Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh: Why Reject Empire

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, July 9th, 2024. Our dear friend and dear friend of the show, Matt Ho, joins us now. Matt, a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Can we finally acknowledge after all the post-World War II undeclared wars, after all the military bases around the world, after all the trillions spent on formerly the Department of War, now the Department of Defense, and after a Congress that responds to its donors rather than to the voters,

that we are not a republic. We are an empire. Oh, absolutely, Judge. And thanks for having me back on. It is, I mean, anyone who denies that is either, as my friend George likes to say, too dumb or they're in on it. They're either, right? Either they just don't realize. This guy, George, sounds like he's from Jersey. Too dumb or in on it. Right? This guy George sounds like he's from Jersey.

Too dumb or in on it. It's from the, there's a great scene in the movie Casino where the slot machines keep getting robbed and De Niro says to his guy, look, you're either too dumb or you're in on

it. Either way, you can't work here. And that's essentially what we'll be saying to our government, to our guy, look, you're either too dumb or you're in on it. Either way, you can't work here. And that's essentially what we should be saying to our government, to our media, to our elites, to including our business leadership, either you're too dumb or you're in on it. You're riding what you think is a gravy train with biscuit wheels, but you're heading us, you're pulling us all off a cliff here. I mean, I think you have all the things, the metrics, the figures, the data you laid out, Judge, of just 800 military bases overseas, the size of our military, the way we run institutions around the world. Everything comes back to us. We are in charge of everything. And if we don't like it, we shut it down. So if there's any international organization or institution or government

that doesn't go with us, we either hold our money back from it and it dies on the vine, you know, it dies on the vine or we sanction it. Right. So in a world of nations, either you're with us or you're sanctioned by us. And you could see this in a host of ways of the fact that we have no principles. You know, George, there are 12 nations in the world because we just came out of pride month, right? And something that particularly the Democratic Party really likes to elucidate and really likes to pat themselves about how supportive they are of LGBTQ plus people. And even Joe Biden last month said our foreign policy reflects that, which is a complete and utter lie. And it's demonstrated a host of ways.

But the most striking is the fact that there are 12 nations in the world that have the death penalty for LGBTQ people, 10 of them receive military assistance, weapons, training, money from the United States. I mean, it shows the extent of our empire, how we are just prevalent through all nations. So either you are with us or you are sanctioned by us because those two nations that don't receive support that have the death penalty for homosexual people are Iran and Afghanistan, the Taliban, right? I mean, so just in that construct alone, you see how we have set up a world divided by the United States and those who are not with us, those who are not our vassals. And it's in our leadership, it's in our mentality, it's in our philosophy. How dare China expand their economy? How dare China have planned prudently and effectively over decades to get themselves to the point they're at

now, where their economy is the largest in the world. How dare they do that? So it's our sense of entitlement, our sense of ownership, our chauvinism, how everything belongs to us. That may be, to me, the greatest mark that we are an empire. The phrase that the Brits used to delight in saying, the sun never sets on the British Empire. Well, that refers to us. Right. And I'll add on to that. And, you know, to steal a line from our friend Ray McGovern, the sun never sets on the British Empire because God doesn't trust the British. And the same thing,

right. Can be said. Only somebody named McGovern can get away with that. And of course, and I'm not going to do it. I'll spare everybody. I could have done the full on Ray McGovern do the Irish brogue, you know,

you know, summoning his grandmother. You know, I'll spare everybody from me trying to do that. Though my grandmother was Irish as well. We've talked about that but certainly yes exactly the global span and even in a greater sense judge than uh what the brits had uh the brits had uh essentially men with muskets and sabers and horses and uh you know tallmasted ships and et cetera. We have a presence that is in all domains, full spectrum, as the American government describes it. So we have a presence through

everything, not every transaction, but the banks of the world. This is why our sanctions, while they're not politically effective, they are very effective in causing misery, inflecting punishment upon populations. Because banks around the world transit through our banking system. We control the SWIFT system. Our Federal Reserve controls the world's finances, essentially. We have that type of power. We have a digital presence. Reserve controls the world's finances, essentially, right? We have that type of power. We have a digital presence. Our NSA and CIA surveil everything.

Nothing gets transmitted around the world, whether it's by television, radio, cell phone, email, what have you, that our CIA and NSA, if they don't capture it, they have the ability to do so. We are all prevalent. We are omnipresent. And of course, that makes the empire think it's omnipotent. And in that arrogance, right, in that arrogance is its downfall. And we are seeing the rest of the world working very studiously. We just saw the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperative Organization just last week, right ahead of the NATO 75th birthday party. I don't think that was much of a coincidence. Just as the NATO birthday party begins, Judge, in Washington, D.C., you've got Vladimir Putin meeting with the head of India, Narendra Modi. And looking at that, which is more important, Putin and Modi meeting or these people blowing noisemakers in Washington, D.C. to celebrate

an alliance that hasn't been needed for most of my adult life, for almost all my adult life? Do you think that the people blowing the noisemakers even recognize the significance of the Shanghai Cooperative Organization? It represents 80% of Eurasia, 40% of the world's total population. And if they ever merge with BRICS, it's monumental in strength. They don't need the American SWIFT system or the American banks or the Federal Reserve. And they're actively, the rest of the world, the world outside of the American umbrella, they're actively working to find alternatives to American imperial hegemony. It's going on and it's accelerating. Every day nearly, there is more

reason for nations to find a way, a manner to get away from this psychopathic monstrosity of the American empire. I mean, just this weekend, we had the British medical journal, the Lancet report, at least, at least if we had a magic wand and waved it and the genocide was to stop today in Gaza, The Lancet, based upon what everything that one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world can reference regarding to war and casualties, their calculations are at least 186,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza at the hands of Israelis. If that doesn't provide- It's a shocking number. I'm sorry, Judge? It's a shocking number. It's almost incredible. It's 8% of the total population, dead, buried,

starved, killed by disease, all because Joe Biden and company are financing a madman who two weeks from tomorrow they're going to be standing and screaming and cheering for on the floor of the House of Representatives. I think we've all had a dissonance regarding what we've been seeing in Gaza and what we've been understanding in terms of the figures, the brutal reality in terms of ones and twos and what they add up to. Watching nine months of just not the bombings. And again, the bombings have been at least 75,000 tons of bombs. I think that number is outdated by a month or two at least. 75,000 tons of bombs is equivalent to what, five Hiroshima bombs in an area of 20 square miles. I mean, so that alone, what we see with the video judge of just everything being

destroyed, all the urban areas collapsed. We all know that there can't only be 10,000 people buried beneath that rubble. There can't be. We have seen for nine months now the deprivation, the deliberate, planned, orchestrated deprivation of Gaza across all lines, across all modes of effort to, as you said, Judge, starve them, dehydrate them, miserate them, targeting not just the destruction, say, just not of the healthcare system, where we've seen 32 hospital systems destroyed or nearly destroyed. I think there's only about four that are actually operating in any capacity. But we've seen hundreds and hundreds of Palestinian healthcare workers, from ambulance drivers to neurosurgeons, deliberately targeted, killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. They've taken prisoner hundreds of doctors and nurses and health care staff, the Israelis have, in order to further that immiseration, that deprivation, that killing.

So when we look at this, I think as now, even though it's so shocking, because we've not seen these numbers put forward in a manner that we can say, okay, here's the evidence. We've had assumptions. Ralph Nader said this a few months ago, at least 200,000 are dead. And I think a lot of us said, okay, Ralph, I can understand that, but there's no evidence to back that up. Where are you getting that from? But now as we've seen this put forward down by the Lancet, okay, this is in, you know, this, this, you can't contest this, you know? I mean, so I think the enormity of what we've been staring at, we've been paying attention. You and I have been talking about this, everyone on the show, all the, the, the,

the thousands and thousands of the hundreds of thousands, your 400,000 subscriber judge, they all know this, but I think what the Lancet has done is to put into writing what we inherently knew what was happening. And I think that many of us didn't want to open the door to how great the magnitude is. I think we all understood it in pieces. So we come on and we talk about the 38,000 killed. We talk about maybe 10,000 in rubble. We talk about how 85% of the housing stock in Gaza has been destroyed.

We'll talk about the latest video coming out of Darabala or out of Rafa or what have you. But when we put it together, I think that this genocide has been just too much for us all to really comprehend in a manner that the Lancet has done for us in terms of summarizing it and getting it down into the pages of their journal, which, okay, this is how, this is what we're, and to go back to the earlier question then about the resistance to empire, American empire around the world. If this is not fuel for why these other nations around the world need to get away from us, then I don't know what is. Whatever happened to the $300 million bridge we were going to build to a floating island off the coast of Gaza to feed these four people?

I don't think as much as a sandwich made its way from the floating island to the starving people. Yeah, but you know what, Judge, is really important. There are some former military and intelligence guys in Washington, D.C. who probably got second homes in BMW 7 Series because of that type of that boondoggle. dog and pony show as we used to call it uh then um you know certainly then also too the fact that this thing costs 320 million dollars is probably even more than that i think the estimates were that uh over the course of it if it's still floating i've lost track i think most of us have just given up on even paying attention to it because it's so it's not even a thing of of ridicule at this point it's so pathetic uh but i think if you average it out

only three trucks used it a day uh and the bare naked uh use of it to uh camouflage what the israelis were doing or are doing this this allowed matt miller and john kirby to point at this and say this is what we're dealing we're building this this peer. I don't know. Don't ask me about the thousands and thousands of trucks that are lined up with the aid, with the necessities, with the things that will stop the starvation in Gaza, will end the immiseration and the death. Don't ask me about that. Let's talk about this $300 million peer. And I think there's probably, you know there's one one after another there's plenty of examples of things to point to yeah but this showed it in its glory i don't know if it's still there i don't know if it's still operative i don't know if it's still uh

floating wouldn't it have been cheaper just for joe biden to call up netanyahu and say hey you're off for a couple months we're food, water and medical supplies and don't try and stop us. Well, then he'd lose the election. That's their calculation. Then he would. I mean, he's going to lose the election anyway. And these people won't do the right thing. I mean, like, wouldn't that be something if in the space of the next five months or however long until elections that the Democrats actually turn around. They say, you know what? We've lost this election anyway. We don't care about the Israel lobby's support.

We're going to do the right thing here. But that's an impossibility. Joe Biden would never have been president in the American empire if such a thing was ever possible. He also, too, is the most committed Zionist, his own words in Washington, D.C. So along with the money that goes behind these 300 million dollar peers, these boondoggles, these poster child for fraud, waste and abuse. Right. I mean, if that peer isn't the best representation of the American military and its incompetence and its waste and the grift of it all, I don't know what is. I mean, so, yeah. You mentioned Matt Miller.

So we're going to play a clip of him in a minute, and you'll either be furious or think it's hilarious. The other news this morning besides the Lancet is the report in Haaretz demonstrating conclusively that notwithstanding the denials of, based upon the government's own documents as examined and reported on by Haaretz, that more than half the 1,200 people who died on October 7th were murdered by the IDF. Israelis murdered by the IDF, fleeing Israelis, fleeing Palestinians. When asked about this, I think it's number 13, Chris, when, no, it's not 13 or 14. When asked about this, here's Matt Miller's response. I wanted to ask you first, if you read or heard about the Haaretz report on Israel employing the Hannibal directive on October 7th.

So I did see that report that moved over the weekend, and that's the limit of my knowledge of seeing that report from Haaretz. Does that make you change your position or your perspective on what really happened that day that the Israelis may be responsible for killing a majority of the people that died on that day? Boy, it certainly does not, Saeed. I don't think there's any question. I don't think there's any question that it was Hamas. Just let me finish. I don't think it's any question it's

Hamas that is responsible for the overwhelming number of deaths on October 7th. He played that for your friend and colleague, Ambassador Charles Freeman this morning. He said, I'm paraphrasing him, this is an example of why the Tony Blinken State Department is the least reputable in American history post-World War II, when they put out a statement like that. Yeah. I mean, just the willingness to lie, how easily they lie, and how the smugness, and this gets back to, we were talking about the empire judge. This is it on a person,

on a, on a personal level, on an individual level, that sense of entitlement. So not only do we have entitlement to the world economy, to the wealth of the world, to having military control, but we have entitlement to the truth.

We are entitled to the narrative. And so when a reporter asks something that is inconvenient or uncomfortable or troublesome for the empire's narrative, the response is that smirk. It's that smugness. It's that dismissiveness that we see come from, you know, so well exemplified by Matt Miller and John Kirby. All right. I mean, this type of how dare you ask something, you know, and this is how preposterous it seems to them, ridiculous it seems to them. I will say that the idea that Matt Miller has never heard of the Hamill directive is entirely plausible. He may have been lying just to shrug it off and everything.

But they're also in such a bubble there, judge these people, that they don't read anything but their own official sources. Right. So if it's not on CNN, if it's not in the New York Times, it doesn't exist. It's not real to them. There's a couple of different reasons for that, but that is what happens over and over again. Then it becomes self-reinforcing. And so we've talked about this plenty of times. When Matt Miller steps away from that podium and he goes back into the room and he's there with Tony Blinken and, excuse me, the American officials who are making policy. It's that narrative that guides the policy. So these are just not words that are meant for an external audience. These are words that actually

define what the internal decision makers adhere to. These words, the things you hear come from Miller and Kirby. That is what defines, that's what limits, that's what authorizes our policies, our ensuring that it's all contained within that narrative. I mean, so it's inherently self-destructive, right? It's a cycle that they're in that just leads to consequence after consequence of sticking to an imperial narrative that should have been dismissed long ago. But for base short term political interests, you don't want to look bad on CNN. gets worse. And it also feeds back into what we were talking earlier about with those outside the empire, say BRICS, SCO, Independent Nations, the Global South, whoever, in their determination to get away from us. They look at this and they say, my God, these people lie so easily. They have no respect for not us, but also to the truth. And they think that they can get away with it. They think that

they are so grand that they are the ones who are making history, that they are the ones making reality, that they can just deny the true reality and that things will go along for them because they own everything. And so if you're facing that as another nation, you say, my God, how do I get away from this? You know, you, I don't usually get into politics, but you mentioned earlier that maybe if Joe Biden collapses, the Democrats will return to their roots. And it makes me think that, well, when Netanyahu comes, we will see how we don't have a representative democracy because everybody in that room is determined to stand up and applaud for him more than 55 times in a 45-minute speech.

They're all going to fall all over each other to see who can show more warmth and adulation for this genocidal war criminal. And the empire has made it difficult to resist them. Aren't you jumping through hoops now in North Carolina just to get Cornel West and Bobby Kennedy on the ballot? Hasn't the empire in North Carolina written legislation to make meaningful choices on the ballot box nearly impossible? And isn't that also the case in the other 49 states of the union? Correct, Judge. I just signed a letter today that went to the North Carolina State Board of Elections. The Libertarian Party of North Carolina put it forward, but many third parties and

independents signed on to it. Because what's happening is exactly what you're saying. The North Carolina State Board of Elections, which is controlled by the Democratic Party, because for folks who are outside the U.S. who may not realize this, the political parties get to decide who their opponents are here in the U.S. In some states, it's worse than others.

But here in North Carolina, appointees from the Democratic Party who are controlled by the governor's office, who is a Democrat, are the ones who ultimately decide who is allowed to be on a ballot, who the voters of North Carolina, the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign, as well as the Constitution Party, which is a conservative party, have been denied a place on the ballot this November because the Democrats aren't too concerned about the Constitution Party, although they dislike them because that opens up this idea of independent politics. It opens up this idea of political freedom or political choice, democracy, God forbid. But what they're really afraid of is that Cornel West, Bobby Kennedy Jr. will take votes away from Joe Biden. Joe Biden's not winning here in North Carolina anyway. I think that's apparent. But they are so outraged at those who have the gall to confront them, to try and take away something that the duopoly, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, because the roles were reversed. Republicans will be doing this just as much.

You know, this idea that somehow that there's an effrontery to their entitlement, oh, that just can't be allowed. So even if the consequences were inconsequential with West canning the Constitution Party being on the ballot, it doesn't matter. It's the affront, it's the indignity, it's the assault on their entitlement that they have to protect because this is all they have. If they lose this, and why would they give up a good thing? Why would they give up that kind of control? Right, right. Matt, we're off for the next two weeks

as I'll be in Italy. Thank you for everything. Look forward to seeing you at the end of the month and in early August. Thank you, my dear friend. All right, thanks, Judge. Have a good trip to Italy. Thank you.

Thank you. What a great conversation with a very knowledgeable and courageous guy whose friendship I deeply value. Coming up at three o'clock, another dear friend, Karen Kwiatkowski, and at 4.30, the inimitable Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.