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We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Grissel, indeed we do. We got Zenjilani on. He actually has a fantastic mini doc about a pharmaceutical plant that is closing down in West Virginia with deep ties to the Mansion family. A lot to get into with him on that. New details about how the FBI botched their investigation into the serial predator Larry Nasser, who was of course a longtime doctor of the USA gymnastics team. Just horrific details there. We also have new voices both left and right, calling for intervention in Cuba Bay of Pigs. Wasn't enough for these people, They're always clamoring for more on the regime change for it. We also have George W. Bush and some comments on Afghanistan. We're going to dig into the numbers on inflation, what's real, what do you need to be concerned about? What is not real? But we wanted to start with this gigantic reconciliation package, the details of which we are now just starting to get and Soager I think the way to think about this is really as like the opening bid, because this is what's being put out by Biden and Schumer and Bernie Sanders and Mark Warner. They're the ones who are prominently involved in sort of negotiating this initial package deal. We don't know what the right wing Democrats Joe Manchin in particular, but also John Testercreson Cinema, etc. We don't know exactly what kind of a sort of like hammer they're going to take to it. So this is the opening bid, and we're just starting to get the details here of what they're looking at. So here's some of what is included. We can throw this Axios report up on the screen. So first of all, the top line number three and a half trillion dollars. You add to that the roughly one trillion dollar infrastructure deal that's being negotiated, So you're talking about four and a half trillion dollars here, which is no small amount. It's not the six trillion that Bernie and the Progressives were pushing for, but definitely a sizable chunk of change here that we're talking about. And there is in fact a lot that is included right now in these negotiations and what has been put forward to start with, You've got universal pre K for three and four year olds, you have free community college, you have money towards elder care, you have paid family leve although there's some bad, weird loopholes in there that need to be ironed out, but paid family leave. You've got an extension of that child tax credit, the checks of which are starting to hit people's accounts today literally sizeable, you know, significant benefit helps to catch the US up with the rest of the developed world in terms of providing for our children, reducing childhood poverty. Probably reduced childhood poverty by somewhere around a third. Some people say it's a half, but because of difficulties in getting checks to everybody's probably more like a third. You have money for a civilian climate core. That was a big push from the Sunrise and sort of the progressive climate change movement. In terms of healthcare, you don't have it like they're not going to do the lowering the Medicare eligibility age, but they are going to expand the benefit so that denture's, hearing, aid, vision, all really important quality of life issues, those will now be included in the benefits. That's key. Those Obamacare subsidies that we had from some of the stimulus with regards to the pandemic, those are going to be expanded so that more people, especially in red states where they didn't want to move forward with the Medicaid expansion, so that you have more people on Obamacare. Represents kind of a locking in of Obamacare versus a move towards universal healthcare, but still a significant expansion of benefits there. On the climate change front, you have a significant renewable energy standard, you have incentives to buy electric cars, you have potential taxes on imports from high pollution countries as one of the pay fors. And then you have a few things in here that remember Biden's line in his commitment has been tol follow whatever the parliamentarian says, So some of the pieces that they put in here it seems unlikely will pass muster from the parliamentarian. I would put those three. The Clean Energy Standard, which is a big deal for the climate change movement. That's one that has a big question mark over whether parliamentarian would go for that. Immigration reform again, big question mark whether parliamentarian would go for that. And then one of course, near and dear to my heart, the pro Act also included in this reconciliation bill, and probably there are a few pieces of that that would pass muster with the parliamentarian, but there are also a lot of pieces that again there's a big question mark. I sort of feel like with some of these things, they're doing what they did with the fifteen dollars minimum wage, which is like they can pretend that they want to do it, they can allow the parliamentarian to strike it down and be like, oh, well, we tried, we wanted to get it done. But I don't want to take away from the larger picture here, which is this package as it stands is truly significant. It Is it everything that I wanted to know? It's not everything I would want to say. Is it a significant shift? Would it put a lot of money in the hands of working class people? Yes? It would. Would it help in terms of climate change and moving us in the right direction there? Yes it would. Would it really change the game in terms of education wise to have universal pre K and free community college? Yeah, those are big deals as well. So the payf force, I think are going to be the place where you actually have some of the most friction. Remember we covered that Exxon lobbyists who revealed their whole strategy was like, we're going to go after the pay force to try to narrow down the bill. I think you're going to see the same thing here. I think that's what you're going to see Mansion and Tester and the other sort of carriers for corporate America pushing back on. So, you know, will it ultimately be what it's being presented right now? Probably not, but this is a pretty significant starting place. No. Absolutely. Let's take a listen with Bernie and say yesterday when they were announcing it, Let's hear it. The American people have seen very rich getting richer government development policies which allow them to pay in some cases not a nickel in federal income. They've seen corporations make huge profits in some cases they're not paying a nickel in taxes. And when this legislation says, among many many other things, that those days are gone. The wealthy and large corporations are going to start paying their fair share of taxes so that we can protect the working families in this country. So this is where I have to, unfortunately be the Debbie downer for everybody. You can see this. Also, Joe Manchin is already speaking up, you know, to your point, let's put this up there, which is that while he's okay with some of the stuff that's in there, he says, but boy does he have thoughts on climate saying you can't be moving towards eliminating fossil fuels. It's unclear exactly what that means, and by and large, I see. Look, it's like you said, remember this the American Rescue Plan that had a fifteen dollars minimum wage in it, and then it wasn't ultimately in the plan. The pro Act, as I understand it, the parts of the pro act which makes it enforceable, like finding people that's not allowed to be within there because of the reconciliation package. So actually that's the one piece that I think could get through. Is the ability to levy heavier fines on these companies that violate labor standards and violate workers' rights to unionize, things like rolling back right to work across you know, like basically eliminating right to work across the country. That probably can't make it in and some of the other The proact also allows more militant like striking and organizing tactics that probably doesn't have a budgetary impact according to the Parliamentary And so I actually think the finds might be the one part that can get through, but a lot of the other pieces won't. What explained to me was is that it has to be remember, because everything with the pay fors and the revenue anyway, it's alchemy. I described it previously. And immigration reform is another one where I just think there's absolutely no chance. And when you look at all this, I was speaking yesterday with a friend who knows the Senate and knows reconciliation really well. It is possible there are elements of immigration that you could get in there, but nothing like a pathway to citizenship, and even DACA would be very very dicey for them to try and do. Within this, I see this more where it's not even just opening bid. I think it is the you know, the checklist, which is that like, okay, we did this, we tried we tried this, we tried this, we tried this to go to you know, constituent groups, activists, whatever, But ultimately what does end up passing. I just I don't think it looks like this. I saw Kyle actually tweet this morning. I thought was a great line, which is that the parliamentarian actually essentially has a line by line line veto for this entire thing, which this can go in that can't go in bananas well, and remember they could fire the parliamentarian, they could hire a new one which they published for the Bush tax cuts back in two thousand. So this time they are very much at the whims of how this particular parliamentarian is going to interpret this. I don't want to, you know, downplay. I think there's some good social welfare elements to the bill, and I think those very likely will pass. Those will keep must But some of the more fringe stuff, like you were saying with a clean energy standard, almost no chance the carbon tariff. I mean, look, you know, if that's what I need to do to get d having China, fine, it turns out it's the highest polluting nation on Earth, which sunrise and all those people like to ignore all the time. So cool, cool with me. If we want to teariff them all of these things, though, it will be very dicey. And then here's the other part, which I don't think people are taking into consideration. The House also is very tight, right, We've got six votes only in the House of Representatives for Democrats, so they also are going to have sizeable veto and the ability to come in and say like, no, we're not going to have this part. And remember the way that this works, guys, which is that the Senate wants to pass both of these bills by the August reconciliation, which is very very close I'm sorry, the August recess. So the process wise, they would not only have to pass both of those bills, then the House would have to pass their version. Then they would have to reconcile those two and then the Senate would have to repass those and then the House would have to pass it, and then the President would have to sign it. I see so many roadblocks ahead of this, Like I see a lot of hope from a lot of people online. I'm like, you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. That being said, it is a significant achievement, and look, I like to see big things happen in Washington. So I you know, in a way, like just procedurally, I hope it goes through because I think it's good. Whenever legislation passes, there are a lot of hurdles and roadblocks between here and actually getting anything done through reconciliation. Effectively, what you know, what they'll do in terms of this process is it's different than you know, writing normal legislation and then you pass it through. They give instructions to each of the committees, which basically dollar amounts, which is why some of this is sort of squishy, of like exactly what these programs are going to look like and exactly what they're going to do on healthcare, education or proact or any of these things. That's why it's kept a little bit high level, in a little bit loose. The big question marks are you know, Mansion Cinema moderates or you know, yeah there Maggie Hassen't yeah, the more sort of Conservativemocrats in the Senate, And then you've got to ask yourself to in the House, like what's the salt tax? Proven? What Goteimer? The problem solver's caucus, what what are they going to demand? And they'll go to the mat out of flesh. So Mansion has been very clear about it must be paid for. And I do think that in terms of corporate attacks on this and conservative Democrats attacks on this and attempts to sort of pair this back and make the dollar figure a lot less, which means cutting out a lot of significant programs, I think they're going to do exactly what that excellent lobbyist suggested and go after the pay force. I think that's going to be where the conversation happens and where they you know, where they really push back because Mansion has also drawn lies in the sand about like not wanting to lift the marginal tax rates too high. He's sort of put some parameters in there. So if you can't garner enough revenue ultimately to pay for the size that they want here, that would be what I would like for in terms of how they're actually going to go after this, because you know, it's hard to it's hard to attack any of these programs individually. They're all very popular. Like if you talk about any of these individual pieces, paid family leave, free community college, universal pre K, expanding medicare benefits, all of these programs individually, you know, the renewable energy standards, all of this is individually extremely popular. So what will they do to try to knock it back without having to go directly after any one of these programs. They'll go after the paid force. They'll say, we have to make it deficit neutral and we don't want to raise taxes too much. That'll be the sort of line that they pursue. So yeah, with regards to the parliamentarian, you can also see in all of this, why Biden and the you know, Democratic Party powers that be decided to give the parliamentarian a lid item veto because it's very convenient for them because they don't have to do it like you could be like pretend we tried on immigration reform, right Varl and Sarian just said we couldn't do it. And I do think with immigration reform, I mean, this was a key promise to a lot of you know, important constituencies and very important to the base of the Democratic Party who care a lot about this, and so this is a way for them to be like we tried, guys, we really do care about immigration reform without actually having to push and fight to truly get something done, which would be a very politically fraught battle, et cetera. They actually had interesting it will light the country on fire, and I think the GOP guaranteed would win in the midterms. It would be one of the biggest culture war battles of all time. I think maybe fools, frankly to include it in a reconciliation package like this. So look, I just think at the end of the day, it's like you said, the parliamentarian is going to be the line by line veto and none of this is even written. That's just a part. I don't think people understand it's not written. As you said, the actual committees still have to go through and figure out this part. That part you can negotiate all you want, John Tester, what did he say? A quote shit pile of money? Is how he that's the Senator's where it's not mine. In terms of referring to what this thing is. There are a lot of reservations and there will be I think a ton of back room haggling, and the end result is not going to look anything like this. So before people start celebrating and all of that, I would just you know, I wouldn't hold my breath all that. Like I said, even if the past two trillion dollars there's a lot of money. Yeah, I do think you are going to get something through at the end of this process. It's not going to be totally hands strung and nothing happens. I think it will be paired back. I think some of the key priorities here that are really important to people are going to either be struck by the parliamentarian or struck by Joe Manchin not allowing the price tag to go up into the three or four trillion dollar mark. But I think you will end up with something getting through and we'll see what those pieces ultimately end up being. Absolutely and one of the key things that is going to be opposed to this. And I'm already seeing a lot of people in the GOP talk about inflation. So let's move on to this next segment. So it turns out the last time we talked about inflation ended up being one of the most controversial segments I ever did. I had no idea. Yeah, sure, I have never received this amount of pushback on inflation. So let's talk about inflation. And I think two economics graduates here, right, unlike many of the people online who are posting, so all right, let's let's try this out. So inflation. The numbers came out. The CPI for the month continued in June. The average CPI has consumer price has leaped five point four percent, biggest jump since two thousand and eight. Lots of consternation online, Oh my god, we printed all this money. Everything is getting a lot more expensive. This means that we shouldn't have any more spending. This means that the FED needs to stop, you know whatever, it's doing raise interest rates, put the brakes on the economy. It's overheating all of that, to which I say, okay, let's take a little bit deeper of a look. Head along. She put this from the consumer, the CPI bun what's going on here? Uh, it turns out most of the quote unquote inflation is car rentals and used cars. So Eric, please keep this up there, because I want to read this for the people who are listening. Car Rental is up eighty seven percent year over year. Used cars are up forty five point two percent. Gas is up forty five percent. Now we're getting into consumables, laundry, machines twenty nine point four, airfare, twenty five, moving, seventeen hotels, seventeen furniture eight point six bacon. This one's actually important. Eight point four TVs Seven point six fruit, seven point three shoes, six point five fish, six point four, new cars five point three milk. All of that rent two point three. So why does all of this matter, Crystal Well, none of this has anything to do with spending. Car Rental and gas and airfare and moving are factors of pandemic demand, as in people were locked up for a long time, and now they want to go somewhere. Aka, there's a large boom in price because we had an extraordinary shock to the economy. I'm not sure why this is so difficult to understand. Same with used cars. Used cars are up forty five point two percent. Why. Oh, it's because we have a massive semiconductor supply shortage, meaning that it's much harder to buy a new car today, so people are buying. But people still want to buy cars, so they're buying used cars. Gas is the same thing. Gas is a supply thing. This has nothing to do with monetary policy. You actually pulled this. Let's put this up there. Opek has already come out and said, okay, we're going to unlock more oil supply. Saudi and the UA have reached a compromise to unlock more oil. So again, these are supply issues more than anything. The reason that laundry machines are up so high is once again, very little to do with monetary policy. It's because we have a global shipping crisis. We are not able to get machines like that predominantly from China. Airfare is the same supply problem. Furniture is also subject massively to the supply issues. I did that entire monologue about shipping containers and shortages. We have a big supply shock problem in the economy because our entire global shipping infrastructure is a disaster and we're subject to globalization. At the same time that everybody just got vaccinated and wants to go outside, go on Airbnb, and go try and read something. It's a real fun experience that has nothing to do with monetary policy. So look, I know I'm going to piss a lot of people off here, but is there some transitory inflation above the baseline of two percent? Maybe it's actually a big maybe. But the scare mongering around the five percent number is leading to a lot of people saying this is ridiculous, Like we can't spend any more money. The average price of things that Americans need is going up. I mean outside of bacon. You look at that list and you tell me what exactly up there is an essential that you have to have right now? I guess the only people are not the only people. The people I really feel for is if a car breaks down or whatever, if you get it fixed, that's going to go up. That's more expensive. I don't want to, you know, downplay. That's a real thing. But again, the Federal Reserve has very little to do with what's happening within that market. So that's just generally how I think we both see the Sea shuition. So when I first saw these numbers come out and I saw the White House's take was like everybody relaxed, like a lot of this is used cars in rentals, and I kind of thought that they were exaggerating, like I thought, that's convenient, that's like, you know, this is an inconvenient number that just came out for you're trying to spin it. But when I actually looked into the numbers, it's actually true. I mean, just to give you a sense of how much of the overall inflation number is accounted for by just these couple of items, use cars alone account for a third of the inflation uptick a third. Okay, the gas part, now that really does of course hit consumer's wallets, the fact that gasoline prices have been increasing. But again, as you say, you've got to dig into like, okay, well why is that happening. Well, we had a pandemic, we had massive global shutdowns. OPAK during that time had agreed to output cuts of almost ten million barrels per day last year in order to cope with that slump in demand, and they have not adjusted. So that's why you've seen these prices going up and up and up. It doesn't have anything to do with Biden, or with spending, or with monetary policy or really any of that. It doesn't actually have to do with the US at all. And now we just had an agreement made between Ryad and Abu Dhabi that they're upping the output so that that should ease oil prices. They are not relaxing output to the place that it was completely before the pandemic. So I don't know that we'll get gas prices all all the way back down. But again you've got to look at Okay, well, what's going on. Here's this overall price increases, price inflation so that it's really cutting into workers' wages and all of that. And again, gasoline costs increases definitely cut into workers' wages. But this is a kind of an isolated phenomenon linked to the fact that the pandemic. There was a choice made during the pandemic to significantly cut output, and now they're starting to ease up and put more output into the system so that the prices should ultimately ease. So it looks like that's what's going on here. We will definitely keep our eye on it and see if it becomes troubling. But the other thing is, you know, sometimes you also have to look at who it is that's sounding the alarm on these types of numbers and figures, and what is their track record in terms of the economy, and they're just past decision making. Unfortunately, Larry Summers has continued to be sought after both by the press for Commentublicans love to use you know, he makes these comments about ambebtion right Republicans and Fox and he even Democrat Larry Summers, and they love to ask politicians about well, your Democratic friend Larry Summers says, inflation is a problem. This guy has also been extraordinarily wrong throughout much of his tenure in Washington. I mean, this is a guy who was, you know, linked into the free trade the bad free trade deals of the nineties. Just to give you a sense here, I pulled this paragraph that kind of sums it up from an Atlantic profile of him. So says a government official, he helped author a series of ultimately disastrous to wrongheaded policies, from his big deregulatory moves as a Clinton admin apparatchick to his two tepid response to Great Recession. As Obama's chief economic advisor, he pushed a stimulants that was too meek, and along with his chief ally Tim Geitner, helped ensure millions of desperate mortgage holders would stay underwater by failing to support a cram down that would have allowed firal bankruptcy judges to reduce bank mortgage balances, cut interest rate, and LinkedIn the ter of loans. At the same time, he was supporting every single bailout of financial firms. All of that left the economy to struggle for years and years and years. So on the big economic decisions of our time, Larry Summers was frequently at the table, a key player in those decisions, making the wrong calls. So important to look at the track record of the person that everyone's listening to on this inflation stuff. And we just had a report that he was just at the White House advising Joe Biden, which is, I don't know why you would allow this guy back in given how wrong he has been and how often. The reason why is that frankly, there's not a lot of economic literacy. People look at the top line and look me too. I was like, oh, man, five percent. I was like, was I wrong? I was like, what's happening here? Okay, so I dig a little more deeping. I'm like, oh, so this is all about use cars. This seems like a pretty it seems like a pretty easy explanation, which is we have a horrific supply shot on the semiconductor side, and people really want cars because a lot of people have a lot of money, and so they're buying use cars and they want to go out and go. Okay, I mean that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean it's just like you said with the oil situation, we had a pandemic. Nobody was driving that so opek, the oil producers cut supply and they just haven't readjusted. I mean, makes a lot of sense, right, just like you go down these lists and near like like I was talking about with the laundry machines, it's not that laundry machines got more expensive. It's that we have a massive global backlog of shipping and because in America we don't make anything anymore, you have to actually pay a large shipping premium in order to get everything from China, and we have a huge shortage of shipping containers, which is driving up the prices of things like furniture. How do you exactly do you think wayfair and overstock and all those places keep their prices so cheap because they don't make anything here. I mean, once again, whenever you throw the economy out of whack for a year and a half and then you try to dial up right back to the exact same level of demand, if not more so, like we're seeing in the travel industry, prices are going to shoot through the roof. Again, has zero to do with a lot of what's been printed. I mean, even from that extent that it does. It's about demand that comes from people having money in their pockets, which is a good thing. We have record consumables in this country around I'm seeing stuff around clothes, people buying more clothes than ever before. They're like ready to go to get they're ready to get out. Is back sneak your heads are having a bomb time, like it's a whole It's a bonanza out there in terms you know what good you know, especially if you make your stuff here. That's awesome. People are having fun. So I think from that perspective, we all just need to put we need to read a little bit deeper into what's happening. And I'm sure we're gonna get a lot of push back, yeah goldbugs on this, but look, you can't dispute it. Look at the data. Data says it's about used cars. Sorry guys. Yeah, And I do think that just intuitively, like zooming back out a little bit, I think intuitively it makes sense to a lot of people that after a year when you had such an insane shock and everything dialed down and everything shut down, and people in their homes and you know, this demand dramatically reduced. It makes sense that as things reopen here and in some places around the world, that there'll be some bumps along the way and some of these supply shortages and shocks and all of this, and that will take some time for the economy to catch up to where people are right now. So I think intuitively that just makes sense. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was. Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant please for you to subscribe, So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to Breakingpoints dot com, which you can click on in the show notes. You know, speaking of people who are wrong about the scene here what I said there, the press continue wants them. Let's go and see what our heroic former president George W. Bush. He's opened his mouth for the first time in a long time. So George W. Bush is very concerned that Joe Biden is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. So he tells a German broadcaster quote, I think it is Yeah, I think because I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad and sad. And he speaks specifically about girls. He says, it just seems like they're going to be left behind to be slaughtered by those very brutal people. And it breaks my heart. And I have a lot to say about this, which is that if only George W. Bush had had the same broken heart about the thousands of American soldiers who were killed in Iraq because of his policies, and then the thousands more who were killed in Afghanistan because he kept them there for an indeterminate mission and then required multiple presidents to have to go in and clean his men. Perhaps we could have shown some compassion for those people, and you know, the civilians and many others who were killed in the ensuing violence and more. There is nothing about this pisces me off to the highest degree to watch these generals and these warmongers, and especially people like Bush who got us in this mess in the first place, weaponize people's good hearts and empathy. Listen, it's a tragedy about what's happening in Afghanistan to Afghan women. But it's not our fault and it's not our problem. We spent over one hundred million dollars trying to protect Afghan girls. The Taliban is stronger today than they were when we invaded in two thousand and one. Think about how much of a failure that is. And we have spent one hundred billion dollars trying to build up the native capacity of the Afghan national security forces, who by their own admission, have problems with child sexual abuse within their ranks, which we were complicit in and tried to silence back in twenty fifteen. So look, it's a messy situation. I don't know how else to say it. And if George W. Bush wants to resume or I guess legally he can so. If him his brother wants to run on a position of going to go and protect Afghan girls to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and you know, American soldiers and lives, he is welcome to do so, and he'll get shot down by the American public. Like the tone deafness on this stuff is just so absolutely it's unbelievable that this man is even considered a authority in anything. And you know, it's one of those terrible situations where because he's affable and polite, everybody overlooks the fact Iraq was bad. Guys. I mean, we're not supposed to just move on from these things. It was the worst foreign policy disaster in probably American history in terms of we brought it upon ourselves, didn't even get slow walked into anything. And we look at how he has the goal to be like like, oh, this is a disaster and criticizing the current president on this, I mean, this is one place where I will I will defend Biden to the death in terms of you know, and he's been right on this. He's been very clear about him. He's ultimately been consistent, and kudos to him. And that is no easy feat. We've seen the way that the national security state will do anything to undermine you when it comes to winding down any of these conflicts. The only reason anyone should be listening to what George W. Bush has to say on foreign policy is to do the opposite, right, That's the only like, what is this idiot who did everything wrong in a horrific and unconscionable way. What is he saying maybe we should probably do the opposite of whatever it is he is ultimately saying. But you're right because not only because he's like affable and he's friends with Michelle Obama and Ellen DeGeneres and whatever, but he also got held up and lionized as like well, even George W. Bush says that Trump is but you know, like as the good Trump is great there, like, we don't have to rehab this guy's reputation in order to oppose Trump. You don't have to do that, guys. And yet that's exactly what's been done. So now he's in a position where we have to listen to his terrible ideas on Afghanistan. I love how now he's this like internationalist humanitarian caring about the women and girls of Afghanistan, Like what about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians that are dead because of your war? What about them? You know, where was your humanitarian like your big hearted humanitarianism. Sunia malicious murdered all of these women in the streets of Iraq, I mean all because of and actually a lot most of it happened under the Bush administration, and they had to send thousand more troops there in order to stop the terrorists militias that we are the ones who allowed to foment and foster in the first place. Go and ask people in Baghdad how much they remember mister Bush's care for a lot of their children who had their heads drilled with Sunni militias. Seriously. I mean, I could go on this stuff forever, but well, And what's said, though, is that now that it's Biden doing the withdrawal, you're starting to see now, Look, overwhelmingly the public supports us getting out of Afghanistan, and that is a good thing to see. But you're starting to see in pulling more of a partisan divide. You know, back when it was Trump who said he was going to get us on about Afghanistan, Republicans were all on board. But yes, we should end these wars, let's get out of Afghanistan. Now that it's Biden who's actually getting it done, now the feelings are a little bit more mixed. So we can throw this tear sheet up on the screen from the Hill. This is a write up of a political Morning Consul survey. Now, like I said, they found a majority of registered voters, fifty nine percent support Biden's plan to withdraw the troops. That is good. In comparison, only twenty five percent said they are opposed. Sixteen percent had no opinion. But again, if you draw drilled down into the partisan makeup here you have seventy six percent of Democrats in support. You have fifty nine percent of tenance in support, which is equal to the overall numbers as well. Only forty two percent of Republicans, roughly an equal percentage oppose the planet forty three percent. So again, when it was Trump, all the Republicans were like, yes, get a sound of Afghanistan. Now they're split basically fifty to fifty. I'd also be curious to see how the Democratic numbers shifted, like what it was. I'm sure it was probably the same they were when it was Trump who was gonna withdraw the Like what about the women and the girls. Now that it's Biden that's doing it, they're they're all in for it. But I just you know, it's not surprising because of how sort of tribal and sectarian and partisan our politics are. But you would think on a core issue of warren peace, people could hold just like a consistent principle and not filter it through the lens of whichever like tribal team they more identify with. But even on this tribalism seems to control. Well, that's the culture war, isn't it. It's beautiful. My favorite graph of this I think I played it on Rising, which was the Republicans who felt the economy was doing really well. And then on January twenty first, the Dave Biden is inaugurated. Boom, it was like seventy five percent. Now it's twenty percent Democrats the same thing, like this is a disaster. Dave Biden gets inaugurated seventy percent of approval rating the economy and changed folks same economy. This is the same things. It's really sad, which is that it gets completely even great policies like this, whenever it's touched by the culture war, things completely switch around. One hundred percent of these people would have supported it if Trump did, and a lot of the Democrats were probably against it. But look on a policy substance, I want to give as much credit as it possibly can to President Joe Biden. Let's put this up there from NPR. The top US commander in Afghanistan has relinquished his post, according to the government, and we should check on this. They say that ninety five percent of the withdrawal has already happened. The Afghan government itself is already preparing for the total withdrawal of US forces. The Kabble Embassy is really the large last thing that's going to be there. Of course, our CIA contractors and all those other people going to be still running around the country, almost absolutely, But to not have active duty combat soldiers patrolling the streets of Afghanistan getting killed stepping on land mines for nothing that will be his, in my opinion, probably is the greatest legacy for coming out having the actual stones to do it. Mark Milly and the generals. They threw everything they had at Biden. He did what Obama could not. He did what Trump could not. Trump folded every single time that these people threw the mat at him. And you know that takes real courage in order to actually do this, because as you can see, the entire international machine is trying to keep him there and he's as from what we can tell right now, he has not wavering course. Everybody out on August thirty first, yeah, been completely adamant and consistent and said, look, we said we wanted to get bin La, we said we wanted to root Kaida out of Afghanistan. We did that a long time ago. It is long past time for us to come home. And anyone who says otherwise, look, yes, it is a horrible situation to imagine what some of the people in Afghanistan are going to be going through. What's your plan, what's your alternative? And that's the part that George W. Bush or any of these people who are leaking to the press, none of them have a plan that's other than endless war, endless resources, endless lives, and what have we got for it? As you said, Taliban, now stronger than ever, after all of our investments, after all of our training, after all of that, stronger than ever. So show me a trajectory that doesn't end in a horrific place, and no one has ever had an answer for any of that. At the same time, the voices in favor of regime change, man, they just don't stop coming out of the woodwork left and right. Well, this is with regards to Cuba, where of course we've been covering, you know, really rare, historic demonstrations that have been happening there. You've had a government cracked and cutting off the internet, so it's hard to figure out exactly what's going on in the ground there. And of course none of this can be said without taking in the context also of the US embargo, which makes life very different, difficult for the people of Cuba and hads for now sixty plus years. But the minute that there are any protests on the ground in Cuba, you've got people coming out of the woodwork ready to invade, literally calling the mayor of Miami, a Republican mayor of Miami, literally suggesting airstrikes and an intervention in Cuba. Right now on Fox News, let's take a listen to what he had to say, and that country had peaceful democracy for decades, and you had interventions by democratic presidents taking out Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, it's a sovereign country where they took out a terrorist that probably saved thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives, and President Clinton and Kosovo intervening in a humanitarian issue with air strikes. So there have been many, many opportunities in that you suggesting air strikes in Cuba. What I'm suggesting is that that option is one that has to be explored and cannot be just simply discarded as an option that is not on the table. And there's a variety of ways a military can do it, But that's that's something that needs to be discussed. It needs to be looked at as a potential option, in addition to a variety of other options that can be discussed. Sixty years after the Bay of Pigs Saga, they just never give up the dream of some full scale invasion. And look at the examples that he sided there, he sided the Afghan War, and he sided Kosovo, which, by the way, Kosovo is ten times more islamically fundamentalist today than it was back in nineteen ninety. Also is one of the big reasons that we have problems with Russia NATO expansion. I could go into it for a long time. There's a lot going on. This guy's really something and he doesn't. I mean, the Miami political system is weird. And you were telling me about this that he doesn't mayor in terms of his political power in Miami doesn't have a lot. So basically his job is to like go and do cables. He's a ceremonial mayor and so yeah, in Miami, apparently this is how it was explained to me. There's a strong mayor, a city manager. They have all the power. There are the people who do like vaccines and stuff. You have ceremonial mayor. So he's a ceremonial mayor of Miami, doesn't actually have control over Miami Dade County. That being said, he's pretty popular. Yeah, and I don't want to downput like, well, this is actually a very well review amongst many Cubans who live in Miami, especially the Cuban Americans who are very politically especially I think that's the important part is especially the ones that are most politically active influential, donate money, et cetera, have this very you know, hawkish hardline view. This guy's wild, though. I watched some other hits that he was doing on Fox News as well. Apparently he's all over that channel right now, and he was making the flat out like war on terror argument too. He's like, Cuba's exporting terrorism and that's why we need to conter potential intervention. It's like, what are you doing right now? We literally learn nothing from any of these conflicts, from any of our you know, one hundred years of intervening these countries and the blowback and the disaster that results not only for the people of those countries but for our own people. But I don't want to make this just purely a partisan thing. Here. You got some Democrats down in Florida who are also pushing Biden to do something. You must act swiftly. We can throw this tear sheet from Politico up on the screen, Democrats warning Biden in Florida not to blow a golden opportunity. I'm going to read to you a little bit of this they say now in this is from the Political Peace Now in Cuba's historic uprisings Florida Democrats see what many are calling a golden opportunity, a chance for Joe Biden to help bring democracy to the island. Okay, that should make you very nervous and as a result, attract the Hispanic voters that he hammered eight months ago. This is a mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall opportunity, said State said or a net today a Democrat from Miami who represents the district that Trump one. We need to be the beacon of hope. There are people in Cuba protesting, waving the American flag. That has never happened. We need to understand the moment we're living in. We also, and I brought this to you earlier this week, Val Deming's congressman, who's sentate hopeful in Florida, calling on the White House to quote act swiftly. Now they're a little bit less direct than the mayor who we just covered is in calling for intervention. But like, what are you actually asking for? What is it you want the Biden administration to do? And to move swiftly and to act swiftly, Like lay it out, what is it that you actually want them to do? This is the problem that I think these people are actually poisoning the discussion. So one thing that I've seen floated, I'm curious for what you think is restoring internet service for people in Cuba calling for that right, and apparently we do have the capability. And I was like, okay, well this seems reasonable. That being said, how do you decide when to do it and not? So you have the capability, So then they are you going to pick and choose? This is where it gets dicey, where you're like, okay, well, are you gonna pick and choose which protesters? There's protesters all across the world, So allied governments would not get there, or would we help them shut down internet service? Turkey, which is an allied government, they shut down their internet all the time. Pakistan shuts down the internet whenever there's like blasphems, So you know what I mean. So let me it just gets dicey. It's like on the surface, I'm like, okay, I mean, sure, you restore internet services. Seems pretty reasonable. That being said, would there be a proportionate response from the Cuban government, like would they see that as like an act of war on? So I'm like, well, well this is you know it gets complicated, and I do look at it as something which maybe should be in consideration if that's what we're going to consent. Well, but here's what I would say. First of all, I don't even have freaking Internet where I live in the United States of America. So if you're going to give people internet access, how about you make sure the citizens of this nation have internet access. If you have that case ability and you're so casually ready to use it, that's number one. Number two, this all has to be taken into consideration in the context of our long and bad history with Cuba. Yeah, as DeSantis points out in his requests for them to do this, we have a long history of piping propaganda into that nation, including directly involved with the Bay of Pigs failed invasion attempt. So all of these things, any sort of direct US action with regard to Cuba, Yeah, it's going to be received incredibly poorly. It's gonna look like we're taking those sort of heavy handed tactics, and with good reason too. By the way, could also be used as an excuse by the Cuban regime to combat them even more. I saw the Chinese exactly a lot. We would say, like because the Hong Kong protesters. Many of the Cuban protesters are you know, waving American flags as symbols of freedom. But the Hong Kong people would be like, see their American agents the chest. What the Chinese government would do and they would go and they would kill them or they would you know, throw them in prison, which miraculous, they've never heard them, heard from them again. So I would also be concerned from that view, which is like if you do restore the Internet and then the people who do use it could be labeled as American agents, they could all be slaughtered, you know, under Cuban law. So like that's another area where anything that we do with regard to intervention and messing with what's going on with Cuba has potential blowback because of the incredibly horrific and not just with regards to you know, trying to remove Castro, trying to assassinate Castro like countless times more times than we even possibly know about, but you know, installing Batista, and back before it was Castro, the US was you know, so powerful in Cuba that the US ambassador was the second most important person on the island, sometimes considered the most important person on the island, US business interests, mob running the joint. I mean, so we have we just this is a sort of situation where look, I one hundred percent support the liberation struggles of people. Everyone should be free from repression. They should have freedom of speech, just like we're supposed to have here, which also is you know, sometimes sent down in this nation at this point. But for us to get involved directly other than to lift the sanctions, that again, if you care about the Cuban people, lifting the sanctions that have made life very difficult would be the one thing that we should, you know, act swiftly to do. Because also, as we've discussed before, like all that the government has to do to cover up from their own failings is point at those sanctions, look at the US's fault. They have these sanctions on us, and they have some justification for their So don't give them the excuse if you actually care about supporting the people of Cuba. And by the way, I was looking at some of the polling here, you know, it's a lot different than I think the way that Cuban American opinion is portrayed. It's a lot more. It's it's not uniformly hardline the way that it's portrayed, But the hardline voices are the ones that are most elevated. They're the ones that are most influential, especially within the Republican Party. In the past year, they pulled Cuban Americans in Miami on whether these sanctions should be lifted temporarily during the pandemic, not overall, but temporarily during the pandemic. Fifty seven percent said yes. Wow, So, I mean because it's it's perfect. I mean, it's im moral during when people are suffering during a pandemic to put these further saying we're not at war with Cuba, like, what are we doing with this? And it hasn't worked, by the way, if your thought was like these sanctions and that has always been the thought, oh that we're going to put pressure on them and then they're going to overthrow the regime and then we're gonna it hasn't worked for sixty years. What do you think is going to change and make it different this time around? So I also don't think the opinion is quite as like you know, uniform as it sometimes is caricatured in the Yeah, yeahue. My general opinion on this stuff is, if you're going to do it, then you have to be willing to go. All that was what we were talking about with the Afghan girls. Like you know, you can be listen. I am one hundred percent with the protesters and Cuba is inspirational people putting your life on the line and all that. It's amazing to watch. It's something that's so incredibly rare. That being said, if you should probably not do something unless you have think there's a one a reasonable more than fifty percent chance of success. Do we really believe that the cast or regime is about to fall? I just don't believe that. Where has that out of work? That we've installed democracy and it's really gone. Well, you know, it's not even about installation. I'm saying, if you're gonna let you tip the hand on the scales or whatever, like, you be pretty damn sure it's gonna work. I just don't think that these are probably gonna work. It's like with Hong Kong. Frankly, look, I've stood with the honk with people of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong protesters. Hong Kong is a more dystopian place today than ever before. Why because the CCP rules it and it's theirs, and there's not much we can do about it. And so outside of being like I stand with the people of Hong Kong, and I think that generally it's the tenor of the Biden administration so far, which is, look, we stand with people like you're saying, peoples of liberation. Everywhere you stand with, you know, people who are holding the American flag in the streets. God bless you. That being said, you know, actively working to try to overthrow the regime, especially if it fails. It's also in Emba. Look at Venezuela, they're laughing at us over Guido, like because we can't even do a coup anymore. So I'm just saying, whenever it comes to it, you have to be very dicey. I've heard from some Cubans are very upset that we're not like fully is listen, I once again, you can be very very very appreciative and hopeful and inspired by the people who are standing up in the streets, especially when their lives are actually on the line. But things it's complicated, and the United States does not necessarily have the responsibility to get involved and then to try and overthrow this government, especially given our long history on the island. I would just ask those people who are upset to consider our own history in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and our even ability given Venezuela to do what you want them to do. I don't think that's frankly within the capabilities. So there's also a lot of hypocrisy that's been revealed here from you know, and Glenn's been pointing this out a lot on Yeah, but about you know, there was this idea of an America first, you know, foreign policy doctrine that's basically like, look, let's take care of this country and let's not worry so much about the rest of the world, which involves both that so you know, non intervention kind of philosophy, and also let's get a sound of Afghanistan and also like an immigration restrictionist view. All of that like goes out of the window where Cup is concerned. It's like, bring in the refugees, which I support bringing in refugees, by the way, but if we're going to do it, we don't just pick and choose which nations, you know, because of what they're ideological, what the government ideologically happens to believe or which political constituencies in the US happen to be very influential. So you have that thrown out the window. And then you also have just like in this one instance, yeah we should go in, Yes we should intervene, Yes we should have your regime change. It's like, what how out of the principle that y'all claim to support for the past, you know, four plus years that seem to sort of just like go out the window, which show that Afghan numbers we were showing you earlier too. I'll just show you this one and I was shocked to see this. Let's pull this up there wild. So this guy he can't I can't pronounce his name. I think is gian Carlo Sopo. So gen Carlo, if you ever watched this, I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name. He got into a fight with Glenn Greenwald. I mean, he ran Hispanic outreach for Trump, and he's saying I would gladly enlist, and so would many other Cuban Americans. So he's very upset with Glenn for talking about American first, and he's accusing him of being a surrogate for Latin American leftists, which is pretty ridiculous in my opinion. But that's an extremely extreme view of saying that you would enlist in the US military and so would many other people in order to invade Cuba. Now, look, I don't want to denigrate him personally, because you know, maybe he's Cuban, maybe he has ties, like many of these people can feel very passionately. But once again, the whims of a segment of the population should not be subject to the entire the lives of the United States military and American foreign policy. And I would encourage him and others try polling it. See how many people want to go and invade Cuba in order to install democracy. It would probably pull it like five percent. Even at the height of the Cold War, this shit wasn't exactly they tried. No, you're right, even whenever we were facing the nuclear annihilation, people were like, I don't know, I was whole cute thing man. So and that was a different, much more hawkish country. This is pre Vietnam. So just think about how deeply unpopular and frankly ridiculous of a policy that is. And I think that shows you how out of step a lot of people online who are talking about this and yeah, I don't even know what. I couldn't believe it. When I saw that I would gladly enlist. I was like, oh my god. I mean, you're basically calling for calling for literal bloodshed, terms on behalf of American soldiers to go in and to change the situation there. I just think that's completely ludicrous. I don't think there's anything aka first about that whatsoever. It's wild to see him with that view and the mayor just openly like, hey, maybe airstrikes, what do you think maybe for an intervention, maybe you know, democracy instantly, maybe regime change. Like this does not go well, guys, it does not end well for us, it doesn't end well for the country involved. No, no, no, no, no, no no. I think you're absolutely right. And look, I don't even know how to do a hard turn towards this one. This is something perfect I care a lot about. I've followed this case for many, many years, and that is of cerial pedophile predator Larry Nasser. So you guys will recall he was the doctor who was attached to the the University of Michigan, who was also attached to the USA gymnastics team. The USA Gymnastics team, the female gymnastics team, largely, you know, adolescent females, teenage girls who he would routinely over a period of decades, was molesting under the guise of quote unquote medical procedures. He was able to fool many parents, regulators, police agents, so many folks. Everything ultimately caught up with him and he's now in jail, I think for hundreds of years. But there's a new Inspector General report from the Department of Justice which will set make your blood boil. So let's put this up there. It came out yesterday, a long report that says that the FBI's handling of the sexual abuse case was completely subpar. They found that seventy or more young athletes had been sexually abused by mister Nasser, but that specific delays within the FBI's office led to dozens more young girls getting victimized in the interim period because of their lack of investigation. It said specifically, and it points to this, one agent whose name is Abbott WJS, lied to the Inspector General's office numerous times when it asked him about the Nasar inquiry. He gave false statements to quote minimize errors by the Indianapolis Field Office in connection with this, and he violated FBI policy because he spoke with Steve Penny, who was the president and chief executive of USA Gymnastics, about potential job opportunities with the US Olympic commitnitey, even as the two were discussing the allegations against mister Nasser. I'll put that tweet up there. I want to underscore this for everybody who is watching it, for everybody who is listening. The Special Agent in charge of the Indianapolis Field Office who was in charge of this investigation at the time of questioning USA Gymnastics a Rout Larry Nasser, was asking about a potential job opportunity with the US Olympic community, specifically at the exact same time that he slow rolled that investigation. The slow rolling of that investigation costs the innocence of so many young girls who are out there, And there were lies and obfuscations by the FBI at every step of the chain. And I can't help but think, Crystal, given what you're doing monologue on and more, which is that it is amazing to me and I'm doing my on Epstein about what these people just look away from, right and let go. And meanwhile, you know, oh, there's a photograph of everybody who happened to, you know, be in Washington or whatever on January sixth. There are people like sitting in jail. And you know, I mean in terms of in terms of the things that do get the political impetus, these things never get botched. All of that, and then sexual predators like Larry Nasser walk free. For look, every day that that man was free was a day that he victimized another young girl. Yeah, and I have listened and watched a documentaries, podcast and more. He was a monster of the highest order. His neighbor's daughter. You know, these are young young girl full of innocence, as young as up to him, as young as ages. They looked up to him, you know, they thought he was their special healer or whatever. And the way he manipulated the community. And then the most disgusting part is how these people stood for him, These FBI agents and the USA Gymnastics and the University of Michigan and many of the prosecutors even were involved in the State of Michigan and the cover up around this all the way up to the US Olympic Committee, a cover up of the highest order that happened here, and looking at it just it's crystall It's hard to even put put some words to it. Given how each instance, each additional instance, means the robbing of innocence of another human being. Well, we don't even know how many young girls he ultimately victimized. We know hundreds for sure. This was over the course of at least thirty years where he was put in a position of power over these young girls, again, as young as eight years old. In over years, he would groom them, they were required to go to treatment with him. When girls tried to come forward, they were dismissed like they were the hysterical ones, like they were the crazing office. That's what happened, the one girl who came forward. For thirty years, every single adult involved failed, and then when they're finally is supposed to be an FBI investigation, this dude who's in charge is too busy trying to get a job with the Olympic Committee to take this predator down, enabling him to victimize dozens more young girls because you all weren't doing what you were supposed to do. After thirty years of delay and a life allowing this monster to continue in these positions of power and trust. It is truly disgusting, and as you alluded to, you know, the monologue I'm doing today is about how the FBI, as you all know, during the War on Terear, I mean, they would consistently invent these plots that they could then go in and disrupt with much fanfare. With We now know with this Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot that they had at least a dozen informants involved, and there are real questions over whether, you know, was this a real plot that was going to happen, right, and more than yeah, more than the people who've been indicted. So they're spending all kinds of resources basically inventing and then disrupting quote unquote these terror plots, which again and the war on Terror was documented time and time and time and time again. But when you have a real predator and monster who's victimizing young girls on a near daily basis, you can't get your act together to take this guy down. It's truly disgusting and beyondwards. Hey, yeah, look, I mean and we said dozens, the number is estimated to be seventy. But I say dozens because we don't know. And that's the number in between when the first allegation between July twenty fifteen, when USA Gymnastics first reported those allegations to the FBI and August twenty sixteen, he victimized seventy people estimated that the low end it could be one hundred, could be even more in that interim period. That's what mister Abbot, the special Agent Abbot, and I want to say his name as many as possible because it's amazing to me how these people just slink away into the darkness or whatever, and this should follow him for the rest of his life. And we pulled some the heroic testimony of Ali Reisman. She's one of the Larry Nasterer's victims. Let's just go ahead and listen to what she had to say. Larry, you do realize now that this group of women you so heartlessly abused over such a long period of time are now a force and you are nothing. I am here to face you, Larry, so you can see I've regained my strength, that I'm no longer a victim, I'm a survivor. I am no longer that little girl you met in Australia where you first began grooming and manipulating. Treatments with you were mandatory. You took advantage of that. You even told on us if we didn't want to be treated by you, knowing full well the troubles that would cause for us lying on my stomach with you on my bed insisting that your inappropriate touch would help to heal my pain. The reality is you cause me a great deal of physical, mental, and emotional pain. You never healed me. You took advantage of our passions and our dreams. Your abuse started thirty years ago, but that's just the first reported incident we know of. She's really a brave woman. And there's another one, Maggie Nichols. So I actually watched a documentary on her. It's called athlete A. She was one of the first people to report NASA's abuse, and she taken off, not even as an alternate, And she did not make the US Olympic team because specifically retaliated against because she was brave enough, her and her mom were willing to spinand up to all these people who wanted to cover up what was happening there. It's one of the most ridiculous situations. I believe that she's very happy now. I think she did a university NCAA gymnastics, but she never got to go to the Olympics. And it's because she had the courage to speak up about that. Yeah, Simone Bile's you know, top gymnasts in the world right now. Also, you know, a survivor of his abuse. So just disgusting the way that every single adult involved failed because they wanted something for themselves, because they were in it for you know, they didn't want their organization to look bad. They didn't want them to look bad. They didn't want to rock the boat. They didn't want to miss the job opportunity that they thought they might have coming to them. Absolutely disgusting. Absolutely Wow, you guys must really like listening to our voices. Well, I know this is annoying instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial. When you're done, check out the other podcast I do with Marshall Kasoff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing realigning in American society. You always need more Crystal and Zagur in your daily lives. Take care, guys, Christill, what are you taking a look at today well, as I was saying, there are new questions this morning about just how involved the FBI again may have been in hatching a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer that they then disrupted with much fanfare. Here's the background here. You will recall in October of last year in the news media exploded with what was truly a sensational story. Right wing extremists, outraged over pandemic lockdowns had been narrowly thwarted in an attempt to kidnap the governor. That's what we were told. Remember this storming the state capital, instigating a civil war, abducting a sitting governor ahead of the presidential election. Those were among the plots described by federal and state officials in Michigan on Thursday as they announced terrorism, conspiracy, and weapons charges against thirteen men, at least six of them officials said, had had a detailed plan to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a demo who has become a focal point of anti government views and anger over coronavirus control measures. That was the report for the New York Times. Now, of course, that narrative really fit the moment. Trump had been going after Whitmer in recent weeks. Tensions were extraordinarily high heading into the November election. In her press conference after the plot was revealed, Whitmer actually blamed Trump for inciting these domestic terrorists. Very quickly, there were some signs that maybe the narrative wasn't quite as clear cut as the government and media were portraying it. Those warning signs were explained in a now prescient piece by Bronco Marcetic, who warrant that maybe, just maybe the FBI was quote up to its old Obama era trix, helping manufacture the very terrorist plots it ends up thwarting and then publicizing. In particular, Marcetic drew some parallels between this action against right wing extremists and how the government targeted young Muslim men for entrapment. He noted, for example, that while during the War on Terror, the government would frequently go after the poor or even the developmentally disabled for their entrapment schemes. The supposed ring leader of the Michigan kidnapping plot also seemed to really be at the margins of society. In this case, the alleged head terrorist, a guy named Adam Fox is very poor. He was nearly homeless. He was living temporarily in the basement of a vacuum store, where he held a meeting supposedly quote masterminding this plot. Marstic also noted that, as was often the case with the Muslim men the FBI entrapped, the accused didn't really seem to have the financial wherewithal to carry out their evil plans without the help of government money. An undercover agent told that ringleader Fox that explosives would cost about four thousand dollars. There is zero indication that the men involved had come close to pulling together that amount of money. Finally, Marcetic noted the extensive use of confidential informants in War on Terror entrapment. By twenty seventeen, eighty three percent of ISIS related cases involved undercover agents or informants. Well, now we are learning much more about just how extensive the govern It's use of confidential informants was in the Michigan kidnapping plot. New court filings in the case suggest the government used at least twelve informants in connection with disrupting this plot. Twelve. So, just if you're keeping track at home, that's twice as many government informants involved in the plot as there were alleged terrorists, according to an attorney for one of the defendants, quote, the government has shared ID numbers linked to twelve confidential informants, but with one exception, has not provided background on how they were recruited, what payments they might have received from the FBI, where they're based, or what their names are. Now look definitely worth keeping in mind here that it is the defense's strategy in this case to argue that the government hatched the plot and trap the defendants, so their assertion should absolutely be taken with a grain of salt. But so far this case is looking a whole lot like the domestic terror version of what was routinely done to destroy Muslim men during the height of the War on Terror. Now, I'm not cherry picking war on Terror cases here. Extensive review of such prosecutions by Human Rights Watch found that quote, many of these people would never have committed a crime if not for law enforcement encouraging, pressuring, and sometimes paying them to commit terrorist acts. The New York Times a few months back detailed how a highly touted disruption of a supposed plot to bomb the busy Herald Square subway stop that was effectively devised and pushed by the government. An FBI in formant radicalized a young Muslim man with photos of Abu grab and other US atrocities, helped that young muscle man conceive of a plan, and then pushed him to act on it. Our hardened terrorist in this case was such a thug that he insisted he needed to check with his mom before he could agree to actually do anything in connection with this government pushed plot. Why are these tactics and abuses so incredibly common, Well, all the incentives are aligned for the government to want to help create these plots and then make a big show of disrupting them, and that same logic that applies to domestic extreme as it did to international terrorism. Political careers are made by making a big show of disrupting terror plots. What's more, elaborately demonstrating that the world is dangerous and scary. That can be a really effective tool for social control and for claiming even more power for the deep state. Keep the public terrified, keep them on edge, tell them to spy in their neighbors and their family members, keep them glued into cable news, and elite media to learn the new explosive details of the latest narrowly avoided terror plot. Fear is powerful, and as scared people, they'll pass the patriot I, they'll go along with new wars, They'll accept mass surveillance. They'll desperately search for the next strong man Daddy figure to keep them safe. Survival is understandably prized above most other values. Allow me to state the obvious here. I abhor white supremacists, right wing extremists, and all terrorists who would seek to kill, kidnap and spread hate. But the very last thing that we need is the government actively filmenting and agitating and creating more extremism or just freaking people out for power and for profit. These government abuses pose a much graver threat to democracy than any of the grand plots that they pretend to disrupt. And Sager look just starting to get the details here. One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kolinski. It's called Crystal, Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or You can subscribe over on substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now enjoy so Sager, what are you looking at? Well, it's been a while since my last Epstein update, as the case is Kleene Maxwell drags on. There've been some limited developments in the case, but overall, the question as to how exactly Epstein was able to get away with his predilections for so long ensnare so many powerful people, and most importantly get away with it for decades, both in the legal and the financial system, is one where simply just not that much closer to answering than we were in November twenty nineteen when he died by alleged suicide. Now, the ultimate question around Epstein stems from his two thousand and five sweetheart deal with Florida prosecutors, where despite being caught trafficking and victimizing literal children, he only got a limited amount of time in the Palm Beach County jail, enjoyed release on the weekends, and within no time was right back to sex trafficking and living a life of debauchery. Former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta resigned from his post in nineteen when his role as the prosecutor who broke her the deal came to light. But there's been a lingering question as to whether political influence or even government influence, is what kept Epstein free at the time. A new book by journalist Julie K. Brown, she brought this entire case to light answers some of that question. Political corruption absolutely was a big part of how Epstein walked free. Journalist Julie Brown, she's the one who shed this light, she says, is largely responsible for all the new developments in the case. Says that Kenneth Starr, who you right remember as the prosecutor who went after Bill Clinton, underwent a quote scorched earth campaign to keep him out of prison. Now. Brown details how Starr was hired by Epstein's team because, if you might recall, back in the two thousands, George W. Bush administration was ruling the country and he had good connections there. Brown reveals that when Epstein's team thought that he was in serious legal jeopardy, Starr came in and ran the show, writing an eight page letter to Mark Phillip. Mark Phillip was the second most powerful prosecutor in the country, and the then Deputy Attorney General. It just so happens that Philip was the former colleague of Kenneth Starr. They had worked together before, and that Starr himself used much of the flourishes that he did from the Star report against Bill Clinton in his defense of Epstein. Starr somehow twisted a tail in which the Justice Department was going after Epstein in order to try and engineer a quiet plea deal with the billionaire which would benefit their friends. Which friends exactly are unclear. Epstein's legal team started personally going after the prosecutors on the case who had nailed Epstein dead to rights. But here's where things get really interesting. According to Brown's reporting, one of the prosecutors on the case in Florida told associates, quote, someone in Washington was calling the shots on the case. Worse, the female prosecutor who developed the case against Epstein felt she had no choice but to hurriedly sign a plea deal with him because she believed Washington was about to make a determination that he should not be prosecuted at all. Looking closer, it's even more fishy the details that she describes. In two thousand and eight, when the court and pomp Beach County had to sign off on the state's plea deal with Epstein. Judge presiding over that case, who had a history of rejecting exactly such plea agreements, on the very day of the hearing, for reasons that have yet to be explained, he was unassigned. A new judge was assigned to that case to handle the matter, who accepted the now influenced plea deal. He set Epstein on the road to Scott free life that he basically lived until his death. Now, per the New York Times book review, Julie Brown doesn't arrive at any definitive answers. How could she? It's frankly a job too big for anyone journalists who doesn't have subpoena power. That's always been the most frustrating part of the developments with this case. There's titillating signs and developments everywhere, but smoking guns never really seemed to materialize. All we have are smoke and indications of an absolutely corrupt deal involving the very highest levels of the Justice Department. Now look a little bit closer. Why nobody knows? Was it intelligence? Was it political? Was it billionaire influence? Was it all of the above. These are questions that the very department which likely was corrupted is really the one which is to answer, and exactly that tension is what makes this, in my opinion, really unresolvable. All we seem destined to get are these nuggets, which admittedly are kind of juicy, like the revelation that Chris Kuomo's wife was apparently in Epsteine's Little Black Book from the nineteen nineties. Weird huh. I'll end with more questions than answers that I'll routinely be on the lookout for. What was the actual source of Epstein's wealth. Nobody still seems to know. Why did the richest and most powerful people in the world remain convinced that he and he alone seemed able to deliver them a service which they couldn't get anywhere else. Why did the US government and many others allow him to covert around the world with underage girls with relative impunity for three decades. Why when is now mistresses on trial and in jail. Has there not been a serious development in the case after promises of unsealed documents and charges that only remain in the nineteen nineties. Why is the largest financial institutions in the world get off pretty much scott free in their pursuit of a relationship with Epstein. These are the same questions that we've had since November twenty nineteen, and we still don't have any good answers. Look, we're going to keep waiting and watching here on the show, but againning to think I shouldn't hold my breath. It's crazy, Crystal, because Julie Brown joining us now. Longtime friend of the show, Zed Jelani, independent journalist. What is an author of inquire More, author of seemingly everything. He's one of the most prolific guys that we know. He recently produced a mini documentary for Fox News which was about a closing plant in Morgantown, West Virginia. Let's take a listen to some of Zed's work and we're going to talk to him about it afterwards. They totally shifted their focus overseas and away from the home hometown. They're interested in expanding in China there, but I'm told that they're replacing these American jobs here in Worktown with theotops at you in Australia. So I believe this decision has been made by the company because there's more money to be made overseas. They told us, for the better of be interested in shareholders that it was best off to shutou to Morningtown plan. Just to see the industry leave our country period has been absolutely detrimental. Wow, Okay, So tell me a little bitbout what's going on here. Is that because this is not just one plant, this is a special plant because Joe Manchin's daughter was the CEO, it involves Epigen, which was a big controversy, and now they're closing and moving production elsewhere. So there's a lot going on here. Yeah. So basically this plant is in Morgantown, West Virginia. It's in north kind of central West Virginia. And I think a lot of viewers may recall the scandal with Mylind Pharmaceuticals in the EpiPen. You know, that was when Heather Brush, who it was CEO of this company, she was actually Joe Manchin's daughter. In twenty twenty, this company, Mylin, merged with another company, up John to create Viatrice, a new kind of mega pharmaceutical company, and at that point Heather Brush skipped out. She left the company. She got a thirty million dollar Golden Paarachute, and they announced a series of layoffs, and those layoffs were centered in Morgantown, West Virginia, now Morgantown, the town that was basically created by Myland Pharmaceuticals. The founder of Mylon Pushcars talked about almost like a saint when you talk to people in the town about when it comes to how much he contributed to the vicinity. How much you know, the stadium, the university, the hospitals, the merchants, everyone benefited from Myland being there. And it was a hometown company. It was kind of born and bred in Morgantown, in that area, West Virginia. What happened was in the early two thousands, Milan Pushcar stet down. He later passed away. How they brush stepped up as CEO, and the company started to globalize right And at that point, I think they started to feel a lot less loyalty to those people in West Virginia who had worked, you know, day and day out and those plants growing the company, and they started looking overseas. And what they did is a couple of weeks before Christmas Day in twenty twenty, they announced and they told all the workers around fifteen hundred people that they'd be losing their jobs, that they'd be closing the plant and moving all of the work overseas to India and to Australia. Wow, who did the workers that you talked to, who did they blame? And did they I mean, it's just it's a perfect story because of course the politically connected, you know, the daughter of she gets out, she gets her golden parachute. No harm done. There was the workers left holding the bag here inimately blame or did they have a specific person or entity or whatever that they thought was to blame for this situation? Yeah, I think so many of the workers brought up over and over, and some of them had worked at the plant fifteen or twenty years, so they had experienced. You know, Mylon Pushcard, the old owner owning the company. They really blamed the you know, the reality that he stepped down, that he passed away, and the company was handed off to people who weren't as loyal to the town of Morgantown, who didn't feel like they had roots there. I mean, Heather Brush, who was the former CEO, Joe Manchin's daughter. She lives in Pittsburgh, right, I'm sure she gets a nice place up there. She doesn't even live in West Virginia anymore. So I think that the change in leadership the company was one factor. And then the other factor, I think is that the elected officials in the town. You know, they didn't have that much control over the situation. It's a private deal, Viatrice. The new company wouldn't allow them to tour the plant, which is necessity for finding a new buyer for the plan to keeping the people employed. But I think there was a sense among a lot of them that the politicians really didn't care that much about them. So, for instance, Joe Manchin, not only does he have a family connection to this, but he's one of the most important centers in the entire Senate. Yes, his vote matters for everything. Right now. If you were to go to Joe Biden and say, look, I have fifteen hundred people losing their jobs over that many if you count the corporate layoffs as well, you need to give me some new investment Morgantown, he could probably pull it off. And yet, when the union leader of that plant met with Joe Manchin, Mansion was telling them, oh, y'all make penicillin over there, and he's saying, we haven't made penicillin in decades, right, Joe Mansion was barely paying attention to this situation. The West Virginia House of Delegates passed a resolution calling on the West Virginia government to ask Joe Biden to use the Defense Production Act to utilize the facility, you know, produce all kinds of medical COVID. Yeah, I mean there's a lot. You've been talking. We've been talking for the past year about how we don't produce enough medical devices and pharmaceuticals here in the United States. In a national security crisis, we need to have that capacity here, and yet the Biden administration hasn't moved. And we talked to a local reporter in West Virginia who talked to the other West virgin and your said, or Shelley Moore Capito asked her if she raised the issue would Biden And she said she didn't raise the Defense Production Act issue with him, So, oh my god, you know, to some extent, Yeah, the elected officials don't have total control of this situation, but it also doesn't seem like they completely care about the situation either. So let's dissect that. Which is that Joe Manchin's got time for Exxon lobbyists. Joe Manchin's got a lot of time here about you know, being King of the Senate, but his own constituency or losing a job. Not only is he not what's being manufactured in their plant, his fans of family connection also how does he not know if his daughter is the one who's running the plant. Yeah, that's interesting. But you think, and you cut it down to this, is that it doesn't feel like anybody's fighting for these people. They're just left completely of their own to the whims of economic conditions that they can understand, but they don't seem to have any say in this whatsoever. And I think that's the saddest part. You know, people who have been reading this story been asked me late, what do I think is the solution? And I think we have we're not talking seriously enough about the problem to come to solutions. Right, because what's happening in Morgantown, And one of the workers says this in the documentary, you know it can be coming to the town to you next, Right, This is the story of what's happened in Ohio, over and over Pennsylvania, Wisconsin industrial base all over the United States is we've seen homeground, homegrown companies grow to a size where they start responding to shareholders instead of you know, they're no longer family owned. They start looking overseas. They see it's cheaper to produce there. See, the workers are much cheaper to employ there, so they move out. And that's happened over and over, and I think in successive election seasons we've seen politicians talk about how much they hate offshore, how much they hate outsourcing. But the only real solution we have, I mean, these workers will get what's called trade Trade Adjustment Assistant's THAA, and that means that, you know, I talked to one lady. She's in her sixties. Now she's going to have to go to school and get trained to do something totally different, like maybe she doesn't want to, you know, yeah, she doesn't want to. And also it's extremely difficult her age for her to do that. Right, it's not a real it's kind of a band aid to this problem, and yet it keeps happening to more and more people. We always talk about how we need industrial policy, how we need a discouraged outsourcing through our tax code, you know, so on and so forth. And yet when this happens under really bipartisan watch because you have a Republican center, a Democratic center, you have a state legislature, a governor who's a Republican, you have Joe Biden as a president. Very few people are paying very close attention to cases like this right now, right? How did this come about? This being a mini doc and Fox News picking it up? What was the sort of like backstory there? Yeah, so it's really interesting. Fox Digital, which is kind of the digital or website of Fox, they have a unit that's really interested in broadening the Fox audience addressing issues which I think aren't clearly a left right partisan divide issue, and I think this is one of those. It was it was the sort of topic they wanted to take on because they think that, you know, it's the kind of thing that you should be interested in, whether they're a Democrat or a Republican. And when I was in Morgantown, it was really interesting because it is one of the more democratic parts of the state for the students and a lot of local art officials Democrats, but they were all happy to talk to Fox. And you know, it's funny that they were even in this Democratic Party, the say, a lot of people like Trump are at least like tolerated try for you know, they felt like he at least spoke to them. So I think, yeah, it's it's the kind of issue that everyone should be concerned about. It's not a it's not a red meat culture thing, it's not a partisan thing. And I think these folks at Fox are really generous and and really broad minded to want to want to cover issues like that. That's good. So what are some of the other types of things you're going to be taking a look at? Said, Yeah, so I think we'll be making a few more things. I don't want to scoop myself, but I think I think that, like I said, the wheelhouse for this unit will be looking at issues where people on both sides are kind of being given a raw deal, where where they're being kind of shut out from the system and from the process, and where they're not being covered by the rest of the mainstream media. So those are the kind of topics that we look at. Yeah, well and listen, guys, if you want that kind of content, then consume that kind of content, because ultimately Fox News business venture, they're going to respond to you know if they see this gets a lot of us a lot of support. These kind of like actually digging into substantive things rather than like potato head or whatever else they're doing over there on primetime instead of some doctor sisp or my pillow ceo. This is some true victory people, So please do the work, as they say, zed, where can they find out more about you? Support your work all of that. Yeah, So I run a personal subset newsletter at inquire more dot com. I just write all kinds of topics there and then I encourage everyone to go watch the documentary on foxnews dot com. It's when globalization hits home. Myelind pharmaceuticals. IB just google that. We'll have the links down there in the description to both Z has been a long time friend of the show. It's been amazing watching your everything. You guys grow, you grow, and you've helped us tremendously. So thank you. Man. Yeah, I'm sure the audience is going to be sad to not see your pink headphone. Yeah, whatever else is going on, I can bring them next. Next time, bring Dratini. I would put Dratini up. Man. That's iconic, that's rising, that's real rising. Legacy stuff. Appreciate you joining me. Thank you for everybody else who's watching and listening. We really appreciate it. You can become a premium subscriber today. All all the links you know down there in the description show an hour Early. You guys know the Drill, lifetime members, the Metallurgist. This stuff is developing and it will be here very very soon. All of the details there you can find out more. Become a premium subscriber. It's right there in the description. Note. We really appreciate it, and we will see you all on Monday. Thanks, guys, have good weekend. Thanks for listening to the show. Guys, we really appreciate it. To help other people find the show, go ahead and leave us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Really helps other people find the show. As always special thank you to Supercast for powering our premium membership. If you want to find out more, go to Crystalsager dot com.