The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1143 - The Woke Mind Virus

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Click here to join the member exclusive portion of my show: https://utm.io/ueSEl Kanye loses an honorary art degree, Biden’s sexually deviant nuclear waste czar gets caught stealing more women’s luggage, and the Illinois State Capitol puts up a satanist display for Christmas. - - -  DailyWire+: Become a DailyWire+ member for 30% off by using code HOLIDAY at checkout: https://bit.ly/3SsC5se Get your Michael Knowles merch here: https://bit.ly/3X6tlKY   - - -  Today’s Sponsors: PajamaGram - Get a FREE matching Naturally Nude NIghty with your order: https://www.pajamagram.com/ - - - Socials: Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RwKpq6  Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3BqZLXA  Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eEmwyg  Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3L273Ek Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago has just announced that it will rescind Kanye West's honorary degree in light of the offensive comments that Kanye has been making about Jews. Now, I'm obviously not defending any of the things that Kanye has said about the Nazis or the Jews or anything like that. But it just seems to me, I don't know if you guys are history buffs or not, It just seems to me that if the goal here is to get Kanye to stop identifying with Hitler, rejecting him from art school is probably not the best way to accomplish that goal. But people don't study history. And Karl Marx, wrong as he was, got at least one thing right.

All great world historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. The first time as tragedy, the second as farce. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles show. Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment on Friday is from Christoph Rodriguez, who says, name what team Brittany Griner plays for without looking it up beforehand. No one can do it. This is why, of all the reporting around Britney Griner and Russia and this whole episode, the part that I found most absurd, the least credible, was when they would say,

Britney Griner, WNBA star, WNBA star gets arrested in Russia. There is, Russia is holding a WNBA star. There is no such thing as a WNBA star. No one has ever watched a game of the WNBA in its entirety. And anyone who's told you that he has is lying. Okay, it's not, speaking of girly things, what are you going to get your girlfriend and your wife for Christmas? You got to check out Pajamagram. Right now, head on over to Pajamagram.com. Tell them that Michael sent you. Women love getting new pajamas at Christmas time. Pajamagram makes it really, really, really. easy for us, man. This year, I cannot wait to give sweet little Elisa a set of pajamas from their naturally nude line. Even more alluring than lingerie. The texture and feel of these pajamas is so silky and smooth that both you and your wife will love them. If you have no idea what to get your girlfriend or wife this year, trust me, she wants these pajamas. But you need to order today because last year they sold out before Christmas because they're extremely popular because they're phenomenally high quality. Order today and Pajamagram will include a free

naturally nude nighty with your order. That is $75 savings on their bestselling holiday gift. Pajamagram offers free gift packaging so your present comes ready to put under the tree. Go to pajamagam.com right now and order the naturally nude pajamas. That is pajamogram.com for naturally nude pajamas. Do not forget to tell them Michael sent you. Speaking of history repeating itself and also speaking of people taking things away from others, you remember Sam Brinton? Sam Brinton is a controversial Joe Biden appointee. He's in charge of nuclear waste at the Department of Energy. And he's the bald guy with the mustache who is not only a sexually deviant sort of person, which I don't want to, you know, spread rumors or tell tales at a school or

gossip about anybody. But this is not some sense. secret with Sam Brinton, he's made it a big part of his public persona. He photographs himself wearing all sorts of weird costumes, leading grown men around on leashes, and the men are dressed up like little puppies. He gives lectures and conferences on all this kind of weird, sexually deviant stuff. He wears dresses and high heels and lipstick, and he's just, he's pretty out there. Well, he was accused a couple of weeks ago of stealing a woman's luggage at an airport. And he initially denied it, but then he kind of came out and he said he did it, but he was just tired, he didn't mean to. Well, now another arrest warrant has been issued for Sam Brinton for a second

alleged theft at an airport. A felony arrest warrant has been issued for Brinton for grand larceny with a value between $1,200 and $5,000 for allegedly stealing luggage from Harry Reid International Airport. So the first time, it didn't take place in Nevada. It took place in Minnesota. he flew into Minneapolis with American Airlines and he traveled without a checked bag so it shows you he had no reason to be at the baggage claim after the flight

and then authorities called him that same day and asked him if he took anything that didn't belong to him and he said no not that I know of and later he said okay yeah maybe you know look if I took the wrong bag I'm happy to return it but this was really weird he said that the other person's clothes whose bag it was were not in the bag he said I don't have any clothes for another individual. That was my clothes when I opened the bag.

But obviously it wasn't. It was this other woman's bag. And apparently on the security footage, you can tell he took her tag off of the bag and put it into his pocket. And so then he said, no, maybe it's this other woman's bag, but my clothes were in. So it's really, you got to ask yourself, what is this guy? Did he steal her clothing? Did he, why did he, did he want her clothing? Did he just want to steal the bag?

Then he took this other bag here. And again, according to the footage, they didn't initially couldn't identify him, even though he was wearing this gay pride nuclear shirt. So it was apparently like a rainbow nuclear reactor or something like that on the shirt. They couldn't make him out who he was until the first news story came up. And then they said, wait a second, I think that's the same guy there. And apparently he was exhibiting all this kind of odd behavior. Let's see, here we are. He went to the carousel and took a bag off and then kind of looked around suspiciously and then put the bag back on.

And then, you know, a little bit later, he took the bag off again, looked around suspiciously. So we have an article here at Daily Wire. It says, police disclose how they caught alleged Biden administration luggage thief, Sam Brinton. And this is a quote from investigators in Las Vegas. They say, Brinton demonstrated several signs of abnormal behavior. And it goes on to say, while taking the victim's luggage, which are cues suspects typically give off. I think you could have stopped at the first part of that sentence. Brinton demonstrated several signs of abnormal behavior.

Gee, you don't say, the man with the mustache who wears lipstick, he's got totally shaved head, wears stiletto heels, mini skirts, leads grown men around in leather costumes on a leash. He was behaving in a bit of an eccentric and abnormal way. Gosh, you don't say. You know, it's always the ones you most expect. People like to think it's always the ones you least expect. No, no, often it's the ones you most expect because our perception and our faculties of reason are actually pretty good guides to things. And in fact, prejudice with prejudgment, looking at a situation and just quickly having a gut reaction is not all the time, but a lot of the time, a pretty good guide to things. This is why Edmund Burke, the conservative philosopher, you know, great conservative philosopher, so valued prejudice. Because we don't have a time to, in every single situation in our lives, come up with a perfectly rationalist kind of explanation and treaty, an argument for what we're about to do. We just kind of go on our gut and we go on hunches and we refer to the wisdom of the ages and we defer to tradition

and to the past. And we can trust our gut. All right. And that's the, That obviously would be the case with this guy. And this guy, Sam Brinton, is obviously deeply troubled and should not be handling anything involving the America's nuclear program and should seek a lot of counseling and maybe should be in a padded cell. I don't know. But he certainly should not be in a position of authority. And I have a great deal of sympathy for him. Because I look at a guy like Sam Brinton who is so troubled. And I think, what if...

Earlier on in his life, someone, anyone, had just told him no. Now we live in a culture where if a five-year-old comes to school and says, hey, hey, I'm a girl today. They say, well, Johnny, I guess we're going to have to get you on hormone therapy. Yeah, you do that. Or what if, earlier on in this life, when this guy was exhibiting abnormal, deviant behavior, any adult just said, hey, don't do that. that's wrong. If you do that kind of deviant behavior, that's going to lead you to more deviant behavior,

and then you're going to have a bad life and you're going to have all sorts of problems. So don't do that. Actually, you should, look, it's a crazy world. It's very diverse. We're very eccentric. But best as you can, be normal. Just be normal. I keep coming back to this theme on the show because I think it's a pretty good guide for politics. And I think that a lot of the conservative political program should come down to these two words. Be normal. It's okay to be normal. The left likes to suppress normality and disparage normality and likes to subvert everything and likes to elevate the abnormal and the transgressive above all the good normal stuff. But it's okay. Just be normal, guys.

It's okay. And if people had done that earlier on in this guy's life, maybe he wouldn't end up as a cross-dressing puppy fetishist baggage thief stealing women's jewelry and clothing at the airport. Maybe he would have taken the off-ramp at some point down that highway to, bizarre transgressive behavior. You look at the Biden administration. I mean, it's filled with all this kind of bizarre imagery and often occult symbolism. There's that other guy who is the deputy monkey pox czar for Biden who wears overt satanic

symbols. Where's the leather harness in the pentagram and takes, and he too. This isn't secret. I'm not divulging his private sins. The guy takes glossy photos of it and puts it out there into the world. And this stuff is on the rise. Satanism, overt Satanism is on the rise. If you go to the Illinois state capital right now, you know, it's Advent, we're preparing for Christmas time, we look around, we see Christmas trees in the public square. Well, if you go to the Illinois state capital,

you will see a crash, the nativity scene. You will see a menorah, which, you know, Hanukkah is a minor feast day. It's not, it's a, it's not a major Jewish holiday. And, and so not, to equate Hanukkah with Christmas on, as a matter of importance for the respective religions, I think is a little silly anyway. But okay, you see the menorah. Most people don't have a problem with the menorah. And then the third thing you will see is, as the crispy chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know, I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, Go eat some soup and reflect. Look, I know I'm a handful.

I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby, I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet, no. Krispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711.

Valley 36-2326, participating stores only while supplies lastly out for full terms. A Satanist display. It's a serpent with little apples on top of a leather-bound copy of Nicholas Copernicus is on the revolution of the celestial spheres, which is especially strange because Copernicus was a Catholic canon and possibly a Catholic priest. So the Satanists, as you might expect, are kind of confused with what they're doing. But at the center of it,

you've got this serpent, and it's there because the Satanists are claiming that if the Christians get their nativity scene and the Jews get their menorah, then the Satanists, have the right as a matter of religious freedom to put up a serpent at Christmas time. And the thing is, most people know that this is wrong and we should not be expected to tolerate this. But very few people, including conservatives, very few people, can explain exactly why the Satanists have no right to a serpent at the Illinois State Capitol at Christmas time. the Satanists have no right as a matter of religious freedom to put up a serpent display at the Illinois State Capitol. They have no right to engage in their public antics anywhere, as a matter of fact. I made this point over the weekend on social media, and the libs went crazy and the squishes went crazy.

And even a number of conservatives asked, Michael, come, aren't you abandoning the First Amendment? Doesn't the First Amendment and the right to religious freedom pretend? the Satanists from there? No, it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. As a matter of history, it obviously doesn't. We had established churches throughout this country. The First Amendment did not prohibit established churches at the state level until well into American history because of certain legal and judicial errors in interpretation and implementation of certain laws. But furthermore, we had blasphemy laws on the books. for a lot of American history, you could be punished by the state if you blasphemed God.

So obviously, it was not the view of the founding fathers or the framers of the Constitution or most of the great men who built our country that the First Amendment or the Constitution protects the sacred right of Satanists or anything like that. In fact, the very notion of religious freedom precludes protections for Satanists. The reason is that religion is not just anything you believe about anything. I know colloquially that's how we refer to religion. That's not what religion is. Religion has a real definition, okay? The religion is the moral virtue by which a person is disposed to render to God the service and worship that God deserves. That's what religion is. Okay, religion is a kind of a justice

through which and by which we give God what God deserves. So it's not just any belief you have about anything. And so in this country we have a tradition of religious freedom, which means that we are relatively quite tolerant about how people worship and serve God. We might think that one religious group is not worshiping God in quite the right way. You know the Episcopalians might say those Methodists, they are not rendering service and worship to God as they ought. But we have a broad kind of toleration for the different groups who sincerely think that they're worshipping God in the way that he deserves, even if they're a little bit wrong about it. The Satanists do not do that.

They singularly do not do that. They hate God. Or they deny God's existence. And there's not, it's a little bit of a blurry little bit of a blurry way. line between those two things. But whatever Satanists believe, they certainly do not believe that they are worshipping God and serving God. Whatever Satanists believe, either they're edgy online atheists or they are explicitly worshipping the Prince of Lies, the chief rebel and first rebel against God's plan. Either way, they can't have religious freedom because they're not religious. They're

irreligious. And religion and irreligion are not the same thing. We have become, even the conservatives, have become so relativistic in recent years. Well, this actually is at the heart of that argument over drag queen story hour. When David French, who was a sort of conservative writer, now he's a liberal writer for the Atlantic, David French came out and he said, drag queen story hour is a blessing of liberty. And if we ban drag queen story hour from public spaces, while by golly, the libs might ban church services, I don't know, Christian services from public spaces. So who's to say, one man's drag queen story hour,

is another man's preaching of the gospel. No, of course not. They're not the same thing. They're different things. And if you can't discern between those two things, then you don't have any faculties of reason. You can't govern yourself. No, religion and irreligion are not the same thing. And this is not just some crazy far-right theocratic view. This was commonly understood by everybody in the country, certainly by the people who framed the Constitution, certainly by the people who built our country until like five minutes ago. Okay. It's not a fringe view to say, no, the Satanists don't have a right to put up serpents and statues of demons in public spaces. There is a reason that that hasn't happened in American history until very recently.

And it's because the liberals have become more radical and the conservatives have failed to conserve a damn thing. And now we can't even articulate what the Constitution actually says. We don't even know. We ourselves, even we the conservatives, don't really know what religious freedom means anymore. I promise you guys. It does not mean putting up statues of demons and serpents in state capitals. Okay, that is not it. When you are doing that and when you are pretending that that is some sacred right enshrined in our political order, you have lost the plot. Speaking of things that are not very religious, lying, that's not very religious. That's exactly what Twitter has been doing. We've been reporting on the Twitter files releases that have come out. Elon Musk and the journalists Matt Taibi and Barry Weiss have been sort of slowly dripping out the Twitter file story, in part because there's so many documents to go through. They can't do it all at once.

So the update here is that Twitter lied. Twitter lied a lot. And Twitter lied about shadow banning and Twitter lied about the way that it was treating conservative. So what did we just find out in the new Twitter release? after banning Trump, after taking this unprecedented step to ban a sitting head of states, sitting dual elected president of the United States, Twitter then immediately starts talking about how it can use its newly taken power to ban other presidents in the future. So they start talking about how the new administration could be suspended by Twitter, but they will not be unless it's absolutely necessary. But you see this from company messages and memos and Slack channels. Then the executives admit that they didn't ban Trump over any particular tweet.

So this was something that was so clear when they banned the duly elected sitting president is what did he, one, even if he had violated some rule, it shouldn't be. I don't think that a handful of woke people in Silicon Valley ought to be able to control the public square such that they can kick out the president of the United States. Clearly, something has gone wrong then. But they admit, no, no, it wasn't that he did anything in particular. They said they removed him over the, quote, context surrounding actions by Trump and his supporters, quote, over the course of the election and, frankly, the last four plus years. So what did they do? They wanted to ban him, and then they just made up an excuse.

But it was about the four years. Then they have to come up with. some scheme as to how they ban people, otherwise it's just total caprice. So we see before January 6th, Twitter was a unique mix of automated rules-based enforcement and more subjective moderation by senior executives. This according to Matt Taibi. As Barry Weiss reported, the firm had a vast array of tools for manipulating visibility, most all of which were thrown at Trump and others before January 6th. So they were already suppressing not only the conservatives, they were already suppressing the duly elected sitting president before January 6th. So when they ban Trump,

that represents a major transformation of the political order. I write about this actually in my book, speechless, controlling words, controlling minds, which makes a fabulous Christmas present. Hello, thank you very much. Thank you for my bell. But I don't think anything that happened on January 6th would justify these Silicon Valley oligarchs kicking the president out. But even if you are inclined to think that it would, it was happening before January 6th. It was happening just because they did not like the cut of the man's jib. Okay, they were already taking this power. Any piffle you hear about January 6th, it was just an excuse made up after the fact to justify

behavior that they were already engaging in. Then, as the election approach, senior Twitter execs, under pressure possibly from federal agencies, tried to figure out what these rules are, and they started speaking of violations as pretexts to do what they already wanted to do. So they were openly talking about this, and they were coordinating with federal agencies, which was not totally clear in the first part of the Twitter file release. And the reason for that is the former top lawyer for the FBI was the one who was vetting the documents for Twitter because he was working at Twitter without Elon Musk even knowing about it.

We know that Twitter met regularly with those agencies. we know that they were meeting with the agencies about Donald Trump. So this is during the Trump administration. A lot of people have said, well, if you're upset with how the government was interacting with Twitter during the before the 2020 election, who controlled the government? That's Trump's fault. No, that's the whole point. That's the whole point of the Trump election.

Even after Trump won, he wasn't really controlling the government because there's something called the deep state, the permanent government, the bureaucracy that was undermining Trump at every single turn. that illegally, certainly illegitimately, spied on him. But I think it's fair to say illegally. They had a false pretext that they knew was false to spy on Trump when he was a candidate. And then they continued that operation while he was president to undermine his whole administration. They were making up election rules and content rules and decisions on the fly. Yoel Roth, the head of Twitter safety, met weekly with the FBI and the DHS.

He also met with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, absolute top of the spy pyramid. And even these sorts of warnings. In one example, Twitter employees prepared to slap a mail-in voting is safe warning to label a Trump tweet about a postal scrub up in Ohio. Trump said, hey, there's this crazy thing going on with the mail-in voting. And they were about to say, fact-check, 10,000 Pinocchio's, false. elections, mail-in elections are totally safe, except they ran into this problem, which is that they found out that what Trump was talking about actually did occur, and the tweet was factually accurate. They said, ah, darn, we've got definitive proof that what Trump is saying is right.

I guess we can't slap the fake news label on this one. Next time, we'll get him next time when the evidence is less clear. And so Twitter was lying, government was lying, that we kind of come to expect. But to me, the most frustrating part of this is that the preening, holier than thou sanctimonious liberal media was lying through their teeth, too. I've got some outlets here. I've got some news articles from some outlets who seem to have been proven wrong about shadow banning and Twitter's attitude. toward Republicans by the Twitter file releases. We have got the New York Times. Here we go. New York Times. What is a shadow ban and is Twitter doing it to Republican accounts? Is Twitter shadow banning Republicans?

No, it is not, says correspondent Liam Stack. They mocked the Republicans. No, it is not. That's great. Turns out New York Times totally wrong about that. What else do we have? We've got ABC. denies conservative shadow banning claims, but alters search function. So you've got to give ABC some credit here. They are still amplifying Twitter's denial of this, but they're at least saying, well, look, there were clearly some changes. So they were downplaying it, still very, very dishonest. But even ABC basically admitted, okay, we can't say that there's nothing going on here. There's obviously something going on. Then we've got The Verge. Why Twitter should ignore the phony outrage over shadow banning. Twitter's effort to clean up search results is a good thing. And so the verge,

I like how they have that in the subheader there. They're making kind of a different argument. They're not saying Twitter isn't shadow banning Republicans exactly. They're just saying it's really good when Twitter does shadow ban Republicans. And they say, let's be clear. The argument that Twitter is systematically disadvantaged conservative voices can only be made in bad faith. Just as the argument that Facebook systematically disadvantages conservative voices can only be made in bad faith. that is not true. Twitter and Facebook were both systematically doing that. Those arguments were made in good faith. We've got absolute proof positive at both places. The verge, big, fat liars. Then we've got CNN. Here's CNN how Twitter's algorithm is amplifying extreme political

rhetoric. And Oliver Darcy writing for CNN says, there is some irony to the amplification of these right-wing voices. Trump and other prominent Republicans have long accused Twitter of shadow-banned users with conservative viewpoints. An accusation Twitter is strongly denied. In reality, not only is Twitter not shadow banning these right-wing personalities for their political viewpoints, the platform's algorithm is actually amplifying some of their tweets to audiences who do not even follow their accounts. That reporting from CNN, Oliver Dorsey, total lie, complete fake news made up. And then we've got my favorite. This is my favorite one is Brian Feldman at New York Magazine. Headline, Twitter is not shadow banning Republicans. What does he say? What does this journal say? Twitter's technology for minimizing

accounts instead of banning them just isn't very good. That's a, and he was quoting one of the explanations of this. And he says, that's a more likely scenario than a cabal of secretive Twitter employees trying to suppress the speech of Donald Trump Jr.'s spokesperson. Is it bad? Sure, the way a hangnail is bad. But it's not censorship and it's Certainly not shadow banning. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And so I called this guy out, Brian Feldman. I said, hey, Brian Feldman, are you going to update your report now that Elon Musk and the Twitter files release has proven that your reporting was just completely wrong? And you can tell that other people were sending this to him because he was getting very angry. He changed his Twitter bio to. Thanks for sending me a screenshot of that article that still remains correct. Yeah, maybe there was a headline that was a little sensationalist,

The reporting remains correct. No, you just heard it. The reporting was wrong. The reporting says Twitter's not censoring. It's not shadow banning. There's no cabal of secret of Twitter employees trying to suppress the speech of these conservatives. There was. We know that now. We know that that small cabal involved Vijaya Gaddi, involved Yoel Roth, involved Jack Dorsey in some cases. We know that there was actually a structure at Twitter in place to create a small secret of cabal of employees. who were censoring and shadow banning conservatives and who were lying about doing that in public. So it's not just that the headline was a little hyperbolic. This guy's reporting was just totally wrong. New York Magazine, Brian Feldman. And so I tweeted that at him. And you know what his response was? His response was, quote,

yeah, I'm going to do it right after I change your diaper. That's what he said. This is what the New York Magazine journal said in response to, hey, are you going to update your reporting now that this new information came to light? Yeah, I'm going to do it right after I change your diaper. That's what this grown man writing for New York Magazine told me. And I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised by that.

I'm amused by that. But I'm not, but I think other people might be surprised. I say, wait, you're a very serious journalist. You write for New York Magazine. You probably wear some neckties. You're the intrepid fourth estate. You're the great defender of democracy which dies in darkness. And you're talking like a four-year-old.

I'm going to do that right after I change your diaper. I am rubber, you are glue. Your mama is going to change the article. What? I thought that you... No, this is who they are. This is... Yeah, I'm going to do it right after. I change your diaper is exactly who, not only Brian Feldman, not only New York Magazine,

but all of these guys in the media are. They just pretend to be dignified. They just pretend to be fearless pursuers of the truth. They are childish hacks. They do not care about the objective truth or speaking truth to power or anything like that. These guys are the tools of of power. They are the megaphones and the propagandists for the powerful entrenched interests. That is not only what the corporate media are today, that's what they have always been. And the Libs have fooled themselves into believing that these journalists, they're so courageous, they're so independent, they're not. But many conservatives believe that too. many conservatives believe in the myth of the objective, neutral, speak truth to power news media.

That's not real. That's not real at all. And so we in the conservative media, I won't speak for the whole conservative media, but I'll speak for myself at least. I make no pretense about being neutral on political questions. No one can be neutral on these sorts of political. No one in public life is actually neutral on these questions. And so given that that's where I'm coming from, I actually, frankly, spend more time on this show criticizing conservatives than I criticize the libs for most of the time, because, yeah, we take it for granted. The libs are crazy. Yeah, they dress up like girls and that's weird. Yeah, sure. But what can we do about it? Let's take it a little further than that. Instead of just saying, oh, did you see that crazy AOC tweet or something like that? We take it a little bit further because we know where we're coming from. Okay, if you're tuning into this show, you know my perspective.

You know that I'm not right down the middle or anything like that. But nobody is right down the middle. People have opinions. Okay, we're rational creatures. Even Brian Feldman is a at least somewhat rational creature. What the libs do is they just lie. They just lie. They lie about Twitter and they lie about their power and they lie about COVID and they lie about the election and they lie about everything. They lie about everything. But the biggest lie that they tell is about their own neutrality and their own courage. They have neither of those things. They're just whiny little schoolboys when they get caught. And they're not going to update any of these articles and they're just going to move on to the next big lie. That's what they're going to do. They're going to, in a way, I'm sort of sorry that we're all talking about this right now.

Because, you know, they're just lying about something else right now. And so we're going to be vindicated on the lie they told two years ago. And then we're going to miss the lies they're telling right now. Well, here's one great example of this. ABC News covering the trade between Russia and the United States. Russia gives up Brittany Griner, a basketball lady, who has elicited a lot of sympathy from the elites in this country solely on the basis of her skin color and her sexual desires because she's a black lesbian. The other prisoners, Americans being held by Russia, they have not elicited any sympathy from our elite ruling class, the Marine, the history teacher. Those guys can rot, according to the media.

But Britney Griner, she's a lesbian basketball player, allegedly. No one's ever watched a game. But she deserves the special treatment. So what happened? The United States gave up. The most notorious arms dealer in the world, Victor Boot, known as the Merchant of Death, to get her. And initially, NBC News had a report on this. NBC News, covered the story and said that a senior U.S. official told NBC News that the U.S. government had sought to have both Griner and Whalen, he's the Marine, released as part of a swap with the Kremlin. But the official said Russia has treated Whelan differently because he's an accused spy and that the Kremlin gave the White House the choice of either, not both, but either

Griner or Wellen or none. That was the first report. So the report from NBC was Biden could pick. Do you want the U.S. Marine or do you want the basketball lady who brought the drugs into the country? Which one do you want? Because we're only going to give you one of these for Victor Boot. And then the Biden White House chose the basketball lady because it would win them more points with their base and with the social justice left and they'll leave the Marine to rot. But then NBC News updated the report. So the official said that Russia is treated well indifferently because he's accused of spying and that the Kremlin. ultimately gave the White House the choice of Griner or no one after different options were proposed. Now, I love how they cover themselves here where they say after different options were proposed. So presumably one of those options is what was in NBC's first report, which is you could get one of either of these people in exchange for Victor Boot, but then they update it.

And why did they update the story? Because the Biden administration came out and said, no, no, no, we didn't have a choice. It's very important for the Biden administration to say we didn't have a choice, because then they won't be blamed for abandoning this Marine in favor of podhead basketball lady. So what does NBC do? Does NBC speak truth to power? Pushback. No, Mr. President. Our sources tell us that you actually did have a choice. And I know it's not going to help your political position, but we're going to speak to. No, of course not. They just, okay, never mind. We'll update the report. They did the same thing over the Paul Pelosi attack.

Remember that story? Isn't that kind of weird how we were told just, what, a month ago, that a man broke into the Speaker of the House's home? And tried to murder her, and then the president of the United States gave a whole speech about this, but then details emerged that didn't quite make sense. And then the story just completely disappeared, and we're not hearing anything more about it. And that kind of weird. You know, like, you'd think if someone tried to assassinate the Speaker of the House that you might hear about that for more than just a few days before some details came out that were weird and then it completely disappeared. Well, in that story, NBC News ran a great report. Well, research to put on TV,

lots of quotes, lots of evidence, where they said, you know, the story was weird because the cops were called to the house. And Paul Pelosi wasn't tied up in some room, you know, begging to be released. Actually, Paul Pelosi answered the door. And then he welcomed the cops in. And then he walked back toward his alleged attacker. And there were reports that they were in various states of undress. And then, and Paul Pelosi didn't say that he was being kidnapped. and you didn't run into the arms of the cops. The whole thing didn't. And then what happened? After that report, which was detailed and meticulous, NBC News ditched the report, buried it online, suspended the reporter because it didn't go along with the narrative that the media were supposed to be pushing. And so the powerful interests called them, presumably. Someone picked up the phone.

and NBC News ditched the journalism. As we see here with Brittany Griner, same outlet, as we see all the time. This is who these people are. You know, 2022 was a great year. It's been a fabulous year, and it's been a great year, not just for me personally, for Daily Wire Plus. We released Choosing Death, the legacy of Roe v. Wade. I put Dr. Fauci under the microscope in Fauci unmasked.

That is to say nothing of what is a woman. incredible movie, terror on the prairie, greatest lie ever sold, Jordan B. Peterson's joining our fold, so much more. As great as this year was, we have even more in store for next year. And you will see it all if you are a member. If you're already a member, thank you. If you're not yet a member, now is the time to join this Christmas season. You can get 30% off new DailyWire Plus memberships and gift memberships when you use code holiday, H-O-L-I-D-A-Y at checkout. And what that means is there is only a short time left to take advantage of our final sale of 2022. Go to dailywire.com slash Knowles. Use code holiday at checkout to get 30% off new DailyWar Plus memberships.

That is dailywire.com slash Knowles today. You remember when the liberal media built up Michael Avinotti? You remember Michael Avinotti? He was the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, who was the porn star, who said that she slept with Trump. And then Avinati just appeared on left-wing cable news. ceaselessly for months and months and months. The Democrats in the news media even talked about this guy is a potential presidential candidate. He's Donald Trump's worst nightmare. Michael Avederee.

Joining us once again is Michael Avanotti. That's bringing him Michael Avanotti. Michael Avanotti. Michael Avanotti, thank you very much. He's out there saving the country. John Meacham says he may be the savior of the republic. You are something of a folk hero now. Oh, Michael Avanotti, an apology.

I've been saying, enough for ready, Michael. I've seen you everywhere. What do you have left to say? I was wrong, brother. You have a lot to say. I am just dying to hear what you think. These people all like you. I'm the only person right here.

Donald Trump fears more than Robert Miller. We think you guys are the tip of the spear that's going to take down Donald Trump. Michael Avinati's a beast. Okay, that's true. He's a beast. He's a beast. I hand it to her.

And I hand it to Michael Avenetti. But he has a bigger calling here. That being a lawyer is minimal compared to what he's doing. Compared to what he's doing, this man, this man walks on water, doesn't he practically? This man, he's a saint. This man, he's the great hope for America. In the minds of the liberal journalists and many prominent Democrats, Michael Avanotti

was a paragon of virtue. So he was just sentenced to 14 years in prison. And Michael Avinati was sentenced to 14 years in prison for defrauding many of his clients, for stealing a lot of money from vulnerable, desperate people, for being just, a complete professional dirtbag for being a con artist, a scammer. U.S. District Judge James V. Selna just sentenced Avanotti, ordered him to pay $8 million in restitution to his victims, $3.2 million to the government for taxes that he owes. Just to give you a little smattering of Avanotti.

He obviously defrauded Stormy Daniels. That's where we first heard about his crimes. He stole money from Jeffrey Ernest Johnson. Jeffrey Ernest Johnson is mentally disabled and a paraplegic. He said, quote, to this day, I do not know why Michael lied and deceived me, why he broke my trust, why he broke my heart. I trusted him implicitly. I believed the things he told me, but it was all part of his plan to defraud me of my settlement. To this day, I have a hard time trusting people because of what Michael did, and I live in

constant fear of being taken advantage of again. particularly given my physical disability. Dante puts in the pit of hell fraudsters, traitors, people who betray those near to them and who betray their benefactors and who, it's at the very lowest echelons of hell, much more so than sins of the flesh or wrath or anything like that. What this guy did, can you imagine you do? defraud a guy who's mentally handicapped and paraplegic. And you say, oh, there's an easy mark. And then you steal a ton of money from him. And many other people. That's just one example.

Why do I mention this? Not just to pile on Michael Abenati. I don't really know. Michael Avanati, I met him one time. We were both coincidentally at a restaurant in Beverly Hills. And I met him. And we were sort of standing at the bar. And it was just sort of generally unpleasant. He wasn't the most pleasant guy in the world. So I'm not surprised that it turned out this way. But I mention this, because you should remember Michael Avanotti the next time the establishment media make some judgment of character.

Okay? When the media come out and say, oh, this Republican, this conservative, he's the worst man ever. We're good judges of character. I know, and this Democrat, he is the greatest man that ever walked here. These people are terrible judges of character.

character. A Lego set is a gift that always clicks. And clicks? For kids who love to save the day, choose a Lego set. A gift that always clicks. Okay, these are people who have consistently built up some of the worst, sleazyest people on earth. And we should remember that. I know there's supposed to be the intrepid fourth estate, speak truth at power, pursued truth at all costs. They're not. It's the opposite. Democrats, not looking great. right now. An amazing turn of events just took place. A Democrat senator has left the Democrat Party. And it's not Joe Manchin. A lot of people thought it might be Joe Manchin because he's often the more moderate vote who stymies Chuck Schumers and Joe Biden's plans. But it wasn't him.

It was Kirsten Sinema. Who's the other kind of moderate vote who sometimes stymies the Democrats' plans? She left. She hasn't become a Republican. She's become an independent. This is great news. and it definitely weakens the Democrat majority. But it's not as big a deal as some people are making it out to be. And it's clearly more calculated than some people are making it out to be because Kirsten Cinema waited to make this announcement until just after the Democrats know they won the Georgia Senate seat. So almost immediately after Raphael Warnock beats Herschel Walker in Georgia, and the Democrats know they've got a little bit of a buffer in the Senate, that's when Kirsten Cinema leaves the party. Had she announced that she was going to leave the party back when her leaving the party looked like it could throw control of the Senate potentially to Republicans, that would have been huge. So it's not that significant. But it's still somewhat significant. Okay. Kirsten Cinema, looking at her state of Arizona, which is a purple state, is saying, I can't really be associated with the Democrat Party. It's not going to serve me very well to be associated with them. And they're obviously crazy. and they've been crazy to Kirsten Cinema. Do you remember when they chased Kirsten Cinema through an airport and started screaming at her while she was hiding in a bathroom stall? She's trying to use the John as she's traveling,

and these maniacs are screaming at her and filming it in a bathroom. So she says, I don't want any part of this. And there are a lot of people like that. You think of a lot of people who were liberals, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Bill Maher, a number of other people who were and still sort of are, libs who can't be associated with that anymore. It's easy to get discouraged as Republicans, and that's what the Dems want. But, and they do kind of monkey around with the elections a fair bit, especially in certain states. But the Democrats do not have a total lock on power. The people are still largely opposed to what they want to do, especially when you look at specific issues like transgenderism, immigration, foreign population.

policy. The people are largely against what the libs are doing. And another little cause for hope, there was an Iowa State House race that was just decided by 11 votes. The Republican beat the Democrat by 11 votes. This would be Luana Stoltenberg beat out Democrat Craig Cooper. This was not a huge race. 5,062 votes cast for Cooper. Stoltenberg got 11 more votes. So 5,073 votes. I mention it because the libs run on discouragement. Okay? The liberals have a lot of power.

I don't want to downplay that. They control the media. They control the education institutions. They control big tech. Until now, at least we have Twitter, which is the smallest of the big tech platforms, of the major ones. They control the big corporations.

They control the asset managers, though that might sort of be changing a little bit too. They control a lot. They control a lot. And now they control the government. but they're not omnipotent. And so the libs who have a real advantage in power, the way they augment that advantage,

is by discouraging you and convincing you that they are totally omnipotent. No reason to vote. No reason to vote, no reason to show up, no reason to try to fight back. Look, they're omnipotent. And a lot of people in politics will, by rightly observing the secret power that their opponents have, They will take it way too far and use it as a kind of cope to justify their lack of action and their lack of courage. And let's say, well, there's nothing I can do. The omnipotence of one's opponent fallacy. And we shouldn't do that.

11 seats here. 11 votes, rather, to win a seat. There was another race that seems to have been won by just one vote. I went to the Democrats. I'm sure that's going to be legally challenged. One vote. I mean, that's absolutely amazing. be discouraged. The libs might beat us. I hope they don't. They might beat us. But we should not surrender. I do not want to surrender. I do not want to go down without a fight. And frankly, if we actually do stand up and we actually do fight, and we actually just engage in the long, hard work of decades and decades of taking back power from them and then wielding power against them as well, in a just and moral way, of course, I don't think that they will win. I don't I don't think that they will permanently win. Let's say that. The rest of the show continues now.

It is Music Monday. My producers have, they promise me, a song that requires my hip-hop, pop music, media mogul perspective. You know me? I'm Wonder Mike. I've come to say hello to the black, the white, the red, and the brown, the purple, and yellow. But first, we've got to head on over to the member block. If you are not a member, click the link in the description and join us.