Ibram X. Kendi is a genius. He won a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2021, an award that recognizes his exceptional creativity, scholarly achievements, and a gift for communicating his anti-racist ideas with diverse audiences. He is the founder of the BU Center for Antiracist Research, and he now hosts a podcast called Be an antiracist. And he thinks that racism is at the root of America's deep and abiding racism. But what exactly does that mean, exactly? And why does he think that race matters? Is it because of racial inequity? Or is it because racism is deeply embedded in America's policies and practices? And how does he define racism? And what does it have to do with race? This episode is a mashup of my thoughts on racism, colorblindness, and the idea that race shouldn't matter because it's not a racist because it doesn't matter, because race matters because it matters because of disparities. And if you're a racist, you don't need to prove that race is a racist. You don't have to prove racism is a problem, you just have to show that it's caused by policies that lead to racism. And the only way to prove it is by evidence of racism is to prove there is racism is by a disparity, not by a lack of racism, and that racism doesn't exist because of inequity. This is the only thing that matters because race is not racist. and if race matters, then it's a racist not because of racism because it is not a problem And if race is racist, then racism is not a problem because it matters because , then it is not because it s not . or so in the first place that s . And if racism is then it s racist, right? why does it ? and is a bad thing by racism is bad, right? And if it s a bad, then what does that matter we should be if it matters when it matters, right but the means that isn t a problem? if it s ? What does it matter? , should it matter , not cause shouldn t matter ? can it be a racist? and why
00:00:05.000He's such a genius that he actually won a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2021.
00:00:09.000That was a $625,000 nose-strings-attached fellowship honoring his exceptional creativity, scholarly achievements, gift for communicating his anti-racist work and ideas with diverse audiences, and promise for further benefiting society.
00:00:22.000That is Boston University that gave him this anti-racist grant.
00:00:30.000Now, for those who have not followed the prodigious career of Ibram X. Kendi, the founder of the BU Center for Antiracist Research, he is the author of a bunch of really not very good books, and he speaks nonsense for a living.
00:00:44.000The nonsense that he speaks is all about how America is deeply and irrevocably racist, He wrote, most famously, a book called Stamp from the Beginning, the definitive history of racist ideas in America about how America was literally racist in all of its iterations from the very beginning.
00:00:57.000That is up to and including all of the constitutional protections of the Bill of Rights.
00:01:02.000He also wrote a book called How to Be an Antiracist, and he now has a podcast called Be an Antiracist.
00:01:08.000So what exactly does this genius say about racism?
00:01:11.000Well, he can't really define the term.
00:01:13.000He just knows that racism exists wherever there is a disparity.
00:01:16.000The direct quote from him, as an antiracist, when I see racial disparities, I see racism, which is unbelievably stupid.
00:01:55.000If you see, for example, that 99% of people in prison for violent crime are men, Less than 2% are women.
00:02:03.000Is that because of some deeply sexist root in society?
00:02:07.000That if we were a non-sexist society, 50% of the people going to prison for a violent crime would be women, presumably?
00:02:13.000The truth is, disparities exist across virtually every industry, across virtually every metric, in society, for all of time.
00:02:21.000They're tied to everything from geography to environment.
00:02:24.000The idea that if two groups by race do not stack up identically in any particular area, this is because of systemic and abiding racism is nonsense.
00:02:46.000But, Ibram X. Kendi's entire proposal, which was built up on the back of the BLM movement in 2020, is that he doesn't need to prove that racism is actually at the root of anything.
00:02:59.000It makes his job really easy, because I, too, can point to disparities in every arena of life.
00:03:04.000But, unless I actually prove that the reason behind the disparity is some sort of evil, I've not proved anything.
00:03:11.000But, Kendi, because in 2020 we decided as a society that you no longer had to prove that racism was at the root of, for example, crime statistics.
00:03:19.000Instead, you could just simply claim that it was, and then everyone who said that it wasn't was deemed to be racist.
00:04:23.000I mean, you can try, but it doesn't work.
00:04:26.000Again, just to read you the quote so you understand how dumb this is, quote, I would define it as a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas.
00:04:36.000The audience, by the way, watching this actually laughed out loud.
00:04:39.000And then he reiterated his definition and he added, quote, an anti-racism is pretty simple using the same terms.
00:04:43.000Anti-racism is a collection of anti-racist policies leading to racial equity that are substantiated
00:04:50.000Now, again, as I say, just textbook logic.
00:04:53.000You cannot define a term by using the term.
00:04:56.000If someone asks you to define an elephant, and you quickly explain that an elephant is an animal known as an elephant, that would not add any new information to the discourse.
00:05:04.000If you said an elephant is an animal that looks exactly like an elephant and acts exactly like an elephant, people would laugh at you because it's ridiculous.
00:05:10.000That's exactly what Ibram X. Kendi is saying so that he doesn't actually have to define the term.
00:05:15.000Now remember, he was richly rewarded for all of this crap in the middle of the BLM scam that was happening in 2020.
00:05:35.000It was particularly prominent among liberal white folks who felt that if they signed Ibram X. Kendi a check the same way that they would have back in the 1980s to Al Sharpton, then they could give basically Al Sharpton with a patina of intellectual legitimacy.
00:06:17.000Which presumably is why Jack Dorsey in 2020 gave Kendi's new Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University $10 million.
00:06:25.000The Vertex Foundation of Vertex Pharmaceuticals gave the Center $1.5 million over three years.
00:06:29.000Bank of America brought in Kendi to deliver his message.
00:06:33.000And the Boston Globe teamed with Kendi's Center to create a new media platform.
00:06:38.000The Center for Antiracist Research has generated precisely zero research at this point, so far as anyone is aware.
00:06:44.000So, why are we discussing Ibram X. Kendi today?
00:06:47.000Because, hilariously, after BU set up an entire center in ode to this idiot, that after BU set up, with the Boston Globe, a media enterprise with Ibram X. Kendi, After all of this happened, it turns out that Boston University is now announcing an inquiry into the Ibram X. Kendi's Anti-Racist Center.
00:07:08.000It turns out the whole thing is a scam.
00:07:13.000You mean a person who can't find the word racism, but was being paid not to define the word racism, and then the way that you actually become not racist, you mean that was a scam?
00:07:21.000You mean just like any other cult, if the cult leader can't define the terms, but the terms involve you having sex with the cult leader, it's a cult?
00:07:52.000Anti-racism is a collection of anti-racist policies that target racist disparities backed by racist ideas.
00:07:59.000Everyone could tell this is gobbledygook nonsense, but we all had to pretend not because black lives matter.
00:08:04.000Now, how it protected black lives beyond anybody, no proof it does, but in fact, precisely the opposite.
00:08:09.000It turns out the best way to alleviate disparities is to actually focus in on human behavior and focus in on the behavior that leads to those disparities.
00:08:15.000But, Ibram X. Kendi got away with a lot of money for a long time.
00:08:18.000We'll get into the details in just one second.
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00:10:03.000It's a snake eating its own tail here.
00:10:05.000So you see, Ibram X. Kendi preaches the grift.
00:10:08.000And then when he actually uses the grift to fire his own people, creating a disparity in outcome,
00:10:12.000this means he is now violating his own anti-racist precepts.
00:10:16.000It turns out if you hire a bunch of black people at the Boston University Center for Ibram X. Kendi's Grift, and then you fire a bunch of black people, and you now have created a disparity, then who's the anti-racist and who's the racist, Ibram X. Kendi?
00:10:28.000Anti-racism is not a branding exercise, PR campaign, or path to self-promotion.
00:10:31.000It is a life-and-death matter, says Philippe Copeland.
00:10:33.000Too much of higher education responded to the so-called racial reckoning with theater, therapy, and marketing masquerading as institutional commitment.
00:10:40.000Wherever this has occurred, it needs to be exposed for the obscenity it is.
00:12:13.000Since its announced launch in June of 2020, just days after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Center has raised tens of millions of dollars from tech entrepreneurs, Boston-area corporations, and thousands of small donors, according to the Boston Globe, which is one of the institutions that sponsored Kendi.
00:12:28.000The money was meant to finance a range of ambitious projects, a database to track racial disparities nationwide, a graduate degree program, a media enterprise, and research teams studying the effects of systemic racism on health and society.
00:12:39.000Some of those projects have come to fruition, including The Emancipator, a digital publication launched with the Boston Globe's opinion staff in 2021.
00:12:45.000So in other words, the Boston Globe did its part, but nothing else happened with the money.
00:13:14.000So, Kendi has completed a number of personal projects since 2020, but in recent months he's been on leave from the Center.
00:13:21.000He returned last week and in a series of Zoom meetings told approximately 20 of the Center's staffers they would be laid off, according to Spencer Piston, a BU professor and leader in the Center's policy conference.
00:13:31.000The layoffs were initiated by Dr. Kendi, and they represented a strategic pivot, according to BU.
00:13:37.000The sensor will now pursue a fellowship model, rather than its research-based approach.
00:13:49.000If you can't articulate why it is that somebody should give you money to do a thing, all you can do is threaten them that you will call them a racist or a bigot.
00:13:57.000If they do not do the thing, this means that you are a cult leader and a scam artist.
00:14:01.000And that is what happened right here with the Center for Anti-Racist Bigotry.
00:14:05.000And this is indeed the greatest scam in modern America.
00:14:07.000The DEI scam, the woke scam, it is a scam.
00:14:10.000Wokeness, by the way, has an actual definition.
00:14:18.000The basic idea is Kennedy's idea that America is rife with institutional racism, that that institutional racism serves the purposes of white supremacy, and that any disparity is evidence of that racism.
00:14:30.000That's Kennedy in a nutshell, and it's a scam.
00:14:32.000Because the only way that you can escape this bind that they have created, this unfalsifiable, etheric racism that you're a part of, is to give them money.
00:16:22.000On the Russell Brand affront, I gotta say that we will see what happens with the allegations against Russell Brand.
00:16:27.000The Metropolitan Police are soliciting accounts and evidence of the allegations that are made against Russell Brand for the possibility of prosecution of him if it turns out that these can be substantiated.
00:16:38.000But that is not stopping people in the British government from immediately going after any ad revenue that Brand could be receiving from any outlets.
00:16:44.000We talked yesterday about the fact that YouTube has now demonetized all of Russell Brand's videos.
00:16:50.000So allegations are tantamount to conviction in the world of YouTube.
00:16:53.000Which is weird, because Cardi B literally has admitted to drugging and robbing men, but I see that her videos are earning tons and tons of cash.
00:17:00.000Elijah Schaffer pointed that one out, by the way.
00:17:02.000It's a good point, and it happens to be an obvious double standard.
00:17:06.000Well now, the British government is literally sending letters to Rumble.
00:17:10.000So Rumble is a video site that hosts Russell's show.
00:17:15.000In the UK Parliament, they had a committee that sent a letter to the CEO of Rumble.
00:17:21.000That letter, from Dame Carolyn Deninage?
00:17:25.000The chair of the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee wrote this letter to Rumble saying,
00:17:28.000quote, I'm writing concerning the serious allegations regarding Russell Brand in the
00:17:31.000context of his being a content provider on Rumble with more than 1.4 million followers.
00:17:35.000The Culture, Media, and Sport Committee is raising questions with the broadcasters and
00:17:38.000production companies who previously employed Brand to examine both the culture of the industry in the
00:17:42.000past and whether that culture still prevails today. However, we are also looking at his use
00:17:46.000of social media, including on Rumble, where he issued his preemptive response to accusations
00:17:50.000made against him by the Sunday Times and Channel 4's dispatches. While we recognize that Rumble is
00:17:54.000not the creator of the content, we are concerned he may be able to profit from the content
00:17:58.000We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Bran is able to monetize his content, including his videos related to serious accusations against him.
00:18:04.000If so, we would like to know whether Rumble intends to join YouTube in suspending Bran's ability to earn money on the platform.
00:18:10.000We would also like to know what Rumble is doing to ensure creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behavior.
00:18:17.000So you got the British government basically tacitly threatening Rumble with some sort of unspecified consequences for not demonetizing Russell Brain.
00:18:24.000Now the government's working to push social media platforms to demonetize people on the basis of allegations that the British government has so far not yet prosecuted.
00:18:33.000Well, Chris Pavlovsky, who's the CEO of Rumble, issued a response, quote, While Rumble obviously deplores sexual assault, rape, and all serious crimes, and believes that both alleged victims and the accused are entitled to a full and serious investigation, it's vital to note recent allegations against Bran have nothing to do with content on Rumble's platform.
00:18:52.000We regard it as deeply inappropriate and dangerous that the UK Parliament would attempt to control who is allowed to speak on our platform or to earn a living from doing so.
00:18:59.000Singling out an individual demanding his ban is even more disturbing given the absence of any connection between the allegations and his content on Rumble.
00:19:05.000We don't agree with the behavior of many of Rumble's creators.
00:19:07.000We refuse to penalize them for actions that have nothing to do with our platform.
00:19:11.000I mean, that should be patently obvious to anybody, but the fact that the UK Parliament is now unleashing committees to try to pressure social media companies to remove monetary compensation from Russell Brand's videos is totally crazy.
00:19:24.000I mean, that is in fact a violation of every free speech principle.
00:19:27.000If the government... I mean, understand what's happening here.
00:19:30.000The government has not charged Russell Brand with a crime.
00:19:33.000And yet they are now pressuring social media to remove monetary compensation from all of his videos.
00:19:38.000They're writing open letters to places like Rumble about all of this.
00:19:55.000And the government then went to your employer and tried to get you fired on the basis of an allegation that has not yet been substantiated by the police.
00:20:03.000That's scary stuff, and it's obviously ending around due process.
00:20:07.000But, you know, this is the world in which we live, and that is a scary, scary world.
00:20:11.000Okay, one second, we're gonna get to Merrick Garland.
00:20:12.000Speaking of lawlessness, Merrick Garland, the Attorney General of the United States, appeared on the Hill yesterday.
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00:21:21.000Okay, meanwhile, Republicans had Merrick Garland to the hill at the Judiciary Committee, and it didn't go amazing for Merrick Garland.
00:21:28.000According to the Wall Street Journal, he stressed the independence of the DOJ's criminal case against Hunter Biden as Republicans accused him during a combative congressional hearing of showing leniency toward the son of the president who appointed him.
00:21:40.000Republicans are ramping up their impeachment inquiry into President Biden, but it's not just targeting Hunter and Joe.
00:21:46.000That inquiry obviously targets Garland as well, because Garland was presiding over a DOJ that attempted to cut an obvious sweetheart deal with Joe Biden's son, while Joe Biden is President of the United States.
00:21:55.000Now Merrick Garland is denying having anything to do with this.
00:21:57.000He's like, well, you know, it wasn't me.
00:22:42.000So all Merrick Garland had to do in order to effectuate this sweetheart deal, which had to have signed off at the DOJ for sure, is nothing.
00:23:57.000He knows how to conduct investigations, and I have not intruded or attempted to evaluate that because that was the promise I made He's been truly independent is what we've heard.
00:24:19.000It is also true that if you're looking for independence from a justice department run by the suspect's father, then maybe when you come in, you say, okay, well, yeah, I understand that the other party was in charge of the justice department.
00:24:29.000Well, now I'm in charge of the justice department.
00:24:32.000And that's kind of awkward since, you know, my boss is the dad of the guy that we're looking to prosecute.
00:24:36.000So maybe I should give some semblance of independence to the special prosecutor.
00:25:55.000Well, yeah, but if the message goes out that all of these other district attorneys all over the country They're better off not partnering with David Weiss in prosecuting these cases, then what do you think is going to happen?
00:26:08.000Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky, he's saying the same thing.
00:26:13.000When I said how many agents or assets of the government were present on January 5th and January 6th and agitating in the crowd to go into the Capitol and how many went into the Capitol, can you answer that now?
00:26:25.000I don't know the answer to that question.
00:26:27.000Last time, you don't know how many there were or there were none?
00:26:32.000I don't know the answer to either of those questions.
00:26:34.000If there were any, I don't know how many.
00:26:44.000That you don't know that there were any?
00:26:45.000I have no personal knowledge of this matter.
00:26:48.000I think what I said the last time... You've had two years to find out, and the day... By the way, that was in reference to Ray Epps, and yesterday you indicted him!
00:26:57.000Okay, so, again, that's about January 6th, but this is the whole point, is that Merrick Garland, as always, the accuser is so often the person who is doing the thing.
00:27:06.000And that's particularly true when it comes to the DOJ.
00:27:09.000For years, all we heard is that Bill Barr was somehow a tool of Donald Trump doing all the bidding of Donald Trump, which is weird because Bill Barr was at direct odds with Donald Trump over, for example, January 6th and all the election stuff that Trump was doing between the election and January 6th, to the point that Trump was starting to fire him, Barr was threatening to walk, and all the rest of this sort of stuff.
00:27:27.000Meanwhile, you had Eric Holder, who's the Attorney General under Barack Obama, openly saying he was Barack Obama's wingman.
00:27:32.000You had Loretta Lynch on the tarmac with the Clintons.
00:27:36.000And meanwhile, you have now Merrick Garland doing the exact bidding of Joe Biden.
00:27:41.000And we're supposed to believe that it's completely apolitical.
00:27:44.000Garland did testify that he wouldn't even say if he had discussed the Hunter Biden probe with David Weiss.
00:27:51.000This is Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana-Grillingham.
00:27:54.000Can you tell us about any briefings or discussions that you personally have had with Mr. Weiss Regarding any and all federal investigations of Hunter Biden.
00:28:02.000I'm going to say again, I promised the Senate that I would not interfere with Mr. Weiss.
00:28:07.000So you have not, under oath today, your testimony is you have not had any discussions with Mr. Weiss about this matter?
00:28:13.000Under oath, my testimony today is that I promised the Senate I would not intrude in his investigation.
00:28:21.000I do not intend to discuss internal Justice Department deliberations, whether or not I had them.
00:28:28.000Oh, okay, so your testimony today is you're not going to tell us whether you've had discussions with Mr. Weiss.
00:28:33.000My testimony today is I told the committee that I would not interfere.
00:28:39.000I made clear that Mr. Weiss would have the authority to bring cases that he thought were appropriate.
00:28:47.000Okay, but he won't answer any specific questions about, you know, the exact content of conversations with David Weiss, which is weird.
00:28:54.000And then Garland was asked, well, did you talk to anybody about the Hunter probe?
00:29:34.000Again, Merrick Garland, one of the most obviously corrupt bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., and thanks to Mitch McConnell for not putting that guy on the Supreme Court of the United States.
00:29:46.000Also, Merrick Garland was rigged over the coals about the DOJ's bizarre decisions over the course of his tenure, including multiple FBI field offices coordinating to prepare an anti-Catholic memo that happened, you'll recall, back in August.
00:29:59.000When House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government Chairman Mike Johnson sent a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray revealing that the FBI Richmond Field Office coordinated with multiple FBI offices across the country to produce a memo targeting traditional Catholics as potential terrorists.
00:30:15.000Well, Mayor Garland was asked about this and he denied that there was any religious discrimination at the DOJ, which I'm sure.
00:30:22.000Through the Chair, I ask you, do you agree that traditional Catholics are violent extremists?
00:30:27.000I have no idea what the traditional means here.
00:31:14.000Because the reality is that it is very easy to believe that you are the good guy and that you are not engaged in a form of discrimination, even if your FBI field offices are engaging in discrimination against, for example, traditional Catholics.
00:31:27.000Because you just say, well, they're not actually traditional Catholics.
00:31:32.000And well, the Democrats came out in full scale defense of Merrick Garland, of course,
00:31:36.000Jerry Nadler in particular went after Jim Jordan, suggesting that everything that Jim Jordan is
00:31:41.000saying about Merrick Garland has already been refuted, which is weird because the whistleblowers
00:31:44.000accusations that the independence that was sought by David Weiss was not granted by Merrick Garland
00:31:49.000that has not been refuted in any serious way. At the outset, let me make two comments. One,
00:31:54.000just about every assertion you made in your opening statement has been completely refuted
00:32:00.000by witnesses who have testified before this committee.
00:32:04.000Two, far from being favored, many commentators have noted that people accused of simple gun possession while under the influence of a drug, when that gun was not used in the commission of a crime, are rarely, if ever, prosecuted.
00:32:22.000The way Hunter Biden is being prosecuted.
00:32:24.000Hunter Biden is being persecuted, you see, according to Democrats.
00:32:28.000And Merrick Garland, there are a bunch of administration officials who really should be on the table for impeachment, probably before Joe Biden.
00:32:34.000Because if the idea of impeaching Joe Biden is based on some sort of connection of dots that supposedly has yet to take place, it's not too hard to connect the dots with regard to Merrick Garland's malfeasance.
00:34:03.00035% off that very first preferred order.
00:34:06.000Okay, meanwhile, over at the United Nations, which, as I always say, is the most isolated of international politics, a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
00:34:12.000The United States allowed President Ibrahim Raisi, who is the leader of that terror state, to actually travel across the world, land in New York, and then yell about how terrible America is.
00:34:23.000According to the UK Guardian, in a lengthy set piece to the UN General Assembly, he accused America of fanning the flames of violence in Ukraine, prompting protests from Israel's representative to the UN.
00:34:31.000He claimed any Iranian-made drones hitting Ukrainian cities had been sold before the war started, and said he was in favor of peace in Ukraine.
00:34:37.000That was on the same day that Tehran hosted a Russian defense delegation led by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, He said that the world is transitioning into a novel international order and the project to Americanize the world has failed.
00:34:48.000He said the West was facing a crisis of identity and functionality and sees the world as a forest and itself as a beautiful garden.
00:34:54.000He also accused America of stoking the war in Ukraine in order to weaken Europe.
00:34:58.000Well, this caused the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who I know personally, to walk out.
00:35:03.000He accused the UN of rolling out the red carpet for the butcher of Tehran, which of course is exactly right.
00:35:08.000And he held up a picture of Mahsa Amini, who's a Kurdish woman who died in police custody in Iran for not wearing hijab correctly.
00:35:16.000He was then ejected, was the Israeli ambassador.
00:35:18.000See, the rule is that you're allowed to be a terrorist dictator, but if you hold up a picture of a person that the terrorist dictator has helped to murder, then apparently you get kicked out of the UN.
00:35:28.000Apparently, according to The Independent in the UK, there was indeed an incident when the permanent representative of Israel walked down the aisle and unfurled a photo during a speech by the President of Iran in the General Assembly.
00:35:39.000At no time was the ambassador detained in any way, shape, or form.
00:35:41.000As far as we are concerned, the incident is closed.
00:35:45.000Apparently, the caption on the photo said, Iranian women deserve freedom now.
00:35:50.000And he wrote, did Erdan on X. When President Raisi of Iran, the butcher of Tehran, began his speech, I waved a picture of Masa Amini, the innocent Iranian woman who was brutally murdered by the regime one year ago for not wearing hijab properly.
00:36:01.000Meanwhile, outside the UN, hundreds of Iranians were protesting, begging for help from the international community.
00:36:05.000I'll never stop fighting for the truth.
00:36:06.000I'll always expose the UN's moral distortions.
00:36:07.000By the way, I'll just point out here that the media coverage of the number of protesters who are protesting, the Iranian dictator being in the United States and just speaking nonsense and garbage, That was dwarfed, the media coverage of that, by the coverage of like a few dozen protesters in the United States who are very anti-Benjamin Netanyahu, who's also visiting the United States and is having a sidebar with Joe Biden at this point.
00:36:30.000Just again, the UN continues to be not only a useless, but a counterproductive organization.
00:36:36.000Okay, meanwhile, speaking of useless and counterproductive organizations, you would imagine that the UN, these international organizations, these would be the places where negotiations would happen over, for example, Nagorno-Karabakh.
00:36:49.000This is a very little noticed and little watched region of the world except by people who are sort of in the know.
00:37:01.000areas of Jordan, Samaria are hotspot and Nagorno-Karabakh is a is a hotspot. The reason it's a
00:37:05.000hotspot is because it is largely ethnically Armenian, but it is controlled by Azerbaijan.
00:37:11.000And so for years and years and years, there has been an Armenian separatist attempt to take
00:37:16.000Nagorno-Karabakh from the rule of Azerbaijan. Well, now Azerbaijani forces have assaulted the area.
00:37:24.000They apparently report suggest that there are a lot of civilian deaths.
00:37:28.000The Azerbaijani forces are suggesting they're telling people to get out in advance of their advance.
00:37:33.000But apparently, according to the Wall Street Journal, Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed on Wednesday to disarm and discuss reintegration with Azerbaijan following a swift but deadly assault by Azerbaijani forces, a capitulation signaling the end of decades of ethnic Armenian rule in the enclave and the rapid decline of Russian influence in the former Soviet Union territories.
00:37:50.000It's a very complicated situation because Both Iran and Russia are supporters of the separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh.
00:37:57.000Meanwhile, Turkey and Israel are supporters of the Azerbaijani forces.
00:38:00.000The terms of the ceasefire lay groundwork that could bring to a close the autonomous rule by the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was won from Baku in a bloody years-long war after the fall of the Soviet Empire.
00:38:10.000Fighting appeared to continue in parts of the enclave hours after the signing of the ceasefire.
00:38:13.000The speed at which the Armenian separatists agreed to abandon their armed struggle underscores Moscow's waning power over events in the region as its forces are stretched in Ukraine.
00:38:23.000And the Kremlin has used this as a lever to maintain over both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
00:38:27.000According to the Wall Street Journal, over the years, Moscow sent both weapons and peacekeepers to the region while using diplomacy to retain its position as the ultimate arbiter over geopolitics there.
00:38:35.000This obviously is another piece of evidence that Russia is weakening internationally, which is generally a good thing.
00:38:41.000Russia's been a very powerful and aggressive force in the world, obviously, particularly along its old Soviet borders.
00:38:49.000According to Thomas Duall, expert on Nagorno-Karabakh and senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, quote, Russia's leverage is much weakened by what's happening in Ukraine.
00:38:55.000We see the Armenians moving away from Russia and Azerbaijan, having a relationship with Russia that is more on its own terms.
00:38:59.000Nagorno-Karabakh said it lost 24 civilians and soldiers in the day-long conflict that began on Tuesday with artillery assaults on what Azerbaijan said were Armenian military targets in the breakaway region.
00:39:08.000Locals posting on social media reported strikes on residential neighborhoods in the territory's main city of Stepanakert.
00:39:14.000Russia's defense ministry said peacekeepers had come under fire and died during the violence.
00:39:17.000They didn't specify how many were killed.
00:39:19.000Azerbaijan says it plans to take back the enclave.
00:39:22.000It's inside the borders of Azerbaijan.
00:39:23.000It's populated almost entirely by ethnic Armenians who have ruled since the 1990s under the terms of a peace deal brokered by Russia.
00:39:30.000Skirmishes erupted into conflict in 2020 when Azerbaijan reclaimed areas around the territory.
00:39:34.000That battle ended, guaranteeing Armenian separatists control over that particular area.
00:39:40.000Armenia's leaders complained Russia wasn't able to enforce the deal.
00:39:44.000Again, a complicated conflict in which the UN has been entirely absent.
00:39:49.000The US, Russia, and EU all said they had made last-ditch efforts to dissuade Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev from attacking the territory.
00:39:55.000Nagorno-Karabakh has relied almost solely on Armenia for links to the outside world.
00:40:00.000Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to express his concern over the escalation.
00:40:07.000Again, one of the things that is amazing about these sorts of conflicts is that nobody notices them until they break into violence, and after that, like five minutes later, nobody notices otherwise.
00:40:15.000This is why when it comes to American foreign policy, the amount of focus that actually is placed on American foreign policy around the world is actually fairly low by Americans.
00:40:23.000It kind of bursts into the national consciousness for a hot second, and then it is just gone.
00:40:27.000Okay, meanwhile, The Feds continue to debate the interest rates because our economy continues to stagnate.
00:40:34.000According to the Wall Street Journal, Federal Reserve officials are set to hold interest rates steady at their meeting on Wednesday while debating what it would take for them to lift borrowing costs again this year.
00:40:41.000Their anticipated decision would mark the second time in six policy meetings this year the Fed has not raised rates.
00:40:47.000The Fed has signaled it will hold rates steady and make no substantive changes to its post-meeting policy statement.
00:40:52.000That doesn't mean that inflation has actually been solved.
00:40:55.000Because, again, inflation in the United States remains almost double what we are supposed to be looking for right now.
00:41:02.000Rate projections suggest the many Fed officials see a rising neutral rate, which keeps inflation and unemployment stable in the long run.
00:41:07.000It just means that it's already baked into the cake.
00:41:11.000According to the Wall Street Journal, Federal Reserve officials surprised markets by signaling that interest rates will not fall as much as previously planned.
00:41:18.000That tweak might be more important than it looks.
00:41:20.000In their projections and commentary, some officials hint that rates might be higher, not just for longer, but forever.
00:41:25.000For a very long time in the United States, you get a mortgage at 3-4%.
00:41:27.000That is not going to be the case for a long time to come.
00:41:31.000And that is because of the inflation that has been baked into the cake by the loose monetary and fiscal policy of the United States over the course of years.
00:41:38.000One of the big problems here, and one of the things that creates inflation, is lack of labor productivity.
00:41:42.000One of the things that brings down prices is additional labor productivity.
00:41:46.000As Greg Ip writes for the Wall Street Journal, For the United Auto Workers, it makes perfect sense to demand more pay and better work-life balance from Detroit's three automakers.
00:41:52.000After all, workers throughout this historically tight labor market are getting exactly that.
00:41:55.000But what makes sense to striking factory workers makes no sense for manufacturing as a whole.
00:42:00.000Pay is ultimately tied to productivity, the quantity and quality of products a company's workforce churns out.
00:42:04.000And here, American manufacturing companies and workers are in trouble.
00:42:08.000The issue is not with labor-intensive products like clothing and furniture, which offshored a long time ago.
00:42:12.000It's in the most advanced products, electric cars and batteries, power generation equipment, commercial aircraft, semiconductors.
00:42:18.000American companies still lead the world in design and innovation, but the resulting products increasingly are made abroad, especially in Asia.
00:42:25.000Joe Biden, like Donald Trump, wants to reverse that through tariff subsidies and other government interventions.
00:42:29.000But the problem is really not about that.
00:42:31.000It's that Asian manufacturers have basically decreased cost, increased quality, and American counterparts have slipped.
00:42:38.000When you look at manufacturing productivity growth from 2009 to 2022, Taiwan has had a
00:42:43.000productivity growth annual average 4%, the UK 1.7%, Germany 1.4%, the US 0.2%.
00:42:49.000In motor vehicle manufacturing, the picture is especially bad.
00:42:53.000From 2012 through last year, productivity plummeted 32%.
00:42:57.000That's not the fault of American workers.
00:43:01.000As Greg points out, productivity depends on a bunch of factors, including management decisions, supply chain, public infrastructure, regulation.
00:43:07.000For example, American manufacturers use far fewer robots than their competitors.
00:43:13.000If you're not bringing up the productivity, that means that you are not going to be competitive on the world markets.
00:43:18.000And so the UAW is striking for temporary gains in the face of what are going to be significant future losses.
00:43:25.000Right now, the attempt to transition to electric vehicles by the big three, that's a very risky move considering that Ford is set to apparently lose $4.5 billion on electric vehicles this year.
00:43:35.000That is not a good number, voting ill for the future of this UAW strike.
00:43:40.000We'll get to more on all that in just one second.
00:43:42.000First, in a time where different opinions are pretty much everywhere, it's vital to be able to find facts that you can rely upon.
00:43:50.000It's a not-for-profit, nonpartisan civic initiative committed to breaking down complex government data, making it easily accessible and digestible for all Americans.
00:43:57.000USAFact is more than just a source of information.
00:43:59.000It's a tool that can help provide answers to pressing questions about the current state of the nation.
00:44:03.000It offers a space where you can explore stats on key areas like education, crime, immigration, healthcare, empowering you to form your own opinions on whether the nation is thriving or struggling in these particular sectors.
00:45:19.000It's when you start kneecapping people or relying on the federal government to cram down solutions that you are now engaged in corporatism, which is a form of financial fascism, economic fascism.
00:45:28.000Well, the Democratic Party knows this.
00:45:31.000Whenever people talk about money in politics, they always neglect union money in politics because that might implicate the Democrats.
00:45:36.000What is amazing is how the unions are now holding the Democrats to the wall.
00:45:40.000Back in September, early September, Joe Biden said he thought that a UAW strike was unlikely.
00:45:44.000Now, of course, we're in the middle of the end of week one of this thing.
00:45:47.000When asked by CNN's Betsy Klein whether he believed a strike could happen in just less than two weeks time when the contract of the United Auto Workers expires, President Biden said he didn't think so.
00:46:04.000He said, I'm not worried about a strike until it happens.
00:46:13.000Meanwhile, the governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, he is saying also that he stands with the UAW, because why not?
00:46:17.000If you're a Democrat, what cost does it have to you to stand with the union, even if it ends up bankrupting the car industry a couple of years in the future?
00:46:24.000After you regulate those car companies into the ground and then cram down crappy union deals on them, when the companies go under, well, that's when you blame capitalism, obviously.
00:46:45.000Look, I stand with the striking UAW workers.
00:46:48.000They deserve to share in these record profits that the executives are taking home.
00:46:53.000I think what we have seen is just a greater gap between what the executives are making in companies and what the workers who are putting the product and the services out in the field are earning.
00:47:06.000We need to shrink that gap and I stand with the UAW striking workers.
00:47:11.000Of course the Democrats are all in hock.
00:47:13.000Meanwhile, they're helping to cram down all the regulations that are gonna make these car companies go bankrupt.
00:47:18.000One of the things that's so irritating about watching politics is very often, it is government interventionism that skews the incentive structure for all these major companies, crams down bad contracts on them.
00:47:27.000Then, when the companies go bankrupt, they blame capitalism for the failure, and then they bail out the companies, blaming capitalism all the while and saying, what we really need here is more government regulation.
00:47:36.000That's the story of the 2007-2008 economic crash.
00:47:40.000The government created incentive structures in which it was very obvious to everybody
00:47:44.000that all of these companies were going to get bailed out, and so they took all sorts
00:48:07.000Both California and the EU are poised to approve rules that require companies that do business to disclose their emissions.
00:48:13.000The rules would apply to private as well as public companies and require businesses to calculate and disclose emissions from their suppliers and their customers, which goes beyond what was expected out of Washington.
00:48:22.000This means that pretty much every major company in America is now going to be expected to disclose their carbon emissions, which is going to have some predictable downstream economic effect.
00:48:31.000So, things are going incredibly, incredibly well.
00:48:33.000Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
00:48:42.000I'm confused why he hates pants, but apparently he really, really hates pants.
00:48:46.000So much so, that the Senate of the United States, in order to apparently concede to this brain-damaged person, and I say that with, again, that's not an insult, that's just a reality, this person had a massive stroke.
00:48:59.000So this apparently means that John Fetterman must be allowed to preside over the Senate Like my seven year old son going to going to camp or something like that.
00:49:09.000That's what the Senate of the United States is.
00:49:10.000So all the staffers still have to wear suits.
00:49:12.000John Fetterman, however, he literally presided over the Senate wearing gym shorts and like a short-sleeve button-down shirt, looking as though he just emerged from a homeless shelter.
00:49:22.000According to the Daily Wire, the senator from Pennsylvania took his turn sitting as the presiding officer, while some of his GOP colleagues, including Senators John Thune and Rand Paul and John Cornyn, delivered remarks on the Senate floor.
00:50:31.000I mean, after all, if John Fetterman can wear whatever he wants because we have to make sure that we concede to the not qualified senator from Pennsylvania, why not at this point?