Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/13/23 Weekly Roundup: Biden Classified Files Saga, Pete Buttigieg Airlines FAA, Krystal and Saagar Debate Border Crisis, Jordan Peterson Censorship, Richard Wolff Interview, Trump NFT's Losing Value

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

In this Friday Weekly Roundup we're discussing Biden's Classified Documents, Pete Buttigieg's inability to manage the Airlines and hold them accountable, Krystal and Saagar debate the Border crisis during Biden's visit, Ontario College of Pyschologists demands Jordan Peterson take a re-education course over his social media posts, Richard Wolff joins the show to discuss inflation and the future of 2023 economy, and Trump NFT's losing 72% of their value.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/AUSTIN LIVE SHOW FEB 3RDTickets: https://tickets.austintheatre.org/9053/9054To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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BreakingPoints.com. News breaking last night. Well, let's put it up there on the screen. It turns out that 10 classified documents were actually removed from Joe Biden's presidential, a vice presidential office found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement while he was moving out of that office in 2017. The classified documents were actually found by Biden's own team in an internal review, presumably, Crystal, after the Mar-a-Lago raid in November and the general public consternation about it. The Biden lawyers themselves were like, hey, maybe we should check our own archives. They did so. They found actually 10 documents with classified markings on them that were inside

of their archives removed from the White House while Joe Biden was the vice president. Now, according to Biden and his team, they have immediately returned those documents upon discovery to the Department of Justice. However, the Department of Justice itself has actually opened a review of the case. Attorney General Merrick Garland actually appointing a Trump appointee, a special prosecutor, to actually review the entire case. So all of this a bit awkward and frankly embarrassing for the Biden administration just because they made such a big deal of the Trump case. I mean, I would have to say, of course, what separates the two is not the possession of the classified

documents itself, but with Trump, there appears to be, you know, a concerted effort by Trump, his lawyers and others to simply just not return the documents, not necessarily out of malice, but increasingly out of arrogance and incompetence by basically saying these are my documents, which not really how presidential records work. But I think it does validate one of the points that a lot of people who had defended him said, putting the obstruction aside, they're like, hey, I think a lot of these presidential libraries do have at least some sensitive documents. It also does raise a question broadly to me. Why do these people get to hang on to literally anything if they are matters of state? Why are they allowed to be at these libraries at all? Should they not just be purely in the possession of the National Archives? Maybe that's just a crazy thought. Just because you're president, I don't think that entitles you for all time to possession of your own files. I think that's a good point. I think another point is that, like, obviously over classification is a

massive issue. So a lot of these, I mean, I don't know what these particular documents from Biden were. I don't know how secret they were, what the highest classification marking, et cetera, was on them. But a lot of stuff that is technically classified is totally available in the public sphere and really shouldn't be classified. So that's an important thing to keep in mind here as well. I think your point about the difference between him and Trump's case is also, you know, a valid one. Probably the if Trump ends up being indicted on the document issue, it is more likely to be because of the obstruction. Yes. Than because he, you know, accidentally or intentionally or whatever held on to these documents. At this point, there's all kinds of reporting about how they were going back and forth with the National Archives for a while.

It was productive. And then basically he decided, like, no, these are my documents. I'm going to Stonewall. They apparently have some camera footage of him, like, moving boxes around and trying to conceal them. So that is probably going to be the bigger issue for Trump. But putting all of that aside, obviously this is a very bad look for the president. It's very awkward, given the concern and consternation about the documents that former President Trump was ultimately holding on to. There's another thing that, you know, it's I guess a little bit of a side story here, but something that Ken Vogel

was pointing out, which I think is worth noting. So these documents were located, were found by Biden's own attorneys at the Penn Biden Center. And this is where he had this cushy gig during the offseason when he was not vice president and was not yet running for president, where he made nine hundred thousand dollars over the course of just two years for a vaguely defined role that involved no regular classes and about 12 public appearances on campus. So this was a very cushy gig for him where he apparently did basically nothing and earned almost a million dollars and hung out with some classified documents in an office is apparently what was ultimately going on here. So there's a lot of layers of exposing the political system and the way all of this ultimately works at work in this story. Oh, absolutely. I don't know how we created this weird system where presidents and former officials feel entitled to their matters of state while they leave office, even though they're allegedly at least important to the American public. And then are then just allowed to create these insane centers where they get paid a ton of money and also, by the way, get to solicit private donations. You know, like the Jeff Bezos giving $100 million to the Obama Library in Chicago. The fact that Obama, I believe, is like in consternation

with some community activists in order to get some of the land for his own. But again, I don't even want to make it about them. You know, my hometown, College Station, the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library is there. And again, like you'll go there and you'll see treasures, pieces of the Berlin Wall and jewels and other things that were given to President Bush while he was in office. And I was like, I don't really understand why this stuff is all here. Who actually owns it? There just seems to be this quasi, almost like a royal treatment that we give people and that really just needs to go away completely. There's one last piece that I want to add on to this, which is the timing of the disclosure that these documents were located because apparently the documents were actually found like a week before the midterms.

Wow. And then they waited a couple months until they secured their election situation for this revelation to ultimately be made. I'm reading from a New York Times story here. They say the White House statement said that it is cooperating with the Department of Justice, but did not explain why Mr. Biden's team waited more than two months to announce the discovery of the documents, which came a week before the midterm congressional elections, when the news would have been an explosive last-minute development.

So also another little interesting note there. Just the level of corruption here is unbelievable. Lock them all up. Yeah. Look, takeaway is, yes, it is substantially different, at least legally, you know, in terms of the way that it's being treated. But, you know, on the substance, clearly he did the exact same thing. I guess just didn't have the idiocy to try and cover it up. And it's going to be embarrassing for him regardless, especially if Trump does get indicted. Expect to hear all about it on the Fox News channel and elsewhere. So get acquainted with the details, folks, and the timeline.

We're equal opportunity in terms of our coverage. We've got to cover it. It's going to be an important story. Pete Buttigieg, my favorite subject, air travel. So as CounterPoints did a phenomenal job doing yesterday, we had a complete shutdown of air travel in the United States for several hours up until 9 a.m. Eastern time. I don't have to tell you that causes massive cascading delays, both international and within the country. There were even some stories of planes that were literally halfway through in the air and had to turn around and go back. Oh, I missed that.

What a nightmare for people who had to participate. I believe it was Marquise Brownlee who talked about that, the tech YouTuber. Anyway, so all eyes on our Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. This is now the third massive meltdown of U.S. air travel that has happened under him, the second in just a matter of weeks. What's going on? So we turn to our great secretary in the middle of this crisis, and he says, I have no idea what's going on. Here's what he said after air travel was actually resumed. Let's take a listen. Well, now that the system is up and running,

our primary focus is to determine that root cause. And I've directed FAA to figure out exactly how this happened, the timeline piece by piece about what was known overnight going into last night and then coming out of it. And most importantly, as you might imagine, a critical system like this has a lot of redundancy built into it with backups. So we need to understand why with all of that redundancy it still rose to the level that there had to be a ground stop lasting about an hour and a half and the kind of delays that we saw. This is an incredibly complex system.

So glitches or complications happen all the time. Glitches or complications happen all the time. I have no idea what happened. What do we pay you for? You know, look, let's go and put the next one up there on the screen. There were 10,000 flights that were delayed or canceled just yesterday. And passengers, of course, just having a complete nightmare. Also, anybody who flies a lot knows this, which is that if the morning flight gets delayed, those flights fly five legs after that.

If the 6 a.m. gets delayed, that means the 9 a.m. is delayed, which means the noon and the 4 p.m. and the 6 p.m. and the 7 p.m. So you can go all the way down the line. It was a nightmare traveling yesterday. And it's just one of the—look, we have one of the nation's most robust air, you know, we have so much air travel that occurs in this country due to our geography. Used to be, we were kind of the shining light of aviation across the world. We've had complete meltdowns in our system all under this man. People are like, what is he supposed to do? You know, oversee the computer programmers? I'm like, yeah, actually. Because the Inflation Reduction Act, infrastructure bill, and others actually gave a billion dollars to the U.S. Department of Transportation,

specifically to update FAA computer systems. Now, in terms of what actually went wrong, news came out this morning. It says that a computer programmer effectively uploaded like a damaged file and that's what- Corrupted data. Corrupted data. And that's what brought down the whole system for several hours. Okay. But my question is like, why is it even possible to be that vulnerable for one of the most critical systems in the entire United States where you ground every flight? That stuff hasn't happened since like 9-11 in terms of no flights that are allowed up in the sky. This is a total breakdown in the FAA

system. Also, we should remember Buttigieg was bragging about the FAA and its ability to handle some of the critical infrastructure in this moment when the airlines were actually blaming the FAA for many of the delays several months ago. And he specifically pointed to things that he was doing within the FAA to make it operate better. I mean, I just think this highlights like a basic lack of competence because, you know, fool me once, one problem, okay, you know, we can talk a little bit. Although the one problem actually lasted several months. This is the third major meltdown. This is the worst year in like a 12 month or so period in modern history of air travel since 9-11.

That is now all happening under Pete Buttigieg. Yes. And billions of dollars in commerce are being lost. But put that aside. Think about the people who this stuff affects. It's not a joke. People are flying to funerals sometimes, to weddings. You know, I mean, it ruins people's lives whenever you have stuff like this happen.

And the stress and the extra money that some people have to undergo, it's just outrageous. You know, it's not just for the rich. A lot of working and middle class people are very affected by this. Yeah, I mean, and Pete is supposed to be Mr. McKenzie. So he's supposed to be, you know, expert at making these systems run super efficiently, et cetera, et cetera. So there's that.

And I agree with you. If it was just this one incident, you could say, you know what? Not really his fault. Like, it's an one incident, you could say, you know what? Not really his fault. Like, it's an old system. Who could know? Et cetera. When you look at the pattern of one crisis after another crisis after another crisis, it becomes very clear. This man is wildly unqualified for, and by the way, uninterested in, actually doing this job.

Pete Buttigieg is basically good at two things, and they're related things. One of those things is getting rich people to donate money to his campaign. That's number one, wine cave, remember all that. Number two is saying a lot of words that basically mean nothing. Those are the two things he's good at. And last time there was a big airline crisis with Southwest and whatever, I saw Claire McCaskill on Twitter. She reposted one of his cable news appearances, and she's like, oh, my God, he's just so good. And it's like, Jesus Christ, you all are the hollowest people on earth.

The man is failing at his job in every way you could possibly measure. He's got to be the worst cabinet secretary in the entire administration. And yet he goes on cable news and he's able to like bullshit and spin for a few minutes. And now you're like, oh, my God, he's so amazing. It is so shallow and so ridiculous. We all know the reason he's in this job. It's because he did what Joe Biden wanted him to do in the primary when he was told to do it. He didn't want to be OMB secretary because he wanted the glamour of being cabinet secretary and being a part of the infrastructure package and traveling around to his ribbon cuttings.

This has been a disaster for him politically. It's been a bigger disaster for the country at a time when, you know, I don't know that the transportation secretary has ever been more important. No, this is probably since 1975, the deregulation of airlines, and arguably during 9-11 has never been more important. Because you had the supply chain crises. You've had these airline crises. And again, railroads, to make it really clear on this, this man has a lot of power to hold these airlines to account. There are all sorts of issues here where basically they book out a flight schedule they know they can't possibly achieve, but they're

able to goose their revenue and their earnings by booking people on flights that everything has to go absolutely perfect in order for it to happen. And they took all this money from us. They got bailed out and then they pushed their staff out. So they're wildly understaffed again at their own, like this was their own failure. Multiple politicians, Ro Khanna, Bernie Sanders, others, David Dayen and the American Prospect, they've been pointing out ways that he could use his power in order to make sure these airlines are held to account and actually have real measurable fees and that passengers are being made whole when this happens to him. Hasn't done it. He's he'll go on and he'll bluster on TV and they have not charged a single major airline. And then you're right.

He was also part of perhaps the biggest Biden administration betrayal of working people, which was crushing the rail workers and sending them back to work and siding with the bosses there. So it has been one catastrophe after another catastrophe after another catastrophe. And I don't know if this is related or not. You know, Debbie Stabenow, who's the senator from Michigan, she's announced she's retiring. So that opens up an open seat there. Obviously, it's going to be highly competitive, both in the general election, also in the primary. Pete had just moved to Michigan, which is, I guess, where Chastin is from.

Yes, that's right. And so I don't know if this is why, but he's already announced he's not going to go for that seat. I mean, I do, I, my biggest hope out of all of this is that this has actually really damaged his political career and that people actually care about the substance of the fact that this man was totally unable and unequipped to do what was a really important job at a really important time. Oh, tremendously important job. And look, we're not just talking. Put the data up there, please. I went ahead and pulled this from earlier this year. Take a look at 22 versus 2019. In January of 2022, for US airline cancellations, 2.8% 2019, more than double, 5.6% in 2022. And it remained elevated from January to September, with only three months in 2019 through September where things resumed. But the delay number was also a catastrophe. It remained above 20% all the way from January to

August. That's almost one-fifth of all flights in the United States that were delayed under Pete Buttigieg, with a normal delay rate of somewhere between 14% and 15% on average in the pre-before times. Again, he has actual unilateral authority to levy fines. Furthermore, in terms of the actual behavior of the airlines itself, look, the airlines are greedy, and they have been doing everything they possibly can to juice their stock price. And in fact, one of the problems is all of the airlines are required to try and contribute to an FAA infrastructure upgrade given the fact that they benefit from it. And as our friend Matt Stoller pointed out, put this up there on the screen, they have been trying to avoid contributing to FAA infrastructure upgrades specifically so that they can do stock buybacks. This was a key part of the Southwest Airlines story. Southwest Airlines' meltdown happened just three weeks after they issued

or announced a new dividend to stockholders because they said that profits were good and that they're well-prepared for holiday travel. Those profits easily and should have been reinvested in their staffing system, which would not have required them at one point to cancel 50% of all flights worldwide in the middle of one of the busiest holiday travel seasons. He has authority to look at all of this. And I am watching this. It's insane, as you said. We have never needed a good transportation secretary more. Is he individually responsible for each one of these things? No. But he has oversight authority and needs to tackle this with the crisis. Every single one of us knows that he cares more about going on CNN to talk about the gay marriage bill. That's all he's actually good

for. Going on Fox and being like, no, Brett Baer, let me tell you why I'm actually doing it. By the Biden administration is the best thing. Look, man, all of us want to do is catch a flight and have a reasonable expectation that it's going to be on time. And then if it does get canceled, that you won't get bilked for the know, for the money that you already spent on a very inflated ticket. Definition of an empty suit. And bigger picture, think of what it says about the Democratic Party,

that they're like, you know, big up-and-comers, the bench that they are so excited to build the bridge to the future with is Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg. I mean, two of the least equipped, like least talent in terms of actually doing the job. Now, Kamala is also even terrible on TV. Pete is just a complete empty suit. He is a BS artist. He's good at that. He's good at like his little cable news appearances. He is very good at that. Does that help you get your flights?

Does that help the rail workers who needed an administration to have their back? Did that help our supply chain issues to get solved? No, not whatsoever. When it actually mattered, when you actually needed content and someone who was capable and someone who was willing to stand up to the airlines who are powerful, moneyed interest, nowhere to be found. And the last thing I'll note here is even the mainstream press has taken note. I saw a piece this morning in Axios. Now they frame it as like, oh, some of this is unfair, et cetera, et cetera. But it is starting to be noted in the outlets that Pete cares about very much that this has gone extremely poorly for him. Good. Maybe it'll encourage him to do his job better.

But I'm not going to hold my breath. I don't know that he can. I don't know he's capable of it. Even if he wanted to, I don't know that he's capable of it. I saw somebody say, Crystal Sager, you guys should just drive to Austin. It's probably easier at that point. That's what Kyle would like to do. He hates flying. That's a whole other discussion. Yeah.

From the left, some of the reporters and others are attacking the Biden administration for effectively recreating Trump's policy. And the Biden press secretary just completely crumbled when faced with that. Let's take a listen. Just a follow up on the border. I spent a long time covering immigration stuff during the Trump years. I never saw more damning quotes from immigration advocacy groups and human rights groups during the Trump years as I saw yesterday towards this administration. Just reading one to you, Eleanor Acer, who's one of the leading advocacy people, heads up the refugee group, called what the president did yesterday a humanitarian disgrace.

And that was echoed across the board in literally scores of emails I got from every humanitarian group. What do you all, what does the administration say to the overwhelming consensus from people who advocate on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees and migrants that what the president did yesterday was a humanitarian disgrace? Well, obviously we take a different view. What we would say is that this is a president who understands that safe and legal immigration into this country is a key cornerstone of our own security and prosperity. Clearly, you can see that they just can't handle any questioning on this whatsoever. And it highlights what you were discussing, which is, look, the border has been a problem for them since day one. They basically have had no idea what to do.

They kind of fought Title 42 in court. Then they couldn't. And now they're recreating. Effectively, they're recreating the remain in Mexico policy for three more of the countries. They're expanding it. They're not recreating it. They're expanding it. So they're expanding remain in Mexico.

And by the way, I support remain in Mexico. I think it's probably the best solution outside of the judges. I don't think, you know, we should just allow people to come here willy nilly. But the point of all of this, I want to say is that whether you're left or whether you're right, this is full blown, pure hypocrisy. And frankly, I don't think it's actually going to help him in any way. I think it's clear what's happening here. He wants he's going to run for president again. He knows the border is a huge problem. He's trying to recreate Trump policy, but kind of appease like liberals who effectively want like open borders. And he's like, well, what do I do here? I'm going to try and, you know, create some sort of third way. But here's the thing.

No Republican is going to trust Biden on the border after two years of what we've been had happening down there. And I also don't think he's going to get any particular credit with the left or even with Democrats for attacking it this way. And it was also a very cowardly visit, I think, in my opinion, going to just El Paso ahead of his trip to Mexico. We're about to talk about what's happening in Mexico right now ahead of its visit. But look, I mean, even Trump did more. Actually, even Obama did more of an effort in actual visits down there. I mean, to the Biden administration, who have they sent? Kamala Harris down to the Northern Triangle? I mean, it's just not been a seriously treated issue. But part of what happened is that Obama thought if he was super hardline on immigration and,

you know, deporter in chief, which he was, that that would give him the political credibility to strike a deal with Republicans on immigration reform. And Republicans don't want to strike a deal on immigration reform. They like the issue. They like being able to send cameras down to the border and show thousands of people sleeping under a bridge or whatever. They like going down to some country and finding a caravan and like freaking people out before midterm elections. They like having this issue remain unsolved. And so I have all kinds of issues with Biden and this policy. I think, again, Title 42 is absurd at this point. The idea that this is like justified by the pandemic is stupid. People have a right to claim asylum.

The countries that we're talking about, let me give you the four countries that we're talking about here where the bulk of the migrants are coming from. It is Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela. Okay, three of those four countries, we right now have massive sanctions on, which are part of why people are so desperate. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of why people are so desperate and wanting to come here in the first place. And then Haiti, our hands are dirty. I mean, the dude we're propping up in Haiti may have had something to do with the last prime minister's death. Yeah, but here's the thing. Does that mean every person that the U.S. has ever interfered with has a right to come here? Like, by that

standard, anyone from Iraq should be allowed to come to the United States. Well, I mean, there are a lot of people from Iraq who should be allowed to come to the United States. But they don't share a land border. Look, but there's two things here. Number one, I'm pointing out,

we are to blame for a lot of the misery in these countries that is causing people to want to flee in the first place. So if you wanted to deal with the root of the problem, you don't think that a lot of the misery in Cuba is because of us? Or Venezuela? I think some of it. Some of root of the problem, you don't think that a lot of the misery in Cuba is because of us or Venezuela?

I think some of it. Some of it is their problem, too. So anyway, if you have people who have legitimate reasons to come here and are fleeing violence and chaos that, by the way, the war on drugs also helps to create, there are a lot of things we could do by changing our policy to make it so fewer people wanted to come here in the first place, because this is not like a fun journey that people want to undertake just for shits and giggles. That's number one. Number two, people have a right if they have a legitimate asylum claim under our law and under international law to file for that claim. The idea that the pandemic still now should change that is absurd at this point. But because you have Republicans who do not want to solve this issue, who like the fact that they can send cameras down there and create political upset about it at election time, you have an insane process.

And then you end up for the Biden administration to signal to, you know, the right and that they're, you know, serious and whatever, not only recreating the Trump administration policy, but actually expanding the Trump administration. Yeah, but I don't think Republicans are the only people who love this issue. I mean, I think a lot of Democrats are very comfortable with the fact that millions of people can just come here illegally and stay, which I think is crazy and completely insane. And look, I mean, the idea that every crap country on earth. Because what I see is. Well, then why don't they?

They're also not. They're they're the ones have effectively allowed catch and release and gone to bat for that program over the last 20 years. Because that's what— No, that's not catch—that's catch and release. That's what national law determines. And the problem, the reason why you have people who stay here so long is because of this backlogged immigration system. And by the way, the overwhelming majority of people who claim asylum do show up then for their court-ordered hearing. That's the first court hearing. It's not the actual last one. It's insane that you have years go by that people are here. And that's true. And by the time that

you have people who've been here for years, then to say, okay, well, your claim is not proper and you have to be removed. Yeah, that becomes a lot more difficult of a process. So listen, I just think it's an issue where there's a lot of dishonesty, where Republicans like the problem and don't actually want to solve it, and where a lot of our policy here in terms of sanctioning these countries exacerbates the issue so that we have more flows of migrants than we would otherwise. I'm not saying it's 100%. I'm not saying we're the only problem in these countries. But are we contributing to the problem in each one of these nations where the bulk of the migrants are coming from?

100%. Yes, I just think that a lot of these countries have agency. Nicaraguans, Daniel Ortega, like, we didn't create Daniel Ortega. He created Daniel Ortega. Like, look, there are many countries in Central America which are doing fine. Costa Rica and many others. It's not, like, a complete cause on behalf of the U.S. They happen to be benefited by the fact that they can march here from across Mexico, which I don't think is fair, actually, if you think about the rest of the country.

I just, look, this is a difference of opinion. I don't think you have a right to come here. And under some of these asylum standards, they're absurd. Like if somebody says they're fleeing domestic violence. Look, I have a deep sympathy with anybody fleeing domestic violence. That doesn't mean you get to come to the United States. There's a billion people on earth who are suffering domestic violence by one standard from the human rights campaign. You can allow a billion people to enter here. But do you agree that there are certain asylum claims that are justified? For example,

you brought up Daniel Ortega, who is known to persecute his political enemies. Okay, his political enemies, sure. But if you're an average economic migrant, maybe. And then, look, even the Biden standard. I don't deny that there are a lot of people and human traffickers who exploit the fact that we have these massive backlogs in the system and bring people here basically on the promise that you're basically going to get to stay. You just have to say the magic words and you're going to get to stay. There are two ways you solve that because people do have a right when they have legitimate asylum

claims based on our law and international law. They have a right to make those claims and have them adjudicated. There are two core issues here. Number one, the way that we are screwing over these countries ourselves and making it more likely that you have more migrant flows. And again, you can look at the four countries where most migrants are coming from and see how much of a direct impact we ultimately have. And two, if you end this backlog, which I know you also support, then you get rid of this effective loophole that enables people who don't have justifiable asylum claims to come here and feel like they're going to be able to stay indefinitely. To me, that seems like the two core issues. And, you know, I'm sure there are plenty of Democrats who are bad faith on this. Republicans certainly aren't interested in solving the problem. And so you end up with a disgusting

humanitarian disaster like what the Biden administration is ultimately getting on board. I can agree that it's just not fair to anybody. I mean, do I have sympathy for poor people in another country who say, hey, if you pay $50,000, I can get you to America? Like, yeah, I have a lot of sympathy. My parents came into this country for very similar reasons, for economic opportunity. I get it. What I'm saying is the system has to be actually, the system has to have some merit or, and actually what you're seeing is that you have a deep suspicion of many people, including myself, of the entire immigration system, because I think it's been made a mockery of over the last 20 years, specifically with some of these policies.

And I do want to say, Crystal, I hate to say it, but I do think a lot of people like the fact that millions of people are coming here illegally because once you're here, we all know how difficult it is to get them out and they want to legalize them. And I think they want to get them to vote. And I'm not saying this in a conspiratorial, like racial way. I'm saying, I think that they like the fact that people are coming here. They have the entire, you know, like, oh, immigrants are the people who have more children. So actually this is the way that we have to solve our demographic crisis. I think there's some truth to that, but look, I mean, the truth is, I think they like that they're coming here. I do think that that is conspirpiring. Why continue the policy?

Because you ultimately I mean, the people who have really actually tried to come sort of some sort of immigration deal, which always includes more border enforcement and more border patrol, have been Democrats. I mean, they have been the ones who have actually offered to even Joe Biden offered some sort of package of here's how we're going to deal with this issue ultimately. And, you know, there is no interest from Republicans in ultimately solving this problem. So I'm not washing Democrats hands of culpability here, but I do think it's conspiratorial, this idea that they just want to like ship in a bunch of illegals and make them vote for Democrats. Latinos are not even voting for Democrats, like overwhelmingly anymore. So the, you know, racial demographic argument here doesn't even really add up. I don't even care about the racial part. What I'm really saying is that I think there's a lot of people who are very comfortable with the fact that millions of people get to come here illegally and they are very OK with. I mean, look, non-starter for every single Democratic

immigration comprehensive immigration reform, which effectively means every single person who's here illegally gets to stay and becomes a citizen. That's I have a big problem with that. Who voted ultimately for more judges to adjudicate these claims? I mean, this is actually something that the Biden administration was pushing. So, again, the thing that leads to people staying here so long under the system is this backlog. That should be something everyone could agree on to ultimately solve it, but I see zero political interest ultimately in resolving the issue. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, about a year ago, before times, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the biggest story, one of the biggest in the country, was the Canadian freedom protesters and the government's response.

The response included the smearing them as racist, financial warfare, including the closure of their bank accounts, seizing cryptocurrency donations, the implementation of the most Chinese-style social credit card system that we have seen in the West, especially since Australia's response to the coronavirus. This story mattered for many reasons. First and foremost is it's Canada. The whole thing is that they're nice. But the real

point was it's real close to home. We have a lot in common. And if it can happen there, how soon can it happen here? That's why what's happening right now with author Jordan Peterson of The Daily Wire is actually crazy because it's happening in Canada in a system that could easily rear its ugly head here in the U.S. very soon. The Ontario College of Psychologists, which is the regulatory body through which the profession of psychology is licensed, is currently mandating that Peterson subject himself to a literal re-education course in social media communications after a, quote, investigation into his behavior. Peterson, luckily, I guess, for our sakes, actually uploaded the entire complaint against him since deleting it, though.

So-called transgressions are reviewed, and if you review them, they're crazy. The first allegation is that Peterson made a joke about suicide directed at someone on Twitter. The exact incident's right in front of you. It was an anonymous tweeter raising a concern about overpopulation, to which he replied, quote, you're free to leave at any point. Frankly, not even that good of a joke. But I guess if

you're really, is it really telling someone to kill themselves? Like, come on. The second is even more absurd, an allegation that Peterson undermined the ability for psychologists to encourage children to be removed by their parents. However, specifically, he was criticizing the Canadian government's attempts to forcibly remove children from the freedom protesters area. The exact tweet is in front of you right now. It's a statement of opinion against the exact policy in this instance or against the practice in general. Ask that question. It is obviously a disagreement in policy. In no way does it imply that it's sometimes not appropriate to remove children from the care of parents. Next up, and this is really not a joke, is that Peterson violated the standards

of the profession because he called a key aide to Justin Trudeau a, quote, prick and continued his criticism of the aide as corrupt. He also called Trudeau a puppet. All of the tweets in question occurred during those freedom protests. There are many other complaints included against Peterson, including him saying a plus-size model was not beautiful. But the most egregious is this action against him for violating the so-called COVID misinformation policy. It included a direct call for an end to COVID mandates on January 24th, 2022, and an end to mask mandates and lockdowns in December of 2021. Keep this in mind. This is months after the vaccine was rolled out, well within the bounds of acceptable debate at the time. So there you have it. I left out some of the most cringe

complaints about him for misgendering individuals, but of course that makes an appearance in there as well. Take this in totality. What do we have? We have Peterson having the temerity to express an opinion. Look, even if you don't like the man and think he is cringe, which I very often do, why should any of it matter? Why should the profession of psychology litigate literally any of this? Because consider the standards that they are setting. Having political opinions against the Canadian establishment and against the COVID regime is a violation of the field of psychology itself. Furthermore, the actual sentence is even crazier than it sounds. Not only does he have to subject himself to quote re-education on social media, but there is no set number of hours. At his own expense, you have to take as many hours as they see fit until he has been sufficiently re-educated,

almost out of 1984. It's an indeterminate sentence. Luckily, Peterson, I guess, seems like he's doing fine. But what about people out there who are not rich? How is this not a very chilling warning to anyone in the profession in all of Canada? Keep your mouth shut about the regime or we will come after you. Furthermore, consider this. How is this not preceding itself a blow to science itself? How exactly are people going to practice, experiment, determine what is the cutting edge in mental health if they are so cowed they cannot express a contradictory opinion?

Ask yourself if any of the psychologists in Canada who pushed, let's say, SSRIs on patients, despite faulty and objectionable science, will be subject to re-education on that policy, or any psychologists who encourage cracking down on freedom protesters or praise Justin Trudeau. Think about the inverse. We now know that masks were highly ineffective against Omicron and mostly completely against COVID unless it was properly fitted N95. Why aren't the psychologists who advocated for them in Canada guilty then of spreading medical misinformation? I don't even want them to be reeducated, as satisfying, I guess, as it would be.

Because the profession of psychology should be focused on psychology. If they happen to have opinions elsewhere, so be it. That's what it means to be a citizen in a supposedly free country. And don't think this can't happen here. Already the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association are singing the same tune on gender ideology. It probably won't be long until this exact same type of occupational censorship worms its way into America. From medicine, the Bar Association and law, many areas of American life. Ideological takeover of higher institution is rupturing trust and will have actually the opposite intended effect. Ask

yourself, after two years, do you trust the science more or do you distrust it more than ever? I know which camp I fall in. I suspect there are millions more just like me with every more action just like this. That's like I said, Crystal, do I find Peterson cringe? Yeah, a lot. Actually, more than a lot. That said, read through the complaint, I'm like, yo, I don't think the profession of psychology has literally anything to do with any of this. And actually, the fact that they include him criticizing the government minister as a prick. Yeah. I'm like, you can't go after somebody. How dare you, sir.

Use your Dakar. It's like, wait, does that mean all psychologists in Canada must treat with reverence key aides to the prime minister of the country? This is ludicrous. Like, we can't have—and also it's clearly because they hate him. And actually, I think whenever I told you I was going to do this, you were like, this is probably good for him. I was like, that's the other thing I can't understand for them. I'm like, do you guys not see how this was way better for him and for his career in terms of this dry sand effect? So there's multiple angles of why this is incredible.

This is a fight. I mean, I'm sure he loves to have this fight. He should have. I mean, why wouldn't you? I mean, and you see in his Twitter timeline, he's like leaning hard into it. Yeah, there's a lot here about the like credentialed expert class and like the liberal mindset and the things that they decide to fixate on and try to enforce. And like, there's also something about the idea that the most tragic blow you could strike to someone is like to come after their credentials.

So well put. Yeah. Is another piece of this. Because as I was listening to you, Fraley, I'm like, do I care about this? You know, like, this is Canada. Jordan P. was listening to you, Fraley, I'm like, do I care about this? You know, like, this is Canada. Jordan P.A.'s fine, you know. But there is something revealing, I think, about the sort of, like, liberal instinct and what they choose to get very upset about. And the way they choose to, like, wage their political wars here. Well, I think it matters for that reason, which is I'm looking at this tactic.

I'm like, well, here we go. I'm like, if you're a doctor and let's say you were against lockdowns or something like that, like how soon until you get a complaint filed against you in the American Medical Association? I mean, already actually seeing here, ironically filming in the Bar Association, the Bar Association in Washington, and I believe in various other states, they've challenged like some of Trump's lawyers as their actual bar credentials for their ability to practice law. Maybe that's correct or not. Honestly, I can't tell you because, you know, challenging somebody's reporting of the bar are a real thing. Yes. And any governing body that is determining those things is going to be inherently subject to human flaws and fallibility.

But there should be some sort of code of conduct. And the code of conduct and the standard, though, has to make sure that it has to do with the actual professional, like profession, as opposed to... Your ability to provide services in an ethical and consistent way to your clients. Exactly. And not have to do with, let's say, political ideology.

So when you view... It's almost like occupational licensing censorship. It's like, you know, like you have to have a cosmopolitan cosmetology degree, I think, to cut hair. I think in most states. Libertarians are obsessed with that shit. had them litigating like what hairstylists were allowed to opine about or not. Like obviously that would be insane. So anyway, I think it's important because a lot of our life actually is run by a lot of these licensing regimes that we really have no say over and didn't really think about because they mostly never used to do this stuff. And it could be the next forefront in a type of censorship. You know the liberals are serious when they come for your credentials. I hope they come after my credentials. I actually would love that. A lot of big questions about where exactly the economy is right now.

Are we headed to a recession? What is the Fed going to do in 2023? And how is it going to affect you? To answer hopefully some of these questions and gain some insights, we have one of our favorite guests, Professor Richard Wolff. He is a professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He's also founder of Democracy at Work and host of their show, Economic Update. His latest book is The Sickness is the System, When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself. It's always great to see you, sir. Good to see you, sir. Thank you. Glad to be here. So hot off the presses, we have a new inflation report that I wanted to get you to react to. And I know you haven't had a chance because it just came out to dig into all of the details.

But here are the headlines. This is from The New York Times. They say the consumer price index climbed by 6.5 percent in the year through last month. That's down from 7.1 percent in the November reading as prices declined slightly on a monthly basis. That annual inflation rate was the slowest since October 2021, and they attribute that to a drop in gas prices and also airfares. They go on to say that the economists and Fed officials are more specifically focused on a so-called core inflation measure, which removes food and fuel prices to get a sense of underlying price trends. Less good news there. They say that measure climbed by 5.7 percent in December from a year earlier compared with 6 percent previously and in line with what forecasters had expected.

So can you just explain that for our viewers a little bit in non-economist speak and what you make of that latest report? Glad to do so. In non-economist speak, and that's certainly the better way to go, even for the economist, if I'm going to be honest, what these numbers tell us is that the inflation our economy is suffering slightly diminished over the last month. Prices are still going up, which means we have an inflation and they're going up in historic terms much higher than they did for the last 30 years, but not as high as they were rising in the previous months. So it isn't that we're in a deflation, prices are not coming down, it's that they're not going up quite as quickly as they did before. But the sad news

wrapped up with that is that wages, which were going up not as fast as prices, not even close, but those are in even worse shape. That is, they are not catching up. In fact, they are shrinking even relative to the diminished rise in prices. So if you're thinking about what this means for the average American consumer going to the supermarket or the department store, the situation is no better than it has been in recent months. In other words, your ability to buy is not rising as fast as the prices, and therefore what you can afford to actually consume keeps shrinking. Got it. And Professor, in the context of everything we wanted to discuss today, just a broader check-in with the economy, how do you look at it broadly

in terms of the outlook for the next year or so? Well, I'm afraid the problem is, and it comes right out of these numbers, that what we're seeing is a slow, painful reduction in the inflation, far less than what people need if their standard of living is to improve. And we're paying the price for that modest improvement by laying off workers in large numbers, by a recession that we're either in or coming close to. There's virtual unanimity in the financial press, left, right, and center, about a recession this year. The only real debate is how soon will we get, how bad will it be, and how long will it last? So we're paying a heavy price. It's a little bit like noticing in those numbers that airline prices have slightly diminished their increase. They've been zooming up. And the beauty of the story is the service we're getting from the airlines is laughable. I'm trying to be polite literally over the last few days. So yeah,

the price isn't going up, but what you're getting for what you're paying is shrinking really seriously. And I think that's a general prediction for where we're going. We have not solved the underlying problems of this economy. Our levels of debt, government, corporate, and individual are higher than ever and rising very fast. The inflation means people's income isn't enough. So they're going out on a limb again, using their credit cards and every other way of getting credit. That's a very dangerous story, has been the cause of trouble twice in this new century,

and is building up again now. There ought to be a lot more concern, and I suspect there would be, except the folks in charge always have a hard time admitting to economic problems and so paint a very rosy picture. I'm not among them, and I tell you, most of my colleagues, even though that's unusual, agree with me on this. Yeah. One of the big heavyweights in terms of neoliberal economists, Larry Summers, who was former Treasury secretary and served in other high level positions in terms of advising presidents on the economy, took some time out from his luxury tropical vacation to call

explicitly for higher unemployment. Let's take a listen to that. And I want to get your reaction on the other side. I've been speaking in a different way about the Fed in the last couple of months than I had been before. And that's because, for whatever reason, they have come around to views quite close to mine. They think inflation is the primary concern. They explicitly recognize that there's going to need to be increases in unemployment to contain inflation.

What do you make of remarks like that, Professor? Well, to be honest with you, I'm outraged. I find this a level of relaxed calm about wrecking people's lives, millions of people to be unemployed, because that's what we're talking about. Given the size of our country, millions of people losing their jobs or losing hours if they have the kind of jobs that vary that way. That's an enormous burden to put on them, on their families, on the communities they live in that depend on their ability to spend. All of that in a breezy conversation made worse by the fact, and this is crucial, that it isn't true. Raising interest rates and squashing down an economy by doing that isn't the only way to deal with an inflation. And I won't even bother

you with reminding everyone that the reason we created the Federal Reserve over 100 years ago was to prevent inflation, not to come in after it's done its horrible work and fix it, but to prevent it because it's such a burden. They failed at doing that, and there ought to be a bit more of an acknowledgement and admission of the failure. Having said it, let me remind everyone there are other ways of dealing with an inflation. I'm going to give you two quick examples. Number one, 1971, Richard Nixon, hardly a progressive in the office of president, goes on radio television August 15th, and he says we have a terrible inflation, which they did at that time. And I'm going to do something about it right away, which he did. He declared the following. As of tomorrow morning,

any business that raises the price of anything, you're going to get a visit from government officials and they're going to arrest you and throw you in jail. That's how we're going to stop the rise in prices. And to be fair, he said, the same applies to unions or workers who push for higher wages. We will do the same. This policy is called, and it was called this then, a wage price freeze, because literally that's what it does. It was passed, signed by the president. 90 days was the first length of it.

It was extended. And you know why? It stopped the inflation on a dime. Does that kind of policy have problems? Sure. But every policy to deal with the failure of an inflation has its costs, its risks, and its problems. But to deal with this as if there were nothing other for us to do than to schedule a recession for millions of people is not only unfair and unjust, it's not altogether honest. And Mr. Summers, who's a colleague of mine, he knows this very well. Wow. I think that is all very well said. So great to have your expertise on these matters,

Professor. Thank you so much for taking some time with us. Thank you, sir. My pleasure. And thanks for covering it in an open way. It's really a big help to the national conversation. A little update for everybody on the Trump NFTs, as hilarious as the video was. I saw some justification after criticizing a crystal. People said, hey, maybe people bought it not because they're sick of fans, but because it's a great investment. Well, let's go and put this up there on the screen. Yes, some people did say that. It turns out they have lost 75% of their value in just a single week after the prices initially soared online, after Trump promoted his, quote, one-of-a-kind assets that were sold. At one point, they were actually selling for $1,000.

So after, that has now dropped to $280. So that is where the price decline has remained. The stunning profit. Buy the dip, guys. Yeah, buy the dip. Definitely don't do that. If you guys want to go ahead and promote that, I anticipate it being worth about zero in about a year,

like many of the other hype NFTs that all happened. And look, just broadly, it's just disgusting because he's milking his most ardent supporters, including boomers, by the way, who he sent all of that out to, who probably had no idea and probably had even trouble signing up for an OpenSea account for literally millions of dollars. Ostensibly, the man is a billionaire. Like, why does he need more? It's just the worst way, actually, to make money when you're at that level. Total petty cash grab. Right.

That's all it is. The values, you know, now that they've been sold off have plummeted. So the people who forked out that cash are holding the bag. But don't worry, Donald Trump got his. And that's ultimately what this was all about. And just so you guys remember how this all went down, the man, since he announced for president, has basically done nothing. Yes. And then he teases this whole like big announcement. And we're like, oh boy, maybe he's like actually going to campaign and pretend like he wants to be president again. And no, just another cash grab from Trump to grift and milk as much as he can off of his supporters. Yeah, it's really gross.

I'm not kidding, though, when I said that whenever I was criticizing it, people were like, well, maybe it was a good investment. Maybe people thought it was, you know, funny. Like, look, it's very clear what happened here. He duped his most ardent supporters. Not even duped. I mean, he just got them to think that they were supporting him. Some of them might've even thought, frankly,

that it was a campaign thing. And it's not just Trump. His wife, Melania Trump, has long been selling NFTs, which is also gross. Which he criticized. Yeah, which he criticized. About the time, by the way. So, I mean, that's the other thing is, you know, he knows that this is a scam. Right. It's crazy. The entire thing really is nuts. And so, look, to those

who've bought in, I guess, congratulations. All right. We'll see you later. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.