DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - The Cornell Controversy (with Michael Tracey) | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

“DeProgram” invites Michael Tracey, an independent journalist and commentator known for contrarian coverage of media and sexual-assault narratives, to discuss the 2026 Cornell “Jane Doe” civil lawsuit, filed by a former student alleged she was drugged and assaulted by seven Chi Phi fraternity members on October 19, 2024. Tracey has emphasized due-process concerns, the asymmetry of naming the accused while the plaintiff remains anonymous, and reported post-incident texts in which the complainant allegedly called the encounter a “gangbang” and invoked “our body our choice.” He solicited her identity on social media, briefly posted a name he claimed to have verified, then deleted it, arguing the exercise exposed improper use of anonymity in settlement-driven suits. The move drew widespread criticism and a #IAmJaneDoe backlash.Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.Today we also discuss:• U.S. authorities raid Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington-area home as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation, the Justice Department says. The probe involves alleged immigration fraud tied to paperwork completed by her late father when she was a child. Omar, a leftist and vocal Trump critic, called the search political intimidation; it occurred weeks before midterm elections.• A New York Times satellite analysis finds Israel has leveled 48 of roughly 60 villages in occupied southern Lebanon since an April “cease-fire,” primarily Shiite areas, while building infrastructure for a longer presence. Meanwhile, Saudi authorities say that operations will remain suspended at the airport in Riyadh after another Houthi attack on the facility on Sunday.• Elon Musk has quietly given more than $276 million since July to Republican groups and his America PAC, making him by far the largest known midterm donor as he tries to protect the party’s Senate majority.⁠ That includes a $158 million gift to the Senate Leadership Fund, one of the largest political donations in U.S. history. His total this cycle already exceeds his 2024 spending.00:00 Opening News Headlines on Cornell, Omar, Lebanon, and Musk 02:59 Debating the Cornell Student Group Ban 05:23 Why The Feds Raided Ilhan Omar's Home 09:38 Michael Tracey Explains His Cornell "Jane Doe" Reporting 25:28 Analyzing the Evidence in the Cornell Case 50:50 Hosts Discuss Tracey's Take and Consent Questions 58:49 Southern Lebanon Destruction and Breaking NewsMERCHANDISE: DeProgram.MySpreadShop.comLIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShowLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

Good morning. Hope you had a nice weekend. This is Deep Program with Ted Roll and Jamal Thomas. It's Tuesday, October 13th, 2026. Thank you so much for being here with us. We appreciate you. And we're glad to be back. We've got a full packed hour today. We go just one hour today. We have a lot to do. Michael Tracy, the independent journalist who made national news in his contrarian coverage of the Cornell Jane Doe. Sex scandal, gang bang, rape case, whatever you want to call it. He's going to be joining us in just a few minutes. So it's trigger warning, for real, if you, that you may find this disturbing. Also, Ilhan Omar, the Democratic representative from Minnesota and member of the squad,

has been raided over the weekend. They broke down her door at 4.30 in the morning. we will get into exactly what that's all about. The New York Times did a satellite analysis. They found that in southern Lebanon, out of about 60 villages, 48 have been leveled by Israel since the April so-called ceasefire. And they've been picking and choosing which villages to level, and some have been left pretty much intact.

And you can probably, well, you probably can't guess which ones they've chosen. But we'll get into that. The Saudis are getting hit hard by the Houthis. The Riyadh airport, which looked like it was going to reopen, is going to be closed at least till the end of the week as another airstrike from a ballistic missile hit yesterday. Elon Musk has given over $276 million to GOP-affiliated groups and his own GOP-affiliated super PAC since July. So just in the last three months, this makes him the big. biggest known midterm donor known is the key word here there could be more so yeah we should probably

get right to it if you have questions comments whatever michael lacey michael tracy will be available to deal with those while we're talking to him we are we have no robbie west today no producer so please bear with me as i try to get through your questions the super chats and the rumble rants will get my attention first but i'll try to i'll try to ban the board and read those questions and talk to Jamarle and and put Michael on and all that stuff. All at the same time, we'll have Michael on starting at about 9-10 Eastern time. That's in about six minutes. Okay, a lot to talk about here.

Hope you're doing well tomorrow. I'm doing okay. I'm doing okay. I was thinking, do you think Tracy is right? I read his article on the meeting that took place where they were going to ban student groups. from meeting or something that effect was like they were banned student from coming together, banned kids from meeting. You think he's right or do you think he's wrong? I'm curious about which aspect. Well, do you think it was right for this council to try to ban student groups?

No. No, never, never. Yeah, agree. Yeah. I mean, when I thought I was like they had a student council because they the scourge of gang rape and it's like you have to shut down student groups because of this, as if the student groups is the issue? Yeah, student groups are not the issue here. You know, rapists are the issue. Yeah, that's the issue. It's like, how is that my phone? It's like, I'm going to chess group and you're shutting down my chest camp.

No, I mean, it's, look, it's, this is even more insane than when Columbia University shut down Jewish voice for peace. You know, I mean, that was insane. And as a Columbia alum, it really still pisses me off. But this is even worse than that, because you're literally. canceling all student groups? Like, I mean, what's the point of college then? I mean, the whole point of college is to meet and interact with other students. Yeah. And me going to chess club is not going to affect, you know, what do you expect to happen? Like, getting raped is break into the chess club

room and go all while? Yeah. We haven't heard about that many. It's like, I don't think they're raking people at student groups. No, probably not. Yeah. No, they're not. And like, and this, and I I'm not even sure. Like the architecture students group. I don't think that things are getting very crazy there. And I don't even know if this was a gang rate. Right. Yeah, that has not yet been established in a court of law, right?

Yeah. And so it's very wild. Like, Cornell just seems to be out of his mind on this. Well, that's, I mean, look, that's the thing. It's like cowardice is the go-to place for, you know, administrators of any kind. You know, if you're not a coward, you don't last long in those spaces. It's all to be like, what if, what if they say things? things and what if the alums and what if this and what if that and what if there's protests and what

if and what if that's that's how they live their lives yeah yeah well let's go to that stories before trace kisser he can okay yeah let's hit something um what do you want to talk ilhan omar maybe we can do ilhan we can do ill hon okay let's do ilhan okay so you talked about it this morning you want to tee up what happened sure so at five in the morning the feds raid il il hon omar's house and in raiding the house, of course, they ransacked a place and everything else. And what they're going with is this idea of there was something nefarious, something wrong in her application for citizenship or for her when she effectively got here. And so they have a, quote, wide-ranging investigation, unquote, in the way that the papers recounted, even though they weren't necessarily clear on the boundaries of that particular investigation. It's also very strange that weeks before the election, this is taking place.

And obviously, the Trump administration has been going after Ilhan Omar claiming that sex with her brother or claiming that there was something in regards to her immigration papers, meaning these were the things that were effectively floating out there in order to justify them going after her. But they're claiming that there was some kind of immigration faux pa that took place that required them to ramsecker house at 5 in the morning. who knows what that would be that would justify that particular thing. As you pointed out today, they could have sent her a letter. They could have knocked on her door. She's a sitting congresswoman.

What did they think she was going to do? And also more to the point, what did they think they were going to find in a raid of her house if five in the morning? Like, what do you think she's hiding? All of her ties too. All of her ties as a secret agent for radical jihad. Yeah.

I'm saying it's outrageous. I'm saying it's outrageous. And they're obviously doing this not because there's some kind of secret jihadist camp that she's working with or not because there's some kind of secret immigration paper that they're going to find and they're going to be like, we got her, debt to rights, that if we didn't raid her house at 5 in the morning, she was going to hide this immigration document. I don't believe in that, right? Yeah, I mean, look, let's face it. If she had a name like, you know, Mary Claire, Marie Claire O'Malley, and let's just say, you know, her, her, Her case of her choice in headgear was different, and she just had like free-flowing blonde locks, I guarantee you that she would not have been rated yesterday morning.

Agree. Agree. If Melania Trump is in this country, and Melania Trump can barely speak English, then maybe we should start with her, Homer. Right, right. And, you know, I mean, it does bring up some interesting points about, like, well, how many people have irregularities in their documents?

I wouldn't be surprised if it's quite a few. I mean, and I don't even know that's kind of a feature, not a bug. I mean, you know, you know what questions, you know, when you fill out a form, you know what the answer should be. And, you know, if you feel like you can get away with it, you tend to do that. We have a comment here from Dead Meme Club. Thanks so much for the donation, $20. Absolutely astonishing that oil prices haven't exploded.

We need more power than ever for data centers. and we have the least amount of oil available in reserves since the 1970s. It is astonishing. You know, as a, you know, I used to work on Wall Street. And I was used to the markets reacting on a hair trigger. And this was in the pre-Internet age, you know, where you're working on a Quotron machine. It was like ancient, a little LED display. Here, you know, you have the information is incredibly, you know, available quickly.

We know exactly what's going on. If I were an oil futures trader, I'd be going crazy. I mean, I don't know. No, you're right. You would think it would be much higher than what it is. It makes them no sense. blew up an oil fill yesterday. Yeah, Dead Mame Club is totally right.

Michael, thank you so much for joining us. We see you backstage. Need you to click both the video camera and the mic so that we can see and hear you, and then we'll bring you right on. It's just there we go. All right, we see him. And then let's just go ahead and bring him on. Without further ado, I'll take out the, all right.

Good morning, Michael Tracy. Thank you so much for joining us here on D program. How are you doing? Good morning. What's going on, oh, man? How's it going this morning? Not much. I can't, hard to say yet because I woke up very recently, but we'll see you.

The more, the day is young. Okay, so tell us a little bit about, I mean, for people who have not been following this, well, everybody's been following the Cornell rape allegations, you've been covering this. You went up to Ithaca to poke around. You're an independent journalist and commentator, and you've gotten quite a bit of notoriety in the corporate press in the last week, most notably, I think, for publishing online the,

Jane Doe's real name, and then you thought better of it, and you took it back down. And I want to ask you about that. But if you could just sort of tell us, and we're going to go, Jamarland and I will alternate back and forth on questions, but if you can just sort of tell us, you know, what's your interest in this case and what's your take generally? Like, what do you think, what, you know, why were you interested in this? Why did you go? What did you find out?

And what do you think happened? Well, it's not so much that I thought better of the wisdom of publishing the name. The name and the identity of the claimant that I reported was accurate. You know, I spent three or four days, journalistly verifying who this was. So it wasn't a matter of the accuracy of the reporting being in question. No, I didn't mean to imply that. Yeah, just to clarify, just to clarify.

Yeah, yeah. It was simply that I didn't necessarily want my website, right, which to be the only place on the internet with any, you know, media or journalism adjacency that people could log on to to ogle at this person, right? Because I felt that it was much more prudent to keep the attention trained on what I regard to be her Huckster lawyers and this racket that they run, along with many of the other plaintiffs attorneys and firms who really inflict all this kind of hysteria on the public through these sleazy methods that are not really well understood because the media provides

cover for them I mean look what the the New York Times ran a piece recently and they're one of the one of the organizations you know on a crusade against me now or you know their dog you might have to spend hours on the phone with them over the weekend who the hell knows what they're going to spit out soon, but, um, but look at, like, they lauded. So fun. What's that? Media cluster fucks are so much fun. Yeah.

Uh, they lauded, okay, the, and every, others are lauding the Cornell Daily Sun, which is the student newspaper at Cornell, right? For the supposedly, supposedly according to Julie K. Brown and people, you know, the foremost Epstein journalist supposedly in the U.S. These, these kids at Cornell are, you know, they give us hope for the future because of their intrepid, do. And what did they do? They sat around and waited for this lawyer, Thomas Gufra,

to file a lawsuit on September 16th, and then a couple days later, they published an article, repeating the claims of the lawsuit, taking them at face value, and posting and publishing the names of the seven defendants, as though it was some brave act of journalism. Okay, and now they're getting showered with plaudits for this from the New York Times and from Julie Kay Brown,

because Julie K. Brown did the same thing over the course of the supposedly landmark Epstein journalism that she just got a fake Pulitzer for earlier this year. The Pulitzer Committee invented a fake award, literally, to give her in 2026 relating to articles that she published in 2018. Because she effectively did the same thing. She would take material from profit-seeking plaintiff's attorneys who have a strategic self-interest in pumping out the most salacious, lurid, graphic claims into the public arena through the media so that they can agenda support for their intended litigation goal, which is to extract the maximum settlement monies from whoever they're targeting individually or institutionally. So this is a practice that I think needs to have more attention brought to it for the damage that it does constantly

in the havoc it reeks. And this Cornell thing is the latest. example so in publishing the name uh i saw the the the primary utility of that as journalistically contesting this idea that the media is just going to uh enable or abet the the strategies of these uh totally unscrupulous profit uh profit seeking uh lawyer syndicates like thomas gufra who just got done attempting the same sort of thing with uh shan diddy combe where the presiding judges rebuked him over and over again for false claims he threw in there to get in a feeding frenzy after Diddy was indicted in 2024. And this guy, Gufra, had demanded likewise an anonymity for his three male clients

who he was bringing lawsuits on behalf of who were alleging some sort of rape by Diddy. Okay. And then, you know, mysteriously enough, Diddy goes to on criminal trial not long thereafter. And none of these guys got, none of these clients represented by this guy, Guifer, are involved, even involved in the trial. And the judge denies that they can be kept permanently anonymized. So I guess they've been judicially doxed by, you know, by federal judges. So I'm sorry, I just want to put a fine point on it.

So am I, correct me if I'm wrong. Is your take basically if the, if the guys can be doxed, it's not fair for the accuser not to also be to be publicized and to remain anonymous? is that basically it. And then the other thing is, I want to be, if you can just still go on the record, do you think she's lying? I wouldn't say it's an eye for an eye, you know, in terms of my view

as to the justifiability of publishing the claimant's name or the plaintiff in this litigation, right? Two wrongs don't make it right. You know, I don't think the lawsuit ever should have been, you know, I'm highly, highly, highly doubtful that this law should ever should have been brought in the first place, right? Why? I mean, do you think it's all it apart upon scrutiny? I mean, obviously they put they, this is part of the tactic, right, that I'm trying to contest, the lawyer, the civil lawyer,

the tactic where obviously they throw out a narrative that seems utterly salacious, that seems utterly shocking, that gets everybody in a frenzy, that sends social media into an uproar, that gets the media, you know, enraptured. And now, you know, as, you know, day after day after day, we get more and more countervailing information that shows the incredible dubiousness and unsupportability of the initial narrative that was presented in the civil complaint but people take that's the thing journalists take it at face value people on the ordinary people uh so journalists are the most indicted by taking it at face value ordinary people don't really know better by and large they don't really know a whole lot about the court system or the tactics of profit-seeking plaintiff's attorneys right

So if they see something in an official look in court document, they assume it must be reflective of the truth, which it most certainly is not. I mean, just look at what the same lawyer got done doing with Sean Diddy Combs. Please look. He, that has been rebuked over and over again for putting in false claims and speciously demanding that his clients be anonymized. So I'm not saying just because they named the seven and the defendants that therefore she ought to be named, although it would seem like basic fairness and parity that, you know, in the United States, I mean, there is a fundamental right to confront your accuser, right? And not just in the court of law. I mean, this has been held by federal judges that when, you know, litigation spills out into the public, right?

In the media, then, you know, there is a way in which that the claims are being litigated in the public domain, right? So the idea that there's that the, that's a similar aged person, right, who's making a claim against, you know, against, you know, her peers effectively. also just be presumptively anonymized, no matter the veracity of the allegations, no matter any countervailing evidence, it just doesn't make sense. It's a matter, it's a dogma that the journalist is, I just have to just have to, I just to follow up on this. I mean, so, okay, I get that. No, I don't think she's lying so much. I mean, I can explain that. I can answer. Okay, well, I do want, I definitely want to hear you, hear you address that. But I mean, okay, so when I read your, you're, you said when you decided to take her name down.

And that raised two questions for me. First of all, why did you change your mind about and decide to take it down? And secondly, what's the point of it, given that it's the internet. And once it's been up there, it's out. Because I didn't want, because look, I mean, it was an, it was a, I'll, I'll admit, sorry, this is a fly. I'm trying to kill it. It's gone to me crazy.

There was a, it was, it was an anomalous decision. I'll freely acknowledge for a very, in a very anomalous situation. Okay, I had just been the subject. The entire internet bearing down on me pretty much, you know, with thousands of women on TikTok and Instagram making videos addressing me by name and like calling up my father and sending suspicious packages to the house that I haven't lived in in years in New Jersey.

Okay, so I didn't want, you know, I made the decision. You're feeling some sympathy for her? No, I made the decision that I don't even be seen as a, potentially encouraging, which I never did, but even potentially encouraging anybody to like try to get retribution on my behalf against her or anything like this. But there's no takebacks, right? I mean, once you put, there's no takebacks, right? Like once it's out there.

Well, I mean, sure, but, you know, the name was already out there. If you want to talk about doxing or publishing the names, her lawyer is doxed her. Her lawyer, I never posted her address. I never did anything that's reminiscent of doxing. I never said I was going to publish her like, you know, home address. phone number, social security number, email address, parents. Okay, but once the name is out, right. Identifying the, it's not doxing.

It's not inherently malicious, okay, to identify the litigant in a court action. Okay, that's a matter of, that's by definition in the public domain. It's having all these downstream reverberations. The governor of New York came out based on the, the, the, the allegations in the civil complaint and demanded an overhaul of the New York State Criminal Code around sexual assault. They appointed one of the most unethical people in the, an ethical public officials in the entire country with the possible exception of Donald Trump,

Leticia James, as the special prosecutor, to supersede the DA in Tompkins County. I mean, you have AOC waltzed out in Ithaca, like the week that they are this broke, basically. They're summarily declaring that these seven were guilty of drugging and gang raping. So, you know, had politicians, you know, joining in the frenzy and so forth. Obviously, it was a matter of public interest.

It was like a private dispute right at that point. It's having society-wide effects. So at the same time, I reasoned that once my primary objective had been achieved journalistly, meaning not just meekly accepting that the media is going to as a matter of this trauma-informed victim ideology thing, permanently anonymized. anyone who can ever make any kind of claim of sexual victimization. And in so doing, Aiden Abed,

the sleazy profit-seeking tactics of these plaintiff lawyer cabals, that had been, once I had published the name, you know, it was out there, it was achieved. That, then I thought the point has been made such that,

and given the intense, you know, vitriol around this, I don't necessarily want my substack to be the landing page. Okay, I get it. We have a limited amount. We have a limited amount of time.

So Jamar can go and then an ogle at her. Okay. So we want to get to the rationale, but that was the rationale. We want to get to everything. Jamaril, please go ahead. Michael, it sounds like you've been to public pressure. I'm just saying. No, I didn't.

I mean, I didn't. I mean, so you think I'm lying about the rationale. Why would I lie? No, no, no. I don't think you're lied about the rationale. I think you're telling the truth. Okay. I don't, I think everything you've said has been true.

You think, so you think I, you think I'm capitulating to a mob? Have you known me to really do that? No, but, but okay, fair enough, fair enough. Right enough. I'm not going to push her on that point. I mean, it just, the only way that I bent to public pressure is if I'm lying about the rationale. I mean, the rationale is what I sincerely believe. I mean, I will show you the text message that I sent her before I published it where I repeated this.

Even before there was a public pressure to bent to. Okay. My, my intent was to not to necessarily focus excessively on her. I mean, she was, she was 20 years old when this happened. I don't want, I wouldn't like. for this to define the rest of her life necessarily. But at the same time, you got to weigh competing considerations, right? On the one hand, it's in the public interest not to just acquiescee Huxter lawyer tactic of reflexive and anonymization.

On the other hand, she's 20 years old. She might not fully grasp what she's gotten herself into. This lawyer, I think, is much more primarily responsible for the fiasco that's been unleashed. So that's what I wanted to keep the focus on. But in order to keep a focus on that, you do have to de-anonymize the client. and not legitimate the tactic, right? So again, you have to weigh competing factors. So this is what I communicated to her.

Okay, so if you think I'm lying about the rationale, I have proof that I'm not because this is what I believe. Just be clear, I don't think you're lying. I think you're explaining to leave. How did I bend to public pressure? Because I mean, even, okay, if we're going to get into it, let's get into it. When you first, when Ted asked you that question,

the first thing you said was all of these people have been doing so forth. That sounds like public pressure, public sentiment. And you've been in the internet game long enough to know that the moment that you put a name out, it's out forever. But even if you take it back, it's out forever. I know.

Okay. So I'm not insane, right? For saying it seemed like it was a huge amount of public pressure that was being applied to you. You were saying people came up to your dad's house. They were sending stuff on anonymous packages. I know, but I did it anyway. That didn't stop me from publishing it.

True. I guess I'm just making a point of saying it's saying it's saying. found it like public pressure. That didn't stop me from going to Ithaca and calling on the mayor to resign. So what public pressure might be? Yeah. I mean, there was an attack. Okay, the whole point of the I am Jane Doe movement that was launched apparently in reaction to me, okay, was to supposedly confuse or disrupt my

attempts to identify the real Jane Doe because the idea was you're going to have all these women saying, I'm Jane Doe. Hey, Michael Tracy, I am Jane Doe. So that would somehow, you know, inhibit my ability to figure out the real Jane Doe. Will the real Jane Doe please stand up? Well, it didn't work, okay? So I figured out the real Jane Doe,

but that was the logic behind those I am Jane Doe, you know, videos and everything in the threats and the quote-unquote attempted doxy of me. So there was an attempt to exert pressure on me, but it didn't affect my behavior. Let's not the labor of the point. We want to, because there's so much more to this, right? Okay.

The thing I wanted to get to is just step back, just so the audience will know. what were her claims and what of the claims that you see to be the reason why you make the point of saying, well, this case shouldn't have even been bought? I mean, the moment that the case fell apart. I mean, so when the lawsuit was first filed, okay, it obviously, the headline claim is the most salacious one. That's why I cause such a media frenzy. Gang rape, drugging and gang rape among seven gang rapists. I mean, that's what was alleged in the initial complaint.

If you take it a face value, which of course most of the media and social media does. Now, if you'll notice, in the initial complaint, we don't have all kinds of other exculpatory evidence that's in the record that was progressive, you know, first not even reported at all, but by the media organizations that were getting stuff leaked to them. So, you know, New York Times, ABC, CBS, et cetera. It's taken TMZ, okay, to actually post the full text exchanges that we get the full context of stuff, such as 36 hours after this purported gang rape, what they're calling now gang rape. she is in communication by text with one of the alleged gang raping assailants characterizing what transpired to him directly as a consensual, quote, gang bang to quote her. I wish I didn't have to quote the word gang bang on a public stream, you know, at the moment. It's okay.

But that's what she said. That's her terminology. You have no community standards here on the Instagram show. She says she says she enjoyed it. She said she wants to meet up with them again, that she enjoyed the sexual activity. and she wants to engage in other additional sexual activity with them and also adjust substances with them. I wanted to. I'm glad you brought this up.

Why not? Because they're tailoring it to extract settlement money from Cornell, from the sorority. Michael, I'm glad you brought up this point because there's a, and there's other stuff, right, like she was upset that she didn't get invited to the next fraud party. But we see this a lot with these kinds of cases. And psychologists call this phenomenon fawning, right? And I have a little familiarity with it. Basically, a victim will try to normalize, we'll use normalizing language after something traumatic to be like, we're okay, we're okay.

And it makes it very difficult to convict in a court of law. I think this case will be very difficult, would be difficult to convict in a criminal procedure. They might have better luck in the civil claim, I don't know, just like with OJ. But I think it introduces reasonable doubt, right? But at the same time, it's also not uncommon, right? Like for a rape victim to reach out to her assailant, to her rapist, later and be like, we're good, right? And that doesn't mean she wasn't raped. I'm just saying it's not, it's evidence, but it's not proof.

Can we agree to that? Well, number one, there is an ongoing criminal investigation. The governor has appointed a special prosecutor. Okay. there is a very serious threat that. But there wouldn't have been originally, if not for this lawsuit. This issue would have died in 2024. The prosecutor at the time back two years ago considered it and assessed that basically

there wasn't a case to be far. I know, but the politics have changed things here. I know. Well, but but the dissemination, the strategic dissemination by these civil lawyers of the civil complaint into the media bloodstream then is what simulated the, the whole public outcry. Right. And then stimulated the appointment of the special prosecutor, right?

And so it's all based on this one civil complaint that everybody's taking a face value, okay, which is absurd. It's absurd to take a civil, a profit seeking, I mean, the whole point of filing a civil complaint rather than pursuing criminal charges, which is what this law, there was something to it. I mean, two boys, Cornell, you know, had a title nine hearing. They expelled two students. They disciplined another five.

You know, I mean, it's obviously something. that was deemed by some people to be untoward. Which which is as asked covering, you know, proocratic procedure where you know who makes those decisions as to what punishments to dole out. It's these like moronic bureaucrats who have no special particular, particular expertise in anything. They're like university employees.

One of them got caught on a Zoom hearing when she was supposed to be like evaluating the evidence for one of the seven in terms of what he was a supposedly culpable of and what a penalty you should receive. She got caught driving in her car and like browsing the internet and stuff. I mean, these title line proceedings are a joke. No, they're a joke. We can agree on that. But on the question of like, oh, it doesn't mean that somebody hasn't been raped if they

say that it was consensual for weeks afterwards and said that they want to meet up with the alleged rapists and that they enjoyed the rape. That's what I'm saying. Okay. I mean, I think at a certain point. It's well documented. I mean, I don't know what documentation you're talking about. There's a whole sort of cottage industry of like trauma-informed stuff where it's like this therapeutic trauma jargon I call it.

Well, let me give you. All logic and reason can be thrown out the window when you appeal to like the mysterious ways that trauma work. I'm sorry. Michael, let me give you. When the recollection was the freshest. Let me give you a personal example. When the recollection was the freshest, she described it as consensual and that she enjoyed it and that she wanted to meet up again. Michael, let me give you, let me give you a personal example of what I mean.

Okay, many years ago, regular listeners know about my lawsuit against the LA Times. I was roughed up by the LAPD. The encounter was recorded. And in the recording, you can hear me at the end of it, ask the cop who just roughed me up for, is there any place around here where I get something to eat? Now, at the time, my 10 friends were waiting at the rest of the time. for me. There already was a place for me to eat. I didn't need a dining recommendation. The LA Times used this as an evidence like obviously nothing bad had happened to me. It was a

friendly, polite encounter. Well, but the, and so I was very curious, like when I listened to it, you know, why on earth would I have asked? I had my friends waiting for me. There was no need. You know, I wasn't going to change where we were going to eat. I was running late because I'd just been detained by the cops. And so that's when I learned about this fawning behavior that is not common when you're when you're when you're when you're when you're a victim of an assailant and if that assailant is an ice officer whether it's a cop whether it's a frat bro whatever right so i'm just saying here's where that analogy breaks down here's the where that analogy breaks down you saying hey where's a place i can get someone to eat is not analogous that that would have that would be

that that that's not you saying it's the same it's analogous to like hey come over to the party no no the proper analogy would you be saying hey i enjoy i enjoy that attack you just launched on me or that attack you just made on me was consensual or hey let's meet up again for another attack okay not some extraneous comment about where to get something to eat but okay I'm saying how she characterized the alleged crime itself

in the immediate aftermath was of its consensuality that she voluntarily enthusiastically partook in it that she wanted to do it again that it was a gang bang not a gang rape so what what information are you saying well I'm going to receive it Let me, let me interject here, since I'm the co-host of the show here. Michael, let me talk here.

I'm trying to. Okay. So what, so like at one point, and I thought this was the phrase that really, I think probably we all read this, where she said, she reached out to the two guys that she claimed she had a consensual encounter with, a threesome, that then spread into a non-consensual encounter according to her with the subsequent five guys. And she says, hey, let's do it again sometimes. but next time with no ketamine and next time with your without all those extra guys.

To me, that's like a really interesting statement that to me appears to define her narrative, right? Like if I'm on if I'm on her side of this, her accusation is she's not complaining about the first two guys except to the extent that they went on Snapchat. Except right now. And invited all of their gangraided all of their buddies to join. right but like that's that's where she's that's where she's sorry that's what she's giant flies killing me but i'm just i'm trying to i'm trying to keep this together here there's like there's a so she's straight she said that except for the fact that the invitation on snapchat she was okay with the first two guys at least at the beginning then they're now they're now also accusing of

gang rape now yeah because because of the invitation is the i mean no I mean, they're accused of being perpetrators of gang rape. The lawyer, Gufra, says that at no point could she have consented to anything from the moment she walked in the house? That's their argument now. Yeah, and I think this case criminally will depend on how she presented in terms of was she visibly intoxicated. So you ask, is she lying, right? I think that's too simple. It's very so.

What do you think it's going on here? It's very seldom a black or white situation, right, where somebody's either lying or talking. or telling the truth. Oftentimes, what happens is that humans are incredibly impressionable and suggestible, right? And they have an extraordinary ability to convince themselves that things are true or that a certain narrative or like reconstruction of past events is true, where they might not be consciously, they might have been sort of convinced of a fundamentally inaccurate narrative of reinterpretation of things, but also not be consciously lying. They think they could think that they're consciously telling the truth. I mean, we see this over again with Epstein stuff,

where it's a similar reframing, especially if there's a financial incentive at play, right? With Epstein, you got like a billion dollar industry to convince women who took a luxury vacation to the Caribbean on a private island that they were sex traffic 20 years ago. And then if they reframe things, they can get millions of dollars in tax-free settlement money and they're a trafficking victim. Similarly here, when you know, it seems, like, you know, as the, as the, God, sorry, as the weeks went on, this, this, you know, rumor spread. It seems to me like one of the proximate causes of what caused all this unpleasantness was that there were, you know, the other girls in her sorority were like being mean to her,

and there was nasty, nasty rumor spreading. I mean, sororities, I mean, my God, I mean, think of the drama there, regardless of a purported, you know, a gang bang situation. It must have been very unpleasant for her. And then so, you know, she felt slut-shamed. Yes, I mean, she said so. But, I mean, initially, she was like lighthearted about it where like one of the, one of her fellow sorority members, sisters or whatever, was, I believe speaking to the

Title IX investigator and recounted that, I think like the day after the incident, she said to the alleged victim, you know, people, people are saying that you're a slut or something like this. And then the alleged victim said, it's true. Ha, ha, ha. Like, she was making light of it that she was in fact, you know, whatever. That was kind of how it was recounted because she had this whole, her mindset was one of sexual open-mindedness.

Like she said in one of the text messages, like, look, people shouldn't be so uptight about this. This is the kind of thing that they did in medieval times or whatever, meaning like a group sexual encounter, right? So she was like into it at the time. But then it caused all this gossip and pushback for her embarrassment. So then, yeah, and you could see why she would then want to reframe things and reinterpret things such that she wanted to sort of like restore her reputation so that she wasn't somebody who just like willingly partook in this quote gang bang because that's sort of embarrassing. And it's also embarrassing to walk around a college campus and have people snickering at you for having done this, right? So then there's an incentive to then recast things.

And now with two weeks and then two years with two years later, all of a sudden it gets even more dramatically recast. to a gang, a vicious gang rape where nothing was consensual. Which is totally implausible. So I don't know that she's lying per se. I think people can become genuinely convinced of a sort of self-interested, confirmation bias, sort of like motivated reasoning, reframing of past events, such that it's not so much willful lying in that they're conscious that they are saying something untrue.

true, right? It's more about how they've sort of been, they've been suggested into an alternate understanding of what happened. So it would be much easier if it were so simple as lying versus truth telling, right? But unfortunately, there are many gray areas in this. Well, if we accept your point, right, where it's like, well, look, she sent a text message. She said this. I mean, Ted kind of has a point. Let's assume for the moment that the first two guys was consensual. which it sounds like. And then the other people, she was unable to consent because she was unconscious. That's not by definition, right?

Like, meaning, let's say for the moment that the first two that she walks in, she's down for the first two. Yes, I want to have ketamine. I want to have sex with two guys. I want to have some fun. And then the two guys, on their own, invite other guys into it to have sex with her as she's unconscious. By definition, she couldn't acquiesce, or she couldn't agree. to the other five guys right well hold on this is a misunderstanding and this is because of the

sleazy uh cheap uh tactic of the plaintiff's attorneys who kind of at in the at a first blush impression have people believe that it was seven gang uh people perpetrating a gang rape not all even all seven are alleged if you read the granular details of the lawsuit yeah which i mean did a o c read it before she trotted out uh in itica and declared uh declared declared the all guilty of drugging and gang raping, using the platform of her office to do so? Of course not. Nor did the mayor, who I called on to resign for doing this. The mayor of Ithaca called the perpetrators.

Later today, they're holding a rally in Ithaca, where if you look at the city website, itthaca.gov or whatever, it says rally for crime victim. Really? I mean, do these people have like any fidelity at all? Michael, can you please try answering tomorrow's question because I really want to hear it too. I want to hear the answer. So not all of them are even accused of engaging any sexual activity with her, okay? So that's another fallacy that they strategically spit out there.

So people would have the most, you know, sort of extreme conception of what took place, seven gang rap, nor is it alleged that the, the sexual activity that did take place happen simultaneously. Okay, but, okay, let's say that that's true. First of all, then you have to ask the attorney who's out in the, in the media, making the case on this, why he's arguing that all, all, of the accused are gang rape, meaning that every little step of sexual contact that was ever made with her that night

from the moment that she entered the house was sexual assault or rape because that's what they're claiming, right? So they're not acknowledging a subtlety like you just... But what do you think about the subtlety? What I think was that if it is, let's say hypothetically, it is the case that she initially consented to the first two.

But not the last five. That's theoretically possible. But what would that hinge on? That would hinge on the contemporaneous evidence. There's really no contemporaneous evidence, including in her own words and actions, that there was a lack of consent following the first two at all. You know why? How we know that?

Because in her own account. There's the text that I quoted. That is evidence. No, not necessarily. I mean, not necessarily. No, not necessarily. She said, let's do that again with the first. She's saying nothing.

Let's do that again with the first. That was great. Let's not do the other thing again. that's evidence i mean she she said something to the effect of nothing illegal happened i loved i really love being with you two guys the most maybe let's do let me do it next time but not have the other anybody else come in that's that's not necessarily her declaring that um she was raped by any of the subsequent people who came in okay and and in fact she's exculpating the others because she's saying nothing illegal happened uh i mean i don't know i don't think she's a lawyer or a judge right so she probably

doesn't know if something illegal, you know. What? I mean, let's use some common sense. She doesn't, a woman doesn't know if she is raped. Look, for what we know so far, like I said, I think that the prosecutor probably made the right decision legally not to charge criminally at the time because it would have been really hard to prove in a court of law. What we're talking about here, though, is ethically what do we think happened?

And also, you know, we're talking about, you know, reporting and, you know, this nature. And basically, why do you not believe her? And I think we, you know, I'll let your mouth have a question. It's not a matter of belief or disbelief. It's a matter of evaluating the totality of evidence. And yeah, in order to do that, we have to evaluate the claimant who has been strategically anonymized by her profit-seeking attorney. Okay.

So that's, I mean, everybody's assessing the veracity or the credibility and the statements of the defendants. They were named right off the bat. Their addresses were posted right off the bat in the court docket, right? Their mother's names were posted. They were fired from their jobs. within the first couple days, okay, or at least one or two of them, I believe. So that happened.

So it's not a matter of belief or disbelief. It's as a rational assessment of the evidence as we can make. It's not that I just instinctively disbelieve her. Again, I just said that I would not be surprised if on some level she does currently genuinely believe in the vera—in the truth of this narrative. But then it comes out, okay, so what do you believe? if you if you if you if you want to say let's believe her why we're not going to believe what she said when she had the freshest recollection within 36 hours and she called it a consensual gang bang and then anybody who's commenting on it it's not in their jurisdiction and they should mind their own business and our body our choice that's what she said our body our choice now we didn't hear we didn't know she said that for the first you know two weeks or so because the media is you know all bound up in this you know again trauma informed victim ideology thing where they're against transparency on disclosure in this one particular issue and selectively leak on behalf of the profit-seeking lawyers. But finally, we got it thanks to TMZ. And she says,

our body, our choice. So why do you disbelieve her when she says our body, our choice, 36 hours after the incident? To be fair, I don't believe her or disbeliever. If anything, the only thing I know is a gang bang took place. That's all I know. Well, she says, but now they say gang bang. She initially said gang bang. Now they when there's money at stake well i'm assuming it was a gang bank now whether it was entirely consensual all the way through i'm unclear because as you point out this hasn't been adjudicated by a court of law right this is what needs to happen which is what needed to happen right it needed to be adjudicated not hey here's salacious claims and now everybody's kind of unclear of what

you're trying to hear on the internet in the sense that she submitted a three weeks after the initial incident a six-page comprehensive sworn statement she signed it it was submitted okay she was given opportunities to revise it you know it's very it's not that it's not typical really for a potential victim to necessarily on her own volition compose a very lengthy meticulous detailed six-page statement going over every conceivable detail of what transpired that day before you know in the afternoon the night the day you know that the day after et cetera and then that was that was submitted to the police have then submitted to the DA. And the DA, you know, on the basis of that statement, I, you know, made what was

clearly, you know, the sensible decision into in that, and not prosecuted. Because, like, she's giving all this exculpatory information. Like, you can't prosecute somebody. If the person that they allegedly, uh, say, uh, assaulted or raped, um, is, is over and over again absolving them of criminal culpability in their own sworn statement, um, it's not like this was coerced out of her or she was a, interrogated, like she'd follow it. She on her own volition decided to go and proactively make this statement exculpating them. Just to be clear, though, just because she did that, that doesn't necessarily mean that, look, I can tell you from my own experience, in two different experiences.

In one case, I knew a guy. You know him also. He's accused the rape. Big splashy headline comes out and huff at the post. He gets fired from his job immediately. Like, not even in the vest. It's just fire from his job immediately. And come to find out when people actually get the opportunity to talk to her, she makes this point of basically saying it was consensual. And then she talked to her husband and realized it was rape, in which case she called it rape. And then they had to pull the up to post piece when people realized it wasn't necessarily rape, but she just didn't necessarily like the fact that her husband engaged a particular way.

So on that side of it, true. But I can tell you from my own person experience, rape as a child, never said a word about it, I mean, granted, I didn't exculpate a person who did it. By the same token, there was still communication between family and everything else that had never necessarily bought up for hashtag reasons. I'm saying she may look at the stuff as her choice, her body, etc. But she also might not have necessarily been a boy. She was also an adult.

I mean, let's like, potential rape of children, I think is a different issue completely. You know, especially the younger the child is. we're talking about same adults here okay i'm just trying to make a basic point that she might not have been down with what happened but also might not have wanted to admit it to herself of what happened if it makes sense okay well i mean look that that might be possible but but when when we get to a situation like that right then i i struggle to understand why everybody deems it so you know fanatically necessary for for for whatever issue a problem might have occurred right there as something that the criminal

justice system needs to hash out. That's always a disaster, it seems to me. Like, sometimes there are alternate, alternate conflict resolution mechanisms, right? Especially if some of the harm that she was clearly experienced and that contributed to why the situation unfolded the way that it did in the weeks that followed was because of the gossip and the chatter, right? Look at her text messages where she's definitely expressing, um, uh, uh, disquiet or a anguish to the other God to the guys about the rumors that are spreading and the room and the guys are actually pretty empathetic toward her saying look we're so sorry we're trying to stop the rumors we hope you're doing well let us know if we can do anything like it's a situation that like I'm sorry you can imagine

like some dopey college kids of both sexes who are drunken idiots having to deal with and maybe like the best way to deal with it is not to just shunt it out into the criminal justice apparatus because we're like all demanding justice and accountability I mean how come that how come is it's a how come leftists and liberals in particular. A few years ago, they were all marching for defund the police, abolish the prison state, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, all these basically anti-incarceral, almost quasi-anarchistic slogans. But then when you come to the area of sex crime,

they're like the most punitive, like, retribution zealots on earth. They want to throw everybody and everybody in prison. They want to close the non-existent rape or intoxication loophole in New York as if New York State has been a hotbed of just state-sanctured rape for decades and make it easier for prosecutors to throw people in prison willy-nilly. I mean, explain that to me. Explain how this is the one area where everybody's critical faculties and pre-existing claim to adherence to certain principles around criminal justice and the prison state and so forth, just get, I don't know, tossed by the wayside. It's totally bizarre.

Like, you don't think there's any other potential way for whatever unease or whatever problem that this woman experienced in the aftermath of this episode could have been addressed. I mean, look at the whole debacle that's unfolded right now. Is this like the best way to go about handling situations like this? Clearly not. Well, I mean, it's the system we have. Michael, thank you so much for joining us here on D-Program. We appreciate you taking the time.

And hope you felt like you were treated. fairly and we will talk to you maybe later okay all right sounds good all right take care bye have a go man okay so um yeah i knew that would be spicy and it was spicy um yeah i mean i mean i mean i mean i mean i actually agree with them i mean like look i guess even when we talked about the case before my point of view was always how do i know what actually happened i mean it sounds like She was probably in incapacitation. She was drunk. She was already drinking, yeah, before she arrived.

Yeah, she just kept. Basically, she just kept drinking and then added drugs to the mix. I mean, many of us have been there, right? You know. And you end up having a gang pay. Now the catch becomes, okay, wasn't consensual all the way through or whether there were parts of it that were consensual. Either way, I mean, it's a mess.

And as, you know, random person sitting outside of it, looking into it, how do I know what happened? It's that part. We don't know. We don't know. I mean, we know what happened. We just don't know what it means, right? Ethically and legally.

We don't know if the story is, which is the issue. Because if the story is, she was. Although I have to say, as a guy myself, I think you're a fucking idiot. If you have sex with someone who is, you know, visibly drunk or impaired or, you know, I don't mean just a tad tipsy. You know, I mean, if someone's totally fucked up, you should not have sex with them. I mean, obviously. Yeah, but if you're totally fucked up, too, it's not your fault, right? Well, that's what things get really complicated and out of hand, yeah.

But it shouldn't be complicated. But this is like the DUI argument. Like, oh, if you're really fucked up, you shouldn't, you know, how I was saying, like, well, if you're so fucked up, you don't have judgment. So therefore, can you be blamed when you get behind the wheel of a car? But that's different, though. I mean, getting behind the wheel of a car is different. and having sex with the person when both of you are fucked up.

It's not like the analogy that you shouldn't have made, that you would not have made if you weren't fucked up. Yeah, but the analogy is that the car is also fucked up, which the car is not. You are fucked up. And you made the individual choice to get behind the wheel of a car, knowing full will, meaning you decided to drink, and then you decided to get behind the will of a car.

You're having a potential effect on other human beings that you know. But these are two people, both of which are fucked up, and both of which are making the decision. It's not the guy's fault in that case. Meaning you can't blame the guy if the guy and the female are both radically intoxicated. Let me address some of the comments in the in the chats. Several of our normal, of our regular listeners are upset that we didn't bring up, you know, Michael Tracy's take on the, on Epstein.

Now, I didn't bring it up for two reasons. I didn't bring it up for two reasons. One, I don't know much about what he had to say about Epstein. And number two, it's not just like you. It's not relevant. You know, I hate it when I'm when there's a content. Like, I want him to focus on this issue. And we can invite him back to talk about Epstein if we want.

I mean, we went to the entire show just talking about this issue. Where was Epstein a fit in? Yeah, it just would have been like, it's like not about putting him on trial. It's about having him, you know, elucidate exactly where he's coming from. Yeah. Yeah. And I agree with this basic point. His basic point is they threw the names out into the public, even though the people

hadn't been convicted of anything. And in her case, protected her, despite the fact that the guys hadn't been convicted of anything, many, they're accepting consequences for something that they haven't necessarily been convicted for and that we only have a person's word explaining what ultimately happened. And that word is kind of all over the place. Like I, look, I'm not reflexively disbelieving her. I'm willing to accept, right, this idea that the first two guys were fair game. This is what I was downfalls my body my choice and I agree that's my instinct just to believe that yeah yeah I mean besides much it's like they invited a bunch of their stupid fucking frat bros to come and join it's that part they had no business doing that that makes them rapists it's by proxy well the catch

becomes are they when when the thing the part that you pointed out in the text where she was like um the first two accepted next time let's not have you other guys Tracy is right that that's not really that other guys rate me, but it is kind of an indication of I wasn't on board for these guys. Right. But there is evidence, yeah. I mean, whether that constitutes proof, I don't know. It's that part. And the fact, and that's why, I guess that was kind of the point of striking making the trace. Just because the prosecutor didn't break a trial, doesn't necessarily mean that these guys didn't commit rape. Like, I don't know, right? I'm stuck in a position of just not knowing can you say a few extra minutes or do we have to race through okay all right all right cool

so um anything else you want to say about any of this or i don't i don't think so i mean personally i like Tracy and i like his take on this i don't think his take is i think they're he used to buy a fly swatter though well right that too but i think they're looking at its take as how are you not just believing her you're disbelieving women and this woman was obviously right and you're not acknowledging the fact that she was And I think Tracy's basic point is how do we know that as a flat fact? And our justice system isn't built on what people think. It's based on what you try to get to as a nub of it.

How can you prosecute multiple guys that are in their college years that's going to affect for the rest of their life if indeed you don't know if it was rape? And under the law, innocent until proven guilty, he has a point. It doesn't mean that they're innocent. For sure. No, right. It just means that how do you prosecute them in a criminal justice system? When you don't know it's a flat fact, it was right. And this is not a rah-rah for people who committed gang rate.

But it's interesting to me that they didn't invite her to the, there's so much, right? Like they didn't invite her to the next party. Why? I mean, obviously they felt that they had fucked up some way. And that one of the two guys that she was apparently may have been consensual with, you know, she exchanged a text with him. and basically she was kind of like he was like apologizing he reached out to her and said basically sorry for the way things went yesterday that's very that's extremely telling yeah i think that's telling too it sounds like she was down for the first two i don't know what the other one that's what it sounds like to me too so and by the way if indeed she was

not down for the other ones and if indeed she did not agree to the other ones by definition's right Well, certainly for those five. And I would say, you know, I don't know what you charge the first two with, like, you know, is there a charge for basically soliciting rape? Like, you know, when you say, hey, come on up. There's free pussy upstairs. It's called rape. I would say.

Well, but it's not legally rape, right? Because they didn't rape her, right? So the question, those two. Yeah, but they invited other guys to do so. Right. So the question is if you are, if you are enabling. it. You know what I'm saying? I don't know. I don't know how the how the person who's unconscious. This would be a New York state legal question. Yeah, but there's a person who's

unconscious. You're inviting other people in to have sex with this other person when they didn't consent. But clearly you should be charged with something. I don't know what. Well, let me actually this. If a person robs. Maybe reckless endangerment or something. The person in a get out car is going to be charged with robbery and killing if they kill somebody in that bank robbery also. Yeah. That's true. They just call it murder.

They don't call it. Yeah. Well, I'm fine with that. I mean, I think if you invite people into rape someone who's out of it or not out of it, you know, that's rape, obviously. I don't know if the law, if the law works that way. Because there's that whole question, right? Like we always conflate the legal system with the justice system and they're not the same.

Right. Yeah. No, no. That's fair. Okay. So, all right. We'll move on to. we'll get into Israel and Lebanon and Elon Musk.

What do you want to do first? Let's do Israel firms. Okay. So New York Times did a satellite analysis because I guess it's too expensive to send reporters where they looked at 60 villages that have been leveled in southern Lebanon in the parts that have been occupied by Israel most recently.

And 48 of them have been completely leveled. In other words, this is beyond just, just, I don't want to use the word just, beyond bombing. And they have special teams, just like we've seen in Gaza, go in and demolish any buildings that have survived in part or in whole. And there's literally nothing left. The IDF says this is in order to prevent there being any infrastructure that can be used by Hezbollah against targets in northern Israel, which is obviously nonsense. This is ethnic cleansing. It's about creating a space where nobody could live so they can come and go as they want, and stealing the land, basically.

They want the land. But interestingly, only Shiite villages have been targeted. Obviously, Hasbola is a predominantly Shia movement. And Druze and other villages that are not Shiite, including some Sunni villages, were relatively left unscathed. So this is definitely genocidal, right? I mean, you are in Gaza, they went after everyone. They killed Christians too.

Here, they're killing members of a particular sect of Islam and destroying their property and their homes and leaving other sects untouched or unmolested. It's in a way more specifically genocidal. Well, they're also trying to create division. between Sunni and Shia in the area. Like meaning, because the Shia would know, our villages have been destroyed.

Right? Like, you have a clear conscience of it. And when you get drools with that much closer to Israel, especially in the Syria conflict, yeah, they're leaving certain villages along for reasons. I mean, even with Saudi Arabia, if you're looking at it, like the way Saudi Arabia is trying to use sectarian divisions and trying to make this argument that answer a lot is somehow against Islam because Ansarla is attacking Saudi Arabia and so the Sunnis should come together.

Like they're using this kind of, let's say the differences in the religions, well, the assumed differences in the religion, almost as a weapon in and of itself. But yeah, they're obviously ethnic cleansing those areas. They're leveling villages in southern Lebanon, like fully leveling villages. And they want the land clearly. And part of the reason that they were going after like building materials, construction materials, construction companies, those type of things because they want to prevent any kind of rebuilding of Lebanon.

They're going after, they want the land. And yeah, they're trying to create sectarian divisions. We have some breaking news. Kimberly Gilfoyle may be unemployed soon, joining the ranks of the unemployed. She's the U.S. ambassador to Greece. She was caught. The Wall Street Journal is reporting exclusively that the White House is calling on her to resign, which obviously she will. She appears to have asked a wealthy donor to pay off $100,000 American Express bill as a way of basically laundering a bribe to her because she said, oh, that won't appear anywhere. That'll just go directly to American Express.

And apparently the wealthy donor said, I would need a divorce if I did that. I guess it's because apparently it's a guy and his wife would see this payment and be like, okay, I'm going to kill you now. So yeah, so former Mrs. Gavin Newsom is in deep shit. Oh, that was Gavin Newsom's wife. Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that. Interesting. Oh, yeah. She's, she's, she's, she's bipartisan in that respect. Well, I think she's screwed. Yeah, she's probably going to lose her job. And she needs to do better. Like, yeah, there are better ways except bribes, right?

Yeah. Other people have found all sorts of creative ways except bribes. Donald Trump is magnificently rich. But there's an irony, by the way, of this idea of her being fired for taking bribes. By Trump. And the money that Donald Trump has been able to monetize, office for $2 billion. Yeah.

$100,000. It's like, you know, it's like, it's like editorial cartoon that came out during the 2008 subprime mortgage meltdown and all the banks fucking up. And it's two bank managers looking through out the window of their office at a guy, a classic bank robber with the mask holding up the teller. And he's like, amateur. Right. Yeah.

That's an amateur move. With all of the. bribery that takes place in this country and you get caught. Yeah, it's sad. Do better. $100,000. Trump is like, that's like not even a tip. That's a rounding air. That's a rounding air. That's a rounding air. Nothing. Like, Tom is making billions. Like, even on an oil trade, he has people, like, making side deals. Like, it's astonishing. Like, meaning he is using policy and sitting out Kushner or Whitkoff and sending these guys out, what these guys are making deals based on the terms of what Donald Trump is still. Also, some other breaking news, a massive cyber attack hit France.

380 refrigeration systems at supermarkets were struck last week, according to the French government. And they're trying to figure out who's responsible. They targeted a Danish software system. Wait, there could refrigeration system is disconnected to the internet and somewhere? Apparently so, yeah. It's a Monopree, which is what they called a, they call it hyper-marche, a hyper-market, a IPR-Marche, the Monopree chain, which is like, it's like Walmart where they sell food, but it's like even more food, right?

And anyway, they said that no one's claimed responsibility. They don't know who it was. You know, obviously lots of food had to be thrown away. I wonder if this could be the Iranians or, you know, Russia or the kids that are 16-year-old kids, who knows? Yeah, it could be. I mean, like, some of those kids ostensibly will be really good at computers. I mean, they're kids. Yeah.

And we're not talking about like five-year-olds. We're talking about people, like 16, 17 who are going to college that may be going to college for software. It very well could have become internal in France. Hell, it could have been the Russians. it could have been the Iranians, it could have been French. This is the shape of things to come, right? I mean, yeah. That's why I thought it was worth mentioning.

And finally, Elon Musk, you mentioned this earlier. We talked about it on your show. Has given nearly, well, basically over a quarter of a billion dollars to GOP groups and political action committees just in Q3 of this year, right? This is one of the biggest political donation. recorded in U.S. history. And it's a midterm election. Can you imagine what he'll pour in in, you know, in 2026.

I mean, 2008, it'll be, it'll be crazy. Well, at some point, this feels like the steroid Olympics. The Saturday Night Live had the skit of where legalized all steroids for the Olympics. And the skit, one in the guys, tries to lift like a thousand pounds. And he rips his arms up. And it's like, arms is like, blood is speared out. And he's like just walking around with his arms pull off. It feels like that.

Whereas like at a certain amount, you guys, you've allowed this idea of money equal speech where the people with the most money can effectively give billions if they wanted to. Bloomberg gave like a billion dollars into his campaign when he ran and the primary. For all the good it did him. Yeah. For all the good it did. But a billion dollars. Think of having that much money when you dump that into a primary, not even the main election.

Imagine what he would have done in the main election. He could have literally ran his own campaign. Hillary Clinton spent a billion dollars in her campaign to put it in context for the presidential race. Bloomberg spent that much in a primary by himself. That is an astonishing sum of money to have and astonishing someone to use. And so when Elon Musk is like quietly, as they put it in the article, quietly drops quarter of a billion dollars. How do you quietly drop quarter of a billion dollars? Obviously, he's reading the paper today.

It's like not quietly enough, apparently. Not quietly enough. And obviously that money is being spread out into candidates that he think will be in his personal. No doubt through Shell corporations. It's all dark money. And just to be very clear. This is not for America. This is for Elon.

I'm putting in candidates that will be to my best interest. That's what I'm going to do because I believe I'm going to get that money back when I'm putting that money out. This is a. So I can get my calls returned. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. This is an investment.

It's not. for America. No. He's doing this personally, specifically the Ilamus. And we as American should have some feelings about that. Well, it's inherently corrupt. And it's inherently anti-democratic. That's why I disagree with you with the money equals speech stuff. I don't think money is speech. I think money and speech are two different things. Well, it should be. I'm just saying, I agree that it ought to be. I'm just saying that it isn't that it's not about odd. I'm saying they are different. Me having a dollar is not equipped me. It's not equipped me. It's It's not the same thing as me telling my dog to go outside.

No, I hear you because, I mean, the fact that the fact that like you can lose with lots of money proves that proves your point. Yeah. I guess I just thought about them being the same thing. I think the Supreme Court fucked up. They shouldn't. I mean, they were rich people doing rich things in the best interests of other rich people is what the Supreme Court did with that. That's our system. Yeah.

If you say, better to says better to live in truth but have no meaning. and purpose or to have purpose and meaning but not in truth, i.e. religion. I do not know what that's profound. I want to believe in something even if it's not true. Yeah, that's crazy. That's how I'm, I want to believe. Also, if you say says, check out Bible expert rejects Christianity after living in Amazon jungle.

All right. What? I don't know. Oh, the jungle life was so hard. He said, there is no God. Well, yeah, well, that's like a lot of. of a lot of Jews lost their faith in the camps during World War II, right? They was just like if there was a God, like either there's, either there's a God and he's an

asshole or a do-nothing or there's no God. Or look, I would tell you this statement, there is no, what is it, you have a jealous God, stuff like that. I don't believe a God would say that. Not one that, you know, it's real. It just seems very strange to me. That's something like on Stargate, where the Guaou comes down and it's like worship me as your God, that type of stuff. And it's like, I am a jealous God.

I have no other God before me. I can see them saying it. Right? But God of the universe? Yeah. I'm skeptical. By the way, I've got to tease something. So I don't know if, tell me if you, did the publisher send you the PDF, the digital version of the, of Boil.

Point, the Ukraine book? If not, make sure you, I'll ask for it. Anyway, I'm almost done with it. We're going to have Stephen Kinzer, author of this upcoming book called Boiling Point, How America Brought War to Ukraine. It's from published by a major publisher, Henry Hold, and that is, it's a barn burner. And it's all the stuff you and I have been talking about on the station and subsequently about Ukraine and like, you know, people who watch this show and listen to this show know about it. But for a, mainstream audience. And I will say, there's even stuff that surprised me. Jamarle, the U.S. has had a hard on for Ukraine going back to World War II and trying to use Ukraine as the way

to fuck with the Soviet Union and then with post-independence Russia. I knew it, I knew they'd been on, you know, since independence. But I didn't know that even back in the day, you know, they were recruiting, you know, Ukrainian Nazis back in the late 40s to attack the Soviets militarily. I mean Operation Gladio yeah crazy is that it Operation Gladiio yeah when they were um doing that stuff I knew about it going back during the Bush administration during the first Bush administration is that right during Bush first Bush no no no we've been screwed with them for a while it could you're right the Soviet Union I mean even the operation 1947 yeah it's where yeah and they recruited and like just basically like what like basically like how and also how

the foreign policy establishment of the United States, like with people like Brzezinski, has been completely infiltrated by anti-Russian, you know, Eastern European emigres. We were working with the Nazis after the Soviet Union to get information on the Soviets. Yeah. And obviously, if you're working with the Nazis, like when you're in close coordination, I don't mean just NASA. I mean literally working with Nazis that were in Germany after the war and using them as our way of getting information on the Soviets. And it's like, okay, well, what is your foreign policy going to be? Well, this is not even just, and what I'm talking about is not, this is hiring, you know, the old banderites to try to like launch military, like, assault inside the Soviet Union, you know, in 1947, while we were technically still supposed to be allies after World War II.

So it's pretty fucking scurrilous. It goes back to the early days of the CIA. So, yeah, we're looking immediately at the moment that the war ended. Day one. Yeah, totally. The moment that it ended. that was like, we should attack the Soviet Union. It's funny because a lot of the, you know, the high-ranking Nazi officials up to Hitler,

all assumed that like basically they, you know, hey, one day you guys will agree with us and you'll turn against the Soviets. And, you know, it turns out that not those Nazi leaders, they were just a few, a couple of years ahead of their time, that's all. Yeah, they were right. They were just, we were just at war with them. If we weren't at war with them, we've been allies, right? Totally.

Well, thank you so much. I haven't seen a book. I don't see it in my email. Oh, really? Okay. I'll remind them. All right. Thank you. I'll do that right after this. Yeah, you definitely want to read the book. It's a great read. Stephen Kinzer is great, and we're going to have him here on the show soon. So, all right. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate you. It's we'll be back tomorrow with the full two hours on Wednesday, 9 to 11 a.m.

Thanks for, and we'll have Robbie back next week. So TMI, no TMI this week. So basically it's a, it's a slim week, short week, slim week, Robillus week. Anyway, hope all's well. Thanks to all the people who are subscribing to the show. We've added the new subscribers to the outro that I'm about to play right now. So if you want to join that group, it's $10 a month, subscribe through YouTube. And talk to you later.

Bye tomorrow.