A massive dam in Ukraine has been destroyed, and it's unclear who is to blame. Is it the Russians, the Ukrainian government, or the EU? And what does the United States have to say about it? Alex Blumberg and Vanessa Grigoriadis discuss the latest atrocity, and whether it was done by the Russians or the Ukrainians. Also, Alex and Vanessa talk about why a nuclear plant in Ukraine could be affected by the destruction of a nuclear dam and the impact it could have on a nearby nuclear plant. This episode is brought to you by The War Room, a production of the Center for European and Russian Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Baltimore, Maryland. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers Subscribe to our new sponsor, VaynerMedia, wherever you get your stuff. Learn more about your ad choices. Use the promo code: PODCAST to receive $5 and receive $10 off your first purchase when you become a patron. It helps us build our new ad-free version of our new podcast, Podcast! Subscribe, rate and review our new episodes, and help spread the word to our listeners about our new show, PODCAST! and become a supporter of our other sponsorships! We'll be looking out for more Podcast episodes in the future episodes! Subscribe and review the show! in the coming weeks! Subscribe to the show Podcast Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe on Audible Subscribe on Podcast Subscribe on Mixer Subscribe on Spare Cash App Subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform Subscribe on Strava Learn more on iTunes Learn more at Podcast Connect with your local radio station Subscribe on the PodCast and other ways to get a discount on your ad-planning options Download our podcast on the podCast? Connect with us on PodCast Connecting to our podcast? Subscribe & Review our logo on iTunes Connect with our social media platforms Learn more in the Podcast? Leave us your thoughts on our Podcasts and Podcasts? and subscribe to our social platforms Become a Friended by Insta-Friendship? v=Apostle Learn More on this podcast on PodCAST Thank you for listening to our Podcast? Subscribe & Share our podcast & more!
00:00:00.000So, it's pretty clear that everybody lies during a war, but it is unclear exactly who is telling the truth during a war.
00:00:07.000So when you look at what's happening in Ukraine right now, there are a slew of headlines that are coming out all the time about Russian atrocities against Ukraine.
00:00:15.000But Russia is also claiming Ukrainian atrocities against Russians.
00:00:19.000And the latest atrocity that is claimed by the Russians against the Ukrainians and the Ukrainians against the Russians is the blowing up of a massive dam.
00:00:28.000According to the Wall Street Journal, a major dam and power station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine were destroyed on Tuesday, narrowing Ukraine's options for a planned counteroffensive in the South by unleashing a torrent of water that caused serious flooding.
00:00:43.000I mean, the film of the dam being blown up is pretty astonishing.
00:00:48.000You can see it's flooding pretty much all the outlying areas.
00:00:52.000The Ukrainians are saying that it was Russia and that the goal of the Russians blowing up a dam that is actually in territory that they currently control is to force the closure of a Ukrainian counter-offensive that was likely to take place.
00:01:04.000That essentially you flood the area so the Ukrainians cannot attack the area.
00:01:09.000Ukraine says that it forced the evacuation of thousands from dozens of towns and villages on the Dnipro River and could create an aquatic buffer zone for Russian forces on the southeastern bank.
00:01:17.000Meanwhile, Russia is accusing Kiev of sabotaging the dam, saying, why in the world would we blow up a dam that is largely flooding areas that we currently control, including the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant?
00:01:29.000German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a televised interview, all things considered, one must naturally assume this was an aggression perpetrated by the Russian side in order to stop Ukraine's offensive aimed at liberating its own land.
00:01:38.000The destruction of the dams said the Ukrainians could win Russia time to reconfigure its defenses while at the same time depriving Ukraine of some options for its expected counter offensive.
00:01:47.000Russia presumably could then redeploy forces into this particular area.
00:01:52.000But, here's the thing, military analysts had already seen a Ukrainian assault across the river as an unlikely option, given the difficulty and likely cost of such an operation, as well as Ukraine's lack of amphibious capabilities.
00:02:02.000There is an upside for Ukraine, which is the flooding could wash away fortifications and minefields put up by Russian forces in the area.
00:02:08.000It could, again, in sort of the worldview, make Russia the creator of all atrocities.
00:02:14.000The dam had already suffered damage in October when sections of it and sluice gates were destroyed as Russian forces sought to retreat from Kherson amid an ultimately successful Ukrainian offensive.
00:02:23.000Right now, the United States says that they are withholding judgment.
00:02:26.000John Kirby said, we're still trying to assess what exactly happened here.
00:02:29.000The Russians had illegally taken over that dam in the reservoir many months ago.
00:02:31.000They were occupying it while it was being destroyed.
00:02:33.000So again, if they were occupying it and controlling it, why would they destroy it?
00:02:37.000A reporter did ask John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, this question, and he didn't have an amazing answer.
00:02:44.000Does it seem believable to you that Russia would destroy a dam and flood ethnic Russian villages and cut off the water supply to Crimea?
00:03:03.000We'll try to get as much information as we can.
00:03:08.000Okay, so he's withholding judgment, but you would imagine that the United States is going to come pretty quickly to the conclusion that it must have been the Russians.
00:03:16.000But it's clearly not obviously the Russians.
00:03:19.000Again, there's some evidence suggesting that maybe it was the Russians, and then there's some evidence suggesting that maybe it was the Ukrainians.
00:03:23.000Plus, there's a certain problem here with regard to the nuclear facility that is in the nearby area.
00:03:29.000The destruction, according to the Wall Street Journal, could affect the water supply to that nuclear power plant, which relies on the reservoir to cool its reactors, according to experts.
00:03:36.000A spokesman for Ukraine's state nuclear energy company said water levels in the Khokhova Reservoir that supplied water to the facility were rapidly decreasing.
00:03:43.000They said that right now, the levels inside the plant's cooling pond were sufficient to prevent a nuclear meltdown.
00:03:49.000But again, it is totally unclear who is doing what.
00:03:53.000And this raises a serious problem in terms of the credibility of the West.
00:03:57.000Normally, you would want to say, well, you know, we'll let the intelligence sources come to their conclusions.
00:04:02.000We'll let the American government come to its conclusion.
00:04:03.000We'll let the EU come to their conclusions.
00:04:05.000And then who are you going to believe?
00:04:06.000The United States and the EU or the Russians?
00:04:08.000That would normally be what you would do.
00:04:11.000A precedent has been set here that the entire West will apparently lie about things that they clearly knew were caused by the Ukrainians in order to shield the Ukrainians from blowback.
00:04:30.000It's happened since literally the beginning of war.
00:04:33.000With that said, the United States is a democracy.
00:04:36.000The citizens are entitled to actually hear the truth about what is going on in this war.
00:04:40.000The reason that I think so many people doubt accounts from the West, from Ukraine, is because of things like the attack on the Nord Stream Pipeline.
00:04:48.000So you'll recall that the United States quickly came to the conclusion that the Russians had bombed their own pipeline, which of course made no sense at all because the Russians could just, you know, turn off the spigot.
00:04:58.000Well, it turns out that not only did the United States come to the wrong conclusion on that, they knew they were coming to the wrong conclusion, according to the Washington Post.
00:05:06.000Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
00:05:20.000So first they claimed it was the Russians, then they claimed it was some sort of Ukrainian splinter group, and now it turns out that months before the actual attack on Nord Stream, The Ukrainian military from the top levels was planning an attack on the Nord Stream Pipeline and the United States knew about it.
00:05:32.000Details about the plan, which have not been previously reported, were collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June of 2022.
00:05:39.000They provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea with U.S.
00:05:44.000and Western officials who called a brazen, dangerous act of sabotage on Europe's energy infrastructure.
00:05:49.000The European intelligence report was shared on Discord allegedly by Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira and the Washington Post obtained a copy from one of Teixeira's online friends.
00:05:58.000Which again, leads to the question is whether the United States knew all along that this was in fact the Ukrainians and then lied about it in order to jack up support for the Ukraine war by blaming the Russians for something the Ukrainians clearly did.
00:06:09.000In fact, John Kirby was asked specifically about the Nord Stream Pipeline and this report.
00:06:14.000We'll get to his response in just one moment first.
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00:07:15.000So, John Kirby yesterday was asked about the Nord Stream report, about the fact the United States apparently knew, three months in advance of the Nord Stream attack, that it was the Ukrainians planning an attack on Nord Stream, and then the attack happens, and the United States and the entire West blame the Russians.
00:07:28.000Here is John Kirby trying to run away from that.
00:08:02.000I think that the mistake that so many national security officials make is they treat everything as classified and secret.
00:08:07.000And then when it turns out they were lying to people, people are like, well, maybe you're lying about the whole thing.
00:08:11.000Maybe you're lying about the whole thing.
00:08:13.000Maybe it turns out that you have some ulterior motives for wanting to support Ukraine in the way that you do.
00:08:19.000So if you want to undermine the war effort, they're doing an amazing job of doing it.
00:08:23.000You can't blame people for looking at the narratives that are being spun out by the Biden White House or by the EU or by the Ukrainian government, for that matter, and then say, well.
00:08:34.000Again, literally all the things that they said five years ago were true about Ukraine, they now say are no longer true.
00:08:38.000The New York Times, as we discussed yesterday, ran an entire piece soft-pedaling Nazism in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in the Azov Battalion.
00:08:45.000Well, five years ago, they were writing articles about anti-Semitism in the Azov Battalion.
00:08:49.000Like, five years ago, it was Joe Biden himself who was out there talking about corruption inside Ukraine and how it needed to be cleaned up.
00:08:55.000Now we're supposed to believe that Ukraine is clean as the driven day.
00:08:57.000Now, the thing about all of this is that none of that is necessary.
00:09:01.000It's an assumption that people are absolute morons and that you can't just tell them the truth.
00:09:06.000And that assumption leads people to a sense of expected moral clarity from government that they are not supposed to receive and that they actually should not trust in.
00:09:15.000The truth is that foreign policy, international relations, it's about power.
00:09:39.000As soon as a little bit of nuance comes in, Then you're going to have to revert to the reality, which is that power politics matters.
00:09:46.000As I've said all along, the justification for the Russia war And the Ukrainian war against Russia?
00:09:51.000On Ukraine's part, it was a defensive war, but the reason the United States is involved in Ukraine is not because the Ukrainians are so unbelievably wonderful and the Russians are so unbelievably evil or anything like that.
00:10:01.000It's because it is in America's interest to prevent Russians from invading surrounding countries and gathering resources to themselves they can then weaponize against the West.
00:10:09.000That is the actual purpose, if you're talking just solely in terms of American interests.
00:10:13.000I think most Americans can understand that.
00:10:15.000That also means that when you're looking for an off-ramp in places like Ukraine, you determine as an American, what are the interests that we have achieved, and what are the further interests that we hope to achieve, and how do we hope to achieve those interests?
00:10:24.000None of those questions are being asked right now, because we are supposed to believe in this moral binary, and in order to prop up the pure moral binary, The administration will clearly lie about things like Nord Stream.
00:10:36.000And then when an actual atrocity happens, like blowing up a dam and flooding villagers, thousands of villagers, and putting a nuclear power plant in danger, then who are you supposed to trust on that?
00:10:48.000Again, lies generally lead to confusion, and that confusion actually undermines the point that many of our elites are trying to make.
00:10:54.000Okay, meanwhile, the other big controversy of the day in terms of international relations that the PGA Tour has demonstrated, in like fashion, that power matters and money matters, According to the Wall Street Journal, the PGA Tour and Live Golf, that is the Saudi-backed upstart that sent the industry into chaos when it teed off last year, have now agreed to a stunning merger that ends the divide that has dominated the sport for the last year.
00:11:14.000The deal weds the Saudi money and the PGA Tour name and connects, after months of bruising litigation and sharply traded accusations, it consolidates the biggest assets in professional golf.
00:11:23.000The same Saudi gushers that have funded LIV will now be pooled with the PGA Tour's existing revenue streams, giving the combined entity vast new resources for unnamed future investments.
00:11:31.000It effectively makes the Saudis investors in U.S.
00:11:34.000golf's legacy powerhouse, a move that carries risk for the PGA Tour because they've spent the last year yelling about the moral evil of LIV existing.
00:11:42.000So basically what happened is that the PGA Tour was paying the golfers a certain amount of money.
00:11:45.000Liv came along and they said, and this is the Saudi royal family, they came along and said, we'd like to get into the golfing business.
00:11:50.000We like golf and we think a lot of these golfers are underpaid.
00:11:52.000So we're going to offer them more money.
00:11:53.000And then the PGA Tour yelled at those golfers and said, wow, you guys, I can't believe you guys are so venal.
00:12:03.000In fact, here is a flashback of the PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, ripping LiveGolf and suggesting that the golfers who are now taking money from LiveGolf were somehow complicit in 9-11 or some such nonsense.
00:12:16.0009-11 Families United sent a letter to the representatives of Phil, Dustin, Bryson, Reed and others, quote, expressing their outrage towards the golfers for participating in the new league and accusing them of sports washing and betraying the United States, end quote.
00:12:35.000That's gotten a lot of steam over the last 24 hours.
00:12:38.000That story first reported again in the New York Post.
00:12:41.000How much did you talk to your players about the possible ramifications if they sign on with the new league?
00:13:08.000You're a big golfer and you took a lot more money.
00:13:11.000Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, that if you actually went to Live Golf because they were paying you more money, this made you complicit in moral evil.
00:13:18.000Remember, Phil Mickelson was ripped up and down for taking Live Tour money.
00:13:22.000And it was the PGA that was leading that charge.
00:13:24.000Not because they were so morally pure, the PGA Tour, but because the PGA Tour wanted all of those golfers to come and golf for them for less money.
00:13:32.000Well, now they've decided that money talks.
00:13:34.000Because in the end, folks, follow the money and follow the power.
00:13:37.000Power and money are usually the motivations for major actions, whether that is corporate or whether that is governmental.
00:13:43.000It is very rarely only a moral question.
00:13:45.000Now, that doesn't mean that moral questions don't come into play.
00:13:47.000It doesn't mean that people don't try to wed their morality to power and money.
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00:15:09.000You heard the head of the PGA Tour talking about the moral evil of golfers taking the money from LiveGolf, but now it turns out that the PGA Tour is taking the money directly from LiveGolf.
00:15:21.000Apparently, again, Texas Republican Congressman Chip Roy, who championed the PGA Tour's fight, he said, I wonder if the PGA Tour, having wrapped itself in the flag, invited 9-11 families to the big announcement.
00:15:31.000I guess not, because money was worth more than principle, apparently.
00:15:36.000Here's the PGA Tour commissioner you heard one moment ago talking about the moral qualms he had about people joining LiveTour being like, well, but they do have a lot of money.
00:15:45.000You're describing a scenario under which PIF at some point could have the majority of the economics, correct me if I'm wrong, of this entity.
00:15:55.000Essentially, the Saudis sort of, people will say, oh, they control golf around the world.
00:15:59.000I'm just curious as to what you think the response is going to be.
00:16:02.000Well, listen, a lot of people have been reading about the tension.
00:16:20.000We're announcing to the world that on behalf of this game, we're coming together.
00:16:26.000And it's less about how people respond today, and it's all about how people respond in 10 years.
00:16:33.000And when they see the impact that we're having on this game together, there'll be a lot of smiles on people's faces, and there'll be a lot more people playing this game all over the world.
00:16:46.000So you basically ripped your potential business partners as terrorist supporters, and then you made a deal with them, and you expect that nobody is going to notice?
00:16:53.000Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said in an interview that Monaghan had actually urged him and other lawmakers to scrutinize the national security implications of the Saudi project.
00:17:00.000Quote, They came to my office and told me it would be a moral outrage for Saudi Arabia to have an ownership stake in a major American sport.
00:17:06.000The announcement speaks for itself as to what really matters.
00:17:09.000Okay, now this has something to say not just about corporate priorities, but about American priorities more generally.
00:17:15.000The corporate priorities are pretty obvious.
00:17:16.000And there are a lot of people who say, why are corporations going and doing business in China?
00:17:19.000They should just stop doing business in China.
00:17:25.000Or we should stop doing business with the Saudis.
00:17:28.000And the answer is that if you're a corporation, you go where it is cheapest and most productive to produce the product.
00:17:34.000If there are national security problems, it is up to the government of the United States to prevent investment in places like China or places like Saudi Arabia.
00:17:45.000They want to be able to morally posture, and then at the same time, pretend that they're not morally posturing when they go and sign a deal with Saudis, right?
00:17:50.000It's the same thing that, basically, the PGA Tours just did the same thing Joe Biden did.
00:17:54.000Joe Biden, back in 2020, was like, Saudi Arabia is a horrible, evil, terrible, no good, very bad place, filled with murderers and scum.
00:18:03.000And then 2021 comes, and the midterms are coming, and he's like, well, you know, we could use some oil from you guys.
00:18:12.000It turns out that power matters an awful lot when it comes to politics and when it comes to corporate money.
00:18:17.000Morality generally takes a backseat to the money.
00:18:20.000Now, when the two can be aligned, or when you can get away with shoving your morality into the guys with power in politics, then you do it.
00:18:28.000But, when the two come into conflict, everybody just goes weapons down, which is pretty amazing.
00:18:32.000Here's John Kirby yesterday, being asked about the merger between Live Golf and the PGA Tour.
00:18:37.000Now, back in 2020, Joe Biden would have had some word about this.
00:18:39.000Now, apparently, the administration's like, well, who cares, whatever.
00:18:43.000Does the Biden administration have any concern with a major U.S.
00:18:47.000sports league getting into business with the Saudi public investment fund?
00:18:52.000I think we'll let the Saudi government speak to that.
00:18:56.000So, he's just going to leave that one out there on the table.
00:18:59.000Okay, the lesson for all of us, the big takeaway for all of us is that you should follow the
00:19:03.000money and you should follow the power.
00:19:05.000And when people start to morally preen and posture, you should ask them a very simple
00:19:13.000And if the answer is you wouldn't, then we know where your actual priorities lie.
00:19:17.000We know where the priorities lie for the United States government when it comes to a lot of conflicts around the world, and that's as long as it supports American interests in a real hard-headed way, that's okay.
00:19:28.000It's when you start to do things that are not in America's interest and you preen morally, and then we know that if the interests shift, you will shift, then we start to have some serious questions.
00:19:36.000The same thing about corporate America.
00:19:37.000Like, don't woke-scold everybody about how you are very much in favor of all these social liberal causes of the day, and then the minute somebody comes at you with money, the Pride Progress flag goes down and the Chinese flag goes up if you're Nike.
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00:20:55.000Okay, so speaking of corporate corruption and where their priorities lie, take a look at Nike.
00:21:01.000So Nike does massive business in China, of course.
00:21:03.000They've been doing massive business in China for decades.
00:21:07.000And this means that the same people who are promoting Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the American flag are perfectly happy to kneel before the Chinese flag.
00:21:14.000And the same people who are not going to be promoting Pride Progress over in Shanghai are certainly going to be promoting it here in the United States.
00:21:21.000So basically what they do is they make their money by working with authoritarian regimes and then they cram down their social liberal agenda at home.
00:21:27.000Which is the worst form of moral perversion.
00:21:31.000You're willing to kowtow to the world's worst people in order so that you can tell decent Americans that they're wrong about traditional morality.
00:21:37.000That's essentially the Nike business model at this point, and it is super insulting.
00:21:40.000The latest iteration of this is Daily Wire has now been leaked in email from inside Nike.
00:21:46.000And it shows that the company will host a talk with a child sex change surgeon to celebrate Pride Month.
00:21:52.000Nike will also host a drag story time along with other other Pride events.
00:21:57.000According to this email, quote, team, this summer, the Nike United Pride Network has the honor
00:22:01.000of once again spotlighting and celebrating the past, present and future
00:24:01.000You know, when someone sees their vulva for the first time and you can see that you've just lifted this huge burden off of them completely.
00:24:11.000So glad Nike could push this sort of stuff.
00:24:14.000Nike, which started as a running shoe company.
00:24:17.000In Portland, Oregon, like rural Portland, Oregon.
00:24:21.000Not in China, not in Saudi, not in the places where they actually, you know, manufacture their stuff.
00:24:26.000But the propaganda is to their own staff.
00:24:28.000So again, these are the rules of corporate America.
00:24:30.000Corporate America making deals with the Saudis, making deals with the Chinese, making deals with some of the worst people on earth, all over the world for cash.
00:24:38.000But then they lecture you about your morality.
00:24:40.000They lecture you about why you are a bad person if you do not agree with the pride progress agenda.
00:25:06.000The backlash has already begun, in fact, because it turns out that the American people don't have to sit there and take it.
00:25:11.000If, as I say, people are happy to promote their left-wing morality so long as it doesn't ding their bottom line too severely, if you ding their bottom line severely, people back off of it.
00:25:22.000This is why The Wall Street Journal has an entire piece titled, Companies That Embrace Social Issues Have Second Thoughts.
00:25:31.000The folks who listen to this program, who decide not to buy Bud Light, Keep going with that.
00:25:35.000The people who decided that this month they're not going to shop at Target because Target is selling bathing suits for tucking your penis behind you so that you look more like a girl, and they're going to do this for young people?
00:25:45.000And you decided, okay, well, I'm just going to shop at Walmart instead this month?
00:25:50.000According to the Wall Street Journal, in May, clothing company The North Face released a video for Pride Month featuring drag performer Patagonia.
00:25:56.000The ad was similar to the one the performer had appeared in for the outdoor apparel maker a year earlier.
00:26:01.000Within hours, calls for a boycott of the company spread on social media.
00:26:05.000North Face wants to be the next Bud Light, one user wrote.
00:26:07.000Aren't you supposed to learn from others' mistakes, another user said.
00:26:10.000CEOs spent the past few years adjusting to a world in which investors, customers, and employees expected corporate leaders to align themselves with social causes.
00:26:17.000Well, I mean, I love that sentence because the answer is that a small cadre of investors, customers and employees expected corporate leaders to mirror their politics.
00:26:25.000But today that has made the company's targets in the U.S.
00:26:28.000Well, no, the answer is you guys were the offenders in the culture wars and then people decided they had enough.
00:26:32.000They were tired of being crammed down.
00:26:34.000They were tired of being told to sit there and shut up if they don't agree with the left wing agenda.
00:26:39.000Some CEOs are rethinking how or whether to weigh in on sensitive political or social matters with trans and other LGBTQ issues, particularly in the spotlight.
00:26:47.000At PPG Industries, a Pittsburgh maker of glid and paint, coatings and other products, Chief Executive Tim Navish asked senior leaders at the company earlier this year to review its processes for engaging on polarizing topics.
00:26:58.000Navish said he wanted the company to have a robust plan should it need to respond.
00:27:01.000PPG uses an internal scoring system to determine if and when it makes sense for the company to comment on matters that may offend some of its customers and employees or affect its brands.
00:27:10.000If executives decide to comment, they discuss how best to communicate.
00:27:13.000We run a business, we don't run a political organization, said Navish.
00:27:17.000We have to take all of this into account.
00:27:20.000Executives are finding out how easy it is to leave everyone unhappy.
00:27:22.000Well, no, actually, the way you leave everybody unhappy is by sounding off.
00:27:25.000If you shut your face and you just give us the product that we want to buy, it turns out that nobody's really all that unhappy.
00:27:31.000There will be some activists who bitch and moan, but everybody else will be just fine.
00:27:36.000That is what happened when you flex your power in the marketplace.
00:27:39.000It's also, by the way, what's happening across America as people begin to stand up to the predations of the woke mind virus and it's radical, and it's radical norm-changing.
00:27:52.000There's an unbelievable video that has now emerged out of Glendale, California.
00:27:57.000Armenian parents, so Glendale is a pretty conservative area, or more conservative than most of California, because it's heavily Armenian.
00:28:03.000Armenians tend to be much more traditional.
00:28:05.000They're very culturally In tune with their community.
00:28:12.000And because of all of that, they were not willing to humor a school board pushing the LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign curriculum.
00:28:20.000And chaos broke out when Antifa showed up to make trouble with people protesting.
00:28:24.000Several hundred protesters gathered, many waving the American flags and, on the other side, LGBTQ plus pride flags outside the scheduled GUSD board meeting.
00:28:33.000The opposing sides represented parents who oppose GUSD policies in support of the LGBTQ plus minus classroom curriculum.
00:28:41.000Both sides took to social media to rally their supporters.
00:28:44.000By the way, you can tell who's flying which flag in these particular tapes.
00:28:47.000Antifa showed up and they started a fight with members of the Armenian community.
00:28:52.000Again, this is an ethnic minority community that is very, very prevalent in Glendale.
00:29:43.000Several parents told Glendale's board they were concerned with Glendale's trans policies, such as allowing students of the opposite sex to use the same bathrooms and locker rooms, putting their kids at risk.
00:29:51.000One father told the board, quote, I graduated from Glendale in 96, as according to the Daily Signal, I have two daughters.
00:29:55.000My daughter's afraid to change in the locker room because she knows another guy could come into the room.
00:29:58.000When I asked the principal, he told me there were no cross-gender bathroom policies.
00:30:02.000Other parents previously had told the Daily Signal their children changed in locker rooms with students of the opposite sex multiple times, and this is now standard practice in Glendale.
00:30:14.000By the way, this is going to be part of the future of the country, is that essentially what you have is a cadre of upper-class white liberals who have a particular set of morals that do not match the morals of particularly ethnic minorities in the United States.
00:30:30.000And the backlash is going to be very, very strong.
00:30:33.000The weird brand of anti-heteronormativity that's now being promoted in the West is being promoted by a very elite group of people, and the vast majority of people are not into it.
00:30:42.000They may be tolerant of people who decide on these fringe practices or alternative lifestyles, but you know what they're not into?
00:31:13.000He says, 15 years ago, a new generation of young voters propelled Barack Obama to a decisive victory that augured a new era of democratic dominance.
00:31:19.00015 years later, those once young voters aren't so young and they aren't quite so democratic.
00:31:24.000In the 2020 presidential election, voters who were 18-29 in 2008 backed Biden 55-43.
00:31:29.000The exit polls showed even closer, with Biden winning by just 51-45 among voters who were 18-27 in 2008.
00:31:37.000That group voted radically large numbers for Barack Obama.
00:31:43.000This shift to the right among young voters who propelled Obama to victory 15 years ago is part of a larger pattern, says Nate Cohen.
00:31:48.000Over the last decade, almost every cohort of voters under 50 has shifted toward the right, based on analysis of thousands of survey interviews conducted at the Roper Center.
00:31:57.000Again, the millennials of 2008 are not the same as those of 2016.
00:32:02.000It is also worthwhile noting that these are cohorts, as we talk about younger cohorts, that are more minority-based.
00:32:08.000These are less white cohorts, and they're becoming more right-wing.
00:32:11.000Because the morality that's being promulgated by the folks at Discovery Plus is not mirrored by the rest of the country.
00:32:16.000I mention Discovery Plus here because Discovery Plus during Pride Month has decided to run entire pieces about how Abraham Lincoln was now a gay man, who's a sparkly queer fellow, according to Discovery Plus.
00:33:35.000Season two of what we saw is now in full swing.
00:33:38.000In episode 13, President Nixon's visit to China introduces a three power dynamic, but Watergate undermines his administration and diminishes American morale.
00:33:45.000Meanwhile, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan further exposes American weakness.
00:33:50.000In this context, an older president brings renewed optimism, youthful vigor, and a plan to end the Cold War and achieve victory after four decades of stalemate.
00:33:57.000Of course, that would be Ronald Reagan.
00:33:58.000Bill makes you feel like you're there witnessing history.
00:34:00.000Hear the amazing story in this week's episode of Cold War.
00:34:03.000All episodes of Cold War are now available to stream.
00:34:05.000You have to be a DailyWire Plus member to see it.
00:34:06.000Go to dailywire.com slash coldwar to start watching.
00:34:10.000So again, what we are seeing in the United States right now is a battle between a small cadre of left-wing radical activists, largely white, and the rest of the population.
00:34:19.000And that includes a heavy dose of minority populations.
00:34:22.000But one of the ways you can see this, by the way, is by the fact that Pete Buttigieg has no ratings whatsoever among non-upper-class white liberals.
00:34:29.000If you are not an upper-class white liberal, you do not care about Pete Buttigieg, you are uninterested in Pete Buttigieg.
00:34:35.000Mainly because he's pushing radical positions.
00:34:37.000Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, is considered, again, by, like, the seven upper-class white liberals to be the guy, even though he's really botched it over at the Transportation Department after taking a two-month paternity leave.
00:35:09.000That the left-wing politicians are talking about every other issue and pretending those issues are important to distract from their actual radical policy positions on things like LGBTQ+.
00:35:19.000Now you see the attacks on the LGBTQ community, especially on the trans community, and what they are going through, and I think it's being done out of a perception that it is politically convenient to target vulnerable groups.
00:35:34.000Honestly, I think where it largely comes from is folks who don't want to talk about why they were against the infrastructure law that's building the roads and bridges.
00:35:42.000They don't want to talk about why they were against $35 insulin that the president delivered for Medicare recipients.
00:35:48.000They don't want to explain why they were for these radical positions that speak to what most people are worried about in their everyday lives.
00:36:08.000Again, it's an elite cadre of people in the media who are pushing this sort of stuff as well, which presumably is why Discovery Plus is now pushing the lie that Abraham Lincoln was gay.
00:36:15.000They literally push this on Discovery Plus.
00:36:36.000Lincoln was famous for having a way with words.
00:36:39.000Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent A new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
00:36:53.000But he also had a way with hot, young men.
00:36:58.000Yes, darling, your history book has censored Lincoln's love life for far too long.
00:37:04.000Truth is, Lincoln had at least four intimate and maybe even sexual relationships with men.
00:37:11.000We like to call them Lincoln's Four Scores.
00:37:18.000Discovery plus guys, um, that is a that that's a lie That's just a lie.
00:37:23.000I mean historians have repeatedly debunked this crap.
00:37:26.000They're pushing it anyway They're pushing this on you and they're pushing this on your kids and they're pushing this on everybody and it turns out that there is in fact a backlash this and by the way, They don't even believe this the minute you think discovery plus is broadcasting this in China or in Saudi Of course, they're not of course, they're not it's And then you wonder why the reaction is happening.
00:37:45.000That's why the reaction is happening, guys.
00:37:47.000That would be why the reaction is happening.
00:37:50.000Meanwhile, the militant LGBTQ plus movement has decided that federal judgeships can be used to their advantage.
00:37:58.000So over in Florida, a federal judge has now temporarily blocked a Florida ban on puberty blockers for minors.
00:38:03.000His name is Judge Robert Hinkle, and he issued a preliminary injunction against Senate Bill 254, which criminalizes permanently mutilating surgical procedures on children and mandates that a healthcare practitioner's license be terminated if they violate the law.
00:38:16.000Hinkle wrote in his 44-page ruling, quote, the elephant in the room should be noted at the outset.
00:38:25.000Oh, so he's, oh, he's an authoritative.
00:38:27.000The science says, the law says, despite the defense admissions, there are those who believe that cisgender individuals properly adhere to their natal sex and that transgender individuals have inappropriately chosen a contrary gender identity, male or female, just as one might choose to read Shakespeare or Grisham, Hinkle continued.
00:38:42.000He says, gender identity is so real, it's the realest of the real things, it's so real that he can strike down a popularly approved law in the state of Florida that prevents physicians from mutilating kids.
00:38:54.000The plaintiff's adolescent children will suffer irreparable harm if they do not promptly begin treatment with gender-affirming healthcare.
00:39:02.000The treatment will affect patients themselves.
00:39:04.000Nobody else will cause the defendants no harm, says Hinkle.
00:39:07.000Now again, this is not the first time this particular judge has decided to go to war with the rest of the state and also basic logic.
00:40:12.000So he was tapped to run the network by David Zaslav like 16 months ago.
00:40:18.000Licked had a reputation as a wonder-kind producer, according to Puck News, who could work with elite talent.
00:40:24.000And he was aligned with John Malone's rich, older-guy, big-sky vision of recalibrating the network's politics to its centrist origins.
00:40:29.000But Licked's CV consisted of programming a few hours of morning or late-night talk TV with two or three principles, not managing the entirety of the CNN network.
00:40:39.000So after the Trump town hall and decimation of staff morale, Licht is now going to be vacating that CEO position.
00:40:47.000Warner Brothers Discovery is going to announce that Licht will be stepping away.
00:40:50.000He's going to be replaced for the interim period by apparently a person named Amy Entelis.
00:40:57.000Amy Entelis is of course yet another member of the far left.
00:41:02.000She is a producer on a wide variety of far left shows.
00:41:05.000She launched the whole story with Anderson Cooper, for example.
00:41:09.000She's credited with building the CNN original series brand.
00:41:12.000So presumably they're going to try to steer back to the left, but it doesn't matter.
00:41:46.000This morning, it looks like somebody blew up the Kokovka Dam in southern Ukraine.
00:41:51.000The rushing wall of water wiped out entire villages, destroyed a critical hydropower plant, and as of tonight, puts the largest nuclear reactor in Europe in danger of melting down.
00:42:03.000So, if this was intentional, it was not a military tactic, it was an act of terrorism.
00:42:10.000Tucker is back and the numbers are huge.
00:42:21.000Now, again, it's hard to measure exactly what these views look like.
00:42:23.000We've been trying to figure it out with What Is A Woman as well.
00:42:26.000A view on Twitter video, very often within 14, 15 seconds, people have tuned out.
00:42:30.000But it also happens to be the case that a lot of people will tune out of network news on a nightly basis.
00:42:35.000So those are very, very large numbers for Tucker.
00:42:38.000And I would assume that as cable news continues to struggle with finding new audiences, people like Tucker are going to continue to do very well in the online space.
00:42:49.000Part of that, obviously, is also the botchery of the media.
00:42:51.000Again, the media are the promulgators of the great myths among us.
00:42:54.000They lie on a routine basis, and so that means that alternative voices are having those voices heard.
00:42:58.000It's why the numbers for this show are so large.
00:43:00.000It's why Joe Rogan's numbers are so large.
00:43:01.000It's why Tucker's numbers are so large.
00:43:02.000The depositing of alternative sources of information is going to be the wave of the future, and that's why, by the way, again, thanks to Elon Musk, Twitter is a free place to be, and we need more of that in social media.
00:43:15.000Meanwhile, in the presidential race, we are seeing some movement in the polls.
00:43:18.000There's a brand new poll out from Iowa.
00:43:20.000Now, remember, all of the national polling is going to favor Donald Trump for the foreseeable future because, of course, Donald Trump is the most famous person in the race.
00:43:27.000He is the ex-president of the United States and maybe the most famous person on planet Earth at this point.
00:43:33.000However, the state-level polls are going to be the polls that actually tell the tale.
00:43:38.000And so, I'm looking right now at the latest polls from Iowa.
00:43:42.000And what you see is that in Iowa, the gap is now being closed pretty significantly by DeSantis.
00:43:48.000There is a breaking poll out of Iowa that shows DeSantis closing the gap by 14 percentage points.
00:43:54.000A new Never Back Down PAC survey shared with Axios has DeSantis closing the gap In mid-May, before DeSantis officially announced, he earned a 24% number in Iowa compared to Trump's 48%, that's 24 point gap.
00:44:07.000A few weeks later, after launching his campaign May 24th, the Florida governor is up to 29% among likely Iowa caucus goers against Trump's 39%.
00:44:14.000And that's after being in the race for like five minutes.
00:44:17.000That is a pretty significant closing gap right there.
00:44:22.000There is a poll out of Virginia and that poll also shows Trump up, but he's up 48-28.
00:44:27.000Meanwhile, you have Pence earning seven, Haley earning seven.
00:44:32.000There are a bunch of other candidates in that race.
00:44:34.000When it comes down to a two-person race, this looks very, very competitive, suddenly.
00:44:39.000So, sort of fascinating to watch as the race starts to close up just a little bit.
00:44:44.000Would not be surprised if it closes significantly further, because again, we're in the very early days.
00:44:48.000Meanwhile, Chris Christie is out there being very aggressive with Trump, which will last precisely as long as Chris Christie thinks that Trump will not pick him for a running mate.
00:44:56.000Trump himself is very happy with Christie being in the race.
00:47:05.000There are a lot of people out there who are very alarmist about AI.
00:47:08.000I've talked about what I think the threats to AI could be, where the jobs of the future are going to be.
00:47:12.000But a person who's really thought this through in a deep and profound way is Marc Andreessen.
00:47:16.000He has a phenomenal piece over at his Substack that is totally worth reading.
00:47:22.000He is the co-author of Mosaic, which was the first widely used web browser, and he was the co-founder of Netscape, and now he runs a venture capital firm called Andreessen Horowitz, and he goes through why he thinks AI will save the world.
00:47:32.000It's a tech optimist piece, and it's a very convincing piece about the upsides of AI.
00:47:39.000What he says, essentially, is that AI augmentation of human intelligence has already started, which will be a good thing because we will be able to do more things.
00:47:47.000He says, AI offers us the opportunity to profoundly augment human intelligence to make all of these outcomes of intelligence and many others, from the creation of new medicines, to ways to solve climate change, to technologies to reach the stars, much, much better from here.
00:48:00.000The point that Andreessen makes is that very often people think of AI like, it's a machine, we're a machine, so it's a machine that's better than we are, so we lose.
00:48:10.000And the point Andreessen makes is, we don't fully understand what makes people human or not human.
00:48:16.000He suggests, That very often the ways that we define what it means to be a human could equally apply to simple machines.
00:48:24.000Goal-directed, adjusting to the environment, unhappy when goal is not reached, and then attempting to find that goal.
00:48:31.000And as Mark has said, that refers to a thermostat, right?
00:48:35.000It's attempting to find 72 degrees, and it's unhappy when it doesn't have that goal.
00:48:39.000It has a feedback mechanism to attempt to achieve that goal.
00:48:46.000So there's something that we can't explain about being human that makes us different from AI.
00:48:51.000And AI is just a really, really good machine.
00:48:54.000He says, in our new era of AI, every child will have an AI tutor
00:48:56.000that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, and infinitely helpful.
00:49:01.000The AI tutor will be by each child's side every step of their development,
00:49:05.000helping them maximize their potential.
00:49:06.000Every person will have an AI assistant, coach, mentor, trainer, advisor, or therapist,
00:49:10.000infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, and infinitely helpful.
00:49:14.000Every scientist will have an AI assistant.
00:49:15.000Every leader of the people will have the same.
00:49:17.000Productivity growth throughout the economy will accelerate dramatically, driving economic growth, creation of new industries, creation of new jobs, and wage growth.
00:49:36.000And then there are what he calls bootleggers, self-interested opportunists who stand to financially profit by the imposition of new restrictions, regulations, and laws that insulate them from competitors.
00:49:46.000So presumably that would be big corporations that are involving themselves in AI regulation right now to kill all of their competition off.
00:49:51.000And then he talks about the various risks.
00:49:58.000He says, my view is that the idea that AI will decide to literally kill humanity is a profound category error.
00:50:03.000AI is not a living being that has been primed by billions of years of evolution to participate in the battle for the survival of the fittest, as animals are and as we are.
00:50:10.000It is math, built by people, owned by people, used by people and controlled by people.
00:50:13.000In short, AI does not want, does not have goals.
00:50:15.000It does not want to kill you because it is not alive.
00:50:18.000It's not going to come alive and kill you any more than your toaster will.
00:50:21.000Now, there are people who can use AI to do bad things, for sure.
00:50:25.000But the idea that it's just going to become self-aware and then kill all of humanity is nonsense.
00:50:29.000The second question that he takes on is, will AI ruin our society?
00:50:36.000He says it's not going to be AI generating hate speech and misinformation that's the problem.
00:50:40.000It's going to be people who attempt to censor other people who are the problem, which of course is true.
00:50:44.000The third risk, which is the one that people are concerned about, like Andrew Yang, who are pushing universal basic income, is that AI is going to take all of our jobs.
00:50:53.000He says we have technology that is going to advance humanity.
00:50:57.000He says AI, if allowed to develop and proliferate throughout the economy, may cause the most dramatic and sustained economic boom of all time, with correspondingly record job and wage growth, the exact opposite of the fear.
00:51:18.000When technology is applied to production, we get productivity growth, an increase in output generated by a reduction in inputs.
00:51:23.000A human using a computer is way more productive than a human not using a computer.
00:51:27.000The result is lower prices for goods and services.
00:51:30.000As the prices for goods and services fall, we pay less for them, meaning we now have extra spending power with which to buy other things, which increases demand in the economy.
00:51:37.000And then people invest that money, and they produce new things.
00:51:41.000The result is a larger economy with higher material prosperity, more industries, more products, and more jobs.
00:51:45.000You also get higher wages because, at the level of the individual worker, the marketplace sets compensation as a function of the marginal productivity of the worker.
00:51:52.000A worker in a tech-infused business will be more productive than a worker in a non-tech-infused business.
00:51:57.000This is why, if you are working in an air-conditioned office, there's a good shot that you're making more money than a person who is working, like, basic agriculture somewhere.
00:52:04.000The employer will either pay that worker more money because he's now more productive, or another employer will.
00:52:09.000Technology introduced into an industry generally increases the number of jobs and also raises wages.
00:52:16.000As far as technology that replaces literally all human labor, which is what people are worried about...
00:52:21.000Which would mean literally all existing human labor being replaced by machines.
00:52:24.000That would mean a take-off rate of economic productivity growth that would be absolutely stratospheric, beyond any historical precedent.
00:52:30.000Prices of existing goods and services would drop across the board to virtually zero.
00:53:04.000According to the UK Guardian, the U.S.
00:53:06.000has been urged to disclose evidence of UFOs after a whistleblower, former intelligence official, said the government has possession of intact and partially intact alien vehicles.
00:53:13.000The former intelligence officer is named David Grush.
00:53:15.000He led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomenon within a U.S.
00:53:18.000Department of Defense agency, and he has alleged the U.S.
00:53:20.000has graft of non-human origin illegally being withheld from Congress.
00:53:24.000So we now have a single source who left the government in April after a 14-year career in U.S.
00:53:28.000intelligence saying that there are aliens out there and we have control over their
00:53:52.000And do you really believe that, here's a real question, do you believe that intelligent alien life, which is presumably what we're talking about, flew millions of light years to arrive here on planet Earth, and then proceeded to fly around until it fell down and was found by American military forces?
00:54:19.000When you show me the spacecraft, and you show me where it's from, and you give me some evidence other than a dude saying it, who's now going to be very famous and being able to write books, then I have... Until you show me that, I have doubts.
00:54:30.000Alrighty guys, the rest of the show continues right now.