Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/21/24: Alabama Rules Embryos Are Kids, Trump Team Plots Abortion Ban, Nikki Haley Home State Humiliation, SCOTUS Rejects Affirmative Action Case, Biden Spox Glitches On IDF Sexual Assault, IDF Tells Troops Stop Posting War Crimes, Assange Final Appeal Hearing, Jon Stewart Attacks BlueAnon And Tucker, Former Miner Reveals Coal Baron Secrets

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Krystal and Emily discuss Alabama's SCOTUS ruling embryos are kids, Trump team plots abortion ban, Nikki Haley home state humiliation, SCOTUS rejects hearing affirmative action case, Biden spox glitches over sexual assault IDF allegations, IDF chief tells troops to stop posting war crimes online, Assange final appeal hearing begins, Jon Stewart skewers BlueAnon and Tucker Carlson, and former miner JD Belcher reveals Coal Barons dirty secrets.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. is irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. 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. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at the recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two Hey, guys. Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.

We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning and welcome to CounterPoints. Ryan is in Mexico on his annual fish vacation, so I'm so happy to be joined for a girl show by Crystal today. How's it going, Crystal? Very good. Nice to be here. I actually love that Ryan does this every year, like has his thing and like commits to it. So much deserved time off. He's been working hard, burning the candle at both ends.

So hope he's having a great time. That's for sure. He is a busy man. We have a great show for everyone today. We're going to start with a Supreme Court ruling in Alabama that if you haven't heard about, it really is huge, huge news. So we're going to go through that. We're going to talk about Nikki Haley almost fooling the media yesterday into thinking maybe she was going to drop out of the race.

She did not. Spoiler alert. But we'll break down what's happening in South Carolina. Their primary is on Saturday, so there's a lot to talk about. We're also going to talk about the affirmative action non-ruling decision by the United States Supreme Court not to take up an important affirmative action case that would have had big implications across the board. And the same way that the affirmative action case that they took up last session did have big implications across the board. Crystal is going to break down some developments out of Israel in the last 24 hours. Big stuff to talk about. The Assange

hearings have begun, Julian Assange, in London over a potential extradition. Lots of sound, Crystal, sound bites from the demonstration outside the courtroom yesterday to break down as well. Yeah, there have been huge protests there. This could be his last chance to block an extradition to the United States. He's, of course, being charged under the espionage with devastating potential ramifications for the First Amendment. So we'll bring you up to date on that.

And also, we had to give you a little update on Jon Stewart. He's back. He's responding to the critics. He's also going after Tucker Carlson. So there was kind of something for everyone there. And we're going to be talking to a guy named J.D. Belcher. He's an incredible videographer. He's actually out with a new podcast. He's a former coal miner who taught himself as the coal mining industry was declining, taught himself as the coal mining industry was declining, taught himself all of these video and production skills. Incredibly talented guy. And he's got a new podcast that's very important that looks back at that upper big branch mining disaster. I don't know if you guys remember that. Digs into what happened, the investigation,

and how basically greed cost these miners their lives. So super excited to talk to him as well. Just a reminder to subscribe at BreakingPoints.com so you can get the full CounterPoints show. It goes early to your inbox and you don't get any interruptions and you get to see every clip from CounterPoints. So BreakingPoints.com to do that. Let's start in Alabama. We can put the first element up on the screen, which is a tear sheet here from the Washington Post. The headline, Alabama Supreme Court rules frozen embryos are children, comma, imperiling IVF. That's the two part of the headline there. So on the one hand, you have the Alabama Supreme Court making that ruling. And on the second hand, there are implications for IVF. Let's put the second element up on the screen. This is A2,

a tweet from Ron Brownstein, who, the Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker quoted the Bible to justify his decision in this case. The quote is, human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God who views the destruction of his image as an affront to himself. The judge, again, Chief Justice Tom Parker, before that quote, writes that we all agree basically the law is that a human being is made in God's image. And so then you can see how the logic continues in that quote. If we go and dig into this, I will say one of the things interesting here, Crystal, is that the wrongful death act is what's implicated. So that's a civil liability and negligence statute. So it's not to the point where the destruction of embryos equals murder. It's to

the point where the destruction of embryos could implicate somebody in civil liability and in negligence. So obviously this does have massive implications for IVF and the entire industry, which I will say, as jarring as it sounds to hear the Chief Justice of Alabama write in terms that sound closer to what you would have heard, natural law, as though it was something obviously, and we kind of all agreed, derived from one God. So it's jarring to hear that now in 2023. Still, the case of embryos is an odd one, because from the perspective of somebody who's pro-life, and I know a lot of people disagree with me on this issue, it is the logical extension of the argument that life begins at conception. So if life begins at conception, then embryos are unique human beings and a unique human being, unique genetic, genetically unique human being, and the destruction of a genetically unique human being, destruction of a life. And so it's complicated for people in pro-life circles

to kind of not take that logic to its conclusion. I think if anything, it would be sort of, it would be, what's the right word, hypocritical or contradictory for me, for example, to be like, well, no, it's all fine, throw it away, toss them. And even for some women who have gone through this, this is maybe a silly example, but one of the real housewives actually has her frozen embryos etched into like a window on one of her houses, like the rest of her children, which again, sounds crazy, but for a lot of women and men who freeze their embryos and maybe never get a chance, it's so expensive to implant and to go through the process. They do still feel an emotional connection to the embryos. What did

you make of this decision, Crystal? I mean, I think you're right that if you do take the pro-life position to its logical conclusion, this is exactly the sort of place that you end up, which probably 95% of Americans would find absolutely preposterous. The idea that a frozen embryo is the same as a child. And you're right, this decision right now, the implications are, I won't even say they're limited because I do think that this completely upends IVF treatment in the state of Alabama, makes it potentially impossible. And if it still continues extraordinarily, even more expensive than it already is,

because as part of that process, you know, it's not just one egg that you inseminate. You have multiple that you store in case the first attempt doesn't work. So you have multiple attempts. Or if later down the line, you want to have additional children. And so if you're saying that the destruction of these embryos is equivalent to killing a child effectively, then of course, IVF is no longer going to be possible in the state of Alabama, because what are you going to do? You're going to just hold on to these eggs indefinitely. I mean, it's just on a basic,

rational, instinctive level, it seems completely insane. Alabama has been the state that has perhaps gone the furthest in terms of banning abortion and in terms of criminalizing action surrounding abortion. In that piece we had up, they said in Alabama, voters passed a ballot measure in 2018 that granted fetuses full personhood rights, but did not mention frozen embryos after the fall of Roe and your total abortion ban went into effect in the state. Alabama now accounts for nearly half of all criminal cases related to pregnancy across the country, according to a tally by Pregnancy Justice. Now, it's possible this gets taken up at the Supreme Court. It's

possible it doesn't. The other thing that we have to look for is what other states now that Alabama has sort of gone in this direction are going to push forward through the courts, through the legal system in a similar direction. So, you know, I think this is another example, Emily, of how ending overturning Roe versus Wade has sort of opened Pandora's box in ways that were almost completely unimaginable, in ways that even in a very conservative red state like Alabama, I guarantee you, if you were to put this to the voters, they would also find this insane. That's why you've seen, you know, the pro-choice position backed in every single state where it has been put to the voters, including states like Kentucky that are very religious and

are very conservative. You only have 8% of the public that agrees that abortion should be banned in all circumstances. So this is the fringiest of the fringe type of position that you could have. And I do think that it is ironic that a pro-life movement that is supposed to be very supportive of families, very supportive of families having children, this is effectively an assault on couples

who are struggling to get pregnant and to have that child because it will either make this procedure, IVF procedure, much more expensive or potentially impossible altogether. Another thing to think about is it comes at a time when a lot of women will say, because they got married later than they wanted to, they're having fewer children than they wanted to, that they turn to IVF as a major option. And

that's a huge problem for conservatives. But I'll add, this case is such an interesting one. So it goes back to 2020. And I'm reading from my colleague in The Federalist now, Jordan Boyd, who writes, when a patient at Mobile Infirmary Medical Center wandered into the cryogenic portion of the Center for Reproductive Medicine's facility and tried to remove three separate couples embryos from freezer storage. The subzero temperatures, according to the lawsuit at which the embryos had been stored, freeze burned the patient's hand, causing the patient to drop the embryos on the floor, which killed them, which ended the embryos. So the couple that paid to create and store the embryos actually sued the center under Alabama's wrongful death of a minor act for failing to protect what they believed to be their last shot at biological children. The Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Jill Parrish Phillips, however,

tossed the case in 2022 because she believed that cryopreserved in vitro embryos involved in this case do not fit within the definition of a person or a child. So this case actually comes down to someone reaching to a cryogenic secure area, having their hand freeze burned and dropping embryos. I mean, it's just an incredible kind of glimpse into the technology and the strange places that it brings us to. Crystal, there's no doubt, though, that this is absolutely a position where it's not politically a palatable position for the vast majority of people. I try to be logically consistent on these things. And I know that it leaves me, you know, in a minority of a minority position. But for Republicans in Alabama, which is a state that has already clamped down on abortion in ways that outpace other red states, definitely not going to be helpful for the prospects of the Republican Party in Alabama

or nationwide, that's for sure. I think the Republican Party is probably okay in Alabama. But, I mean, this isn't an isolated instance. You know, even though the goal over many years was the overturning of Roe versus Wade, now that Roe versus Wade is overturned, as I said, it's sort of opened this Pandora's box. And anti-abortion activists are pushing things as far as they can go because they, like you, you know, believe that even a frozen embryo is a child and believe that, you know, dropping frozen eggs on the floor constitutes murder. Now, the case, I'm glad you brought it up because the details of it are incredibly sad. Like, there's no doubt that I think that this

couple and the other couples that were affected by the negligence shown by this facility in, you know, allowing this person in and not making sure that these frozen eggs, which are a precious thing, that they were protected. I don't think anyone would deny that they are owed some sort of, you know, civil restitution for the, you know, the destruction of their property and the negligence that led to that. But you don't need to view these frozen eggs as actual children in order for them to be deserving of, you know, a reward and of compensation for what was done to them here and for the negligence that caused that. There are already laws on the books that would be sufficient in order to, you know, to try to compensate this couple for the loss. So, you know, I just think it's emblematic of the Wild West that we have now that Roe is

overturned, of the incredibly unpopular and extreme positions that, you know, politicians, anti-abortion activists, and, you know, basically theocratic judges, as in this case, will push things towards. And as much as we cover here, and this is a good segue into the next part of this, as much as we cover here, the many manifest problems that Joe Biden has in terms of his reelection. You know, this issue is really the one that has kept Democrats in the game in terms of, you know, the midterm elections, in terms of all of these special elections, certainly the ballot initiatives that we have seen because people just find this so extreme and so insane on its face. Yeah, no question about it.

Let's put this next element up on the screen from the New York Times that goes into, and this is a sweeping report about some allies of Donald Trump, not Trump himself. And an important part of the story from the New York Times actually shows where there's disagreement between Donald Trump and some of the Trump allies and kind of the conservative legal world who are already making plans for what his administration, potentially if he's elected president, could do on abortion. And one of those things, I like what you said, Crystal, the wild, wild west. One of those things actually would be the Comstock Act. And that's not just according to the New York Times. That's according to Trump ally Jonathan Mitchell talking himself about these potential plans. Now, the Comstock Act,

some people might know or some nerds might know, the soggers out there definitely know all about the Comstock Act, which basically criminalizes sending like lewd or lascivious, it's really 1873, lewd or lascivious stuff through the mail. And so Jonathan Mitchell is saying, because the Comstock Act is on the books, all you have to do is basically interpret it more broadly to include abortion medication. So the kind of myth of Pristone that's already up at the Supreme Court for a ruling. If Donald Trump is elected in office again, just broaden interpretations of the Comstock Act. No new legislation has to be passed on the books, except for you just have to reinterpret Comstock. Now, NBC also says policies under consideration

by Mitchell and other conservative legal people that might be in a second Trump administration include banning the use of fetal stem cells in medical research for diseases like cancer, rescinding approval of abortion pills at the FDA, and stopping hundreds of millions in federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Such an action, the Times continues, against Planned Parenthood would cripple the nation's largest provider of women's health care, which is already struggling to provide abortions in the post-Roe era. Just some inside politics on the Trump stuff. He reportedly is okay with a 16-week federal ban. So Lindsey Graham has that plan as

the 15-week ban that a lot of Republicans in Washington and kind of establishment circles said this might be a good political way to deal with the question because that puts the United States in line with Europe and gives Republican politicians the talking point that it puts the United States in line with Europe. And this is sort of a point of consensus that everyone could rally around and doesn't get Republicans into Todd Akin territory, but gives them just an easy sort of end row type talking point like they had before Roe.

Donald Trump himself has elevated people like Chris LaCivita and others that probably agree with him on abortion, don't want to push it too far. A lot of reporting from inside Trump world that he finds the kind of anti-abortion activists in Republican circles to be a little weird and politically dangerous. I think that's probably true. Nevertheless, Crystal, if you're installing the conservative legal movement in your administration, things like reinterpretations of the CompSac Act are not hard whatsoever to expect. Yeah, I thought this piece was really interesting because all of the media attention and the public attention and the scrutiny of candidates is around the legislation that they might pass around a ban. So would you pass a six-week ban? Would you pass a 16-week ban? Where would you draw the line? Would you sign that legislation, et cetera?

I am opposed to a 15 or 16-week ban, but it's also worth noting that 93% of abortions happen prior to that time. So actually would impact a relatively small number of cases. Now, I think we've already seen post-Roe that some of those cases are incredibly important and put women's lives at risk and cause incredible trauma and grief around forcing women to carry to term fetuses that they know, for example, aren't viable. So I don't want to downplay the grief, the trauma, and the suffering that would occur if you instituted that ban. But what this article points out is that the real action may not be through the legislative process, because the truth of the matter is any of those bans are very unlikely,

almost impossible to actually pass through Congress. You'd have to have Republicans not only having the White House and the House as they, you know, the House they have currently, but they'd also have to have either a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, or they would have to get rid of the filibuster in order to move this legislation. Again, very unlikely that you would actually see any of that come to fruition. However, this movement and these thought leaders in the anti-abortion movement are ready for an extremely aggressive set of procedures and changes to rules and regulations in order to push forward their agenda without having to pass anything through Congress. I mean, the enforcement of the Comstock

Act, just to underscore for everyone, if they actually went in that direction. I mean, that is a de facto national abortion ban. If you are now criminalizing, making illegal the mailing, the shipping of any of the materials that you would need to perform abortions, then you've basically banned abortion nationwide. And that also could apply to birth control, by the way. So that's the terrain that we're talking about. Now, you might say, and Emily, I think, you know, laid this out quite well. Trump used to be a Planned Parenthood supporter. Like, I don't think anyone believes that near and dear to his heart is this issue or that he necessarily views the world the way that anti-abortion activists do. However, we know in his first term in office, it was very important to him to install on the Supreme Court justices who were going to be part of overturning Roe versus Wade. They did exactly that. He had some of these same religious right conservative activist types in his administration.

They did, in fact, use executive action to push forward the pro-life agenda at that time. And now that you have Roe overturned, you have so much more that they are able to do in order to push forward that agenda. So it's not necessarily the question of, does Trump himself believe this? Is Trump himself going to be championing this? Where does Trump draw the line in terms of what type of a ban he would enact? The question is, who's he putting in these positions and how much free reign is he going to ultimately give them? And I think based on the track record of the first administration, it looks like he would give them quite a lot of room to maneuver and it would be, you know,

a huge boon to the anti-abortion movement to have him back in office in ways that, you know, a huge boon to the anti-abortion movement to have him back in office in ways that, you know, I think most Americans would be kind of horrified and shocked by. And not just the anti-abortion movement. We can put the next element up on the screen here. This is a dive from Politico into Russ Vogt, who runs the Center for Renewing America, which is trying to, you know, he was Trump's OMB director. He's seen as somebody who's, and I actually like Russ Vogt, he's seen as somebody in conservative circles who's like a policy wonk and is trying to put a blueprint together for what a policy agenda through some of the administrative agencies might look like

in a second term for Donald Trump. But even another Republican president in general, a lot of these plans are generic enough that they're sort of plug and play with a potential Republican presidency. But Politico looked at what Russ means when he talks about Christian nationalism. And I do think there's something interesting here because basically Chevron doctrine is at the Supreme Court right now, which is some people say it will be more if it's overturned by the Supreme Court, as is expected, it'll be more influential. Others people say it actually won't be as influential as a lot of conservatives think it will be. But basically, the ambition of conservatives and the conservative legal movement, which has long sought to overturn Chevron doctrine, is that it curtails the powers

of the administrative state. One of the big debates during the Trump administration was, why don't conservatives come in and start using the powers of the administrative state. One of the big debates during the Trump administration was, why don't conservatives come in and start using the powers of the administrative state through ways like reinterpretations of the Comstock Act, all these laws that have been on the books for a really long time. And so Politico is saying that, you know, Russ Vogt is trying to reinterpret all these kinds of statutes. They say, for example, top priorities could include the insurrection, invoking the Insurrection Act on day one, the quash protests, and refusing to spend authorized congressional funds on unwanted projects, a practice banned by lawmakers in the Nixon era. But one of their bullet points is just broadly Christian nationalism. So Russ Vogt has written

that Christian nationalism is actually a rather benign and useful description for those who believe in both preserving our country's Judeo-Christian heritage and making public policy decisions that are best for this country. The term need not be subjected to such intense scorn due to misunderstanding or slander. But Chris, it's true that the broad label of Christian nationalism has connotations that range from QAnon to the description that Rush just wrote, which is a fairly benign mainstream conservative position, not broadly representative of the country, and maybe a slice of 35, 40 percent of the country would say, okay, that sounds fine. But Christian nationalism has different connotations based on which audience you're speaking to. So using it definitely opens up yourself to,

not yourself, obviously, Crystal, but Russ Vogt, to stories like this one in Politico. Well, it's opening all of us up to something, for sure. I mean, it's very reflective of the way that that judge wrote his decision, concurring opinion, on the Alabama, you know, eggs are children decision where he is, you know,

feels comfortable directly invoking his own personal religious beliefs, which I think is totally out of line in terms of just interpreting the law in a pluralistic society that, you know, a key value is separation of church and state. A key value is pluralism

and the acceptance and equality of all people, regardless of their and state. A key value is pluralism and the acceptance and equality of all people, regardless of their religious beliefs. So I think that's where a lot of Americans react very negatively to the idea that you're going to infuse an official government with an official, you know, religious policy. And some of the things that, you know, come out of this movement also, one of the key allies of Russ Voigt is this guy, something Wolf. And he, what's his first name? Is it?

Ryan. Ryan Wolf. I want to say Tom Wolf, but that's the author. Anyway, you know, some things that he supports are like ending sex education in schools, ending surrogacy, ending no-fault divorce throughout the country. So those are the types of ideas that are associated with this movement.

And then there's also, to me, very counter to what I know of Christianity, this incredibly hardline anti-immigrant policy as well, you know, that is voiced and articulated and would be implemented by someone like Stephen Miller, who wants to end asylum altogether and, you know, take even more draconian measures than were taken in the first Trump administration with regard to immigration. But, you know, on some of those things that the ending of no-fault divorce, the ending of surrogacy, you know, the imposition of a religious view on people who don't necessarily share that religious view, it makes me think, Emily, of the backlash to Democrats and the, you know, woke left about

this feeling that they were getting too involved in people's lives, policing their words, policing their behavior all the time. And there was a huge backlash to that. And I think similarly, there'd be a huge backlash to the idea of delving into people's, you know, personal and sexual affairs in this same way that, I mean, frankly, we saw with like 90s era conservatism and all of the moral panics around that. So, you know, it's hard to say. I think you would have to expect that because of the way that Trump ran his administration last time, because a number of these people were actually in the administration last time, that he probably would give them a lot of bandwidth. And I think that that is very scary and very uncomfortable for a lot of people who do

not want to go in this particular direction. There's so much to talk about there. I mean, also, by the way, William Wolfe, not Ryan Wolfe, sorry, that's my bad. But Sager's formulation of barstool conservatism is very much understood. And I bet you has been circulated by people in the Trump orbit, not the rest votes of the world so much as the political side. People who are running campaigns and thinking about how best to run campaigns. And they definitely understand that there's this weirdness that can be kind of associated with conservatives who are pursuing these ends. On the other hand, you have, you know, something, I think this is a good point, like Sam Alito, when he wrote his opinion in Roe v. Wade, was looking back at natural law and how

natural law absolutely, the sort of Western formulation of natural law hinges on this idea that people are endowed by rights from their creator, by a god. And so you have that tension with people like Russ Vogt, with conservative kind of intellectuals in that space who say, well, if we're pursuing this to its logical end, and if we really believe this, then there are all kinds of mechanisms that we should be really looking at instead of just kind of a lot of people will will kind of mock the national review slogan uh standing a thwart history yelling stop uh why don't you actually do something now there's a lot of conservatives

who feel like the you know under the bush administration the first trump administration everything was allowed to continue metastasizing and uh there there should be levers pulled instead of being ignored so. So there's a huge tension there that needs to be resolved within the conservative movement. And it may be resolved in an administration, which, you know, is entirely plausible at this point. Yeah. Well, if conservatives want to go in the direction of, you know, thinking that frozen eggs are kids and ending default divorce and trying to roll back gay direction of, you know, thinking that frozen eggs are kids and ending no fault divorce and trying to roll back gay marriage and,

you know, ending surrogacy, et cetera, banning porn, et cetera. Good luck. Electorally. I don't think the American people are with you on that one.

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 okay. Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law

is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships.

I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room.

You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver 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 multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, 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 one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. One candidate who would not be interested in pursuing the vast majority of these policy proposals is Nikki Haley, who kind of pulled a fast one yesterday, although it's not entirely surprising that some members of our wise and just sagacious media were easily duped by a political candidate. Let's take a look at Nikki Haley's speech yesterday, where a lot of people in the press actually thought, because she's called for the speech in the middle of the day meant she was dropping out of the South Carolina primary, which is set to happen this Saturday.

Let's take a listen to what Nikki Haley said. In a general election, you're given a choice. In a primary, you make your choice. Make sure you make the right choice. Make your voices heard today, tomorrow, and on Saturday. Some of you, perhaps a few of you in the media, came here today to see if I'm dropping out of the race. Well, I'm not. Far from it. And I'm here to tell you why i'm running for president because we have a country to save oh wow okay i didn't know that so nikki haley also though let's put this graphic up

on the screen while nikki haley claims that people just need a choice. This USA Today poll from her own home state. Take a look at this. If you're listening and can't see this on the screen, Donald Trump, according to this new USA Today poll, is up 63% to Nikki Haley's 35% in South Carolina. Just absolutely getting trounced in her home state. They both have net favorable ratings, according to the Suffolk University USA Today poll. That's actually kind of an interesting point from this. He's more popular, though. So while both of them have a favorable rating among Republican primary voters, and this poll, the numbers we just showed are among very likely primary voters, which is different

than how a lot of polls will find likely voters. Very likely is it could depart from the finals, you know, based on people who actually end up coming out, but very likely to vote in the Republican primary. She's trailing two to one. Trump is at 64% popularity. She's at 47% popularity among primary voters, which is another really interesting point. So while just about half of voters find her favorable, Republican primary voters, very likely Republican primary voters, he's at 64%. She holds a wide lead, according to USA Today, like she did in other states, among those, quote, who identify themselves as liberals or moderates. She's up 59% to 38%. And she has a narrow lead among those who are voting in the GOP primary for the first time. So probably a similar demo that would be a lead of 51% to 49%, surely within the margin of error. In this poll, she has her biggest advantage over Trump, 63% to

37%. Quote, among those who say the most important issue is the future of democracy. For them on Saturday, only 13 percent of those surveyed say democracy is their biggest concern, though. Ranked at top was immigration and border security. That was at 42 percent. Some more on why Nikki Haley is actually running for president, despite what she said about people desperately needing a choice. Let's put this next element up on the screen. This is some more plans. This is from Steve Peoples of the Associated Press. He reported that Nikki Haley and her campaign are dropping more than $500,000 on a new TV ad that is set to begin running in Michigan on Wednesday. So in Michigan, South Carolina is on Saturday.

She's running ads in Michigan starting on Wednesday. Her post-South Carolina travel schedule features 10 high-dollar fundraising events as part of a seven-day campaign swing across Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, Virginia, Washington, D.C., North Carolina, and Massachusetts. She said she's not leaving the primary even if she's blown out on Saturday. She vowed to stay in the fight, according to People's, against Donald Trump at least until after Super Tuesday, if not longer. So, Crystal, I think that tells you everything you need to know about the Haley candidacy at this point, which is attempting to, I think, let's say, help Nikki Haley's brand among the sort of never-Trump elite media donor class,

who will now see her as their last best hope, maybe shower her in some money so that she can make a stand, get her numbers up on Super Tuesday. She's certainly not going to win South Carolina. She's not going to, even if she won South Carolina, she would not be able to win the Republican primary mathematically. It might give her some momentum going into Super Tuesday. But even then, the polls would have to change dramatically for her to mathematically have any path to Republican nomination. So I'm curious if you agree with me, Crystal, that at this point she's just kind of running a campaign for the elite media kind of virtue signaling crowd. Yeah, I think that's part of it. You know, early on, I had actually predicted that she may, excuse me, hang around in this race in spite of the fact that it's

increasingly humiliating. I mean, to lose to Donald Trump, probably by a margin of two to one in your home state, even a place where, you know, you're still pretty popular and where you govern in a very conservative way, like that is incredibly humiliating. But I thought she might hang around for two reasons. The one is the one you laid out, which is, you know, to secure her brand and potential, like, either corporate or media gigs moving forward.

Or two, with the thought of, hey, he's got all these criminal cases hanging out there. Maybe something happens before the Republican nominating convention. And then I'm the one who's, you know, they're still in the race and has, you know, potentially picked up some delegates. And I've got the inside track then to pick up the pieces if some black swan event occurs and Donald Trump is no longer in the race and there's an opening for that. I mean, I think that's why donors continue to give to her. I think that's a big part of it,

just to have that sort of option open. Although I have to say, I'm not sure that really would work out, even if, you know, something crazy did happen and Donald Trump dropped out of the race. Like, it's not clear to me that she would be, just by merit of the fact that she's still hanging out, getting embarrassed in state after state, that she would be the person that would be the go-to if, you know, that eventuality was to come to pass. So I can't say I totally understand it at this point, which is why so many in the media were like, she must be dropping out, right? Because this just doesn't really make sense anymore. But nope, not only is she not dropping out, she is proceeding on and spending money and doing fundraisers,

which I think is kind of like the key part of her quote unquote campaign at this point. I do want to say, I mean, I just think that the Nikki Haley, that she has become viewed as this sort of like liberal or moderate or whatever within the Republican primary. It just shows you how the whole of our politics really on the Republican and the Democratic side has just become defined by Donald Trump. And so even though on a lot of issues, she's at least as

conservative as Trump, perhaps more conservative than Trump and governed in a very, you know, traditional right wing kind of a way when she was governor of South Carolina. Just the fact that she'll say anything, even moderately critical of Trump, makes her read as like this resistance lib. And not just on the Republican side, you know, but also, you know, that's why she would have this media career. I mean, we've seen this trajectory a million times from like the rehabbing of George W. Bush to Cole Wallace having an MSNBC show and all of these things.

Your position on Donald Trump is like the totality of how you end up getting defined and viewed in the political sphere at this point, which is one of the more one of the things that I have found most distressing about the Trump era and been most frustrated with in the Trump era, because it just means any sort of like real policy considerations just don't even exist. It's just all about how do you feel about this one person. You forgot Resistance Lib John Bolton, Bill Kristol, who we can add to the list, just stalwarts of progressivism at this point. You said something so interesting about how it's obviously humiliating for Nikki Haley

with the vast majority of the country. And I think that is a great point. I mean, getting trounce in your home state, which you really staked out as an important part of your campaign. And then, you know, apparently being down by 30 points heading into election week. What's interesting about that is Nikki Haley doesn't care about the demographic that is going to find this embarrassing. She cares, to your point, Crystal, about establishing herself as the heir apparent, the kind of Republican establishment's heir apparent to Donald Trump. And you can do that by continuing to like make this brave stand with donors, so the donor class and people in the media, the Morning Joe sect.

And the last point I want to make, Crystal, is that that is so true. She did govern. And Jacobin has actually had some really good coverage. Branko over there has had some good coverage of Nikki Haley's policy record. She did really govern as a traditional conservative. And by that, I mean a crony capitalist who was showering Boeing in tax breaks and subsidies. And then obviously, as everyone knows from your guys' excellent coverage, jumped on over to their board. That's as traditional conservative as it gets, unfortunately, Crystal. Yeah. well, it's not like Trump doesn't do that same crap.

Oh, they all do it. Yeah, so it's not like she's different from him on that issue, obviously. He passed a very traditional tax cut for corporations and rich people, authored effectively by Paul Ryan as his major act in office. So, you know, the thing with Nikki, though, at this point, that still doesn't even really make sense to me is I don't even think the Morning Joe people really like her either because she was part of the Trump administration.

I mean, she was licking this guy's boots up until three minutes ago and still is very, very tempered in her criticism of him. It's not like she went full Chris Christie. And even with Chris Christie, because he hung with Trump for so long, even among the resistance-libs, there's still a lot of skepticism of him. So even in the lane of like,

let me position myself for my resistance-lib media gig post-campaign, I'm not really sure that she's even accomplishing that. So I don't know. The best I can figure is the donors want her in and she's willing to take the humiliation because they're her meal ticket after this embarrassing campaign is over. And they just want her there as like a potential option in case in the 1% chance that something crazy happens and maybe that gives her an inside lane. Maybe it

doesn't, but at least they've got like an option on the table. That's the best that I can do to make sense of what she's doing at this point. Yeah, she's trying to impress them and people in the suburbs so that she can point and say that she's a viable candidate in the post-Trump Republican Party. It may be that she's more palatable than a lot of people like a Doug Mastriano in the post-Trump Republican Party. But she's looking for ways to point to that. But of course, when we saw in Iowa, she even got trounced in the suburbs. She even got trounced

in areas that were less affluent and more affluent. She won one college town county. So that argument for Nikki Haley, I'm curious if she becomes more Christie-esque after the South Carolina primary, and if in order to stanch some of the bleeding in South Carolina, she's continued to be a little bit tempered in her criticism of Trump. And then after the South Carolina primary, it stakes at a position that's more similar to Chris Christie. I think that would make sense because she knows she's not going to win any of these races. So we'll see, Crystal, about that.

DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. 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 millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead. But I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted

two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships.

I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves.

Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver 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 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. More court news yesterday in this fascinating Virginia case, Thomas Jefferson High School in

Fairfax, that the Supreme Court decided not to take up in a big decision yesterday that actually the decision not to take up this case involved dissents. Alito and Thomas wrote a dissent on the court's decision simply not to take up the case. Let's put this first tear sheet on the screen. This is from the New York Times. The headline, Supreme Court won't hear new case on race and school admissions. The decision, along with an order this month declining to block West Point's admissions program, suggests that most justices are not eager to immediately explore the limits of its ruling from June. We can move on actually and put this next tweet up on the screen.

This is from Ed Whalen who's someone fairly big in conservative legal circles. And he noted that this reflected from his position a timidity among the conservative court justices in taking up certain cases, so deciding which cases to make determinations on and to weigh, that might seem kind of crazy to people on the left who would say, well, this court took up Roe, took up the Dobbs case, and then made a sweeping judgment on Roe, which didn't have to be the case in Dobbs. It didn't have to completely overturn Roe, and it did. So there's a lot going on here. This is, again, this is a case out of Virginia. I just want to talk a little bit about it. So they ruled back in June on students

for fair admissions v. Harvard. And there's a petition or there's a coalition, it's called the Coalition for TJ, that's based out in Virginia, who said because they didn't take up this Thomas Jefferson High School case, it might mean little if schools could accomplish the same discriminatory result through race neutral proxies. And that is an interesting segue into the argument about the TJ policies, which just to get into a little bit, the school says are both race neutral and race blind. Their new policy was not designed to produce and did not in fact produce a student population that approximates the racial demographics of Fairfax County or any other predetermined racial balance. The Times notes after the changes went into effect, so this is again using, according to critics, proxies instead

of directly using race, using factors that are sort of the wink-wink determination, the wink-wink proxies for race in order to, according to critics of the policies, create the same racial outcome. So the Times notes after the changes went into effect in 2021, the percentage of Asian American students offered admission dropped to 54% from 73%. The percentage of black students grew to 8% from no more than 2%. The percentage of Hispanic students grew to 11% from 3%. And the percentage of white students grew to 22% from 18%. In the Fairfax County

school system in 2020, about 37% of students were white, 27% were Hispanic, 20% were Asian, and 10% were black. Alito's dissent said what the Fourth Circuit majority held in essence is that intentional racial discrimination is constitutional so long as it is not too severe. This reasoning is indefensible and it cries out for correction, even though the new policy bore, quote, more heavily on Asian American applicants. The panel majority held that there was no disparate impact because they were still overrepresented in the TJ student body. That is clearly a mistaken understanding of what it means for a law or policy to have a disparate effect on the members of a

particular racial and ethnic group. He sounds a little bit there like critics from the left, actually, of a lot of policies that end up having a disparate outcome, even if they have, you know, equal opportunity sort of policies that even if they're sort of staked on equal opportunity legally will have a disparate impact in the outcome. Crystal, what did you make of this decision? Yeah, so just to give a little bit more background as a native Virginian who also attended University of Virginia, I'm very familiar with Thomas Jefferson High School, or TJ as it is effectively known and affectionately known. It is one of, if not the top public high school in the entire country, is famously very selective.

It takes students from Fairfax County, Alexandria, Arlington, sort of like the Northern Virginia, you know, immediate suburbs. And so it has been very highly selective. And the previous criteria for admittance was basically, I mean, there were a number of factors, but it was basically an exam process.

And there were few middle schools in the region that became known as like feeder schools for TJ. And so if you had the money to be able to, you know, live and move into those districts where you could attend those middle schools, you had a huge leg up. So what they decided to do, and this came in the wake of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests, which is part of what raised suspicions that this had more to do with racial rebalancing and potential affirmative action

than with this sort of like race-blind approach that they are claiming. But what they decided to do is rather than relying on this exam process, which left a lot of students, there were, I think, eight middle schools in the region that wouldn't send any students. None of their kids would get admitted to TJ.

They decided to adopt something that's actually very similar to what Texas does with regard to their public university system. They said, we're going to look at taking the top students from every middle school. And when we're doing our evaluations, because it's not just your GPA, there are a couple other factors that are considered, so there still is an evaluation process. We are not going to know your name. We're not going to know your race. We're not going to know your gender so that we can really try to be sure that we're not being discriminatory in any manner. So for me, looking at this as someone who doesn't support racial affirmative action, who is actually glad that the know, that the Supreme Court ruled the way

that it did. This is much closer to almost like class-based affirmative action that reflects that, you know, kids who grow up with fewer means in a tougher neighborhood have extraordinary challenges to overcome. And so if they are the top students in that neighborhood, they are still extraordinary and deserving of entrance here. To me, if the Supreme Court had come in and struck down this admissions process just because it somewhat changed the racial demographics being admitted to the school, that would effectively be saying, well, you can't change your admissions policy ever, no matter what, if it changes the current racial quota whatsoever. So in a way, it would make it, once again, like racially obsessed, like we have to stick to this current, you know, racial quotient that we have right now in the school. And you can't change the admission process whatsoever if it is going to change that at all.

So I think it made a lot of sense. I support the fact that they did not decide to intervene here and that this admissions process, which again, doesn't even allow them to know the race of the kids that they are considering for admittance and will likely lead to a more broad demographic, not just racially, but also in terms of class representation, I fully support that. And just to reiterate one thing, Emily, that I just said, in Texas, with regards to their public university system, they admit the top, I believe it is 10% of Texas high schoolers throughout the whole state for a very similar reason to try to have class diversity and other forms of diversity as well as a reflection of the fact that, you know,

depending on the zip code you're in, we wish that everything was equal, but we know that it's not. And if you're coming up in a certain neighborhood through a certain school system, you may have additional odds and additional challenges to overcome. So they want to have the total demographic and class dynamics reflected in Texas in their public universities. And I think they're doing a similar thing here with TJ. The TJ story has been incredible because you have a lot of minority parents who have rallied and in some ways become affiliated with conservative groups, despite not having a lot of conservative leanings over their frustrations with some of these initial policies. And we've seen that

happen with affirmative action cases a lot. The continuing issue that I imagine people like Ed Whalen are talking about is a lot of universities. Hopefully, hopefully there's some real class diversity that comes through these policies. When I've looked at how some universities have used these proxy policies, it seems like they're still trying to do the same thing with race. Some of their outcomes look really suspect rather than like they're using them for the good. But I actually think in paper, I agree with you.

On paper, Crystal, I agree with you. These policies should allow for more class diversity, and hopefully that's the case. It doesn't bother me that the Supreme Court decided to stay out of this one, but I think some of the conservative critics are right that deciding to stay out of this one will allow universities to continue making policies like this that could still have similar ramifications to what happened in the Students for Fair Admissions case. But hopefully those policies actually work out better. But, you know, it's just depending on how each school determines they should be implemented.

Let me just say one more thing about this, which is that I do really empathize with the, I mean, it's mostly Asian parents who are pushing back against this, who feel like Asian kids are being discriminated against, that the sentiment was there's, you know, it's 73% of Asians who are being admitted to this school and do all the test prep. And like, you've been lining this up for years and you've been focused on it. And now they're changing the rules of the game. I do deeply, like that is a lot. I do deeply empathize. So I don't want to pretend like I'm callous to the fact that, you know, you had a plan,

you may have sacrificed to try to get your kid into this position. And now you feel like they're being put at a disadvantage. Whereas if they had gone to, you know, a different middle school in a less expensive area, now they'd be on kind of the inside track to get into teaching. I understand that that is experienced and is potentially a genuine loss.

However, I do think that just on the face, you know, the fact that the public school board decided we're going to change our admissions policy in this way, that it's important to have the, you know, class and demographic and other demographic characteristics more fully represented, and they're doing it in a way that is race blind. I do think that that's a superior outcome in the long term, even as I understand that for many of these parents, this is being experienced as a real loss and dramatically unfair to them in the short term. And the last thing I'll say about that is, you parents, this is being experienced as a real loss and dramatically unfair to them in the short term. And the last thing I'll say about that is, you know, it is a problem in and of itself

to have a few middle schools in the county and in the region as like the top middle schools that all of the, you know, wealthy families want to go to with the top students want to go to. And that creates a self-fulfilling inequality amongst the schools in the whole district. So I also think over the long term, this will likely bring up the level of all of the middle schools in the district as you have more sort of broad sorting across the county. And, you know, that has been shown, studies have shown that having more racial and class in particular of a mix in schools improves the quality of those schools for everyone. So I also think that that will likely be an outcome of this policy as well. So in that way,

I see it as an improvement. And I'm glad, again, that the Supreme Court did not intervene here and allowed them to make this change. That is such an important broader point. And the last thing that I'll say is I also, I think the Supreme Court decision last June probably did have a chilling effect on how schools are implementing race blind policies. So hopefully that's some good news for the sake of fairness and justice in this case as well. 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 millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead,

but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God.

And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times it's far from what I originally

intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room.

You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver 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 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. podcasts. So some big news yesterday at the UN with regards to Israel. Let's put this up on the screen. The U.S., once again, this is the third time now blocking a ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council. By the way, side note, the framing of this Guardian headline is very strange. They say U.S. vetoes Arab-backed U.N. resolution demanding ceasefire in Gaza. Of course, the reality is that everyone in the Security Council voted for this resolution, save for the U.S. and the U.K., which abstained. So I don't know why they described this as, quote unquote, Arab-backed. But anyway, we'll put that to the side. As I mentioned, this was the third time the U.S. has blocked a ceasefire resolution. We were the lone vote against this resolution that was put forward by Algeria. We said that

this could get in the way of negotiating a hostage and ceasefire deal. I don't really understand why it would get in the way of that, but that is what they are claiming. They are putting forward, and Emily, we talked about this yesterday as well, they are apparently drafting a separate weaker resolution that the U.S. intends to actually vote for and try to push through the U.N. Security Council. Dr. Trita Parsi looked at that draft resolution and raised a few red flags about it. I'll just read from a little bit of a tweet thread that he put out. He said he looked at the draft resolution on Gaza.

A few things stand out. The language on Rafa is strong for Biden's standards and should be welcomed. That was saying that they should not invade Rafa at this point under current circumstances. But he says the language on a ceasefire is borderline insulting. The U.S. draft does not demand a ceasefire, but instead underscores its support for a temporary ceasefire.

Moreover, it does not require one immediately, but rather, quote, as soon as practicable. This, he goes on to say, is a comparatively unusual formulation. He says he hasn't found that formulation in any other UN Security Council resolution on ceasefires. As a result, Biden seems to aim to delay a ceasefire while pretending to secure one that is, he says, beyond shameful, despite the relatively strong language on RAFA. And Emily, I mean, I'm curious your reaction to this. Not a surprise

that the U.S. is once again blocking a ceasefire, even as, you know, we've heard increasing leaks behind the scenes and expressions of concern about the potential ground invasion of RAFA, you know, escalating concerns of the direction of the Netanyahu government, etc. But, you know, actions speak louder than words. And here we are once again saying, listen, we are going to go against the entire rest of the world and say, no, we do not actually want a ceasefire. Even as the horrific slaughter and brutal humanitarian conditions, which are already leading to children literally starving to death, even as all of those things persist and continue. It's not a good split screen for the Biden administration. That is for sure. And as far as the Biden administration's policy on this, that's for sure. And I think it just speaks to, as you were saying, the completely muddled

messaging in an election year from the Biden administration, which really wants to have its cake and eat it too, wants to have its cake being, you know, voters, certainly in college towns, in Michigan, in Dearborn, think that Joe Biden is genuinely trying his best to push Bibi Netanyahu away from some of his aims and some of, you know, his allies' aims. Obviously, he has a really fragile coalition in his own government to deal with. And so they want, you know, voters to believe that Joe Biden is out there doing his darndest to push back. And that's where all the leaks come from, as you guys have covered very well. And I think this is just, you can take the split screen exactly as it is. It's the split screen of the Biden

administration itself that doesn't have the courage to, I don't even know what it actually believes. I mean, we know Joe Biden is a long-term two-state solution guy and Netanyahu is a long-term one-state solution guy. But what Joe Biden himself actually believes at this point, if he has the capacity to believe anything about this current just, it's up in the air. And he seems to, in the interim of anything happened, just by default, side with, and maybe that's a good way to put it. It's, you know, with Israel by default in public and then sort of, you know, leaking private things. We don't actually know what's been said in private. We know what's been leaked about what's been said in private, but it's completely muddled. Yeah, it's absolute,

you know, unconditional, consistent support. Whatever Israel wants, Israel ultimately gets. And, you know, they felt pressured because of the horror that has become completely undeniable and really can't be justified in any circumstance. I mean, every day the State Department ghouls are asked to justify or respond to some new atrocity that the entire world witnessed. And so they found it increasingly untenable to not at least express some sort of squeamishness

around what's going on. That's how you end up with the, you know, weak sanctions against four violent settlers. That's how you end up with this, you know, now attempt to weaken the resolution and at least signal like, oh, well, there's something we can get behind. And, oh, we're really just concerned about this current hostage negotiation that's going on. We don't want to blow that up, which, again, no one ever explains how actually passing Algeria's resolution would undermine those negotiations. We're just supposed to take that on face value. But there was a pretty remarkable exchange at the State Department yesterday that really put into relief the difference in the way that the U.S. respond to atrocities committed

against Israelis versus atrocities committed against Palestinians and the level of proof that is required to accept the claims of those various atrocities. This has to do with allegations of Israelis committing sexual assault against Palestinians. Let's take a listen to this exchange at the State Department where they were pressed on the different ways that they're handling those situations. Take a listen. The UN experts said that Palestinian women and girls in detention have been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault by male Israeli army officers. At least two of them were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence. Have you seen those allegations? Do you have any reaction?

MR PRICE So – I have seen the allegations. I cannot independently confirm the reports. I will say that we have been clear that civilians and detained individuals must be treated humanely and in accordance with international humanitarian law. We strongly urge Israel to thoroughly and transparently investigate credible allegations and ensure any accountability for abuses and violations. When you said you had no independent confirmation of what the UN experts found —

MR PRICE I mean, the underlying – the underlying allegations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But did you ever get – did you ever have confirmation of what Hamas allegedly did to Israelis who were women, girls who were – MR. There are Israeli medical experts who have testified to that, and that is something we consider credible, yes.

Right. So you have – you consider those instances to be confirmed but not what the UN – MR PRICE, we have seen this report and we have called for an investigation to confirm whether the allegations are true or not. MR PRICE, I get it. And who – and if you're willing to take the word of Israeli – and I'm not saying you shouldn't, but if you're willing to take the word of Israeli medical experts on what happened to the people who were abducted on October 7th, whose word

are you willing to take? If not the UN, who? A full, independent, credible investigation. Would it have to be an Israeli medical expert? We are calling for that. No, of course it would not have to be an Israeli medical expert. A credible medical expert. A credible – I don't want to prescribe who it would be.

A credible medical expert that can testify to it would be something we would look at, of course. So they really kind of have him dead to rights there, Emily, because on the one hand, you have allegations leveled by the Israelis that the Biden administration immediately took at their word, didn't require further independent investigation, have felt very comfortable condemning that, calling that out from the podium, et cetera. On the other hand, when you have the UN, which is, I think, kind of the definition of an independent body putting forward claims of

sexual assault against Palestinians, then they're calling on the Israelis to do an investigation, and they can't say whether this really happened and they need further proof in order to, you know, really condemn it or say anything about it. I mean, if you're going to judge between the UN and Israel, which is a less directly interested and more independent body, there's no doubt you would take the word of the UN and the investigation that, you know, they have the proof that they have already seen over the word of the UN and the investigation that, you know, they have, the proof that they have already seen over the word of the Israelis in this matter. So he has really no way to wiggle out of this. It ends up being incredibly awkward and just once again puts their extraordinary hypocrisy on display, which is something that's been a consistent theme since the beginning of

this conflict. You know, even, you know, previously we've talked a lot about how when it was Russia doing war crimes, everyone knew what the definition of a war crime was. Everyone knew what the definition of genocide was. They had no problem saying, hey, this is a war crime. This is an atrocity. This is outrageous. Suddenly when it's Israel,

it's I didn't see those reports. I call for an investigation. I don't know. I'll get back to you. And the, you know, blatant hypocrisy just could not be more clear for our own public or the world to behold. So, yeah, and that was obviously Matt Lee from the Associated Press, who I think myself and many others enjoy when he presses people to push their logic to its ultimate conclusion. And he absolutely had them, there was no wiggle room there. And he

didn't give any wiggle room whatsoever for the administration to come out of that one. And I think it's another sort of 30,000 foot view. And obviously, you know, myself and you and Ryan and Sagar, we all have different perspectives on this particular conflict. but it's a reflection on propaganda too, I think, Crystal, that it can sometimes be so powerful. And that long New York Times story on sexual assault on October 7th, which I think has, you know, I don't think that disqualifies, as Ryan has said, you know, the likelihood that there was no sexual assault on October 7th is very minimal. I think that's clear. But when you have people from the family that were interviewed by the New York Times pushing back on what was ultimately reported in the New York Times, I think it does speak to how

easily we can all kind of be whipped into a frenzy by wartime propaganda. And great for the Associated Press and other journalists who are pushing the administration to transparently walk through what they're talking about when they, you know, push some of these claims and when they don't, when they push back on some others. Yeah. Well, this was a key part of the early days post-October 7th, the allegation which has not been proven that Hamas, not only that there was some instances of sexual assault, which I agree with, Ryan, I think I would be very shocked if there weren't,

but that it was actively, systematically used as a weapon of war. That was the allegation post-October 7th. And the proof has not emerged, has not been put before the public to justify that sweeping allegation. That, along with other stories that we know for a fact, were false.

The beheaded, 40 beheaded babies and, you know, other, a pregnant woman having her fetus cut out of her things that the Israeli media was able to fully debunk. These were used to try to justify the ferociousness and the brutality of the Israeli response. So that's why it was important to, even though it felt like, you know, obviously October 7th was horrific. There were genuine atrocities. You know, those atrocities were enough for people to understand the horror of that day.

But there was a reason why those particular stories, you know, many of which now were proven to be complete fabrications, were pushed to the public and it was to try to justify what is now clearly a response that is wholly unjustified in terms of the collective punishment of the civilian population. Speaking of that, you know, CNN's Jeremy Diamond, I have to say, has done a number of extraordinary reports at this point. We cover, and I think you guys did as well, some of his reporting on the cemeteries that were desecrated, you know, I think 16 different cemeteries in Gaza that were desecrated by the IDF. He has another report just to remind you of what we are not only providing diplomatic

cover for at the UN, what we are enabling and supporting with our weapons shipments. There was a strike that recently had a tremendous horrific toll on children largely. Let's take a look at that report from Jeremy Diamond at CNN. One after another after another after another. The victims of the latest Israeli airstrike flood into this hospital in central Gaza. They're mostly children. Some of them still clinging to life, others bloodied and limp. In the ruins of the Al Baraka family home, the target of Sunday's

airstrike, the desperate search for survivors is underway. As one man dives into the rubble, another shouts, get out of there, you'll die down there. We could only pull two alive from under the rubble and the rest are all missing. We don't see safety in a mosque or in an UNRWA school or in a hospital. The word safety is not something that exists anymore. They evacuated us from place to place claiming it's safe. There is nowhere safe. Shouts praising God arise as a girl is pulled from the rubble. But her body is lifeless,

added to the list of more than 12,000 children killed in Gaza. Bystanders try and cover her body, but the man carrying her throws the blanket off. And you heard that one man saying, you know, they tell us to move and move, but the reality is that there is nowhere safe. That has certainly, you know, never been more clear than right now. Emily, as they're threatening this, you know, very rapidly approaching deadline for a full invasion of Rafah, where 1.3 million Palestinians are clustered in already abhorrent conditions and where many have already lost their lives from, in particular, the bombing that was used as what they described as a

distraction in order to be able to secure the release of two hostages and some over 60 plus Palestinians killed in that just quote unquote distraction. But you know, this is the reality. If you're blocking a ceasefire resolution at the UN, de facto, this is what you are supporting. And of course, we're going beyond that, not just providing diplomatic cover at the UN, but also shipping the weapons that are being used to kill these defenseless children. At the same time, in terms of Israel accomplishing their so-called objectives of eliminating Hamas. They have not been successful. There is now a report that the Israelis are denying, by the way, but I did want to put this up on the screen

so you can take it for what it's worth. But there was a report that Israel fears that the Hamas chief, Sinwar, had actually escaped to Egypt. There was an Arabic media report suggesting Sinmar took hostages when fleeing the Gaza Strip or Egypt via a tunnel. No idea whether this is accurate or not, but whether or not it is, Emily, the reality is they've been wildly unsuccessful at securing the safe release of their hostages. In fact, there's a new report that it's been confirmed that at least 10 of the hostages were killed by Israelis directly. And

the suspicion is that there were actually many more. The Israelis believe somewhere between 30 and 50 of the hostages have died during this time period. And it would not be surprising if some, if not all of them were killed in the, you know, in the aggressive Israeli response here. So they haven't been successful at securing release of the hostages outside of a negotiated ceasefire context. They've not been successful at destroying the tunnel network. They have not been successful at destroying Hamas or capturing their primary leaders. And so, you know, in terms of what are the alleged goals of the operation, they have failed. Their economy is in shambles. They're increasingly

heading towards absolute pariah status. And, you know, it's become quite clear to the world that the real goal here is ethnic cleansing and complete annihilation of the Palestinian civilian infrastructure of the Gaza Strip. Well, and I think there's a real possibility this also leaves the people of Israel in more danger in the long run. And I think it's very unclear. It has been. You know, we have Joe Biden. Again, we just mentioned this. Joe Biden, dedicated to state solution man, has been committed to that position for decades and is very proud of it, funding a war and providing equipment for a war that

its chief prosecutor, Bibi Netanyahu, is committed to his end being a one-state solution. And when you have a situation like that, I mean, it's just, of course, the outcomes are going to be as muddled as they are with Hamas moving into northern Gaza because Israel is not providing civilian infrastructure and the legitimate challenges of what to do with UNRWA and aid. When you're in a situation like this because of a ground invasion and before that, large aerial bombings, and you have to, there is no civilian infrastructure left over. And the only place that civilian infrastructure could possibly come from is the terrorist group that attacked you. And there's no sort of will to provide it.

There's no ability to provide it. It's entirely possible. Again, Hamas moving back into northern Gaza already, it's entirely possible that this outcome ends up not being in literally anyone's interest, let alone, and I said this a couple of weeks ago, and I think people misinterpreted what I meant by this. I mean, the tragedy of Israel even claiming that they were going to prosecute a war that involved mass civilian casualties and mass destruction that solved the problem, And then clearly that not even solving the problem, that is just incredibly, incredibly sad in and of itself. Because even, you know, by the sort of,

if you put stock in the kind of good faith position, if you take that position as a good faith one and you take it seriously, not even that, having the outcome that allegedly it was supposed to have, that's incredibly tragic because it means that all of it was, I mean, in vain, in vain. There's no increased enhanced safety. There's nothing. And that's just if you take that position in good faith, which I'm not saying that I do, because obviously that's not true. Obviously there were aims that were broader than just solving this individual conflict or responding proportionately to what happened on October 7th. Obviously there were broader aims to that. And if it turns out that it's killed tens of thousands of people and left everybody less safe in the end. And that looks like exactly where

it's heading. That's an incredible tragedy. And it's happening not in slow motion, in fast motion every single day. I just saw a poll this morning. I believe the number was two thirds of Israelis don't believe that the goal of eradicating Hamas is possible, that they're not likely to see that. I mean, the U.S. administration acknowledged there is no military solution to Hamas, which of course raises the question, which I think anyone with eyes and ears at this point can easily answer, what are we actually doing here? What are we doing here? What are the Israelis doing here if it's not, quote unquote, hunting for Hamas and eradicating Hamas. And returning the hostages. Right.

Like the precision of rescuing hostages. Well, because we know at this point, I mean, that has been a real refrain of, oh, well, if you want a ceasefire, then you just, you know, you don't want the hostages to return. Well, it's quite the contrary. The only time when hostages have been, you know, exchanged in significant numbers when hostages have been returned is through a negotiated ceasefire process when we had that brief ceasefire early on. So if your concern is for the hostages and your concern is for, you know, civilian populations on both sides, that only

leads to one place, which is a ceasefire, not to mention, you know, the way that this war has spread far beyond the borders of the Gaza Strip, as far afield as places like Pakistan, but certainly Yemen, the Red Sea, Lebanon, etc., Iraq, Syria, with grave consequences for our own service members. So one other thing, Emily, that I wanted to pick up on that you mentioned was Netanyahu's desire for a quote-unquote one-state solution. And this is not, of course, the one-state solution that some lefties and Palestinians would like to see of one actually democratic country with everyone having equal rights. No, his is either Palestinians gone,

pushed out entirely, or continued apartheid conditions and strengthened apartheid conditions because, you know, apartheid only goes in one direction. You have to further militarize. You have to further crack down. You have to further repress the rights of the population that you view as a demographic threat to your society. Key came out once again, not that this should be any mystery to anyone because he's been saying it for decades now at this point,

bragging about how he is the one who can block a Palestinian state, leaning very heavily into that message and claiming credit for blocking a Palestinian state over all of these years. So, you know, the Biden administration likes to live in this alternate fantasy world where there is some partner in the Israeli government that is interested in a negotiated

settlement, that is interested in a two-state solution or some sort of, you know, just lasting peace to the benefit of not just the Palestinians, but to the, to your point, to the safety and security of Israelis as well. And Netanyahu is bound and determined to burst that bubble and make it incredibly plain to absolutely everyone that he will thwart a Palestinian state if it's the last thing that he does. And he has absolutely no interest

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Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. At the same time, there was an extraordinary communique released by the chief of staff, Major General Herzli Halevi, sent this out to a communique to IDF commanders yesterday, put this up on the screen, basically emphasizing to them that they should not be doing war crimes and they should definitely not be publishing to the world those war crimes as they have been. I mean, we've all seen the TikToks of these IDF soldiers. I'll show you a little bit of that in a moment, who are bragging about stealing from Palestinians and who are, you know, doing exposés on how to blow up a mosque and destroying civilian infrastructure and incredibly proud of it and just like literally doing war crimes on camera to the celebration of some in the Israeli domestic audience. So part of what they said here in this communique that went out to IDF commanders is quote, we are not on a campaign of killing, revenge or genocide. He also urges soldiers not to take anything that isn't ours or film revenge videos. Pretty extraordinary

when you have to tell your soldiers, by the way, guys, we're not doing a genocide here. Definitely shows you the commitment to the rules of war when you have to at least publicly tell people stop doing war crimes and we're not doing revenge and we're not doing genocide. Just as a reminder of a little bit of what has come out, just, you know, this has been, this has been a part of this war from the beginning. These IDF soldiers just very proud of some of the horrors that they are committing. This is another report actually from Jeremy Diamond that we have a piece of over at CNN. Let's take a look at that. This is a how-to video on how to blow up a mosque in Gaza. Format is internet fluent. The content is very real. Filmed, edited, and posted on Instagram by an Israeli soldier. It's one of dozens reviewed by CNN.

For many, in 2024, social media is everyday life. Israeli soldiers are no different, except they're fighting Israel's largest and most brutal war in decades. In video, after video, after video, soldiers document the destruction of Gaza and rejoice. They film detonations to use as wedding invitations.

Among them are would-be comedians, whose videos satirizing the war show the devastation in Gaza. So you get a little bit of a sense there. And if we could go to the next piece from 972 Magazine, there's an increasing focus on the endemic of theft, of IDF soldiers just stealing whatever they want from bombed-down Palestinian homes. Actually, Haaretz basically celebrated this. I did a monologue on this last week about soldiers going into Palestinian kitchens and stealing food. And, you know, they were doing this glossy lifestyle magazine piece about all these incredible culinary

creations of the IDF soldiers from the theft of, you know, cooking supplies and food from a Palestinian population that's literally starving to death. But this expose from 972 talks about not just, you know, these aren't just isolated incidents, but this is just basically accepted. They say Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza have not been shy about posting videos on social media, gleefully documenting their wanton destruction of buildings, humiliation of Palestinian detainees. Some of these clips were even exhibited at the ICJ as part of South Africa's presentation. But there's another war crime being readily documented

by Israeli soldiers that has garnered less attention and condemnation despite its prevalence, and that is looting. They go on later on, they say soldiers who returned from fighting in Gaza confirmed to Plus 972 Magazine and Local Call that the phenomenon is ubiquitous and that for the most part, their commanders are allowing it to happen. Quote, people took things, mugs, books, each one the souvenir that does it for him, said one soldier who admitted that he himself took a, quote, souvenir from one of the medical centers which this IDF communique went out reminding soldiers that they are not

doing a genocide and to please not commit war crimes. These types of videos, these optics will continue as long as the war goes on, obviously, because there's no, obviously, no appetite to crack down on this type of conduct. And so as long as this war is happening, this is going to continue happening as well. And then you will continue to have the split screens of what's happening at the UN, what's happening at the Hague, juxtaposed with this. So no end in sight, sadly, to this crystal. Yeah Yeah and I want to go one step further because a lot of people have said like why do they let them film these things you know why are they willing to put this image out to the world I mean of course the first question is why are these war

crimes being committed in the first place but then there is another level of astonishment of like why don't they crack down on whatever the hell is going on here? And it finally clicked for me in a report about that, quote unquote, resettlement or ethnic cleansing conference that a bunch of Likud members of the Knesset and I think 11 security cabinet members attended, where the biggest applause, they said, came from exactly these types of TikToks. They would show these soldiers, especially ones that had to do with we're going to reoccupy and talking about the previous settlements and this is all ours and there are no uninvolved civilians.

That was the content that got the biggest cheers at this conference of everything that was going on. And the reason that was an aha moment for me was because, as we were just discussing, Israel is not going to eradicate Hamas. They have already failed and been dramatically inept in their key actual stated objectives of eradicating Hamas,

killing their fighters, getting rid of the tunnel system, capturing their leaders. They haven't done any of that. And so in lieu of that, what they can bring to their population is devastation, destruction, and revenge. That's what they're trying to substitute in for victory since they're failing on all these other fronts. So when you see these things not only being committed, but being publicized and celebrated, you know, at a certain point you go, this is not just like a one-off accident. This is something that someone in leadership is actually fine with, happy about, and, you know,

permitting to occur, if not actually encouraging, because that is the only thing that they have that they can bring to their population now in lieu of actually, you know, accomplishing their objective, let alone making the Israeli population more safe and more secure, which, as you, I think, accurately pointed out earlier, Emily, I mean, this has done nothing but to further imperil the security, long-term security of Israelis, because how many Palestinians are going to be incredibly radicalized by what you have done to them, to their family, to their children, to their homes, stealing their belongings, blowing up their cultural institutions, etc. And, you know, you have Israelis fighting and dying in Gaza,

and so it embitters everyone. So that's where, you know, Israelis cheering at some of the videos. Some of them have recently lost young family members, and it just embitters everyone going forward and with no end in sight. I mean, it's just endlessly depressing to watch these news cycles. It just, again, feels like no light at the end of this tunnel whatsoever. Yeah, indeed. All right, let's move on to some extraordinary proceedings in London right now with regard to Julian Assange. So this week, Julian Assange is in court fighting extradition to the U.S. on espionage charges, which as you know, we have covered extensively and which we're not the only ones, Press Freedom Foundation, you know, foundations around the world

talking about how this is a dramatic threat to freedom of the press. He is there in court this week. Actually, he's not able to attend because his health is so ill that he wasn't even able to attend remotely. However, there have been huge protests in London. We want to show you a little bit of that. What I'm going to show you for those who are listening is you'll get a little bit of a taste of the sounds from the protests. Then you'll hear Assange's wife, Stella, speak. And then a little bit also from journalist Chris Hedges. Let's take a listen to all of that.

The United States is abusing its legal system in order to hound and prosecute and intimidate all of you. What's at stake is the ability to publish the truth and expose crimes when they're committed by states. The only fair, I shouldn't even talk about fairness at this stage, because the country that's trying to extradite him plotted to murder him. Justice will come for Julian Assange. But it will not come from within those courts. It will come with you. It will come with us in these streets. They know how corrupt this process is. They understand fully the judicial pantomime that they have engaged in from the inception to crucify the most courageous, most important journalists of our generation.

And they are hoping they will not be called out. So this, of course, just as a reminder, Emily, dates back to some of the Bush era revelations of Assange and WikiLeaks exposing war crimes. It also, you know, the logic that is being used here, which was initially, initially the Obama administration said we can't prosecute him because of the threat to freedom of the press. The Trump administration came in with a different theory and said, yes, we are going to prosecute him. And the Biden administration has continued. U.S. representatives are in court arguing for his extradition. So you now have a bipartisan commitment to imprisoning this man whose life is also literally on the line here, by the way,

guys. I mean, he has his health is failing in prison to the extent that one of his appeals working its way through the British legal system actually went his way just out of concern for his health. However, right now, this is likely his last chance to block the extradition process. Let's go ahead and put the New York Times report up on the screen that breaks down how this is all going to unfold because it is a little bit complicated. Their headline is beginning of the end as Assange case returns to court. Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has been in prison for nearly five years fighting a U.S. extradition order. A hearing is his last chance to be granted an appeal in Britain. They go on to say on Tuesday, Mr. Assange,

this case returned to a British court for a two-day hearing that will determine whether he has exhausted his right to appeal within the U. UK, whether he could be one step closer being sent to the US. There are a few potential outcomes. The judges could allow Mr. Assange to appeal his extradition order, in which case a full appeal hearing would be scheduled, opening the door to a new decision about his extradition. Or if Mr. Assange's request to appeal is denied, he could be sent swiftly to a plane bound for the US, his legal team has said, but his lawyers have vowed to challenge his extradition

in the European Court of Human Rights in France. Theoretically, that could block his extradition from Britain until the case is heard in Strasbourg, France, because Britain is obliged to follow that court's judgment as a signatory. Alice Jill Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, has urged Britain to halt Mr. Assange's extradition, citing fears that if extradited,

he would be at risk of treatment amounting to torture or other forms of punishment. By the way, Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, the Australian government has also weighed in here expressing their concern. They've called for Assange to be sent to his home country where its parliament passed a motion last week calling for his release. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had discussed the matter in a meeting last fall

with Biden and on Thursday Albanese told the Australian parliament it is appropriate for us to put our very strong view that those countries need to take into account the need for this to be concluded and as I referenced before rights groups like Amnesty International, Advocates for Press Freedom, including Reporters Without Borders, have long called for the U.S. charges against Mr. Assange to be dropped and the extradition order canceled. I want to give a shout out to independent journalists like Richard Medford Hurst, who has been on the ground doing extraordinary coverage here. If you guys are interested in more details, definitely give him a follow on Twitter. He reported yesterday that Julian's lawyers intend to argue two key things over the next two days. They want permission

from the high court to appeal the decision of the former home secretary to sign the extradition order. And they also want to appeal the decision of the lower court to block the extradition. Why would they contest this even if it blocked Julian's extradition? Well, basically, that judge blocked it, just as I referenced before, on health grounds only, agreeing with all the political and bogus charges against Julian to set up an easy appeal win for the U.S., allowing them to overturn the decision and proceed with extraditing Julian. The judge also equated national security journalism with espionage under the Official

Secrets Act in Britain, setting an extraordinarily dangerous precedent for journalism. So that is basically where we are and what we know at this point. Is this appeal from Julian likely to succeed? I have to say, you know, my hopes are not high just because I think Britain probably very likely to do whatever the U.S. wants it to do here. But it is an incredible crime against press freedom. And it is an incredible act of hypocrisy for the U.S. to prosecute Julian Assange. And by the way, just to underscore that, you know, we all watched that Tucker Carlson interview with Putin. The very logic, outrageous logic that Putin has used to imprison a Wall Street Journal reporter is very similar logic to what is being used here to prosecute and attempt to

imprison. And of course, he has been in prison for years now. Julian Assange for the crime of journalism. There is a reason why the Obama administration said we cannot charge him without also implicating publishers like the New York Times. So that's where things stand, Emily. Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. That's exactly what I was going to point out. The logic is basically what Vladimir Putin said when he was defending the imprisonment of a Wall Street Journal reporter amid arguments from Tucker Carlson that he should let him go.

Putin basically said, listen, he was trafficking in confidential national security classified information without authorization. And Tucker said, well, that's journalism. Yes, that is journalism. And just one quick point on that, Crystal, the Obama-Biden administration had what they called the quote unquote New York Times problem. And then Donald Trump came in and obviously Mike Pompeo.

There was, I think it was a Michael Iscoff story on Yahoo that Stella Assange was referencing there about plots to kill Julian Assange, CIA plots to kill Julian Assange under the Trump administration. This is interesting. I remember I asked Keith Kellogg, who was Trump's NSA about this some years ago, about how Trump viewed Julian Assange. And Kellogg said Trump would use language or he said, I thought President Donald J. Trump was treated unfairly by the press. I think there were people out there in every, for the most part, most mainstream media who it became a personal attack. It was an ad hominem attack. It was not just an attack on Trump's policies and he wouldn't

back down. I mean, not at all. And I think he kind of saw that with Julian the same way, like, okay, this guy's not backing down. But of course it was the Trump administration, which had Mike Pompeo allegedly plotting to kill Julian Assange and where this eventual prosecution and the espionage act charges stem from. And just as you were kind of breaking all of this down, Crystal, it just, what jumps out to you is how simple all of this is. The New York Times problem, as Obama and Biden saw it at the time, is absolutely real. There is no way to do this without attacking press freedom, which is why you've eventually seen even some of the corporate media outlets that initially opposed Julian Assange,

opined against Julian Assange, come around and start giving this case due coverage and start actually backing Julian Assange with letters and those sorts of things because it is obviously, obviously a threat to press freedom. There's no question about it. It is simple. This is an easy question. We have laws against hacking. The Espionage Act is terrible, but we have actual laws that could be used precisely and appropriately to disincentivize leaking that actually threatens national security. And that is not what is happening in this case whatsoever. It's that simple.

Yeah, I mean, the politics around Julian Assange got very confused because, you know, originally he's exposing Bush era war crimes and, you know, lots on the left are celebrating him. Then during the Clinton Trump run, he's exposing things that Democrats didn't like and he's being accused of being a Russian plant, etc. But put all of that crap aside, whether you liked the things he revealed or you didn't like the things he revealed or you feel some kind of way about him personally. This boils down to he embarrassed powerful people, and they want to turn him into a scapegoat to demonstrate to other potential journalists who would expose these secrets that we will make you pay potentially with your life. I mean, again, Julian's life is truly on the line here, you know, according to

his family, his brother, his wife, his father, etc. So that's the bottom line is they want to go after this man because he embarrassed powerful people through an act of journalism and transparency that was vital to the public's understanding of what was being done in our name in these wars abroad. So we'll continue to follow it. And as I said, make sure you give Richard Medhurst a follow for all of the ins and outs of the details. He's been following this as closely as absolutely anyone understanding the, you know, intricate legal processes here and what's likely to unfold. And I just encourage everyone to read the charges themselves, the charges against Julian Assange. I think you'll come to the correct conclusion about

whether or not this is trumped up and whether or not this is a just prosecution of the Espionage Act. If you read the documents themselves, it's pretty clear what's happening here. 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 millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead.

But I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God.

And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back, or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and

relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where

a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver 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 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. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Jon Stewart, of course, is back, as you guys have covered here, Crystal. And he has some thoughts on Tucker Carlson. What's Jon Stewart been up to in his return to The Daily Show? Yeah, so first of all, last week, of course, he went after Joe Biden,

also Donald Trump, for his age. That created a whole insane freakout. So he started off by responding a bit to his critics and then making a turn into the Tucker Carlson criticism. Let's start with him hitting back at his critics from last week's show. Quite frankly, the response to the first show last Monday was universally glowing. Jon Stewart is facing massive backlash from Democrats over his comments about Joe Biden. Oberman tweeted, well, after nine years away,

there's nothing else to say to the both-sidest fraud John Stewart bashing Biden except, please make it another nine years. Christy Jackson tweeted, sorry, but I won't be watching you either. Okay. Maybe not universal. But that was on Twitter. Everything on Twitter gets a backlash.

I've seen Twitter tell labradoodles to go f*** themselves. Labradoodles. I just think it's better to deal head on with what's an apparent issue to people. I mean, we're just talking here. And Mary Trump tweeting, Not only is Stewart's both sides are the same rhetoric not funny, it's a potential disaster for democracy. It's one f***ing show! It was just one f***ing show! It was 20 minutes!

I did 20 minutes of one f***ing show! But I guess as the famous saying goes, democracy dies in discussion. So the Mary Trump one, we covered that last week, was insanely deranged. Even that one quote doesn't do it justice, but clearly he is not too concerned about people who did not appreciate his original show. It's such a good flashback to the Bush era

when we had to, we were all fighting over the dog bone that is Jon Stewart and whether or not he was destroying democracy. Meanwhile, it's since become obviously apparent that we have a bigger fish to fry when it comes to the preservation of the lowercase American democracy crystal. It just feels like such a weird time warp to be debating once again along the lines of what Mary Trump and Keith Olbermann are doing. Yeah, that's so true. Keith Olbermann, who is still holding on to like the MSNBC show he had in like 2002 or whatever. Like the sanctimonious intellectual. It's just so stupid. And you remember the moral panics over at the time it was millennials, like college students who, it was a decent number said that they got their news from The Daily Show. And

there were repeatedly moral panics over what a crisis this was for lowercase d democracy, that people were getting their news from The Daily Show. And meanwhile, coming down the pipe in 10 years was like TikTok. So well done, everyone. You really warned us that this would be a disaster. And everyone took appropriate measures and decided to join TikTok. So the bit that he then turned to is he's like, all right, I got to learn how to be more of a shameful propagandist. So who can I take notes from? And then he pulls up the Tucker interview with Putin and makes this turn into going after Tucker, not only for that interview, but also for his like exploits around Moscow.

He's like, look at the subway, look at the grocery store. Isn't this incredible? Leaving out the fact that the groceries may be cheaper, but also the wages are way, way lower than in the U.S. Let's take a look at a bit of that commentary. How does Russia have a subway station that normal people use to get to work and home every single day that's nicer than anything in our country?

There's no graffiti, there's no filth, there are no foul smells. We were just putting in the cart where we would actually eat over a week. And we all came in around 400 bucks, about 400 bucks. It was $104 U.S US here. And coming to a Russian grocery store, the heart of evil, and seeing what things cost and how people live, it will radicalize you against our leaders. That's how I feel anyway. Radicalized.

Radicalized. And it will radicalize you unless you understand basic economics. See, $104 for groceries sounds like a great bargain unless you realize Russians earn less than $200 a week. Right. Because the difference between our urinal caked chaotic subways and your candelabra beautiful subways is the literal price of freedom. But the goal that Carlson and his ilk are pushing is that there's really no difference between our systems. In fact, theirs might be a little bit better. The question is, why? Why is Tucker doing this?

Here's why. It's because the old civilizational battle was communism versus capitalism. That's what drove the world since World War II. Russia was the enemy then. But now they think the battle is woke versus unwoke. And in that fight, Putin is an ally to the right. He's their friend. Unfortunately, he is also a brutal and ruthless dictator. So now they have to make Americans a little more comfortable with that. I mean, liberty is nice, but have you seen Russia's shopping carts?

And Tucker would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling assassins. In a statement to the New York Times, Carlson said, quote, it is horrifying what happened to Navalny. The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person would defend it. Correct.

No decent person would. So what do you think of that part, Emily? I felt like actually this week it was the turn of the right to be like really outraged by what Jon Stewart had to say. I know they didn't like in particular when he says that thing about like the our dirty subways are the price of freedom. Yeah, because, you know, I think that there were the Tucker Putin interview. Ryan talked about Ryan and I talked about this a lot. And so did you and Sagar. I thought that interview was defensive or was defensible.

I think what happened afterwards in the grocery store and in the subway was mostly silly. But I do think people have been sort of willfully misinterpreting what Tucker Carlson was saying about the subways, which is, you know, I heard a lot of people being like, Russia is poorer than the poorest U.S. state, Mississippi. And I think the point is, right, so why doesn't, you know, Mississippi have glistening infrastructure? If we're that much wealthier, why can't we also have our cake and eat it too? Why not both? Which I think is an entirely legitimate question. That said, Tucker and Jon Stewart have a storied history, but one of the famous moments of both of their career involves each other. When Jon Stewart told Tucker Carlson that Crossfire on air, Tucker was

interviewing Jon Stewart with, I think it was Paul Begala around 2000, that Crossfire was destroying democracy, sort of the same attack that Mary Trump made against him. But he was making it against the sort of performative and theatrical debates that happened on CNN via Crossfire. I actually think Jon Stewart was wrong in that. I think it's great to have political theater because it's a catharsis, it's a cultural catharsis. That said, the two of them do have history, so it's not surprising at all that Jon Stewart's one of his first big swings back at The Daily Show, which by the way, he is such a distinct host that nobody else could

do it. I think it's very clear that nobody else can own The Daily Show property like Jon Stewart can and, you know, occasionally be hilarious. Like, there's some really good moments in his approach to Tucker's or his points against Tucker's exploration of the Russian grocery store and Subway system because it was so rife for a takedown. And so, you know, Crystal, all I can say is, honestly, I'm glad that he gave up what he was doing for Apple because I found it to be sort of insufferable. And this is a much better version of Jon Stewart. I wish Stephen Colbert would do the same thing. I liked some of what he did with Apple, especially, I mean, he did these very serious interviews with people who were just like, oh, Jon Stewart is going to interview me.

Sure. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, I'll sit down with you, you know, and then he just he's actually a phenomenal interviewer and would hold their feet to the fire and gives zero fucks, apparently, about them caring, you know, liking him or whatever. So there were moments that I thought were great in the Apple show, but he left because of censorship. And so I really admire that. It's great to have him back on Monday nights. I'm sure, you know, there have already been moments where I don't agree with him. That's fine. I don't have to agree with every word that this comedian is saying.

It's not, you know. Yes, you do, Crystal. It's not the series, guys. But, you know, to be honest with you, I didn't even put together that crossfire callback that this going after Tucker now actually represents. So that is kind of perfect in a certain sense.

It really is. It's like full circle moment. Yeah, indeed. All right, guys. Well, we have a fantastic guest standing by. Let's go ahead and get to that. Crystal, we're so excited to be joined by our guest this morning. Tell us a little bit about J.D. Belcher.

We're very excited to be joined by J.D. Crystal, tell us a little bit about J.D. I know you guys go very excited to be joined by J.D. Crystal, tell us a little bit about J.D. I know you guys go a long way back. Yeah, this is an old friend of mine. Nice to see you, J.D. He's a former coal miner, turned documentarian, now runs JJN Multimedia Marketing Agency in Southern West Virginia.

And for more than three years, he's been working on a separate podcast project, digging into the Upper big branch mine disaster. That, for you guys that may not recall, is an explosion that occurred on April 5th in 2010, killed 29 coal miners. And obviously that tragedy continuing to reverberate throughout the West Virginia

and Southern West Virginia in particular community. It's great to see you, J.D. Thanks for having me, Crystal. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it's my pleasure. So before we get into you telling us why you wanted to tell this story, you put together an incredible trailer so people can get a sense of what this podcast is all about. Let's take a look at that. New findings and charges in the investigation of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in West Virginia.

29 men were killed on April 5th, 2010, after an explosion at the mine then owned by Massey Energy. Prior to the explosion, he loved being a coal miner, and he was a good boss. He would never ask you to do something that he wouldn't do. That coal dust that you mentioned, there was so much of it, massive explosion that coursed through the mine because of the presence of all that coal dust. We know that the gas came quickly. We know it was natural gas. That's his theory. The investigation's all found otherwise. The only thing that they was worried about was making sure the long wall would be run the way it was supposed to because that's your moneymaker. JD, what part of this story did you feel like still needed to be told?

Sure. So, you know, there's been several attempts to do this that were great attempts. This isn't to slight those, but I felt like there needed to be a comprehensive effort to tell the story of Upper Big Branch, which first and foremost, holding the 29 miners and their families in the forefront of respect and dignity and explaining who they were

and the emotion of this tragedy and just what it did to these communities, but also going into the facts of the investigation and trying to answer, you know, basically where is coal mining today and are we being as safe as we possibly can. And I feel, you know, confident that we lay out the facts enough in an unbiased way to where, you know, the listener can make their own decision about the tragedy. And it's just overall devastating. So a warning there. It's not for the faint of heart. And it is absolutely devastating what these families have went through.

And J.D., if people were listening to the trailer, they may not have caught the image of Joe Manchin. If you're watching it, you certainly saw Joe Manchin in the trailer. I just want to ask about the sort of politics of all of this in the last 14 years. Obviously, a lot of some of the same characters are involved. West Virginia politics are a very interesting thing, as many people know. So what can you tell us about whether people who are responsible for this politically in terms of the business community have been held responsible? And to what extent are people that may share some culpability are still, you know, major figures in West Virginia politics? Sure. And obviously, politics was heavily involved. Senator Manchin, then Governor

Manchin at the time, was there for the whole week with the families, waiting for updates, giving updates to the public. So, you know, I think overall the feeling is just, you know, closure is hard to find. And people across the board just don't feel that accountability has really been taken on, you know, any sides involved. You know, obviously the investigation found that the company was to blame on certain lack of safety standards that they were holding at their mind. And we go through all of this, you know, there were prison sentence given out and, you know, there was a $209 million judgment agreed with Alpha Natural Resources, who purchased Massey Energy to do certain things like research and restitution,

obviously, and fines. There's a $10.8 million fine given out. But overall, you know, people are still pointing fingers and saying, oh, it was this side or, oh, it was that side. You know, it was Amish's fault. It was Massey's fault. And, you know, overall, I think we just need to come together and analyze where the coal industry is today and figure out, are we getting complacent? Because since then, you know, 48 coal miners died in 2010. Since then, from 2011 on, over 150 coal miners have died on the job.

So, you know, I just don't believe that any coal miner needs to go to work worried if they're going to come home. I think we can do a better job across the board on figuring out just what we can do to make things better. And what do you think that should be done that would make things better that would keep coal miners safe on the job? Oh, yeah. Well, there's one thing I know we can change right now, and it is requiring organic respirators for mine rescue teams when they enter a mine. So I'll touch on this lightly, but we go over it in the podcast.

The lead investigator for the state, Bill Tucker, does an extensive interview with me. We talk for over two hours. And on the podcast, we discuss his breathing issues. And he can barely walk across the yard without sitting down to take a breath. And that was found to be the blame of his role in the investigation. So there's something called barefaced exploration, which basically means after an explosion, a mine rescue team's goal is to save lives. They have an apparatus on their back that they go, it's called going under air, that gives them four hours of

oxygen. Well, up until then, up until a certain level when their oxygen and carbon monoxide readings get to a certain level, they go barefaced, which basically means they go in the mine with nothing on their face until a certain extent to put that, to go under air and save that oxygen. So he actually had a panel of doctors find that his issue was caused directly because of UBB in his role, and he filed for workers' comp. Well, the state contested his workers' comp. They sent him to a panel of their doctors. Their doctors concurred with his doctors that it was directly as a result to his role in UBB in the investigation. So it's on record that this was, you know, they'd done bronchoscopies, lung testing on him and said, without a doubt, this is what happened. And he was thankfully awarded his worker's comp. And, you know, they're still on the books today.

You can look it up. It's called barefaced exploration. I think that needs to be eliminated. And that's something we can cheaply do now that can preserve quality of life. So that's number one. But there's, you know, other things like is the pattern of violation system being enforced, which those who don't know, basically, that's MSHA's ability to go in a mine that has so many serious violations. They can go in this mine and shut it down. Well, before UBB, in 32 years, the POV system was enacted once. Wow. And it was found to have a computer glitch in their system from 2007 on. And now granted, I want to make sure people know that wouldn't

have affected UBB. They could have been placed on a pattern of violation system in the past, but they would not have been on a pattern of violation system when this occurred. But I think that's something we need to look at and make sure is running properly. No doubt about it. My last question, JD, is just what it was like to go and talk to some of these families as they've been sort of reflecting on what happened. What can you tell us just about where they are, what's maybe happened to them in the decade plus since? What was that like to re-engage on this really difficult moment in their lives? Sure. It's, I mean, devastating is the word. There's just, there's still mourning loss every single day.

And they're hurting. And their loved ones are not here. They got a phone call that just, you know, this explosion happened and they never talked to them again. So it was just a heavy, heavy presence. I read the eulogies of all 29 on the podcast and just seeing their faces is just a constant heavy presence and also a responsibility to get this right.

They are, them and their families did nothing wrong whatsoever. And I just felt the need to explain what a coal miner is. You hear on a national narrative what a typical West Virginian is, and I always call BS, usually. Sometimes we get it right. But, you know, I felt that this story needed to be told by a West Virginian. And I was a surface coal miner for nine years of my life. So I know what the culture is and I know what kind of people coal miners are. And I wanted to be sure to respect that with the story. Yeah, well, you absolutely did that. And it's an important story, not only for West Virginia and for, you know, uplifting the culture and the people who suffered losses there, but also for understanding this is

a story about greed and, you know, a failure of politicians and a lack of accountability. And in that way, it is an incredibly universal story. J.D., just tell people the name of the podcast, where they can find it, and where they can follow your work. Sure. UBB, A Coal Miner Story.

And we've been getting a lot of traction on the website for a lot of people who aren't podcast savvy. There's a lot of elderly that was wanting to listen. You can send them to upperbigbranch.com.

You can listen to every episode there. We also have a Facebook community going. So if you want to get involved in the conversation, we have debates on there and, you know, we keep it civil and that we're just trying to figure out where we're at in the coal industry. And anywhere else that you get your podcast, it's pretty much available. I think there's nearly 20 platforms it's on. And I want to make sure, note too, this is a nonprofit educational purposes only endeavor. I'm not making $1 on this for reimbursement or profit or anything. So I just want people to learn about this and let's figure this out together. Yeah. Guys, please check out the podcast. JD, incredible work. Congratulations.

I know this has been a long-term project and labor of love for you. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Absolutely. And thank you guys so much for watching out there. I will be back again, if you're not sick of me with soccer tomorrow.

Emily, always fun to host with you. And I will see you guys tomorrow. Sounds good. That does it for us on today's CounterPoints. We'll be back next week with more CounterPoints. Obviously, will see you guys tomorrow. Sounds good. That does it for us on today's counterpoints. We'll be back next week with more counterpoints. Obviously, Crystal will be back tomorrow. You can find the link to JD's podcast in the description of this video. Of course, make sure to check that out. We'll see right back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars. Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops. 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. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

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