Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/25/24: TikTok Vs Cable Israel Divide, Biden Says War Funding Equals Peace, Bibi Says Campus Protests Are 1930s Germany, Texas Arrests Journo At Protest, Stabbed In Eye Hoax Debunked, Republicans Push Abortion Ban, Israel Rafah Invasion Imminent, 1968 Historic Parallels

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss the TikTok vs Cable Israel divide, Biden says war funding will bring peace, Bibi compares protests to 1930s Germany, Texas arrests journalists on campus, stabbed in the eye hoax debunked, Republicans fight for abortion ban at SCOTUS, Israel Rafah invasion imminent, 1968 deja vu with protests, RFK campaign, and more!   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.

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Listen to Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of big breaking news and a few big announcements here at Breaking Points as well. So we'll get to that in a minute. So first of all, TikTok very much on its way to being banned. We'll break that down for you in the context of some exclusive new Breaking Points poll numbers.

Big stuff. So get excited for that one. We also have, well, TikTok is being banned. Wars are being fully funded. We'll show you what President Biden has to say about that. Bibi Netanyahu says that American students who are protesting are basically Nazis. This comes amid a massive crackdown. More than 100 arrests that happened yesterday and overnight. So we'll bring you the very latest there.

And it is truly astonishing what is happening right now. Idaho's abortion ban, which is nearly a complete abortion ban, was at the Supreme Court yesterday. Some very interesting dynamics in the arguments and pushback there. So we'll bring some of that to you and what it could mean for the future of abortion rights in the country. An invasion of RAFA now appears imminent. We'll tell you what the latest signs are and the latest out of the Gaza Strip. And Sagar, I'm very excited for your monologue today is looking at the eerie parallels with 1968, which is something which has been much commented on recently, especially in the context of these campus protests and crackdowns. This is a, honestly, even I was surprised at the amount of parallels that there are. I think people

will enjoy it. Yeah, indeed. So before we get to any of that, though, if you guys watched CounterPoints yesterday, you already know the big news. We are going to be a Monday through Friday. It's big. Organization, Emily and Ryan. You guys asked for more Emily and Ryan. We are giving you more Emily and Ryan. They're going to do a Friday show starting tomorrow.

And they have a very interesting guest, which we can reveal here now. You can put this up on the screen. Ryan and Emily with Don Lemon. So I actually haven't watched the interview yet. I'm very excited to watch it and see what they got into and all of those things. So guys, Thursday evening for premium subscribers and Friday, what, Friday morning? Yeah, drop it on Friday. For everybody else. But if you want to support this Friday show, if you want early access to this interview and all of the other interviews and debates and things that they're going to be doing with their Friday show, make sure you subscribe at BreakingPoints.com. That's right. So premium subscribers are going to get it early as always. And this show is actually,

it's a big, big day for us, right? Because we have two things. One, we've been asked for consistently, that's one of our big announcements, that, right? Because we have two things. One, we've been asked for consistently. That's one of our big announcements that we dropped a Friday show. It does cost a lot of money, though. So if you guys are able to help us out. And then second, you know, we commissioned our own custom polling that we're going to be debuting for everybody. It's a high quality poll.

It's got a great sample size and actually ask the questions that a lot of mainstream media are not able to. Both of those things, you know, really are two big new ventures for us. And we appreciate all the people who helped us out on the way. And if you do and can help us out, we deeply appreciate it because these are exactly the type of things that we want to do all throughout the election season. So BreakingPoints.com again, if you can help us. And of course, you get first access to everything. I am actually very, very excited about Emily and Ryan's new show. We debated giving it a different name than CounterPoints because the format is slightly different. They're going to do these longer interviews like what they did with Don Lemon.

They're going to moderate some debates, you know, on interesting topics. So it's going to be a little bit different than the normal show format. But I think it's a great fit for Fridays. I think it's a great fit for them. So I'm personally extremely excited to see what they do with it. Yeah, no, it's very uniquely suited to them, to their format. It's something also that is unique to the current format. It's not just news, but it's actual debates and some of the other things that people have been asking for.

So if you guys miss panels or any of those other things, they have big plans on that. Our entire staff is working overtime to make it happen and make it a very, very high-quality product. So thank you all again for supporting it. And I think it's going to be a fantastic addition to the Breaking Point's extended universe. Indeed. All right. Shall we get to the news?

Well, let's get to the news, the news of which also involves us. So as Crystal teed up, that legislation on TikTok officially has both moved from the House of Representatives through the United States Senate and now signed by President Biden. So what does it actually do and what does it mean?

TikTok, the previous iteration of the legislation, Crystal, had 180 days in which TikTok would have had to divest itself of ByteDance and his parent company. The extension has now moved to 365 days, very strategically, I would add, by President Biden. So it does not happen before the 2024 election. In fact, what I saw, at least, is that if the ban does go through, it would happen literally the day after if Trump were to win. He was an operating. Yeah, no, that's correct. So timing here, very intentional because they know how much this is going to be objectively hated by young Americans who use TikTok in particular. Well, that would be if ByteDance decides not to sell it.

So this is where we should then get to the CEO of TikTok, who is now revealing their new strategy. TikTok spent approximately $7 million lobbying against the bill. Obviously, they were not successful. And their new phase that they're moving into is a legal battle, challenging this in U.S. court based on First Amendment grounds. Let's take a listen to the CEO of TikTok and his response. Hi, everyone. It's Sho here. As you may have heard, Congress passed a bill that the president signed into law that is designed to ban TikTok in the United States. That will take TikTok away from you and 170 million Americans who find community and connection on our platform. Make no mistake, this is a ban, a ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice. Politicians may say otherwise, but don't get confused. Many who sponsored the bill admit a TikTok ban is their ultimate goal.

It's obviously a disappointing moment, but it does not need to be a defining one. It's actually ironic because the freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom. TikTok gives everyday Americans a powerful way to be seen and heard. And that's why so many people have made TikTok part of their daily lives. Rest assured, we aren't going anywhere. We are confident that we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. Through our US data security efforts, we have built safeguards that no other peer company has made.

We have invested billions of dollars to secure your data and keep our platform free from outside manipulation. All right, so there we go. It is going to be the legal battle of the century. This is a multi-billion dollar product. From what I've been able to glean so far, this is going to be based on a First Amendment interpretation and challenge of the law. They will argue that it violates the free speech rights of users to have the app content that's banned if it does result in a removal from US markets. However, what they're going to run up against is that the previous time when President Trump tried to ban TikTok, and I think it was in 2020, based upon an executive order, it was a similar pursuit of action, which was a forced sale and or a ban. Investors in ByteDance, people like Jeff Yoss, who was one of Trump's major campaign donors

and was very influential on getting him to reverse, they were actually successfully, Crystal, able to sue in US courts, arguing that their rights as investors were infringed upon by the government. This legislation was authored specifically to have a congressional authorization that comes in the form of a foreign export control, which is long survived congressional court challenge. So unless ByteDance sells it, it does not look like TikTok will survive the year. And I don't know what ByteDance is going to do. They're very likely not gonna make a final decision until any of these court cases do come. But it's possible this one goes to the Supreme Court.

But just based, again, what people that I've spoken to, they don't expect this to be able to survive any challenge. So President Biden giving you your way. Yeah, I mean, I'm fine with it. We can talk a little bit about why exactly we got here. Well, let's talk about that. I want you to be able to get your, you know, your voice in too. We're about to show you some poll numbers. And listen, by the way, plenty of the members who were in favor of this were quite explicit.

They're banning TikTok because they don't like the fact that young people on the platform were seeing the scenes of horror out of Gaza. They don't like the fact that you were able to bypass mainstream news. They don't like the fact that pro-Palestine content was wildly more popular on TikTok than the pro-Israel line. And so they were quite explicit that that's why they're moving forward with this ban. And frankly, I think we should all find that terrifying. They're picking up on this Chinese connection to ban TikTok. Let's say it's bought by Steve Mnuchin. Is that better? He has ties to Israel and Saudi Arabia. And make no mistake, if they decide they don't like the tenor of the discourse on any other platform, well, now they've got a roadmap to do the exact same thing to Twitter,

to, we're gonna show you some poll numbers showing that actually the most pro-Palestine individuals get their news from podcasts and YouTube. So we're certainly not safe here either. So we should see this ban as being of a piece with the campus crackdown that we're going to cover later in the show. And oh, by the way, under the radar, someone was, you know, who's quite knowledgeable on policy was noting on Twitter that they're also coming after the nonprofit status of pro-Palestine organizations. So listen, people who are in power are very concerned that they've clearly lost the debate on Israel, right? 60-40 against military aid in terms of Americans. You have a majority of Biden voters

saying it's a genocide. You have people, a majority of Americans now disapproving of Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip. So rather than change course, rather than admit that the people are not with this course of action under the Biden administration and do something from a different policy perspective or just acknowledge like I've lost the debate. Instead, they're going with banning expression, trying to crack down on freedom of expression on campuses, trying to crack down on the platforms that they feel like are fueling this, you know, objection to genocide that's unfolding. And that's what this TikTok ban is really about. And I think we can put up a two on the screen because this really underscores this point. This is quite extraordinary. So one of the things we did in our polling, we have a lot more data to get to you guys. We just honestly haven't had a chance to go through all of it and sort through it. So next week, you can look forward

to a lot more data that we got from this poll from JL Partners that we conducted, which is largely about Israel and Palestine. One of the things we wanted to focus on is, OK, how are people getting their news and how is that related to their views on Israel and Palestine? Look at these word clouds. So when you ask people in these different age demographics, OK, where do you get your news from? Look at 18 to 29. Tick tock. Big, bold letters. It's like the most clear of any of them. TikTok, big, bold letters. It's like the most clear of any of them. By the way, 50 plus all like Fox is such a big, big part of their news consumption. Take the black bill right over there.

Oh, it's terrifying. 30 to 49, you've got YouTube and CNN basically tied for number one in terms of their news consumption. But for the purposes of this conversation, just look at how influential TikTok is for that 18 to 29 demographic. And if we can put the next slide up on the screen, you can see. Now, I think that remember that correlation is not causation. OK, so the fact that younger people get their news from TikTok and they're more pro-Palestine doesn't necessarily mean that TikTok influenced their opinions.

I think younger generations have shown to be different ideologically in a lot of respects from older generations. But just look at these numbers. When you ask, OK, has Israel committed war crimes? You have a majority, 54 percent of people who get their news from podcasts and YouTube saying yes, only 23% saying no. Similar numbers with TikTok, Instagram, other social media outlets, 49% say yes, Israel has committed war crimes, and only 15% say no, the remainder are unsure.

And those are significantly different from people who get their news either through cable news or print media. With cable news, you have only 32% saying Israel's committed war crimes and 34% so the plurality saying that they have not. So this is the reason that TikTok is being targeted right now. So I have already had our debate about whether we want TikTok to be targeted, but I don't think you can deny that this is what has motivated this to happen right now. I will be very honest.

I think it is absolutely because of Palestine. The thing is, though, sometimes the enemy of your enemy is your friend. And I've been talking about this long before Palestine. I think the very first segment I ever did on TikTok was 2018 whenever I was a guest host on Rising. So just so people want to know about my bona fides on the issue. Yeah, no one can accuse you of just being about it for this. I've been against this for a long time. I believe it is a basic market fairness provision where our companies are banned in their country, and thus they should not be allowed in

ours. I would have banned it back in 2018, long before it ever got to 170 million Americans. Now, that said, at the end of the day, I'm going to take it because this is a market fairness position, which I vehemently have always been a proponent of. I believe strongly in reciprocal trade policy against all countries. One day, Israel-Palestine will end, but TikTok, China, and all that, that ain't going anywhere. So if this is what it takes, so be it. Now, the reason that I do disagree, though, is that if you notice, the podcast and YouTube number on that one is actually larger than TikTok for people. So YouTube is not going anywhere. YouTube is a U.S. company. Twitter is a U.S. company. All of these other companies are

podcasting platforms, etc. Even Spotify, although it's Swedish, traded in U.S. markets. None of those have any danger of getting banned under this. All free expression will continue. All of these, what is it, these platforms and alternative ones, which will be able to post dissident facts and dissident narratives, etc., will be fine. You can still watch Instagram or any of these other places. And by the way, this is my main objection on the Steve Mnuchin thing. Steve Mnuchin is a US citizen. You know, he actually is under our jurisdiction. We can control him. We can pass a law. If people feel so strongly, then we can certainly put in free speech provisions, which I absolutely 100% support for all social media companies, not just TikTok, Instagram, etc. Any potential buyer of

TikTok would have to comply with US courts. The Chinese, they're not Americans at the end of the day. Those people are a geopolitical rival who have a direct interest in fomenting whatever they want. Now, what are they fomenting here? I have no idea, okay? The Chinese, they don't particularly care about Palestine. They're just one of those people, they love chaos here. And I would say there's a reason that they've banned our tech companies in their country because they want them to have no influence. Now, do I like basically also media for kids? That's not. No, that's not very limited. They have their own TikTok version, which has a different algorithm. And they have I'm just saying they have much more regulation. They have some what kids can

absolutely probably support. It's complicated. Let me just say, though. Yeah. Okay. Let's say that you're YouTube. Let's say that you're, I mean, Elon Musk, he does whatever he does. Yes. So let's kind of put him to the side. But let's talk about YouTube. We've seen the way that the government puts pressure on them to censor. So are they going to, like, completely take down YouTube? No. But after YouTube executives have seen the way that they were willing to come

for TikTok because they were allowing content that the powers that be didn't like, you don't think they're going to get that message the next time they get one of their little friendly requests from the administration? Of course they are. So, you know, I think this opens the floodgates. I think it's naked censorship. I think it's clearly because they didn't like what happened on the platform. And once you justify one massive social media company being banned under that context, I think you've opened Pandora's box. And the last thing I'll say is, listen, number one, even the intel agencies have admitted that any, like any Chinese data problem is purely hypothetical. No one's been able to lay out, okay, here's exactly the problem.

Here's exactly what we're concerned about. That's number one. Number two, if you're concerned about data privacy, pass a data privacy law that applies to everyone. That doesn't just take out this one platform because you don't like the views that are being expressed. Again, my counter would be this, is that if a government is censoring social media companies like YouTube and all that, you and I as citizens, a journalist organization, can submit a Freedom of Information Act request and we can get access to that. We can sue the government, we can pressure our Congress to actually enable legislation. We have no zero visibility on the ability to do that with TikTok. Second, you know, and what you're saying, I mean, let's think about this and really extrapolate it. If Israel owned TikTok, I mean,

I think I know what your position would be. And I would support it too. I would say, fuck them. I would say, absolutely, we can force a sale of TikTok. Now, would our Congress ban TikTok? No, probably not. But if Israel, any foreign government, and I really mean this, has that amount of influence over an American populace and has that amount of data penetration? I would say absolutely not. So this is not about me singling out China. I'm saying I believe strictly in market fairness. If Israel banned Facebook, Twitter, et cetera, and they own the largest social media platform in America, I would say absolutely not. You're not owning this company. And again, on the YouTube front, that is an American company.

We have jurisdiction. We have the democratic process that we can work through. We have no say on TikTok content policy, even on data privacy. Let's say that we did pass some data privacy law and transparency, et cetera. It still wouldn't get to the algorithmic and influence changes that would happen from the Chinese Communist Party. And I also would dispute what you said. I mean, I've done a lot of monologues here about how ByteDance and the CCP does directly control a lot of TikTok. And specifically has those people answer them and have used them for spying purposes on U.S. citizens. This is out there in the public. The CEO directly lied to Congress. It is a unique situation. I mean, let's think about-

The data that is available to them via owning TikTok is also available for sale anywhere. So it's not like getting rid of TikTok gets rid of access to this data. It is true. Well, then they can buy it on the dark web like the Russians do. They're not gonna at least get it handed to them by the U.S. Fine, I don't care about that at the very least. Why do you care about it when it comes from TikTok, but not when it comes from, you know, other sources? Because it is a foreign government that has direct control of a U.S. I think you're, listen, I know that you are genuine and also consistent in these principles.

I just really disagree about both the means in which this was done. And also that, I mean, first of all, I don't think that American data is any safer from getting rid of TikTok or forcing it to be sold to Steve Mnuchin, who does have these, you know, foreign government entangles and entanglements in his own agenda, etc. I don't see that as a superior situation. And now you have passed this bill explicitly under the pretense of we don't like what's on this platform, so we are going to ban it. Now, yes, there's stuff in there about China and data and whatever. But if you don't think that that same logic is going to be applied elsewhere or that other platforms aren't going to look at how heavy handed this is

and say, gosh, we don't want that to happen to us. I guess we better crack down on these pro-Palestine voices or on shows like ours or podcasts that are similar. I just think that that's really, I think it's naive. I understand where you're coming from. I read the legislation very thoroughly. There is no danger for YouTube, podcast, Twitter, Rumble, any of the companies that people have been worried about. If there were to be a danger, and this is people are like, well, they could come after Elon because he does a lot of business in China. I'm like, well, first of all, you probably shouldn't be doing a lot of business in China there, Elon. But number two, that's not even true because they don't own a 25% or whatever stake in the company. The legislation is very, very thingy.

But I'm not just talking about this legislation. I'm talking about what you've opened the door to. The precedent has now been set that Congress can move and act if they don't like the content that's on a platform. There's no putting that back in the box. I would put it this way then. I believe in much higher taxes for the rich. If Republicans, and I also believe in 100% endowment tax. So if Republicans are like, hey, we need to tax Columbia's endowment for anti-Semitism, I'd be like, listen, I think that's dumb, but take it, you know? Because I'm going to nuke them with whatever I can in the political system.

If we can get taxes for the ultra-wealthy through and realistically have to work through the US political system and whatever their stupid impetuses are, fine. I mean, that's just, at the end of the day, that's what politics is. If you have things that you want for a desired outcome, then you have to work within the constraints that you have. I agree. Look, my principles will never be compromised. But in terms of desired end states, if they hit Colombia with 100% endowment tax for anti-Semitism, it's going to have the same net effect that I want regardless. Now, I will continue to fight, and I would say that it was dumb to do so. I think it's dumb to do this now. And I certainly agree in terms of rhetorical precedent. I don't think you're wrong at all. But there is a reality to working within the US political system

and getting things done. I mean, this is something that we all recognize for the end states of what we want. Disparate coalitions can come together for different things. Now, I don't support the vast majority of the rest of the package or any of that. But just think about the tax counterfactual. If we got higher taxes, currently a lot of Republicans, the way that they want to tax the ultra wealthy is we need to tax our opponents. I'm like, okay, fine. It's like, let's take it. Let's take what we can get. I don't think it's necessarily a good impetus, But if that leads to a blanket, you know, ultra millionaire reduction in nepotism and in generational wealth, I'm fine with that.

See, I don't even agree with that because if because there's a limit, you know, obviously, look, there's there's cases where you're like, OK, well, I don't love the argument that you're making this, but I like the outcome. So fine. But let's say let's let's just take your example. Let's say the argument to tax Columbia's endowment or raise taxes on the rich or whatever is like, they're Nazis, so we have to tax them. Well, again, once you are going down the pathway of we're going to use the power of the state against people whose political ideology we don't like, that's a really slippery slope to all sorts of outcomes that I don't want. And I mean, to start with, I don't want. That's a really slippery slope to all sorts of outcomes that I don't want.

And I mean, to start with, I don't want this outcome with TikTok. So it's not really an applicable example here. But, you know, just to have one more slide we can put up here that underscores why this is happening right now. So the question here is, who do you feel more sympathy with, Israel or the Palestinians? And if you look at print media, if you look at cable news, very clear pluralities in favor of Israel. If you look at TikTok and if you look at podcasts, it's totally flipped. The TikTok social media folks, a third say they're more sympathetic with Palestinians. Only 20% say they're more sympathetic with Israel. Similar numbers with podcasts and YouTube, 26% say they're more sympathetic with Palestinians. 21% say they're more sympathetic

with Israel. So, you know, I just, I look at these numbers and especially since the podcast YouTube piece is similar to the social media piece, like that's the next logical target. And you can see what's happening right now on college campuses. You can see how much energy this has. It's 100 percent supported in the Republican caucus and probably like 80, 90 percent supported within the Democratic caucus. So you've now got this bipartisan consensus in favor of we're going to ban platforms. We're going to crack down and like the most authoritarian police state way imaginable. All the things that I was like terrified under Trump are actually happening now with this bipartisan anti-Palestine, anti-Palestinian

human rights coalition that has come together in this context to severely crack down on our rights because they don't like the conclusions that the American people are coming to. I do not disagree with you in terms of the protesters, specifically in this case. I will on our rights because they don't like the conclusions that the American people are coming to. I do not disagree with you in terms of the protesters, specifically in this case. I will say, look, if they do come for YouTube, podcast, RSS feed, encryption, etc., I'll be right there on the front lines with you and I will be marching. And if, okay, here's another one, since I have had to eat a sock before on camera. If they use this specific legislation to target any single other company, as many bad faith critics of this bill have claimed, I will eat another sock right here on the camera. If they use this specific legislation to target any single other company, as many bad faith

critics of this bill have claimed, I will eat another sock right here on the camera. I don't believe that it's humanly possible. Every lawyer that I've spoken to, everything that we're down the line is talking about hypotheticals. And again, if and when there is some bipartisan consensus directly to censor this program, podcasting, Rumble, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, any of these other US-based companies, Facebook, Instagram, I will radically oppose it. And I do not believe, actually, it would pass in the same way. And those companies have a lot more rights than TikTok does because they are actually US-flagged and traded on a US public market. So it seems to me that in terms of the China agenda,

Joe Biden has done a lot of the things that were on your wish list. He continued the tariffs, chips act. But that's actually up for renewal in a few weeks. You going to give him some credit? Sure, I'll give him credit. Absolutely. I mean, who championed the chips act? Me.

I sat here and said, hey, that was great. I mean, I'm not necessarily saying everything the man had done is bad. He pulled out of Afghanistan. I support it. I support the CHIPS Act. I support the TikTok legislation. I'm trying to think, what else has he done on China? On the tariffs, he kept the Trump tariffs, but we'll see.

So wouldn't you say, from your perspective, he's been better on China than Trump? No, I don't think that you could say that. In terms of actual execution, the only things he really built on were Chips Act, even here on TikTok. I mean, he didn't actually propose it. Congress is the one. But it's getting done under him. You gotta be proud of it. He's signing into law. But I'm not saying that he's necessarily the one. And Trump is flip-flopped. Now he's on the other side of this. That is true. Absolutely. I was comparing it to his record. For the tariffs, I would give Trump more credit because he actually fought against the establishment to put it in.

Biden simply renewed it. In terms of how the two would govern on Trump, I genuinely have no idea which way he would go the next time around. Biden also, though, has been very, very different in terms of some fake climate policy whenever he's done with China, which I do not support. And there's a couple of other things. But yeah, I mean, look, you're not wrong. He's done certainly some of the things that I would have advocated for. And I think you could say too, that you will ask me, I have given him credit where I think he deserves it. Yes, I do.

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The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here.

If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. With guests like Corinne Steffens. I've never seen so many women protect predatory men. And then me too happened. And then everybody else wanted to get pissed off because the white said it was okay. Problem. My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade,

and I called to ask how I was doing. She was like, oh dad, all they was doing was talking about your thing in class. I ruined my baby's first day of high school. And Slumflower. What turns me on is when a man sends me money. Like, I feel the moisture between my legs when a man sends me money. I'm like, oh my God, it's go time.

You actually sent it? Listen to the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you go to find your podcasts. Let's talk about some of the things we agree upon and both hate. Let's go to wars. Yeah, these wars we're definitely both going to be against. President Joe Biden, he has come out and now said that the $100 billion we will be shipping to foreign wars, both in Israel and Ukraine, will bring peace and strength in our land, and very much

in the way that Neville Chamberlain once did in Munich in 1938. Here was his remarks when he signed the legislation. It's a good day for America. It's a good day for Europe. It's a good day for world peace, for real. This is consequential. I just signed into law the national security package that was passed by the House of Representatives this weekend and by the Senate yesterday. It's going to make America safer. It's going to make the world safer. And it continues America's leadership in the world, and everyone knows it. It gives vital support to America's partners so they can defend themselves against threats to their sovereignty and to the lives and freedom of their citizens. And it's an investment in our own security.

Because when our allies are stronger, and I want to make this point again and again, when our allies are stronger, we are stronger. There you go. When our allies are stronger, we are stronger. This is going to be all about peace through strength. It's funny, the reason I put that Munich dig in there, Crystal, is that they often try and use that against opponents. And I'm going to try and start weaponizing it and say, no, no, no, actually, you're the Chamberlain's because you're like, if everything is peace through strength or everything is peace in our time, then nothing

is peace in our time. And in fact, this is just bundling an endless war machine. But something I was remarking to you while the clip was happening, which I just find amazing is, you know, we've all watched Biden now for several years. This man, you know, he is falling apart on the camera, loses his way. Even here, he had a gaffe later on. But in this moment, you could see a glint in his eyes. And just look at the religion that these people feel whenever they are sending our money and weapons to foreign countries so that they can continue to fight pointless and endless wars, which are keeping us less safe. That's actually what struck me most about the clip. It wasn't just the rhetoric, is he truly, he was alive in that moment from one of those

brief times where you could see the glimmer and the glint in his eyes. And that's what gets these people going, especially Biden, is funding Ukraine and funding Israel. You really see it in that. I mean, I don't even know what to say about this crap anymore. It's just sickening to me. It's sickening to me, especially with regard to Israel. Here we are watching an imminent invasion of Rafah, which five seconds ago, the media was claiming it was a red line for Biden. Now it's about to happen. We have amped up strikes, the most severe in Gaza that we've had in a while unfolding as he's claiming this is for peace. Like it's disgusting. It's disgusting. It's insulting that he thinks any of us would buy this crap. And, you know, it just makes you despair

that there's like an ounce of democracy left in this country. Because look at what's unfolding across the country. Look at the way that Americans have shifted against this war. Look at how majorities of Americans have been for a ceasefire from the very early days. And now those numbers,

which we also have some in our poll that we can bring you next week, are overwhelming. There's a bipartisan consensus among the American people in favor of among Republicans, Democrats and independents in favor of stopping the slaughter in Gaza. And he's out here talking, oh, this is going bring peace It's sick and on Ukraine. Listen, you know, it's I think the Ukrainian peace is frankly more complicated But what's the goal here? What's the end plan? How are you gonna say this money is gonna fund peace when all it does is lead to more war? I mean, that's the bottom line, but the next piece, sorry, you highlighted this, you can explain this. Yeah, let's put it up there, please, on the screen.

You know, we're instantly now shipping long-range missiles to Ukraine. I'm the type that the Biden administration previously said, like, oh, no, we don't want to do that because we might risk a provocation with Russia. Now, here we freaking are. And again, what's the plan? If you've got a plan for peace, we would dearly love to know how these billions of dollars are going to lead to anything more than the continued slaughter of Ukrainian men. Yeah, so these longer range missiles were ones that we refused to send to Ukraine out of fear that they would escalate the war with Russia. Now, this is actually a dual betrayal because not only has Biden reversed his policy and

sent these missiles to Ukraine, which they then used in the last two weeks to strike deep inside of Russian territory, including into Crimea, but also that they shipped these weapons to the Ukrainians and allowed them to use the most offensive weapons to date at the very same time that we were all debating Ukraine aid in Congress, meaning that their most offensive weapons that we've given to Ukraine, which are the most destabilizing to Russian communications line and to Russian territory, were given to them at exactly the same time that we were all debating Ukraine aid. Now, why do you think that all is? It's so that none of us were to actually realize both the Ukrainian desire to actually bring

the war to Russia, to actually make sure that we get pulled into the war with Russia. But second, so that all of us don't debate and understand the stakes of an extra $60 billion to this dangerous regime. Second is that is very clear in terms of the artillery numbers that are now acknowledged by the Ukrainian general staff and Ukrainian military that they have put out there publicly at best, given their current fires rate where they are right now for defense, they will run out of artillery in one year and that the Russian artillery advantage will remain on five to one. So all we have done is fund the continued slaughter of these Ukrainian men

and give them the ability to continue losing the way that they have lost. And when we consider what the Russian negotiators asked them for, this is another canard, which is driving me nuts. Now that all the documents are public from those peace talks in 2022, you know what the Russians wanted? They're like, look, we'll stop where we are. And you guys just have to agree to neutrality. That's it. They kept saying neutrality, neutrality, neutrality, neutrality. You can't join NATO. You can't join NATO.

You can't join NATO. And everyone's like, this war is not about NATO. Well, then why, whenever the actual war was going on, and they were trying to get concessions from the Ukrainians, did they just say that you won't join NATO? That's it. So if that's really all that we could get, that's all we have to do, is tell them, like, hey, guys, all right, we're going to give you some weapons, a little bit of security guarantee on the side, not, you know, full-blown war, but you're not going to join NATO. And then we could all just move on with our lives and there could be peace or at least lack of conflict for now in Eastern Europe. How is that

not worth it compared to, you know, where we are right now? It's madness. Well, here's the thing. Like, here's what they'd say. Well, you can't trust Putin. He may say that, but he's just going to use that as an excuse to then continue his march through Europe or whatever the hell. And listen, maybe, maybe, I severely doubt it because it's not like this has been really great for Russia either, especially at that point. But there's one way to find out. And then if this was just a pretext to then go and break the agreement immediately and move into your, then we can act accordingly. But you have to do peace deals with people you don't like or trust with nation state governments that you don't like or trust. That's the way that it works. So listen, we know what's going on here because even, you know,

in our lives, we've seen the way that these law, the logic of these wars just continues and continues and continues. Because think about President Biden. OK, the truly courageous thing that he did on foreign policy is to withdraw from Afghanistan. And nothing hurt him more in terms of his approval ratings and in terms of media coverage than that actually truly courageous thing that he did, which was to say, nope, I am not just going to continue to fund and support the status quo and kick the can to the next guy and hope that they clean up this, you know, multi-decade mess and utter foreign policy catastrophe. I'm going to actually do it. And it was a disaster for him. Politically, it was a disaster for him. I think that's outrageous, but that's reality and they're not stupid. So now we're settling into an endless status quo in Ukraine where there is not even any talk of it ending. It's just we're going to continue to spend this money and write another check and

whatever we need to do. We've got our little pro-Ukraine consensus. We've got Trump on board now. We got McConnell. We got Akeem Jeffries. We got Mike Johnson. We got Joe Biden. We got a lock on both parties to just continue funding this thing forever and never have to take the heat over. Because imagine that Biden did what we would want him to do. And he actually said, you know what? We're not funding this anymore. We're pushing both parties to the negotiating table. We have to bring this thing to a conclusion. He would be slaughtered by the press. It would be over for his reelection. I mean, that's the reality because of the way it would be covered. Right now, preposterously, the area that he has the highest approval ratings on

in many polls is his handling of the Ukraine war. You're right. So that's how these things become 10, 20 year engagements, because these presidents realize that to actually do the right thing and bring this to some sort of conclusion, which we know would require Ukraine giving up some part of territory after they promised not one inch and we're going to take back not only the Donbass, but we're going to take back Crimea, et cetera. It would be a political blood bath for Joe Biden. So, I mean, even if he was inclined to do it, there's no way he's going to. So that's where we are. We are in the indefinite forever war phase of the Ukraine war where they don't even talk anymore about how it might come to a close because they have no plan for that.

They have no plan for that. And, you know, with Israel, we can, by the way, one other thing I want to mention about the actual vote. There were only, this is so disgusting to me, there were only three Democrats who voted against it. Peter Welsh, kudos to him. Bernie Sanders, kudos to him. And Jeff Merkley, kudos to him, over their objections on Israel. How many people do you have now in the Senate Democratic Caucus who have said we're worried about the humanitarian crisis? Chris Van Hollen has been one of the most strident critics. He actually went over and saw the way that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid and causing a literal famine, people, children, babies starving to death. And he votes for it. And he votes for it. Like, how do you live with yourself?

Ryan and Emily made a great point, Sagar, that I want to raise here as well to make sure everybody hears it, which is part of the reason they put all this crap together and why they do this all the time, these omnibus bills, is to avoid any sort of democratic understanding. So there's no clarity because it's just so many things. You're like overwhelmed by all the pieces. And also so that people don't have to be on the record on each of these individual pieces, because I guarantee if you went to Van Hollen, why'd you vote for this Israel funding unconditional support? He'd say, well, the Ukrainians. So that's how you end up with, you know, people who have claimed to be opposed at this point to unconditionally supporting Bibi Netanyahu's genocide, how they still end up voting for it

and sleeping at night, apparently looking at themselves in the mirror because, oh, because it's the Ukrainians. Yeah, no, you're right. And also we've just seen continued escalations, put this up there here, you know, from the Israelis, the Israeli strikes, this is from Haaretz, quote, reports the most severe attacks there in weeks. So we'll end, you know, with some of the words from Michael Tracy, who I thought put it well. Putting aside my disagreement with him on the TikTok piece, let's go to his tweet there, please. He says, this was the most disturbing legislative process I've seen in 15 plus years of covering U.S. politics. A threshold has been crossed. The U.S. has now made an enormous down payment on global war across at least three geographic theaters and imposed radical government control of the Internet.

My disagreement on the last sentence there aside, I do absolutely think he is correct. There is no more bipartisan consensus than funding the war machine. And just to underscore what you said as well about media and linking back to our segment about where people get it. As long as we live in a country where 45 to 55-year-olds are the ones who are vastly going to vote and have stakes in the political system and the media that they consume and their interpretation of events, it's all that is going to matter.

And unfortunately, that is the reality that we currently live in. And it just explains so much about the way that all of our politics works. I mean, you can look at a poll and you can see the vast majority of Republicans are against more aid to Ukraine. But then if you isolate it to 65 plus, you'll see that it's like 50-50. And then you see that over 80 to 90% of the Republicans in the Senate ended up voting for it. You're like, well, how does this work? Same on Democrats. Yeah, you may have a bunch of 18, 29-year-olds screaming on a college campus. It doesn't matter. When the boomers are watching

MSNBC, and they love Bibi, and they love Israel, because they don't see some of the stuff that we show you here on this show. And it's like, as long as that's reality, we're all locked in. I'm 32 years old, and until these people are gone, it's gonna be, I'll be their age by the time we even get to have any say in this country. By that time, I'll be screaming at the youngins, so who do we even know? I like to think that we'll have more humility, though, as people who had to go through this, to look at the people who are coming up and say, I know what it was like to be you and to be totally powerless in your own country. I wanted to also make sure to highlight that. Michael Tracy tweet just because he's been such a resource. Yes, that's right.

He's done such a great job, you know, really covering the ins and outs of this legislative process. And we've really relied on him and his analysis as well, since he's reading through the bills and he's very good at picking out some of the critical pieces. So just want to make sure to give him a shout out as well for doing great coverage there. Subscribe to his sub stack. If we can, we'll put a link there in the description. He's a great guy.

Even when I disagree, I think he's a very, very, I think he's very, very good faith and principled in the way that he approaches things, very upfront about the way that he is. And that's actually quite rare in this business. So shout outs to him. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone,

I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day.

The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister.

There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I 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 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 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. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica.

And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. With guests like Corinne Stephens.

I've never seen so many women protect predatory men. And then me too happened. And then everybody else wanted to get pissed off because the white said it was okay. Problem. My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade, and I called to ask how I was doing. She was like, oh dad, all they was doing was talking about your thing in class. I ruined my baby's first day of high school. And slumflower.

What turns me on is when a man sends me money. Like, I feel the moisture between my legs when a man sends me money. I'm like, oh my God, it's go time. You actually sent it? Listen to the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you go to find your podcasts. So as we've been covering all week,

there has been a nationwide moral panic freakout and attendant authoritarian state crackdown on peaceful college protesters who are upset about the atrocities they witness in Gaza and who specifically want their schools to divest from any related investments. Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, has joined the fray, issuing this statement and calling American college students effectively Nazis. Take a listen.

What's happening on America's college campuses is horrific. Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s. It's unconscionable. It has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally. But that's not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful. Now fortunately, state, local, federal officials, many of them have responded differently, but there has to be more.

More has to be done. It has to be done not only because they attack Israel, that's bad enough, not only because they want to kill Jews wherever they are, that's bad enough. It's also, when you listen to them, it's also because they say not only death to Israel, death to the Jews, but death to America. And this tells us that there is an anti-Semitic surge here that has terrible consequences. We see this exponential rise of anti-Semitism throughout America and throughout Western societies

as Israel tries to defend itself against genocidal terrorists, genocidal terrorists who hide behind civilians. Yet it is Israel that is falsely accused of genocide, Israel that is falsely accused of starvation, and all sundry war crimes. It's all one big libel, but that's not new. Oh my God, Zagreb. I am going to lose my mind. I mean, this has, it has it all. We're going to just let a foreign government leader smear our college kids as Nazis? In addition, I have a million things I want to say about this. I'm like sort of sputtering with anger at every piece of that. How much have the Jewish students who are at the heart

of these protests been completely erased? The idea that they're calling for death to all Jews, what they want themselves to be killed, they want themselves to be genocided. Like, this is, it's so insane. Ryan and Emily did a great interview yesterday with one of the student organizers on Columbia. She was out buying ingredients for their Seder, which they had very peacefully interfaith. Okay, that's what we're talking about here. And are there some rally chants that I wouldn't necessarily choose? Sure. Are there some genuinely anti-Semitic comments that are made in the context of especially not even the college campus but outside?

Sure. Okay. There are assholes and racists exist. No doubt about it. But you're going to use that to smear everyone who is sick to death watching these babies being starved and slaughtered as an anti-Semite? It's disgusting. It's despicable. And nothing will make actual anti-Semitism rise, by the way, farther and faster than forcing every Jew in America or around the world to be conflated with the state of Israel, okay? Because we can all

see what you're doing on TikTok and YouTube and lots of other places. Your soldiers, your IDF soldiers are out there TikTok-ing their war crimes. We're not idiots. We can see. And it's not just college kids. It's the UN special rapporteur. It's the ICJ saying plausible genocide. It's the body count. It's the relentless complete siege. It's the fact that you're about to imminently invade Rafah where more than a million Palestinians are currently sheltering. Like, ugh, sickening, sickening, sickening. And the fact that politicians in America are letting this foreign leader smear our kids as racist and Nazis, and they just let this go and they freaking support it. Ugh. See, that latter part is where I wouldn't even bother pointing out hypocrisy. I would just say, hey, man, you worry about your country and we'll

worry about ours. And in fact, you especially shouldn't be worrying about ours and talking about ours when you are actively telling us not to sanction your units based upon our US laws, like the Leahy law. When you're actively, your president just put out a plea saying, please stay out of Israeli politics. Whenever they attack Chuck Schumer or others for calling for an end to the Netanyahu government by saying, hey, you shouldn't be calling for interference in our domestic politics. I mean, this man is in English talking about a domestic political issue that we as Americans can resolve together as to what constitutes antisemitism, what proper use

of force looks like, et cetera. That is a debate for us to have and for them to have no play or part in, especially whenever they are a client state who receives more foreign aid than any other nation in the world. That is particularly why it's so galling is because their ego and the gall and their impunity is such that they can keep their hand out and then smack our populace at the very same time. So to them, I say, keep your mouth, keep your face completely out of our politics and you worry about your own business. And the impunity is cultivated by Joe Biden. He knows he can say that he can smear whoever he wants as a Nazi. I mean, he's actually comparing

the whole country to Nazi Germany because he says, oh, we haven't seen this since that time period. We haven't seen Jews unsafe on college campuses or whatever he said. Again, this is not about Jewish student safety because if it was, there might be a few words of care and concern for the Jewish students who are being cracked down on by, you know, aggressive police state and being threatened with the frickin National Guard, people courting another Kent state. Maybe you'd have a little concern for those Jewish students if that was really, truly your concern. So it's disgusting. Additional disgusting situations unfolded. You had Mike Johnson and a bunch who's, of course, Speaker of the House, a bunch of other Republicans who went to tour Columbia, give a press conference and wasn't received particularly well by the student body there.

First of all, apparently he didn't have like a microphone to project his voice. He was just speaking into like the press microphones. So no one could even hear him. So there were a lot of people, a lot of students were yelling like grand grandstand louder, like speak up you piece of crap and stuff like that. Anyway, and the press around really couldn't hear what he had to say either. But anyway, here's a little bit of Mike Johnson attempting to speak and getting heckled by the crowd ticklism. After meeting with Jewish students, let's listen live on the Columbia campus. So thank you all for being here today. We have several members of Congress here and we're here today at one of America's preeminent

academic institutions on a very important day and a very important time throughout history. Columbia can't hear you. We can't hear you. We can't hear you. So anyway, receiving a warm welcome there. And, you know, it's notable. I believe they had a few Jewish members along with them. They managed to remain safe in spite of the fact that this is apparently, you know, Nazi Germany in Manhattan at this point. And you were talking about this. I think you should lay this out.

But, like, there's a very clear political benefit here for Mike Johnson, who has some problems with parts of his coalition because of the Ukraine aid stuff. This is this crackdown on free speech when minutes ago these people were, oh, we love free speech. And now suddenly it's like bringing the police, bringing the National Guard, very unifying for the Republicans and divisive for the Democrats. So it's a smart wedge issue for them politically. This is very useful to Mike Johnson because he was facing that motion to vacate revolt that was on his right flank from Freedom Caucus types and others. So by going to Columbia, even with all of the Republican leadership that he had behind him, including a few others that were willing to make the track, he actually is solidifying some of his support within the caucus and then turning the tables, like you said, in terms of a division against the Democrats. So this is kind of a

political jujitsu move on his part to move the attention away from the Ukraine aid and all of that to an area where he's very, very safe within his own caucus. And that's where he finds himself right now. It's directly why he immediately was like, I'm going to Colombia. And this is the reason. Yeah. Police day crackdowns on peaceful protesters, apparently unifying issue for the Republican caucus. And frankly, for much of the Democratic caucus, there are a number of Democratic members of Congress who went toward Columbia too. And amazingly, thank goodness they were able to remain safe. What an incredible miracle. Obviously, this is not just Columbia at this point. Also, an update there, the president has been in some sort of negotiations with the students. There were initial threats that they

were going to bring the NYPD back in. You'll recall they cracked down before and arrested a bunch of students, suspended a bunch of students. There was a threat that they were going to bring them in again. There were other people who were threatening, oh, we might bring in the National Guard. She's now in these discussions with student protesters. I believe the deadline for those talks is something like 4 a.m. on Friday morning. So we'll see what happens there. But that story certainly has not concluded. And now we've got some extraordinary scenes unfolding truly coast to coast at this point. We can put this up on the screen. This is from University of Texas, Austin. Now, they sent in an overwhelming police force. By the way, this is DPS. These are some of the,

that's the agency, there were some of the cowards that would not go in when it was Uvalde children who were at risk. But they can show up here and they're all suited up and crack some college kids' heads. So these were some extraordinary scenes that were happening here. I just want to be clear, there aren't even any reports of anything even colorably anti-Semitic at UT Austin, nor any violence, no quote-unquote eye-stabbing incidents, and we'll get to that in a minute and how that was a complete hoax. But you can see this is happening around the country. You've got Brown. You've got University of Southern California. You've got University of Minnesota.

You've got Columbia, of course. You've got NYU. This is just a sampling of the type of scenes that are truly unfolding at elite and, you know, normal state institutions around the country and the type of crackdown that they have been met with. In particular, at UT Austin, there was a local press cameraman with the local Fox News affiliate who was tackled and arrested by these police for just being there to document the protest and what was going on. Just take a look at this. I can narrate this, and then there's actually an interview with him that I can show you. So you see him there with his camera, like he's got his press credentials on. He's just doing his job. And you can see him grabbed by the police, thrown to the ground. Okay. And then he is

zip tied and arrested here. Let's go ahead and switch up, throw to, he was interviewed by someone else who was on the scene there and explains like, I'm just here trying to do my job. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Who are you with? I'm with Fox 7. Fox 7, what's your name? Carlos. Carlos, what do you think of this?

I think it's, they were pushing me and they say that I hit an officer. I didn't hit an officer. They were pushing. You know what I mean? They were pushing me. I'm a legal observer. What's your name and date of birth? We're going to send attorneys to you.

Has this ever happened? No, this has never happened to me. It's never happened to me before. What is going on? I mean, he's literally doing his job. You can see very clearly on camera he didn't push anybody. He has his press credentials that are around his neck. He had the live view backpack, so he's broadcasting live while the-

They've charged him with criminal trespassing. Right. Which also tells you that, oh, he hit an officer is bullshit, because if he hit an officer, he'd be charged with assault. Exactly. Even if it was like colorable, but that was a complete lie. So he's this American journalist, local news journalist, being charged with criminal trespassing for doing his job?

Governor Abbott has almost certainly violated Texas law here. And we can show you some of the evidence. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. Governor Abbott tweeted, quote, arrests are being made now, right now, and will continue until the crowd disperses. These protesters belong in jail. Listen to this very clearly. He says, antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas, period.

Students joining in hate-filled anti-Semitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled. So he is explicitly saying that the protest is being broken up because of ideology. This again, is very clearly a violation of Texas law, which clearly lays out that at a public university, the only way that you are allowed to break up protests is in violation of time, place, and manner stuff that is on the books. The organization, the free speech organization, FIRE, put this out. Let's put this up there on the screen.

They say that the chilling show of force of the UT is a disproportionate response to an apparently peaceful protest, sending in a phalanx of law enforcement-threatened protected speech where it should be at its most free, a public university like UT Austin. Governor Abbott's public commentary clearly makes a disregard for the First Amendment's protection of political speech clear. We encourage those with First Amendment rights who are threatened at UT Austin or elsewhere to contact FIRE. This is specifically a law called SB18, which is a Texas free speech legislature, a law that passed several years ago.

It allows the university to create disciplinary actions for students who quote interfere with free speech activities. But it does put into place very clearly restrictions on the time, place, and manner of such activities and specifically areas of the public university. Remember, Texas taxpayers and the federal government are the ones who fund this university. This is not Columbia. Columbia is private land. It's a private university, and they can technically do whatever they want.

But in public universities, it's a whole other ballgame. And this reminds us very much of a lot of the stuff that happened during the Vietnam War. Yeah. Listen, I'm not a legal expert on this, but I can tell you the Supreme Court has upheld numerous times that First Amendment rights apply on public university campuses. So when you're talking about this kind of crackdown at UT Austin, it is a very different, the moral landscape is the same, but the legal landscape is very different. And then you also have to talk about just the incredible hypocrisy here. I mean, this man was how long ago crowing

about free speech on college campus. And then he doesn't even in his little tweet, he doesn't even claim there's violence. As I said, I haven't seen a single report of either violence, anything even colorable as violence or anything, any anti-Semitic incidents. None of that. He just doesn't like the cause that they stand for. And so he sent in a bunch of cops to arrest, I believe, dozens of students and including this journalist who's just there trying to do his job. There is no excuse for this. There's no excuse for it. I don't care where you are on this issue. I defended many people who were saying a lot of crap that I find offensive. I don't agree with, I don't like, but I'm like, you have the right to say you're offensive bullshit. Okay. This is America. And that's this situations like this are

exactly why I made sure that I in particular defended the speech that I personally disagreed with and found offensive because that's when it's tough. That's when it matters. I don't want to hear a single person who is supporting any of this ever say another word about free speech. It was always naked and very selective, but it has never been more naked and selective than right now. I mean, some of these like billionaire Republican donors who three minutes ago were funding all of these free speech efforts and pressuring to allow, you know, Ben Shapiro or whoever to appear on college, Milo Yiannopoulos or whoever to appear on college campuses. Suddenly it's, oh, oh, I'm offended. This speech is, it's violence. They sound like

the greatest caricature. The liberals could have never in their wildest dreams imagined this kind of nationwide crackdown from New York to Texas to LA. It is so despicable and enraging. I can't even begin to comment. And so disconnected from what is actually happening on these campuses. If you go to the protests, if you speak to the students who are involved in engaging in it, they will come right out and say, we are totally opposed to violence. We completely condemn that. We completely condemn anti-Semitism. By the way, many of us are ourselves Jewish. Insane, insane situation. Well, I mean, and this is where I even have to move past it and say, even if they were anti-Semitic, they are still US citizens who have the right to do what they want. That's right. That

was a white nationalist group. I would say the exact same thing, and they probably hate my guts because I'm from Texas. And apparently according to them, I shouldn't have even been there in the first place. I don't mind if that's what they wanna say. We are all Americans, we have our citizenship, and that's the issue that we find this. Texas in particular has had the BDS law now on the books, and even enforced it in the past, firing state employees. So they've

always had a Israel exception to their free speech law. And yeah, it's one of those where this is very clear. Yeah, the optics, again, of the Texas DPS, which was involved in the horrific response of Evalde to this. Actually, some of the students on campus were openly chanting this. And this is likely only a preview of what is to come, especially with the deadline at Columbia expiring sometime in the next 24 to 48 hours. We don't know what's going to happen there. And I want to say, too, like obviously with the Columbia example, this isn't a red state phenomenon. This is like a, you know, elite bipartisan consensus in California and blue California and L.A. They also sent in the cops to arrest, I believe, somewhere around 100 students to keep, you know, an encampment from growing in size there. And they've poured gasoline on the fire. I mean, these encampments, I just saw a message from

our friend Motaz, who we had on the show before, who's a Palestinian-American activist who's lost more than 100 of his family members in Israel's assault on Gaza. One just sprung up at GW. So this is truly a nationwide phenomenon here. I saw someone pointing out on Twitter, too, like the school year was almost over. I was going to say it's over in about like two weeks here. If you had just allowed these things to go and do their thing and like peacefully fizzle out, you probably wouldn't have had, I mean, you wouldn't have had this big momentum here at the

end of the school year and all of this fraught situation at Columbia University having to cancel classes for the rest of the year. Like you wouldn't have had this insanity if the Columbia University president hadn't sent in the police to, you know, crack down on these student protesters and really spark this whole conflagration. So it's completely contrary to, you know, their desires for all these people to just go away. And the polar opposite thing obviously is happening. And then this is a little bit of a tease for your monologue saga, but you know, some of the echoes of 68 here are is particularly profound at Columbia University. You can put this up on the screen. So Columbia's own website, this person points out on Twitter, actually literally has a page

about how the last time that they had student protesters mass arrested, that they now realized they were completely wrong and that it screwed up their reputation for decades. So let me read this from the Columbia University webpage. It says, Columbia is a far different place today than it was in the spring of 68 when protesters took over university buildings amid discontent about the Vietnam War, racism, and university's proposed expansion into Morningside Park. After a week-long standoff, New York City police stormed in the campus, arrested more than 700 people. The fallout dogged Columbia for years. It took decades for the university to recover from those turbulent times. They go on to say Columbia is commemorating the 50th anniversary of those long ago events with a deep dive of scholarship and exhibits chronicling what happened then and its effects today. So

apparently they need to do a little deeper dive into that scholarship to realize that, guess what? Those lessons you learned back in 1968, they apply right now, today. And I know you're going to draw on some more of those historic parallels from 1968. Stay tuned. It is exactly 56 years ago to the day, which is wild. Like to the day of where all of this was going down. And if we listen to the lessons of 68, there's a lot more chaos to come. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing.

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

bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone

Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I 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. by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribe.

With guests like Corinne Steffens. I've never seen so many women protect predatory men. And then me too happened. And then everybody else wanted to get pissed off because the white said it was okay. Problem. My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade, and I called to ask how I was doing.

She was like, oh dad, all they was doing was talking about your thing in class. I ruined my baby's first day of high school. And slumflower. What turns me on is when a man sends me money. Like, I feel the moisture between my legs when a man sends me money. I'm like, oh, my God, it's go time. You actually sent it? Listen to the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network,

the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you go to find your podcasts. Let's talk about a hoax, shall we? Yeah, let's do it. Let's talk about a hoax. There's nothing I love more than hoaxes and uncovering them. You will recall I joined Piers Morgan's Piers Morgan Uncensored this week. And one of the individuals that I was on with was a Jewish student at Yale who claimed she had been, and these were her words, stabbed in the eye with a flag. Okay.

Now, I noted in the segment, her eye seemed okay. Okay. And this happened only, I believe, two days prior. So typically, I believe if you're stabbed in the eye, the recovery time is a little bit lengthier, but okay. Yeah. Take people's word for it. You don't want to call them a liar to their face. Right. What am I going to do? I'm going to take you out of your world. I'm glad you're okay. Well, now video has emerged of the eye stabbing and go ahead and put this up on the screen. So, okay, you can see she's in the middle of the protest.

She's recording. There's people who are all around her. You know, they're wearing their keffiyehs. They're doing their thing. They're moving by. Okay, I don't know, you know, exactly what's happening here, but there's just a lot of people moving around.

Someone comes close. Okay, oh, there's the flag. And, okay, that was it. That was the Someone comes close. OK. Oh, there's the flag. And. OK, that was it. That was that was the eye stabbing. Someone walked by with a flag. It's not even clear that she was hit with the flag at all. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, I guess, even though it's clearly not deserved, that maybe the flag accidentally, you know, grazed her somewhere in the eye vicinity. But put this put the next piece up on the screen. This is how this was reported in Barry Weiss's The Free Press.

Here's literally the headline. I was stabbed in the eye at Yale. The school has allowed anti-Israel students to run roughshod over their most basic policies. Yesterday, I paid the price for their inaction. And the first line of this piece, by the way, is also, I was stabbed in the eye last night on Yale University's campus because I am a Jew. There was no eye stabbing. There was no eye stabbing. You were like, maybe, potentially, grazed unintentionally with a flag. That is clearly what happened in the video. And it's's no wonder why even though she took this video She did not circulate this video

When she was doing her whole I was stabbed in the eye press tour and by the way It wasn't just Barry Weiss's outlet that they were the ones that initially ran this this got picked up everywhere and obviously, you know Piers Morgan right featured her testimony here as well. Well, uh, was she on her way to subway? Is that what was she on her way to Subway? Is that what was going on? Was she on her way to Subway sandwiches two in the morning? Were there any MAGA hats involved over here?

I see what you're doing there. I forgot about the Subway. MAGA folks. Were there some, was that guy a personal trainer or something? What was going on there with all of this? Listen, this is all complete bullshit. And I urge everyone in this role, if there is any claim of assault, of racism, of any attack of which you stand to benefit or

which benefits a political cause, my rule is it didn't happen. It didn't happen. The burden of proof is on you. And even then, if it's on camera, it's probably exaggerated, which is the evidence that we all have here. I often tell this story, but Rolling Stone is what really made me create that rule. But where I went to school, George Washington University, was the site of one of the original panics over swastikas, where a student kept calling the police saying that someone was drawing a swastika on her dorm room and America freaked out. This was a nationwide story. Oh my God, swastikas being done on the dorm room. So GW put a camera in the dorm to make sure that they could catch the swastika drawer. Who do we all think it was who was drawing the swastika? It

was her. It was her the whole time. These people are victims. And I'm talking about, you know, what's that guy's name? NASCAR, Bubba, whatever his name is. And the noose. Yeah. How did that work out? The NASCAR noose, Rolling Stone. I mean, if you want to get controversial, Christine Blasey Ford. I mean, in every case, several years later, we can look back and just be like, yeah, this was some straight up BS that completely was used for political benefit. So I urge everyone to use that rule whenever you're looking through this. Be deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply skeptical. And I mean, I was privately cracking jokes in our group chat and all this, but like, yeah, where's your iPad? You know, making all this because I didn't believe it from the beginning.

I'm not going to say that in public. But now that the video has come out, I feel very, very comfortable ridiculing and making fun of this lady. Well, and here's the thing is it wasn't without consequence. Like, I'm personally extra irritated because I had to, like, you know, be there. I'd be like sympathetically to this person. And it was so emotionally manipulative. But not to me, who cares me, but to the whole audience. This was a big part of what sparked now this total freak out and crackdown. And, you know, the people who initially read the like, oh, someone was stabbed in the eye nonsense from a variety of news outlets.

They're never going to see this video. They're never going to see a correction because probably none of these outlets are even going to make a correction. And so not only did you trigger this freak out, you also made a lot of Jewish students feel genuine fear, like, oh my God, maybe there's something is really going on that I need to fear for my safety, all based on nonsense. And, you know, it is true. This is not, this is like across ages, demographic groups. There are some number of people who are just so desperate to be like the center of some victimhood story. It's like, it's like a sickness. This shy Divide guy definitely fits that mold as well, where it's like they're so desperate to be a victim that you'll go in and just invent some, you'll go into the situation hoping that something happens that you can even colorably pretend was, you know, a hate crime,

a grave victimization of you versus someone like accidentally bumping into you with like insane. By the way, just to show you like this isn't her first trip to the, this rodeo, put the last element C8 up on the screen. So I don't know if you guys remember this. This was a minor blip. Back in December, the same woman had tweeted out, imagine returning to your dining hall to find that salad labels were renamed to remove mention of the salads being Israeli. That happened at Yale this week. It's the subtle changes and redactions that are the most pernicious. So apparently there was some Israeli couscous salad that she claimed the sign verbiage had been changed. Literally the next day, some other student at Yale was like,

here's the sign. It still says Israeli couscous, like relax. Yeah, no, it was a complete hoax as well. So, well, you know, hoax me once, shame on me. I hoaxed me twice, shame like relax. Yeah, no, it was a complete hoax as well. So, you know, hoax me once, shame on me. I hoaxed me twice, shame on you. Yes, indeed. All right, let's move on to some additional domestic situations that are unfolding. This is really important. Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the Idaho state almost complete abortion ban and whether it is in conflict with a federal law that mandates, and this is for any hospital that takes Medicare funds, which is basically every hospital, that mandates that they perform emergency care and stabilize patients. So let's take a listen.

This was a very interesting exchange from liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor and then backed up by conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, very concerned about the implications of this Idaho abortion ban for women. Let's take a listen. Imagine a patient who goes to the ER with pre-prompt 14 weeks. Again, abortion is accepted. She's up, she was in and out of the hospital up to 27 weeks. This particular patient, they tried, had to deliver her baby. The baby died. She had a hysterectomy, and she can no longer have children. All right? You're telling me the doctor there couldn't have done the abortion earlier? Again, it goes back to whether a doctor can, in good faith, medical judgment. That's a lot for the doctor to risk. Well, I think

it's protective of doctor judgment. When Idaho law changed to make the issue whether she's going to die or not, or whether she's going to have a serious medical condition. There's a big day life by your standards, correct? It is very case by case. The examples from... That's the problem. I'm kind of shocked, actually, because I thought your own expert had said below that these kinds of cases were covered.

And you're now saying they're not? No, I'm not saying that. That's just my point, Your Honor, is that... Well, you're hedging. I mean, Justice Sotomayor is asking you, would this be covered or not? And it was my understanding that the legislature's witnesses said that these would be covered. Yeah. And those doctors said if they were exercising their medical judgment, they could, in good faith, determine that lifesaving care was necessary.

And that's my point is, is a subjective. But some doctors couldn't. Some doctors might reach a contrary conclusion, I think, as well as Sotomayor is asking you. Just think about this. So at issue here is the fact that the law has an exception in place for the life of the mother, but not for the health of the mother. So the scenario that Justice Sonia Sotomayor is laying out here is let's say a woman comes to you. She's in crisis. Her health is failing, but she's not dying. Now, if you perform the abortion now, and this is not hypothetical, there are genuine instances where this is the case. If you perform the abortion now, she's going to be okay. She's going to maintain,

she's not going to have to have an emergency hysterectomy. She's going to be able to maintain her ability to conceive a child and have a child in the future. This is presumably a woman who is pregnant who wants to be a mother. If you don't act, if you wait for her to get to the point where she is about to die, then not only is the baby still going to die, but she's going to have to go through this emergency hysterectomy. But because her life was not literally at stake right now, there would be plenty of doctors who would look at the law and say, my hands are tied here. And you're also putting doctors in this impossible situation of having to make these legal judgments themselves and fear huge consequences for them directly. If some court finds down the line that, oh no, her life wasn't really at stake and you performed this abortion,

you're in violation of the law. I don't know if Idaho has criminal penalties, but some of these states do. So you're also putting doctors in this horrific situation. We can put this up on the screen, the New York Times write up, they said the abortion case before the Supreme Court on Wednesday featured vigorous questioning comments, particularly by the three liberal justices. At issue is whether Idaho's near total ban on abortion is so strict that it violates a federal law requiring emergency care for any patient, including providing abortions for pregnant women in dire situations. Could reverberate beyond Idaho. There are at least a half a dozen other states that have similar, very restrictive bans. So, again, as I was saying, it allows abortion to save the life of a pregnant woman but not to prevent her health from deteriorating. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act from nearly 40 years ago says when a patient

goes to an emergency room with an urgent medical issue, hospitals must either provide treatment to stabilize the patient or transfer the patient to a medical facility that can stabilize the patient regardless of the patient's ability to pay. And so they're saying this state law conflicts with that federal law. You know, in terms of the arguments that unfold, we just showed you a liberal and a conservative justice kind of appearing to be on the same side. But I don't know which way this one is going to go. You had Alito in particular arguing in the other direction and raising all sorts of, you know, questions about he for one thing, he asserted that some of these concerns were

hypothetical. They're actually not. I'll get to that in a minute. He was also using this emergency medical law to assert that it should apply not only to the woman, but to the fetus. So asserting some sort of like national heartbeat personhood rights to the fetus, which would open up a whole other can of worms. So I genuinely have no idea which direction this one's going to go in. Yeah, no, it is crazy. And this is actually a real preview into post-ops politics based on how that all goes, because it does show you, you can try and leave it to the states, but it's going to escalate to the federal level, like about fetal personhood, what sort of ruling that would mean. I mean, imagine for all of the states that currently have legal abortion. Conversely, in terms of the bans themselves, this is just going

to insert even more pressure into the democratic process. We can put this up there on the screen. I found this actually an astounding statistic. Apparently that was noted. In the short time that Idaho has been allowed to enforce the abortion ban for people who need emergency termination, six women have actually had to be airlifted to other states for care that is illegal in Idaho, which just demonstrates also how stupid the whole policy is. Because if you're just going to be airlifted to another state for the same policy, then what exactly is the point of the law on the books in freaking Idaho? You're just torturing these women. Yeah. And do you know how much an airlift costs? Does anyone want to know? Even with insurance,

it's going to, what, 200 grand? Something like that. I mean, you're saddling these people. If they're uninsured, you're saddled with debt for life. You're done if a single event like this happens to you. It's incredibly dangerous for these women to have to wait. They are in severe pain and suffering while they're having to be airlifted out of state to wherever to actually get the care that they need. That means that wherever that hospital is, they're not going to have their friends and family and support network around them while they're recovering. And they may have to undergo things like hysterectomies that they wouldn't have if they could have gotten immediate emergency medical care. And by the way,

they're still getting an abortion. The number of abortions is precisely the same. You're just ending up with vastly more cost and human suffering. I mean, again, you're torturing these women for this ban. So that's the reality. There was, like I said, in terms of legal arguments, no idea which way this is going to go. And it could have extraordinary repercussions. This is one to watch really carefully. It certainly is going to have extraordinary repercussions for the women that live in, it's like 12 to 14 states that have these sorts of complete bans in place. I just, there's no doubt in my mind that at some point a woman will die because she's not given an abortion,

even though, you know, a doctor thought, oh, maybe your life isn't at risk. And in the process of being airlifted, like at some point that's going to happen if these laws remain on the books. This is extraordinary too, in terms of the way that women are processing the Dobbs decision. Put this up on the screen. The number of young adults, young women who have decided to get their tubes tied post Dobbs. I mean, huge, huge spike, which just shows you I mean, they're basically like, listen, if I'm not going to be able to have, you know, all these options on the table, like I'm just out. I'm just not going to have kids. I'm going to take that off the table. Like no matter what I think about in the future, this is done for me. And I

think that's pretty extraordinary too. And, you know, also contrary to a lot of conservatives who want women to have children and families and have that be a core part of American life. This is exactly the opposite direction. That's exactly what I think. And I think this is really sad also because it's a permanent procedure, also not without risks and also not without a cost that costs a lot of money, you know, to get any of these things done. So regardless, we're just imposing like a huge amount of costs, uncertainty and chaos into the system, all for a policy, which if we leave to the democratic process is going to get reversed. Let's go to the next one please, just very clearly so everyone can see.

Already, despite several tries by the Republicans to block it, they caved and the Arizona House has now advanced a repeal of the state's near total abortion ban in the Senate. And if you think that Arizona voters aren't going to remember that it took three separate tries to get this through the Arizona House of Representatives that is controlled by the Republicans, then you're an idiot. What they currently are moving is an abortion law that would allow up to 15 weeks in the state. But again, we are talking about a issue which had to be forced through the Congress multiple times and which Carrie Lake is on record endorsing and then flip-flopping on. So even if we get to some 15-week thing, which that was the previous iteration of the law,

and in the previous iteration, there was already a campaign to move it to a statewide referendum because 15 weeks is still very unpopular. Good luck to the Republicans who are running on this. Well, and you know how many Republicans joined with Democrats? I know. Yeah. Three. Yeah. That's it.

And many of them were still opposed to this, which, listen, in fairness to them, this law is consistent with what they have claimed they support for many, many years. So, you know, I mean, I do think the states race thing really is such a cop out because I'm not OK with like, oh, sure, it's fine if Idaho decides they want to torture women. Like, no, I'm not OK with that. This should be at the federal level. There should be rights for women. So, I mean, the like I'm glad that they're getting this repeal through and I'm sure Arizonans at the ballot box, we were going to have their say anyway. But it is clear that they have been faced with the political consequences of their long-held positions that they worked so hard to get enacted into law. And then when actually faced with the political consequences of that,

they are just running as fast as they can in the other direction. And I just wonder, what is this going to look like? Is the Republican Party going to shift? Because Arizona is a swing state. The legislature was not overwhelmingly dominated by Republicans. They had a narrow majority. So you only needed three to join with the Democrats to get this ultimately through. There are a lot of other states where even though the public may be wildly opposed to these things, you've got a very Republican-dominated legislature who won't hear of it because the pro-life movement is still so powerful and so influential within the Republican caucus. And also because they have staked out this position for so many years, it's hard to just then explain why, no, no, no, I didn't actually mean any of that. Let's get

rid of this ban now. National pro-life is too powerful and will never change, even if it does on a statewide level. There was a Republican governor who actually always wanted to run for president, and he never did. You may remember him, Brian Sandoval. He was the governor of Nevada. He was one of the most popular Republicans in the entire country, but he was a non-starter for what reason? He was pro-choice. And being pro-choice, that was it. Not going to happen. There's no way. Even look at what happened with John McCain. John McCain was like relatively moderate on abortion by 2000. What was he? Partial. He was like pro partial birth or something. Pro whatever. My point is that he was out of step with the national pro. That caused a big consternation

back in 2008 with the pro-life standoff. So their power, I don't think it's going to go down. Look at Trump. Even, yeah. I mean, again, look at Trump. I mean, that's the perfect example. He was pro-choice for most of it. He was given Planned Parenthood. And then he, but, and there were. I mean, that's the perfect example. He was pro-choice for most of it. He was given Planned Parenthood. Yeah, exactly. And then he, but, and there were so many issues where he was happy to steamroll rhetorically over the Republican establishment.

I mean, the Iraq war is a perfect example. Yes. He's just like, no, this is what I think, trade with China, whatever. Like, there were a bunch of issues. Or the TPP trade deal, that was huge with the Republican establishment, and he was willing to steamroll

over that. But he knew he could not be out of step with the Republican base when it came to abortion. Very true. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her.

And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I 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. The OGs of

uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila. And we're the hosts of the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Historically, men talk too much. And women have quietly listened. And all that stops here.

If you like witty women, then this is your tribe. With guests like Corinne Steffens. I've never seen so many women protect predatory men. And then me too happened. And then everybody else wanted to get pissed off because the white said it was okay. Problem. My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade, and I called to ask how I was doing. She was like, oh dad, all they was doing was talking about your thing in class.

I ruined my baby's first day of high school. And Slumflower. What turns me on is when a man sends me money. Like, I feel the moisture between my legs when a man sends me money. I'm like, oh my God, it's go time. You actually sent it? Listen to the Good Moms, Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network,

the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you go to find your podcasts. Let's move on to the very latest out of Israel. We have some grim news to report this morning. Let's put this up on the screen. There are increasing signs that that Rafah invasion is all but inevitable. In what some analysts, they write in this piece of the New York Times, and residents of the city saw as a preparation for an invasion. An Israeli military official on Tuesday gave some details that include relocating civilians to a, quote, safe zone. There are none of those, by the way, a few miles away along the Mediterranean coast. That would be, I believe it's called Mawasi.

We've talked about this before. Yes, we have. There are no, there is nothing set up there that would enable sewage, water, shelter, any of the basics of life. There is wildly inadequate. In any case, they go on to say just a day earlier, Israeli warplanes bombed Rafah. We covered that here. Increasing fears among some of the civilians sheltering there that a ground assault would soon follow. They interview a 57-year-old resident of Rafah who said that these indicators

are, quote, terrifying, mean they may really be close to starting an operation. He says, our bags have been packed for months now for the time of evacuation. And, you know, to give you a sense of how much this is being cheerleaded within Israel and how many preparations are being made, an influential think tank called the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv called on Israel to make, quote, brave decisions and to develop a plan for the hermetic closure of the Philadelphia corridor in close cooperation with Egypt and the U.S. That would be a violation of the agreement between Egypt and Israel from, I believe it was 2005, that assigned authority to Egypt to secure that border. And then obviously, I can't even tell you how many deaths we're looking at,

how much of an exacerbation of the humanitarian crisis. Many of the people in Rafah, they're either from Gaza City or they're from Khan Yunus. Both of those cities have been wiped off the map. They're gone, yes. So there's nothing to go back to there. There is no real plan that is credible at all to protect people whatsoever. And so it's going to be continued horror, like escalated horror. The death toll is going to be massive.

The humanitarian toll is going to be gigantic. The diplomatic fallout with Egypt, God knows what's going to happen there. Egypt very upset about this direction. So it looks more and more like that report of Biden said, hey, if you do a more limited strike on Iran, fine, you can go into Rafah. I mean, that's looking very possible like that actually unfolded. Oh, absolutely. And if we can stick with the U. the US political system and where things are, let's go and put this up there on the screen because this is extraordinary.

Mike Johnson says that he, and he has admitted to this, by the way, this is not even reporting, said he had called White House, specifically Jake Sullivan, to intervene on behalf of the Israeli military if President Biden was considering slapping sanctions on that Israeli military battalion, which was charged with violating human rights in the West Bank.

Again, keep in mind, this is in the West Bank. These are allegations that actually stem both before October 7th and others. That is a violation of the State Department's Leahy Law, which says that we will sanction any individual and not provide any U.S. support to military battalions or forces which are engaged in what the U.S. State Department determines is an ongoing human rights abuse. An independent report, which we covered here, had previously identified human rights abuses

by this IDF battalion inside of the occupied West Bank, and that with that policy was a violation of law. And our speaker actually called, and it appears, Crystal, he was successful and it does not look like these sanctions are going through. The White House is pushing back on that, but you're right that there was reports and it hasn't happened yet. And there were multiple reports that the White House was backing off of this. And there's a lot of things to say about this. Number one, just one, there are many incidents

of documented torture, allegations, and all sorts of horrifying things from this unit, which is this unit that's set up specifically for the ultra-Orthodox, has a bunch of these quote-unquote hilltop youth, sort of like radical, often violent settlers that are in this unit. So surprise, surprise, lots of human rights violations. And one of them include, it was a Palestinian American who was an elderly man, I think around 80 years old, who was tortured, handcuffed and left in the cold to die. That's one of the allegations and incidents here that we're talking about. So our own speaker, this supposedly American speaker of the House begging this administration to violate U.S. law

to let this unit off the hook for killing an American citizen. Like, it's insane. And, you know, I'm critical of the very limited nature of this to begin with, because the whole conceit from the Biden administration is, oh, it's just a few bad apples, that it isn't the direct result

of overwhelming government policy. But it's at least something. And clearly, the Netanyahu administration doesn't like it. So in any case, extraordinary. He revealed this, by the way, to Hugh Hewitt. He said, quote, we heard a rumor of this before our aid bill was actually brought for a vote in the House. I mean, hours before. I'll tell you what I did, Hugh, and I don't, I guess I'm breaking news here. No one knows this, but I called the White House immediately and talked with Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken was overseas at the moment. Yep. There you go. So that's one where it's very, very clear, I think, where things are going and also the defense that they have with the political system as we grapple with what a potential

invasion of Rafah would look like. We'd also be remiss if we didn't give everybody an update on the Gaza floating pier. Yeah, tell me, how is construction going? The U.S. military was to put, we're putting our servicemen in danger, building this pier, all of that. We recently got an update from the U.S. military Pentagon spokesperson. Turns out not a single thing is actually close to being operational. Here's what he had to say. You have the temporary pier, which is of of course, several miles offshore, which can receive both military and civilian vessels. There has been no physical construction of the temporary pier or the causeway. We are positioned to begin construction very soon, in the very near future.

So very soon in the near future. It has now been 48 days since I can't believe State of the Union is 48 days ago. I feel like I'm living in a time vacuum. I feel like we're just here covering it. But OK, put that aside. It feels like just yesterday we were covering it. We were talking about it. We were doing segments about it. It's been 50 days now and nothing is happening in the near future. it may be operational. They put out all those diagrams. It's like, is this even going to happen at this point? Doesn't look like it. And in the interim, the whole reason that it was supposed to happen was that more aid was supposed

to go into the Gaza Strip and then that hasn't happened either. So what is the damage rot been in the meantime? So more fecklessness on the part of the U.S. administration. It's just, they think we're so stupid. You know, I mean, wait. Most people are. Like, we honestly called this from the beginning that it was a total PR stunt. We're skeptical if it was even going to happen. We knew it was going to happen.

They were claiming 60 days at most. At most. Weren't they saying 30 to 60 days? Isn't that what they were saying? Yes, that's right. That's what they said. Here we are 48 days later and they have not even started and cannot even give us a date for when it would start. Like this was just a lie. Something for Joe Biden to say in the State of the Union to pretend like he cares about Palestinian civilians starving to death and

dying en masse. They haven't even started. They haven't even started. Just, just incredible. Meanwhile, so you've got the imminent invasion of Rafah. You already have amped up strikes, which are killing Palestinian civilians and many children. Now you also have Gaza basically coming to the West Bank. Let's put this up on the screen. There's been very little reporting on this, apparently, even though there's been, this has been ongoing for a while. Their headline here is Israel's hunt for one elusive militant brings Gaza tactics to the West Bank. Airstrikes, drones, and ground troops targeting militants turn Palestinian territory into another war front. So, you know, we have already had the war expanded into Lebanon and Syria and Iran and now ramping up also in the West Bank.

And, you know, make no mistake about it, they've killed more than 435 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7th. About 4,900 Palestinians have been injured in the West Bank specifically since then, either by Israeli forces or by settlers. We brought you that news previously of that Israeli settler pogrom that unfolded with the IDF just standing by and watching. So, you know, West Bank increasingly looking more like the Gaza Strip in terms of Israeli tactics. And then the last thing we wanted to share with you is this little nugget from The New York Times. Put this up on the screen. This went sort of unremarked upon, but seems pretty significant. The headline here is the stark reality of Israel's fight in Gaza. And they're saying basically, you know, similar to like what Haaretz had written before about.

If you look at their stated goals, it's not going too well. You know, they aren't really accomplishing their mission. We saw those reports that Sinwar is sort of still openly operating. The Israelis of Cleo is just hunkered down in this tunnel and can't do anything. There were some reports, at least, that were very contrary to that. But specifically, what I wanted to point to in this piece is they say, quote, in an annual intelligence assessment released in March, American spy agencies expressed doubts about Israel's ability to truly destroy Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group. Israel probably will face a lingering armed resistance from Hamas for years to come, the report said.

And the military will struggle to neutralize Hamas's underground infrastructure, which allows insurgents to hide, regain strength, and surprise Israeli forces. So even the U.S. intel community is saying, like, you're not going to defeat Hamas. And, I mean, that's the conceit with Rafah. It's like, oh, once we do that, it's the final boss, right? Once we go into Rafah, then finally Hamas will be defeated. And this is just bullshit. It's just going to cause more misery and suffering.

I come back to what someone on Twitter, some wise person on Twitter said, which is, like, they've managed to destroy everything in Gaza except for Hamas. Yeah, it is astounding that according to this, that Sinwar still maintains command and control of the organization. It's like a glaring failure. It's a lot like the bin Laden thing, actually. Afghanistan is the perfect example. So we had a couple of options in Afghanistan. We could have gone in, thrown everything at the Battle of Tora Bora, actually killed bin Laden, and then we could have gotten the hell out of there. Instead, we get distracted. We want to, oh, now we're propping up the freedom forces, and now we're going to build a democracy. In the Israeli case, they're just wiping out basically

every building that exists for any future operation. But the actual people responsible for October 7, they don't seem to have been punished in the way that they allegedly could have been. And you could have just had a dedicated counterterrorism operation from the beginning, which would have done this. You could have avoided all this carnage and all this nonsense. And very much like us, they will likely reap the reward of that, which is an ongoing mass terrorist blob inside of Gaza that is ungovernable inside of a chaos that will bother them now for years and years and years to come. So good luck to them. And they are solely responsible now at this point for what they're

going to reap. And also, like, it's nice that the media is now like actually waking up to this fact or actually admitting this fact. But we've been saying this from the beginning. We played that Jocko Willick clip early on when he was like. It's not rocket science. If you actually. OK. If you're serious about counterinsurgency, here's how you do it.

You're actually really nice to the civilian population. You flood them with aid because you want to create a wedge between them and Hamas. They haven't had any other option than Hamas as their government. So you have to give them some other alternative that's going to satisfy their aspirations. So whether that's talks towards peace, some sort of negotiation, we know throughout history with the Gaza Strip, when negotiations and possibility of peace were ongoing, support for militant groups like Hamas were much lower. So you do that. You also need the civilian population to collaborate with you and tell you where Sinwar is hiding or whatever. And then you do targeted counterinsurgency strikes. That's the way you do that. It was never approached that way.

Instead, the first thing they do, it was bomb the hell out of Gaza and kill a bunch of kids and civilians and bury them under rubble and drop 2,000-pound bombs on refugee camps and raid hospitals, etc. That was the first approach. So we always knew this was not some intelligent, strategic, targeted attempt to get the baddies who, you know, fomented October 7th, genuine bad guys. Like, I'm not, you know, denying that. But we always knew that. And now here we are. What are we, seven months in now at this point? And they're finally like, oh, by the way, this may not work. It's like, no shit. And how many of these people who you've, kids who you've orphaned and murdered their brother and sister, left them amputees for life, whatever. How peace-loving do you think that they're going to be in the future?

How many new Hamas recruits do you think that you have created while you've been doing this? And there's no end in sight, no end in sight whatsoever. Absolutely. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell

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

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With guests like Corinne Stephens. I've never seen so many women protect predatory men. And then me too happened. And then everybody else wanted to get pissed off because the white said it was okay. Problem. My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade, and I called to ask how I was doing. She was like, oh dad, all they was doing was talking about your thing in class. I ruined my baby's first day of high school.

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Well, oftentimes in American politics, historical analogies are stretched too thin. They don't even mean anything. How every time that we need to fund a foreign war, it's Munich in 1938. Or every time a new election, it's the most important election of our lifetime. It's recapturing the spirit of 1776. Most of the time, it doesn't have any relation. And if it does, it's far less related

than those people lead you to believe. But with all my cynicism, even I am struck by this recent observation from historian Keith Orahell, who notes, quote, I just can't believe the parallels of 1968. I mean, okay, Columbia has widespread unrest, there's widespread anti-war activism that might have been the confidence, but coincidence, but there's a guy named Robert Kennedy running for president, and the DNC is Chicago? Like, this is even a bit? To make it even more eerie, as he notes later on, the original Planet of the Apes movie was released in 1968, and we are of course due for our latest in the modern series to be released in this year, 2024.

Hype for Planet of the Apes aside, there is something actually very eerie about all of this, even though it's obviously not a one-to-one situation. With 1968, there's a lot of lessons we can still learn from one of the most important years in modern American history. Start with the campus parallel. Exactly 56 years ago, to the day of this monologue, Columbia University was awash with protests over the Vietnam War and what students said were racist policies at the university. Students seized five buildings, they took the dean hostage, they refused to vacate, and this led to a week-long standoff until April 30th, 1968, when nearly 1,000 officers from the New York City Tactical Patrol office poured onto campus, used force to arrest students. More than 100 ended up being injured in those arrests, and photos went viral in their own 1968 way. The Columbia protests like today were a flashpoint because it all happened in New York City, and it got massive media attention. That March-April to 1968 period, exactly 56 years ago, was a massive turning point in American history.

It was days before the Columbia University protests that Robert Kennedy decided to enter the Democratic race against Lyndon Johnson. Here too, the parallels are striking. LBJ was an unpopular, incumbent Democratic president. He had ripped his coalition in half with the Vietnam War and his pursuit of the Civil Rights Act. He was, however, a masterful politician who, it seemed, would be able to hold on to his nomination until someone with the golden last name of Kennedy enters the race. Kennedy's entry into the race was done largely out of opposition to LBJ's Vietnam War policy, in the same way that the current RFK is against Biden's Ukraine policy, and his fundamental belief that both Nixon and LBJ would divide rather than unite the country.

Now, sadly for us all, of course, Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 in questionable circumstances, tying Democrats' hands and leading to the nomination of Hubert H. Humphrey, which was the vice president of LBJ. It leads to the final eerie parallel of 1968, the upcoming Democratic Convention in Chicago, reminding us of the past.

Many people know that the 1968 Chicago Convention was violent, but very few actually know the details. The Democratic coalition at that time was a lot like today, completely split on how to handle Vietnam. Their approach to politics was generally that older voters were much more likely to support the Vietnam War and to put their trust in the president, while radical politics had completely overtaken the youth vote. Democratic leaders, they knew this going into the convention, and they had a mission just like Biden has today, cover up all their differences, squash any protests, and especially against the Johnson faction of the DNC. Now, the president at the United, today I wanted to present this United Front

against Nixon, but these heavy-handed tactics backfired massively. Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago took extreme security measures at that convention to keep protesters out, including putting onerous restrictions on media coverage. Protesters knew this, and then they sought to get their attention anyways. So they began a march to the convention grounds. From there, the torches lit. Police, protesters, they're clashing in the streets, tear gas, beatings, violence. It dominated the airwaves in the age when a vast majority of the population was watching television and it didn't have alternative entertainment options.

What few also remember is this, that 1968 was not just an election between two candidates, it was between three candidates. Here again, the parallels are very eerie. Third party candidate George Wallace ran on a platform of preserving the Jim Crow regime in the South. It split a critical part of the Democratic coalition from Hubert Humphrey. The subsequent vote results show us that Richard Nixon won 301 electoral votes, but with just 43% of the popular vote. Hubert Humphrey got 191 electoral votes, but he got 42.7. George Wallace carried 46 electoral votes, 13% of the overall vote. Take a look here at the most recent poll of RFK Jr. in a lineup against Biden and Trump,

and you see RFK Jr. is projected to get exactly 13% of the vote right now, much like that Wallace campaign in 1968. Now, have I shoehorned a few things in here to fit my story? Yes, absolutely. Are things as bad today as they were in 1968? No, thank God. At least for now, thousands of American servicemen remain safe and not on the front line in an active and unwinnable war. But the electoral parallels teach us one lesson, that the chaos of 68 has left a lasting impression upon all of us, and that the chaos of the time itself was not inevitable. It was a choice of the elites at that time who lied and they cheated and they hid vital facts from the American public, and then they refused to grapple with the righteous outrage

at being deceived. So it's actually pretty fascinating to think that. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching. We deeply appreciate you. Thank you for supporting us with the poll, with CounterPoints Friday.

And for premium members, you will get access to that Don Lemon interview tonight. Otherwise, everybody else, it will drop on our public feeds on Friday. So we love you and we will see you all later. News This Hour podcast, updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7. Because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I 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. 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. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Sure. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This is kind of star studded 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 on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.