The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3627 - The Palantir Manifesto; Israel Executes Lebanese Journalist w/ Gil Duran, Jodie Ginsberg

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

It's an Emmajority Report Thursday on The Majority Report   On today's program:   Donald Trump issues more meaningless threats on Truth Social towards Iran. This time he claims to have ordered the U.S. Navy to sweep the Strait of Hormuz for mines at a tripled-up level (?) and to kill all Iranian boats (?) that are laying those mines.   Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins is asked by Stuart Varney what her plan is to address the looming fertilizer crisis caused by the war and she has no answer.   Gil Duran, publisher of the Nerd Reich newsletter joins the program to discuss the "Palantir Manifesto".   Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, joins Emma to discuss Israel murdering Lebanese journalist, Amal Khalil.   Dr. Tarek Loubani makes an appreciation video for Emma's birthday fundraising effort for the Glia Project which raised enough funds to full operate a wound care facility in Gaza for a month. It's never too late to chip in if you can by visiting Glia.org.   In the Fun Half:   Reese Witherspoon and Sandra Bullock try to frame their shilling for AI as feminism.   Vinny from the PBD Podcast pushes his co-host Adam Sosnick over his what-aboutism tactic in defense of the IDF smashing a statue of Christ.   Congressional candidate Jack Schlossberg really fumbles questions about Israel as he cannot bring himself to admit Netanyahu is a war criminal or that the U.S. should stop arming Israel.   All that and more.   To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: SHOPIFY: Sign up for a $1/month at shopify.com/majority AURA FRAMES: Exclusive $25-off Carver Mat at AuraFrames.com/MAJORITY. Promo Code MAJORITY TRUST AND WILL: Get 20% off trustandwill.com/MAJORITY SUNSET LAKE CBD: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.

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Once again, that's $25 off their best-selling Carver-Mat-Framed with code majority at A-U-R-A-Frames. promo code majority. And now time for the show. It is Thursday, April 23rd, 26. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar, and this is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Gil Duran. Publisher of the Nerd Reich will be with us to talk about the so-called Palantir manifesto. And later in the show, Jody Ginsburg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Journalists will be with us to discuss the Lebanese reporter Amal Khalil hunted down and killed by Israel. Also on the program, Trump truths out another threat to the Iranians. ordering the U.S. to shoot at any boat laying mines in the strait in spite of the ceasefire extension. Iran says it has started collecting tolls in the strait as the U.S. attempts to interdict only Iranian ships.

Trump claims, without evidence, that he saved eight Iranian women from execution. Hegzeth fires the Navy's army. secretary because he wasn't building Trump's golden fleet quickly enough. More purging of senior members of the military in the middle of a war with Iran. Senate Republicans circumvent Democrats and move to pass $70 billion in ICE funding through reconciliation. But will the House GOP approve it without sweeteners? That is the question. House Republican Super PAC announces $153 million in ad buys, mostly concerned with Texas and Michigan.

Racist, interestingly. A chemical leak in a West Virginia plant kills two and injures dozens. The FBI investigated a New York Times reporter after she wrote about Cash Patel using Bureau perks on his girlfriend. Kalshi suspends multiple congressional candidates for inside. trading on their cursed platform. The Trump administration will move to reclassify cannabis, opening it up to medical studies. Something Biden could have just easily done, by the way. But saw it as some sort of moral failing.

And lastly, U.S. Kuwaiti journalist Ahmed Shahib Eldin has been acquitted after 51 days in detention. Great, great news on that front. all this and more on today's majority report. It is an M-majority report Thursday. Welcome to the show, everybody. It is great to see you. Hello, Matt. Hello, Brian.

Let's get into this here. So once again, this morning, Trump is truiting and destroying progress on negotiations with Iran, because he is more concerned about looking like he got a victory out of this and looking tough than he is about actually solving this here. Part of what Iran has been demanding in these negotiations is a stopping of these public threats because both of these parties have domestic audiences that they have to show strength to,

Trump is more obsessed with humiliating Iran than he is with finding something that works for both sides. Here he is this morning on truth social. I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats, though they may be. Their naval ships are all 159 of them at the bottom of the sea. Kill their boats.

Yeah, kill the boats. Kill the boat. So which boats are, is he referring to? Because he previously said that we completely destroyed their Navy. After last year he had said we'd completely destroyed their Iranian, their enrichment program for uranium. Now we're going to war to destroy what had apparently already been destroyed. So like the enrichment program from last summer, sure, the Iranian Navy has been destroyed. And by the way, that's the thing is they don't even need their name.

Navy. We have this big naval blockade that we're trying to use to interdict Iranian ships. And part of what Iran has an advantage, a significant advantage over us with is the geography and the fact that they can use these very cheap drones, not just the mines, not just the naval blockade, to police the straight. but here he's just, you know, lying with every breath per usual. Their naval ships are all 159 of them at the bottom of the sea. This is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz. There has to be no hesitation. Additionally, our mine sweepers are clearing the strait right now.

I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level. Yeah, I'm the guy sweeping the straight for mines saying, hey, triple it up, buddy. at a tripled up level. Not doubled up. Tripled. You don't want me to get to quadruple. You don't know what that's going to look like. So now this apparent ceasefire or pause or truce or temporary whatever involves the United States

shooting at Iran's Navy, shooting at boats. He's also suggested that we should kill more Iranian officials and just a blockade, an attempted naval blockade, you know. Of a blockade. Like ceasefires traditionally have. I mean, this is part of why the United States is losing credibility as a negotiating partner at such a rapid pace. I mean, obviously, it was already close to that. It was degrading when Trump ripped up the JCPOA after he got into office. But it's even worse this time around because repeatedly the administration has been using the guise of negotiations with Tweedle D and Tweedle D. and Tweedle Dummer, Witkoff and Kushner, who have no technical know how and the Iranians are getting fed up with them because they don't even know what they're talking about.

they're just there to perform negotiations and lull them into a false sense of security so we can attack. This has happened multiple times or so Israel can attack. So like they are incentivized to further escalate. And Trump is making it worse by trying to humiliate them with his true social posts. What benefits us at the very least is that no one believes him anymore. And by the way, Iran still has cards to play here. They still have not instructed the Houthis who control a large swath of Yemen's coastline to choke off the Babal Mandab Street, which could really, really impact the economy even more.

And the delays, the true impacts of this are going to be, are delayed right now. Because Trump has been biding time trying to manipulate the market this whole war. But there's only so much market manipulation that you can do with a physical commodity. And it's not just oil and gas because this is contributing to a global agricultural crisis. One third of a fertilizer that is transported via sea goes through the Strait of Hormuz. And this is disproportionately, yes, impacting farmers in the global south, which the Trump administration, obviously they don't care about that. the USAID cuts were functionally

eugenicist motivated uh social murder would be a word that might come up later in the fun half too talking about some pike. Um, yes, that that was a policy decision to essentially let hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, uh, die with USAID cuts. They don't care about farmers in the global south,

but this is a global supply chain. And Adam Hinea had a great piece the financial times laying all this out about how our food supply chain is becoming how it became increasingly dependent on oil and gas because of the integration of these fertilizers into our food processing. And you can see here, this is a chart from his piece, who's going to be disproportionately impacted there. You see China, you see India, India, Brazil, Morocco, etc. China and India alone is 35% of the world's population. There you go.

And so, and I'm just going to read from a little bit of his piece here just to underscore it. A key example here is ammonia, which the International Energy Agency describes as making an indispensable contribution to the global agricultural systems and is the starting point for all mineral nitrogen fertilizers. About 70% of the world's ammonia is used in fertilizer production and just under 30% of global. ammonia exports originate in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is the world's second largest exporter of ammonia, while Oman ranks sixth in 2024. The Gulf ammonia exports are especially important from markets outside North America and Western Europe, as I mentioned. And then you have sulfur there, another crucial basic input into modern agriculture, while less visible than ammonia,

it is used to make the sulfuric acid needed to turn phosphate rock into phosphoric acid, and from there, phosphate fertilizers. Roughly half of the world's global seaborne sulfur passes through the Strait of Ormuz. And with most of this produced in the Gulf States energy companies, above all, Adnok,

Qatar Energy, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and Saudi Aramco, Morocco, home to the world's largest phosphate industry is the biggest sulfur importer globally. With about three quarters of it, it's 2024 imports coming from the Gulf. And then, you know, of

course you have just you know what what those impacts look like we're still not going to there's a lag there's a lag in these global supply chains and so um even fox business and steward varny is getting a little bit freaked out here like do you know how bad things have to get when steward varney is getting testy with a trump administration official i mean i guess it makes it a little easier because she's a mouthy broad. Another one, one of the only women left in the administration who hasn't been fired. Brooke Rollins, Agricultural Secretary was asked about this on with Stewart Varney, and he gets a little impatient with her. Do you have a plan to mitigate this fertilizer problem, Madam Secretary? Well, great to be on with you, Stuart. Thank you so much.

Yes, we have been every day now for almost 50 days. Daily meetings in the White House. I've been meeting with the fertilizer CEOs, small companies and big companies from all over the world. The good news, let me do the good news first, is that because of President Trump's energy independence policy, America has plenty of fertilizer. There are a lot of other countries around the world that do not. The fact that we became an LNG exporter versus a net importer a handful of years ago, again because of the president's focus, means that America has fertilizer when a lot of the other countries do not because of what's happening over in the Middle East. Having said that, I think that was Steve Moore, I heard

talking. What he said was correct that the increase in price has been significant. Yeah. Double back about during the Biden years fertilizer had already jumped 40 percent. So our farmers are really feeling this. This is a really tough time for fertilizer. For those that didn't pre-book in the fall, a lot of them did, but not all of them, especially in the south. But what's the plan? We have lifted the Jones Act. We have opened up, yeah, we've lifted the Jones Act. We've opened up a line from Venezuela. But what's the plan?

Yes, go ahead. But what is the plan to deal with rising fertilizer costs, which will need to rising... You've had lots of meetings. What's the plan? That's right. So that's what I was walking through. So for the short term, lifting the Jones Act, which is very important,

opening up additional lines. We've got more lines coming in from Venezuela. We are making permitting easier so we can begin to move it more quickly. We have had... We have had meeting after meeting. All right, this is fine. But lifting the Jones Act temporarily, give me a break. This just will allow foreign ships to not essentially have to pay tolls and move fertilizer with U.S. ports.

That is not going to be able to replace the supply of a physical, actual commodity in the global economy. I understand that America first was the branding guys, but we can't just choke ourselves off from the longstanding global supply lines that all of our economies are interwoven with and just say, hey, we have the supply, we can handle it ourselves. That's not how it works. That's not how it works. And it's just awesome to see, I guess, sometimes some of these Fox hosts.

There have been other clips that we've played where they're getting a little impatient with the constant blaming of Biden, particularly on the economy, because there's one thing these CNBC and Fox business people care about, and it is the stock market. And Trump's market manipulation, as I mentioned, we're at the end of the rope there because this has to do at some point the rubber meets the road. And we're dealing with like literal supply of a physical commodity. So, and as you mentioned, Matt, yeah, it was the Ukraine invasion. It was under Biden that she's blaming there. It was the bottleneck that occurred during COVID, which contributed to inflation and then companies took advantage of it and kept their prices high.

But yes, there were supply chain bottlenecks because there was a global pandemic that had people not working, that disrupted things and made things very difficult. So prices went up, and then those corporations kept them artificially high. That is quite different than Trump, starting an illegal, offensive criminal war in Iran, bombing a girl's school, bombing their infrastructure for no discernible reason except for Benjamin Netanyahu getting in his ear and convincing him of that. And Trump repeatedly undercutting, the negotiations to the point where we are at this crisis. And Kowalski from Nebraska writes in here, I just want to read this.

The United States produces most of its fertilizer needs outside of potash, which we get from Canada. But the problem is this is a global market. Thank you, Kowalski. The product might be physically available in North America, but the price is going to be astronomical. Not to mention, we'll see a massive demand poll out of China, and their production is expected to decline next year. And if that happens in India too, who has been essentially self-sufficient for decades,

we are effed. From what I'm reading, you're actually underselling the crisis of fertilizer. 2027 is going to be brutal. Take that from a farmer, not from, you know, the Brooklyn weed smoking leftist here in Brea. Doesn't know what I'm talking about.

It's a potash, by the way. Oh, very. there you go I mean proving it I've gotten that wrong multiple times I can't say potash

that's like me with nuclear I'm only going to say nuclear I think it sounds better no but you said it right this that time nuclear that's wrong no you oh I thought you

oh yes damn it see I can't even figure it out now God we spend way too much time together in a moment we're going to be talking to Gil Durand

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a newsletter about the tech authoritarian politics of Silicon Valley. Gil, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. Of course. So earlier this week, well, Palantir, I guess, took out a full-page ad in the New York Times, or was it the Wall Street Journal. I forget which paper, but it was about how they stand with Israel. We knew that already. But they also published this so-called manifesto on social media.

And I want to get to that in the second. But before we do, can you explain to people what Palantir is? is if they, you know, it's talked about all the time. It's kind of this boogeyman, but its origin story, how it came to be, and really what role it's currently playing in American, both politics and in our economy. Sure. Well, Palantir came into being after 9-11 when there was a lot of concern about national security, fears of terrorism, and the need for.

vastly increased surveillance of everything in the United States and internationally as well. And it was funded partly with an investment from IncUTEL, which is the CIA's investment arm, but most of the funding came from Peter Thiel and his venture capital funds. He's a co-founder along with several other people like Joe Lonsdale, Alex Karp, who was Teal's law school buddy, is now the CEO, and has been a part of it a long time, too. And so what Palantir does is create, you know, they keep a lot of it. their whole thing kind of opaque. It's sort of hard to explain. But there are surveillance technology giant that has software that helps governments sort through, collect, and organize large

troves of information on whatever their chosen targets are. So it's sort of a program that sits on top of other systems and helps them to have more of a sort of all-seeing eye effect. That's why they chose the Palantir as their name. The name Palantir, comes from the Lord of the Rings. And it's the little orb that the evil wizard uses to see what's going on with all the hobbits as he tries to take over the world. So they literally named it after a technology wielded by an evil corrupted wizard in the Lord of the Rings.

So think of it that way. It's the little all-seeing orb. That's what they want you to think of. Yeah. And their insistence on portraying themselves in this kind of braggadociously evil, mandatious manner is unique. It's manifest in this manifesto, if you will. Let's pull it up here, what they published. This is, from what I understand, a bit of a kind of summary of Alex Carp's book, for the most part. He took a lot, and this is the CEO of Palantir, who we've played on the show before,

is a very manic and bizarre individual. A lot of this is just summarized, it seems like, from what he's previously written, but this is what they say the new Palantir manifesto is their role in the United States. The first plank is Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible and says that they have an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation, rebelling against the iPhone app that seems a little less consequential but here number three,

free email is not enough the decadence of a culture or civilization and indeed its ruling class will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public, whatever. But I guess one and four seem to link together talking about how Silicon Valley has a debt

basically to providing for the defense of the U.S. And here number four, the limits of soft power. or soaring rhetoric alone have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power and hard power in this century will be built on software.

We'll come back to this in the second. But those two seem to connect to me, Gil, here, where, and there he adds, actually, there's a, the fifth plank is about how AI needs to be used to develop basically weapons and military national, security technology. So this is them kind of announcing publicly.

One, we shouldn't be bound by morality, and yet Silicon Valley owns a moral debt to contribute to the national defense via surveillance. And also we're going to use AI weapons.

They're going to do that for free? Are they going to take government contracts to do all of it? But I think we know the answer. Yeah. Well, what's interesting about that first plane, is that the greatest threat to our nation right now is from the Trump regime, which is attempting to destroy the country from the inside.

And Palantir is a major conspirator in that project, right? They are reaping in billions in contracts, expanding their footprint like never before. To be clear, Palantir has thrived under Democratic and Republican administration, something that really needs to change. But so the country they're talking about defending is not the country we think of as the United States of America. It's this new authoritarian regime that's being brought into being by Trump and which they will plan to defend with their software violence, right?

And the important thing to understand about this Palantir manifesto, which, as you said, comes from Alex Carp's book, The Technological Republic, is that it rings all the bells of classic fascism, right? It is a call to arms for a group of chosen Silicon Valley elites to merge with the military industrial complex, to, in a moral imperative to defend against an existential threat to Western civilization, posed by inferior cultures that are invading us and weakening us, along with liberal elite decadence. This is fascism. In addition, they call for Silicon Valley to get engaged with law and order in fighting violent crime to save lives.

fascists always try to exacerbate fears around crime. And they call for a new respect for religion and the fusing of corporations with government. That's pretty much what Mussolini did when he created fascism. You fuse corporate state and religion. So without saying the F word, they're kind of winking and nodding and saying it other ways. And the thing about this is that this is what many of these venture capital-funded tech companies you're doing right now. Everyone's issuing some kind of manifesto about acceleration, about the need for more warfare in technology. And this is basically classic fascist rhetoric.

And they're all competing to be the new Mussolini, essentially. And it should terrify Americans, and it should radicalize Americans, that these people are becoming so completely extreme while living off of our taxpayer dollars. And it is notable that Palantir's technology, has been integrated with ICE's activities. You mentioned how Palantir started after 9-11 and was invested in by the CIA's venture, I guess, section arm of the CIA. You know, so ICE is also an outgrowth of 9-11.

The Department of Homeland Security is an outgrowth of 9-11. And viewing Palantir, as kind of, and its growth as an extension of the national security state that came out of 9-11 and how there were many, many leftists, many people warned that eventually these technologies and the rollback of our civil liberties would result in this being used on American citizens. It feels like Palantir is so central in that project, as is its work with ICE specifically. Oh, definitely. You know, it's part of the immigration machine. It's part of the war machine. It is completely bought in. Its entire fate depends on this increased surveillance model. And they're also going in, you know, they're doing stuff in hospitals, like making sure they monitor the work schedules of nurses, etc. There's a large level of buy-in to this company right now. And one of the big problems is that, the United States government is creating a company that now feels entitled to rival government power

to start issuing its own political manifestos. So it's the hazards of privatization unfolding in real time. You know, we shouldn't have, if the government needs some of these technologies, well, it should own those technologies. It should not have a company that now decides, we're going to decide what the new political structure of the country is going to be, right? You don't know, why aren't the CEOs of Lockheed or Raytheon? issuing manifestos. I'm not saying those companies are good, but for the most part in the past,

you didn't have government contractors out there pushing radical political ideas of their own, right? Their job is to do what the president and the Congress decide they are contractors. So you have contractors acting like they're the CEOs of government. And this is very much the idea they have in mind, a privatization of government and a seizure of power through surveillance and military Mike. And it's important that we be aware of that. I think it has to become a goal, a political goal of all of us to destroy this company and disentangle it from our government. We had Rana Das Gupta on a few weeks ago to discuss his book After Nations. And he compared Silicon Valley and the growth of the tech industry to really the East India company historically

as like a private entity that is acting with the power of the most, acting alongside and in conjunction with the imperial power of the time, but one that is privatized and has its own incentives that because it's become so powerful at this point, can really have more sway than even, you know, the nation states that are the most powerful, the most powerful. nation states in the world that supposedly have some sort of democratic input. Oh, definitely. And they talk about that very openly. Balaushina Vosin uses, you know, the East India company, Dusty, Dutch East Indies company as an example, as a framework, returning to a world where these sort of corporate guilds have a tremendous amount of power, right? A big idea that I've

talked about in your show before is what they call the network state, the creation of a new power source that is not national, that is not based on democracy or government power, that's based on pure corporate power. So they explicitly talk about that. And, you know, everywhere we look, we can see examples of them doing it. I should say, too, meanwhile, co-founder of Palantir Peter Thiel has been traveling the globe talking about the Antichrist, saying the Antichrist will seek to establish a one-world rule through technology under the slogan of peace and safety, which sounds a lot like what Palantir is doing, which people have pointed out, right? Isn't he saying Greta Toonberg is the one who is ushering it in? He throws in a lot of

words like that, but those are distractions. What he's really saying, if you read the whole speech, is that the United States is the cradle of the Antichrist, apparently because it's the cradle of what we call democracy. And that only by trying to dismantle that, and Silicon Valley should not help the United States spread democracy, but should find a way to decentralize this. power, basically what Carp is saying, make it privatized and something that reverses what the country has traditionally stood for. A lot of what these guys are afraid of is the fact that this is going to become a minority-majority country, and they fear what will happen to white supremacy when that happens.

So, yeah, that's the thread there is these kind of expressions of public political psychosis coming out of Silicon Valley. It's extremely concerning. Yeah, and as Matt just said off, Mike, what a coincidence that these are all these white South Africans who seem very obsessed with demographics in this way. I just want to return quickly to what you said about crime and how this really, you know, Silicon Valley coming out of San Francisco where there has been this large-scale panic about homelessness and crime and the insistence that crime was out of control when we saw a temporary spike. during COVID and now have seen precipitous declines in that area. The whole nation state, or the whole network state concept that you've written about is, you know, about the privatization of government, as you say.

But they made those efforts within different cities. And in some ways they had, they recalled, they found an effort to recall Chase of Budin in San Francisco and all of that. But it feels like their ambitions now for the, privatized surveillance state to combat crime aren't just now limited to the degenerate cities where they were making billions. It's now about making that into the United States. Well, definitely. In crime is a tried and true way to create anxiety about poor people in poverty, to create racial anxiety. This goes back many decades. They're not creating anything new there.

They're just saying they got a supercharger. And that's what we saw in. San Francisco at a time when crime was declining and when crime rates were generally at historic lows across California, including in San Francisco, which is a very safe city, they created a moral panic around crime and were able to achieve their political aims by doing so. And I definitely think they want to do that strategy at a larger scale. And so, again, everywhere you look, this is very extreme right-wing fascist playbook being played out, creation of fear of the other, a need to centralize elite and wealthy people around a goal of purging the enemy. You know, they speak about inferior cultures that don't contribute to the country, etc.

You know, this is all very transparent, but they put it in this pseudo-intellectual format that makes it seem like they have some kind of high-minded philosophy. But it's really some of the ugliest stuff from our politics. well so my last question is how seriously should we take it i mean how much is this alex carp uh branding himself um how much of this is a you know a way to maybe attract attract investors by overstating their power uh how concerned should we be about a manifesto like this um is it PR is it bluster is the mix of all of uh of the scary things and that I think it's a mix of all of them. And I would say, too, I think Palantir is starting to panic a little bit because they're becoming one of the most hated companies in the world.

You know, people are now saying their name and associating with associating them with some of the worst abuses of the genocide in Gaza, for example. So they have a massive public relations problem. And I think they thought this would somehow assuage that, but it seems to have only made it worse. And what we have to do is take it very seriously. these people mean what they say. They do mean to destroy our country and our democracy. And we have to organize against them in order to purge Palantir from our government and from the planet, really. Well, really appreciate your time today, Gil Duran.

You can read The Nerd Reich newsletter about the tech authoritarian politics of Silicon Valley. It's essential reading these days. Thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. All right, folks, quick break. come back, we'll be joined by Jody Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists. We are back and we are joined now by Jody Ginsburg, CEO of the Committee to Protect

Journalists. Jody, thanks so much for coming on the show today. You're welcome. Thanks for inviting me. So there's this awful, awful story coming out of Lebanon. Amal Khalil, a Lebanese journalist, working for al-Aqbar, was killed by Israel yesterday in southern Lebanon. Tell us about Amal and what happened. So Amal was a reporter for a privately owned local daily newspaper called Al Akbar, and she was on assignment, she was documenting the aftermath of attacks by Israel and southern Lebanon. And she and a freelance journalist called Sinab Farage sought shelter in a building after a strike killed two civilians in a car that was nearby and a vehicle nearby. They did that.

Then the building in which they took shelter was directly hit, and that trapped them under the rubble. And that's when we became aware of this. It became very clear that emergency services were being prevented by Israel from getting to this area. Khalil's colleagues were able to contact her while she was trapped, and they have told us that she was in good health after that strike in which she was trapped under the rubble. But when eventually the Red Cross was granted access to the site, she was found dead. and Farage, unfortunately, is critically injured. Farage, the other journalists, as you mentioned,

yes, critically injured. This was a double-tap, it appears, meaning that they were attacked and then attacked once again when they sought shelter. Yeah, it's not entirely clear. A double-tap strike that you describe is often what we see, and we've seen a number of times from Israel and in other conflicts in which a location is hit once,

often when emergency services go in or journalists go in, the site is hit once again. That seems to be what's happened here, but it's not clear. But of course, what is also concerning is that it appears that these journalists were not only targeted, which as civilians is prohibited under international law, but under international law, willfully killing, torturing or causing great suffering, for example, by deliberately denying medical care, is also a breach of the Geneva Convention and would constitute a war crime. Can you confirm whether or not once the Red Cross team was granted access to the scene if they were also attacked by Israeli forces?

I don't have that information, I'm sorry. Okay, okay. So we do not know that for sure. But we do know that she had previously received threats to her life. Al Jazeera reported that in 2024, I believe, or last year, perhaps, an Israeli WhatsApp number was sending her threats. Can you give us an update on that piece of evidence? Well, what we understand is that she had received numerous threats prior to her killing, including, as you say, a reported death threat back in September 22.

Again, this is a pattern that we've seen from Israel towards prominent journalists in the past. And also, again, a pattern that we've seen before public incitement against her by an Israeli military official in the days before her killing, which has led to these widespread accusations that she was deliberately targeted. And again, this is a pattern that we've seen in a number of cases that we've worked on over the past two years in which journalists are smeared as being, for example, terrorists without Israel providing credible evidence, and then days later, they are murdered. This happened, I believe, some weeks ago with another journalist who the Israeli press office

photoshopped in Hezbollah fatigues? I'm not aware of that, unfortunately. But, I mean, as I say, this has been a pattern that we've been documenting since October the 7th in which individuals are accused of being. are accused of being terrorists or are accused of having links to terrorist organizations with no credible evidence. And it's a pattern we've seen, unfortunately, again and again in this war. How many journalists have been killed in Lebanon by Israel this year? Do we know? I believe it's sadly around 15 journalists in total since October the 7th.

And what's striking is we saw that right at the very beginning of the war, shortly after the war, where we saw journalists killed, including a Reuters journalist, was killed. And now, obviously, as we're seeing this war and the conflicts in the region escalating with the Iran War, we're seeing renewed attacks in Lebanon. I wanted to just play this clip here and have you respond to it. Sky News reported here on Amal Khalil's killing by Israel. And you'll see some B-roll footage of her that is played.

We were going to play that because it's a tribute to her. Her outlet Al-Aqbar released it, just showing her working. But I chose to play this clip instead because it's such a jarring juxtaposition to see this vibrant journalist and what you see on screen. and to hear how Sky News describes her as aligned with Hezbollah, which is slanderous. If we could just play this clip and then Jodi, you can respond. So has accused Israel of war crimes through the targeting of journalists after the death of one working in the south of the country. Amal Khalil, who worked for Al-Aqbal, which is the Lebanese newspaper aligned with Hezbollah,

had sought shelter in a house from an Israeli strike together with the colleague. but the house was then hit in a second strike. According to the Lebanese health ministry, emergency teams then recovered Khalil's colleague, Zainab Farash, alive with injuries and transferred her to hospital. They added that a Lebanese road cross ambulance sent to evacuate casualties, came under a stun grenade attack and live fire, at first preventing rescuers from reaching Khalil.

Just your reaction to the framing of that, of her killing there. Look, Al-Aqwa, many. people are not familiar with the news outlets in the region. Al-Aq. There is a daily Arabic language newspaper published in Beirut. Number of sources describe it as pro-hesbullah. But I want to be very, very clear about something. Under international humanitarian law,

journalists are civilians, and they're protected from direct and indiscriminate attack, the kinds that we've seen, absolutely regardless of the positions or affiliation of their media outlets, provided they do not directly participate in hostilities. And I want to repeat that, provided they do not directly participate in hostilities. So having, you know, expressing views, even ones that are supportive of a particular grouping or critical of a particular grouping does not strip them of their civilian protection. So the framing, unfortunately, is very much in line with what we've seen from Israel,

which is an attempt to suggest that anyone seen to be reporting, say, favorably on Khazbollah or Hamas, is the same as a militant, somebody who is engaged directly in hostilities, and that is not the case. And the threats to her that were previously sent, can you say what they were? and how common of a practice that is in your coverage of, I guess, journalists, not just in Lebanon,

but who have been covering Israel or since, I guess, October 7th. So we don't have the exact details of the particular threats, as I say. She was incited against, if that's the right world, by an Israeli military official days before her killing. she received a death threat back in September 2024. Unfortunately, this is something we see commonly. You might remember back in 2025, CPJ issued quite unusually for us a very explicit warning about our fears for the safety of Al Jazeera Arabic's Gaza correspondent

and Assad Sharif. He was targeted by an Israeli smear campaign alleged he was a Hamas terrorist, and that was after the journalist cried on air as he was reporting about starvation in Gaza. Anna Sal Sharif had been an absolutely key source for audiences, international audiences, about the war since it began. We warned about that then and just two weeks later he was killed in a direct hit. And so we've seen this again and again where individuals who have been killed by Israel have had claims, unsubstantiated claims made against them that they were terrorists.

Anas al-Sharif, Hamza al-Dastu, Eshmel al-Hul, Rami al-Rafi, Hosam Shabbat. So unfortunately, this is chilling for us as, Amal's case is particularly chilling for us because this is a pattern that we have been documenting for two years and yet we still see no accountability. We still see Israel continuing this pattern of unlawful killing of journalists. And can you expand on how, just more broadly, what Israel's actions have meant for the safety of journalists doing this kind of reporting more broadly because this creates precedent?

Well, it creates precedent. It creates a precedent in which journalists, sorry, governments like Israel feel that they can get away with the murder of journalists because there is no accountability. and that's certainly been the case. There's been no accountability. 258. 258 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since October the 7th. That means Israel has killed more journalists than any other country since CPJ has been doing documentation on the death of journalists.

It's 1992. This is a country that considers itself and likes to suggest that it's the only country in the region that has pre-192. press freedom that supports humanitarian law, the evidence is very different. What it means for journalism is that increasing journalists, it's increasingly challenging for journalists to do their work. If you talk to journalists in Gaza, they are fearful every day that they are likely to be targets, that their families know that not only the journalists themselves, but their families

might be in danger. And of course, the journalists are not just in danger because they are potentially. targets, they are at risk because they are suffering exactly the same kind of deprivations that others have been facing during the genocide in Gaza, lack of food, broken equipment, an inability to leave. And all of that is compounded by the fact, and again, this is unprecedented, that no independent international media has been allowed into the country to report independently. So all the information that we're receiving from Gaza, we're entirely reliant on Gaza and journalists for that information.

And really, lastly, here, if you could just reflect on the different standards that are applied to say Western journalists versus those in Gaza, it, I mean, it appears to be, or Lebanon or anybody who is Arab or Middle Eastern, it feels like, you know, as you say, the classification of them as terrorists paired with the fact that international journalists are not allowed in. It's a two-pronged approach of discrediting or killing journalists that are able to do the work and then blocking out anybody that is in the West, white potentially, or has that credibility with Western media outlets from documenting the crimes themselves. So you mentioned double standard. The double standard is striking. When Russia, Carrily, its full-scale invasion of

Ukraine four years ago, we saw an outpouring of support for journalists. Ukrainian journalists who were pushed into a position of having to document a war in our own country, in their own country. We have seen very little of the same solidarity from the West, including from Western media, for the killing of journalists. And part of that lack of solidarity, that lack of outcry is, I think, what has helped enable and emboldened Israel and its continued killing of journalists. Well, how can people help in seeking justice here for Amal Khalil and also her colleague, Zianab Farage? Sorry if I butcher that a little bit, who is in critical condition.

One of the things that we can do is to show our colleagues in Gaza that we see them and that they have our support. So sharing these stories is incredibly important. Since the ceasefire, the so-called ceasefire was announced, the international gaze has very much come off, Garza. and yet people continue to be killed and injured in Gaza. And of course, the war continues in Lebanon. It's very important that we continue to raise these stories, to elevate these stories and to demand justice.

Absolutely. Jody Ginsburg, thanks so much. CEO of the committee to protect a journalist. Appreciate your time today. Thank you. With that, folks, we are close to wrapping up the first hour of the show. but as we mentioned the other day, Dr. Tariq Lubani of the Glea project did send us a video from Gaza,

wanted to thank the audience for raising so much money helping out the Glea project with their work in Gaza. They use open source medical tools. They tried to create some self-reliance because of the blockade into Gaza, so they use 3D printing printing technologies, and it appears that

that over a thousand donations have come in since I kind of asked for this on Friday. I just could not be... Not kind of asked. You asked for it. Don't minimize it. You can take credit for this. Okay. Well, I don't want to... I definitely want to take credit. I mean, it is the least we can do here.

You put a call out and it got results. It did. And so, This is the message that Dr. Lubani sent us from Gaza. I just wanted to thank the audience because I think this might even be not updated. I can't find my phone where he sent me a message about some other things. But at the very least, our audience has, with donations, allowed for the Glea Project to have enough money to run the wound care service for a full month. That's 30 nurses and health care providers along with supplies and equipment.

So here is Dr. Lubani with his message to the MR audience. My name is Tari Lubani and I'm the medical director for Glea. We're here at the Glea Center in Daryl Balah, and I want to thank you so much for your donation and for your contribution to our work. When I appeared on the majority report, it was so that I could convey to you what was happening in the world around us, what was happening specifically in Palestine and in Azza. I did not expect the tremendous generosity, kindness, and outpouring of support, both from Emma and from you, the viewers. Because of your contribution of over $25,000, we are going to be

able to run our wound clinic for a full month. That's almost 30 nurses, health care professionals and providers, providing care to hundreds of patients, and really giving them a service that they need and that has been sorely lacking for so long. Because Glea is handling this wound care service, we are able to do things that most other organizations can't. With Glea's philosophy of self-reliance, we're not just providing this important wound care service. We're also contributing to the sustainability of the clinic and the service by creating the materials, devices, and equipment that are needed. None of this would have been possible without you, so thank you. Some of you commented that your contribution is small, but those small contributions came

together to provide a tremendous amount of relief here. So truly, to each and every one of you, as an individual and to all of you as a collective caring for the people of Palestine. Thank you. So thank you all so much, it means so much. And glia.org, if you want to continue contributing to their essential work there. Michigan Fist writes in, I am so offended by Emma's demand for a birthday gift that I donated to Glea out of spite in Ben Shapiro's name, which is pretty great. that's our version of writing

the like Israel writing names on bombs before they drop them on Palestinians, yes. All right folks, with that we're going to wrap up the free part of this program, head into the fun half. Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning? And with Jacobin. Yeah, Left Reckoning, we had a new show on Tuesday. We talked to Kylie Chung about the Pink Pill Propaganda Pipeline,

which uses lifestyle and celebrity content to Trojan horse right-wing reactionary ideas and also talk with Matt McManus about conservatives not liking people to be educated, including a guy who I'd never heard it before, but literally wrote an essay saying, yeah, the Athenians were right to kill Socrates, because even if he was right that society has imperfections, what are we going to do, let you question those and upset people? Like, you know, we're going to have to kill you. Yeah, check that out.

Great. Nice little reframe, I think, from all this free speech bullshit we've been hearing from the right for the last 10 years. They actually are the people who want to kill Socrates. Yeah, try to say that in Canada, though. Say what? I don't know. That's what Rogan says. Whenever anybody pushes back on right-wing stuff, he switches to Canada free speech stuff.

I don't hear much. I mean, he's not even right about that. Like, that's what Tucker's Beat Holt is, is that he should be using great. Britain. Yeah, like, he does. He does that too, but lately it's been Cano, but he's been going on England. In the UK, it's like, yeah, they won't even let you, like, you know, start a lynch mob against refugees.

Because they don't have the First Amendment over there. Yeah. We have branded, I think. We'll bring him in and then, and then head into the fun half. As this, as a reminder, the show relies on your support, join the majority report. If you can, you can become a member. You can, I am the show. all that good stuff shop

at majority report radio.com if you want some of our merch and also just coffee.coop, fair trade coffee and some other things, but definitely coffee. Hello, Brandon. Hello, Emma. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. You're not tired of saying that yet?

No, no, I'm not. I'm not. We've been doing the hump day joke for like five years now. Yep, yep. I will never get tired of hearing it. I just think that the circumstances by which it occurred that yes like you are just so obstic in a hundred years people are not

going to understand at all like what happened especially if the part about like the misheard name and the NASCAR stuff is gone like that people are going to remember that it's going to be great they're going to think that I was president they're going to be like Brandon yeah he ruined everything I yeah it's impossible to describe the chain of events

which was what a misinterpreted chant about saying F Joe Biden and turning it into let's Let's go Brandon or a PC Christian version of it at NASCAR. It's just I don't I don't know how we're going to be able to describe this in the history books at all. But what's happening on the discourse, Mr. Braden Sutton? On the discourse, we have hit a new milestone. We're at 20,000 subscribers on YouTube.

They said he couldn't do it. They said his beliefs were too powerful that his words were true. upsetting to the minds of the people, but yet he has found himself a flock. The shepherd has found himself a flock. And so I invite you all to join that flock. I invite you all to come over to the discourse with Brandon on YouTube and on Twitch to say hi. We stream every mornings from around 8.30-ish to when the majority report begins. And so if you're looking for a little like morning stream, if you're looking to understand what's happening at the beginning of the day, and also maybe about like ghosts and witches or something, I would definitely suggest if you can tolerate

the sound of my voice going over to the discourse with Brandon. Okay. Well, I mean, it sounds like you have a bit of a Messiah complex, but we can deal with that later. Not a complex. It's a Messiah reality. It's a Messiah. Reality. Hello, Matt Binder. How you doing, buddy? Hey, how are you guys? Great to be joining you all today on this wonderful Thursday. Yes. Yes, it's great to see you what's happening on your shows. Tonight, I leftist mafia at 8.30 p.m. Eastern time at YouTube.com slash Matt Binder. All right. We will head into the fun half now. We will read your IMs, potentially take your calls. We shall see. See you in the fun.

Okay, Emma, please. Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking in the majority report. Wait, what? Look, Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World. So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show. It is Thursday. I think you need to take over for Sam.

Yes, police. Sir, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why. So it's offered a twerk, sushi, and poker with the boys. I just sushi and poker. What the boys?

What? Twerk? Sushi and pulk. Ah, that's what we call it, biz. Twerp. Sushi and Poh. I just think that what you did to Tim Poole was mean. Free speech.

That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. We shouldn't even talk about it because I think you're responsible. I probably am in a certain way, but let's get to the meltdown here. Boys, oh my God. Twirl? Wow. Sushi.

I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind. Someone's offered a twerk. Sushi and poker with the boys Logic. Twirp. Sushi and poker. A little kid.

I think I'm like a little kid, a little kid, a little kid, I think I'm like a little kid. I'm just a damn. I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but like, I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing me with a wife and kids. That's not what we're talking about here. It's not a fun job.

That's a real thing. That's a real thing. Really work. That's a real thing. Sam has like the weight of the world on the shoulders. Sam doesn't want to do this show anymore. It was so much easier. When the majority report was just you.

You were happy. Let's change the subject. Rangers and Nick's going right. Now, shut up. Don't want people saying reckless things on your program. That's one of the most difficult parts about this show. This is a pro-killing podcast. I'm thinking maybe it's time we bury the hatchet.

Left is best. Trump. Violet twerk? You are to the right-off. We are incredible theme song. I'm bumbler. Emma Viglin. Absolutely one of my favorite people.

Actually, not just in the game, like period.