Chapo Trap House - 564 - On Sinema, At The Sinema feat. Kristinn Hrafnsson (10/4/21)

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

Movies are Back! And we start with a brief discussion of Venom 2: Return of Goop. Then, Felix is joined by WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson to discuss a new report from Yahoo News that details the CIA’s plots to kidnap or kill Julian Assange while he was sheltered in London’s Ecuadorian embassy. They discuss the obsession with revenge on Assange and WikiLeaks under Mike Pompeo, the possibility of real justice for Assange, and some slivers of hope in the future of the WikiLeaks project. Then, to finish up the ep, we have a reading series from Maureen Dowd’s latest column on that kooky, adorkable senator who seems to love everyone’s hate, Kyrsten Sinema.

The Scare the Cats. Alright. Okay. Um, just emergency podcast, breaking news, Facebook and Instagram right down with Twitter possibly to follow then email and zoom to follow that then MS SMS texting. It's all going down. We all know that this is a prestige to a global communications blackout. This means one thing and one thing only. Jack and on is real. The traders are being rounded up. Uh, it's happening now. We must support the regime. The storm is here. So back and watch the show, folks. Enjoy Joe Biden with his media ally academics sent out a message this morning at 9am. Academics posted, uh, Joe Biden made a speech about the vaccine mandate needed or keep it needed or keep it is code, which members of the government will

be needed. Which ones will be kept in Guantanamo? Think about it though. Where do all the traders to this country communicate? Facebook. Yep. Yeah, that's their main hub. Where do all the fake people communicate? Instagram in one fell swoop. Jack and on is taking them all out being rounded up folks. All the traders, all the fake friends, uh, they're gone. We're saying bye bye to them now. And just this brief, brief period of communications blackout is I think a small price to pay, um, for the fact that we're finally getting some things done in this country. Absolutely. Yes. Round up some sickos. And I've got, I've got, you know, I got, I got four words for you gentlemen that will sum up, you know, how I'm feeling right now. Let there be carnage. That's right.

Uh, Venom 2 is out. Movie magic is back. We saw Venom 2 last night. It is one of the only movies you can see that has a story credit by Tom Hardy. And oh boy, can you tell? I knew I was in for a good time when in the first, the first 30 seconds of Venom 2, let there be carnage. Uh, they, they had some like teenager playing a young Woody Harrelson that they dubbed Woody Harrelson's voiceover. It was, it was fairly, especially considering the fact that Woody Harrelson has looked the same for 40 years. Yeah. You could literally just like Woody Harrelson with like an Instagram filter. You could be like, Oh yeah, that's him as a teenager. There were some amazing choices in this movie, both aesthetically, uh, narratively. Can we talk about every sense?

Can we talk about the scene where Venom went to the club and came out of the closet? Yeah. No, Venom goes to like a pride Halloween party and is like, I'm sick of hiding that I'm an alien. And everyone like cheers for it. He's an eight foot tall goop alien is like, I'm coming out of the Eddie Brock closet. Everyone's like, yay, we love your costume. It's plur. Uh, we were saying that the best thing about Venom, and this is holds very true in this movie, probably truer than the original, is that with like the other Marvel movies, it'll be like you wait till the end credits and there's a scene with like some bullshit superhero that you didn't see before. And it's an Easter egg that's set up by like three seasons of a show that's on like a special

tier of Disney plus that's only available to dental hygienists. And like there's all this work you have to do and it's supposed to like pay off huge for lower heads. And like everything has like an explanation and like a backstory and they're going to like squeeze every dollar out of this by making a series about every character that's ever been referenced in any of the Avengers movies. But with, uh, Venom, they're like, uh, yeah, no, there's a goo alien and then there are monsters are real. We're not going to explain that. Um, the goo alien can replicate if a guy bites you and make a, and it will make a stronger goo alien. The entire plot of the movie is that Eddie Brock slash Venom gets bitten by a crazy guy and it causes the crazy guy to become a stronger goo

alien than Venom. But Venom still beats his ass and wins. Um, two, two quick, two quick things of notes here. Uh, you know, no spoiler alerts, no spoilers, but, um, number one, Venom two, even more goop than the first Venom. So fans of Goop will not be disappointed by this. And this time with the red Venom, the Goop looks even more penis like than it did before. I mean, I'm talking, I'm talking throbbing veins here. So we've got plenty of Goop. Um, uh, just a second thing of note. Um, I have been, I've been a fan of the Spider-Man comic books my whole life. Obviously I'm a huge Peter Parker head. And if there's one thing I was waiting for for decades now is when are they going to put Shriek in a Marvel movie? When am I going to see Shriek on

film? When am I going to see the iconic character Shriek, the lady that yells loud, um, portrayed on film? And I got to say Naomi Harris did a spectacular job. I mean, we all, we all remember Shriek from the comic strip. Yeah. Shriek was kind of the breakout star in the nineties of comics. I went to Shriek three Halloween's in a row. Venom is, Venom is a movie magic experience. You got to, you got to get your friends, get your soda and tuck in for exactly 90 minutes, including credits. Exactly. None of this fucking bullshit where it's like, oh, our movie, our CGI movie is three hours long to like maximize like what Netflix or whatever gives us, like it to, to maximize like at the shareholder meeting for Disney to be like,

people watch Disney plus on an average of seven hours because all our movies are that long. It's like, no, there's only 90 minutes worth of shit in this, like barely. This is like legally as long as we can make this movie. If I have, if I have just one, one mild critique of Venom 2, Let There Be Carnage, there was not nearly enough Lady Venom when Michelle Williams gets the Venom symbiote and she becomes a sexy Lady Venom. There was, it was only on screen for like barely even 30 seconds and like, you know, it just wasn't well lit or defined enough. I just think they should have spent a lot more time. I think the camera loves Lady Venom. It's so funny that this is Michelle Williams is in Venom. They got her twice. Like she was, she's been in all these

like real movies. Like with Tom Hardy, it makes it like Tom Hardy is like the type of guy where it's like they describe what Venom is to him and he's like, Oh, that's me. That's what I feel like. But like, she's like a real, like they're both real actors, but like she's like, she's almost like mostly in real movies, like 98% of her roles. Like sometimes girls gotta get gooped though. Yeah. I mean, I guess like it's like, they're like, here's like $7 million to be like a goo lady to say, to say like maybe 20 lines of dialogue. But it just is, it is like funny to me. It's like, if it's like, if they made a third one and like Kate Blanchett is Venom's mom, I mean, they already did. Kate Blanchett was the evil God in Thor. Oh yeah, I guess. I haven't seen those

movies. All right. Well, just enjoy, enjoy. Let there be carnage, folks. Enjoy. Let there be carnage because post this evening after the global communications blackout and the storm commences, Venom 2. Let there be carnage will be the only movie or televised entertainment that you'll be allowed to see. And rightly so. It's all due to Biden. All praise due to Biden. Yeah. Yeah. He brought movies back and he's making sure that Venom 2 is the only movie that will ever be back. No, yeah, we saw the coming attractions. Movies are back. They are back. There's the Halloween kills, New James Bond, which like might as well be a story about Joseph Robinette Biden. No time to die. Yeah, literally no time left.

And then there's the movie where the moon crashes into the earth. These are all movies you could imagine yourself seeing with Joe Biden. You could imagine him making a comment about, you know, Michelle Williams' body and then you feel something like wet and cold on your knee and one of his, one of the two scoops from his ice cream fell onto your knee. And he's like, oh, man, that's why you get two. All right. Well, Felix, we got a, Felix did an interview with someone from WikiLeaks. Felix, you want to talk about? It's all about Venom. I asked him about what he thinks is going to be in Venom, what characters he thinks will come back, what, like, what he wants, like,

explained with like symbiote abilities, whether Carnage will be physically stronger or not as smart, like how important it is when the symbiote and the host are in concert, similar to Venom and Eddie Brock. Is WikiLeaks going to get to the bottom, though, of the cryptic line rate at the end of Venom 2, let there be Carnage, or Steven Graham's character who's already dead, his eyes glow blue, and he says monsters. Yeah, that's the best thing about Venom. It's the best thing about Venom. They're just like, yeah, monsters are like real. There's like a Dracula, the Venom place. It's the third movie. They're going to be like, oh, yeah, it's Venom versus like the boogeyman or whatever. We were watching like, I don't know,

the 20, we were watching the 20 before the movie, and then it came up. It was like, get your tickets now. And it was like Venom, Spider-Man, No Way Home, and then Morbius, and then Felix just says out loud in the theater, what the fuck is Morbius? And that is what I asked, Mr. and perhaps an editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. What's Morbius? No, we had a very important interview about what the US and UK governments are doing to Julian Assange, the horrible precedents that the extradition case against him sets, and a rare thing for our show, Songs of Hope. It is a very vital interview. This is not being covered enough in most American media, and I again want to thank

Kristen for giving us this time on this. Well, after that interview, we'll be talking Kirsten, cinema, that is. That's right. What's this Daffy Dame up to? What's her deal? All right, let's go to the interview, and we'll be back in a little bit. Everyone, as some of you may have read this week, there was a Yahoo News report that in 2017 and 2018 that the Trump administration and specifically the Pompeo CIA was planning on several extrajudicial means of dealing with Julian Assange. These included planning a shootout outside the embassy in London to kill Assange, shooting out the tires of a Russian aircraft if the Russians tried to extract him, and numerous other completely illegal things,

the likes of which we have not really seen since church committee limited hangout. But joining us today in light of these revelations is WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Kristen Hrafson. Kristen, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. For those who don't know, for those who haven't been keeping up with this, because it's really not something that's covered in American media. This is just not something that people want to talk about, and journalists haven't really enjoyed covering. Assange has been in Belmarch prison since 2019 after Ecuador kicked him out, and they've recently, in the past year, revoked his citizenship. But this isn't the first extrajudicial thing that

you've known about with regards to the embassy. There was the Spanish spying case that came out a couple of years ago, but this can't come as a huge surprise to you. I mean, this is what they do. Well, to be honest, it came as a surprise to read about how far the CIA was willing to go in this campaign or this war against WikiLeaks, spearheaded by Mike Pompeo. I wasn't surprised about some of the elements of the story. It was known to us. We had told that some of this was going on, these measures that we're taking against Julian. You mentioned the Spanish case. This is a criminal proceedings in Madrid against the owner and the director of a security company called UC Global that was hired to secure Julian Assange

inside the embassy, but they turned the coat and actually were bribed by the CIA to spy for the CIA. They actually offer live streams from cameras inside the embassy and from hidden microphones that these company employees were putting in place there. It was extraordinary to learn about that. We know the elements of that through testimony of former employees who were protected witnesses in the case, which is now still ongoing in front of a magistrate court judged in Madrid. But on top of that, of course, we are now hearing these outrageous plans that were concocted kidnapping and renditioning Julian in the embassy and these shootouts caressing into cars and shooting tires or airplanes and what have you.

That was surprising. The fact that is chilling is that this was not just to rogue elements on a low level within the CIA. This has come straight from the top. It was Pompeo himself who, according to these numerous sources, who supplied information to Isikov and his two calls in his article, 30 plus of them, that basically directed to this manner and saying that nothing was off the table, there are no boundaries. We want him. This is just a total revenge for bloodlust on his behalf. The fact that this was being discussed on the highest level, it even was discussed in the White House and the Department of Justice on the top level of the Trump administration. That was surprising to me too, to some extent, how far it actually went.

Yeah, I recall in 2017 and 2018, it was one of those articles that seemed to come out every month from the Trump White House where it would be something about like, oh, Trump suggested something totally ridiculous that's like 10 degrees outside the realm of possibility of what we already do. In this case, with regards to WikiLeaks, it was him just asking Pompeo, oh, can we just kill him? At the time, it was played off as even among more liberal interventionists and people in that foreign policy blob is like, well, we just want to torture him forever. We just want to send him to Gitmo. It would be ridiculous to kill him in London. Now, we find out that this was a normal position to hold in the U.S. security state and probably has been for a

while. Yeah, I mean, their indication, according to the story, this goes actually back to the Obama era, some of these elements, trying to find legal ways and means to actually carry this out, quote unquote, legally. The decision or the idea to sort of redefine Julian and actually a couple of other journalists, at least such as Laura Boitres and Glenn Greenwald, who was working on the Snowden material, not as journalists, but information brokers to sort of strip them of their journalistic credentials and to open up the possibility of taking extreme measures against them. This was being discussed. The article used, you know, Sassnet, the plan or the idea to kidnap Julian or even Sassnet, you know, went further back

then to the Trump era. So this is nothing new, nothing new. And I mean, if you look even further back, I mean, back in 2010, 2011, what we were publishing the explosive stories from Afghanistan and Iraq and the Quantanamo and diplomatic evils, causing such fury that it's on record that Hillary Clinton and then Secretary of State sort of openly raised the idea that whether they couldn't just drone this guy, meaning Julian Assange, and from description of that scenario from those who were present, they sort of laughed in a stifled manner because, you know, they felt and understood that this was not entirely just a joke that was dropped. So this has been a, this law, this war has been going on for a very long time and escalating into this scenario in 2017, following the release of

World Seven, which was the revelation of the CIA cyber arsenal and the nature of the tools. It is sometimes wrongly reported that the weeklies were exposing or publishing the actual tools, but that's wrong. We were basically exposing the existence of the tools and how they were being possibly used, planned to be used in infiltrating even home appliances, you know, like televisions, et cetera. That was a huge embarrassment for the CIA. Pompeo was director. A few weeks later, he, in his first public appearance, went to the podium in a public event and talked about the two major dangers facing the United States of America that was al-Qaeda and weeklies. You know, we were stunned to hear that. And then he dropped this new, carefully crafted definition with, although

people didn't recognize it at the time, this was not just something they were dropping, you know, at the spur of the moment, defining weeklies as a non-state, hostile, intelligent service. We, on the inside at weeklies, instantly recognized that this was a very bad signal. This was basically saying that this is a clause of now anything is possible. When you designate somebody as a spy, a hostile foreign spy, which was basically the case there, everybody knows what that means. That's, in the extreme case, it's, you know, a license to kill. And there is no oversight. And it opens the door to all kinds of new measures without having to get approval, so-called, you know, offensive counterintelligence measures. And at that point, too, we knew that there was a danger

that huge danger that they would actually carry out some of these plans. And they seem to have come very close, according to the story that came out with Yellow News. The sense that I've kind of gotten from the outside of this is that this was always, obviously, a desire within the U.S. national security state. This was one of the, one of those things that's kind of on the back burner of empire, where, you know, if you go by those Hillary state emails and you go by things that people on the other side, people at places like foundation for defensive democracy, both the liberal and neoconsid, it seemed like from like, yeah, 2010 until Trump, it was like, okay, this fell into our lap. If there was an easy way that wouldn't immediately

piss everyone off, we would kill him. But we're not, we're not going to spend all our time on this. We'll make his life hell. We'll smear him. But we're not going to go out of our way. But it seemed like Vault 7 changed a lot of that. It seemed like Vault 7 made it a more active priority, as we saw with Pompeo and the other people on the NSA. Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely correct. At that point, there was a huge pressure. And to the extent that, you know, it alarmed a lot of people in the inner circle, actually, at the CIA, you know, lawyers at the White House were worried. And this was such a, such rates and such revenge motivated. It was just totally insane to think that this could be actually

carried out and concocted. I mean, and definitely if Julian would not have been in the heart of London, the building, you know, behind Harrod's, you know, there's no doubt in my mind that they would have carried this out. So, you know, the things that stopped to wear sort of hesitation, can we, you know, break into an embassy in the center of London and kidnap an individual and renditioned into a third country? Well, that might not go down well with the Brits. We better ask them and they didn't like the idea. And the lawyers were, you know, debating, well, if you rendition him, if he kidnap him, if we put him on a black side somewhere, that might actually hurt our possibilities of prosecuting him, even though we've been trying for years and years to

find an angle to build an indictment. We haven't found one. And that's an interesting point there, actually, that, you know, it's apparent that the indictment that was hurried together and rushed together and under seal was a deliberate reaction to all these extreme measures that were being thrown around in these circles. And it was a pressure put on the Justice Department, you know, you have to, you have to come up with something, because, you know, if we, if we kidnap him, we want to have some legal paper to show, you know, he's a criminal. So, and that goes to show what the political nature of those things, it's a political persecution that is as we have always said. And so that's, that's the, how all that came about, which is interesting. This is,

there's nothing to do with the law at all. This is about revenge, a revenge of the empire for and a reaction to, to first class journalism. I mean, that's, it's, it's nothing else. It is attempt to criminalize journalism. That's what putting everybody, you know, pausing now saying, you know, listen, this has to end. This is jeopardizing, you know, journalism all over the world. Yeah. So the indictment that they have rolled out a few years ago, it seems like they're trying to cobble together like a conspiracy charge on attempted hacking and not even really that. It's, they're, they're, this was the thing that they called Chelsea Manning in to testify again

and threw her in contempt for, but they're saying that Assange entered the wrong password into a password hash. I think it was. I mean, there are two elements in the indictment. I mean, there is, there are these 17 charges based on the Espionage Act, and that's basically just for receiving and publishing information. That's journalism. That's equating, equating journalism with espionage, which is in itself, you know, of course, you know, even, we, even the lawyers in the Obama's Justice Department said, you know, we cannot, we cannot go this down this road because that's, we have a New York Times problem, as they said, because there's no way to distinguish between what WikiLeaks purpose and what the New York Times published. So they said, we cannot do

this. So the work started to try to actually sort of strip the journalism potential of Julian, try to depict him as a hacker. And they came with this 18th indictment, which is sort of the gateway into the judicial system. That's the so-called hacking charge. It is not a charge that Julian hacked anything. It is an accusation that Julian conspired with Chelsea Manning into getting access to information that she did not have, which is basically wrong. Now, originally, this so-called hacking charge was so poorly substantiated in the original form that it was basically a laughing stock. You know, if you read through it, you, if this matter was not so serious, you would laugh this off. What is determined by the Americans to be

Julian, not even confirmed in a chat with Chelsea Manning saying, you know, basically, do you have more? And Manning replying, no, well, well, I'm dry. And the person on the other end saying, curious, in my experience, curious eyes never run dry. And it's frequently cited, this curious eyes never run dry as a confirmation of the conspiracy in the acts of hacking. In the proceedings in the London court, expert witnesses, actual former computer experts from the US military basically tore apart all the arguments in this sort of hacking charge. It was nothing. They showed that there's basically this sort of hash value, which is not a password even, that was a discussion whether it could be provided would have, would have, if the

assistance was provided, but it never was, would have given Chelsea Manning access to a drive with no secrets on it, a segment in the computer network, which was, would have been able to her to download music videos and films without being noticed, because, you know, that's against the manual in the military sitting out in the desert in Iraq. So, and what they did on that occasion in the middle of the proceedings in London is that they abandoned an added to the indictment, especially to try to fortify the hacking charge and introduced all kinds of totally irrelevant scenarios actually from my home country in Iceland, where Julian was supposed to have been telling people to hack into banks, the police, hack into members of parliament phones in

Reykjavik, Iceland and what have you. All this is based on a witness who stole money from Wikileaks and was sentenced for that. He's also a court-defined sociopath and a sector offender that didn't stop the DOJ from working with him. And lo and behold, last spring, this guy goes on to interview and actually withdraw the entire thing. I thought at this point, you know, he was a key witness, he was the only witness. I thought at this point, well, you know, for heaven's sake, that this is totally collapsed. That was the view of Edward Snowden and a lot of other people who were following this. But they followed through with the attempt in London to get an appeal, which they were granted, to try to overturn the decision from January 5th that

Julian Assange should not be extradited. But certainly, I mean, after the latest revelation, you would think, you know, that this must be the end of the road. There must be some political strategy, strategic thinkers in Washington thinking and seeing that this will hurt the Biden administration. This will not get any better. This will just get worse and worse. They must put an end to this. Yeah, they went through incredible lengths. I mean, obviously, everything in the Newsweek story, but then this hasty indictment and then everything that came after that, after the inauguration of Moreno in Ecuador, I mean, they basically gave, they bribed Ecuador through IMF loans. Before talking with you,

I did see something that was interesting that it's a molar investigation thing, so you take it with a grain of salt that Moreno allegedly met with Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign manager in 2017, supposedly about giving up Assange to America while Moreno was vice president. I mean, who knows with that? All those foreign meetings, it seems like every other one seems to be totally fabricated, but it seems clear there was an intent by Moreno to do this for a little bit at least. In Ecuador, they've basically charged a guy with being friends with Julian Assange, Ola Binay. They have him in a similar situation where he's essentially being charged with hacking into a computer system with a company that he already had an

agreement with that they themselves say he didn't hack into, and clearly a similar angle here, just torturing and putting pressure on someone out of vindictiveness, out of acting as a proxy for the US. It is punishment through proceedings. Yes, I mean, incredible pressure was put on Ecuador in those days, Lenny Moreno. I mean, there is no doubt in my mind there is no coincidence that at the same time Julian is arrested when the Ecuadorians allow the British police into the embassy in April 2019, that Ecuador is granted that relief and new loans to the IMF and World Bank, billions of dollars. I mean, that's no coincidence. And you can see with that in the travels. Mike Pence did travel to Ecuador. This was tit for tat. It's not complicated. This is just how things

work in politics. They wanted him desperately and they pressured Ecuador to open the doors of that internal. Yeah, just for context for listeners who are not following Ecuadorian politics, Moreno, a lot of this is unrelated to WikiLeaks, but he probably the single most unpopular elected world leader right now. He's sitting at somewhere between five and nine percent approval rating and actually had to move the capital in 2019 because they lost control of the streets to protesters after a Moreno attempted to halt a, I think it was a fuel subsidy, but I am interested. From your perspective, why do you think Vault 7 ramped up the heat so much? Why do you think it got them so pissed off that they'd go to these lengths?

Well, I think you have to just see this as from a perspective of the person who is just right as a new director. The CIA had been making fun of the NSA, were losing their secrets to Bruce Snowden and now it was simply their turn and so that caused this rage and when people act in rage, they do not act intelligibly or rationally and definitely this article in the our news, which has not been refuted, but even by Pompeo, who actually went on record saying now that the sources should be prosecuted for revealing the secrets of inside the CIA, which basically is growing, but from my perspective, basically a confirmation is all true. Why would you prosecute them if it wasn't? So it's simply an enragement and part of it was showing I would

gather that they were not on top of things. Of course, there were surveillance on the Ecuador Embassy and on Julian Sanz and the activities of us in a group, but they did not foresee, they couldn't foresee and didn't foresee if this was coming and for an intelligence service that sort of hurt their credibility as well. Yeah, it seemed humiliating for them. But a lot of the issues that sort of came forward in this article as well, it makes me wonder, not just about the intelligence of the operatives, but their ability to get accurate information and work on it. Because that scenario where they were preparing to have a shootout in the streets of London outside the Equatorie, ram into cars and

shoot at the tires of a Russian aeroplane, it was based on a totally false premise. They believed they had credible information that the Russians were about to sort of steal a modern embassy and there would be a grand escape out of the actual embassy and he would be moved to Russia. That was never any plan of that sort, never any plan of that sort. And they are conflating this with a discussion which was ongoing at this time about a strategic move to actually make Julian, an Equatorian citizen at that point, a diplomat. And the discussion was this was in with the Equatorian Foreign Service was thinking of this plan. What if we make him a diplomat and then he has diplomatic protection and then we

assign him to another embassy somewhere and some options were probably put on the table there and Moscow was one of it. But that was dismissed outright by Julian or any move for that sort. The idea, and this is actually on record, this has been reported on before, the idea was this. You present the Brits with this option. Now we have a diplomat at the embassy named Julian Assange. According to the Vienna Convention, you have two options. You can accept him as a diplomat and his credentials, or you cannot but then you would have to give him the right to leave the country. So that was the thinking with the Equatorian Foreign Service. It never came into practicality. I think there's a lot of pressure was put on the Equatorians by the Brits

as well to not go down this road. But this escape to Russia was total nonsense. And it is my theory and it's supported by these witnesses who are testifying in the Spanish case and the U.C. global case that it's probably nonsense that they concocted and fed onwards basically to justify the fact that they were billing the CIA $200,000 a month for work for their service. Paid through Sheldon Adelsen, late Sheldon Adelsen, the Los Angeles casino mogul and big supporter of Trump and Pompeo. People suddenly say in time sort of the same time for it. There was also other ridiculous stories coming out. One of the most notorious one was fed through a sleaze journalist at The Guardian and Luke Harding who created the story with Guardian

put on the front page that they had bulletproof information that Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager of Trump, had frequently visited Julian Assange in the Equatorian Embassy. And the journalist went so far as to describe how Mr. Manafort was dressed when he went to his meetings. I've never actually seen a newspaper trying to desperately sort of thin mouth the story in real time over the next couple of hours when the entire world started laughing because this was all sorts of ridiculous stories. You could see it on the screen on The Guardian website. They added sources say to the headline and then sort of were rewriting the story as you could watch it and updating it without actually telling the readers.

But it was a very damaging story. But I'm fairly certain this was the work of the information from these security guards inside the embassy using global with some help from hostile elements in Equatorian Intelligence and possibly the CIA as well. And at that moment, of course, it was extremely hurtful because this was for Julian. This was at a time when the Mueller report had not been published yet. It's a few months earlier and in fact denoted. This was the smoking gun about all the pollution bullshit that was being presented. Totally collapsed. Of course later. But I'm just saying this. There was so much disinformation being fed and all kinds of ridiculous things. But to read that one of those ridiculous stories or that were floating around

and that there was a plan to sort of escape plan from from the embassy to Russia and that these operatives were willing to draw up a plan for a shootout if it would happen with Russian agents and ram into their cars and actually get the the Brits to agree to take part to do the shooting, according to a story. That's incredible. It's incredible. Yeah. And it I remember sort of similar talks in 2018 and earlier 2019 where there were previous revelations that the, you know, as you talked about this indictment was it was a panic move. It was sort of it was the DOJ going, you know, Jesus Christ were there is so much stupid shit actively being planned and actively being done. I mean, through Morales, the the owner of that

Spanish spying company they spied on and live streamed. As you mentioned, Asan just conversations with lawyers, him meeting with David Miranda and Glenn Greenwald, completely illegal shit. But where do you see it now with the legal case? Because as he seems to be kind of in a limbo, Assange, where one judge in the UK has said he can't be extradited, but the High Court has reversed that in January. I don't know exactly where they're at with that. I know that Biden said something like, well, if he came here, we wouldn't put him in ADX Florence. We wouldn't put him in like a 23 hour a day lockup, which is, I think, a contingent on not extraditing him for some for some of these nations that that type of US prison constitutes torture so they can't do it.

But it doesn't even, it does not seem like they could have, they could bring this to trial. So what I, there's absolutely no chance. I mean, that would be, you know, a trial of Julian Assange with everything that we now know. The case is so compromised that it's worse than what actually led to the dismissal of the case against Daniel Ellsberg 50 years ago. And I'm actually citing himself and that's what he says. This is much worse than what he had to endure and what led to the dismissal of the case and the collapse of the case against him, the leaker of the Pentagon papers. But, you know, spying on legally privileged material, I mean, there's, there was a break in the offices of his lawyers in Spain by masked men.

Nothing was sacred in this. And, and, and where the case is now is that, yes, when it's a barator, the Magistrate court judge in January ruled that he should not be extradited because of fear of this deteriorating health and he would actually risk of suicide, giving the condition that would await it. There was a request from appeal and the appeal was granted and that appeal by the U.S. lawyers is now being heard at the end of October in the London court, in the High Court. And so it hasn't been ruled on. But I would think that given what we have now in, in the interim period seen and what hasn't merged, there should be a certain chance of an extradition. I would just give you one example. The Americans in the appeal process were asking for

permission to basically argue their assurances. And what are the assurances? Yes, the assurances that they would treat him well, that he would get the help he needed if extradited in the U.S. prisons, et cetera, et cetera, that he would not be put in ADX Florence, although that's not the only maximum security prison in the U.S. And you could basically create those conditions in other prisons, et cetera, et cetera. And just to give you one sort of element in this, there are so called special administrative measures, SAMS in prisons, which basically means that people are put in total isolation. It's solitary confinement. It's conditions which are tantamount to torture, as we saw in Chelsea Manning's case. And it's really hurtful. Now, it's not that there's question

of the CIA, whether he's put under SAMS or not, if he is extradited. So the scenario would be this. No matter what kind of assurances you make in a London courtroom, which they have always kept open, they could overturn that at any point anyway. The fate of Julian Assange in a prison in the United States would be in the hands of the three-letter agency that was planning to kill him. But what more do you need? This is just so outrageous that you couldn't really write this in a fiction. Nobody would believe it. Nobody would dismiss it as outrageous. So, I mean, in my opinion, the entire case in London should, under any normal circumstances, have already collapsed. And it should be withdrawn. I mean, the appeal process should be withdrawn

immediately, just to save the embarrassment of the U.S. Justice Department, to have all this dragged into the courtroom. But more than that, I mean, as I mentioned earlier, it's ample time now that the Biden administration comes to understand that this is going to be such a stain on that administration. And it's going to get worse and worse as weeks go by if they don't stop this. I mean, it's not going to go away. It's getting worse by every week now. There is more information coming out. And I can tell you, and that's my experience as a journalist for 30 years, that when you have this scope of information coming out, as we've had in the last few weeks, with 30 individuals willing to give information to the Yahoo News journalist,

we're absolutely going to see more coming out. And it's not going to be a pretty picture. So, I mean, the only available thing on the table now is basically to drop the indictment. And I hope that's going to be the case. And it has to be assumed, because as of last week, Julian has been a remanded prisoner in a maximum-secured prison in London for more than two years. For two years, an innocent man on remand. This is a way surpassing everything that is the sort of extreme benchmark for the European Court of Human Rights for any civilized country to allow this. It's just outrageous. And I'm fairly certain that the reason this hasn't been addressed yet in the US is the fact that there has been little reporting on Julian's case. There is a

lot of hostilities towards him yet among the general public, because there is a misunderstanding about the work of WikiLeaks and about what we're all about, what we have been doing. I mean, we are now celebrating the 15th birthday of WikiLeaks in the next few days. And just look at what we've been doing. And I can tell you a story which sort of puts things into context in my mind. I'm Icelandic, but a big fan of a lot of elements in the US. I was a correspondent in New York in the 90s, studied in Florida for an exchange student for a year. In the beginning of 2011, when we were in the middle of cable bait release, a year-long project that was caught short because of the stupidity of a Guardian journalist,

there was a lot of anger in the US administration for what we were revealing. This was a very meticulous process we're going through, gathering, cooperating with media organizations all around the world. There were more than 100 in the end and trusting our media partners with redacting material or sensitivity. It was a good process, stories coming out week after week after week all around the world. There was a lot of embarrassment and anger and strong words at the time by the politicians in the States. And even the word high-tech terrorist was used about Julian Assange. At this time in the early months of 2011, Ipsos Morty made a poll in 25 countries, which they do regularly on various subjects. And for some reason, they decided to

ask the populace in those countries what they thought about WikiLeaks, whether it was a force of goods or it was an approval rating measure, which has never been done since, understandably giving the result. And in all countries, but one, there was a majority of the population were on our sides and thought that WikiLeaks was doing the right thing. And the approval rating was so high that I think in the highest we're in South Africa and India, 90 to 95%. There was only one country where it was a small minority who thought that WikiLeaks was a force for good. But still, over 40% of Americans at that time thought that we were doing a good job, which I thought was astonishing. I said, you're administration is saying that WikiLeaks

are high tech terrorists. But still, this large proportion of Americans thought that this was good news and we were doing a proper journalistic job. But I think that prompted people to think and start a long process, which you guys know from the dark part of US history 50, 60 years ago, of undermining the individual, trying to attack him and smearing him in every possible manner. And that was somewhat a successful process. But these are starting to change again. And I believe, and we have to look at long terms, Julian has suffered a great deal for his good work. But this is coming to an end because it has to come to an end. We have all organizations who are concerned about human rights, freedom of speech, and now on

Julian's side, because they know this serious implication. If we take this step, and basically equating and criminalizing journalists, that cannot happen in our part of the world, it cannot happen. So I am optimistic on that point. And of course, this article in Yahoo News helps in cementing that belief that this is coming to an end. Yeah. In the past 10 years, it seemed like there was a cultural shift around this, especially in 2016, that, I mean, you're always going to run into an obstacle in America because Americans just do not want to think about the empire. You'll have periods where people are more into it, just out of being aggressive or perceived revenge for 9-11 or whatever. But for the most

part, I mean, it's been a conscious policy by the US National Security State to make this something that's sort of out of sight, out of mind. We don't want to think about what CENTCOM is doing. We don't want to think about what AFRICOM is doing. Afghanistan was out of the news for 10 years. And you're always going to have just the majority of people are not thinking about this. But it seemed like among the people that actively think about this, there was, yeah, a very successful smear of WikiLeaks and of Assange, especially in 2016. I mean, the Russia shift was one of the best things that could have happened to parts of the US NATSEG state that wanted to smear him. And of course, you mentioned that ridiculous harding

article. The Guardian actually put up an apology for that, then took the apology down. That's how little they wanted people to think about that shit. So you do feel some cause for optimism with American public opinion, I'm sensing. Yes, I do so because I mean, there are good people and they are principled. And I mean, you have in place excellent tools which are admired around the world. First Amendment is something that is an enemy to a lot of nations. And but you just cannot be the champion of freedom of speech and the freedom of the press outside your, you know, on one hand and preach that and then try to criminalize journalists and then stifle freedom of expression on the same time. And interestingly enough, I mean, there are

progressive leaders in other countries that are picking up on that. And, you know, you have the Azerbaijan president, the Chinese Foreign Service official, you have even the Russians, you know, basically saying, you know, why are you criticizing us for, you know, imprisoning Navalny or who are you to judge? I mean, why is Julian Assange imprisoned? So the credibility is is already damaged. But of course, that can be reversed. But this has to end. This is the biggest challenge against press freedom in our hemisphere in this century. And it has to stop. So just going back a little bit to the legal case, it seems like the Biden administration is aware of what we've talked about, that this could not possibly go

to trial. This, it just, this would be ridiculous. But it seems like they've sort of painted themselves into a corner here, where they're going, well, we can't exactly bring this to trial in the United States, but we don't want to let him go. I mean, on your end, would it be accurate to say that they're just going to come up with new things to keep him in Belmarsh and torture him? I mean, that's a possibility. But I mean, that's not going to be very credible after what we've learned and attempt to sort of throw something new in there. I mean, everything has been sort of exposed as being totally a hollow and without any merits. So I mean, how is that going to credibly help to bring up something new? It's not, it simply is not going to happen.

You will always ask, well, why don't you bring this forward earlier? I mean, that's not going to happen. But you can actually, it's all you could actually almost put a finger on the troubles that are in the Biden administration with the issue. Nobody wants to answer to it. Nobody wants to answer any questions. You know, Zaki in the White House, I'd say, well, you have to talk to the Department of Justice. So when the Department of Justice asked about the CIA spying, nobody wants to take responsibility and answer anything. And Biden was very careful to dodge any question about Julian Zanzi when he was campaigning. And so it's, it's, it's probably problematic to some

point. How do you unwind this? How do you get out of this? But let's make it clear. I mean, we now know for a fact that the Obama Department of Justice decided not to indict Julian Zanzi because they were aware of the First Amendment implication. So this is basically Trump's legacy. And that's enough. Just, you know, just admit that this went out of hand. Elements within the agency and CIA just went rogue. And now we just correct things. I mean, I just can't believe that the Biden wants this, the Biden administration wants this hang over their head for the next four years. That's not a lucrative prospect. Because as I said earlier, it's going to get worse. It's not going to get better.

Yeah. And as, as you're saying, they have a pretty easy out. For a Democratic president, he can just go, Oh, well, you know, Trump DOJ and Trump CIA fucked this up. Even though it's, you know, it's really the same beast. It's the same part of the blob, no matter what, but it's a pretty easy out if they wanted to avoid the embarrassment. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's justified to take that route in so many other ways. Because, I mean, if you look at the composition of the DOJ and how it was, how it was horribly, you know, politicized onto Trump, you know, with, if, if, and there was a willingness to, to sort of unwind that and bring things, you know, quote unquote, back to normal.

But that, that is that there's a way to do that. Of course, the danger is that they, if they start cleaning house, you know, there would be an accusation that Biden is doing the same thing as Trump was doing, as politicizing the process. But it's the only way. How do you deal with politicized decisions taking under your predecessor? It has to be dealt with, with firm political decisions. So it, you know, once you throw politics into the process, you can only remove it with politics. So there is no way of escaping that. You just have to address it. And, you know, let me hope that there is enough common sense and decency and justice left of your circles to actually take to the right thing. Well, one thing I can say is a lot of

journalists listen to our show. It's fun for all of them to, you know, being on the joke with us, to joke with us on Twitter. But I would hope that if they're hearing this, they can do their part and make an issue out of this. There are many journalists who listen to this who write stories that people actually read. And I really, really hope this strikes at some part of their conscience. And they can, they can sort of break the American silence on this. I do hope that as well, because this is a story. This is a huge story with very huge implications as well. And just, just from your end, for the other 99.9% of our listeners who are not journalists, what can just normal people do to help? Well, I mean, they can, they can actually put pressure on

the, the 0.1% of the actual journalists to actually report on this and say, well, why, why didn't they know this? Why, why am I learning this now? So they need information and accurate information. I'm not asking for distorted information or, or just objective reporting. They can put pressure on, on, on their lawmakers and the vicinity and mobilize online and in person and just demand justice. You know, there's a plenty of venues where you can take part in, in cyberspace and, and, and make your mark. And I, I think that slowly and gradually this will seep in when you get the right information. And that will change the tide. That will change the tide. I'm certain of it. And especially, I mean, yeah, I think that's,

that's the only answer I have. I mean, you know, I have to believe in, in, in, in journalists activity and that it has a power to bring justice about. Otherwise, I would have decided to make that my, my, my work and, and spend these decades on that. Yeah. And, and then there's an indication that there is a, there is a change that this, it's being reported on now in the US media. There was a total blackout and silence for a very long time. If, if, so it was either a negative reporting or nothing, but then it became nothing. And now let's hope that there is a more and more just objective reporting in the sort of spirit of, of that, that story by Isikov and then his pals. Well, unbelievably, we have a rare optimistic note to end the show on. This is very, very rare

for us, but Kristen, thank you so much. Thank you. I have only, I have, I don't have any option, but to have, to be optimistic about the ability to change. I am outraged, so reading this, this, this horror stories. I am outraged what, what Julian has had to endure for the last decade plus, but it's all been in the public interest. There's no doubt in my mind, WikiLeaks has been a power of change in journalism. And we probably would not have seen Snowden if it would have not been for WikiLeaks. We would not probably seen the large cross-border cooperation on the Panama Papers if it had not been for Snowden and WikiLeaks. We've introduced a new model. We've introduced the secure means for whistleblowers and sources to

submit the formation. It is now a household, household, a partisan, every, every major mainstream media outlet. So the legacy of, of WikiLeaks is already there. It has changed journalism, but it has been a bloody battle. And in my opinion, Julian's answer has, has paid a price, which has been very dear price for that. And that is, yeah, enough, enough is enough, has to come to an end. Absolutely. Well, I want to thank you again. And yeah, anything that you want people to check out or any call to action, we can put in the description to this episode. But yeah, I want to thank you again for your time and thank you for keeping up the fight. Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it. All right. Thanks again to Felix for a quarterback

in that interview. And now let's, let's close out the show with a reading series today about everyone's favorite senator. She's the most famous woman in America. That's right. I'm talking Kirsten Sinema. What, I mean, what more can one say about, about Kirsten? I'd like to, I mean, again, once we preface this reading series by saying, you know, as we have many times before on the show, it, I mean, she is a, she is like an unbelievable twit as we'll come across in this article, I'm hoping. But the important thing to remember about her is not to get too, not to get too invested in any one person because she is, she is playing a role right now. I mean, and she's playing it to a tee. But I mean, just keep in mind that like what's going on right now with her

invention is that like everybody like not, not like the moderate caucus, but like even people like Jonathan Shate are just like finally like lost their patience with them. And they're just saying like, we were willing to negotiate. But like, what do you want us to do? Like, like, let's, let's horse trade. Like, what do you want from this bill? Like, what do you want to cut? Just give us something. And they're just saying like, I don't know, I'm out of here. I've got, I've got, I've got an Iron Man to train for. I'm peace. I'm gone. And you know, like this is, I mean, I mean, you should tell you something that like there's nothing to trade over because like they're not there to negotiate. They're there to fucking backstop the 12 other Democratic senators that

don't want anything in this reconciliation bill either. So that being said, did you see the thing today where some activists did some bathroom warrior tactics to her? And people were mad about that? Yeah. They wouldn't, they wouldn't let her take a wine dump. And you know, people. I was, I was part of the activist group. I actually dressed up like a toilet and was sitting there with my mouth open in the stall. I'm just kidding everybody. I didn't do that. I am confronting, I'm confronting Senator Sinema in the bathroom at Burgine in Berlin. It's so funny if there was like a guy in that activist group who's like suggests that they're like, no, we're going to put pressure on her and record her. And he's like, oh, I know, I'll like dress up like a toilet.

Oh, oh, I know, I know, I know. I can like, we can make a porta potty and dig a hole under the ground and I can stand there with my mouth open. And they're like, Steve, that's not going to help. That's not going to make her pass the reconciliation bill. And he goes, reconciliation bill. He's like, oh, I thought we were just all perverts. I thought this, damn, my bad. And you know, like, I'll just like, I just like to add to the chorus of people saying like, look, I know we're all angry. We're all angry at Mrs. Miss Sinema right now. But like, you know, senators are people too, they need their privacy, you know, like there should be a line drawing shouldn't harass people in bathrooms. And I just like to say, I agree with that 100%. If you are going to

confront a senator, don't do it in the bathroom. Do it when they're walking through the kitchen of the ambassador hotel. I, yeah, I mean, like just not a real, not a real incitement to violence. Just like, just like on principle, I think this should be like every moment of the senator's life. Like that's the trade off. Like if you're a senator, you're one of the one of the most evil people in your state. Like that's well established. But like the trade off, and I feel like most of them would make this trade is like, you can't go to the bathroom without people yelling at you and like going in your stall and like asking you to sign something. I kind of think though that she became a senator hoping people would yell at her in a bathroom and put it on the internet.

Well, I mean, I think this will come across in the, in the, in this op-ed piece I'm going to read about, uh, about Senator Sinema here. I mean, because it's like, I mean, I mean, people have like speculated about her like, what's the calculus here? Like does she not, like does she not care about any of the people who voted for her? Well, it's like, well, obviously not. But does she care about reelection? And I think Matt, you're right, we were talking about this the other day. I think it's kind of an open question whether she does care about actually being in the Senate or not. I think, I think she may be a different breed. She may be a new variation on, on, on, uh, the sort of species of politician in America. Because like one of the reasons that the parties have sort of

broken down and they can no longer perform the role of like a coherent political party with a, with an agenda is that all of the traditional party, uh, disciplinary mechanisms have broken down, uh, and, and any belief in the party structure or of the job of being in Congress or in the Senate, uh, meaning anything has broken down. So it is incentivized individual political entrepreneurs, people with their own idiosyncratic point of view and, and, uh, an agenda. And that means that sometimes you're going to just have a manic pixie dream senator who decides that, uh, being the center of attention is way more important than any political agenda. And there's that, I mean, that's what the system is designed to incentivize that. That's what

you're going to get. And what is Ms. Sinema's agenda? As far as I can discern, it's, I can't stop drinking wine. She loves it. She loves drinking wine. She's interning at a winery. She's basically like, if one of those, if the, if, uh, a shelf full of knickknacks and wall placards at Creighton Barrel got hit by lightning and came to life. I forget who said it, but it was like one of the best tweets that I've ever seen in, in recent memory. I forgot who said it. I have less credit than properly, but, um, uh, someone said that, uh, Kristen Sinema is like, if Joss Whedon could invent his own mother. Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Sinema should be called Senorita Awesome. Chris, can you put the Senorita Awesome clip in here? That's Kristen Sinema going

to Starbucks every day. Actually, I just want a regular coffee. Those white girl pumpkin spice lattes and wimmy. I love. My name? Senorita Awesome. Um, okay. So, uh, uh, this piece on, uh, Sinema, uh, comes courtesy of Marine Doubt, who's, you know, I mean, she's been on, she's been on the daffy broad beat for a long time here at the New York Times. So, right where you know, this is Sinema Stars in her own film by Marine Doubt. So it begins here, just like the original Sphinx, the Phoenix Sphinx is blocking the way until those who would move ahead to solve her riddle. What does Kristen Sinema want and why doesn't she stick around to explain it? Um, just like the original Sphinx, she is also a part lion and, uh, is talking to a guy who

will have sex with his mother. Uh, he says, somehow we've gotten ourselves in a perverse situation where Sinema and Joe Manchin rule the world. And it's confounding that these two people have this much sway. As Hemingway wondered in the Snows of Kilimanjaro, what are those leopards doing at this altitude? Did you guys have read the Snows of Kilimanjaro? I mean, like both things kind of make sense. Like that's just leopards hanging out. And it's like, if you're going to have a Senate, like, yeah, these two are going to be pretty powerful. I mean, maybe she's a snow leopard. You ever consider that? Uh, Marine Doubt continues, Sinema and Manchin are now directing what Joe Biden gets to do and deciding how his presidency will be defined. Some Democrats

even worry that the recalcitrant pair could be helping Donald Trump vault back into the White House. The two have created such havoc on the hill with the fate of the whole country riding on the, what mood they're in, that congressional reporters have come up with benefits, style nicknames for them, including Manchinema and Sinemansh. Which one do you guys prefer, Manchinema or Sinemansh? I like Sinemansh. Yeah, I like Sinemansh. It brings to the imagination a good version of Sinemax where, you know, there's some like male cheesecake. There's some male soft core. I don't know what that would look like. I think just like the beginning of the shaft. There's like less things the man can show that are soft core. Uh, I get, yeah, just like this

shaft. You could do the gray sweatpants challenge, stuff like that. Democrats were irritated at Sinema again on Friday. Even as Biden traipsed up to Capitol Hill to try to rescue his FDR dreams, Sinema flew back to Phoenix in the middle of nail biting negotiations on the scope of Biden's social policy bill. Her spokesman said that she had a doctor's appointment for a foot injury, but the Times reported that she was also slated to play footsie with donors at her political action committee's dinner at a fancy resort. So, she had a foot doctor appointment, but, um, yeah, no, she like, I mean, this is the whole thing here is that like she's not, she's not there to negotiate anything. She's there to stop anything from happening. And like,

you can, you can complain about it like, oh, like, oh, well, I mean, they've been telling progressives for years, like, oh, you have to negotiate to get what you want, but they don't want anything here. They don't want anything. They just want to stop any, any bill from being passed. It's very easy. It's very easy when that's what you want. You don't have to worry about horse trading. You don't have to worry about killing your babies. You could just do whatever you could just hang out. You can just vibe. And, you know, for the, for the progressive caucus or whatever, like, I mean, they, yeah, they have the cement shoes on of at least some policy goals that they'd like to get done, like, I don't know, slightly lowering the price of prescription drugs

or, I don't know, adding vision to Medicare or something like that. But like, to do that, they have to negotiate away virtually everything to get even like, you know, one one hundredth of what is necessary. But yeah, like, if you don't actually want to accomplish anything, and in fact, the reason for you being in politics is to stop any legislation from happening or bills from being passed, then yeah, like, it's, it's just they're holding every card here. And if you've got, and if you've got your own political action committee hosting foot dinners, fancy foot massage parlors, then, you know, you're sitting pretty, you're sitting real pretty if you're Senator Sinema. It says here the times the times is Jonathan Wiseman got a hold

of an invitation to another fundraiser for Sinema this past week, with five business lobbying groups, many of which are fighting against the social policy bill. People who want to think they can understand her or get get to her. Let me tell you, you can't, one Politico in her inner circle told me, it doesn't work that way with her. She doesn't think in a linear process like, okay, will this impact my reelection? She just beats her own drum. When she leaves in the middle of something or says, I've got stuff to do, it's because she has plans. Sometimes she's just more interested in training for an iron man, more power to her man. It's like watching a movie, her life a movie. Yeah, what movie is that? Like the woman who like works out a lot. She becomes a senator, even though she

just like doesn't want to go to work. It's a movie called the woman everyone hates. Yeah. No, I mean like that's the thing. Like the Politico is probably her comms director and like even they just like they don't want to say what we're saying directly. The obvious thing here that like, yeah, Manchin and Sinema's role is just roadblocks. It's completely stop this from happening. So it's like you have to sell her shitty personality as exciting. But like every, I mean, like every American has met a Christian Sinema. I think like Christian Sinema probably does deserve to be in some type of like body that's representative of the American people because I would say this is like 12% of American women over 30. Um, it says here, the Arizona Senator's name is pronounced Sinema and it is

apt because she sweeps and sometimes when the triathlete has a sports injury, limps through the Senate like a silent film star. So she's not even like good at triathlons. She's always like fucking herself up. I guess he's a silent film star because he doesn't talk much or negotiate or really do her job. It says here, the Greta Garbo of Congress as one top Democrat called her. I mean that one top Democrat like he just thought of the first actress he could think of and it was Greta Garbo because he's 98 years old. She's the L. Jolson of Congress. Sinema rarely gives interviews and shuns the scrum of reporters at the Capitol, but she is not shy about drawing the spotlight, whether she has swathed in fur stoles or bedecked in pink, purple and mint colored wigs

or bedazzling and glittering stilettos. It's hard to believe that the Senate had a nutty sexist ban on sleeveless outfits on the floor, but the Mandarin's quit worrying about it for members once their colleague blively turned the hallowed marble halls into an iconic classic catwalk. Yeah, I think that ban should come back. Yeah, Kristen Sinema like has, you know, traumatic brain injury from a car accident swag. Her swag level is like, yeah, we're like letting her dress herself now. It's like not great, but she needs it to like have reclaim her own agency after the accident. Sinema is more conservative and monochromatic colleagues were a gawg at her stylings when she first ascended to the Senate, a moment

when she was celebrated as the first openly bisexual senator. And they were appalled this past year when her fashion statements included presiding over the Senate in a pink sweater reading dangerous creature. Oh yeah, no, yeah, that's when there was a manic pixie dream girl moment with like Mitt Romney was on some committee with her and was like, oh, you're gonna break the internet. He's like, he, he's the only person who's like excited to see her because he legitimately has not met a woman like that. Oh God, no, yeah. Yeah, in the Mormon world, that woman, yeah, that's like practically a witch. Mitt Romney is putting together the perfect mixtape for Sinema right now. She like touched his forearm and he like grinded his

cock against like a wood, wood banister for three hours. Yeah, in a pink sweater reading dangerous creature. And when she put a picture on Instagram following her defiant thumbs down on a $15 minimum wage, supporting a hot pink news boy cap, matching oversized glasses and a ring that expressed the sentiment kiss off, but in a more vulgar way. Remember that this is a town so straight laced. It was a sartorial scandal when President Barack Obama donned a tan suit. I mean, it's like, I feel like people, I sort of forgotten about the thumbs down moment, but like, man, like, if she is, if she is fucking mad about people hassling her in a bathroom when she went on like Seaspan and was just like, fuck off to anyone who wants $15 an hour, it's just like,

bring a bucket to the floor of the Senate and pee in that if you don't want people yelling at you, because that's the one place on the earth where anyway, where most of the people actually are like you and are not mad at you. And like, that's probably why she can get away with her kooky fashion choices and no one cares because she is like the perfect American senator. She is, she's like, she fits the role of what that institution is and what it represents better than most people. Yeah, we've gone to the point where we can dispense with any horseshit about representing anybody but yourself. Yeah, her, her, yeah, no, her life a movie. And you know, we're all just extras in it. It says here cinema enjoys poking the bear, especially the more

righteous wing of her party, the wing of her party that would like that would like a $15 an hour minimum wage or for for insulin to not cost $700 a mile, prevent every bridge in the country from collapsing. It says here cinema, especially the more righteous wing of her party, but her allies cry sexism in the way she is treated by Democrats compared to her allies. I don't know, just the Republican party. Yeah, like, yeah, Alec? Yeah, well, I mean, no, I think I realized as we said before, it's like senators like Chris Coons and Mark Warner and guys like that who like who want to who like they want to play the face and not the heel so that they like depend on her to like block, you know, something like, hey, can we lower the price

of prescription drugs by 25 cents? And they're like, no. Yeah, can we cover glasses in seven years on Medicare for all like for like Americans who are just about to die? Can we pay for them to go to lens crafters like seven years from now? No. Um, you guys, uh, I don't think that in her mind, when she dies the front of her hair purple or whatever she draws, whatever she does, she's trying to get press attention. One told me, frankly, it's just an expression of who she is. And as he said, man, it's like, yeah, being in the Senate is just an expression of Kristen. It's just Kirsten being Kirsten. She's feeling herself. Yeah. So I mean, when she when she dies, her hair a funky color, that's just she got up and she's like, just another manic

Monday. Um, when progressives made to stay in Joe, I've never been a liberal mansion. They understand that he has her record as a conservative Democrat. Cinema is a puzzle to them. What caused the former social worker social worker and green party champion who grew up in a gas station, a left winger who supported Ralph Nader for president to shift from progressive stances to more conservative ones. Is she unmoored in her politics simply by being opportunistic? What is the principle that is leading her to obstruct a party of her own president who really needs a win right now? She doesn't do interviews. She doesn't answer questions. She speaks in vagaries. She doesn't explain the core reason she's opposed. One member of the progressive crew on the hill

told me it's hard to look at her actions and not conclude that the donations are part of the story. If she's here to fight for corporate power and lower taxes for the wealthy and get more money from farm executives, be on the level and say it. Well, I mean, I think, uh, I think she basically is saying it, but like, but you know, this goes back to the thing is like, is this really about she thinks it's the right thing to do? Is this really about donations and reelections and all that shit like that? Or does she just like being like, she's just cinema being cinema. She likes getting attention. She likes being kooky. And like this is a way to be like, you know, the kooky girl in the romantic comedy that like is klutzy. And then she takes off her glasses

and you're like, Oh, wow, she's a 10 out of 10. Yeah. And then like this straight lace guy in town, maybe a guy who worked in private equity, maybe a guy who's like never done anything, but put his penis in his wife's vagina and sit there for nine hours. Maybe a guy like that. Uh, she's like, goes out on the town with him and he gets a vodka and milk for the first time in his life. And then I'm leaving you, Anne, you bitch, found an epic woman and he like does finger. He does like Mormon finger paints, Mormon finger paints. Yeah. Sex thing. No, no, this isn't like soaking. This is like, I don't know. You'd like paint like classic Mormon themes, like closing a real estate deal or like getting your own planet. You'd like, it would, you'd do

a finger paint of like you liberating Auschwitz, but you're like, you're baptizing everyone. You got there too late. It's like, don't worry, you're going to be able to be a servant on my planet. I'm going to be able to work at the CVS on the planet that I'm a god of when I die. Well, I mean, before that you just, you got to hang out. Sorry. Well, I mean, I think we've, I think we found out what she's really after here, which is just like people say, oh, donations, reelection, the gratitude of her constituents, doing something for the country, public service. No, that's small ball. She's thinking long term, get my own planet. Yep. And everyone, everyone who dies of a preventable illness will be her slave in the afterlife. It is even better

than getting your rocks off with a boy or girl. Yeah. I mean, like, yeah, I, she is, she is perfect for this role because yeah, I mean, she's sort of like the bad girls club senator. She does. She likes negative attention. I think, but I don't think that's unique to her. I think like every senator kind of likes it. Like, I think, I don't think like in my heart of hearts, I think like Barbara Boxer, or not Barbara Boxer, the Diane Feinstein is probably like, like anyone who's like 90, like kind of wants to fucking die. Well, it's not without taking a lot of people with them. Everyone, everyone you've ever loved for a long enough time is like dead. Your kids are like, oh, Jesus Christ. I have to like make sure she doesn't like

kill herself in the shower. Your, your like body doesn't work. You like can't do anything. Like most like people who make it there, like they sort of passively want to die at least, but she's like going up to run for reelection because like in her heart, that's what kind of person every senator is. She likes that like in some level that like makes someone mad. I just, I just saw the same reason. It's the same reason. Like, I don't know if Bill Gates is like a pedophile, but like he wanted to go to that island because it's like, yeah, fuck you. I can do it. No, yeah. I saw, I read the other day that Chuck Grassley is running for reelection. The dude is 90 years old. He's 90 fucking years old and like

he probably wants to fucking die. And the funny thing is like cinema is like not even close to being elderly. Like she's probably one of the youngest people in the Senate. So like, I mean, but she still has the same mentality, which is like, yeah, if you're a senator, once you get in the Senate, like the chances that you're going to lose that seat are like pretty, pretty low. I mean, you've got it for life basically. And it doesn't matter if you're a fucking 101 years old, you can just stay in there and be hated by everyone. And you know what? That's probably what real power feels like is to be hated by virtually every person in the country and know that there's nothing they can do about it. Yeah. Yeah. And why do you do something? Because you can do it.

She made it to that level. Of course you can do it. And none of this, like all the other shit, like, oh, she was a green party woman, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like that shit doesn't matter. Who cares? This is fucking real. That's nothing. Oh, she was a senator. I mean, good for, good for her. But like the thing is, you're right, like if she had, you know, even, even just played the role of what like a tech, like technically a moderate Democratic senator should do to just be like, can we offset this spending and means testing or something like that? It like if she had essentially just supported Biden's agenda, would she be getting talked about in the news and on this show as much as she is? No. No. So there we go. Happy to give cinema more attention. Just, Dowd closes out here

by saying, and why would a senator go off in the summer of 2020 to take a paid internship at a donor Sonoma County winery? One thing is clear, though, when Americans are hurting and everything is on the line, behaving like a sphinx is riddlesome and disquieting. Yeah, but what are you going to do about it? Literally nothing you can. I mean, you could, you could try to do like Oedipus did and, you know, answer that goofy riddle correctly. But I mean, I think we, I think we, I think we did hear today. She's, she's a messy bitch who loves drama. She's a kooky girl from a romantic comedy. She's klutzy. And the thing she's klutzing over is are millions of people going to live or die over the next 20 years or not? Yeah. Are you going to get deported from a country you've lived

in since you were a toddler? Yeah. Oh, I don't know. I'm so indecisive. I'm procrastinating. Well, best of luck to Senator Sonoma. She's going to, one of these days, she's going to take off those glasses and Mitt Romney will beam her straight up to his planet. All right, gang. I think that does it for today's episode. Until next time, gentlemen. Bye-bye. A longtime friend of the pro-Israel movement, Senator Kirsten Sinema of Arizona.