Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/22/23: Hostage Deal REACHED With 4 Day Pause, Former Obama Aide RACIST Harassments Caught On Cam, WITCH-HUNT: Scream Actress FIRED For Palestine Posts

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

Krystal discusses the news that Israel and Hamas have reached a tentative deal on Hostages with a 4 day pause in fighting, a former Obama adviser is caught on camera repeatedly harassing Halal vendors, and Hollywood ignites a McCarthy-esque Witch Hunt for wrong think on Palestine as lead star of the SCREAM series is fired for posting about genocide. BP Holiday Merch LIVE NOW (Use code BLACKFRIDAY for 15% off Non-Holiday Items): https://shop.breakingpoints.com/collections/breaking-points-holiday-collection To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, guys. So we were technically supposed to be off for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, but there were a number of stories that I really wanted to update you on. So I'm going to go through a few of them here for you. To start with, there is a hostage deal and a temporary ceasefire. So I want to give you the details of that. In addition, a wild viral video, actually multiple viral videos of this total psycho harassing a halal truck food vendor. And you're never going to guess, or maybe you will guess, who this man turned out to be. You've got to hear those details. It says a lot about the US government under Obama, under Clinton, and our policy towards Israel. We'll break that down for you. And in addition, there is what I think you could only describe as a complete witch hunt happening in Hollywood right now.

I'm trying to find anyone who is exercising wrong think on Israel and Palestine. And those people are losing their jobs. They are losing, you know, roles in major films. They are being cut loose by their talent agencies. So I've got a bunch of details and updates for you there as well. But I want to go ahead and start with the biggest news, certainly, which is they have now officially come to a hostage for temporary ceasefire deal. Let's go and put some of these details up on the screen. Israel voted. Their security cabinet voted on this yesterday and approved it. Negotiations happened between the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Qatar, and Egypt. I think the Egyptians and the Qataris were incredibly crucial in being able to come to these terms. So here's what we know. Hamas is supposed to release 50 hostages,

including Israeli women and children. Included in that total, we expect there to be three U.S. citizens as well. In exchange, Israel is going to release 150 Palestinian prisoners. These are also mostly women and minors. I'm going to give you some more details on exactly who those individuals are in just a moment. Israel will also allow around 300 aid trucks per day to enter Gaza from Egypt plus more fuel. And this ceasefire duration is expected to last for four days. However, there is a condition in here that if additional hostages are released, that ceasefire could be extended. The numbers that I saw were for every 10 additional hostages who were released, the ceasefire would be extended for an additional day. So no doubt about it.

This is a temporary reprieve. However, it is a reprieve nonetheless. Incredibly important given the dire situation on the ground to be able to get those aid trucks in, to be able to give people in Gaza a break from the bombing. Of course, it would be much better if the bombing was just not going to restart at all. But very clear, this is not a permanent ceasefire, only a temporary measure. It's also important to think about the context here. So there were previous deals that were being negotiated that were on the table. There was a report that they basically had ironed out a very similar deal for a return of hostages in exchange for a temporary ceasefire. And that was blown up by Israel's ground invasion. There have been a lot of indications that Netanyahu and his security

cabinet have really not wanted to secure any sort of deal, but they were under tremendous pressure. Now, there's a lot of leaks to the U.S. media that, oh, the U.S. has been, and Biden in particular, has been putting a lot of pressure on behind the scenes to try to secure this deal. That is certainly possible, certainly possible that that is the case. However, I think more likely the pressure that Netanyahu ultimately responded to here came from his own domestic population. There were huge protests. There were massive sentiment in favor of trying to secure some hostage release and be able to bring some of the Israeli citizens home who've been held in unconscionable conditions by Hamas in Gaza. So I think that's a lot of what unfolded here. So let me go ahead and give you some details about the Israeli, the Palestinians who are being held by Israelis, who some of they might be when they are released.

Go ahead and put this up on the screen. Bay-esque fashion, where they're held indefinitely with no charges filed in what human rights organizations have documented to be abhorrent and torturous conditions. As of this week, according to this New York Times article, the total number of what one aid organization calls Palestinian political prisoners include people from Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. That total number was 7,000. That's up from about 5,000 before October 7th. That includes more than 2,000 people held in that administrative detention, which is what I was referring to, meaning they are being held indefinitely without charges. Legal Rights Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, called Adala, said it was monitoring 121 cases of arrests

and detentions linked to social media posts, some of which merely contained expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza or even verses shared from the Quran. Military Court Watch, a nonprofit legal group, said last year that of the 100 Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces that it had interviewed, 74% reported physical abuse, 42% said they were put in solitary confinement. So that is some of the details because you might be wondering, like, I haven't really heard about these Palestinians that are being held by Israelis. It's been much less of a focus of international media coverage. As I said, this is something that is done commonly in Israel even before October 7th.

Those detentions and arrests and imprisonments have escalated since October 7th. So it includes many hundreds. We don't know exactly the number of women and children. So those are some of the people who will be released on the Palestinian side by the Israelis. And of course, this is good news. I mean, it's a lot less than what you would hope for. But for those families of the hostages who have been just sick with worry and grief, I hope that these 50 hostages are returned. They should all be released, of course. And for the people of Gaza, obviously, it's the aid trucks much needed, small respite much needed, but wildly insufficient in order to bring an ultimate

end to this conflict. And I wanted to add this piece, which was reported by Politico and is pretty wild, about what the Biden administration's concerns were about this deal, what their fears are. Their fears aren't that, oh, this is not enough. It's not long enough. There aren't enough hostages released. No, put this up on the screen. Dr. Trita Parsi flagged this. Apparently, the Biden folks fear that a pause in the fighting may enable more journalists to get into Gaza and cover the carnage. This is a quote from this Politico report. There was some concern in the administration about an unintended consequence of the pause that would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity

to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel. So they're not worried about the human beings. They're worried that we may be able to see the extent of the devastation that has already been wrought in Gaza, the extent of the carnage that has already been brought in Gaza. That's their concern in this moment. It's quite astonishing. I mean, it's incredible that they would admit this to the press. It's incredible that this is the way that they're thinking about this conflict. And it harkens back to those statements from Tony Blinken when he traveled to Israel and was apparently trying to make the case to Netanyahu that we needed a quote unquote humanitarian pause. And he said, no, no, this is for you. This is so we can buy you some time so that you can continue

the bombing campaign for longer. So when you see statements like this made to Politico that, you know, our real concern here is that people may see the carnage, it dovetails with those comments from Blinken that the real concern here isn't humanitarian. The real concern is buying Israel more time so that they can continue the bombing campaign, the indiscriminate bombing campaign, which has already killed, we don't know, somewhere 15,000 potentially civilians, depending on the numbers in the count that you're using, thousands and thousands of children, that that bombing campaign can continue for a longer period of time. Let me go ahead and put this up on the screen, Netanyahu's reaction to the announcement of this

deal. He wants to make it clear to his public and to our public and to the world that this ceasefire is temporary. It in no way means an end to the hostilities, to the war that they're waging on Gaza. He says the war will continue, quote, we will not stop the war after the ceasefire. There's nonsense out there suggesting that we will halt the war after the ceasefire to return the hostages. I would like to make it clear we are at war and we will continue the war until we achieve all our goals. Eliminate Hamas, return all the hostages and missing and guarantee that there will be no threat to Israel in Gaza. So making it clear to satisfy his population and certainly his extremely fringe right-wing outright fascist cabinet that he has no intentions of stopping. They intend to continue. We've been tracking how the campaign

is moving from the north to the south. I mean, they've already made Gaza City completely uninhabitable, unlivable, according to reports in Israeli media, including Haaretz. So Gaza City is destroyed. Storming al-Shifa was kind of the final piece of rendering Gaza City completely unlivable. And now they're saying, OK, well, actually, Hamas leadership, their headquarters, we said it was al-Shifa. Now we're saying it's in Khan Yunus. They're saying that Hamas has fled to the south. And so they're ramping up the bombing campaign in the South, including in communists. And so that's what we can expect to continue once this short-term temporary pause in hostilities is over. And just to underscore again, the horrific nature of what is unfolding here and

frankly, the U.S. complicity and U.S. unwillingness to use any of the considerable leverage we have to change the results that are occurring on the ground. Let's put this up on the screen. Apparently, the U.S. has been sending the coordinates of aid organizations on the ground in Gaza to Israel in order to help prevent strikes on those aid organizations, which is a real red line in war, clearly against international laws of war. Targeting aid organizations, except in absolutely extraordinary circumstances, is a war crime. But despite that effort, many humanitarian sites have been bombarded. And if you read this article, they detail how there are standard channels of deconfliction usually run through the UN where aid organizations, hospitals, schools,

and the like will send their coordinates through the UN so that Israel or whoever the army is, whoever the war fighting force is, can avoid striking those targets. Well, that channel was being ignored. So they decided, okay, well, maybe we can get help from the U.S. So they started sending their coordinates through U.S. members of Congress, any sort of senior officials, State Department officials they could get a hold

of. And the U.S. started providing these coordinates to Israel saying, hey, don't target these hospitals, don't target these schools, et cetera. Israel completely ignored all of this. And that has been the dynamic throughout this war. Biden will sort of ask nicely that they bomb a little bit nicer than they've been doing. Maybe use smaller bombs. Maybe don't target thousands and thousands of civilians. And since there's no willingness to use the leverage that we have, Israel just ignores it and does whatever they want. So that's the trend that will continue. But as of today, some good news, certainly in terms of hostages being released, prisoners on the Israeli side being released, Palestinians being released, and a short-term temporary ceasefire. So at least some sort of progress and let's hope that this short-term ceasefire

can lead swiftly to a permanent ceasefire, cessation of hostilities, returning of all of the hostages, and ultimately peace. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband. It's a cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone

breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Now I'm curious, do they like rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me and he's getting older now too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is. And they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's like really the GOAT.

Like, he's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. Like, that's what's really important

and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit off of that, I'm really happy, or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. of somebody being a complete jerk and asked them to be identified. So this video got posted of a man who not once,

but multiple times went back to the same halal food cart vendor in New York city and harassed him in the most disgusting, racist, outrageous way, multiple days, not just one day, multiple days, not just one day, multiple days. And you will never guess who this man, who this psycho, absolute lowlife turned out to be. First thing I'm going to play for the video for you. So you can watch the behavior and judge it for yourself. And then

on the other side, I'm going to reveal to you who this individual turned out to be. Take a listen. You know the Muqabirat? Hmm? The Muqabirat. No, I don't know. You don't know? They speak English.

No? Yeah, go. The Muqabirat in Egypt will get your parents. Go, go, go. Does your father like his fingernails? They'll take them out one by one. Did you rape your daughter like Mohammed did? Hmm?

Did you rape your daughter like Mohammed? I did did you rape your daughter like muhammad i speak english you only speak english no english you don't speak english yes all right well that's that see that just shows how ignorant you are because your muhammad was a rapist what do you think of that people who use the koran as a toilet does it bother you it's not my fault that you pray to a criminal listen i'm working now okay can you leave fault that you pray to a criminal! Listen, I'm working now, okay? Can you leave please? Do you want to buy something? No!

Okay, go! I don't want to go! I have a right to stay here! You have no right to be on the sidewalk! Do you have a permit? Yeah, I have a permit, I have a license. Okay, but you don't have a visa. I work here.

But you're a terrorist! You support terrorism! Listen, go! I'm not supporting something! You do! You support terrorism. Listen, go. I'm not supporting something. You do. You support terrorism. I'm not supporting. Go. I'm just working here. You're a terrible person. You kill children, not me. Go.

My kids? What about my kids? You kill children, not me. Go. I didn't kill children. Okay, why sit here? You know why? If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. So that man who says 4,000 dead Palestinian kids isn't enough, who accused this man, the food cart vendor, of being a terrorist, who asked if he raped his daughter. I mean, just the most horrific things you can imagine. That man turns out to be Stuart Seldoitz. This is confirmed,

by the way. This is not rumor. This is not speculation. This is confirmed. Stuart Seldoitz, acting former director for the National Security Council South Asia Directorate under Obama, and was deputy director, senior political officer in the U.S. State Department's Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003. More recently, he served as foreign affairs chair for Gotham Government Relations, which announced his, fired him immediately. And not only that, said that if the man he was harassing wants to sue him, they will represent him pro bono. So this disgusting human being was an aide in the Obama administration. He was involved in Israel and Palestinian affairs during the time when the Oslo Accords, there was still a hope of peace and peace deals being, you know, potential deals being traded back and forth. Absolutely insane.

But on another level, not that surprising. Sadly, not that surprising. And why do I say that? Well, for one, clearly view Arabs, Arab Americans, Palestinians as less than human, as worthy of their scorn, as all of them terrorists, et cetera. No, we shouldn't be surprised by that because these people who hold those views are exactly the type that would succeed given the consistent policy, whether it is Democrats or Republicans, of U.S., successive U.S. administrations. This has been bipartisan policy

for decades and decades. Now, Mr. Saldewitz has since replied. He does not deny that these videos, which, again, happened over multiple visits over a number of weeks where he came back and back to harass apparently the same halal food truck vendor who's just trying to live and feed his family or whatever. He admits in an interview with City and State, quote, I did have an argument with a food vendor. It is quite possible that it's me. I mean, I've not seen the video, but I believe it's probably me. No shame there, apparently. Selda said he regularly passes the halal cart vendor and wanted to engage him in a discussion about current events in the Mideast. He said he became defended when the vendor did not condemn Hamas. I went to the food cart expecting

to buy a soda. And I had an understanding that most of the food cart guys in New York are Egyptian. He said, I said to him, this is a tough time to be an Egyptian in New York. And he said, why? And I said, because of what happened on October 7th with Hamas. And he said, well, I approve of Hamas or I like Hamas or something like that. If I had to do it all over again, I would not have raised the religious aspect, Selda said, insisting he was not bigoted against Muslims. I don't think I'm an Islamophobic guy. I've spoken up for equal treatment of Muslims on numerous occasions with numerous different people. Selda said that he's been in multiple arguments with the same vendor, but denied allegations he has had confrontations with

other vendors around the city. Yes, I went back because I passed that food cart regularly and I went back and had other arguments. So this person does not even deny that it was him, doesn't deny that he went back multiple times to harass this vendor. And by the way, man, it's amazing that the vendor that he was harassing repeatedly was able to stay so calm, cool, and collected, kudos to him, because there is no way that I would have been able to keep my composure faced with those sorts of repeated insults, bullying, and harassment over days and days. And he's just nicely asking Stuart Seldoit's absolute creep and disgusting human being to leave. So, you know, we seldom do these like, oh, look at this viral video moment and, you know, look at this Karen or whatever.

We don't do those because one individual person doing something obnoxious, oftentimes too, sometimes they're taken out of context. You don't know what the full story here is, et cetera. Here, not only do you see the full picture of this repeated harassment over days, but it exposes a little something, doesn't it? About the type of people who are working on Israel and Palestine policy in our government, supposed diplomat at the state department, working on this very issue and the way they actually view, in some cases, the human beings who are involved in this conflict. It's a shocking window into the underbelly of how these policies ultimately get crafted. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast

hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case,

bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. My favorite

line on there was, my son and my daughter gonna be proud when they hear my old tapes. Yeah. Now, I'm curious, do they, like, rap along now? Yeah, because I bring him on tour with me, and he's getting older now, too. So his friends are starting to understand what that type of music is, and they're starting to be like, yo, your dad's really the GOAT.

He's a legend. So he gets it. What does it mean to leave behind a music legacy for your family? It means a lot to me. Just having a good catalog and just being able to make people feel good. That's what's really important and that's what stands out. Is that our music changes people's lives for the better. So the fact that my kids get to benefit

off of that, I'm really happy or my family in general. Let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide. Listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, the last story I wanted to bring you guys is what I can only describe as a complete witch hunt that is unfolding right now in Hollywood.

Here's the very latest, but there's a whole lot of other pieces here. But let's go ahead and start with this. So Melissa Barrera, who was starring in Scream 7, has reportedly been fired from the Scream franchise for denouncing the genocide in Gaza. One of her posts, I tried to look at what it was that she said that was apparently so insane and abhorrent and quote unquote anti-Semitic that she got fired for. One of them, she had an Instagram post that said, I too come from a colonized country. Palestine will be free. They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds. In addition, she shared a Jewish insider article with an Israeli historian making the case that Israel's

actions in Gaza constitute genocide. So I don't know if there were other posts in addition, but these are the ones that have come to people's attention on social media that apparently were sufficient to get her fired from the Scream franchise. The Spyglass put out a statement explaining their decision to fire her from this film and this franchise. They said, quote, we have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide. So that would reference when she was sharing a Jewish insider Israeli historian analysis of what is unfolding in Gaza right now. Ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion, or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into

hate speech. So that is their justification. But as I mentioned, she is far from alone in facing professional consequences, severe professional consequences for daring to have wrong think on the Israel and Palestine conflicts. Variety had a great report where they, you know, went through some of the well-known instances, some of the instances that have been reported. Let's go and put this up on the screen. I want to go through a few of these. So they talk about, and we covered this previously, CAA, one of their top agents, Maha Dekeel, ignited a firestorm with her Instagram posts, including one that said, what's more heartbreaking than witnessing genocide, witnessing the denial that genocide

is happening? In response, she was relieved of her duties as co-chief of the motion pictures department. Ultimately, she was allowed to stay on as an agent. And a lot of people are pointing to the intervention directly of one of her clients, Tom Cruz, on her behalf, who showed up in person to make it clear that he was backing her. So Tom Cruz to the rescue on that one. However, she still was demoted. And apparently there was a lot of fallout at the agency in both directions, people very upset that she was demoted at all and people upset that she wasn't fired and axed completely thanks to Tom Cruise's intervention. You have them coming apparently for Boots Riley. La La Land producer Mark Platt texted WME leadership.

That's another big Hollywood agency about why Boots Riley was still a client after the sorry to bother you writer director urged his followers on X to boycott an industry screening footage of Hamas atrocities in L.A. So he told people not to go to this screening of Hamas atrocities, and now people are trying to get him fired. Several agents at UTA, another big agency, have expressed outrage internally over a recent open letter spearheaded by writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. Believe he should be dropped from the agency's roster. Coates was the first signature on an October 14th letter that many industryites felt dehumanized Israelis and softened Hamas's actions with such lines as Hamas militants broke out of Gaza. More than 1,300 Israelis were subsequently killed. The agency is sticking with him, though it has severed ties with Susan Sarandon over her controversial words on the conflict. Susan Sarandon, of course, a noted activist, very courageous in all sorts of circumstances, and has been speaking out on

behalf of the humanity of Palestinians. And that was apparently enough to get her dropped from her talent agency in spite of all of her long record of work and accomplishments. CAA, too, has been willing to cut ties over problematic social media missives. The agency fired assistant German Barakat over her post that called all Israelis white supremacists and mocked a post from the country's official handle that stated even Israelis deserve to live by calling it a fascist regime. CAA also dropped Sarah Rao and Regina Jackson, who co-wrote the 2022 book, White Women, Everything You Already Know

About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better. They were fine with it when they were doing anti-racist work, but now it's another story. Their social media posts got them fired. Rao wrote on X, Zionists are starting to panic that more and more of the world sees them

for the bloodthirsty genocidal ghouls that they are. And maybe the line in this that was the most stunning to me was that apparently WhatsApp text chains have popped up all over Hollywood sharing instances of perceived anti-Semitism. WMEs is particularly lively, they say. One member derided director Ava DuVernay for posting in support of that agent that I mentioned at the beginning who was demoted that Tom Cruise intervened on her behalf. text chains flying around with people trying to scrape Instagram posts and find any instance where they feel that the person said the wrong thing and deserves to be blacklisted, deserves to be fired, deserves to be punished for it. It's utter insanity. And of course, it's not just in Hollywood where we've seen this happen. We've seen all sorts of censorship coming from official governments, certainly the government of Israel, government of France. We've seen people losing their jobs over things that they said in support of Palestinians. really is just like the war on terror era when anyone who said anything different than official U.S. government policy was branded a terrorist sympathizer. And now you layer on this, this,

you know, sort of like weaponization or use of woke language to brand anyone who has a different opinion as an anti-Semite worthy of scorn, worthy of blacklisting, worthy of being shoved down of polite society, you know, and aggressive efforts by the ADL to say that if you are have a critique of Zionism, that makes you anti-Semitic. I mean, that's insane. Zionism is a political project. There are many Jews who are anti-Zionist. There are many non-Jews who are Zionist. If you can't critique a political ideology without being smeared and branded as somehow a racist anti-Semite, that's insane. It's insane that, you know, you can't critique foreign government without being smeared and branded as an anti-Semite and fired and facing all these professional consequences, that's completely insane. And so this climate of fear has seemingly completely overtaken Hollywood, maybe more than any other place. And, you know, it's noteworthy because, of course, with previous political moments, Hollywood has tended to be more unified on the liberal side of things.

And so now you have this huge schism and people apparently, they're out for blood. They're out aggressively trying to fire and cancel absolutely anyone who disagrees with the stated, you know, official U.S. policy. You are not allowed to dissent and keep your agents, keep your ties to Hollywood elites, keep your roles and your credits in films wild to watch what is unfolding right now. And just goes back to with so many of these things, the throwback vibes to the war on terror and the, you know, freak outs and the panics and the witch hunts of that time. So much of this, it just seems like we have not learned any lessons and we are retreading so much of the history that I had thought and hoped perhaps we had put behind us. So in any case, that's what I got for you today. Thanks so much, guys, for supporting us. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

And if anything else pops off that's big, of course, we will keep you updated. But otherwise, and we do have some great content for you, too, that we recorded. Long interview I did with Norm Finkelstein. Long interview that Sagar did with Jocko Willick. And those are going to be posted a little bit earlier for premium subscribers. We're also going to release a few teaser clips of that, too. So make sure you stay tuned for that.

Those are some longer conversations we thought would be a good way to dive into some deeper topics over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Enjoy your time, guys. And we will certainly see you back here for full shows

next week on Monday. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community.

I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community. From breaking

headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7. Because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying.