Ep 013 - War Weren’t Declared

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hey Doug what do you want to do tonight Same thing we do every week Todd Try to
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record a podcast [Music]
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My brain's a rocket Can't sit still Thoughts collide they always spill A
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million voices shout my name Never boring never tame
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HD We're running wild Focus fading Chaotic child
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Turn the volume up Take a ride
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in this crazy storm I can't hide
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Ladies and gentlemen will you please welcome the host of ADHDP Doug and Todd
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Hey everybody welcome back to ADHDP the attention deficit hyperactive politics
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podcast with Doug and Todd I'm Doug That's Todd Yep How you doing today Todd Doing good Doing good It's been warm
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today so I got all the fans going so if there's any background noise I apologize guys This is This is how shelter life I
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live I had no idea it was warm today I've been I've been in the basement where it stays cold I wish I had a
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basement It's been kind of overcast and it was a little sprinkly this morning Um
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well yeah I had no idea it was warm out today Let's see what it says It's just how I
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like it Thank you very much According to my phone it is 77 where I'm
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at in Reton Washington Yeah it is always warmer there than here
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because I'm out here on the middle of the water Yeah you're closer to the water than I am I'm I'm not that far from Lake Washington but we don't really
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get that kind of cool breeze that you guys get over there on the peninsula About the same as the the Puget Sound
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Yeah Yeah It's It's a whole two degrees cooler over here It's only 75
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So how was your Sunday We uh we saw each other on Saturday We Yeah we we we went down to Summer Con We went there We
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attempted to go but I I didn't think they would be sold out cuz you know they're I I didn't know that they could
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sell out But considering how many great guests they had this year I I guess I
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shouldn't be surprised So yeah we I mean it was still a fun misadventure anyways
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getting to uh hang out getting out of the house got to actually see what the weather was like Yeah it was nice and uh
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cool on Saturday It was It was a nice day Overcast There was a little bit of a shower you know a little bit of rain and
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uh yeah Yeah we were hoping to get some audio maybe some video get some interviews down at the summer con but uh
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well bestlaid plans which was no plan at all So yeah I I honestly paid it by ear
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I wanted to buy tickets months ago but like every time I got paid like my extra cash went to like important things like
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overdue bills and food and gas and things like that So well and I told you
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I messed up too because I I knew it was coming and I was planning to get us passes and I just doofed on when it was
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coming I thought it was later in the summer I It was Yeah it's always like second or third week in June and uh Yeah
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You know last year I went and it was it was it was a it was a blast I got to meet so many people last year Um year
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before me and my previous um podcast co-host we got to meet Jesse the Body
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Ventura That was a cool That was a cool chat We didn't think to record it but we
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uh we talked I don't know why Jesse V I was like I was like I bet you I can get
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him to talk for longer than a couple minutes He's like "How do you figure?" He's like "Just mention his show." uh
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conspiracy theory and he'll tell you all about how it's not on the internet You can't find it anywhere
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And I said "Actually um I think the first couple seasons are on Amazon." Goes "Yeah yeah Oh well you know it's I
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think it's the third season where we talked about like uh MK Ultra and there
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a couple other things." And said "Yeah that season's not available anywhere." I'm like "Okay I I'll get when I get
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home I'll look." And uh it was not available through Amazon but it was available somewhere else You had to buy
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the individual episodes You couldn't buy the entire series but you know but you could buy the individual episodes And I
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was like "Oh well it is there You just have to pay more." So yeah And um last year I uh my my
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roommate Christina had a a a handmade uh clay pendant that was uh in the like the
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his head uh from the Beauty and the Beast TV series from the 80s uh Ron
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Pearlman And uh it cost like $80 to get it signed And I stood in line for like
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an hour and a half and when he got there he was just he looked beat He looked
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like he he had been up since you you mentioned this the the crackass had done Yeah Oh I did Okay Yeah Um but yeah I
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just said "Thanks for being here." And he looked at me and he was like he's like "Thank you." I'm like "Well I mean I you know
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I'm paying for the privilege." So yeah Yeah But yeah Yeah I guess they should be
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thanking you Damn it Well I think I think I might have been the first person to to to thank him for
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for coming out because I mean he just he looked exhausted when he walked up So
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well that's a good tip for anybody going to a con Be be overly nice to the people that are there because they they're
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dealing with a ton of people And if you're you know if you're a little specially nice maybe they do something special for you I don't know if being
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like overly nice be be uh be legitimate Don't don't be super sugary Don't be so
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saccharine that it's like fake It feels fake or false No no but I just mean be appreciative Yeah Be respectful of their
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time Yeah Yeah You know don't treat them like they're your like they're your personal show monkey or something right
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Yeah Oh So uh and then Yeah So after that
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failed we got to go over to the 8bit arcade in Ron Yes The barcade The barcade in downtown Ron on third Uh yeah
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Play some old school games and they have uh some beer and pizzas is all right as an alternative to a con It's it's it's
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it's essentially like an old school arcade with pinball machines and and upright and and cocktail table arcade
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machines And it also can it also serves alcohol So it's a barcade Yeah it's it's
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a dope place I love it It's been around for a long time now I remember I remember counting down the days to when it was going to open I remember I
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remember opening because I was living I was actually living in Kirkland I think when it first
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opened But then I I lost that place and end up staying occasionally at my girlfriend's house at the time and she
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lived in Northrrenton So we would go down there every once in a while and uh
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yeah No that's the only one left in in King County There used to uh or at least on
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this side of the water there used to be a bar up in Everett called the AFK Tavern and then they had a they had one
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of them in Chuckila Reton area too South Reton Yeah Yeah the elixir AFK's elixir
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and eeries They opened uh I think 20 2014 I think and then was Yeah I did
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stand up there once Yeah Oh yeah I remember you talking about doing that Um
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I actually did uh I went there when they had a rock band where you could play on
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stage and uh they had they had an Xbox 360 and all the all the equipment you
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know the the guitar the bass the singer microphone and the the drum kit And uh I
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think the one in written talk about Yeah Elixir is an eater Yeah The former location of the cake Yeah Yeah It's now
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like an Asian restaurant U Yeah I think I think you were there along with Silus on the It was part of Silus's Yeah nerd
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show Yeah Yeah And uh so yeah it was uh it wasn't the night that you guys were
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there but it was another night but it was using the same stage But yeah no it was cool There's video of me singing Ace
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of Spades there Terrible singer but I figure if I'm gonna if I'm going to sing terribly I
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might as well do it as as Lemie So yeah There you go He also has kind of a rough
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voice All right Okay Well uh anything happened in the news this week Todd Anything you
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hear about Oh man So uh apparently uh the president uh authorize some drums um
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bombs to be dropped and apparently he didn't hit his intended target but he
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destroyed a bunch of [ __ ] So well from what I I mean I guess the
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reports I'm seeing so what obviously we're talking about is Trump uh Trump
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authorizing the strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities Um as far as
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I know he they did hit their targets Of course they would say that Yeah I mean I
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haven't heard but I haven't heard anybody say that they missed They uh you're the first person I've heard Yeah I don't remember where I think initially
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I heard it on CNN where they that they were they were intending to hit uh specific like bomb making places and I
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guess they the either either they hit the wrong building or
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they hit the place and it was empty So is kind of what I what I heard So Oh
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well that's the I I just I I was going to get into it Well we will get into it Um but that's the pictures I've seen
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have showed basically uh bunker buster entry locations It did show a building that was not targeted um that was on the
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surface but apparently the things they were going for deep underground So that's why they were using the bust the
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bunker buster bombs Yeah Um they're claiming total success again Trump
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administration So of course they are Um and even if any administration always claims total success uh mission
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accomplished Remember that Um but uh speaking of mission accomplished uh this
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whole this whole rabble rousing around Iran and it's changed again here already
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overnight Um so we kind of had to redo this last minute So going to be a little more sparse and a little more halfhazard
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than even usually is Um but uh but uh
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just this entire ramp up to War with Iran just listening to everybody try to justify it is so eerily reminiscent of
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Iraq in 2003 which is why why we're titling this episode didn't we already
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do this 22 godamn years ago Right Um
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but it's it's because if we if let's rewind to 2003 and just remember what was going on So um parallels from then
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to now So we had just had 911 right And Israel they recently had what Barack
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Obama called their 911 What a lot of supporters of Israel have called Israel's 911 was the October 7th attacks
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of was that 24 or is that going back to 23 now I couldn't tell you
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I got to refresh my memory on that one It's just all time is melding into one block Where So
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it says we're streaming but I don't see any on our YouTube channel Where am I streaming to
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Uh oh it's a mystery Hold on Let's take a look here
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Yeah I've not gotten any notification that we're streaming
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Yeah I haven't I'm still I'm recording but it's it doesn't appear to be actually streaming So
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let's let's I'm still recording I'm going stop that
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And can I do this while recording still
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Do you want me to keep going while you work on this Keep going Yeah Yeah Okay So and yes it is It has been since 2023
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It was when the Israel Hamas war began after the attacks Uh the darkest day in
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Jewish history since the Holocaust is what some have called it And and just like after 9/11 there was
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legitimate righteous outrage and people wanted something to be done Um the war
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the siege on Palestine has not been the exact same thing as you know the
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Afghanistan war but in terms of loyalists to the country like they support it You know we a lot of us were
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in favor of Afghanistan in terms of we have to do something and this is who they're telling us is at fault even
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though at the time we tried telling them hey these were all Saudi nationals that carried out 911 But but the point being
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using the the emotional uh the emotional
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eruption around 9/11 they directed that to Iraq And now Israel seems to have
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done the same thing using the emotional turmoil surrounding the October 7th attacks and now they're attacking Iran
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as part of a larger conflict And it really is I mean it really is Israel's 911 in terms of the way that they're
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just using it for political gain rather than an actual attempt to make the world a safer place Um so going back to 2003
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we will remind ourselves uh from britannica.com uh in 2002 the new US President George W
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Bush argued that the vulnerability of the United States following the September 11th attacks combined with
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Iraq's alleged continued possession of and manufacturer of weapons of mass destruction an accusation that was later
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proved erroneous and its support for terrorist groups uh which according to the Bush administration included
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al-Qaeda the perpetrators of the September 11th attacks So it made disarming disarming Iraq a new priority
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Yeah it's exactly what they're saying about Iran now is oh well they are they
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have a nuclear program that's imminently going to attack us and then if we try and say well that's three years away at
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best How is this an imminent attack They start citing their promotion of terrorism and the fact that they aren't
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uh on board with with fighting various you know ISIS and different groups Yeah
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Um it's it's really is just the same buildup all over again Um
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and just like how Iraq appeared to comply with the resolution uh in but in early 2003 President Bush and British
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Prime Minister Tony Blair declared that Iraq was actually continuing to hinder UN inspections and that it still
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retained proscribed weapons Other world leaders such as French President Jacqu
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Shar German Chancellor Gerard Shrader citing what they believed to be increased Iraqi cooperation sought to
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extend the inspections and give Iraq more time to comply with them However on March 17th seeking no further UN
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resolutions and deeming further diplomatic efforts by the security council futile Bush declared an end to
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diplomacy and issued an ultimate an ultimatum to Saddam giving the Iraqi president 48 hours to leave Iraq uh
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France Germany Russia and other countries objected So again just like with Iran we're seeing them you know we
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had a deal with Iran in 2015 We struck a deal with them In 2018 Trump ripped up
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that deal which set the grounds for the current situation So again we had a deal
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the situation was approving There's also there is no all all accounts say that
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Iran ended their nuclear weapons program in 2003 after seeing what happened to
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Iraq and there's been no evidence that they've picked it back up since then
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Wow And then of course we remind ourselves the the rationale again the further rationale for the Iraq war Now
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here's something that's that I actually was not aware of is uh prior throughout
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the 90s prior to the to 911 and the and the second Iraq war the Gulf War from
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the from 91 had never officially ended due to a lack of our mystics to formally
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end it And that kind of led to a whole series of of sanctions and resolutions
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against Iraq throughout the n the rest of the 90s and the Bush campaign
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actually made it part of their platform to try to remove Saddam during the 2000 election Um
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but after failing to gain UN support for an additional UN authorization the US together with Ukraine and or to the UK
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and a small contingent from Australia Poland and Denmark Uh if you recall the coalition of the willing um they
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launched an invasion on 20th March 2003 under the authority of UN Security Council resolution 660 and United
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Nations Security Council resolution 678 So a 2008 study conducted by the Center
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for Public Integrity and Foundation for Independent Journalism revealed that between 2001 and September 2003 George W
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Bush and seven senior officials in his administration issued explicit statements on at least 532 occasions
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claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction or had established covert alliances with al-Qaeda or both
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The study concluded that these statements were issued by the American government as part of a orchestrated campaign to generate jingoistic
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attitudes in the United States for the purpose of initiating a war based on false pretenses
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So I I go back to that time in order to draw the similarities between what we've
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been hearing from the Trump administration recently Now the Trump administration is in a tougher spot than
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Bush was because like I said Bush ran on getting rid of Saddam Yeah Trump ran on
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no war Trump ran on "If I'm in office there wouldn't be any wars If I'm in office
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Ukraine wouldn't have happened If I you know he he was tweeting back at Obama during Obama's administration that Obama
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would attack Iran as a distraction or to gain political points." I' I've seen a number of people post videos of him
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talking about how uh um Obama's gonna put us in World War II and he's going to
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do this that and the other and he's and that he's going to be be the the uh the president that has no wars and and then
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somebody posted you know posted that and then then the the video of him saying that yeah we just bombed you know not in
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his words but we just bombed the [ __ ] out of these guys and they're like "Is this you?" You know right Uh-huh
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So yeah And and it's and because of this unique situation that he came to the
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table in you know trying to be an anti-war candidate being a liar really is his unique situation is the fact that
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he can't he can't ever be consistent and lies all the time Um but his own cabinet
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people and his other members of his administration have been just having to whiplash themselves in the last week or
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so because they would never because they were out here right Like we had Tulsi
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Gabbard out here telling Congress that you know Trump Trump would never want to
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attack Iran and there's no justification for it and they're not a threat And then
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now here we are two week like now now she's having to say oh oh we've revised that and they are a threat
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further review It was full of [ __ ] It's almost like they don't communicate with each other and they're like oh no he
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would never and he his never except for he did and here's where he did Oh well I
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mean you know he is the president He can do whatever he wants Well is that the case We're going to
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investigate that Yeah So so Trump was anti-war Trump was Trump was
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anti-bombing Iran even though he assassinated uh their general the last time he was president And you know Iran
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didn't really do much in response to that either Um which that's that's the big twist at the
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end of all this is we're going to treat it like it's legitimate for now But ultimately is
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this just theater that Iran is actually a part of and and I'll get to why I am
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postulating that um at the end of this But before we get there
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what is the real geopolitical reasoning behind these attacks Why if he was an
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anti-war candidate that thought bombing Iran was a sign of weakness why did Trump do this And and if it's true that
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Iran's nuclear program was not an imminent threat what motivated the USIsraeli attack
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Why now The answer according to the Guardian according to Nater Hashemi at the
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Guardian the answer is political opportunity So reading from the Guardian
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uh the United States has bombed Iran Donald Trump announced on Sunday that B2 bombers attack three nuclear sites
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including the Bordau nuclear site sometimes referred to as the crown jewel of Iran's nuclear program
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As the world waits for Iran's response which we now have and we'll get to at the end of this it is worth revisiting
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events since 12 June when Israel with US support attacked the Islamic Republic The
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official reason is nuclear weapons The real reason I contend is the elimination of the Iran le axis of resistance and
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establishing Israeli regional hegemony over the Middle East with tacit support from Arab autocrats
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According to American and Israeli leaders Iran was about to construct a nuclear weapon Israel was forced to
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engage in a preemptive attack by way of response According to Benjamin Netanyahu Israel's
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very survival was very clo was was at stake while Trump claimed Iran was very
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close to having a weapon Tulsi Gabbard the US director of national intelligence
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has now fallen in line Weeks after testifying before Congress that Iran was
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not pursuing a bomb thus undermining Trump's stated position and embarrassing him politically she now claims Iran
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could get a bomb within weeks No serious anal an analysis no serious
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analyst of Iran's nuclear program believes this to be true As the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency
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has affirmed there was no indication of a systemic program in Iran to produce a
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nuclear weapon CNN reported last week that according to US intelligence assessments not only was Iran not
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actively pursuing a nuclear weapon it was also up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one
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When Secretary of State Rubio was asked the day after the attack if he had seen evidence that Iran was about to
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weaponize its nuclear program Rubio responded that the question was irrelevant When pressed further he said
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"Forget about intelligence." Yeah clearly the administration has
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So if Iran's nuclear program was not an imminent threat what motivated the US-Israeli attack First the Islamic
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Republic of Iran has never been weaker Decades of economic sanctions and government corruption have impoverished
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the average citizen while enriching the ruling elite kind of like Iraq was
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Official poverty figures reveal that roughly one-third of Iranians live in poverty And the real figure is believed
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to be much higher Early this year for example the state-run Marti
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newspaper had front page headline a 400% drop in wages over a decade In other
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words Iran's economy is broken and its citizens are struggling to survive
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Internally the Islamic Republic suffers from a crisis of internal legitimacy This was on full display after the death
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of Masa Amini in September 2022 that saw the birth of the women life and freedom movement that rocked Iran and showed a
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global spotlight on its sorted human rights record Over 60% of Iran's population is under the age of 30 They
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have no memory of life before the 79 revolution Their moral reference point is religious authoritarianism
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and clerical rule which they overwhelmingly reject If there was a
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referendum in Iran today no serious Iran expert doubts that the Islamic Republic would lose the vote by a wide margin
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While the recent bombing of Iran has produced a rally around the flag effect it's too soon to make any conclusive
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determination on how widespread this phenomenon might become And regionally
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Iran has never been weaker The loss of its main regional ally in Lebanon which is Hezbollah was a huge blow to Iran's
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regional influence and its national defense doctrine Um a core reason why Iran has supported an armed Hezbollah
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was for a moment like this in the event of a direct Israeli or American attack on Iranian soil It was assumed that
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Hezbollah would open a second front against Israel This is no longer an option after Israel's sophisticated
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attack on Hezbollah last summer effectively neutralized this organization Uh same with the toppling
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of Assad in Syria the weakening of Iranbacked militias in Iraq It's just an
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overall picture of Iranian geo geostrategic weakness So basically we
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between their political instability and their actual regional weakness Uh this
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has produced a global a golden opportunity for Israel to press ahead in the hope of delivering a blow to its
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chief regional rival So Israel wants to be the the hegemonic
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power in the in the region Um so the real Iranian threat to Israel and
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by proxy to America is Iran's ide ideological opposition to Israeli and
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American policy in the region Its access of resistance has sought to actively
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challenge both in words and in deeds western influence in the region Iran and
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its allies have also sought to rally popular opinion in the Arab Islamic world around this anti-imperialist
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threat This is the real Iranian threat that the United States and Israel seek to eliminate So basically and then the
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article goes on to compare Iran now to Cuba in the uh in the mid 20th century
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or in the throughout the from the mid to late 20th century basically go they're they're uh they're not really a
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destabilizing force Um their role in in regional
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destabilization is exaggerated in American foreign policy circles and
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demonized because like the Cuban threat the Iranian one today was these country was
27:25
that the countries had foreign policies that were outside US influence and control I mean that's really what's going on here Now I'm no supporter of of
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Iran's government I am no supporter of any theocratic state I I weep for the I
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I hear about the Iran that existed prior to 1979 and I'm like "Oh man It would have been an awesome place." Um I I wish
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we could bring back the democracy that they had Now of course that was not really a democracy was it It was a shaw
27:55
that was input that was put in place by America essentially Um
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and so our thought is that we could just go do something like that again like like that was our plan with Iraq was to
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essentially give them that kind of democracy And you just can't give
28:12
somebody democracy They the people have to take it The the the revolution has to
28:17
come from within If you try and stoke a revolution from the outside I mean this
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is what the CIA did throughout the 20th century Yeah That really is a
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it resulted in a list of war crimes that'll probably never be prosecuted
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So Iran's threat is not nuclear weapons Iran's ability to weaponize its nuclear program was effectively curtailed in
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2015 when it negotiated a deal with the Obama administration At the urging of Netanyahu Trump tore up that agreement
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three years later which set the stage for today's crisis The real Iranian threat is that it has an independent
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foreign policy This does not mean Tran has a good foreign policy on normative or ethical grounds Far from it It simply
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means Iran operates independently as an actor in the Middle East challenging
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American and Israeli hegemony This is the real Iranian threat that the US and
29:15
Israel seek to eliminate And again that comes from Nadir Hashemi
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who is an associate professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics and director of the Alwali Center for Muslim
29:26
Christian Understanding at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Services at
29:31
Georgetown University So I think that that's an excellent
29:37
analysis right there Uh but I really wanted that background as we continue to go in and look at the rationale that the
29:45
administration continues to give because I think that laid out the facts
29:51
without any spin And now we're going to And so now I want people to be able to pick out the spin
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when they hear it Excuse me one second
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Sorry I had to cough felt good choking on all this geopolitics
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So since US So now we're switching over to the BBC and uh no not that BBC Todd
30:26
British Broadcasting Company That's the one corporation
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The Big Beautiful Corporation Since US President Donald Trump ordered
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strikes on several nuclear facilities in Iran over the weekend Democrats as well as lawmakers from his own party have
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questioned his legal authority to do so Republican Congressman Thomas Massie said on X that the strikes were not
30:50
constitutional And another Republican Congressman Warren Davidson wrote "It's hard to conceive a rationale that's
30:56
constitutional." But Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson defended the president saying he
31:03
evaluated that the imminent danger outweighed the time it would take for Congress to act and that there's
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tradition of similar military actions under presidents of both parties So did you detect any [ __ ] there
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Todd Oh yeah Loads Like all of it
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But based on what we just went over there was no imminent danger that that
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could outweigh any time it would take for Congress to act I mean unless he thinks you know unless he thinks Iran
31:33
was literally switching gears this instant and then three years from now maybe they have something right
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That's not imminent That's not imminent Mike That's not how that works man
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So BBC Verify has asked legal experts whether Trump's actions were in line with the Constitution or whether he
31:54
should have consulted Congress first So what does the Constitution say about military action There are two parts of
32:00
the US Constitution that are relevant here Articles one and two Article one specifically lists the ability to
32:06
declare war as one of Congress's powers However article two which lays out the president's powers says that the
32:12
president shall be commander-in-chief of the army And sources at the White House have told
32:18
the BBC that they see this as the rationale for strikes on Iran Constitutional experts have said that
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article 2 gives the president the authority to use military force in certain circumstances The circumstances
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aren't specifically laid out in the constitution but they have been subsequently interpreted to include actual or anticipated attacks or to
32:38
advance other important national interests And that's according to experts at the Council for Foreign
32:43
Relations Yeah these interests could include the prevention of nuclear proliferation which Trump administration
32:49
said was their justification for the strikes on Iran Four constitutional experts told BBC verified that Trump had
32:55
some authority under these circumstances to order the military strikes
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The short answer is yes he did have the authority here says Clare Finkelestein a professor at the University of
33:06
Pennsylvania Law School There is a long-standing practice of presidents engaging in isolated military
33:12
engagements without congressional approval So that that line especially the first
33:19
time I I read through this really stopped me in my tracks because because yes he has the authority because
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there's a long-standing practice of presidents having engaged in this behavior
33:32
Every single time a president does something like this we're all up in arms about whether he actually had the right
33:37
to do it But apparently a president has done it enough times now where we're
33:42
just supposed to see it as okay Yeah
33:49
Another constitutional law expert Jessica Levenson at Lyola Marry Mount University said the pres president has
33:55
limited authority to authorize air strikes as long as it quote doesn't begin to resemble a war and there is no
34:02
clear definition of when that occurs So again it's just a gray area that Congress has allowed the president to
34:08
exist in Uh Andrew Rudolvage
34:13
a professor of government at Baoyan College told BBC Verify he didn't
34:19
believe Trump had the authority to launch the latest strikes as there wasn't a sudden attack to repel Although
34:26
article one gives Congress the power to declare war the provision has very rarely been used The last time Congress
34:32
invoked this power was 1942 It's been used just 10 10 times since 1812
34:39
And again as has been mentioned experts told that told us that presidents using
34:45
their authority to order military actions without getting approval from Congress has become more common So John
34:51
Bellinger who was a legal adviser in the White House under President George W Bush said over the last several decades
34:57
Congress has acquiesed more and more in presidential uses of military force for a variety of purposes without
35:04
congressional authorization Congress and the courts have effectively negated the requirements of a
35:09
declaration And that's Jonathan Turley one of the
35:14
most disappointing constitutional experts I've ever heard of Yeah So just in fairness here's what other
35:21
presidents have done Um President Barack Obama authorized air strikes in Libya without requesting permission from
35:26
Congress which his administration justified under article 2 as was the case for the mission to kill Osama bin
35:32
Laden in Pakistan in 2011 Uh during Trump's first term in office he ordered the killing of Iranian military officer
35:38
Kasm Solammani without congressional approval Uh Bill Clinton launched strikes in the Balkans without prior
35:46
approval And more recently Joe Biden did the same thing hitting Houthy targets in Yemen as well as in Syria
35:53
So it's been repeatedly used by presidents throughout our history said Mr Charlie In 2016 Obama dropped more
35:59
than 26,000 bombs from Syria to Libya to Somalia without such calls for impeachment History and president
36:05
president favors Trump in this action Now here's the thing though All the drone strikes and the bombs that Obama
36:11
dropped during his presidency those have what's been those basically that's why the left reviles Obama in many circles
36:18
now They see him as a merchant of death They you know there's Obama's gotten a
36:24
lot of flack for that for for those bombings and I bet we could find some
36:29
Republicans calling to impeach him at any point I think all the all the all the people who like say they don't want
36:35
to vote for him or didn't want to vote for him or even Camala was they they for
36:40
things like that like well that's what they did and you know people love them so what why is that different than what
36:47
what is what Trump is doing and I'm like I mean honestly I don't really know I
36:52
just know that he probably got permission to do those and Trump clearly did not care what the what Congress had
36:59
to say So and and I mean to be fair there the they are citing instances here
37:06
where the president like Obama didn't get permission from Congress to do these things Now they were working under the
37:12
off the authorized use of military force that was created in 2002 for the Iraq war which lasted in full effect until
37:20
2023 And technically still isn't fully repealed now to be honest But the Senate
37:27
repealed their authorization in 2023 and it's floundered in the House Um
37:33
but but the point but my point being is that these aren't these they were wrong when
37:40
it happened before And if you were paying attention to critics of Obama they all criticized him for it Yeah
37:48
But they love when Trump does it though Yeah And then what about other laws Critics of Trump's strikes on Iran have
37:55
also pointed out to the War Powers Resolution which was passed in 73 following America's withdrawal from the Vietnam War to limit the president's
38:01
ability to wage war without consulting Congress first Although the law does allow the president to use force without
38:07
congressional approval in emergencies it states that they should in every possible instance shall consult with
38:13
Congress before introducing United States armed forces into hostilities It does not appear that President Trump
38:18
complied with this requirement says Mr Bellinger Based on reporting so far it
38:24
appears that President Trump did not actually have a substantive consultations with Congress or rather
38:29
simply informed several Republican leaders US media has reported that Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck
38:35
Schumer had been called about an hour before the strikes began but with little detail White House press secretary
38:41
Caroline Levit wrote on X that the administration made courtesy calls to congressional leadership
38:47
Uh the resolution also says that Congress must be notified within 48 hours after military action has taken place Secretary of Defense Pete Hex said
38:55
that Congress were notified after the planes were safely out and that they complied with the notification
39:00
requirements of the War Powers Act So oh so Hexath actually waited till the
39:06
planes were safely out before notifying his chat thread Is that Or did or if you had if you're on a if you have uh if you
39:13
have signal did you already know before the planes are safely out Oh wow I don't know I just I saw a thing today that
39:19
that Trump said that everyone's safely back in wherever state they landed in He's like "Are we not supposed to like
39:27
announce where these soldiers are are residing Is that is that something we're
39:33
supposed to be doing?" So I guess
39:39
he talks too much
39:48
And then jumping over to a CNN article uh the War Powers Act requires advanced consultation with Congress whenever
39:54
possible before entering US troops into hostilities Here I think it is pretty obviously was possible and it also
40:00
previous pretty obviously wasn't done The Supreme Court has been generous in approving Trump's expansive use of power
40:07
most notably its immunity ruling last year That view has also contributed to the
40:13
analysis A senior White House official said "This isn't some technical rulemaking,"
40:18
said Chris Anders senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union "It is literally as one of the enumerated
40:24
powers of the Constitution." "In the Federalist Papers James Madison argued for an exception that's been hotly
40:30
discussed since that the president can use force if needed to quote repel a sudden attack on the United States." If
40:36
applied to Iran Anders said it wouldn't meet that test the use of bombing runs against
40:42
facilities that have been standing there for years perhaps decades and were not about to be a part of a sudden attack on
40:48
the United States A senior Justice Department official said if the conflict continues for an extended period the
40:54
administration may have to go to Congress for approval but maintained that bombing three nuclear sites does
40:59
not rise to the level of needing congressional approval The official also noted the Trump administration has the
41:05
support of senior House and Senate leaders So again this is all it's the
41:10
story of the Trump administration He's he's getting to break he's getting to violate the Constitution at will because
41:17
Congress is controlled by his lackey right
41:26
So what could Congress actually do or what would Congress actually do
41:32
uh Massie Thomas Massie that we referenced before and Democratic Representative Roana are seeking to
41:37
reassert Congress's authority over military action with a co-sponsored war powers resolution Democratic Senator Tim
41:44
Kaine said on Fox News Sunday that Senate Majority Leader Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is pushing for a vote as
41:51
soon as possible on a resolution so quote "All members of the Senate have to declare whether or not the US should be
41:57
at war with Iran." US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s were at least debated in
42:03
Congress at the time with requests from then George then President George W Bush Massie noted it should have been
42:10
declarations of war but at least they did an authorization of use of military force Massie said "We haven't had that
42:18
This has been turned upside down." Some lawmakers and legal expert legal experts
42:24
are looking at the second Iraq war as president for congressional action and also a warning to review the
42:29
intelligence We are in yellow cake uranium land a
42:35
former national security official said referring to botched intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
42:42
Congress should be asking questions about what intelligence and what legal findings they did before taking this
42:47
escalatory action Democratic and Republican administrations have repeatedly stretched the 2002 authorization of use
42:54
of military force which authorized the Iraq war as legal authority for military action in locations outside of Iraq An
43:01
earlier amp that authorized action against al-Qaeda and associated groups
43:06
has also been used beyond what was conceived in the post 911 era The problem is that historically the only
43:13
meaningful check on presidential abuse of war powers has been p pushed back from Congress
43:18
But that was a that was when Congress took its constitutional and institutional responsibilities seriously
43:25
and that's from Steven Vladk The ACLU's Anders says there's still time for Congress to act on a bipartisan
43:32
basis suggesting public hearings to air the Trump administration's military and legal justifications
43:38
Congress could also look at restricting funds for such actions without its buyin It's also a chance for a true national
43:44
debate one advantage that comes to the executive branch when it goes to Congress and asks for author
43:49
authorization that there's a clear examination of what the United States is getting into So there's much more of a
43:55
national buy in So they're basically trying to say that
44:00
if if you know if Trump really wanted popular support for these attacks going
44:05
to Congress would be a good way to get it But he's not really he's not really
44:11
interested in popular support for it he's just interested in in whatever the grand bargain he's got going on with
44:18
Netanyahu And then lastly before we uh move on to
44:24
the updated to the update on this on Iran's response even Putin
44:30
tells Iranian foreign minister that there was no justification for US attack So from Reuters Russian res Russian
44:37
President Vladimir Putin told Iran's foreign minister on Monday that there was no justification for the US bombing of his country and that Moscow was
44:44
trying to help the Iranian people Putin hosted Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araki in Moscow two days after the
44:50
attack And this is and quote the absolutely unprovoked aggression against
44:56
Iran has no basis and no justification Putin told him in televised comments
45:02
So so even Putin is not is not following Trump's narrative on this
45:09
So so what happened What what happened overnight What changed today
45:15
Well as I mentioned earlier this is kind of a repeat of
45:22
Trump's last term when they assassinated Solani and in retaliation Iran blew up an
45:30
airfield after we had
45:36
you know evacuated it right so
45:42
what happened here so as of uh well this is two this story
45:47
is from 2:40 p.m Today um Iran launched a missile attack on an
45:53
American air base in Qatar on Monday that caused no injuries
45:58
when Donald Trump dismissed it as a weak response
46:04
The attack on Aluded Air Base in neighboring Qatar threatened to widen a conflict that began on June 13 with an
46:10
Israeli strike on Iran targeting its nuclear program and ballistic missiles missiles excuse me
46:17
Iran had threatened to retaliate against the United States after US bombers dropped 30,000 pound buster bunkers on
46:22
Iranian underground nuclear facilities at the weekend joining Israel's air war against Iran And Trump had raised the
46:28
possibility of the Iranian government being toppled "We did not assault anyone and we will
46:33
never accept being assaulted by anyone," Iran supreme leader said "We will not submit to anyone's aggression This is the logic of the Iranian nation." Iran
46:40
gave advanced notice to the US via diplomatic channels hours ahead of the attack as well as to call as well as to
46:47
Qatari authorities Trump seized on that as a positive sign So did you catch that
46:53
Iran gave advanced notice via diplomatic channels hours ahead of the attacks Of
46:58
course they did I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice which made it possible for no lives to be lost and
47:04
nobody to be injured Trump wrote on his truth social media site Perhaps Iran can
47:10
now proceed to peace and harmony in the region and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same
47:18
I am pleased to report that no Americans were harmed and hardly any damage was done Most importantly they've gotten it
47:24
all out of their system and there will hopefully be no further hate
47:29
So that was that was earlier today and again it's just like is this all is this
47:35
all political theater Is this all war theater Like is this like you know you talk about theaters of war but is this actual theater via war Uh
47:43
like did we know what their response would be Was it all worked out and cooked up ahead of time Because here's
47:50
what happens now Two hours ago as of two hours ago Trump says there is a ceasefire agreement between Israel and
47:56
Iran So this is one of the this is one of Trump's go-to plays which is cause a
48:02
ruckus cause a problem and then take credit when he fixes when he quote
48:07
unquote fixes the problem that he instituted to begin with It's you know going around kicking beehives and
48:15
selling raid right It's that kind of stuff It's racketeering essentially Yeah Yeah So so Trump announced what he
48:21
called So that previous story came from uh
48:27
came from Reuters Now we're back over to CNN for their their
48:32
blog updates Um so President Donald Trump announced what he called a complete and total ceasefire between
48:38
Israel and Iran The ceasefire is set to start in approximately six hours It has
48:43
been according to the president has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a complete and
48:49
total ceasefire in approximately six hours from now when Israel and Iran have
48:54
wound down and completed their inrogress final missions for 12 hours at which point the war will be considered ended
49:00
the president wrote on social media Neither Iran nor Israel has made any comments about a pending ceasefire The
49:07
ceasefire will be phased in during the next 24 hours Officially Iran will start the ceasefire
49:13
and upon the 12th hour Israel will start the ceasefire and upon the 24th hour an official end to the 12-day war will be
49:19
saluted by the world During each ceasefire the other side will remain peaceful and respectful the president
49:25
wrote So again we have
49:31
is it all just was it all just for show Was was anything actually happening And then since this announcement there was a
49:37
big strike blast was heard in Tran by CNN's team on the ground Yeah Um
49:44
that Israel issued new evacuation warnings So apparently these were just the pre-planned final attacks even
49:50
though there's already a ceasefire in agreement supposedly
49:58
So it's just it's all professional wrestling with this guy I mean I don't It's all It's
50:04
all fake It's just all fake The only The only thing he's missing is is the uh
50:09
grandiose speeches like like Hogan and and Savage used to make back in the 80s
50:15
Oh yeah brother You know next Sunday I'm gonna whoop your ass Yeah
50:24
And then of course you know three years from now Trump will be gone out of office and the rest of the world trying
50:31
to move on will have to deal with the fallout from this right Yeah Like will will anybody ever make a deal with
50:37
America again Probably not Certainly certainly Iran won't right We It'd be
50:44
I mean who really knows I guess I guess it depends on how much money is involved
50:49
Well yeah kind of depends on what sort of grand bargain is going on behind closed doors which is that's a topic for
50:54
another day But the grand bargain with Jared Kushner and
51:00
Middle East various Middle Eastern countries and yeah there's
51:07
there's definitely if if you're into conspiracy theories there's something to dive into there Yeah
51:13
So that does it for the main topic We can move over to the news now Todd the news All righty
51:23
Okay I'm just making sure I got the right button here [Music]
51:29
And now it's time for our weekly news We're breaking down the key stories
51:35
shaping our world from policy shifts to the latest in global affairs Let's dive
51:43
in All right All right So in some good news some at
51:49
least temporarily good news uh Makmoud Khalil has been released from custody
51:55
Yay Yay So he's someone we've been following Uh he was the Colombia recent Columbia
52:02
University graduate That's a green card holder married to an American citizen Um who was detained and sent to Louisiana
52:10
because he is an organizer He's a he's Palestinian and he is an organizer of pro Palestinian uh protests at Colombia
52:18
So he was a political prisoner of America in America and he is finally out
52:23
on bail I believe Right on Excuse me Right arm
52:29
So and then of course two days after being released from ICE custody uh he was back on the streets outside of the
52:36
University of Colombia surrounded by a crowd of hundreds of supporters So he was detained on March 8th This story is
52:42
coming from the people'sdispatch.org He was detained on March 8th by Plainscloed ICE agents outside of his
52:48
home in Columbia University housing in front of his pregnant wife Dr Norah Abdalah Cle spent 104 days in ICE
52:55
custody in the notorious Lasal Detention Center in the rural town of Jenna Louisiana So his wife was pregnant when
53:01
he was taken in Oh wow She since had the baby He's got to meet the baby as far as I know at least once That's good And it
53:09
was it was in a visitation at the prison at the detention center Oh okay But he's
53:14
home now though right But now he is finally home Okay Yes Okay Good So Khil
53:20
described to members of the press outside of the Cathedral of St John of the Divine on June 20th It felt like I
53:25
was literally being kidnapped These 30 hours were the most difficult time during the whole experience Khalil
53:31
said who described that during this time he was not told what he was accused of Cle described some of the conditions he
53:37
faced while at the detention center in Jenna I shared a dorm with over 70 men He said describing the lack of privacy
53:44
and little change from night to day with lights on 24/7 It's so normal in detention to see men
53:50
cry Khalil said They can't understand why they are there They know they don't have documents but is but does this
53:57
actually mean they should be detained Cle asked Cleo was released on June 20th
54:02
in Louisiana and arrived at the airport in New York New Jersey the very next day
54:07
Accusing the Columbia University administration of trying its best to portray me as someone who was violent Khalil spoke at the press conference
54:14
near the Columbia University gates on June 22nd to set the record straight
54:19
Who is Makmoud Khalil He asked the crowd of hundreds of supporters gathered on the steps of the Cathedral of St John
54:25
the Divine Makmoud Khalil is a human rights defender Makmoud Khalil is a freedom fighter Makmoud Khalil is a
54:32
refugee Makmoud Khalil is a father and husband And above all Makmoud Khalil is
54:38
Palestinian he said to thunderous applause Makmoud Khalil is a Palestinian
54:43
who refused to remain silent Before Khalil's press conference outside of the cathedral People's Dispatch spoke
54:51
to Miam Alwan Columbia University's graduate and Kalo's friend
54:57
For Awan her friend's return is the closure that we all needed I can't believe it's been over three months
55:03
Every single day we were counting the days and hoping that he would be released soon Awan said her friend's
55:08
release is a strong message that no matter what repression they try it will always backfire
55:14
Khalil took questions from reporters One asked what his message was to students who might be fearful of expressing their
55:20
activism based on what happened to him We will win Khalil asserted
55:27
I believe that we will win The students across the country have always led us towards what's right
55:33
Khalil continued They were our moral compass This happened during the Vietnam War during apartheid South Africa during
55:41
fossil fuels demonstrations and it's happening now After taking questions from the press Khalil led a crowd into
55:48
march and in a march to Colombia's gates While in front of the gates Khalil vowed
55:53
to continue to protest against the genocide in Gaza Right So I think that's pretty uplifting That's pretty Yeah
56:00
that's a pretty hopeful situation right now I I don't know if he's I don't know that he's clear if he's in the clear yet
56:07
but but he's he's at least no longer in
56:12
prison and gets to spend time with his wife and his new baby Yeah that's good
56:18
Glad to hear at least he's able to see his kid without like uh you know officers kind of keeping an eye on him
56:24
and all that So now switching over to Buzzfeed via
56:30
yahoo.com I was I voted for Trump in 2016 when he won I was shocked by how brutal brutally
56:37
my life changed overnight This is by Julia Woo She says "I am a Chinese woman
56:43
a daughter of immigrants who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election It is almost a secret though I
56:49
sometimes offer up the confession like it is a penance I cried driving away from my polling place and sobbed on a
56:55
futon when he won." My chest was tight my stomach churned my face was hot All blood and breath and acid had conspired
57:01
inside me to signal alarm I immediately hated my choice but I did not yet believe it to be wrong I had bought into
57:07
the lesser of two evils arc with but her email still echoing in my mind to assure
57:12
me that this was the only option Wow My eagerness
57:18
in addition to a behavioral white evangelical culture provided me with one thing I'd been chasing my whole life an
57:23
entry point into dominant white culture I wanted to un other myself and believe that I could assimilate myself into
57:29
safety power and love
57:40
Okay I So this is a story Todd had put on here I had not read through it yet Um
57:47
yeah it looked like it would would be an interesting story It sounds like she's uh
57:53
the problem is this whole she's going through her entire life starting in grade school Oh And it's it's more just
57:59
a a biography leading up to the Yeah Well this is like when you when you pull
58:04
up a you pull up a recipe that you want and then you got to get through like five pages of them describing the first
58:10
spring where they thought about I remember when I came up with this this this recipe when I was five years old
58:16
back in the Second World War I didn't realize it was going to be a
58:22
biograph a biography Uh but it sounds like it sounds like she learned her
58:27
lesson and uh Well it sounds like I don't know why she voted for him in the first place It sounds like she
58:33
immediately regretted it I mean
58:38
yeah Why would she If she knew it was a bad choice to do it why did she do it Yeah Like you you also have the option
58:45
of just not voting I I don't I I I have feelings about
58:52
people who like don't vote because a lot of times these are the people are the loudest Like well I didn't want to vote
58:57
because I didn't like either one It's like well why didn't you pick the lesser of two evils You know look at all the
59:03
information that's out there and realize that one is most definitely more evil than the other Although it sounds like
59:09
she thought she was picking the lesser of two evils even though it clearly wasn't the case And it just goes to show how important
59:16
it is to get some sort of rank choice voting going in this country Yeah This problem is solved everywhere that in
59:23
that has rank choice voting And you put your top you put whoever you really want
59:28
You rank like in New York for the primary for mayor They rank five choices This is going on right now
59:36
They rank five choices And if your first choice doesn't get enough to form a majority then all your votes then your
59:41
vote for second choice goes up And if that person doesn't get enough to if the second round doesn't still doesn't get
59:48
in a majority then you know you go through all five of your choices and eventually you know
59:54
a consensus has come to and it just it allows you to put like if you don't it allows you to put a long shot at the top
1:00:00
of your ballot right It allows you to put whoever you damn well please at the top of your ballot and you can feel good
1:00:06
about it you can feel like you did you're on the right side of history And
1:00:11
I and it's just but this winner take all mentality that we have to have in this country it ruins it It's contributing to
1:00:17
the electoral problem Yeah Yeah I first was introduced to this concept in 2016
1:00:23
And I saw a video done by a uh uh comedy group in Australia and they were
1:00:29
basically like talking [ __ ] about American politics and how uh how it's
1:00:34
broken and everything else And then you know here in Australia we have this setup and they talks about what you just
1:00:40
said I was like wow that's [ __ ] amazing Why don't we do that And you know I think it's because they know that
1:00:47
uh I I believe that they the the the Republicans know that they would
1:00:53
absolutely never win if that was the case Yeah It would give it would give the
1:00:58
progressive left a a chance Yeah
1:01:03
Which you know there's way more progressives in this country than people realize I mean nobody really wants to
1:01:09
get worse People want things to get better right Right And that's really all it really takes to be a progressive is
1:01:14
just wanting things to be better Yeah And and uh there's not as much stigma with the the term progressive as there
1:01:21
is for leftist or democrat Socialist Or socialist Yeah Yeah
1:01:28
I mean progressive is what I've always considered myself I' I've called myself a democratic socialist which is also true Yes Um but I'm really more of a I'm
1:01:36
technically more of a liberal progressive I don't really put I don't really put labels onto myself because I
1:01:42
feel like a label is never going to be nuanced enough Yeah But but progressive
1:01:47
is a label I've never shied away from I always I I definitely embraced the idea of being a progressive Even when even
1:01:53
when I was reading my history books in school you know the progressive era was my favorite era of history I all I know
1:01:59
is that when I started when I was of age to vote I I I voted for for uh for uh
1:02:06
Clinton and my my mom was like "Oh oh okay okay
1:02:12
Oh oh okay okay Um I mean yeah that's a vote and uh you know you're entitled to
1:02:17
it." And yeah I was like "What You didn't vote for him?" He's like "No."
1:02:22
I was like "Okay." Did she vote for Ross Perau Uh she didn't vote for him Uh a
1:02:29
lot of people in my family are Republican I've noticed over the years And um or at the very least uh they're
1:02:36
not Democrats So and and uh my sister is like a pretty
1:02:43
hardcore Republican much like my mother They both uh watch exclusively Fox News
1:02:50
And I before my mom passed away I remember her spouting off all the all
1:02:56
the catchphrases from Fox you know they're they're trying to they're trying to take away Christmas Um Mexicans are
1:03:04
are coming over the border in droves and all the other absolute [ __ ] What
1:03:10
what what's what does the cynical historian call that Uh uh moral panic
1:03:17
Yeah It's it's it's the starting moral panics over these things Yeah Yeah Which every election cycle they they bring up
1:03:23
a new one And as as I've become more and more aware of politics and political stuff I realize that the vast majority
1:03:30
of my family are all Republican uh and they uh either they vote for the the
1:03:38
candidate they like or they don't vote at all because they don't like either one And in my mind if you don't vote uh
1:03:45
you don't have any anything to complain about Um you uh if if we got if we get
1:03:51
stuck with a an [ __ ] for four years because you didn't vote it's kind of your fault in my mind Um you know if if
1:04:00
you had voted for the other person we wouldn't have been we would have the other person We wouldn't have the the
1:04:06
person who's trying to destroy our country And so in my mind people who
1:04:11
didn't vote in the election because you know they didn't like either one and
1:04:16
they wouldn't vote for the Democrat because they're a Democrat They wouldn't vote for him because he's a he's a thief
1:04:22
and he's a liar and he's a he's a felon And uh I mean you're just giving away
1:04:30
the presidency to him because there's a lot of people who voted for him Um
1:04:36
and uh you I believe that they they they have no they have no room to talk about how
1:04:43
horrible things are happening right now because you didn't vote You didn't you had nothing to do with it It's you know
1:04:49
and again it's just more argument for rank choice voting because these people wouldn't have to they wouldn't have to vote Democrat or Republican They could
1:04:55
vote they could vote for all these various different third parties They could put in five and call it good you
1:05:01
know Yeah Yeah They don't Yeah they don't have to vote for the because the
1:05:06
the electoral college really locks us into a two-party system Uh because if you don't get a majority of the
1:05:12
electoral college it puts the presidential election to to the House of Representatives Therefore you have to
1:05:18
band together with enough people to get 50% plus one Yeah because if you if you
1:05:23
can't get your your your 272 uh in the in the electoral college you
1:05:30
might as well not even you know it's just going to go to the House of Representatives So it's always going to default to a
1:05:36
two-party system That's why every time we've had a third party one one of the third one of the three parties ends up
1:05:41
falling away or being absorbed into whichever one they're closest allied with Yeah Yeah And I just it's um and
1:05:49
I've had a few members of my family go "Well I didn't vote for her because she's a
1:05:55
Democrat and I don't like what she's done." And I was like "Yeah but is she really that much worse than him that
1:06:02
you're not going to vote for her?" He's like "I don't like either one so I'm not going to vote." I was like "Well if you don't vote then we're going to get stuck
1:06:09
with whoever the majority of people really want." And at this point it looks like it could be him Why aren't you
1:06:15
voting like well it it's the whole it's to me it's it sounds like the that
1:06:21
episode of South Park where it's like the choices are a turd sandwich and a giant douche I'm not voting Oh exactly
1:06:28
That's how a lot of people feel Yeah So and it'd be nice if you could you know write in people other than
1:06:36
other than those top two Other than the you know than the turd sandwich or the whatever it was you said giant douche I
1:06:43
I I think it'd be nice have to vote for them and and but still but still have participated because eventually like
1:06:49
maybe maybe at the your fifth vote is for turd sandwich instead of giant douche or vice versa How how how many
1:06:55
times do you think Mickey Mouse would have won if they were to actually go by who people wrote in a name
1:07:01
Do you have the answer to this No I don't I'm just it was just a thing that come came in my head was like um I mean
1:07:07
I know people used to like write Mickey Mouse's like their write in choice cuz like I'm not going to [ __ ] vote for
1:07:13
either one of these I'll put Mickey Mouse in It's like there has to be like a number that of people who wrote in who
1:07:20
wrote in like a cartoon character or a pop culture icon or something you know
1:07:26
Captain Kirk or uh you know Wesley Crusher You know I I'd be curious if
1:07:33
there is any data like on this election turns out Mickey Mouse would have won mayor but they didn't count it cuz he's
1:07:39
a fictional character Fictional characters But I do I think a lot of our I think a lot of our domestic problems
1:07:47
would sort themselves out if we had rank choice voting Yeah Public funding of elections and
1:07:54
eliminate the electoral college They're never going to get rid of the electoral college I think just because um Yeah
1:08:01
Well the so the way we get rid of the electoral college is that we um states
1:08:07
get to decide how they allocate their electoral votes So right now there's x
1:08:14
number of states that have signed on to this amendment that says not an
1:08:19
amendment but this agreement that once enough states
1:08:25
where their electoral votes once enough states agree to this agreement
1:08:30
that enough that that two that make up 272 electoral votes So once you have enough states for that 272
1:08:37
then those those states will all change their state legislation
1:08:44
so that their EVs go to whoever wins the popular vote
1:08:50
Yeah So then you still have the electoral college but it's effectively a popular vote election Yeah So enough
1:08:58
enough states to decide the election agree that they're going to distribute their votes based on the whoever won the
1:09:06
the popular vote Hasn't there hasn't there recently in the last few weeks been like uh talk about like recounting
1:09:13
for this last election because of all the all the horrible [ __ ] going down that there's been some stories about it
1:09:21
I've I may have mentioned one of them or more but I've I read them I shy away
1:09:28
from them because what they really are is they're basically saying that so there are some more far out ones where
1:09:34
they're like "Hey there could have been some real malfeasants like in the machines." But most of what I read is is
1:09:40
that it's through legal means like gerrymandering and uh voter voter roles
1:09:48
purging the voter roles right So they'll go through and they'll like in Ohio or
1:09:54
something they'll be like "Oh we have this new law where we're going to send everybody a flyer and if you don't respond to the flyer you're unregistered
1:10:01
to vote." Yeah And then a whole bunch of And then
1:10:06
they just know that and then they and they just know that certain people aren't going to respond to it and
1:10:12
they're like "Okay well that cleared off a bunch of the roles Now we go and register more of our people." And yeah
1:10:18
Well I mean I'm just saying that I'm I' I've been seeing people talking about how they're really uh telling people to
1:10:24
push to talk to their local representatives or whatever the wording is um to ask for them to do a recount
1:10:32
because I mean there was information that uh wasn't it like uh Trump or or or
1:10:40
Elon had said something along the lines of that you know you know that he had
1:10:46
did some sort of programming or whatever I mean Elon's taking credit for the 2020
1:10:51
win but I think that's more just based on money and stuff he spent Okay Yeah
1:10:57
And I mean I mean that's not to say that there's nothing there It's just I don't know that there's anything we can prove
1:11:03
Um because they're definitely I I mean I still leave the possibility open that
1:11:08
you know Russia or whatever hacking scheme that Putin has together uh does
1:11:15
have access to our voter roles and did do some sort of shenanigans in 2016 and
1:11:20
2024 Um but it's also like why wouldn't they have done that in 2020 Maybe there's a theory that spreading Trump
1:11:27
out across 12 years instead of just eight in a row uh allows him to do more
1:11:32
damage Um but ultimately they're just ideas about what could have happened and
1:11:38
there's no evidence of any actual malfeence It's also just all the legal
1:11:44
methods that we know they did with voter purging and gerrymandering and making it
1:11:49
hard to vote and trying to discourage people to vote We know that that was enough to win So really don't have to
1:11:56
look for a deeper conspiracy Yeah Yeah It just goes to show that you got to vote You got to make sure you're registered You got to be out there and
1:12:02
be an active voter and all that Yeah for sure I know I know
1:12:08
Uh about a year ago I I was like making sure that I'm still in the system and
1:12:15
still registered And like right before November I double checked again just to be understatement because I kept seeing
1:12:21
all these stories about how people's registrations are being like either
1:12:26
purged or deleted or just un unregistered or whatever I was like
1:12:31
that's [ __ ] up And uh yeah I'm just wondering if there's if
1:12:37
there's anything we can do to like maybe like pull him out of office
1:12:43
cuz clearly he's not he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing and and you
1:12:49
talk about Trump still Yeah Yeah Just he's not Yeah I mean impeachment's the I mean that's the thing is impeachment is
1:12:54
the remedy Congress congressional oversight is the remedy uh the judges are blocking him as much as they can And
1:13:01
so that's that is one a number of times before he even became president So what's what's the point of impeachment
1:13:06
if it doesn't do anything Yeah He didn't go to he didn't go to jail for it He didn't go to jail for all 34 felonies
1:13:14
And I don't know I just it's it's frustrating to hear all this [ __ ] every day Um and like why isn't somebody like
1:13:22
"Hey maybe we should go back and look all that [ __ ] and and and make sure that it is what it is and that there isn't
1:13:29
like a pile of [ __ ] ballots sitting in in in a warehouse someplace next to
1:13:34
the the Ark of the Covenant you know." Well I definitely don't I definitely would have liked to have seen the
1:13:39
Democrats fight harder legally when it comes to votes and stuff like that Um but again this is people call it 4D
1:13:47
chess I think it's just the luck of being a whiny [ __ ] But you know having
1:13:52
pushed back on Trump and all the and all the voter fraud he falsely claimed after 2020 it's hard to turn around and try
1:13:59
and do the same thing back to him You know what I mean It's like it looks like it's just sour grapes like his were You know what I mean Like it's like oh
1:14:05
you're just suing because Trump sued and you're just acting like Trump and you won't you won't admit you won't you
1:14:11
won't admit that you lost And so because they don't they don't want to appear like they're sore losers So they're not
1:14:17
gonna they're not going to do anything about it They're just gonna you know what He he probably cheated He probably
1:14:22
did something to to to put it in his favor but we're not going to do anything about because we don't want to look like
1:14:28
we're a bunch of [ __ ] losers Well and we don't want to undermine our system Because that's the thing is that's a
1:14:34
long American tradition is not fighting election results to the extent that you could because anytime you fight election
1:14:41
results you're undermining the entire electoral system you're basically putting it all into question So it just
1:14:46
makes it easier for people who who do cheat to do a go ahead and do what they did But if but if we had if if you if
1:14:53
you just basically have both sides never giving in and never conceding and always pushing everything to the legal furthest
1:15:00
legal limit or beyond the legal limits each time then eventually you just don't have elections anymore You just have
1:15:07
fights Yeah And and that's part of where Trump is trying to drag us So I think again
1:15:13
it's it's it's not my preferred strategy on how to deal with a bully but it is one way to do it which is you let the
1:15:19
bully punch himself out instead of trying to start a fight But all right Sorry I didn't mean to didn't mean to
1:15:25
sidetrack No that even though we didn't that story really wasn't right Uh it ended up leading to a good conversation
1:15:32
So I like that Um so last three stories on the weekly news We'll get we'll we'll rapid fire these real quick It's all bad
1:15:38
news Um what else is new Right But I do feel like it's something that everybody
1:15:45
especially if you're in Western Washington or at least or in the state of Washington um you should really hear about or in the Pacific Northwest I
1:15:51
guess in general Um and even in America Um so you the Washington State Patrol uh
1:15:58
uses cell phone data to predict and prevent dangerous drivers So what's happening here is the Washington State
1:16:05
Patrol used um cell phone data collected in 2023 from
1:16:11
more than 1 million cell phone users in Washington helped the state identify habits of dangerous drivers
1:16:18
Um so Shelley Baldwin the director of Washington Traffic Safety Commission said the WTSC
1:16:24
use state funding to purchase telematic data gathered by Michelin Mobility Intelligence
1:16:31
So they're I first of all like they're buy they're spending money to buy our
1:16:38
data from private companies that have in some way acquired our data Um and they
1:16:45
say this is so exciting to be using that data that we haven't had access to before It's predictive as opposed to
1:16:50
reflective The data revealed when and where drivers had sped used their brakes
1:16:55
talked on the phone and texted while on Washington roadways So here's the kicker
1:17:01
Here's why I feel like this was a waste of money and and privacy uh a waste of a
1:17:07
privacy intrusion Uh WSP will utilize the newly acquired data to search for
1:17:13
speeders in four Washington locations over the next six weeks These four
1:17:19
locations which they needed this data to determine are I5 from Joint Base Lewis McCord to F
1:17:28
I5 from Fe to Auburn I5 north and south of Everett
1:17:34
and a 14 mile stretch of I90 east and west of Spokane
1:17:40
Literally everywhere they always already had speed traps Yeah this is like they
1:17:46
didn't need to buy this data They didn't in order to know that these were the most the most important areas for them
1:17:52
to hit They already know this They already stock those locations Everybody already knows to expect cops in those
1:17:59
locations But damn it they got the data now to
1:18:05
prove it Uh other bit of bad news Crater Lake
1:18:11
National Park superintendent resigns over Trump staffing cuts
1:18:16
So Crater Lake down in Oregon Yeah Yeah Uh beautiful beautiful place if nobody's ever been I'm aware Nobody's ever been
1:18:23
That's right Nobody's ever been there Uh but but a beautiful place if you've never been Um the superintendent Kevin
1:18:32
Heatley has resigned citing deep staffing cuts he says are unsustainable and damaging to one of the nation's
1:18:38
natural treasures Heatley stepped down Friday after just five months in the role In an interview with KGW on Tuesday
1:18:45
he said the decision was difficult but necessary given the direction of federal staffing policies I did not want to be
1:18:51
empowering the current administration to cause that kind of impact on the people that I'm responsible for Heatley said
1:18:58
And I also did not want to participate in the dismantlement effectively a dismantlement of the National Park
1:19:03
Service Heatley criticized what he described as a systemic effort to shrink the park service workforce pointing to
1:19:10
early retirement incentives for veteran employees and terminations of newer staff without clear cause He said
1:19:16
policies initiated under the Trump administration continue to erode the AY's ability to function We're being
1:19:23
told for instance when people leave that they only want to replace 25% of those permanent positions You can't run an
1:19:30
organization like that So again we just have further evidence
1:19:35
of the Trump administration dismantling our public infrastructure Um and we've
1:19:40
mentioned it on this podcast before but again if you are not following the Alt National Park Service on social media
1:19:47
please do so Uh AL alt ALT National Park Service on Facebook on Blue Sky Follow
1:19:55
them please They're they're they're going to keep you better updated on a lot of this kind
1:20:01
of stuff than we're able to And lastly for my news and this is some
1:20:08
sad this is some sad news that requires further exploration Um marijuana use
1:20:14
coming from CNN.com Marijuana use dramatically increases risk of dying
1:20:19
from heart attacks and stroke Large study finds Now the one thing that we
1:20:24
don't know is how the marijuana was taken If the marijuana was predominantly
1:20:30
smoked then that's definitely going to lead to a higher chance of of of heart
1:20:36
issues and stroke Yeah Um anytime you combust carbon and inhale it in your lungs that's bad for you Yeah But so
1:20:44
according to the study using marijuana doubles the risk of dying from heart disease according to a new analysis
1:20:50
pulled of pulled medical data involving 200 million people mostly between the ages of 19 and 59
1:20:57
Uh what was particularly striking was that the concerned patients hospitalized for these disorders were young and with
1:21:03
no history of cardiovascular disorder or cardiovascular risk factors
1:21:08
Compared to non-users those who used cannabis also had a 29% higher risk for
1:21:13
heart attacks and a 20% higher risk for stroke This is one of the largest studies to
1:21:20
date on the connection between marijuana and heart disease And it raises serious questions about the assumption that cannabis imposes a little imposes little
1:21:27
cardiovascular risk Getting this right is critically important because cardiovascular disease is the top cause
1:21:33
of death both in the United States and globally
1:21:39
Clinicians need to screen people for cannabis use and educate them about its harms the same way we do for tobacco
1:21:46
The new systematic review and meta analysis analyzed medical information from large observational studies
1:21:52
conducted in Australia Egypt Canada France Sweden and the US between 2016
1:21:58
and 2023 Those studies did not ask people how they use cannabis such as via
1:22:05
smoking vaping dabbing edibles tinctures topicals However based on epid epidemiological data it is likely that
1:22:12
cannabis was smoked in the vast majority of cases Yeah So that's the thing is is
1:22:18
smoking tobacco is a well-known cause of heart disease and smoking smoking uh marijuana is is also going to
1:22:27
have a similar effect Uh controversially or alternatively however you might want
1:22:32
to say it um there's been studies going back to the 1950s that said when you control for tobacco
1:22:39
use uh marijuana does not actually cause things like lung cancer Um there's a
1:22:45
famous study in the like from like 1954 It's called on becoming a marijuana user
1:22:51
And people that only smoked marijuana from this pool as they studied them as
1:22:57
life went on Um the people who only smoked marijuana did not develop lung cancer at the same rate as people who
1:23:04
smoked tobacco Um if you smoked tobacco and marijuana then you could see lung
1:23:09
cancer showing up in the population But if you only smoked marijuana that wasn't the case I would need to re refresh
1:23:16
myself on that study for the specifics But my memory of it was it's like if you only smoked marijuana you weren't
1:23:21
getting lung cancer Whether that's because the THC helped inhibit any kind of tumors or if it was just at a lower
1:23:29
rate I don't I don't recall specifically They This article does say edibles may
1:23:36
also play a role in heart disease People who consumed edibles laced with THC showed signs of early cardiovascular
1:23:43
disease similar to tobacco smokers We found that vascular function was reduced by 42% in marijuana smokers and by 56%
1:23:52
in THC edible users compared to non-users It doesn't make sense that the edibles
1:23:58
would be reduced by even more which is confusing and part of why I think this needs further study Unless they're just
1:24:05
saying that the edible users were also smoking which they're not controlling for Yeah
1:24:12
But it is this is really the first time ever I've heard something negative about
1:24:18
heart disease and stroke when it comes to THC alone
1:24:24
I've always known smoking itself is bad for you no matter what you're smoking Um but this is the first time I've ever
1:24:30
seen something suggest that edibles even would be harmful for you So this is something to keep an eye on especially
1:24:37
if you live in a state where weed is legal like we do Yeah Yeah And with that bit of good news
1:24:44
we can at long last head to What's Geek this week Welcome to What's Geek This
1:24:51
Week your go for the coolest in pop culture category news Let's dive in
1:24:56
[Music] All right so yeah I I p I I I picked a
1:25:03
few stories um this week One of the things I I saw this late last night
1:25:08
early this morning that the uh let me pull this up here Uh Castlevania
1:25:15
producer 80 or Addie uh Shanker buys the rights to Duke Nukem series Uh renegade
1:25:23
producer Andy Shanker has uh been on a hot streak with video game adaptations
1:25:29
lately His Castlevania animated series ran for four seasons on Netflix and spawned a spin-off Plus his latest
1:25:37
endeavor a TV TV adaption of The Devil May Cry video game has been renewed for
1:25:44
a second season on the platform Shanker now has another beloved uh game property
1:25:51
to add to his slate at his cheekly titled company Bootleg
1:25:57
Universe Duke Nukem Wow So there's a Devil May Cry Yeah it it came out it
1:26:04
came out a month or so back It's on Netflix Oh really I have to check that out It's animated It's like a It's in
1:26:11
the same style of animation as as the uh uh the uh Castlevania one So I could get
1:26:17
Yeah that makes So it's kind of like a western anime style So um
1:26:24
Duke Nukem while while there's been several aborted attempts to give the character his series of games the
1:26:32
Hollywood treatment it seems Duke Nukem has found the right storyteller with Shanker Shanker broke the news that he
1:26:39
acquired the rights to Duke Nukem last week on on Esquire I'm I'm being approached with different IPs and
1:26:46
companies that want to work with me I bought the rights to Duke Nukem Shanker shared not the gaming rights but I I
1:26:54
bought it for Gearbox from Gearbox Uh Duke Nukem made his debut as a
1:27:02
protagonist in a PC game series when the larger than-l life gruff voiced hero
1:27:08
transitioned to console games in the late 90s and subsequently found its footing
1:27:14
I don't know man that that game for for the PC was was like really uh it took it
1:27:20
took existing games like Doom and Quake and then like added a whole another level to it because it was those games
1:27:27
were hyperviolent and there was lots of running around shooting and it was a 3D um kind of role not role playing game
1:27:35
first person shooter style game and uh and uh plus I mean the the character he
1:27:42
had some of the funniest oneliners And uh I I heard rumors and I have not
1:27:48
verified this but I've seen online that people are saying how Duke Nukem borrows a lot of his catchphrases from uh uh Ash
1:27:56
from the Evil Dead and uh so like yes hail to the King Baby and uh you know
1:28:04
all that And uh the guy who the guy who voices Duke Nukem is on on he does live
1:28:09
streams all the time on on TikTok and he will you know people request him to say things and he'll respond to it But uh so
1:28:17
I'm I'm curious as to how this is going to turn out It's probably we're not going to see it for a few years I think
1:28:23
But um see what it says here I I do think they
1:28:29
they got the right guy it sounds like for doing a show based on Duke Nukem Yeah he he definitely appear I mean he
1:28:34
obviously has a good track record with this sort of thing but he seems to get it like because he talks about how the
1:28:40
thing with Duke Nukem is it's a middle finger to everybody When Duke Nukem blew up a bunch of people sat around trying
1:28:46
to turn it into a brand he said when it's just a middle finger So I I if if
1:28:53
they make it like an adult uh adult humor type of show Yeah I I I I I I hope
1:28:59
they they uh Yeah I hope they definitely make it like not a a a show for kids
1:29:05
that it has to be 18 plus It has to be for adults You can't like Yeah you can't
1:29:12
neuter Duke Nukem and and make it work Um and if they did a PG-13 version of
1:29:18
Duke Nukem it just it won't be Duke It'll be somebody else So that's kind of how I feel about that I'm looking
1:29:24
forward to it I don't know It doesn't say uh when it's going to be out but he
1:29:29
just got the rights So he's he's probably at this point not even working on script yet It's early It's early It's
1:29:35
really early So uh next story I have here I did pair it down a little bit because I I didn't want us to go too
1:29:41
terribly long The next story I have here is that looks like there's going to be a another reboot of The Land of the Lost
1:29:49
TV series from the early uh uh late 60s early 70s that big is when I remember
1:29:56
watching this as a kid uh as a toddler even and it used to terrify the hell out
1:30:01
of me Uh the sleeve stacks were super creepy Netflix is partnering with Legendary Entertainment to breathe new
1:30:07
life into the beloved 70s sci-fi adventure series Land of the Lost Uh is
1:30:13
what the caption for the image says the the the two the two kids from that show
1:30:18
are always doing like live streams and uh videos on on uh Instagram and I think
1:30:25
they were actually here in Washington a couple years back at a at a place that used to do uh like meet and greets down
1:30:32
in Auburn That place has since uh closed down They didn't stick around for much
1:30:37
longer Uh let's see here Originally debuted in 1974 Lendel quickly carved
1:30:42
out a unique space in the landscape of classic science fiction The series follows the Marshall family Father Rick
1:30:49
and two children Will and Holly uh whose peaceful White River rafting
1:30:55
trip takes a shocking turn when an earthquake sends them tumbling into a bizarre prehistoric realm Uh the
1:31:02
mysterious dimension both dangerous and on inspiring uh was filled with
1:31:08
dinosaurs ancient ruins and strange creatures Creatures capturing the imaginations of young viewers like
1:31:14
myself with every episode I just remember watching the show and they had giant fruits They had like giant
1:31:21
raspberries and giant strawberries Um when they were picking for food uh there
1:31:27
was uh the the dinosaurs were all claymatian So stop motion animation at
1:31:33
its worst Um I don't know if you ever saw this Doug You were probably uh not born yet
1:31:40
when it was was on TV originally but uh um they did a a a reboot of sorts in
1:31:47
like the 90s I think Where is Well that's what I was That's what I was trying to figure out is I definitely remember watching Land of the Lost as a
1:31:54
kid but I don't think it was the 74 version Yeah No you probably want to watch watch the one that's from 91
1:32:01
Yeah Which I I you know I couldn't have told you how long the show was on when I watched it but apparently went on for
1:32:07
two seasons That makes sense In 91 Yeah And uh what's really funny is uh in 2009
1:32:15
Lost received a big screen adaptation with Will Frell reimagining uh the broad
1:32:20
comedy blah blah blah blah blah The thing that cracks me up about him doing this movie is it came out about 10 years
1:32:27
after he played a character in a in Jane Senob Strikeback His character name in
1:32:34
that movie was Marshall Willinali Willinoli was his last name Marshall was
1:32:40
his first name or not Marshall was his job And uh so it was it was a play on
1:32:46
words kind of making fun of the land of the lost Marshall Will and Holly
1:32:52
Um I just remember when I I remember seeing that move that movie going "Did he did he do that on purpose?" And then
1:32:58
of course I saw it in uh like a video commentary for that movie like "Yes that was on purpose." But uh yeah I'm looking
1:33:07
forward to it Um I think I first heard about this um
1:33:13
maybe a couple weeks back Uh Sid Croft still does live streams on Instagram on
1:33:20
occasion and he'll talk about like um old shows that he's done that he's done
1:33:26
and he's also mentions when they have new versions coming out and he's been working with
1:33:32
is like a like an executive producer kind of giving hey they should do it like this
1:33:38
and that kind of thing But uh but yeah there's that And then uh next story is
1:33:45
uh I didn't know this until just a month or so back but there is a new Toxic
1:33:50
Avenger coming out and I just watched the trailer for it And uh
1:33:56
uh it has it has um it has uh Oh [ __ ]
1:34:02
So the first trailer for the Toxic Avenger remake was released in October 2023 and then it's been kind of quiet
1:34:09
since then Yeah Yeah Uh and they the the least the most recent one I guess is the
1:34:14
movie is being released as unrated So it's it's going to be really violent
1:34:20
Well wasn't that like the original toxy movies Like be movie schlock with like
1:34:26
major violence and nudity Yeah Yeah Yeah So it's it's it's not being done by trauma this time It's being done by uh
1:34:34
some other people And I'm sure it says here I did read this but I I don't remember what it said Um
1:34:40
uh it's got Peter Dinklage as uh as the lead character
1:34:46
uh I mean before he becomes toxic voicing the lead character Well he is the lead character completely but he
1:34:53
doesn't he's not in the costume when he becomes toxic Gotcha uh he is the the
1:34:59
the he is the the loser before he becomes toxic and then he becomes the voice of Toxic and they have somebody
1:35:06
else doing the the the inside the costume so he doesn't have to wear all the prosthetic stuff Lucky him
1:35:13
right Uh yeah Uh the the person inside the costume her name is Louisa Guerrero
1:35:21
Guerrero uh she's uh she's basically puts on all the prosthetics and she does the acting
1:35:29
He just kind of like matches the lip lip flaps of what she's saying So I don't know the commercial the the trailer that
1:35:36
I saw uh yesterday it uh this version of toxic the toxic avenger is a little
1:35:43
person was like little tiny person like the original Toxic Avenger the human
1:35:48
character was kind of a dweeb He was like maybe 5 foot6 super skinny really
1:35:53
like the 80s style nerd And then uh he became like this big burly dude when he
1:36:00
became the toxic Avenger In this he's staying the same size He just becomes super strong Um
1:36:08
so the the from what I do remember in the article it says that they took elements from the original movie as well
1:36:15
as the Toxic Avengers cartoon series from the 80s as far as the visuals and
1:36:21
and the big Go ahead The cartoon the cartoon series is what I knew the Toxic Avenger from I
1:36:28
wasn't until I got a little older and found out about the risque movies the
1:36:33
underrated movies I don't know if I've ever watched the entirety of the movie I think I started watching it like Yeah No
1:36:39
I turned it off It's really I mean it's it's c classic but it's really poorly
1:36:45
made I mean I think that's why I stopped watching because it was just the acting was atrocious and it's it almost is like
1:36:52
a home movie It does It has It's like a home movie with a budget and and the
1:36:57
budget's maybe a buck 50 Um but it's funny because like after Ninja Turtles Toxy was my first like he was the first
1:37:05
action figure I got with like my own money Oh wow I didn't know that Yeah that's great And I I had no idea about
1:37:11
the movies at that point I just knew him from the cartoon We'll have to go see this movie when it hits theaters man Cuz
1:37:16
I haven't seen And I probably You probably can find those movies online on one of the streaming sites for free Uh
1:37:23
the original Toxic Avenger I'm sure is probably either on Pluto or it's on on Tuby either one of those two or Pornhub
1:37:30
I don't think it'll be on Pornhub but I mean it because because of the style of of of storytelling that it is There's
1:37:37
always gratuitous boobs and uh never bush though which is fine But still um
1:37:44
lots of side boob lots of full frontal all that kind of stuff Um all right so
1:37:51
it's too bad Hillary never took on George because then we could have had a boobs over Bush campaign
1:37:59
Right All right So but we did get Bush VGore which sounds like a smut film
1:38:05
I remember uh was it uh Oh I'm drawing a blank here All right I like that it has
1:38:12
practical effects I like that they're going to see all the you can see all the goopy little boils and stuff like that
1:38:18
they talked about Right Yeah No that's one of the things I remember from the original movies is there was lots of
1:38:23
really obnoxiously gross special effects
1:38:28
All right I guess now it's time for That's some weird [ __ ]
1:38:33
Some weird [ __ ] where we dig up the craziest quirkiest stories that make you go what the heck just happened Buckle up
1:38:39
It's about to get weird All right I I had just a couple of
1:38:47
stories two or three stories here Um the first one is that uh I don't know if
1:38:52
you've seen these Doug but they've been really popular the last couple weeks Uh they're all over social media People are
1:38:58
using AI to create these viral Bigfoot videos and it's I have I have not seen
1:39:04
these Oh my god I am not surprised They are really really funny It's like man I
1:39:10
shouldn't eat that Taco Bell like a Jack Links commercial Yeah I mean
1:39:16
it's it the the uh they don't look as they don't look like Bigfoot as much as
1:39:21
they look like uh you know like either orangutans or like big apes you know but
1:39:27
uh and it's they're just goofy like couple lines
1:39:32
All you got to do to find them is look up Bigfoot on on social media and they will be one of I think it'll be one of
1:39:38
the first things that pops up But this is what it says here on unexplainedmmysteries.com
1:39:45
AI generated footage showing Bigfoot vlogging about his day has been showing up everywhere recently Bigfoot seems to
1:39:52
have become something of an internet celebrity over the last few weeks thanks to new AI video generation tool enabling
1:40:00
just about anyone to create blog style clips The videos which are actually
1:40:06
quite impressive visually show one or more Bigfoot type creatures getting up
1:40:11
to their daily activities in the woods while talking directly to the camera Yes
1:40:17
apparently Bigfoot speak uh speaks perfect English and has an American accent These guys must not be from
1:40:23
America Of course he would You know I almost expected him to kind
1:40:29
of have a southern accent you know but he's more of a Northwest guy He's definitely a Northwest guy in the in
1:40:35
these videos because he sounds like everybody from around here Um
1:40:40
what was particularly remarkable is how easily it is to produce videos like this Google's V3 video generator can create
1:40:48
entire videos based on little more than a textual input from the user That said
1:40:54
subscriptions to the service are not exactly cheap If you haven't seen any of the AI Bigfoot vlogs before you can
1:41:02
check out this one below Here you know what I I think I should be able to play the audio from it at least
1:41:09
Hey everyone and welcome back to the channel A lot of you have been asking why I'm so rarely caught on camera
1:41:17
This is why you humans never see me Hey is it playing
1:41:22
So uh those humans I uh talked to they said they won't tell anyone Had to cut that part out I'm not hearing it for uh
1:41:29
reasons Oh you're not Oh and I forgot to mention those humans they gave me their phones too Always helps keep the vlogs
1:41:36
going Okay guys I'm going to play the whole thing It's it's it's like a minute and 30 seconds long That was like the
1:41:42
first 30 seconds Um it was show the audio is showing up on the recording so
1:41:47
you should be able to hear it there Um but yeah it's uh it's uh yeah like I
1:41:54
said just search for Bigfoot vlog V LG and uh and it's uh there's a bunch of
1:42:01
them now I've seen at least a half a dozen of these things in the last couple weeks They're very funny And uh I
1:42:09
actually I never I didn't even bother to look up what what AI thing they're using
1:42:14
because I figured I don't want to be another person to kind of jump on that bandwagon and just not have it go
1:42:20
anywhere Uh so yeah I didn't bother But yeah no I've seen a lot of those and
1:42:26
when I saw this article I was like that that's hilarious Um all right So this last story I have here
1:42:33
I've I've seen this before and I think I almost included it like a month ago on
1:42:39
an episode but I found some better stories to talk about but I So I decided to go ahead and play to go ahead and
1:42:44
pull it up this time Screeching Lank at Gull is the goal of this birdrain
1:42:50
contest The European Greeing Championship attracted 60 seagull
1:42:55
seagull noises Seagull sound alikes from 14 countries to the coastal town of Deep
1:43:03
Pane in Belgium Uh this past week Yeah
1:43:08
Okay Uh this past weekend and this came out in May So it was been a a couple
1:43:15
months at least say says it is it it's good to have a goal even if it's
1:43:21
screeching like a seagull and that was the aim of the fifth annual
1:43:26
European golf screeching championship which attracted
1:43:31
60 seagull sound alikes from 14 countries to the coastal town this past
1:43:36
weekend according to Boing Boing contestants were awarded points based on
1:43:42
their sound and performance in be in three categories adult junior and colony
1:43:50
That's a group of girls Okay The contest is intended to create more
1:43:56
positive image of the seabirds which have been called trash birds beach rats
1:44:03
klepto gulls by naysayers Klepto goals I love that one That one's awesome I would
1:44:09
have just called them uh uh well those are all really good ones I always just thought they were just like like crows
1:44:16
but uh but like gentrified crows Um
1:44:23
gulls are known to be intrusive uh to be so intrusive that the zoo in Blackpool
1:44:29
England hired people to dress up like dress up in inflatable eagle costumes to
1:44:34
scare the birds away That's great The the goals won't get any
1:44:42
hate from Denmark's Anna Brinald who took gold in the quirky
1:44:48
contest I like that the seagulls like fries because I love fries and they're just a
1:44:55
bit misunderstood like me and they're cute One time I saw a se I was at Cedar
1:45:01
Point Ohio and I saw a seagull swallow another bird hole
1:45:06
I I don't doubt it We were I was eating my fried cheese on a stick that I got at that at Cedar
1:45:14
Point there and feeding French fries to the little sparrows and a little sparrow took a French fry and then a seagull
1:45:21
just took him and just just reared back and swallowed him whole alive
1:45:27
Well I mean the funny thing is with when it comes to seagulls I always think of uh Finding Nemo Mine might
1:45:34
mine And that's exactly how I mean the the voice actors who did those
1:45:40
characters in that movie um they they definitely embodied that that that that
1:45:47
screeching sound that these animals make these birds Uh she says uh she was
1:45:53
slightly under uh hold up She admits um practicing for the bird brain contest
1:46:00
had its challenges I I worked with the seagulls I I I went to the beach and
1:46:06
looked at many seagulls and I thought they looked nice and I screeched at them
1:46:12
and they became scared of me She said "Maybe I'm saying something wrong in
1:46:17
seagull language." I don't know Oh my god Do Do we want to hear some of this do from the video Oh I can play Yeah I
1:46:24
can play some of the video Hold on I won't hear it evidently but I'll when I listen back I'll get to hear it Yeah Yeah This what is this is uh at the
1:46:35
one one hour 46 minutes I'll go ahead and play it You can pull it up
1:46:42
[Music] People think seagulls are uh oh wow uh annoying
1:46:51
Some people hate them Uh they see them like rats of the sea They screech a lot They make a lot of noise They leave
1:46:57
their droppings everywhere just part of the sea coast So you need to balance that We need some more simp No we don't
1:47:04
We don't really need to be you know they're basically like yeah we need to be neither to them because
1:47:12
because people see them as just noise and there's crap everywhere and
1:47:17
Yeah Yeah No I I I'm not saying be mean to them but you don't have to be nice to
1:47:22
them Yeah Yeah don't be cruel to animals I I
1:47:27
you know but yeah I can see why people don't really want seagulls around I mean
1:47:33
I've enjoyed feeding seagulls in my life but I mean probably not the best It's It's
1:47:38
one thing if if it's just one or two but if there's like 30 or 40 of them and they're all like demanding you feed them
1:47:46
no no no no no I I I I don't even like feeding like th those birds at parks and
1:47:52
stuff because that means that they're not actively looking for their own food They're just waiting for somebody else
1:47:58
to show up and give them food Yeah I don't even like doing that to the animals in the house So um yeah No
1:48:05
that's that's it All that's all I got for today Um I had a couple more but like I said I finn them up because I
1:48:10
think we were running a little a little long today I didn't want You had a nice full show Yeah I wasn't sure how long my
1:48:16
sections would take They they took plenty of time as well Wasn't sure I wasn't sure how long to I
1:48:23
mean I don't mind us talking for a couple hours That's fine And it's that's not uncommon for a podcast to go for
1:48:29
about 90 minutes to to to whatever Well and like you pointed out if anybody gets bored during a particular segment they
1:48:35
can always skip ahead Exactly All right Um and I think that is it for today
1:48:41
everybody Thanks for Yeah If you made it this far thank you so much Please like please subscribe leave us a fivestar
1:48:48
review on whatever platform you listen to Um and if you're not listening to the Majority Report every Monday through
1:48:55
Friday 9:00 a.m to noon Pacific time on YouTube or the majorityreport.com
1:49:00
This is not sponsored Um I just this is you know I think this is a great I think the Majority Report is a great way to
1:49:07
get daily stay in touch daily with the news hear guests that are experts on
1:49:13
topics that you won't normally hear covered in your evening national news right Um so I I just I I I've
1:49:19
recommended a lot of people but I need to really stress my recommendation for the majority report Well on YouTube and
1:49:27
as always we will have links to everything in the in the show description um down below Uh so uh again
1:49:35
thanks for tuning in and we will see you guys next time Have a great week guys
1:49:44
[Music]
1:49:54
every [Music]
1:50:03
80 We're running wild
1:50:22
I can't [Music]
1:50:29
call me loud
1:50:35
and messy That's my
1:50:41
madness [Music]
1:50:48
We're running wild focus fading chaotic
1:50:56
Turn the volume up Take a ride
1:51:04
[Music]

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Ep 013 - War Weren’t Declared

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