was referencing
Speaker 4: there about plots to kill Julian Assange, CIA plots to
Speaker 4: kill Julian Assange under the Trump administration. This is interesting.
Speaker 4: I remember I asked Keith Kellogg who was Trump's NSA
Speaker 4: about this some years ago about how Trump viewed Julian Assange,
Speaker 4: and Kellogg said Trump would use language he said, I
Speaker 4: thought President Don Jay Trump was treated on fairly by
Speaker 4: the press. I think there were people out there in
Speaker 4: every for the most part, most mainstream media who it
Speaker 4: became a personal attack. It was an ad homin attack.
Speaker 4: It was not just an attack on Trump's policies. And
Speaker 4: he wouldn't back down, I mean not at all. And
Speaker 4: I think he kind of saw that with Julian the
Speaker 4: same way, like, Okay, this guy's not backing down. But
Speaker 4: of course it was the Trump administration which had my
Speaker 4: Pompeu allegedly plotting to kill Julian Nossange and where this
Speaker 4: eventual prosecution and the Espionage Act charges stem from. And
Speaker 4: just as you were kind of breaking all of this down, Crystal,
Speaker 4: it just what jumps out to you is how simple
Speaker 4: all of this is. The New York Times problem, as
Speaker 4: Obama and Biden saw it at the time, is absolutely real.
Speaker 4: There is no way to do this without attacking press freedom,
Speaker 4: which is why you've eventually seen even some of the
Speaker 4: corporate media outlets that initially opposed Julian Massange appined against
Speaker 4: Julian Nossange. Come around and start giving this case due
Speaker 4: coverage and start actually backing Julian Assange with letters and
Speaker 4: those sorts of things, because it is obviously obviously a
Speaker 4: threat to press freedom. There's no question about it. It
Speaker 4: is simple, This is an easy question. We have laws
Speaker 4: against hacking. The Espiana Jackson is terrible, but we have
Speaker 4: actual laws that could be used precisely and appropriately to
Speaker 4: disincentivize leaking that actually threatens national security, and that is
Speaker 4: not what is happening in this case whatsoever. It's that simple.
Speaker 14: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, the politics around Julian Assange got very confused
Speaker 1: because you know, originally he's exposing Bush era war crimes,
Speaker 1: and you know, lots on the left or celebrating him.
Speaker 1: Then during the Clinton Trump run he's exposing things that
Speaker 1: Democrats didn't like, and he's being accused of being a
Speaker 1: Russian plant, et cetera.
Speaker 3: But put all of that crop aside.
Speaker 1: Whether you liked the things he revealed, or you didn't
Speaker 1: like the things you revealed, or you feel some kind
Speaker 1: of way about him personally, this boils down to he
Speaker 1: embarrassed powerful people and they want to turn him into
Speaker 1: a scapegoat, to demonstrate to other potential journalists who would
Speaker 1: expose these secrets that we will make you pay, potentially
Speaker 1: with your life. I mean again, Julian's life is truly
Speaker 1: on the line here, you know, according to his family,
Speaker 1: his brother, his wife, his father, et cetera. So that's
Speaker 1: the bottom line is they want to go after this
Speaker 1: man because he embarrassed powerful people through an act of
Speaker 1: journalism and transparency that was vital to the public's understanding
Speaker 1: of what was being done in our name in these
Speaker 1: wars abroad.
Speaker 3: So we'll continue to follow it.
Speaker 1: And as I said, make sure you give Richard met
Speaker 1: Hers to follow or all of the ins and outs
Speaker 1: of the detail has been following this as closely as
Speaker 1: absolutely anyone understanding the you know, intricate legal processes here
Speaker 1: and what's likely to unfold.
Speaker 4: And I just encourage everyone to read the charges themselves,
Speaker 4: the charges against Julian Assange. I think you'll come to
Speaker 4: the correct conclusion about whether or not this is trumped
Speaker 4: up and whether or not this is a just prosecution
Speaker 4: of the Espionage Act. If you're read the documents themselves,
Speaker 4: it's pretty clear what's happening.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 4: John Stewart of course, is back, as you guys have
Speaker 4: covered here Crystal and here. Since that's on Tucker Carlson,
Speaker 4: what's John Stewart been up to on his return to
Speaker 4: the Daily Show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, first of all, last week, of course, he
Speaker 1: went after Joe Biden, also Donald trub for his age.
Speaker 3: That created a whole insane freak out.
Speaker 1: So he started off by responding a bit to his
Speaker 1: critics and then making a turn into the Tucker Carlson criticism.
Speaker 1: Let's start with him hitting back at his critics from
Speaker 1: last week's show.
Speaker 15: Quite frankly, the response to the first show last Monday
Speaker 15: was universally glowing.
Speaker 14: John Stewart is facing massive backlash from Democrats over his
Speaker 14: comments about Joe Biden. Oberman tweeted, well, after nine years away,
Speaker 14: there's nothing else to say to the both side as
Speaker 14: fraud John Stewart bashing Biden, except please make it another
Speaker 14: nine years. Christy Jackson tweeted, sorry, but I won't be
Speaker 14: watching you either.
Speaker 15: Okay, maybe not universal.
Speaker 10: Well that was on Twitter.
Speaker 3: Everything on Twitter gets a backlash.
Speaker 16: I've seen Twitter tellabradoodles to go for themselves aperdoodles. I
Speaker 16: just think it's better to deal head on with what's
Speaker 16: an apparent issue to people.
Speaker 17: I mean, we're we're just talking here and Mary Trump tweeting.
Speaker 17: Not only is Stuart's both sides are the same rhetoric
Speaker 17: not funny. It's a potential disaster for Democracy's one Joe.
Speaker 14: It was just one Joe.
Speaker 16: There's twenty minutes.
Speaker 9: I did twenty minutes of one Joe.
Speaker 15: But I guess, as the famous saying goes, democracy dies
Speaker 15: in discussion.
Speaker 1: So the Mary Trump one we covered that last week
Speaker 1: was insanely deranged, Like even that one quote doesn't do
Speaker 1: a justice. But clearly he is not not too concerned
Speaker 1: about people who did not appreciate his show.
Speaker 4: It's such a good flashback to the Bush era when
Speaker 4: we had to like we were all fighting over the
Speaker 4: dog bone that is John Stewart and whether or not
Speaker 4: he was destroying democracy. Meanwhile, it's since become obviously apparent
Speaker 4: that we have a bigger fish to fry when it
Speaker 4: comes to the preservation of the lowercase American democracy. Crystal.
Speaker 4: It just feels like such a weird time warp to
Speaker 4: be debating once again along the lines of what Mary
Speaker 4: Trump and Keith Olberman are doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so true, Keith Olberman, who is still holding
Speaker 1: on to like the MSMBGC show we had in like
Speaker 1: two thousand and two or whatever, so.
Speaker 4: Like the same demonious intellectual it's just so stupid. And
Speaker 4: you remember the moral panics over at the time it
Speaker 4: was millennials like college students, who it was a decent
Speaker 4: number said that they got their news from the Daily Show,
Speaker 4: and there were repeatedly moral panics over what a crisis
Speaker 4: this was for lowercase d democracy that people were going
Speaker 4: to their news from the Daily Show. And meanwhile, coming
Speaker 4: down the pipe in ten years was like, TikTok so,
Speaker 4: well done everyone. You really warned us that this would
Speaker 4: be a disaster, and everyone took appropriate measures and decided
Speaker 4: to join TikTok.
Speaker 1: So the bit that he then turned to is he's like,
Speaker 1: all right, I got to learn how to be more
Speaker 1: of a shameful propagandast.
Speaker 3: So who can I take notes from?
Speaker 1: And then he pulls up the Tucker interview with Putin
Speaker 1: and makes this turn into going after Tucker not only
Speaker 1: for that interview but also for his exploits around Mosque.
Speaker 1: Gower's like look at the subway, look at the grocery stores,
Speaker 1: and this incredible, leaving out the fact that the groceries
Speaker 1: may be cheaper, but also the wages are way way
Speaker 1: lower than in the US. Let's take a look at
Speaker 1: a bit of that commentary.
Speaker 9: How does Russia have.
Speaker 18: A subway station? The normal people used to get to
Speaker 18: work at home every single day. It's nicer than anything
Speaker 18: in our country. There's no graffiti, there's no filth, no
Speaker 18: foul smells. We're just putting in the car where we
Speaker 18: would actually eat over a week, and we all came
Speaker 18: in around four hundred bucks. About four hundred bucks it
Speaker 18: was one hundred and four dollars US here and coming
Speaker 18: to a Russian grocery store the heart of evil and
Speaker 18: seeing what things cost and how people live. It will
Speaker 18: radicalize you against our leaders. That's how I feel anyway.
Speaker 15: Radicalized, radicalized, and it will radicalize you unless you understand
Speaker 15: basic economics. See one hundred and four dollars for groceries
Speaker 15: sounds like a great bargain unless you realize Russians earn
Speaker 15: less than two hundred dollars a week. Right, Because the
Speaker 15: difference between our urinal, caked, chaotic subways and your candelabra
Speaker 15: beautiful subways is the literal price of freedom. But the
Speaker 15: goal that Carlson and his ilk are pushing is that
Speaker 15: there's really no difference between our systems.
Speaker 4: In fact, theirs might be a little bit better. The
Speaker 4: question is why why is Tucker doing that?
Speaker 15: Here's why. It's because the old civilizational battle was communism
Speaker 15: versus capitalism. That what drove the world since World War Two.
Speaker 15: Russia was the enemy then, but now they think the
Speaker 15: battle is woke versus unwoke, and in that fight, Putin
Speaker 15: is an ally to the right. He's their friend. Unfortunately,
Speaker 15: he is also a brutal and ruthless dictator. So now
Speaker 15: they have to make Americans a little more comfortable with that.
Speaker 15: I mean, liberty is nice, but have you seen Russia's
Speaker 15: shopping carts? And Tucker would have gotten away with it
Speaker 15: if it weren't for those meddling assassins.
Speaker 17: In a statement to The New York Times, Carlson said, quote,
Speaker 17: it is horrifying what happened to Navalney.
Speaker 9: The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person
Speaker 9: would defend it.
Speaker 15: Correct, No decent person would.
Speaker 3: So what do you think of that part?
Speaker 9: Emily?
Speaker 1: I felt like, actually this week it was the term
Speaker 1: the right to be like really outraged by what John
Speaker 1: Stewart had to say. I know they didn't like in
Speaker 1: particular when he says that thing about like the our
Speaker 1: dirty subways or the price of freedom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because you know, I think that there were the
Speaker 4: Tucker putin interview Ryan talked about Ryan and I talked
Speaker 4: about this a lot, and so did you and Soccer.
Speaker 4: I thought that interview was defensive or was defensible. I
Speaker 4: think what happened afterwards in the grocery store and in
Speaker 4: the subway was mostly silly. But I do think people
Speaker 4: have been sort of willfully misinterpreting what Tucker Carlson was
Speaker 4: saying about the subways, which is, you know, I heard
Speaker 4: a lot of people being like, Russia is poorer than
Speaker 4: the poorest US state, Mississippi, And I think the point
Speaker 4: is right. So why doesn't you know, Mississippi have glistening
Speaker 4: infrastructure if we're if we're that much wealthier, why can't
Speaker 4: we also have our cake and eat it too? Why
Speaker 4: not both? Which I think is an entirely legitimate question.
Speaker 4: That said, you know, Tucker and John Stewart have a
Speaker 4: story read history, like one of the famous moments with
Speaker 4: all of their career involves each other. When John Stewart
Speaker 4: told Tucker Carlson that Crossfire on air, Tucker was interviewing
Speaker 4: John Stewart with I think it was Paul Bagala around
Speaker 4: two thousand that Crossfire was destroying democracy, sort of the
Speaker 4: same attack that Mary Trump made against him, but he
Speaker 4: was making it against the sort of performative and theatrical
Speaker 4: debates that happened on CNN via Crossfire. I actually think
Speaker 4: John Stewart was wrong in that. I think it's great
Speaker 4: to have, you know, political theater because it allows us
Speaker 4: it's a catharsis, it's a cultural catharsis. That said, the
Speaker 4: two of them do have history, so it's not surprising
Speaker 4: at all that John Stewart's like one of his first
Speaker 4: big swings back at the Daily Show, which, by the way,
Speaker 4: he is such a distinct host that nobody else could
Speaker 4: do it. I think it's very clear that nobody else
Speaker 4: can own the Daily Show property like like John Stewart
Speaker 4: can and you know, occasionally be hilarious. Like there's some
Speaker 4: really good moments in his approach to Tucker's or his
Speaker 4: points against Tucker's exploration of the Russian grocery store in
Speaker 4: some ways though, because it was so rife for a takedown,
Speaker 4: and so yeah, Crystal, all I can say is, honestly,
Speaker 4: I'm glad that he gave up what he was doing
Speaker 4: for Apple because I found it to be sort of insufferable.
Speaker 4: And this is a much better version of John Stewart.
Speaker 4: I wish Stephen Colbert would do the same thing.
Speaker 3: I liked some of what he did with the Apple especially.
Speaker 1: I mean, he did these very serious interviews with people
Speaker 1: who were just like, oh, John Stewart's gonna interview me, sure,
Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, I'll sit down with you, you know,
Speaker 1: and then he just he's actually a phenomenal interviewer and
Speaker 1: would hold their feet to the fire and gives zero
Speaker 1: fuckx apparently about.
Speaker 3: Them caring, you know, liking him or whatever.
Speaker 1: So there were moments that I thought were great in
Speaker 1: The Apple Show, but he left because of censorship, and
Speaker 1: so I really admire that.
Speaker 3: It's great to have back on Monday nights. I'm sure
Speaker 3: you know, there have already been moments where I don't
Speaker 3: agree with him. That's fine. I don't have to agree
Speaker 3: with everywhere that this comedian is saying.
Speaker 1: It's not you know you do, Crystal, guys, but you know,
Speaker 1: to be honestly, I didn't even put together that crossfire
Speaker 1: callback that this going after Tucker now actually represents.
Speaker 3: So that is kind of perfect in a certain sense.
Speaker 5: It really is.
Speaker 4: It's like full circle moment. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Indeed, all right, guys, Well, we have a fantastic guest
Speaker 1: standing by.
Speaker 3: Let's go ahead and.
Speaker 9: Get to that.
Speaker 4: Chrystal, we're so excited to be joined by our guest
Speaker 4: this morning. Tell us a little bit about j D Belcher.
Speaker 4: We're very excited to be joined by j D. Crystal,
Speaker 4: tell us a little bit about JD. I know you
Speaker 4: guys go a long way back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an old friend of mine. Nice to see you, JD.
Speaker 1: He's a former coal miner, herrn documentarian now runs JJN
Speaker 1: Multimedia marketing agency in southern West Virginia, and for more
Speaker 1: than three years he's been working on a separate podcast project,
Speaker 1: digging into the Upper Big Branch Mind disaster that for
Speaker 1: you guys that may not recall as an explosion that
Speaker 1: occurred on April fifth and twenty ten killed twenty nine
Speaker 1: coal miners, and obviously that tragedy continuing to reverberate throughout
Speaker 1: the West Virginia and southern West Virginian particular community.
Speaker 3: It's great to see you, JD.
Speaker 9: Thanks for having me Chrystal, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 1: So before we get into you telling us why you
Speaker 1: wanted to tell this story, you put together an incredible
Speaker 1: trailer so that people can get a sense of what
Speaker 1: this podcast is all about.
Speaker 3: Let's take a look at that.
Speaker 19: New findings and charges in the investigation of the Upper
Speaker 19: Big Branch mind disaster in West Virginia. Twenty nine men
Speaker 19: were killed on April fifth, twenty ten, after an explosion
Speaker 19: at the mine then owned by Massy Energy.
Speaker 20: Prior to the explosion, he loved being a coal owner
Speaker 20: and he was a good boss.
Speaker 3: He would never ask you to do something that he
Speaker 3: wouldn't do. That coal dust that you mentioned, there was
Speaker 3: so much of it.
Speaker 18: Massive explosion that course through the mind because of the
Speaker 18: presence of all that coaldst But.
Speaker 8: We know that the gas came quickly. We know it
Speaker 8: was natural gas.
Speaker 4: That's his sory. The investigations all found.
Speaker 10: Otherwise, and the only thing that they was worried about
Speaker 10: was making sure the long while would run the way.
Speaker 8: It was supposed to.
Speaker 9: Is that your money maker.
Speaker 8: Call?
Speaker 1: So, JD, what part of this story did you feel
Speaker 1: like still needed to be told?
Speaker 9: Sure? So, you know, there's been several attempts to do
Speaker 9: this that were great attempts.
Speaker 20: This isn't to slight those, but I felt like there
Speaker 20: needed to be a comprehensive effort to tell the story
Speaker 20: of Upper Big Branch, which first and foremost holding the
Speaker 20: twenty nine miners and their families in the forefront of
Speaker 20: respect and dignity and explaining who they were and the
Speaker 20: emotion of this tragedy and just what it did to
Speaker 20: these communities, but also going into the facts of the
Speaker 20: investigation and trying to answer, you know, basically, where is
Speaker 20: coal mining today and are we being as safe as
Speaker 20: we possibly can? And I feel, you know, confident that
Speaker 20: we lay out the facts enough in a number biased
Speaker 20: way to where you know, the.
Speaker 9: Listener can make their own decision about the tragedy. And
Speaker 9: it's just overall devastating.
Speaker 20: So a warning there, it's not it's not for the
Speaker 20: faint of heart, and it is absolutely devastating what these
Speaker 20: families have went through.
Speaker 4: And j D, if people were listening to the trailer,
Speaker 4: they may not have caught the image of Joe Manchin.
Speaker 4: If you're watching it, you certainly saw Joe Manchin and
Speaker 4: the trailer. I just want to ask about the sort
Speaker 4: of politics of all of this in the last fourteen years.
Speaker 4: Obviously a lot of some of the same characters are involved.
Speaker 4: West Virginia politics are a very interesting thing, as many
Speaker 4: people know. So what can you tell us about, you know,
Speaker 4: whether people who are responsible for this politically in terms
Speaker 4: of the business community have been held responsible and to
Speaker 4: what extent are people that may share some culpability are
Speaker 4: still you know, major figures in West Virginia politics.
Speaker 9: Sure, and obviously politics was heavily involved.
Speaker 20: Senator Mansion, then Governor Mansion at the time was there
Speaker 20: for the whole week with the families waiting for.
Speaker 9: Updates, given updates to the public.
Speaker 20: So, you know, I think overall the feeling is just
Speaker 20: of you know, there's a closure is hard to find,
Speaker 20: and people across the board just don't feel that accountability
Speaker 20: has really been taken on, you know, any sides involved.
Speaker 9: You know, obviously the investigation.
Speaker 20: Found that the company was to blame on certain lack
Speaker 20: of safety standards that they were holding at their mind,
Speaker 20: and we go through all of this, you know, there
Speaker 20: were prison sentence given out, and you know there was
Speaker 20: a two hundred and nine million dollar judgment agreed with
Speaker 20: Alpha Natural Resources who purchased Mass the energy to do
Speaker 20: certain things like research and restitution obviously, and and finds
Speaker 20: there's a ten point eight million dollars fine given out.
Speaker 20: But overall, you know, people are still pointing fingers and saying, Oh,
Speaker 20: it was this side, or oh it was that side.
Speaker 20: You know, it was MS's fault, it was Massy's fault,
Speaker 20: and you know, overall, I think we just need to
Speaker 20: come together and analyze where the coal industry is today
Speaker 20: and figure out are we getting complacent because since then,
Speaker 20: you know, forty eight coal miners died in twenty ten.
Speaker 20: Since then, from twenty eleven on, over one hundred and
Speaker 20: fifty coal miners have died on the job. So, you know,
Speaker 20: I just don't believe that any coal miner needs to
Speaker 20: go to work worried if they're going to come home.
Speaker 20: I think we can do a better job across the board.
Speaker 20: I'm figuring out just what we can do to make
Speaker 20: things better.
Speaker 1: And what do you think that should be done that
Speaker 1: would make things better, that would keep coal miners safe
Speaker 1: on the job.
Speaker 20: Oh yeah, Well, there's one thing I know we can
Speaker 20: change right now, and it is requiring organ respirators for
Speaker 20: mine rescue teams when they enter a mine. So I'll
Speaker 20: touch on this lightly, but we go over it in
Speaker 20: the podcast. The lead investigator for the state, Bill Tucker,
Speaker 20: does an extensive interview with me. We talked for over
Speaker 20: two hours, and on the podcast we discussed his breathing
Speaker 20: issues and he can barely walk across the yard without
Speaker 20: setting down to take a breath, and that was found
Speaker 20: to be the blame of his role in the investigation.
Speaker 20: So there's something called baar faced exploration, which basically means
Speaker 20: after an explosion, a mine rescue team's goal is to
Speaker 20: save lives. They have an apparatus on their back that
Speaker 20: they go it's called going under air that gives them
Speaker 20: four hours of oxygen well up until then up until
Speaker 20: a certain level. When their oxygen and carbon monoxide readings
Speaker 20: get to a certain level, they go bear faced, which
Speaker 20: basically means they go in the mind with nothing on
Speaker 20: their face until a certain extent. To put that to
Speaker 20: go under air and say that our ex so he
Speaker 20: actually had a panel of doctors fine that his issue
Speaker 20: was called cause directly because of UBB in his role,
Speaker 20: and he filed for workers comp. Well, the state contested
Speaker 20: his workers comp. They sent him to a panel of
Speaker 20: their doctors. Their doctors concurred with his doctors that it
Speaker 20: was directly as a result to his role in UBB
Speaker 20: in the investigation. So it's on record that this was
Speaker 20: you know, have they done bron costpes lung testing on
Speaker 20: him and said, without a doubt this is what happened.
Speaker 20: And he was thankfully awarded his workers comp and you
Speaker 20: know they're still on the books today. You can look
Speaker 20: it up. It's called bare faced exploration. I think that
Speaker 20: needs to be eliminated and that's something we can cheaply
Speaker 20: do now that can preserve quality of life.
Speaker 9: So that's number one.
Speaker 20: But there's you know, other things like is the pattern
Speaker 20: of violation system and enforced, which those who don't know
Speaker 20: basically that's Imsha's ability to go in a mind that
Speaker 20: has so many serious violations they can go in this
Speaker 20: mine and shut it down. Well before UBB in thirty
Speaker 20: two years, the POV system was enacted once WOW and
Speaker 20: it was found to have a computer glitch in their system.
Speaker 20: From two thousand and seven on and now. Granted I
Speaker 20: want to make sure people know that wouldn't have affected ubb.
Speaker 20: They could have been placed on a pattern of violation
Speaker 20: system in the past, but they would not have been
Speaker 20: on a pattern of violation system when this occurred. But
Speaker 20: I think that's something we need to look at and
Speaker 20: make sure it's running properly, no doubt about it.
Speaker 4: My last question, Judea, is just what it was like
Speaker 4: to go and talk to some of these families and
Speaker 4: as they've been sort of reflecting on what happened, what
Speaker 4: can you tell us just about where they are, what's
Speaker 4: maybe happened to them in the decade place sense, what
Speaker 4: was that like to re engage on this really difficult
Speaker 4: moment in their lives.
Speaker 20: Sure, it's I mean devastating is the word. There's just
Speaker 20: there's still mourning loss every single day and they're hurting
Speaker 20: and their loved ones are not here. They got a
Speaker 20: phone call that just you know, this explosion happened, and
Speaker 20: they never talked to them again.
Speaker 9: So it was just a heavy, heavy presence.
Speaker 20: I read the eulogies of all twenty nine on the podcast,
Speaker 20: and just seeing their faces is just a constant, heavy presence.
Speaker 20: And also a responsibility to get this right. They are
Speaker 20: them and their families did not nothing wrong whatsoever, And
Speaker 20: I just felt the need to explain what a coal
Speaker 20: miner is. You hear on a national narrative what a
Speaker 20: typical West Virginian is, and I always call bs. Usually
Speaker 20: sometimes we get it right, but you know, I felt
Speaker 20: that this story needed to be told by a West Virginian.
Speaker 20: And I now was a surface coal miner for nine
Speaker 20: years of my life, so I know what the culture
Speaker 20: is and I know what kind of people coal miners are,
Speaker 20: and I wanted to be sure to respect that with
Speaker 20: the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well you you absolutely did that.
Speaker 1: And it's an important story not only for West Virginia
Speaker 1: and for you know, uplifting the culture and the people
Speaker 1: who suffered losses there, but also for understanding this is
Speaker 1: a story about greed and you know a failure of
Speaker 1: politicians and a lack of accountability, and in that way,
Speaker 1: it is an incredibly universal story. Jad just tell people
Speaker 1: the name of the podcast, where they can find it
Speaker 1: and where they can.
Speaker 3: Follow your work.
Speaker 20: Sure you'd be be a coal miner story. And we've
Speaker 20: been getting a lot of traction on the website for
Speaker 20: a lot of people who aren't podcast savvy. There's a
Speaker 20: lot of elderly that was wanting to listen. You can
Speaker 20: send them to Upper Big Branch dot com. You can
Speaker 20: listen to every episode there. We also have a Facebook
Speaker 20: community going, so if you want to get involved in
Speaker 20: the conversation, we have debates on there, and you know,
Speaker 20: we keep it civil and that we're just trying to
Speaker 20: figure out where we're at in the coal industry and
Speaker 20: anywhere else that you get your podcasts. It's pretty much available.
Speaker 20: I think there's nearly twenty platforms it's on, and I
Speaker 20: want to make sure. Note two, this is a nonprofit,
Speaker 20: educational purposes only endeavor. I'm not making one dollar on
Speaker 20: this for reimbursement or profit or anything. So I just
Speaker 20: want people to learn about this and us figure.
Speaker 9: This out together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, guys, please check on the podcast. JD incredible work. Congratulations.
Speaker 1: I know this has been a long term project in
Speaker 1: liabor of love for you, so thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it absolutely, and thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for watching out there. I will be back again. If
Speaker 1: you're not sick of me with soccer tomorrow, Emily always
Speaker 1: find a host with you and I will see you
Speaker 1: guys tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Sounds good, That doesn't for us on today's counterpoints. We'll
Speaker 4: be back next week with more counterpoints. Obviously, Chrystal, we'll
Speaker 4: be back tomorrow. You can find the link to JD's
Speaker 4: podcast in the description of this video. Of course, make
Speaker 4: sure to check that out. We'll see you back here
Speaker 4: next week.