00:03:11.420Ted Cruz, who I always thought kind of looked like Grandpa Munster, is not a viable candidate because the neocon wing of the Republican Party, once in complete and total control, when Ted Cruz essentially was hired to be George W. Bush's brain during his presidential campaign.
00:03:33.480Ted Cruz, I think, is out of step with where today's Republican Party is, and I predict that he could not hold a candle to J.D. Vance, who is the presumptive frontrunner, or Secretary of State Marco Rubio if he decided to run, or even dark horse candidate Tulsi Gabbard.
00:03:51.060So Ted Cruz, the claims, of course, about his father and the Kennedy assassination, those come right out of the Warren Commission reports and the exhibits.
00:04:02.300The fact that Ted Cruz's father was, in fact, part of Lee Harvey Oswald's crew in New Orleans prior to the Kennedy assassination does not, by the way, mean that Ted Cruz's father was involved in the assassination of JFK.
00:04:17.060KFK, but he was definitely involved with the intelligence agencies surrounding that, which
00:04:23.380raises a number of reasonable questions.
00:04:26.760President Trump is now announcing he's preparing to spend the final month before the midterms
00:04:33.500I can tell you from my experience that this can make a huge difference.
00:04:38.020In 1970, Nixon hit the campaign trail, saving a number of Republican seats in what is normally
00:04:45.040And historically, the power, the party out of power always loses strength in both houses.
00:04:51.260Speaking to Republican lawmakers and a bunch of administration officials at the White House Rose Garden dinner the other night, President Trump said he intends to focus on roughly 35 competitive races beginning in October.
00:05:04.520His plans include heavy travel, his, of course, traditional signature rallies, tele-rallies and tele-town halls, potentially several in a single night.
00:05:13.460This is going to be typical frenetic energy by Donald J. Trump.
00:05:18.700President Trump specifically mentioned Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, where as a dirty trick, Democrats have gotten an independent whose name is also Dan Sullivan to file as a candidate.
00:05:29.800and an obvious dirty trick designed to confuse voters in that state,
00:05:33.960but also for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton,
00:05:38.140who's running for the U.S. Senate against far-left socialist Democrat James Talafrico,
00:05:45.220as the president calls him, actually Talarico.
00:05:48.220The full list of targeted contests has not yet been released.
00:05:51.860President Trump describes the plan as a return to the punishing schedule
00:05:55.740He used in the closing stretches of both his 2016 campaign, also his incredible 2024 presidential comeback campaign, saying he intends to devote essentially an incredible amount of time to the final push heading into the midterms.
00:06:12.060Now, I can tell you why this is significant.
00:06:14.480You see, a White House appearance dominates local television markets, helps the candidate raise money and energizes supporters.
00:06:21.680It can also nationalize a race that a congressional candidate might prefer to keep local.
00:06:28.540That makes the reported 35 race plan a useful map of how President Trump himself views the battlefield.
00:06:36.940In other words, watch where he actually travels.
00:06:39.840Watch which candidates receive remote events.
00:06:45.060And watch where races that never make the list are and how those are handled.
00:06:50.960The enthusiastically pro-MAGA candidates should be, and I think will be, the focal point of this tour, but not the rhinos who are on the ballot.
00:06:59.400President Trump can serve as the closer who will seal the deal with voters so that the MAGA candidates get elected and change the culture in Washington.
00:07:08.280The final weeks are when casual voters begin paying attention and small shifts become decisive in close contests.
00:07:15.900President Trump's presence is enough to shift races and change the fate of our nation.
00:07:21.020I'm not one of those panicans ready to throw in the towel on the midterm elections.
00:07:28.600Our politics is extraordinarily volatile.
00:07:31.680President Trump brings great star power and a great record to the arena.
00:07:36.700And all Republican candidates should breathe a sigh of relief.
00:07:40.200Perhaps the greatest campaigner in political history, and that takes in a lot of my heroes,
00:07:44.540Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and others, is going to hit the campaign trail.
00:07:49.780He also, by the way, to remind you, he has a $400 million war chest at the MAGA, Inc. PAC.
00:07:57.320That'll be $600 million, I predict, over time.
00:08:00.720If you put the Republican Party funds at the House, Senate, and National Committee level,
00:08:07.420he has essentially a $1 billion war chest.
00:08:11.720contrast that with the Democrats they have about 16 million on hand and they have a very heavy
00:08:19.080debt of at least I think 18 million dollars that they still owe from Kamala Harris's disastrous
00:08:26.840campaign sorry I have to bring this up again but I'm afraid I must that is the issue of
00:08:33.000Alison Guerrero, Alison Guerrero was the one time mistress of a of Charles McGonigal, the head of the FBI's counterintelligence operation, who had a heavy hand in the Russian collusion hoax.
00:08:48.980Turns out that he was taking payments from the Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, and Alison Guerrero was was essential in terms of turning him in.
00:09:01.860Allison Guerrero was found dead in her apartment in South Florida on August 27th.
00:09:07.160Now, I was a very good friend of Allison Guerrero's.
00:09:10.000In fact, I worked with her every single day.
00:09:12.400She was a researcher for Stone Zone, and I communicated with her both the day of her death and again the day before,
00:09:20.840meaning we were in contact when she suddenly suspiciously died.
00:11:45.920I'm not making a premature judgment other than to say I fervently deny that she took her own life.
00:11:52.840Whether she died as part of an accident or whether it was foul play, well, we just don't know the answer to that yet.
00:11:59.640We'll be reporting on this in the zone as she would have wanted.
00:12:03.660Meanwhile, China doesn't need an army marching down Pennsylvania Avenue.0.92
00:12:07.300We can just recruit the weak-willed and disloyal Americans already inside the country.0.90
00:12:12.880Thomas W. Paukin, the second American journalist whose father I actually know,0.98
00:12:18.620spent years working in China, has just been sentenced to two years in federal prison
00:12:23.380after admitting that he acted as an agent of the Chinese government inside the United States.
00:12:28.680His father, Tom Paukin, was the chairman of the College of Republicans
00:12:32.140before I was chairman of the Young Republican National Federation.
00:12:36.280So clearly the apple has fallen very far from the tree.
00:12:39.940This is, by the way, not an anonymous source story. It's not a congressional accusation.
00:12:46.240Young Palkin decided to plead guilty to the charges, according to the Justice Department.
00:12:51.980He worked from at least 2019 until February of 2026 at the direction of individuals connected to China's Ministry of State Security.
00:13:01.660He received at least $100,000, met with prospective intelligence assets, supplied some of the communications devices, passed along tasking, and prepared reports for his Chinese handlers.
00:13:15.080The Department of Justice says that Paukin also attempted to identify people who might provide sensitive information and dealt with Chinese clients seeking American technology and other Justice Department information.
00:13:28.260His attorney claims Palkin did not actually transmit classified material to Beijing
00:13:34.920But even if that is technically true, it does not erase conduct to which he pled guilty
00:13:40.360Working for the Communist Party or for the Chinese government is a crime
00:13:46.620Writing commentary favorable to China is protected speech1.00
00:13:49.780Americans are free to say foolish and dumb things0.99
00:13:53.160Express opinions that are abhorrent or repugnant0.99
00:13:56.320But the line is crossed when an American secretly takes direction from a foreign intelligence apparatus and begins to help recruit, collect, penetrate.
00:14:06.360That is a crime and is called treason.
00:14:09.960China's competition with the United States is not confined to just tariffs or semiconductors or naval tonnage or just disagreement over the future of Taiwan.
00:14:20.360Intelligence recruitment is part of the same contest.
00:14:23.420Influence operations are cheaper than aircraft carriers and often much, much harder to detect.0.93
00:14:29.680China is notoriously adept at subversion.0.98
00:14:32.740Young Palkin was an example of a spineless person who was taken in by China and then used by them.1.00
00:14:40.520His case serves a lesson to anyone doing business with China that there are lines you simply cannot cross or you will be prosecuted.0.80
00:14:49.100People need to wake up to the fact that it is China, not Russia, who is the greatest threat to this country.0.84
00:14:55.140The Chinese Communist Party has deeply infiltrated all strata of life here in the United States,0.89
00:15:00.680buying up huge swaths of very desirable farmland, ranch land,0.62
00:15:05.460but also specifically buying up land contiguous to national security facilities.
00:15:11.300They've also infiltrated academia, business, all strata of America life.
00:15:16.680The CCP is the number one enemy of the United States.
00:15:21.620I'm sad to see that young Tom Palkin, son of a guy who's actually a friend of mine, fell for their nonsense and became essentially a spy for the Chinese Communist Party.
00:15:31.740I'm Roger Stone, telling it like it is right here in the Stone Zone.0.60
00:15:34.920Don't go away because we'll be right back.
00:15:37.700This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
00:15:41.080He likes politics and he's a professional at the highest level.
00:16:11.080this is the stone zone with roger stone roger stone who's a very very one of the smartest
00:16:18.820political minds roger stone was persecuted people forget he's actually a brilliant brilliant
00:16:23.600political analyst now get in the zone it's the stone zone here's roger stone
00:16:30.240welcome back into the stone zone where of course we're talking politics once again
00:16:36.440New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdami, no surprise here, has created a network of influencers who have paid up to $20,000 per post to create the false impression that his socialist beliefs are actually popular.
00:16:51.260A group of influencers on the encrypted message app Signal, with over 200 members, are reportedly fed their talking points by Amelia Rowland, who works as director of new media and cultural communications for the mayor's office.
00:17:05.060Now, while Mandami's office does not pay these influencers directly, the influencers are paid by city agencies for work on different campaigns.
00:17:14.520These influencers have between tens of thousands and millions of followers, so they certainly have the way to seriously impact public opinion.
00:17:37.600My good friend, Congresswoman Anna Polina Luna, has just sponsored legislation,
00:17:42.340required that if you are paid by a foreign government or a foreign entity,
00:17:47.860and you're posting stuff on social media, online, whether it's Instagram, whether it's YouTube,
00:17:53.120whether it's x whether it's true social that you have to disclose who is paying you in order to
00:17:59.960obscure the money trail in this case the influencers paid through advertising and
00:18:04.200marketing companies that have lucrative contracts with the city of new york this way they obscure
00:18:09.700the paper trail and they create plausible deniability that they hope will shield them
00:18:14.260from culpability and the identification that they're actually paid voices democrats are
00:18:20.880attempting to defend the scheme by saying that paying off influencers to spread messages is a
00:18:26.300more cost effective way of promotion than using television ads well but television ads require a
00:18:33.300legal disclaimer required to say both audibly and visually who paid for it but that ignores the
00:18:40.000seediness of this new york city campaign by the mayor the public sees the television campaign
00:18:44.940understands that it's inauthentic when they see posts by influences they're led to think that
00:18:49.500those folks are sincere, that they're indigenous, that they're original, that they're homegrown.
00:18:55.540The socialists are always adept at messaging, and Mamdami's scheme shows how far the far left
00:19:01.140will not hesitate to resort to, in terms of deceptiveness, to gain political advantages
00:19:06.060under false pretenses. But the worst part of this is, your tax dollars are being paid for
00:19:12.400online messaging to benefit the radical leftist progressive Islamic mayor of New York City.0.72
00:19:21.420Your tax dollars. That I have never seen before. It is important, I think, that these people who
00:19:27.600are doing this should be required to say who's paying them. Of course, they're not going to do
00:19:31.920that. I'm Roger Stone. You're listening to The Stone Zone. When we come back, I want to focus on
00:19:36.780the family of convicted murderer Carmelo Anthony, because she's once again out in public begging
00:19:42.720for money. I'm going to tell you where not to send your funds. Don't go away. We'll be right back
00:19:49.160in The Stone Zone. The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:20:06.780this is the stone zone now get in the zone it's the stone zone a man who's gone through hell
00:20:16.300but he's kept going and he's smart and he's strong and people love him not everybody but
00:20:22.660people love him and respect him roger stone where's roger stone here's roger stone
00:20:28.200welcome back into the stone zone you know sometimes these leftists they shocked even
00:20:35.140In May, in this case, the family of convicted murderer Carmelo Anthony, once again out in public begging for money on their Give, Send, Go fundraiser,
00:20:44.340where they've raised about $27,000 for an appeal for Anthony after reportedly squandering almost $600,000 that was raised previously.
00:20:55.000Even woke leftists have gotten the message that they were being scammed.
00:20:58.200Additionally, more information about Carmelo Anthony has emerged.0.98
00:21:01.820Anthony reportedly sent text messages bragging about how he wanted to stab someone and lick0.68
00:21:08.000the blood off the blade. Turns out that he was not some innocent teenager defending himself at all,
00:21:14.840but now even the BLM leftists who always take the side of the criminal, at least when they have the
00:21:20.580right content of melanin in their skin, are no longer rallying to Anthony's defense. It's the
00:21:27.660same situation of all of these racially charged cases. A criminal is turned into a martyr. Then
00:21:32.560there's a media frenzy that turns reality upside down. We saw it peak during the summer of 2020
00:21:38.340when violent felon and fentanyl enthusiast George Floyd died while resisting arrest amid a police
00:21:45.380encounter. The media and the organized left was able to gin up public rage and our entire country
00:21:51.260burned as a result. Very few people went to jail over that multi-million dollar destruction of
00:21:57.580public property and the many people injured but the public i think is finally waking up they're
00:22:03.300seeing the patterns in the cases although there was a fervent core of deranged maniacs who initially0.95
00:22:09.300rallied around anthony his cause ultimately failed and caused national outrage that's because black
00:22:15.800lives matter and wokeism i think has peaked it does not mean that they cannot regain their lost0.62
00:22:20.600momentum or that we're in the clear on a permanent basis we must remain vigilant against this threat
00:22:25.600but it has shown the amount of progress that the MAGA movement has made in the culture war in this country.
00:22:31.940Carmelo Anthony will be rotting in jail for many decades and deservedly so for the heinous, unjustified murder of the teenager Austin Metcalf.
00:22:43.640In the meantime, the House of Representatives had a chance to permanently fix the Supreme Court at nine justices,
00:22:51.140but that didn't happen thanks to far-left Democrat obstructions.
00:22:54.800House Republicans brought forward a constitutional amendment that would have locked the current size of the court into the Constitution at nine justices.
00:23:04.920The measure received a 212 to 206 majority, but fell far short of the two-thirds vote required for a constitutional amendment in the House.
00:23:15.100The Constitution itself does not specify the number of justices. Congress has changed the size several times, and the court has remained at nine since 1869.
00:23:24.800Republicans framed the vote as an attempt to remove court expansion from future partisan warfare.
00:23:33.520Democratic opponents argued that the constitutionally, by constitutionalizing nine seats, would freeze and place an advantage currently created by President Donald Trump's three appointments, as if Trump somehow manipulated reality to give himself an appointment advantage.
00:23:50.000Now, there's a history to this, and that history is impossible to ignore.
00:23:54.180President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to expand the court in 1937 when some of the justices frustrated the more socialistic parts of the New Deal.
00:24:06.840Congress rejected him and the court packing became a political weapon and it won't be able for generations.
00:24:14.200Roosevelt actually badly was defeated in a midterm election over his court packing plan.
00:24:19.440The idea returned after the court developed its current 6-3 conservative majority, how coincidental, and it began to issue major rulings on abortion, gun rights, and others that offended the administrative state.
00:24:33.160Now, some Democrat lawmakers have backed legislation expanding the court to 13 seats.
00:24:39.860It's so obvious that Democrats will vote to expand the court as soon as they possibly can.
00:24:44.820That's why these midterm elections are so incredibly important.
00:24:48.200The amendment has always been a long shot, but it also would need two-thirds of the Senate,
00:24:52.900and then it would have to be ratified by 38 states.
00:24:56.800But it's still worth pushing forward to make the Democrats prove where they stand.
00:25:01.040Packing the U.S. Supreme Court is overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people.
00:25:05.080They're very satisfied with the current nine justices.
00:25:08.280So this symbolic vote has revealed an institutional fault line that will prove instructive during the midterms.
00:25:16.080When a political faction can change the referee when they dislike the calls, well, the integrity of the game falls apart completely.
00:25:26.680Republicans simply cannot allow that to happen.
00:25:29.800Meanwhile, Republican Congresswoman Laura Lee and Senator Ashley Moody of Florida are proposing one national rule for federal mail-in ballots requiring election officials to have the ballot before the polls close on Election Day.
00:25:44.440Lee, Florida's former Secretary of State, has introduced the House legislation while Senator Moody of Florida is carrying the Senate bill.
00:25:53.780The proposal does not abolish absentee voting or mail-in voting. It simply clarifies what the finish line is.
00:26:01.180States could still distribute ballots according to their own state laws, but a ballot arriving after Election Day would not count in any federal race.
00:26:10.120The legislation follows the Trump administration's efforts to impose a similar deadline through executive action, some of which may have become entangled in this litigation.
00:26:19.720Lee points to Florida as proof that a receipt deadline can coexist with substantial mail-in voting, providing voters receive clear instructions and understand the rules and are given enough time to return the mail-in ballots.
00:26:33.460The political appeal here, to me, is obvious. Campaigns want finality. Voters want understandable rules. Long post-election counting periods create suspicion, even if nothing improper has occurred, although that is rarely the case.
00:26:49.560there's no reason why the process is elongated unnecessarily except for to enable fraud or
00:26:55.640cheating. Every election system has a cutoff somewhere. Federal races should share one
00:27:01.120national endpoint rather than operating under 50 different receipt rules. Democrats hide behind
00:27:07.180federalism and decentralization in order to enact loose election laws that allow them to commit
00:27:12.420fraud. Although I still remain opposed to federal legislation, I think it is up to states to
00:27:17.880regulate their elections. But it's laughable now that the party that loves centralized control
00:27:22.600on virtually every other has problems when it comes to election integrity. Their objections
00:27:27.340should not be taken seriously, and Republicans must move forward to steamroll their machine
00:27:32.640designed to steal elections. So in this case, Congresswoman Lee and Senator Moody have proposed
00:27:37.580a common sense rule that gives clarity to our election process. Congress now owns the question
00:27:43.340because legislation, unlike an executive order, creates a durable statutory rule.
00:27:49.160The deadline will create additional public confidence in a system that has proven to be very faulty in recent years.
00:27:57.080It must be passed immediately along, of course, with the Save America Act,
00:28:01.480protect the honesty and integrity of our elections.
00:28:05.900Well, Elon Musk is back and Texas is getting his first big check.
00:28:10.100Elon Musk is back in the political money game, and his first major disclosure in the midterm spending burst tells us exactly where the pressure point lies.
00:28:18.920Elon Musk's America PAC, reportedly more than $800,000 in August of independent expenditures planned across competitive Senate and House races around the country.
00:28:30.580Texas received the largest share, about $248,000, as Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton faces far-left Democrat James Talarico, called Talafrico by President Donald Trump, in a race national Republicans can no longer treat as an automatic hold.
00:28:50.240The fact that Texas could go blue is in itself a commentary on the demographic changes going on in the Lone Star State.
00:29:00.140Maine received about $170,000, followed by Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan, and Alaska with additional spending in competitive house districts.
00:29:11.440The expenditures were largely for printed campaign material, while America PAC can separately purchase digital advertising.
00:29:18.700Musk previously suggested he would dramatically reduce his political spending after becoming the largest individual donor in the 2024 election.
00:29:28.860Instead, reports say he has authorized his America PAC to spend more than $100 million helping Republicans this year.
00:29:37.260So the detente between Elon Musk and the MAGA movement is therefore becoming measurable in dollars, making previous frustrations seem like a distant memory.
00:29:47.220It's great to have Elon Musk, who I'm a great admirer of, back in the fold.
00:29:51.200And of course, he says he's spending $100 million today.
00:29:54.640He has the ability to make that $200 million tomorrow if he wishes to do so.
00:29:59.580I believe he is the richest man on the planet.
00:30:03.000Musk is an unusual political asset because, well, he combines virtually unlimited financial capacity with something traditional mega donors have never possessed.
00:30:12.640Control of one of the country's dominant political communications platforms.
00:30:16.620Sheldon Adelson, for example, had money.
00:30:19.160George Soros built institutions, but Musk has money and the X platform.
00:30:23.880plus his own celebrity and his willingness to intervene personally.
00:30:28.880That makes him a genuine, pardon the pun here, X factor against the historical midterm tendency
00:30:35.500for the president's party to lose ground in a midterm election.
00:30:40.360Texas being the first on spending also shows that Musk has his finger on the pulse of exactly what is necessary in the upcoming midterms.
00:30:48.760Attorney General Ken Paxton faces an expensive statewide media market
00:30:53.380and a well-funded opponent he's also been been deprived of establishing republican funding0.88
00:30:59.100because he defeated the rhino competitor incumbent john cornyn in the primary so now suddenly the
00:31:06.840national republican senatorial committee which spent six figures i think it was six hundred
00:31:12.460thousand dollars to try to boost the chances of cornyn says they have no money for ken paxton
00:31:18.620leaving him to fend for himself well Elon Musk and his America PAC is riding to the rescue
00:31:25.420and making these triage decisions now Musk showed in 2024 this political operation could be trusted
00:31:32.800and it's a blessing to have him back in the fall once again Texas is a perfect example of a place
00:31:38.840where he can make a real difference meanwhile the Trump administration has found another
00:31:43.300immigration battlefield and this one sits inside state government databases rather than along our
00:31:48.260borders. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel says states participating in the
00:31:54.540temporary assistance for needy families and supplemental security income must report
00:32:00.940individuals they know to be unlawfully present to the Department of Homeland Security. The
00:32:06.660important word there is state. So DOJ now says Congress meant the entire state government, not
00:32:12.220merely the specific welfare agency administering the funds in this case. That reverses a 1998
00:32:19.820Clinton-era interpretation that treated the obligation much more narrowly. All 50 states
00:32:25.940participate in these programs, and the federal grants exceed over $16.4 billion annually.
00:32:33.260The Department of Justice says the new interpretation will apply prospectively, and
00:32:38.000States will not be punished retroactively for relying on this old guidance. This is potentially
00:32:44.460more consequential than an ICE raid in terms of combating illegal immigration. You see,
00:32:49.540modern government already possesses enormous amounts of information. Benefits agencies know
00:32:55.180things. Motor vehicle departments know things. Licensing offices know things. The administration's
00:33:02.640argument is that immigration enforcement becomes theater when one arm of the government
00:33:07.120possesses legally relevant information while another is forbidden from receiving it.
00:33:12.060The legal fight will turn on statutory language, federalism, and the meaning of the word known.
00:33:18.880Suspicion is not knowledge. A name, accent, or foreign birthplace does not establish unlawful status.
00:33:25.740That distinction matters because sloppy implementation would create obvious due process arguments
00:33:31.480that could head to the courts. States and advocacy organizations may challenge the
00:33:36.680Department of Justice's interpretation in court, and some governors will undoubtedly attempt
00:33:41.900to resist. But the administration is not describing this as a new statute. Congress imposed this
00:33:49.100obligation in the 1996 welfare law. The Trump administration is declaring that the government
00:33:55.700meant what it said, and therefore these databases in the hands of state governments
00:34:01.580can reveal an enormous amount about who is on them that is not a legal citizen and they can then be
00:34:08.420matched with the voter files to sort out those who are planning or will vote illegally. Americans
00:34:16.160have been told that handing over a driver's license is the price of security. I say scan the
00:34:21.280ID, verify the age, prove you're a real person. It's the contractor. This is one of the key
00:34:29.320elements, of course, of the Save America Act, which to me just seems like common sense. Why
00:34:34.740shouldn't someone be a U.S. citizen and have a photo ID in order to vote? I'm Roger Stone. You're
00:34:41.520listening to The Stone Zone. We'll talk about all things politics. And when we come back, we're going
00:34:45.700to talk about the need for the ID verification of upcoming elections and how that might be
00:34:52.560achieved. Don't go away. We'll be right back in The Zone. This is The Stone Zone with Roger
00:34:59.280Stone. He's a great, great person. Roger Stone. The Stone Zone. The Stone Zone. Entertaining
00:35:18.300and informative. On the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:35:29.280this is the stone zone with roger stone roger stone who's the very very one of the smartest
00:35:38.000political minds roger stone was persecuted people forget he's actually a brilliant brilliant
00:35:42.780political analyst now get him his own it's the stone zone here's roger stone welcome back into
00:35:51.500the stone zone something very strange has happened i mean americans have spent years being told that
00:35:56.800Handing over one's driver's license is a price of security.
00:36:05.960It's become incredibly commonplace for us to submit our most sensitive, private, personal details over the Internet.
00:36:12.760We barely even think about it anymore.
00:36:14.100But now, a dark web service called Nexus has advertised access to more than 153 million U.S. and Canadian driver's license records, along with passports and other identification documents and medical cards.
00:36:29.560Cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs produced a report because he searched the system and found his own Virginia driver's license.
00:36:36.960The database also contained identification associated with the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, for example.
00:36:43.780Working with security researcher Zach Edwards, Krebs traced documents towards Louisiana-based identity verification company IDSscan.net,
00:36:54.200although IDScan has not publicly confirmed that the entire trove came from their system.
00:36:59.320The FBI's New Orleans office says it's looking into the incidents, but suddenly Nexus disappeared shortly after all this Republican reporting went public.
00:37:08.880This is the central contradiction in the surveillance economy.
00:37:12.420Politicians and corporations increasingly want permanent identity documents uploaded to third parties in the name of safety, age verification, and fraud prevention.
00:37:22.960Every one of those databases becomes a treasure trove, of course, for criminals or those who would vote in the name of another.
00:37:30.160With the advent of AI, it's becoming easier for hackers to get a hold of this information, much easier than ever before.
00:37:36.660Password can't always be changed after a breach.
00:37:44.640Your driver's license history cannot be changed.
00:37:47.360The answer is not to pretend identity verification is never necessary.
00:37:51.640the answer is to stop treating data retention as free. Companies collecting these documents must be
00:37:58.000held to a particularly high standard, and when they allow these breaches, there must be severe
00:38:03.580consequences, because when they get lax, well, the privacy of millions of Americans are at stake.
00:38:09.800Meanwhile, the American military footprint in Australia is meant to deter any military
00:38:14.740aggression from China. Defense Secretary, the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, and the Australian
00:38:20.780Defense Minister Richard Marles have announced deeper cooperation as China expands its diplomatic,
00:38:27.600economic, and military influence throughout the Pacific. Marles said American forces posture in
00:38:35.000Australia is growing across every domain. Existing agreements already permit U.S. forces to train,
00:38:41.240rotate aircraft, store equipment, and support American naval operations on Australian territory.
00:38:47.640Under the AUKUS, the HMAS Sterling Naval Base in Western Australia is preparing to host four U.S.-commanded Virginia-class submarines beginning in 2027.
00:39:01.900So Washington and the Australians have announced a combined $580 million for Pacific Island nations as Beijing competes aggressively for influence throughout the infrastructure projects, grants, and security relationships in Australia.
00:39:19.320China claims that Australia risks accelerating a regional arms race if they scramble to remain the region's pre-amended hegemon.
00:39:26.900hegemon. Australia illustrates what serious alliance building sharing looks like. Geography,
00:39:34.160ports, fuel depots, repair facilities, submarine access, and of course money are all of the utmost
00:39:40.660importance. The treaty printed on expensive paper is useless if the ally provides none of those
00:39:46.200things when a crisis arrives. Australia provides strategic depths close enough to the Indo-Pacific
00:39:52.760theater to complicate the Chinese military's calculations while remaining outside the most
00:39:58.600exposed First Island chain positions. $480 million in a Pacific package reflects another reality that
00:40:05.800China does not want to compete with, only with destroyers. It competes with loans, roads,0.90
00:40:12.380telecommunication projects, and political relationships. Here, American strategy therefore
00:40:16.920has to operate in those very same dimensions.
00:40:19.820The strategic mechanism behind this U.S.-Australia deal