Two New Year's Day attacks on the same day in the United States have people asking questions about the motives and motivations behind these acts of terror. Is this a random act of senseless violence, or is it part of a larger plot to terrorize the American people? To find out, we speak with Lafayette Lee, a contributing editor at IM1776 and a great essayist.
00:01:15.220Then we saw on the same day, another New Year's Day attack, a very strange incident with a man who had driven a cyber truck up to a Trump building in Las Vegas.
00:01:30.040Now, we didn't know a lot at the time.
00:01:34.100But later on, we learned that the man had shot himself right before and that while the car was full of different fireworks and camping fuel,
00:01:43.820ultimately, it was not actually designed to do a kind of a mass casualty event.
00:01:49.120It did have seven other people hurt, and obviously, the driver himself was killed, though he killed himself before the explosion.
00:01:56.300But these two attacks right next to each other on the same day had a lot of people asking questions.
00:02:02.040Both of these men used the same car rental app to rent the cars that they ended up using in their attacks, and both men were Army veterans.
00:02:11.060In fact, they were both stationed at Fort Bragg at one point.
00:02:14.860And so it had a lot of people asking questions.
00:02:17.120Is there something going on in the military?
00:04:02.860Shamoud Don Jabbar ends up driving into this crowd.
00:04:08.820Again, very reminiscent of the terrorist attack we saw in Germany where, you know, 20 people were killed, drove into this crowd, killing 15.
00:04:18.320He jumped out, was confronted by law enforcement, ended up in a firefight in Wheeling, an AK-47.
00:04:36.700But we saw initially the FBI come out and say this was not a terrorist attack.
00:04:43.680Even though people were spotting an ISIS flag being pulled out of the car, the initial assertion from the FBI is this has nothing to do with terror.
00:04:54.520What was your first response when you heard about the incident?
00:04:56.920When I first heard about the incident, I immediately, my mind went to some kind of act of terrorism, likely involving somebody who had been self-radicalized.
00:05:11.100And so that's what I initially thought.
00:05:13.140And so as the details started to come out, I felt like many of my priors had been confirmed.
00:05:18.980Now, there were some things definitely that were outside of what I expected.
00:05:29.640But, you know, some of the additional reports to come along with multiple people planting explosives and so on, that seemed a little bit outside of what I had expected.
00:05:38.180But, yeah, the initial the initial event kind of confirmed what I had suspected when I first got the news.
00:06:25.040But now they're saying he acted alone.
00:06:26.760I would be great if I could trust law enforcement like that would be fantastic if I could listen to people in authority, people who are supposed to be protecting my country.
00:06:37.440It would be great if I could look at those people and say these are competent people who have my best interests in mind and they would certainly not lie to me about something like this.
00:06:46.500But the fact that the original news was delivered by some lady with like a nose piercing and she's like, yeah, I don't know.
00:06:53.100I guess there's probably no terrorism.
00:06:54.980We don't, you know, and then we find out actually, no, it's all terrorism.
00:07:13.940There's paperwork sitting on the counter of everything that the FBI has taken.
00:07:17.980And he's got like an open Koran, you know, displayed prominently with just a shelf of nothing but texts of, you know, different like Islamic books.
00:07:27.680There's nothing else really in his bookshelf except that.
00:07:32.060And then you walk over and there's like just this little bomb making area, like very clearly, like sitting there with a with a scale and everything else.
00:07:39.880And I don't know, it seems very strange that media access was granted so quickly to this scene and that everything was kind of laid out the way it was, even though we had very little information coming in.
00:07:55.600And the FBI seemed to deny everything else about this guy beforehand.
00:07:59.720It was just a very strange juxtaposition where the FBI was very out of touch, obviously giving us false information from the beginning.
00:08:06.880And then all of a sudden, like a local news crew just has like access to kind of just walk in the house and of what has to be an active crime scene.
00:08:15.900I know the FBI has already been through there, but it just seemed kind of strange.
00:08:19.420Not trying to put on any tinfoil hats here, but just the progression of evidence as it was revealed to us, to the public, you can understand why a lot of people are scratching their chins at this one.
00:08:32.420Yeah, the weirdness, it was funny because I almost feel as if the attack itself made more, you know, not justifying it, but it was easier to wrap my head around the actual attack than it was the response to the attack.
00:08:47.200Like, you know, like you mentioned, you have, you know, you had the police chief of New Orleans first come out.
00:08:52.640It was a disaster of a press conference.
00:08:55.800She had described the event as terrorism.
00:08:58.200And then later the FBI comes out and then make sure to explicitly say that this is not an act of terrorism.
00:09:06.960And then you have later their FBI's behavioral assessment unit, which for those who don't know, it's essentially it's a pre-crime unit within the FBI.
00:09:18.240And their job is to disrupt or incapacitate individuals that they predict are mobilizing to commit violence.
00:09:25.960And so that is who the woman with the nose ring, that's the shop she represents.
00:09:30.380And so then she comes out and makes a statement as well.
00:09:34.140And so during this, during this, in this whole episode, obviously people are starting to wonder if there's something more nefarious at play.
00:09:45.200And, you know, always the media comes out and kind of beats people over the head for speculating too much.
00:09:50.620But I don't know how people can't speculate in a moment like this, like you have an incomprehensible system of government, which contradicts itself.
00:10:32.120I think one of the weirdest parts of this is that there were people going through, you know, these are reporters and so on, going through his home.
00:10:41.040And the last I heard, there had been, people had been going through his belongings within his, within his house.
00:10:48.620And so, you know, whether or not the FBI went through there before, I'm not sure I would hope so.
00:10:55.060But the fact that just random journalists and other people reporting on what was happening were allowed to go through what is, should be an active crime scene is just very strange.
00:11:06.680It does not make a lot of sense to me why this sort of a thing would happen, especially when it's so high profile, the entire nation is watching.
00:11:15.500And so, again, I think this goes to whether, let's, let's say that this individual was self-radicalized.
00:11:46.920Like you said, the attack is obviously horrible.
00:11:49.260He's a monster and he's dead for a good reason.
00:11:51.580But, but you at least understood kind of, okay, guy who's like, you know, on his, you know, gone through a couple lives and, you know, it doesn't seem to be doing well mentally, you know, how it radicalizes himself and goes on this spree.
00:12:07.840You see how it happens, even though it's terrible.
00:12:10.400Uh, but the response is very, very bizarre.
00:12:25.480Um, she was the one I think who originally came out and said that it was not an act of terrorism.
00:12:29.620And then the FBI later had to come in and say that in fact it was an act of terrorism.
00:12:34.520Uh, but just goes to show that, um, you know, when it comes to official statements, I mean,
00:12:38.640I always thought the whole purpose of an official statement was to at least get the facts that we can be certain of, uh, out to the public so that it doesn't have to be cross-examined.
00:13:12.580Again, their response is the cure, most curious part of this.
00:13:16.320The man had made multiple Facebook video posts in which he declared, you know, pledging his allegiance to ISIS.
00:13:23.600Uh, apparently one of the videos talked about how he had initially planned to kind of like take out his anger on friends and family, but then he didn't think that that would be a good look.
00:13:32.820And so I'm not sure why this would be a better look, but you know, that that's what happens when someone is possessed by that kind of evil, I suppose.
00:13:40.400But it, again, it is the fact, as you point out that anyone looking at this could assume it's a terror attack.
00:14:03.100Nobody needs anyone to do complex math at that point about what's going on.
00:14:08.560And so the only purpose of the official statement, as you point out, would be to quash speculation and make it clear what's actually happening to put aside all of the other narratives.
00:14:19.340And that's what would happen if you had institutions that were actually interested in public trust.
00:14:24.420They're actually serving the populace that were interested in protecting them.
00:14:28.620However, instead, what you have is an FBI that just immediately jumps into basically how can we tell the story in which people panic the least, right?
00:14:51.940Maybe it is, but it seems much more likely that the FBI is willing to just lie to me and tell me whatever they think it is they want to hear that's going to make the situation calm down as much as possible.
00:15:13.060Your public safety relies on these people having credibility, telling the truth, being competent.
00:15:18.860And yet the FBI is obsessed with tracking down everybody who might have been outside a building on January 6th, is busy imprisoning any Christian that ends up protesting in front of the wrong type of building, is willing to chase down people for insulting Hillary Clinton with memes.
00:15:43.500This is what our FBI does with their time.
00:15:46.100And yet it's really, really bad at stopping school shooters and terrorists and, you know, all the stuff that they're actually supposed to pay attention to.
00:15:55.620I mean, the joke now is they were known to the FBI, you know, say the line, Bart.
00:16:00.580They, you know, the FBI had knowledge of this individual.
00:16:03.580Like, it's very clear at this point that the purpose of the system is what it does.
00:16:08.520And the FBI arrests citizens for disagreeing with the government, but it doesn't protect citizens from terrorists or mass shooters.
00:16:27.080It's the political priorities of this administration are so obviously, you know, these come out in moments like these.
00:16:36.740We see those priorities very clear that the political priorities of the administration or even, you know, an attempt to protect itself from criticism.
00:16:48.340You know, the FBI is very sensitive to those things and I, it's interesting because, I mean, this really does kind of just speak to the crisis of our institutions.
00:16:58.200That we have a collapse of trust in our institutions, which the institutions themselves have blamed on misinformation and the internet and people speaking freely.
00:17:06.780As if free speech is a new concept with, when it comes to the American people.
00:17:12.860But over time, it's been just so obvious that in moments like these, it often transcends the horrible crime that has been committed.
00:17:23.220And then it becomes a discussion about your reaction to either the incompetence of the government officials or to the crime itself.
00:17:30.960I mean, it's, it's notable to me that, you know, we get this statement from the FBI that it's not a terrorist attack.
00:17:36.660It seems they're very sensitive to not, not jumping to conclusions about a man who fits this description.
00:17:43.420But then also even with the sugar bowl that was going to be canceled and then it was rescheduled, you know, it was going to go forward anyway.
00:17:49.980You know, we get a, we get another public statement from, you know, the CEO of Allstate who reminds us, you know, it kind of chides the American people to, to step away from their addiction to divisiveness, you know?
00:18:05.180I mean, who, whose priorities are front and center?
00:18:09.340It's not really the safety of the people that the FBI is tasked to, to protect.
00:18:14.180It's not really these, uh, other organizations that are supposed to entertain or, you know, uh, service the American people in some way as even customers.
00:18:22.760It's really to always echo the political priorities of that dominant, uh, of the dominant political philosophy we have here.
00:18:30.000You know, it's, we need to stray away from divisiveness and we need to not jump to conclusions.
00:18:37.740I mean, we've been dealing with this for years now, and it's just so obvious that the real priority is to protect institutions, even when they act incompetently.
00:18:48.520Ooh, French lavender soy blend candle.
00:18:51.600I told you HomeSense has good gift options.
00:19:18.560Again, you know that ultimately the goal of the FBI, like you said, is to settle tensions and avoid anyone saying something mean about Muslims or Islam, as opposed to actually protecting anyone.
00:19:31.240And that absolutely has to inhibit the way that they do their job.
00:19:36.760I mean, the fact that most of their resources are trained on getting rid of the domestic opponents of their political kind of string pullers shows, obviously, that that is itself a massive problem.
00:19:50.540But the fact that layered on top of that is this ideological aversion to identifying the real problems and prioritizing surveillance and prioritizing the absolute necessity of recognizing a threat, no matter what its skin color or where it sits in the DEI hierarchy.
00:21:07.280He's a guy who had done two tours in Afghanistan as well as showing up in Ukraine and the Congo and a bunch of other places.
00:21:15.340He lived in Colorado, but he rented this truck, the Cybertruck.
00:21:21.300And you have to imagine that given Elon Musk's now identity being tied up with Trump, that that was a mistake, that he didn't just buy a vehicle that was specifically identified solely with Elon Musk, put it in front of a building that, you know, huge Trump, you know, letters emblazoned in front of it and then explode the flames just cascading off of this Trump name.
00:21:45.040I mean, he had to have understood what was being done there.
00:21:48.560Now, the very strange thing about this guy is that his family describes him as a Trump supporter, but we hear this from everybody.
00:21:57.300Every mass shooter is actually secretly a Trump supporter.
00:22:00.480So it's once again, very difficult to know as we're still trying to gather information what's going on.
00:22:07.340But interestingly, he rented this car from the Toro car sharing app, like this car rental app, which is the same app used by the terrorist in New Orleans to rent the vehicle that he used.
00:22:22.060They both used electric trucks, obviously the Elon's, you know, Cybertruck being the one used in the Las Vegas bombing.
00:22:31.720And in this case, they were both former military or active military, I suppose, for the Green Beret guy.
00:22:38.960And they both were spent time at Fort Hood.
00:22:43.300Now, a lot of people are drawing lines and saying these things are completely connected.
00:22:48.420You know, there's some kind of psychological warfare thing happening at Fort Hood.
00:22:52.960I wonder if you could speak first a little bit about the Las Vegas attack and then kind of what you think about any possibility of the military connections.
00:23:25.800You know, this is now this one is definitely stranger to me.
00:23:28.640I think my general rule of thumb when I see events like this is you begin kind of trying to it's difficult to ascertain a motive right until much later.
00:24:07.760But, you know, so with this case, I you know, this this definitely caught my eye and made me made me kind of concerned for several reasons.
00:24:17.180And I'll kind of walk you through what I see.
00:24:19.740So what we do know, he rented this Cybertruck, as you say, through this kind of this app.
00:26:26.060And I think just to kind of put this into perspective, Fort Bragg is really like, you know, I was stationed at Fort Bragg for most of my career.
00:26:34.340And so Fort Bragg is kind of like your central node for all special operations and even like with airborne units like the 82nd.
00:26:43.380So it's got a very large footprint, a big reputation, a lot of powerful people over there.
00:26:49.560And so not counting just military personnel, but their families as well.
00:26:53.260And then anybody who's working on the base, you're kind of looking at about 200,000, 230,000 people that are working in or around Fort Bragg.
00:27:02.180So it's, you know, there is a significance to this.
00:27:06.580Both individuals had been at Fort Bragg, one with the 82nd, the other with, you know, special forces.
00:27:13.780And that's where they do all their special forces training and the Q course and all that.
00:27:19.180And so, I mean, it is significant that they were at Fort Bragg, I think, for their own careers.
00:27:24.280But I don't know how much I would draw a connection between the two for that simple fact.
00:27:29.520I mean, I was at Fort Bragg during the time that one of these individuals was there as well.
00:27:34.720And so I don't believe, I haven't seen any evidence, and I highly doubt that they had even known each other before this.
00:27:44.620Now, the next thing that I think is kind of, but is particularly strange about this guy.
00:27:50.960See, I can wrap my head around the New Orleans attack.
00:27:54.440It could very well be a case of a guy who's, he's obviously on like a divorce, and he's got money problems, and he turns to Islam and converts.
00:28:05.180And then as his life is falling apart, he becomes more radicalized.
00:28:08.980That's something that we've seen before.
00:28:13.220What I can't really wrap my head around, however, is I have a hard time wrapping my head around this Tesla situation.
00:28:19.940Like I said, this Green Beret was highly trained.
00:28:22.300And what's strange is that he bought a Desert Eagle, which is kind of a peculiar firearm to carry for a Green Beret, I'm just going to say.
00:28:36.060I mean, it's just, it's not something, at least in my experience, I saw many people really be attracted to within that community.
00:28:42.920And from what I understand, he had a gunshot wound to his head, and so likely died from that rather than the explosion.
00:28:51.500There's a couple things that just are strange to me.
00:28:55.300If you're driving a Cybertruck, I know that you have some, you know, there's some, what do you call it, autonomous driving capability that you can use on a highway.
00:29:04.440I'm not exactly sure if the Cybertruck can move around, like, city streets with that function.
00:29:11.400So that, you know, and maybe I'll be corrected, but that seemed a little odd to me.
00:29:14.820It's odd to me that he died of a gunshot wound before the explosion.
00:29:20.460And then it's also odd the nature of the explosion.
00:29:23.660My initial reaction is that I don't see that he was necessarily intending of hurting anyone else.
00:29:31.880If there are people around, there's always the risk of hurting them.
00:29:34.980But given the nature of the IED that he constructed, I mean, I think some people overestimate, you know, the kind of skills and where somebody is mentally on whether or not he's going to try to show off those skills when he ends his life.
00:29:50.580But it is peculiar the nature of it, right?
00:29:53.740Fireworks, a lot of, you know, gasoline, I believe, in the back.
00:29:58.340Basically creating a giant fireball in the Cybertruck.
00:30:01.880That's not really your standard IED, right?
00:30:05.520So if he's trying to damage Trump Hotel or kill people, he knows enough that I would doubt that that would be his course of action if he was intending to harm other people.
00:30:15.180Now, there could very well be a reason he wanted to make a statement.
00:30:18.180I mean, there is a statement being made in some sense, right?
00:30:21.800Why wouldn't if, you know, I hate to talk about this subject, but if he wanted to end his life, why wouldn't he do that like many other veterans do?
00:30:31.880If they're in a bad mental space and do that, you know, in the privacy of their own home, right?
00:30:40.080This, however, is very strange and why it had to happen, you know, a great distance away from his home is another strange thing.
00:30:46.840Now, I will note that, you know, from what I'm reading coming out of reports and, you know, take all these things with a grain of salt, of course.
00:30:54.760Initial reports tend to be full of problems.
00:30:57.880But, you know, I have seen several reports coming out today that he was looking at a divorce possibly with his wife or at least breaking up with his girlfriend.
00:31:06.480I'm not sure if it's confirmed whether they're married or not.
00:31:08.640But there were allegations of infidelity that are being now reported.
00:31:13.400All of this, again, take with a grain of salt.
00:31:16.140So there could be that he had some serious personal issues going on.
00:31:19.700But overall, what I find just very strange is from all everything I have heard from people who tend who have known him tend to have a pretty high opinion of him.
00:31:32.720And granted, you know, people don't always see these things coming if it's true that he just wanted to end his life.
00:31:38.080But I think the strangest thing that I have seen that I do, I would like to pursue and look more into is there.
00:31:47.300It's been alleged that he he or somebody impersonating him sent an email to one of my Twitter mutuals.
00:31:55.140And I believe that person might be going on a podcast later today to talk about that.
00:31:59.900I'm pretty sure Sean Ryan is discussing this, but it is significant because it's it's just strange because this email had been supposedly sent by the by this Green Beret the day before the attack.
00:32:16.400And I actually remember seeing a tweet by the person that had allegedly been sent to talking about this email and how it was strange.
00:32:25.820And then the next day, the Cybertruck event happened.
00:32:28.980You know, obviously, like I cannot fill in the gaps, but there's something very strange about this case.
00:32:34.700Um, and I do know that this individual is working in, uh, you know, pretty, you know, within drone technology.
00:32:41.660It's a very, you know, it's a cutting edge field, very important to national security for the United States.
00:32:52.780It doesn't fit the profile to me, uh, given the nature of, of what happened.
00:32:57.200It just does not fit what I would have expected from somebody like this.
00:33:01.780And like I said, with the new Orleans case, it's easier for me to wrap my head around.
00:33:06.680I've seen this many times, uh, coming from a similar community as this individual over in Las Vegas, kind of knowing a little bit of the background and then seeing some other things that have started to surface in the meantime.
00:33:21.560And, um, again, going back to what we discussed earlier with law enforcement and the FBI.
00:33:27.060I don't know if I can fully trust that this incident, that we're going to get much, um, we're going to get many answers to some of these strange questions, uh, that are coming from this event.
00:33:49.100And you're right to point out that, you know, anyone can have a bad day, right?
00:33:52.160Like there's there any, anyone can snap, you know, you never truly know someone's mental health state.
00:33:57.700You, you never can predict everything about where someone's going to go, but this, you know, yes, we've heard this guy might've broken up with, you know, his significant other there.
00:34:09.440I saw that there might be some financial issues, but ultimately, as you say, desert Eagle, very strange.
00:34:15.260Just not really known for its practicality, uh, for someone who has like a lot of, uh, very real military experience.
00:34:21.960It's not going to usually be kind of their, their weapon of choice.
00:34:25.300You've got a situation where this guy clearly could have made a far more destructive explosive device.
00:34:31.180If his interest was really making the largest statement possible, I mean, is this basically just self-immolation?
00:34:36.760You know, I I've even forgotten the soldier who did that at this point, the over the whole Palestinian conflict, but is this basically just a more high tech, you know, charged version of this, uh, you know, where, where he creates a explosion that, you know, as you say, any, anyone could get hurt, but is relatively self-contained.
00:34:55.160If this guy wanted to do large amounts of damage, then, then he had opportunities to do that.
00:35:00.260And if he's generally in a position where he's well put together, he has a significant amount of training.
00:35:06.140He's not just some guy who was in the military at some point.
00:35:09.820You know, this guy was very close to retirement, has a lot of experience, uh, like you say, well-spoken of, you know, these are all things that lead you to believe that this isn't a guy who would just usually engage in this kind of behavior.
00:35:22.940Again, you never know. And it would be nice.
00:35:26.000And once again, if we could trust the FBI, if we could trust our government, if we could look at official stories and say, yeah, these guys are going to tell us what's going on.
00:35:33.880They're going to let us know if there was a wider plan, if there's a greater threat, if, uh, you know, something had been set up, if something was going on in both of these situations.
00:35:42.540But the fact that neither of them, uh, you know, we can't really trust the, the, the people informing us in either situation is concerning.
00:35:49.520I am glad that you pointed out kind of that both the ride share app and, you know, Fort Bragg, this is in a lot of ways, this is like saying, well, there's a guy who, you know, both of the terrorists used, uh, something from, I don't know, enterprise rental car.
00:36:05.220It's like, well, yes, but these are, you know, the, the Fort Bragg is a massive clearing house for the United States army, a ride share app that has, you know, thousands, if not millions of interactions is going to, you know, have some level of overlap.
00:36:18.900If two guys decide to rent cars again, at this point, I don't want to exclude any possibilities because we really just don't know.
00:36:26.720Uh, but, but those two people are making, I feel like more of those two coincidences than perhaps would be necessary if you're kind of more familiar with just kind of the volume of people moving in and out.
00:36:37.160I've had many, many friends stationed at Fort Bragg.
00:36:39.820Now I want to ask you in, uh, in relation to something like the Fort hood massacre, um, obviously, um, that's a little different.
00:36:49.840Um, but you know, that, that was somebody who was Muslim heading into, uh, uh, in the military.
00:36:57.080Then you have this, this guy, uh, in the new Orleans attack, who I guess did convert to Islam fairly early, but was himself, I believe an American.
00:37:05.860I don't think it was immigrant. He didn't join the military, um, you know, kind of, kind of in that station.
00:37:11.120So, uh, I guess a lot of people would, would be asking is obviously, you know, there are serious mental health issues that go unaddressed very sadly, very like just, just horribly veterans are not well taken care of by our government.
00:37:28.380We are busy spending our money, taking care of illegal immigrants or other things like that.
00:37:32.100We just can't find the money to, to, uh, you take care of service personnel, which is a huge indictment of the United States.
00:37:38.080But as you point out, you know, many veterans who unfortunately do decide to take a temporary, uh, or a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
00:37:47.320They, they do that in their homes. They don't need to hurt other people. They don't need to involve, uh, you know, some kind of mass act of terrorism to, to do that.
00:37:55.800Um, so I don't know if we can just blame this on like mental health issues with veterans.
00:38:01.120You look at, you know, uh, kind of both of these attacks and it looks like is Islam is, is centered at least between Fort hood and, and the one in new Orleans.
00:38:10.120It, it, do you think there's a larger problem with, with, uh, radicalized Muslims inside the United States military in some percentage?
00:38:19.480Um, I, you know, in my own personal experience, I, I never encountered that. I actually, strangely enough, I mean, I, I, I ran into a, the only extremist I'd ever known in the military actually turned out to be a black nationalist.
00:38:34.460And he was actually removed from the military. That's the personal experience. That's the only person I've ever, uh, encountered.
00:38:40.320And then actually got, uh, ganked from the military and removed for, you know, their activities and affiliations, uh, never really encountered that.
00:38:48.460And I mean, I was, I was in the infantry for part of my career, went over to special operations.
00:38:52.540I mean, uh, those two communities have a lot of really strong personalities, but I, I really never encountered that sort of a thing.
00:38:59.320Um, but, uh, that said, I do think that there's, uh, I think that there's something when you bring up the Fort hood shooting that, um, kind of reveals a bit of a problem.
00:39:09.320That I, I tend to believe is a systemic rot within the military and within our government in general.
00:39:14.800I think this could be said for many of our institutions is when you look at a situation like the Fort hood shooting, clearly, uh, you know, this, the shooter was, um, might've had some workflow workplace frustrations, but the shooter was clearly, um, motivated by, um, uh, their ideology, their religion and ideology.
00:39:35.940When you look at the facts, when you go through the case and you see, um, the, where, where this person got radicalized and how they, you know, that pathway, um, it's undoubtable, you know, it's undeniable that, um, that, that, that played a major role in this.
00:39:51.720And was probably the primary motivator, honestly.
00:39:54.380Um, but then the department of defense, and it still classifies this event as a workplace violence situation.
00:40:01.840Um, and so, you know, you, you, you look at this and this is, this is, oh, this is the problem.
00:40:08.140Um, and the military, it's not just because it's the military.
00:40:10.720I think the military has some things that they do better than maybe other institutions and then worse.
00:40:16.540Um, but this is the nature of the type of government that we have in the highly bureaucratized, um, system of control, uh, and how information is, uh, filtered down through the public.
00:40:27.860And I think that, uh, again, similar maybe to what we saw with new Orleans and the FBI, the primary concern is always going to be the, um, priorities of the bureaucrats themselves and the political priorities of their boss.
00:40:43.080So those things will always need to be in alignment.
00:40:47.300And so if that requires you to lie, um, and say that maybe somebody had been radicalized by a video and it, it kicks off a terrorist attack in Benghazi.
00:40:56.900That's the, that's the company line you are going to keep with.
00:41:00.200This is a workplace violence situation.
00:41:03.040Um, it will be and stay a workplace violence situation, whether the facts lead you into a different direction.
00:41:10.560And I think that that's really kind of the rub here is that, you know, I don't think that the military has an extremism problem.
00:41:19.100I don't think that there's a high likelihood that you're going to find, uh, uh, people from whatever kind of like with terrorist ties.
00:41:28.860And I know that there have been, I I'm pretty sure I've, I've heard stories here and there where there will be individuals who have, who've joined the military, um, and have been either recruited by foreign governments and so on.
00:41:42.200Um, I'm sure that there might be some extremist elements attempting to infiltrate the military, but it's more difficult than I think people realize.
00:41:48.980Because the problem though, is if we did have a problem with that, and if we will have a problem with that, can we trust that the, uh, that the system would be able to identify them and purge them?
00:42:01.760You know, the only time I've really seen a successful purge of military personnel was over the COVID vaccine.
00:42:11.100And, and it, and that, that's, I saw a successful purging campaign with that.
00:42:15.300I saw a successful purging campaign personally, uh, when Obama took over, uh, as president.
00:42:20.420And then you saw a lot of heads rolling, uh, with, you know, different senior leaders who maybe were too, you know, too close to the last administration.
00:42:29.620And so you kind of see this, you know, moving shuffling of the deck chairs and getting the right people in power.
00:42:35.240Uh, you know, you, I've seen those things happen, but if, if we really do have systemic problems within the military, which to me, we're seeing that right now with the recruiting crisis, can you really trust that these institutions are capable and willing to fix those problems?
00:42:52.220Or would it be more likely that they're going to spend a lot of money and make a lot of, um, you know, do a lot of dog and pony shows and then try to convey a message to the public, um, rather than fix the problem.
00:43:06.180And so my, my fear is, is if we do have problems later on, and I think there's reason to, to be concerned.
00:43:13.080If we do have problems later on of, of, of bad people infiltrating the military and doing things that they shouldn't be doing or having somebody like some of, you know, this, uh, Nadal Hassan, um, who there were countless red flags leading up to the attack.
00:43:30.420Uh, can we really trust that the institution will prioritize protecting, uh, the soldiers and their families?
00:43:36.220I, I just don't know if I could say that they will.
00:43:38.480Yeah. And, and unfortunately that's what I think ties all of these stories together more than anything else is the concern that as you point out, whether this is a deep seated problem in the military or not, if it developed into one, if we continue to see a pattern of guys like this, who are radicalized Islamists inside the United States military seeking to commit acts of terror, would the military even take action?
00:44:04.280Would the bureaucracy even care? Would they actually treat this as anything that was worth acting on? Or would their first priority be to protect, you know, their, their own kind of ideology, their own DEI understanding of the world?
00:44:17.960Oh, well, sorry. We don't look into problems. If people have the wrong skin color, uh, you, you're, that's hateful. That's bigoted. You can't recognize patterns. Uh, you know, that, that people with this particular faith or this particular background seem to, you know, continue to produce this type of behavior.
00:44:33.080We're, we're, we're just not allowed to notice that. And that will be prioritized over the safety of the American people, soldiers, families, this kind of thing.
00:44:40.940And that really transfers over to the last thing I want to talk about real quick before we go, which was the, the kind of the Rotherham grooming gang scandal, uh, has opened back up again.
00:44:51.100It's kind of exploded back into popular understanding. I've covered it several times on my channel because I think it's just really critical.
00:44:58.180And the fact that it was buried alive by the British press, uh, as much as possible, and that it got very little coverage here in the United States was absolutely criminal.
00:45:07.020Uh, for those who don't know, uh, a large amount of young women, uh, were sexually abused or raped, uh, by these mostly Pakistani grooming gangs and said the British, uh, town of Rotherham.
00:45:20.100And this is a wider problem. It doesn't just happen there, but that was where it was most focused and the, the most abuse took place.
00:45:26.380Uh, it came back to a head because one of the, uh, perpetrators was, uh, at trial and the, uh, notes from the trial were read out.
00:45:36.440Uh, and just the horrific truth of what was actually done to those girls. It's not like just some guy kind of convinced them to have sex one time.
00:45:44.280It was a organized gang rape situation, um, created in, in, in, you know, in these gangs, they were doing horrific stuff, stuff.
00:45:54.240I cannot even begin to describe on YouTube without losing the channel. So, uh, just to say it is everything you think and worse.
00:46:02.080You can, you can look up the details if you need to. Um, but the, the fact that this has come kind of back to the forefront and it has been Elon Musk who has really made this, um, a huge issue because, uh, obviously it was, there were, there was some pushback when this was made public.
00:46:18.180There was, uh, this was brought back to the public mind when these, uh, you know, court transcripts were read out.
00:46:23.580Uh, but Elon Musk really pushed the fact that, uh, Keir Starmer and others were basically silent through this.
00:46:30.380They made the first priority, uh, arresting, you know, British citizens who disagreed or silencing internet communications that pointed out this problem rather than protecting, uh, the, the young females there.
00:46:42.580Uh, and, and, and Elon, you know, uh, correctly points out that this is a huge issue.
00:46:48.560This is a betrayal of the British people, that it's motivated by political correctness and, and, and an interest in this kind of multiculturalism.
00:46:56.100And I agree with him a hundred percent on all this, and I'm glad he brought this to the attention of everyone, but it was just very confusing because over the last week or so, Elon has spent all of his time calling Americans who don't want to import
00:47:11.760large amounts of foreign labor into their country, uh, because those jobs should go to Americans and they would like to protect the religious and linguistic and social fabric of their country.
00:47:23.900Be able to trust that their, you know, children can go to school and their daughters can walk down the street and not face violence from people who are from cultures that do not understand the American way of life.
00:47:35.680Elon has spent all of his time calling those people's, you know, people racist and that, you know, they're all stupid and he's going to fight them.
00:47:41.760And throwing around all other kinds of slurs to these people.
00:47:45.100And, um, you know, I, I, I can't help, but notice that this pivot to suddenly care deeply about the people of, of, you know, England seems strange in the face of that.
00:47:55.580He, he, he either is doing this tactically just to throw off the fact that he kind of screwed up his relationship in America so bad, maybe went back some good faith from the right wing, or he really doesn't understand the consequences
00:48:13.980Like he doesn't see the second order of facts of bringing people into his country from places that do not jive with your culture, that, that, that this is going to have inevitable impacts.
00:48:25.940India doesn't exactly have a famously good record when it comes to, uh, you know, sexual abuse either.
00:48:38.820I, you know, I tend to look at this H1B thing.
00:48:41.600I thought it was a great moment, uh, that we were able to, we were all able to have a real conversation about this.
00:48:47.900You know, we always hear about having a national conversation.
00:48:50.380Well, that was an actual national conversation.
00:48:52.200And we had people lining up on both sides of this equation.
00:48:55.460I tend to believe that the, uh, H1B critics, uh, performed much better, um, in this became armed with facts and personal experiences and, and really caught a lot of these people, uh, apologizing for H1Bs kind of caught them on their heels.
00:49:10.180Um, and I, I would include Elon in that.
00:49:13.180Um, I do find it a little peculiar that Elon would shift over to this scandal abroad and then kind of use that as an example of why these, uh, government officials are failing their people, which they are.
00:49:25.120Uh, but I, obviously, you know, we're talking about culture now and we're talking about, um, governments, uh, failing to protect their people because they're afraid of being called racist or they just simply don't care.
00:49:37.740And that, um, you know, things like diversity, equity, and inclusion are often used to disguise, uh, self-interested behavior, right?
00:49:46.020I mean, this is something we talk about all the time.
00:49:48.160Um, but I, I, I did find it peculiar that Elon, uh, at least publicly didn't really connect those dots between the two.
00:49:55.600There might be a reason the American people are very hostile to H1Bs, you know, being used as a, as a way to move people from one country to another, uh, very quickly and give them jobs.
00:50:06.680And give them a place in communities for three to five years.
00:50:09.700Uh, I mean, the same cultural arguments you could use with this, uh, scandal over in the UK, you could say that that is a risk that we're facing here.
00:50:19.180Um, and you know, I, and so to me, it's just, it was, it was strange.
00:50:24.100I'm glad that the conversation is happening.
00:50:26.120Uh, but then again, this also underscores another point is that this is an age old scandal.
00:50:31.820I've been hearing people talk about this for a long time.
00:50:34.380Um, and it was very interesting that the public, and this includes like the wider public, uh, not just people that are, um, have been interested in this because for maybe reasons, you know, uh, maybe they're political partisans.
00:50:48.160Let's say, um, it, this is hitting the broader public and it's causing a lot of disappointment and outrage for good reason.
00:50:57.320I think this goes to, goes to show that what we've been discussing about, you know, how the institutions convey information to us, how the press functions, uh, rather than trying to inform the public, but really, um, beat the public into falling in line with the priorities of those institutions.
00:51:14.060This is an example of, uh, kind of a jailbreak moment once again, that even though this might be age old information, um, the public is finally getting unfiltered raw information, um, without being processed through the media in the way that it was in the past.
00:51:29.820And the reaction is entirely different.
00:51:31.960Um, and so my, my parting thoughts on that one are just, I do think it's significant and I'm glad that we're discussing it, but I do find it peculiar.
00:51:40.980That Elon is, um, not, not lining up those dots that H1Bs are obviously an economic, uh, conversation that needs to be had.
00:51:50.280We need to talk about how the effect on jobs and wages, that's the central, uh, issue.
00:51:54.900I think most Americans get frustrated with, but then there's also the idea of like demographic change in culture.
00:52:00.620Um, and obviously these communities in the UK, um, this underscores the point of, of culture matters.
00:52:07.880It's real. And, um, these institutions are clearly not equipped to deal with that.
00:52:14.200They don't know how to navigate differences in culture.
00:52:17.220And I don't know how you don't line those same dots up when we discuss, you know, whether legal immigration versus illegal immigration, the cultural component is still in play.
00:52:27.140Uh, and to see that kind of get overlooked, uh, was a little disappointing.
00:52:30.800It's to be expected, but I'm still on the fence on whether it was deliberate or not.
00:52:36.140Yeah. In a way, I feel like Elon is probably just so siloed that he, you know, sees one thing.
00:52:44.560And then he sees something that it's going to affect his ability to get a rocket off the ground.
00:52:48.940And he's like, Oh, whatever. I don't care.
00:52:50.560I just want to get the rocket off the ground.
00:52:51.780Like, I honestly think it's that simple.
00:52:53.760I think he probably is legitimately outraged at what's going on in the UK.
00:52:57.600I've seen him post, you know, demographics, his destiny under, uh, other terrorist attacks that happened in France and, and, and this kind of stuff.
00:53:04.720So like, he has this opinion when it's facing, you know, these other, uh, countries, but the minute it was going to impact his ability to import labor, he's like, Oh, well, no, America is different.
00:53:16.160It's different. It's like, no, not really. You know, I get it. Like, like, I'm glad we were, I'm glad that the conversation has shifted from, Hey, illegal immigration, whatever borders wide open to, of course, we're all against illegal immigration.
00:53:29.000We're going to shut that down. But how much legal immigration should there be? Like that is, it's still a huge and important conversation, but it is a noticeable shift.
00:53:37.660And as you point out the fact that this basically all took place on, uh, Twitter and the fact that the mainstream media, it was basically irrelevant to that entire conversation.
00:53:47.680And even though the mainstream media went out of their way to shut down the Rotherham scandal and make sure it didn't make its way to the United States.
00:53:54.780The fact that Elon can project it on his microphone and all of a sudden there's, there's a lot of people paying attention. That's huge. And so it really does. It, it, it cuts both ways.
00:54:03.640I just hope eventually he makes this understanding, like, you know, this connection, uh, I get it. Like someone over here, you know, H1B, they, they did paperwork. That is not enough. Like, and with birthright citizenship, that means they come over, you know, their kid is born here.
00:54:19.800And now they're just here. Like they, they don't, you know, the, the process is begins, you know, we started getting the chain migration thing. And so, uh, the idea that it's, you know, we're just pulling an Einstein or a Von Braun or something over, uh, that that's not, that's not what the H1B does.
00:54:35.100And it does eventually have cultural, make cultural shifts that matter. Like as we are seeing in Rotherham, not only is the fact that people have, uh, different cultures and they allow radically different behavior in those cultures, but it's also the fact that Western governments are uniquely ill-equipped to deal with multiculturalism, which is always a disaster everywhere.
00:54:59.100But because we have kind of imbibed this doctrine that everyone is the same and everyone is like this tabula rasa, uh, we are uniquely unable to manage multiculturalism because we can't just look at people from another culture and say, you're different and you're going to do things different.
00:55:15.100And so we have to approach things differently. We, we are ideologically required to say, actually, no, everyone who steps onto American soil is just as American as, as we are. And so we can bring in anyone from anywhere in whatever quantity we want. And it will never have an impact because they've crossed the magical threshold and now they are American.
00:55:36.100Uh, as long as you have that outlook, you cannot possibly manage the deleterious impact of multiculturalism, which you should be avoiding anyway. Like every culture throughout history knew that this was a problem. And usually the only way that this problem gets solved is something like, uh, Singapore with Lee Kuan Yew, right? Like if you're willing to cane a bunch of people, you know, and you're willing to execute drug dealers on the spot, well then, yeah, I guess maybe you can have some multiculturalism.
00:56:03.280But if, if you're wanting to have some level of liberty, then in order to have that liberty, it's going to require you to share a culture, share a religion, share a language, share a moral vision, things that are organically tying you together so that the state doesn't have to crack down on you at every second.
00:56:20.840And when our state is only willing to crack down on the native population of the United States and is unwilling to enforce its expectations on people from other, uh, from other countries who have other ethnicities, other faiths, other languages, when we specifically carve out a protection for all of those people and we don't apply things evenly or, you know, and understand that, then of course it's going to be a disaster.
00:56:44.380Of course, we're going to have situations where terrorists fall through the cracks, where radicals end up going unnoticed, where we apologize for paying attention to the type of people who are far more likely to do damage to our loved ones, to our neighborhoods, to our communities.
00:57:01.520It's just an insane way to handle things. And until we can understand that, until we can grasp that, there's just no reason to be bringing people into the United States. We are a country that is wounded. It needs to take its time, think about its own identity, resolve the conflicts inside and be able to move forward together.
00:57:21.500And we cannot do that while also simultaneously importing large amounts of people from other countries. It simply makes no sense. And if you draw any of the connected connections, any, you know, connect any of the dots, like we hope Elon would between what's happening in the UK and what could happen in the United States, it should be pretty obvious.
00:57:40.540Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, I think that's very well said. The thing I would just add to that is that the last time that we had a massive influx of immigrant immigrants that comprised a major percentile of the overall population, there had to be a cooling off period.
00:57:56.960And you see this, this hardening and definition of the concept of citizenship. You know, you and I are probably closer to the same age. We probably grew up in a time when citizenship was very valued. I mean, this was, I mean, many of us in school, we were judged on our citizenship. We got a separate grade for that.
00:58:13.180Citizenship is a concept that we've developed over time to kind of help smooth these edges on some of the differences. You know, we have Italians and Germans who came over at a certain time, and then later their sons and, you know, sons and grandsons went off to war to fight their old, you know, former countrymen.
00:58:32.800And so, you know, this was, this was a very difficult process that we already have undergone. And it's just incredible to watch the powers that be today, the elites that we have today, completely trash citizenship and bludgeon the native population over the head constantly fraying these bonds that we desperately would need.
00:58:51.640And so without a, without a concept of nation that you can't fix these things. And I mean, I guess the jury's still out on whether, uh, whether our elites actually want to fix those things. Um, but if, without a concept of citizenship, without this cooling off period, without allowing the culture to heal, uh, I mean, we're just going to be fighting these fights over and over and over again.
00:59:15.560And I think you will see, um, a lot of these incidents where, uh, people get radicalized and snap.
00:59:22.320Yeah. I, I, you know, more and more, I see, uh, kind of the, the, the squishy, you know, uh, I just got to the right, you know, central disillusioned, centrist leftist types, desperately trying to steer us away from this conversation, thinking that they're, they're protecting us from the evils of, I don't know, identitarianism somewhere.
00:59:42.880The truth is you have this conversation now to protect yourself from those evils. You have that conversation now, so you can create a functional country so that you can have a polity that understands each other and understands their role and their obligation to each other so that you can heal these divisions.
01:00:03.080Because if you don't address it now, if you just run around screaming, oh, that's racist. Oh, that's racist. Oh, we can't touch that. That's the third rail. Look, if you won't touch it, then the left's own, the only definition that exists is the one that the left has.
01:00:16.640And the left's definition is one that hates heritage Americans, hates our history, hates the United States as both a people and as an idea, and is ultimately looking for our destruction.
01:00:30.960You need, the right has to be willing to have this conversation. What is a nation? What does that mean? Because if they don't have it now, then much worse people will have control of it. The reins will be handed to people who have much worse answers.
01:00:46.500And that is just a very stupid game to play that just like we discovered with wokeness, that there is no such thing as an absence of religion. There is only which religion will rule. There is no such thing as an absence of identity. And the only question is which identity will be salient.
01:01:03.600And that's something you want to get a hold of now. Because if you don't handle it now, as you point out, these things are only going to get worse.
01:01:10.860The condition will only be exacerbated. And we will have elites who continuously are unable to deal with the problem because their ideology literally makes it illegal to do so.
01:01:22.300That said, guys, we're going to head over to the questions of the people. But before we do, Lafayette Lee, would you like to tell people where to find your excellent work?
01:01:29.320Yeah. Like you mentioned at the beginning, I'm a contributing editor to IM1776. We have our health issue coming out in February. So we'd love to see people check that out if you haven't already. And then you can find me over on Substack at ruins.substack.com or LafayetteLee.com as well.
01:01:51.200Excellent. All right. Let's look at our questions here real quick. We've got Robert Weinsfeld says, noticing equals crime is Steve Saylor UK's most wanted. Most assuredly. And by the way, Saylor's Law really kicked in in the recent shooting in, I believe it was Chicago.
01:02:07.100But yeah, no, Steve, Steve would definitely be unwelcome with his particular skill set over in the UK. All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and wrap this up. I just want to thank everybody for coming by and watching.
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01:03:02.020Thank you once again, everybody, for watching. And as always, I will talk to you next time.