Chapo Trap House - 1061 - Koala Killers feat. friendlyjordies (8/11/26)

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

Journalist and YouTuber Jordan Shanks-Markovina aka friendlyjordies joins us for an Australian news ep, comparing the MAGA movement of the United States with the right-wing nativism of Pauline Hanson���s One Nation. We talk about Australia’s world of mobsters and bikers, one deputy PM’s war on Koalas, and how Jordies’ videos lead to several criminal prosecutions and his house being firebombed. Check out Jordies’ videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2-i3KuYoODXsM99Z3-Gm0A His Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/friendlyjordies And his podcast The Official Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@theofficialytchannel  If you’re in Canada, check out the CHUNKS live screening on Sept 1. with Amber Frost, Nate Fisher, and the Important Cinema Club: https://paradiseonbloor.com/movies/chunks-toronto-premiere And in Charlottetown, PEI on Sept 4th and 5th: https://tivolicinema.com/production/chunks/  Chapo & Friends Live at New York’s Society for Ethical Culture on Friday November 6th. Tickets are going fast, get yours now! https://link.dice.fm/zaf99528079e  CHUNKS now available for streaming purchase at www.patreon.com/chunkstv

Hello, everybody. It's Tuesday, August 11th, and this is your chopo. On today's episode, it is time for Felix and I to heave away, haul away. That's right. We're bound for South Australia. And the state of New South Wales in particular, because joining us on today's show is Australian-based YouTube journalist, comedian, Jordan, also known as friendly Jordis. Jordan, welcome to the show. Honestly, a pleasure. I've seen your clips in the past.

And they've been diving into your clips, and I would like to get into them. But in particular, we're going to have sort of a survey of the current political and cultural climate of Australia, given your very singular experience of having your house burned down. Now, this is a story I can't totally relate to as my house was never burned down,

but I have also been the target of vexatious lawsuits by some of the people I made fun of on the show. So I can certainly relate to that. But before I get into the story of how your house got set on fire, I would just like to just start with an overall view of Australia. And I wanted to ask you, like, do you find, as someone who observes American culture, who somebody who talks about Australian culture, do you find that like despite superficial differences, like in how everything looks, the climate, how many animals are poisonous.

Do you think that like Australian and American culture share a certain similar resonance with each other? Look, can I throw this back at you? Because I've just been touring the United States for the last month. I didn't realize that your name is actually a literal, this is what it is. I don't know. Because, you know, when you're an outsider and all you ever see is stuff from Hollywood and whatever. Like, yes, going around America, you do see that those, like, Bostonians sound and look like Bostonians, you know?

And like when you actually see them as an outside, you're like, holy fuck, you're not just in 20s gangster films, you know? Like, but like you go to each of these states and they are like their own little, it's kind of like if Europe was just an anglisphere, you know, like it's all just, they are completely different. That shocked the hell out of me. when you go to Australia, it's the same thing from top to bottom. It is just like if there was just one state, you know?

So in terms of like cultural differences, that would be like the major one is like, you would not be able to tell if I'm from Perth or Adelaide or anything. That's it. But like with you guys immediately, you're like, yeah, you can only come from Jersey. And you didn't even have to open your mouth. I can just look at the way that you're dressed. You're from Jersey, you know? Yeah.

I agree with that. I think, like, our United 50 states, which are like, the idea is that they're like 50 semi-independent countries that have their own accents, you know, regional dialects, food, sort of climates. But I think, like, for contemporary 21st century America, most of those differences are pretty superficial. I think we are basically all living under the same hegemonic culture with minor variation.

Okay. All right. So, like, you go deeper than that, and it's pretty, much the same. The thing is, look, Australia was, I think we were just federated more like that. So there's not really, there's never been that much of a difference for it. So like with you guys,

it was kind of like a kind of McDonald's America or something. Well, it's, I mean, we are like different from other countries. Like, this did used to be 50 independent, petty presidencies. And then 300 years

ago, George Washington, after the doom of Surrey, England. He flew over here on a dragon. And have you ever, have you, were you in, do you have AP history in Australia? No. It's placement history. International

baccalaureate, it is international. Okay. They might teach this in international baccalaureate. He killed the petty presidents of Delaware and Maryland, which are the two most powerful states that he was on.

And it was called the field of fire. And he extinguished. their presidential lines. And that's why you go here and it's like this place could fall apart at any time. But the last

dragons did die during the Civil War. That's why the American Civil War is also known as the Dance of the Dragons. Oh, okay. Yeah, that was what the Civil War was about. It was the dragon bloodline going against each other. Yes, okay, it's all coming together there. Yeah, yeah.

That's why it was Brother against Brother. Yes. Yeah. It was a really good historical drama on HBO about the American Civil War right now that I've been watching.

He's called House of the Fanfiction. I would take it out. But Jordan, what I'm getting at here is that like, Australia and America, we are both part of the Anglos here, both part of like a British colonial project. One half got, you know,

sort of the grind set, the money getters and the religious Puritans. The other side got, you know, the crooks. But I think that I think that undersells how many crooks also came to America. And I think like we have the same, you know, history of, you know, problems clearing out our indigenous populations of this country. But we are united by being sort of colonial projects of Great Britain. And I want to start there with what I learned from you, the sort of history of New South Wales in particular. A detail that I really like is that when it was founded, the

official currency of New South Wales was rum. Yes. And you sort of connected that to the current rotten state of politics in New South Wales. Another thing I learned from you is that apparently New South Wales, you described it as the gambling and cocaine capital of the world. Now, this comes as news to me, Jordan, because I was always under the impression from Australians that I encounter in America doing their sort of Aussie Rum Springer, that the only reason they're in America is because we have cocaine here and it's very expensive in Australia.

Oh yeah. And shit. Not that I have it. I seriously don't though. I'm too scared to have it. But like everybody complains about our cocaine. Everybody. I'm sure it's great in America. I'm sure I wouldn't be surprised if there's many Australia to go to Australia specifically for the cocaine. That doesn't surprise me at all. But at terms of like, it's not even so, yes, like cocaine probably isn't the main drug that is used over there. It's probably using meth and weed and all of that. But the point is, the overarching point, is that New South Wales,

because it's in a developed nation, and because it had that set up, because it had that foundation, it's always been a perfect kind of pirate cove for organized crime. And so like, you know, when you got Italian migration, that came here in Lebanese migration and all of that,

the crime families that came with them as well started setting up crime networks across the world that started going back and forth with Australia. And Australia has always, because of that specific reason that we are a developed nation, but we had that convict set up, it's been perfect for money laundering purposes.

Yeah? And like, you know, trying to like legitimize money and wash it through. That's why it's. so deeply ingrained in specifically New South Wales. There's always a bunch of other states. I don't know. Anytime you ever complain about a point, there's always going to be people,

they'll be like, oh, we've got gangsters in Melbourne too. But it's like, yeah, but it's not, shut up. You know, like, it's not the same. I love when people do that. What? Just, like, brag about how much, like, sons of anarchy activity goes on in their respective city. Yeah.

This is a thing in America. This is such an Australian thing. There's always someone that, like, knows a bikey and can, like, get things done if they really mean. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, that is, I'm fascinated by Australia because you, you guys are the only other country in the, I mean, Germany a little bit, but the German language is basically English. German people are basically America.

It's the same. It's just America if they got, like, punished, you know? But America and Australia are the only countries where we think bikers are. cool. We have this hilarious thing. We have this hilarious thing over here where like if you go like you go on Facebook, our old people are always like imagining scenarios where bikers like like the hell's angels. 1% the 1% of biker gangs that do illegal activity or something, whatever the terminology is, that they're constantly like beating up pedophiles and stuff and that they're not like the most prolific sex offenders in the organized crime world.

Do they have that there? Do you're a conservatives like mythologized bikers do? No, it's not a conservative. Well, yeah, okay, now, because like we'll get into it later, but we're getting your strand of MAGA in Australia. Yeah. That's coming in. And this is the thing that I really, look, Australia is always mythologized crooks.

Like there's two things, you like how you guys just worship celebrities, right? Australians worship sports stars and criminals. They always have. That's it. Like, they don't give a shit about anyone else. Like, anybody, you know the phrase tall poppy syndrome, right? Like in Australia, it's just like, anybody gets shot on. Anybody, like, goes up.

And then as soon as you're a cream, everyone's like, oh, high score. It killed 16 people. You know? Everyone wants to be Ned Kelly, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, I don't know, give him props. So just kind of want to like bask in his glory, like little scum fish or something. And then like, so yeah, like, I don't know.

I did. So is that like a thing that I didn't realize. So what, like Republicans and stuff like that? They're always just talking about how sick by. Yeah, yeah. That is like that that is like a beloved genre of fake article. I guess now. Exactly.

But like in before AI, you would, you know, one of those websites that's made to look like people.com like the magazine people. Yeah. It opens up like 17 different windows. And it would be an article that's like Florida town that was taken over by Muslims it's getting hell's angels

are coming there to like beat them up and like burn the Quran. That was really. Yeah. We do. We do also like we've had so many mafia turncoats in this country that we now have mafia YouTube like guys who killed 50 people each.

who all have become YouTubers and they will like get into arguments over like who the worst person is. Do you? Oh, you've got that? Yeah. That is my favorite genre of Australian influencer is guys that were in prison, bitching about other guys that were in prison. And they're all celebrities, kind of, very similar to like in the beauty vlogger's sphere, how they're constantly bitching about each other and being like, I was at a party. and then she didn't even say hi. She's fucking, like, it's that, except for they're like,

yeah, dreams just being like, didn't fucking back me up in the flat fucking dog a fucking hate. It's the same thing. Yeah, phenomenon that Felix and I are very fond of are, you know, former, like, Italian mob guys who have, like, become turncoats or done prisons, some prison sentences for, like, killing witnesses. And now they're just influencers.

And their influencers. on the politically like the right wing. And one of my favorite thing is like New York and Philadelphia like former like mob button men who are all complained about our current mayor, Zoran Mandani because he's let crime get out of

control or something. He's like he's like he's like he's letting the criminals run the city. It's like he should be locking up more people like us. I saw I saw

a great thumbnail, but it was from Michael, Michael Franchise is my favorite one of these guys. He was like, I know the one you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, he was a Lucchesey guy, and he actually, Franchisem's like 8% less stupid than these other guys, because instead of killing like 38,000 people

and then just attorney state's evidence when Rico became a thing, he, uh, he did this gas scam or he made millions of dollars and he's like a, like fake born again Christian now, but he's constantly, whatever he does, like his videos, he clearly still, like, glorifies the life. And he came out with a video this week that was like, how the mob would have treated Fauci.

Yeah. And with the headline, Don Fauci. What were you worried about, Fauci? I'm a former mom guy. I know what the heck I was worried about when I got in front of a grand jury and pled the fifth. If a guy acted the way he acted on the street, he'd have been done. Like, even at the height of the. mafia in America. They weren't doing it. They weren't

like, oh, we don't like who's in charge of the CDC. Yeah. We don't think he was a very good researcher. Handle him. He's still in beagles. Those are our favorite dogs. This is a

organized crime is actually a perfect segue into like I said, like what I think you can provide our listeners here sort of a tour through your experience as a sort of a content creator, a comedian, but someone who, shall we say, ran afoul of both the government, the police, and the organized crime of New South Wales. And like, basically, like, this is quite a saga.

I have nothing, in my entire career of talking shit on the internet and even getting sued for libel for doing so, your story passed lapsed mine like 10 times. because it culminated with your house being the victim of an arson attack. Your house was literally burned down. And like, I guess that's the capstone here. But like, where does this story begin? And like, how does this story provide sort of a skeleton key into the contemporary politics of Australia?

I'll take where it probably actually did start. We had this deputy premier that if you've watched it, you would have known by now. But his name was John Barilaro and he was, he was that. He was basically one of those influences that was like just one of those mob bosses being like, hand to fowci, but he's he's, he's, he's, Mamm Darni, you know, like he actually became like, like, like, very, very powerful. Basically, like, yeah, deputy premier, I guess, I don't even know what the alternative is. What do you even call it in America?

The vice governor maybe, I don't know what that is. Lieutenant governor? Lieutenant governor. Lieutenant governor. So he was that. And obviously, no one knew who he was, because who knows who any. Lieutenant Governor is. But I remember reading a story that he passed something that became like a laughing

stock among scientists across the planet. And they were all dumbfounded at it, which is that he passed this law called the Heritage Protection Act. And it was to, this is one of the most environmentally destructive. Actually, hands down, I will say it, the most environmentally destructive government New South Wales has ever had by a mile, like Brazilian level land clearing that they just allowed. and all of a sudden he really cares about this one national park

and protecting wild horses in that national park. Now, in case you're not kangaroos, like they're not native to Australia here, yeah. And it was very concerned about the heritage of that park because there's this very famous poem in Australia called The Man from Snowy River, and it's just about a cowboy back in the day that used to wrangle up all the brumbies, as we call them,

and, you know, like, break them in and make them horse. This would be one of these, like, points of cultural, sort of synchronicity between Australia and America. We both love cowboys. How can you not? How can you not like a cowboy? It's the coolest fucking job on earth. And so we just, like, that's what it was, right?

Like, it was, yeah, it was a cowboy, man from Zoe River. That was his pretext for it. What he was doing was essentially just, it would be like if Mam Darnie passed a law called like the Rat Protection Act in New York. You know, like, like, like,

like, okay, that's really weird. I don't know why you're doing that. So we looked into it immediately. It comes up. It was purely just because there was like this one guy that was,

uh, did tours of wild horses in Kosovo, which like, yeah, like they look majestic, obviously. like a, you know, I don't even know the word for it, but like, you know, a sweeping plane of wild horses running across it looks great.

But they're also responsible for making like 30 species endangered. So like you have to like keep their numbers under. But he just liked that image. So he could say to. And so he basically just more or less, I'll say it on this podcast. I wouldn't say it in Australia. But like, you know, he gets $10,000 from this guy. He passes just like.

an unbelievable, it was just cartoonishly stupid level of environmental vandalism and, you know, claims that it was just because of this, like, poem. Anyway, I did a video about that. I just, you know, pointed out like the horrendous environmental record of the Berrajiklian government at the time, which he was the, you know, deputy premier of. And he bit back, which is the, You've probably had that same experience as well, right? Where it's kind of this thing of like, I don't even know, like, you're a deputy premier. Why the fuck are you addressing some internet goblin? Like, it's pathetic.

Like, it's so beneath the office to even address it. And yet he wouldn't let it go. He kept escalating it. He kept, like, I obviously kept escalating it because it's good content. And also just the fact that, like, he was just a dumb guy. He was a really, really stupid guy, very thin skin. And he just went straight to defamation. Then he just went to like arresting my producer for like, you know, like, I don't feel safe.

I feel like I'm being assaulted. You know what we found out later as well? In that six months, he was using like the terror squad in Australia, which is there to set up to investigate terrorism and shit. They were bugging us for like six months to see if they could find anything. Yeah, you know, you became a partner. And tailing us. And fucking tailing us. Australia's like

terrorism strike theme division because basically and what I loved about John, John Barallaro, this guy, what I loved about him

is that like he is sort of transparently a thug and a moron. Yeah. And also like quite a conservative guy in his politics. But like in his various lawsuits against you and in his various

bleeding to the media. He invoked the specter of cyberbullying and his mental health over and over again. And you have a clip of him saying he's like, you know, I feel bad for these young boys or girls who are going through cyber bullying because like I'm I'm experiencing the same thing here.

As not just an adult man, it's not just an adult man but as like the governor of a major state, right? Like who can deploy terrorism strike forces at his behest. I want to return to one other thing about the land clearing you were talking about

because this is another thing that you started to sort of needle him on. Okay, so this is lynchewing, but with the exception of these beautiful wild horses, right? What would Australia be without its beautiful wild horses? But the other like environmental devastation being caused here is very likely to make koala bears go extinct sometime in our lifetimes, which, you know, as far as far as, as a charismatic flona of Australia goes, the koala bear would be like near the top,

right? Yeah. And that was the remarkable thing about it, which was that like, you know, if you wanted to talk about something that is in terms of, you know, a national icon to Australia, it doesn't get much higher than a koala. You know, it's, that's about as high as it gets. Didn't give a shit about it.

In fact, started suing me because I started calling him a koala killer and he was offended by that term. Even though he like, repeatedly all-favored with golden things like tree rats and shit. How do you? That isn't like a,

that isn't like a Michael Richards type sandal in Australia. Yeah, right? I just, I get, like, it is, like, I have to confess, like, this is embarrassing. This is probably the most embarrassing thing

I've ever admitted on the show. But I follow like UK politics the most out of Commonwealth politics because I was like, I was in the danger zone, but I didn't go, I didn't cross the line into becoming a Tiabu in 2006. I was close though. I was really close. I was really close to becoming the worst thing you could be in America at the time. And I'm including like, you know, guys who abducted people and family annihilators.

But, you know, I've, like, caught glimpses of Australian politics here and there just because, you know, like, half the, half the people we know on Twitter are Australian. And it's such a fun mirror to American politics. But you guys, your politicians started doing, like, implying that they, they, they were like the narrator on 13 reasons why. Like about a year before ours started doing that. That's one place where we ripped you off. I remember see, yeah, like 2013, I would see, yeah, you know, people saying that they were being cyber bullied. Like, well, not only that. Governors in this case.

But yeah, no, senators. It is a major Australian innovation. It became a facet of the Trump presidency that, that was a huge Trump one thing. People, the, his supporters would go, no one has ever been like abused this much. Like Donald Trump was manually checking his mentions. And like self-harming. Is that like a new innovation to you guys as well? Because all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they started going, oh, my mental health.

I can't hands. Yeah. Every time. It was always mental health. They'd immediately revert back to that. The other thing that was incredible about John Barilaro is like, because as you pointed out, right, he's from the National Party, which would be our, it's regional Republicans, right? Like, you don't really have that split, but they're just, they're Yahoo's.

It was just incredible that over and over again, he'd have so many articles being like, political correctness has gone too far. We've got to stamp it out. People are too afraid to say, speak on their minds. I believe in free speech, all of that shit. And then as soon as I started making fun of the fact that he's Italian and started making like mob boss impressions of him and shit like that is like racism, this brings me back to my childhood when I was bullied at school.

Immediately, you know, it just flips on a dive. Yeah. Yeah, a big part of his attacks on you in the press is, is for your anti-Italian racism. And this is coming from someone who in any other context would be, be like, shut the fuck up, Snowflake. You know, like, I mean, I'm going to go on a limb here. I don't know much about John Barilaro outside what you've told me about and what

I've gleaned from his videos. But like, what would you, how would you describe his attitude towards Australia's Aboriginal population. He didn't really talk about Aboriginal population much. He was, like, it would be a very national party. I kind of can't even remember him talking about indigenous populations. The one thing that I do remember is that there was this indigenous community, because like a massive problem for them, obviously, is because they live out, like, way out, you know, closer to the desert and stuff like that. There's a bunch of those communities out there. And so immediately when it comes to things like what John Barilaro was doing, which was

allowing massive mega cotton farms to just suck up all the water to the point that these communities didn't have any water. Like you'd go look at their beds and it'd just be completely river dry, like bone dry, dead, causing massive fish kills. This is the other thing that I think is I focused a lot on the land clearing. But the real danger of what the National Party did when they were in. power was the amounts of water theft that they allowed. I think it's, from what I've gleaned from America, there's states like that that you guys

have like these water sharing problems. And, you know, when you're downstream, you get fucked over, like massively, especially if you just have like someone else upstate that just allows, you know, farms to expand to obscene levels. And so they just get dried out. And that was happening throughout his entire. premier ship and he didn't give a fuck. And then again, when we pointed that out, he was just like,

no one has done more for the indigenous community than me. And it was like, dude, they don't have water. They're like, you took, you stole their fucking water off of them. And he's got, that's all he said, you know, they just moved on to the next thing of like, he was also mean to me and this and this. And that's all I can ever remember in talking about when it comes to that. There's another detail here about John Barroaro that I really adored.

And I can't, I racked my brain and I couldn't come up with, like, does this happen in American politics? Can I think of an American politician doing this? And I couldn't, I could be wrong, though. John Barolaro has a mansion that he rents out as an Airbnb. He's at, correction, he did. Okay. And then he got into one of those expensive, dude, he did the classic, started fucking his secretary, and then divorced his family, and then the family, the mother. before the wife was pissed

and they just like cleaned him. So that's hers now. Well, I don't know if this this is disputed if this counts as a recognized governor. I recognize him though. We had a very famous Airbnb host who was governor

of the territory. The guy who was in charge of Chaz for like a week. He was like his job before that was he was an Airbnb host. Well, that's kind of like the same thing. Well, Barrella, I had an Airbnb

at one point. And this was like in the midst of his like, you know, this kind of escalating legal and beef between you guys. You stayed at his Airbnb and did a video giving a lovely tour of the facilities.

And I should say you also, you put in some work in the guest bedrooms. Yes, I did. Am I allowed to? Of course I'm allowed to say it on here for Crussey. Like I fucked in his guest houses and made a point of it in the So, and then...

And again, that was another massive thing that he was pissed off at. He was just like, I can't believe that people have sex in Airbnbs. What kind of world do we leave in? Should have made that clear in the lease agreement that wasn't allowed. But like, John Boralar, like, so like, as this story develops, like, you mentioned, okay,

so he sues you many, like, he sues you, and then, like, in a variety of ways, like, you were denied a, trial by jury. He was able to only get a, like a, like a, the case only heard by a judge rather than a jury. And then also relied on basically a 17th century law

that protects, uh, anything said in parliament from being referenced in a court case. If I'm getting that right. It's like, he relied on a 17th century like, English common law like parliamentary privilege to avoid, uh, like you said that he lied to parliament. And then as part of his defense,

it was basically like his statement to parliament could not be introduced as evidence in this trial. Well, that's incredible that you like summed that up so will. We do. We kind of have that. That's sort of, it's pretty common, at least for common world countries to have some sort of like parliamentary privilege. You famously cannot be sued for libel for something that you say on the floor of Congress. I don't know if it's the same thing where you, it is fully stricken from. court record, but, uh, no, that, look, I understand that point and I do understand the idea

that, uh, there should be like, there should be more privileges attained to somebody who is in parliament for bringing up these things. Uh, there's like, there's a million reasons for it. Like, one of them is just prying into things. And if you turn around and start suing people for it, like, you know, like, it's, it's another way of just controlling transparency. But yes, that, I'm sure that probably is the case in the United States. We've got no idea. But the thing that is just absolutely nuts in Australia is that he was suing me for defamation, saying that I was claiming that he was lying.

And we were like, it's in the transcripts in Parliament. And then they said, you're not allowed to introduce those pieces as evidence. So you are therefore defaming him. Do you understand? Yeah. Do you understand that that's the thing that is just absolutely mental about Australia, which is that defamation, again, it goes back to the convict stuff, which is that Australia has the harshest defamation laws in the Western world by mile. And it is because they were set up as a way of stopping convicts from daring to smirch the names of lords and ladies when they started coming to Australia as free settlers. And because they were scum, they were, you know, convicts and shit like that.

do. It actually all started because they, Convix started, when they were pissed off, just started mass mooning the governor. That was why. That's hilarious. So they started just putting it really harsh defamation laws where it's basically, it's basically a foregone conclusion that if you go to court in Australia for someone suing you for defamation, there's a very, very small chance that you are going to win that.

at best, you've got to come out as a draw at best. That was the thing that I really, I sympathize with in sort of investigating this whole saga is how, because there's no First Amendment in Australia, you can be sued for defamation for just insulting someone. And like, in my libel case, had it actually gone to trial, like my attorneys would have had to rely on the Supreme Court precedent established by the great American

pornographer Larry Flint that you cannot liable a public figure like in hyperbolic terms because like you know for obvious reasons right that like as sort of like payment for being a powerful public figure people can make fun of you and people can say things about your character

that you know not to be true because as a public figure like part of the deal is that people get to insult you yes it's a pretty fair judgment it's honestly a fair judgment like that makes a lot of sense That's good. I'm glad that that's the case here. There's a lot of things in the United States

that I like about the court system here. Another one is, for example, we wanted it filmed. And if one party in Australia says, no, I don't want it filmed, then it doesn't get filmed. So basically what happens as a result of that, especially because it's John Barrow and he had the entire press on his side. They just get to go in, sit in the galleys,

and then say what happened in court that day. And obviously, I mean, we've gone through it on the channel over and over again. But it's just complete misconstruction of, the homest seems some portrait of an ass grabber like,

I grabbed her sweet, her sweet, that's what they're doing. That's what they're doing, the whole time. That is the two big parts that we really want to change in this. And we were fighting

for specific exemptions and carve-outs in those two fields. So we wanted it filmed, and we also wanted it to be like, if you are going to sue someone for saying that, you are lying, you should be allowed to submit evidence to prove that you are in fact

not lying. That doesn't seem that unreasonable. And our judge, who just looked like a fucking goblin from the Gringott's bank in fucking Harry Potter. Like, of course he wasn't pro that idea. I know the anti-Italian is one thing, but cool with the anti-Semitism, all right? Yeah, I should probably check that. I don't know what his ethnicity is. Before we get to like Farallaro's connections to one of the most powerful mobs in Australia and a construction firm. Like, how did all these legal cases shake out? Hold on.

I think you're safe, Jordan. I just looked up Australian Jews. there are 29,113 Australians who identify as Jewish by now. Yeah, I like my odds, hey. That's not that many people. Yeah, that's pretty. You're, yeah. There's probably more Australian furries.

Oh, for sure. Dude, maybe. Yeah, actually, I'll say, yeah, for sure. You could get a convention center of them, definitely. It'd be hard to get a convention center of Jews. in Australia for, well, actually. Yeah, and I've tried. For what?

Dradal Convention, yeah. I was the world's largest ethnically segregated magic the gathering tournament. Very good. Yeah, I'm sorry the sales didn't work for you. I think you should just get into the furry field, you know? Just get into diaper fetishes and stuff.

You'll be fine. you'll make your money back. But Jordan, how did these court cases resolve themselves? Are they still ongoing? Because at one point, and you're telling of it, it seemed like John had sort of had you hooked. He sort of had you dead to rights. And then for some reason, I don't know, relented for an odd reason

about perhaps not wanting a court case to continue. That's a really interesting point. Now, this was a while ago, and there was some 4D chess moves that were happening, behind the scenes that I didn't realize were going down, which is that, all right, there is a very famous defamation barrister, because this is the other thing as well. Defamation law, I don't know how it works in the United States. I'm imagining that's kind of the same cabal here, but you'll notice that it's the same

five or six barristers that take every high-profile case and they divvied up amongst themselves. And it's because it's an extremely lucrative little niche of law in Australia. it requires you to know like a lot of Latin lingo and it requires you to know all of those cases that like you know you're talking about the internet but you're bringing up cases from 1539 and to do this but like once you have that knowledge base

you can do wonderful things for your career in it so one of them is called Sue Chrysanthu and it was very odd that she was taking up this case because it's again it's just so internety and obviously stupid he mostly he was offended that I kept calling him fat. That was what it really boiled down to over and over again.

Like it had just been large, large sex of me just pointing out like how viciously he's been, you know, abusing his powers over the police, like the environment, obvious corruption scandals that he's involved with over and over again. And then it would highlight called him a stupid fat fuck,

you know? Like it would just be that. And that's, And that was the defamation, right? And so it was very odd that she was taking this case. And on that measure, it came to light later on that Rupert Murdoch, who has a complete, not so much anymore in the digital age, this is why I think the MAGA movement has started moving into Australia and it's kind of freaks me out a bit. But definitely at that period of time.

Rupert Murdoch had a complete clinch hold on the press in Australia, owns every newspaper, has his version of Fox News, which is Sky News there. To give you an idea in Queensland, so I don't know, I guess like our Texas and Florida combined or whatever, there's nothing except Rupert Murdoch papers. It's just as if like the only source of news is Fox News. That's it throughout the entire thing. So he's like he's really, really dominant here. And so he was pissed off that Facebook and the rest of the social media giants at the time were allowing people to share his articles that were usually paywalled.

And so he was just like, you have to compensate me for that. And because he had a government in there that is just a complete and utter lackey for them, which is called the Liberal Party. It's a one, I could go through the entire history of it. But like, the reason that Rupert Murdoch has the influence that he has in the United States is because of the, favors that he did for his dad, Keith Murdoch back in the day, right? Like it's an enormous amount of power in Australia. So he basically got the government to say, force these agencies to pay for my news. And they were refusing to do it.

And as a result of that for a while, Facebook was just shutting down any news that came out because they're like, fuck you, we're not going to pay anything. But the government was forcing them to do it. So there was this back and forth that was happening on that level at the time that she was also taking as a trial and a case. And John seemed to be this like little window dressing point that she was needling in and making like this big, massive case about and dragging me in. And what was really interesting was when we finally got to the point where it was going to go to trial, she just comes into mediation and she says, all right, all you have to do is say,

I'm sorry and I was wrong for hurting your feelings. And it's like, what you, you would going to bankrupt me. Like, that's what you were going for before. And now all of a sudden she's just out, say, say your apology. And then I was just like, no, I'm not going to apologize. And then she comes back and says, all right, how about this? How about you say, I'm sorry your feelings got hurt? You know, like that bullshit apology you're given a relationship, but you're like, oh, I'm sorry you feel that way. Like, that's what it got reduced to from bankruptcy. That's where they were leading from. Then all of a sudden it goes into that. And so we were thinking, what the fuck, this is extremely odd.

Then we went over to Google at the time and we said, because Google was in conjunction with us and there was this amazing point in the trial. It was the most American thing I've ever seen in my life. It's fucking awesome. We do our opening statement and then

Google's lawyer comes in and they've shipped in all these American top lawyers, even though they can't really do anything because it's Australian law, but they can do it like a little intro case or whatever. And then you've got this fucking guy that gets up that looks like Don Draedy. right? Like just the most all-American handsome man you've ever seen in your life and his opening statement is. Alan Dershowitz.

Hottest man on earth. Yeah. Hundred years in counting people's spot. There was a lot of rubber necking. There was a lot of rubber necking that day. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me just say the basement in the courthouse got flooded. So, like, he gets up and he just, he's, he's,

opening statement is just this. Google is an American company and in America we believe in a little thing called free speech. It was the most amazing thing. So Google basically just comes out and says, fuck you, we're going to fight this to the bitter end. You're wrong. You're just

throwing your tear through and you're trying to get this to you know, like this has big implications for YouTube and everything else if you're not allowed to comment on politics like this. So they were going to defend it outright. Anyway, we get out of the case because we were just going to fight it to the end. And they knew that.

And then we said this to Google and they said, yeah, no, we're going to continue on fighting it. It's fine. You can get out of this case because they were suing us both concurrently. Then Google, the next day, comes into court with a completely new team, completely new team of barristers. They just announced that. So we say to them, like, do you want all of our files and casing? and they said, no, that won't be necessary. And we're like, that's really odd.

And then the next day after that, they come out and then they say, Google admits all fault, terribly sorry. It was awful. We're really sorry about it. And then they give John Barilaro, I think it was like $700,000, $750,000 in damages or something like that. And we were just like, what the fuck is going on? Basically, what we think happened is Google was getting to the point where, like, in your

Facebook's and all of this, we're getting to the point that they actually could cause more of a headache for the Liberal Party in Australia. It was actually a seismic shift moment. It was that moment of just like the shift of the old guard into the new guard of the old paper tycoons which just weren't as powerful as they used to be. And, you know, like Yuzukabergs and all of that made their point. They made it very clear. The fact that they were able to just shut news down on Facebook, like started damaging the liberal party's messaging and shit like that. So they came back to Murdoch and said, look, we're going to have to, like, water this down greatly. Like, you know, they'll give you some token amount of money as, like, a license or whatever

for, you know, allowing to use newspapers or something, but that's all we can do. Murdoch hit the fucking fan. And also, this is the whole thing. She was doing it sort of as like a bundle into that. She was kind of using it as like this, this, like, okay, they're shifting the laws around here. So, like, defamation is going to be even. more widespread than what it is now. So like anything in Australia can basically be

interpreters defamation, but it was going to go to that next stage in this. So she was thinking, this is going to be amazing. I am going to be able to use all of these new social media platforms to basically just get any tweet or anything interpreter as defamation ever. And I can use this case as like a pretext or like the, what's the word? I forget what it's called again. Precedent. I can use that case as precedent for the rest of it, right? Anyway, then The liberals turn around, snake her, because she has lunch with these people all the time. So she knows what their, like, plans are and everything. They say, this isn't happening anymore.

We're not going with Murdoch. We're going with Facebook. And I think this is our best guess as to why Google turned around and gave the apology and the $750,000. I think that was a bit of a like, all right, let's just let this all go away. Like, you clearly lost this massive thing. He's $750,000 to save face to the defamation lawyer. because otherwise it was just like the whole thing made no sense whatsoever.

He was going to bankrupt me. He was taking it to Google. Google was going to defend it right to the very end. At the end, Google just pulls out and says like we're incredibly sorry like that. Changes. And then all of a sudden all of the like Facebook wars and all that kind of just change as well. That's our best guess as to what happened because it shouldn't have gone like that at all. One thing I want to ask about that you said earlier, like this example of the immense

power that Rupert Murdoch used to have to essentially have like, you know, like a state-controlled media, except it's just not a state, it's just one guy. And those are the only newspapers or TV, or like TV news that you can encounter. But you said that like part of this process of like the, the breakup of the sort of old power of these media titans is the internet. And on the right wing, it is sort of like the mutants that they have, I don't know, genetically engineered have broken containment and are now running rough shot over them. And like, you talk about like what you said about how like with the collapse of Murdoch's power or the breakup of it, you're starting to see an Americanized version of Maga

politics in Australia. Like how does that manifest itself? And like how has that door been cracked open? And what would be the difference between like a older version of more like a Rupert Murdoch era of like Australian right wing politics versus this sort of American strain, this invasive species. Like, you know, house-out. I don't know. Honestly, yeah.

It's, see, this is the thing that's, this is all new territory for us. Obviously, we have some clues when it comes to the United States. And it is very interesting because it'd be interesting to hear your guys' insight on this as well, because I'm sure that you saw the shift from

Mitt Romney Republican to Trump Republican. Yeah. And there is that sort of thing of like, well, this is terrifying for the reason that it's it's like they willfully want incompetent people in power. That's the whole thing. Like the one thing that I think that everyone could agree on even if you didn't agree with Mitt Romney or something like that is like there's a guy that actually understands how government

and the machinery of government actually works and functions. And then instead of that, you've just got this fucking SimCity hurricane that is Trump and you just make that the fucking president instead, you know? And it's like that that is, that's the massive difference. that I think your Rupert Murdoch types definitely understand because he is from that old guard. He's, you know, he understands how politics works. His dad was a real power broker in the Liberal Party. They've, they get it.

They've been there for a long time. They want that strand of technocratic conservatism, for lack of a better word, in, you know. And then all of a sudden now you have someone who has been a laughing stock in Australian in politics for 30 years, which is Pauline Hanson. She's always had like a little bit of the vote in the Senate, a little bit, like enough to get a seat here and there, maybe a couple of seats. But she's always just been a local crackpot. The usual stuff that, you know, your megatibs bang on about endlessly just winging about

migration, that's about it. That's basically been her stick for 30 years. Migrants, migrants, migrants, migrants, yeah? All of a sudden, she just goes from maybe like 6% in the polls to like 30% is now the leading party. And it seems to coincide with two points, which is the first one was that we've got a billionaire mining magnate here called

Gina Reinhardt, who's from like an old mining family. And she seems to have done the same thing that Musk has done, where it was kind of like, did you guys agree with this? Like, I personally agree with Sam Harris's observation on it, which is just like, Twitter must have fucked that guy's head up. Like he actually has brain rot.

Like he has, internet brain rot and he's kind of he's not there anymore, you know, like he's just cognitively. I would say that and ketamine probably has done more I think that's even more damage to his brain. Yeah. No, no, no.

I mean like, I seriously, I think like the most, if you are like any type of public figure or celebrity, anything even adjacent to entertainment. I guess all, all celebrities are entertainers, whether they're good at it or

not now. But Ketamine is probably the worst thing you can do. I have lost count of how many people who just like are fucking content creators. Like they're not even like, it's not even like Heath Ledger getting so into the Joker that he, you know, it's no longer

with us. I don't believe that. I always laughed when people said that's like why he died. But, uh, yeah, ketamine. Ketamine, like, if you, if you're a public figure,

you maintain two. You have a face that you show the public and you have how you are in person. And I think for the most part, like you, if you do a podcast or a YouTube channel, you wouldn't, in your personal life, you wouldn't act like how you do in your content. You would find that person obnoxious, annoying, et cetera. Ketamine just breaks down the wall between reality and performance so much that I think for a certain type of person, who has a weak enough will, they find their public persona too intoxicating and they just become that all the time

and a warped version of that. So, yeah, no, I agree. I think it is, yeah, a combination of Twitter shit and ketamine. Yeah, I totally agree. The ketamine makes a lot of sense. We've all lost many a friend to the cable. That's another element.

I didn't even think about that, but you're right. Like, yeah, the really peak cringe musk moments, it was just like, he's fucked off his face. That's what's happening there for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. And like Chuck autism and ketamine in together and it's just, you know, it's not a good year.

Yeah. Like to say, like it's a free way to disassociation from both your own identity and all the rest of humanity as well. Yeah. Like to be like a 50-something year old man who doesn't, you are allowed legally to live on your own. You know? you don't there's no no one's going to be like oh you need a caretaker and you're like oh my new thing is I'm going to make the shape of the letter X with my body every time I make a speech make the letter X with my body that's like that really is ketamine thinking right okay well you know

I mean it's not it's not all bad news because thankfully there are still some people at in positions of power in the U.S. government who are not taking dangerous tranquilizer like ketamine. They're still using strong, productive and alpha drugs like cocaine. And I'm referring, of course, and this is, you know, this is alleged here, but I am referring

to the news footage today of Pete Hegseth, wiping his nose and then running his hands through his hair. And I'm not saying, I know Pete Higgs says, his difficulties with alcohol have been well established. I'm merely speculating

that his sort of perpetual allergies, what appears to be perpetual allergies, could come from another source. But Jordan, I mean, like, all this is, I mean, I tease this at the beginning. But could we just, can we finally get to like the culmination of the story, your fucking house getting blown up?

Because, like, that's, that's a level of beef online that is in a different galaxy. So, like, what were the circumstances surrounding your house being firebombed? I think it was, see, this is the whole thing. When I go back and look at that point of my life, I'm just like, this is, that was such a fucking blur. And we were going through it day to day because he was just throwing so much shit at us,

like surveillance, trying to drain our resources with bankruptcy, like a bullshit slap suit, multiple, actually. There was also like a bunch of other things that were happening at the time. They were trying to get us arrested as well and put into jail for, that's a whole other story, but, like, you know, like all of that was happening at the same time. And it just kept escalating. It kept going into a crescendo. The other one was that my producer just happenedstance met him on the street, saw him on the street, and then just ran up to him and said, like, you know, because he had the documents in his file because he was going to the lawyer. And so

he just handed him the document saying, like, why are you doing this? And like, did it filming on the street thing. Anyway, that's when the terrorist squad came in and just like busted the door down and just put all of his family on the ground. like, get him and then just dragged him out. In the video, you can hear his mom saying, you killed our dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was intense. It was intense.

I remember that tweet, I mean, that hashtag, Justice for Snippy. And anyway, that was all going down. So we were fighting multiple cases. So we're fighting his wrongful arrest. We're fighting that. We're fighting also at the same time, like the gambling lobby in New South Wales was trying to get me in. They're basically trying to invent a new law privately. Real bad guy from robocop shit.

Got access to military weaponry? We're proud to be our of the military. Of putting forward like a private arrest almost or like a private conviction or something like it was bizarre. It was basically like a company saying we would like to arrest this person to put them in jail. is that legal. I mean, that's kind of like the Steven Donziger case. Yeah, no, yeah. Seriously.

What is it? What happened? An American lawyer we've had on the show who represented the people of Ecuador in a class action lawsuit against Chevron. And basically, like, because they won that case in Ecuador, in America, like Chevron appointed the prosecutor

to prosecute him for supposed, supposed malfeasance in this case. But it was Chevron basically colluding with the state to personally appoint a prosecutor to prosecute him for crimes committed against Chevron in an Ecuadorian

lawsuit. And then he was held in contempt and kept in jail for like, he's the longest guy ever kept in jail for a misdemeanor contempt charge. And he was in prison for something like well over two years. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for getting me up to speed. That actually does.

And that was the, and this is the gambling, fucking industry doing that to you? I mean, at the beginning, you just say it was the gambling capital of the world. America is now currently several years into a legal regime of now legalized gambling everywhere with wonderful results across the board. What do they want to lock you up for? Saying, hey, gambling is maybe. I'm telling you, it all goes back to organized crime. It is an evil in New South Wales that cannot be expelled. And I don't really, I don't really hold anyone specifically to blame for it because it's just like this is something that I don't know like what we're going back to with the states right like even even though you're saying that there is

sort of just this like homogenous culture across it you know like Brooklyn still is going to be Brooklyn you know like it's it's got that in it and once it's like once a society is set up I'll never forget this when I went to Turkmenistan right this is what I always think about when it comes to this you go to Turkmenistan it's got some of the oldest cities in the world or the ruins of it you go over there and there's like a fucking guy in a statue with a horse and a sword just riding around being like, you know, like they're king from fucking 5,000 BC or whatever it is.

And then you go to the current capital of Turkmenistan in Ashgabat. And it's just the current fucking president for life in a golden horse with a sword waving in the air being like, you know what I mean? Like it just once a society is set up, it doesn't really change. Like that's just sort of how it runs, I think. It's like that's really what it feels like.

you go to somewhere like Turkmenistan. It just feels like it's like what it was and like around Gangus Khan times or whatever. And then there's like this Soviet interruption. And then it's a mix of, you know, like something huge has to happen for it to change. And so when it comes to like gambling in Australia or gambling in New South Wales, same thing. Like it's all linked to organized crime. There was a guy that was dying of cancer at the time and they were firing him. And again, they were trying to arrest him and put him in just.

for releasing a bunch of documents that are going like, look, I have multiple amounts, huge amounts of footage of these like heroes, bikies that were all fans of, like, coming in, all their fucking tats with a beard, you know, the jacket on, going into the pokies machines and just slapping in fucking, you know, I don't know, whatever, like a hundred grand or, you know, and then just coming back with 80 grand or whatever they win in the pokies machine and there's clean money, right? So that's the process of them laundering money. It's a very easy way to launder money in Australia.

And he was just pointing that out. And then they put like a complete embargo on him legally and said, no one is allowed to interview this man. And then we were just like, fuck it, we're going to go interview him. And then that's why they were just like, but we put an embargo on it. So we want him to go to jail. And so that's what they were trying to fight at the same time. So all of those things were culminating at the exact moment.

And again, this is another point where it comes to organized crime. we then got a tip off that there was this company that I probably won't use the name of, but it's a development firm and it's in New South Wales and it's endlessly rewarded with government contracts. It's huge. Now there's one argument to say that obviously, like huge development firms are going to win a bunch of government contracts because they're the only ones that can do the infrastructure projects and whatever that need to be done. This one, however, is dirty to the core. Like everyone in Parliament knows how filthy it is.

It is completely another laundering operation for organised crime money. And you can imagine this scale of drug money that must have been, at the very least must have been pumped into it at some point for it to get to the size that it is. Because, you know, competing with all the big boys from China and Singapore and all of that. It's like big, big stuff. anyway, we were pointing out that it has this tawdry past. We were pointing out the colourful history of most of the people that are on the board there, that you just look at them.

And like, it's one of those things where I'm like, nah, we dismissed phrenology too quickly. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. And the trademark criminal brow. You know it when you're scared. I know, like, you didn't need, the brow was enough to convict them, right? Like, I didn't need to add anything else to it. It was just, but it was so obviously, like, these are not, it was just that.

It was like people that have clearly been in the underworld and have been in way too many fucking knife fights in their life just now on the board with like a nice tie and everything just being like, yes, yes. You're like a real passion for accounting. Like a fucking street cat or something like that. Yeah, yeah. So it was like that. Anyway, so we released that video.

Didn't think much of it at the time because it was just basically the reason that we were all pointing it out was we were saying that this is its history. And because John had left Parliament at this point. He left, I'll never know, but he said publicly the reason that he was leaving Parliament

is because I bullied him too much. Lots of better in your cap. I can't handle this guy anymore. He's being too mean to me. I've got to leave. By doing YouTube videos where you portray him as Super Mario. Yes. Like that's it.

Yeah. And yeah, he was very offended by that. So he went over and he got a job with these guys as a consultant to parliament. So just basically a lobbyist that works for them. And we were pointing out, you get a job with these guys, it's a trademark sign that you are a piece of filth in New South Wales Parliament. It's just so dirty. Like, no one goes to this unless you've got no other options, which by the way, is a little tidbit.

This is what happened to John. We actually, this is actually the feather in my cap that I'm actually extremely proud of. We made his reputation so sour that he's tried to lurk around and find him. another job somewhere. He had this massive scandal when he left where he set up this job, this really cushy, like I think it's called like a commerce consultant or something in New York or he's paying himself half a million dollars a year to go to New York and be like, have you heard of New South Wales? Yes. You should maybe do business in New South Wales. Have you considered that? No. Oh, well, you know, I tried. Like that's one of those bullshit jobs.

He set that up for himself and there was a bunch of other candidates who were clearly far more qualified for it, but he made the criteria, like, obviously very specific. So it picks him. So it's kind of just like, is your last name Barilaro? No, sorry, you don't qualify for this job. Only I do. Well, I win. So he had that. That didn't work out for him because that was such a scandal. Then he went to this place, and I'll get to the place in a minute, but like for reasons it'll become clear later, that left. He then went to the bikies, which is just like the motorcycle unity force or whatever, like a lobby group for motorcyclist, which is another place that's very dirty. He couldn't get a job there. He was going, he tried to get a job at clubs in New South Wales,

which is the gambling lobby firm. They didn't want him. You know what he does now as a job? This is true. He is a pest inspector. A former, that's nuts, right? Like, you, I have never heard of someone getting that high up in government. Well, usually you get all the We have the opposite story here in America is a former, one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress during the George W. Bush years, Tom DeLay became a politician from the job of exterminator. And he got into politics. Yeah, he got into politics because the state banned a specific poison

that he used to kill rats or roaches or something like that. Fuck, yeah. And he's had enough of the red tape. Yeah, he's had enough of big government. And, no, yeah, Tom DeLay was known in Congress as the exterminator. So he went from pest control to being one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress under Trump of your Bush. It's a good origin story. I'll give him that.

Finally, the straw that broke the camel's back is one specific way of killing rats. I've had enough. Yeah, so anyway, like, so that all happened, right? And so that's like how bad and sour his reputation is. got absolutely nothing. He is just that, in reverse, that job. The first one that he had, and this is when we started following him around and being like, now he's at this job, now is it this job? And every single time you went to somewhere, it just turned the reputation of that institution so sour that they had to get rid of him. When he went to this specific development

firm, we released that story, just pointing out how nefarious everybody is in the development firm and that he's there and it just shows what a piece of scummy is that he's hanging around these low lives. And then maybe a month later, this is just because I'm an idiot, I was doing a show in Melbourne and I'd forgot my keys in Melbourne. So I didn't go home that night. I slept in my office. And I wake up and it's my producer just being like, oh, I'm sorry. And I was like, what are you sorry about? And he's just like, your house. And then I turn on the news and it's on every channel. And also just doing that really fucks thing.

Because like all the fucking press hates me in Australia, all of them. Just doing that really fucks dig of just big like, friendly Jordy's who lives at this specific address right here. And like, like doxing me nationally. And, you know, that was happening. And so, yeah, it just burned down. And luckily I wasn't there that night. Otherwise, to this day.

I'm pretty sure they were trying to kill. There's two theories on it. There's the first theory, which is that it's a firebomb of just like, don't fuck with us, you know? And then the other one was that, like, again, these people have like a very, I'm not going to say the name. I wish I could. It's very obvious if you go on the internet anyway.

But they have a very tawdry reputation. They've done some extremely violent, horrific things in the past for nothing as well. Because they're thugs, absolute thugs. So I'll never know what the actual. intent of it was. But that happened. And it's been three years and not much has happened since. Was anyone ever arrested for this? They got one guy at the end, like a basically someone in the car that more or less said like a mental disability. Not that I, not that I, I really don't like this, like, oh, you know, you're not going for the guys at the top. Like, that guy does definitely

deserve to rot in jail. He is a thug and he's a scum of a human being as well. Like, and he has, again, like a really violent past. I'm glad that he's in jail. But he was already in jail. He was already in jail. He was already in jail. And so they just go like, oh, yeah, so we're going to be giving you. And also on top of this, the only thing that the prosecution came forward for him at the end was damage of property, I think it was. I'm going to have to check what it was. But it was a really, really light case that the prosecution. put on him really light. Like basically the same thing that you get if you put a firecracker in someone's mailbox

or something. It was that kind of crime when it was grand arson that was too big to ignore, obviously. It was huge. And they're trying to pawn it off as some... A prank on wrong. Yeah, something like a prank gone wrong or something like that. And they always said there's not enough evidence to prosecute. The interesting thing is, where it comes to that, is that when I took it

talk to the arson unit. The arson unit was very confident. They never said that they could get like the headhorns who was in charge of all of this, even though everyone knows who it is. And I do understand that argument to a degree, right? I understand that cops need to have irrefutable evidence to prosecute. That is definitely true. But the people that were in the car, and I think there was three or four of them, so much footage of their faces, they know exactly where the car was stolen, they know where it was dumped off. They know everyone that was in the car. They were saying, we are absolutely confident we can nail these guys.

And then at the end, they get one and they get them on this misdemeanor charge, more or less, when really this is something that you should be in jail for for like 20 years. And he gets, I think, I think it was like five years, but it was like, oh, but he's already serving in jail. So we'll make it two. We'll add an extra two years. And good behavior you could be out earlier, you know. They put it on to that.

and it was like the absolute bottom rung in that car, which were just a bunch of, you know, three stooges cronies. And nobody else got touched. And there was obvious clear frustration when the arson unit were talking to me. They would never say it, obviously, because they're talking about their Supreme Commanders. But it's very, look, I have never been one of these people.

Like, I always feel, I understand that there is, you know, there's always going to be rotten cops and all. that kind of thing. But, like, I, I've been in this game long enough and had so many people just come up to me all the time and be like, this police officer is corrupt. And it's like, what did they do? It's like, they arrested me for drink driving. Can you believe it?

You know, like there's, you know, like, I understand. Like, I'm not one of these people that just endlessly outright always says, like, oh, every cop's out out to get me in, like that kind of shit. But now I actually do feel like that. I genuinely do feel that there were detectives. on that case that were giving it their all, that did a very meticulous job trying to get as much evidence as they could out of it. And at some point up the chain, it kept getting blocked. And this goes through a very interesting pattern throughout all of New South Wales's history

with the police, which is that I'm telling you, it just goes back to the same thing. Organized crime is really, really deep-rooted in New South Wales. And I don't think that there's anything that you can really do about that. I think that's just the way it is. It's kind just like how Italy has a mafia and that it's always going to be there, you know? And it touches every element of power. It touches elements of power when it comes to gambling, when it comes to property development. Like everything that makes that state money and run, organized crime has its tentacles in it. And it has its tentacles in government and it has its tentacles in the police force.

I truly, sincerely do believe that. And I know that that makes me sound like a massive conspiracy theorist when I say it. Hardly. Yeah, I got, yeah, fuck it. He's pretty sensible to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I guess, like, I just too, just say, close things out here.

Like, Jordan, like, could you provide our audience with some perspective? I'm like, what are the current horizons of the political scene in Australia? Because you mentioned earlier, I forget the name of the woman, but like a woman who was perennially holding down sort of a fringe party in parliament

is now polling at like 30%. Is that like, You talk about that and like is that the one nation party and like the rise of a sort of a more magified like right wing in Australia like could you describe that? Yeah. Sorry, go on. Oh no. I was going to say like correspondingly like here in America like is there the dawn of anything like a more like left wing parties or more socialist parties like to counter as a counter balance in Australia right now. Well, the way that I'd always describe it, this is something that I always notice with you guys, not you guys specifically, but just your.

ilk of commentators when I look at how you guys are endlessly shitting on the Democrats here. And I was always just looking at it being like, why are you giving them such a hard go? Now I understand it because we have something, because what's happening is that old Rupert Murdoch party, which was called the Liberal Party in Australia. That's completely disintegrated. Now what it's been replaced with is a bunch of billionaires that are running their own little vanity idea of what they want the next Liberal Party to be. And the thing that always kept them together was to keep labor out, like, you know, the party of organized labor in Australia, there was always an agreement between like the conservatives and the liberals in Australia that we're going to have to join forces together and hold this party of conservatives and liberals together to keep the union movement out out of the levers of power.

That's always been the successful move in Australia. But that has disintegrated over certain years. And I think, again, in part, thankfully, to social media, I honestly think that it has just made the billionaire class just like everyone else far more narcissistic, far more insular, far more in their bubble. And so they move in, they just have these like stupid little ideas of like, oh, everyone agrees with me. And so they're breaking up. So we've got like now in Australia something called the teals. And the teals are the best way that I can describe it. Now I fully understand what you guys are talking about,

like with your Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer Democrats and things like that. When you just look at them and you're just like, you're fucked, you know? And the thing is, the best way to describe it, I think, is like in Australia, with our Democrats, your Democrats are kind of like if the Teals and the Labor Party were forced to share a party. That's why you guys have like your Bernie Sanders and your and your Schumers like in the same block, right? And I could just imagine like how endlessly frustrating that would be, you know, like it would make me go insane. It would make me so angry because they are that, right? Like they are just that Hillary Clinton Democrat.

That's one element of what's happened when this like the liberal party just completely disintegrated in the previous elections in 2022. And then the other element is, so that one I think is probably represented by our version of tech, our version of. our version of venture capitalists. It's that type of billionaire that funds that movement. And then the other one is mining, and that is completely funding One Nation. One Nation is almost solely the Vanity Project of Gina Reinhardt, who is just unbelievably wealthy, obscenely wealthy, nothing like it. What I was saying before is that she is a disciple of Elon Murray.

It's really weird. This is the thing that I just never understood about this. Like when it came to Elon Musk, when it came to Gina Reinhardt and all this stuff, like I used to always think, oh, these guys must be such geniuses. Because you'd see the write-up in Forbes magazine or whatever, and they've just got these glossy pictures of them in their suits, like tying and being like, oh, another genius business venture and like that kind of thing. Yeah.

And then they started talking on Twitter and it's just like, holy shit. Like, you might have a learning disability, you know? Yeah, yeah. You're like really stupid. But, like, Gina Reinhardt is dumb, really dumb. And Pauline Hanson is really dumb. And this is the whole thing, right? Like, when it came to someone like the previous Liberal Party,

what I was talking about before, they're competent. They understand how government works. And I didn't understand how tough their job is because that's where they get their money from. That's who their interests are. But they have to listen to someone like Gina Reinhardt, who just came out the other day. And, like, for instance, was like, I think that we should just give free land to the Israelis up in North Queensland

land and just let them live there. Like, she said that. She said that. You know what I mean? And then like one nation is just like, yeah, good idea, Paul. Like anything that she says, like great idea, Jane. Hey, time to make another desert bloom. Yeah.

You know, like, and then it comes to, if it was the old liberal party and you had Peter Dutton or whoever it was at the time that was there, they would have listened to Gina and been like, okay, I understand that. That's a very interesting idea. We'll put it to the committee, Gina. And you know what I mean? and just slowly ooze out the insanity. But it just keeps getting more and more pushed up because of social media, because

of the fact that she can afford to bought it. So the two points where you saw her go from six points in the polls to 30, the first one was she started hitting about 15 points. And I was like, okay, well, that's a bit interesting. That just purely came from Gina Reinhardt, throwing a hisy fit and moving over to create one nation or bolster up one nation. So she just started pumping shit tons of money into that. And then the second one was, because again, she's part of that network.

She simps for Elon Musk like nothing else. Like she's endlessly talking about how much she loves Elon Musk. So she's really part of that Marigalago crew. Like, has she, like, as a disciple of Elon Musk, like, has she, like, because through social media now, like, exactly the point you were making. Elon Musk has gone from a guy who was generally thought of it being like, this guy is like Tony Stark. He's going to save the environment.

make the world cool in the future. Isn't it wonderful? He was coded as like a sort of like a futuristic thinking genius who was going to make everyone's life better. Yeah. Like through his, just unfiltered sharing his thoughts on social media, we come to find that like his main motivation

and his main social, ideological, political project, more or less is a kind of eugenic race war against the world fought on behalf of white people against everyone else. Yes, yes. Right? Like, so, like, does she share those, like, you mentioned migration is immigration and migration. Is that their big issue? One Nations or Gina Reinhardt? What one nation or either of them? Gina, honestly, like, it's quite difficult to describe how stupid Gina Reinhardt is.

There was this one video that was leaked to us of them having this big meeting about how they need to get rid of the Labor Party in Australia. They absolutely have to do it for the good of mining. you know what her main point of that was Labor was saying you're not allowed to make this species of sea snake extinct by setting up this massive fucking gas well out in the middle of the ocean

and they could not stand for that and a massive point of it was just like they don't even get it like this sea snake is venomous it kills people it must be so where the humans are one of the most venomous snakes in the world you don't even know you've been bitten

before you're dead. So I think it's just, I think her view of the world is that she is from an, she's an heiress of a, you know, mining magnate Nepo baby family. She has gotten everything she's ever wanted in her entire life. And anybody telling her that she can't have what she wants makes her chucking a fucking huge tantrum. That's, I think that's her entire politics. When it comes to Pauline, this is the other thing that's very interesting about the mega

movement coming into Australia, which is that. But Pauline Hanson used to have her own homegrown Australian xenophobia. It was comforting. It's probably the same thing that you guys always talk. It's a bit of a cliche, but talking about, like, talking to your rural auntie or something like that. And like our Australian version of it would always just be like, there's too many Asians here. There's people fucking taking all the jobs like that kind of thing.

You're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Merry Christmas, you know, like that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. You know, like but your version, I guess it would be Mexicans or whatever. and it'd be that, yeah? She was that, and it was always just like, it was nice to have her as some feature there, kind of just like Donald Trump, you know,

like it's funny when he's not in power or in a position to have power. It's kind of just like this endless entertainment machine. And she had her own uniquely Australian views. And then all of a sudden, she starts coming out, and then she just, you know, really cares about abortion, and she really cares about the rise of Islam. And, like, it's all the same playbook note.

that you get from MAGA like down the line and it's it's not there's nothing remote it's incredible that she consistently positions herself as like the party of true patriots and shit like that and it's all just a McDonald's

export just like American political Trump tower like exactly with the fucking red hat that says make Australia great again on it and it's pathetic it's like it's so she lost what was her like she you know what I mean like she is she's she

she wasn't She has a chip shop owner. Now she has a McDonald's. Yeah. So I think that that's what drives her. That's like the big Australian issue, I suppose, that, like, is very popular with them. And it's pretty much, I'm guessing it's like a one-note thing in America as well. It's just like the one thing that they can keep slapping over and over again is migration, migration, migration.

Same exact thing I'm guessing when it comes to you guys. I don't follow it close enough. But anytime you ever ask her, like, well, what do you plan to do about migration? she just like gives you a bunch of like solutions that would immediately collapse the economy, you know? It's just that kind of thing. And so that's, but really all it is is kind of just propping up from the new algorithm. And it was very, very obvious that like, I'm telling you, she went to Marilago. She hung around Trump's crew.

She comes back. She pumps up another 15 points. And there's just this endless clipping. endless bots on the internet constantly everywhere. It's like the internet's version of those fucking Morgan and Morgan ads that you have everywhere. You know, like you cannot escape. It's just everywhere constantly. And it just goes up another 15 points.

So it's obvious that like what's very interesting about it is that there is clearly an export of the mega movement globally. And they, I'm telling you, they do have that like, this is how you set up a McDonald's. You know, and they are moving that around the world. And our bot farms are all from the Philippines. She all gets it there. Again, that same endless thing of just like, Ozzy jobs for Aussies gets bot farms, huge Filipino factories of Filipinos doing all the work for her, pays them full bucks an hour.

Yeah, it's a one-to-one. And we never had it in Australia, and it was very funny watching it happen to America, and it's not funny when it happens to your own country. I gotta say, we've been doing this 10 years now. I mean, it is still funny when it happened. I mean, yeah, I mean, this is the other thing as well, right? Like, it's just like you guys have the once-in-a-generation talent that is, like,

I truly do think that Trump is the Michael Jackson of politics, right? Like, they can only, and also a questionable pet, right? But like, just a once-in-a-lifetime, you're never going to get that again. Pauline Hansen is not that. She's way less charismatic. Less fun, you know. All right. Jordan, I think we're going to leave it there for today.

But I want to thank you for your time for joining us today. And we'll recommend your YouTube channel, friendly Jordy's. Links will be in the show description. Jordan, once again, thanks so much for hanging out with us today. No, honestly, it was a pleasure. I didn't really want to say this during the recording, but have been a fan for a while ever since those clips did come up. I do frequent them on YouTube.

and it was really nice hanging out with you guys to actually talk. I mean, hopefully we can get some of the juice from your YouTube channel, which is quite a bit bigger than ours. So there's no way. There's not a chance. I am a nasty comparison to the Titan, the Dezile Chapo trap out.

No, you're killing it. All right. Jordan, friendly Jordies, thanks so much for your touring through the nation of Australia. And before we go today, we got some promo, some business. to attend to. So Chris, take us away. Moving from one end of the anglosphere to the other, Canada, we have some screenings

of chunks in Canada at the beginning of September. We are doing a screening of chunks in Toronto on Tuesday, September 1st at the Paradise Theater. This will also have a talkback with Amber Frost and Nate Fisher of the film hosted by Friends of the Pod, Luke Savage, and Will Sloan. If you're in Toronto, come through Tuesday, September 1st, links in description. And also, Chunks will be screening at the Tervoli Cinema in Charlestown on Prince Edward Island, Canada, on September 4th and 5th at 9 p.m. If you are a Grey Wolf in P.E.I, I think you're basically obligated to come to this because I'm fairly positive this would be the biggest chap of presence ever on Prince Edward Island. So come through to that. We are also going to send a special video introduction to that one. Links also in description. And just as an aside, if you would like to host a screening of chunks at a theater you run or is near you, get in touch.

we will set something up and try our absolute best to send at least one Chapo or talent from the film out to hang out with you for a screening. And then also I will be moderating a Q&A with producer-ed-editor Alex McGarro of his great WTO-99 documentary next Wednesday, August 19th at the Lemuel. I realize I've never actually pronounced this out loud. At the Lemley Theater in Glendale, it is a stunning film that recounts the week of protests against the WTO in Seattle in 1990. composed entirely have found an archival footage. It's a really exciting watch

and I'm looking forward to talking to Alex about it. That's next Wednesday, August 19th. On to you, Will, for more film news. Yes, for fans of the cinema,

here's an exciting announcement for you. The 64th New York Film Festival coming up this September and October here in New York City will feature many selections, including the new Godzilla movie and Werner Herzog's new movie. But also,

being shown at the 64th annual New York Film Festival will be a short film starring yours truly. That's right. It is my pleasure to announce the New York Film Festival screening of EEE by director Heather Lanzeman. I will just read to you from the New York Film Festival's website right now. Quote, A girl in a collectible store covets a rare figurine in Heather Lansman's sexy hyperpop vignette, online communities, fandom, shoplifting, and the stealth action video game Metal Gear Solid 2, Sons of Liberty, become interlocking quicksilver metaphors for the furtive, grasping workings of identity and desire under surveillance, featuring local cult heroes, Isabel Fox, and Will Medeker in key supporting roles. So please come out and support your sexy local cult

Heroes, Will Medeker and Isabel Fox in Heather Lansman's short film at the New York Film Festival, E.E. And finally, Felix, do we want to announce Players Club season two? Yeah. Okay, so I think this is the first time that I've completed two series in one year, but knock on wood, I am officially announcing season two of Players Club. Per audience requests, I decided to take on from Soft Games this season. For those who are wondering, that includes all these Souls games from Demon Souls to Dark Souls 3, Bloodborn, Sekaro, Eldon Ring, Eldon Ring, Shadow of the Erd Tree. And we are doing it a little out of order, though you will receive them in proper release order,

meaning that Sekiro will come before Eldon Ring. but I might go back later and do Armored Core 6 even though it's a very different game it is a Miyazaki directed game but that would bring us to nine fucking episodes and the average length of these episodes is like seven hours

so I don't I don't like the Eldon the Eldon Ring one really that took years off my life for any House of the Dragon viewers I look like who's the guy that died in one of us Lord dumbass

Ormond Ormond Typhor. Delco County in the north. I look like him now. Oh, Roderick the ruin. Yeah, Roddy the Rootter. Yeah, Roddy, Roddy, Ruin. I look like him.

I talk like him. I do the stuff he does after the, the crucible of the 12-hour Eldon Ring episode. And that was just the fucking base game. But if you, if you're, you know, you're cleaning your house, that's not very likely. If you are going on a cross-country flight, because. you are, you're going to try living with your stepfather now, age 29. If you are going to prison, you got a lot of time to burn. I've got content for you.

This is, if you're flying to Australia, you can get for like one of these episodes. If you, if you're, if you're, if you're taking the train, if you're taking the train to Australia, you can maybe get through half of this series. And then you can save it for the train right back. No, I'm a huge believer in the nine-hour episode. And I initially thought I could do Eldon Ring with Shadow Deer Tree all in one fell swoop. That would have been a 20-hour episode, which even for me is a little bit egregious. But, you know, somehow we've made it out.

Knock on wood, we're going to get this done in proper release order with only two left to go. But it'll be out very soon. I don't want to jinx it, but I don't think I could complete another season by the end of the year, but the season I am doing after this will be a grab bag. I am going, I have only been playing

from soft games for like two months and as much as I love them, I need to fucking, like, play something else. But next season, I will be covering just games that, like, I don't, I don't want to play the full series. Everyone knows that Hitman Absolution is bad,

but I want to talk about Hitman Flood Money. I want to talk about Cain and Leach 2, but not Cain & Lynch 1. And I'm very excited for people to hear this season and to do that season. And I will need about an 18-month-long detox from soft games after this. But I had a lot of fun making it. And I am really excited for people to hear it. I am particularly excited for people to hear the Blood Board episode. I think that is one of the finer episodes of the series.

we've ever done. But every guest was fantastic and no one complained that I wasted at minimum five hours of their life, maximum 12 hours or more. But look for that to be out soon. If you want to get banned from Uber, ask the driver if you're stuck in a traffic jam, if you have to go from Manhattan to JFK Airport, ask the Uber driver for the Oxford and be like, oh, I want to play you something. Play him one of these

17-hour-long episodes. And you'll be the first passenger to ever get a rating below four stars. They say it can't be done, but I think it can. I will be putting up some kind of schedule as a blog post on the Patreon, but the first episode will be coming out

next Wednesday, August 19th, and then we'll be running one episode a week on Wednesdays for the next eight weeks. First episode, as always, free on all platforms, following seven episodes, exclusively for Patreon subscribers. And as always, subscribe to the Patreon.

Patreon.com slash Chapotrap House. That does it for us today, everybody. Until next time, bye-bye.