The Darrell McClain show
Independent media that won't reinforce tribalism. We have one Planet; nobody's leaving so let’s reason together!! Darrell, McClain is a Military veteran with an abnormal interest in politics, economics, religion, philosophy, science, and literature. He was born and raised in Jacksonville FL, and went to Edward H white High School where he wrestled Under Coach Jermy Smith and The Late Brian Gilbert. He was a team wrestling captain, District champion, and an NHSCA All-American in freestyle Wrestling. He received a wrestling scholarship from Waldorf University in Forest City, Iowa. After a short period, he decided he no longer wanted to cut weight which effectively ended his college wrestling journey. Darrell Mcclain is an Ordained Pastor under The Universal Life Church and is still in good standing, he's a Believer in The Doctrines of Grace Also Known as Calvinism. He joined the United States Navy in 2008 and was A Master At Arms (military police officer) He was awarded several awards while on active duty including an expeditionary combat medal, a Global War on Terror medal, a National Defense Medal, a Korean defense medal, and multiple Navy achievement medals. While In the Navy he was also the assistant wrestling coach at Robert E Lee High School. He's a Brown Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under six six-degree black belt Gustavo Machado, Darrell Trains At Gustavo Machado Norfolk under the 3rd-degree black belt, and Former Marine Professor Mark Sausser. He went to school for psychology at American Military University and for criminal justice at ECPI University.
The Darrell McClain show
Unveiling the Truth: Zelensky, Russian Aggression, and the Complex Interplay of Politics and Business
Who really holds the reins in the Ukraine-Russia conflict? We make a controversial claim that challenges the prevailing narrative by suggesting President Zelensky's leadership in Ukraine has played a pivotal role in the ongoing tensions with Russia. Join the conversation as we explore missed diplomatic opportunities and question the current strategies employed to resolve the crisis. We also tackle the pressing issue of Ukraine's political stability, exacerbated by the lack of recent elections, and discuss how this situation impacts both the Ukrainian populace and the international stage.
Navigate the complexities of Russian aggression with us, as we dissect the historical patterns of warfare and debunk the myth that NATO expansion justifies such actions. We contrast these patterns with parallels in U.S. politics, contemplating scenarios where leaders might prioritize conflict over democracy. Expect a thorough analysis that sets the record straight on misinformation about President Zelensky's approval ratings and lays bare the intricacies of U.S.-Ukraine relations amidst a backdrop of geopolitical tension and ideological battles within American conservatism.
Intrigued by the intersection of business and politics? We shed light on a substantial $400 million Tesla contract for armored vehicles, illustrating the blurred lines between political agendas and corporate interests. Further intrigue comes in the form of Elon Musk's controversial claims surrounding government savings, leading us to question the integrity behind such assertions. We also peel back the layers on the societal impacts of privatization, exposing its potential to undermine democracy and public accountability. Join us for a riveting exploration of geopolitics, ethics, and the shifting ideologies in our modern world.
What we're about to do here is a neighborly act. We're like a group of householders living in the same locality who decide to express their community interests by entering into a formal association for their mutual self-protection. All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words Ich bin ein Berliner.
Speaker 3:I've spoken of a shining city all my political life. In my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, god-blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace.
Speaker 2:It's more important for them than it is for us. We have an ocean in between and they don't. Today I heard oh, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.
Speaker 4:Welcome to the Jerome McLean show. Independent media that will not reinforce tribalism. We have one planet. Nobody is leaving, so let us reason together. We are at episode 446, as we start off with the 47th president of the United States making somewhat the pivot that I told you that was going to be made on yesterday, where it now seems as if President Donald Trump is trying to basically say Russia is not the problem, Vladimir Zelensky, and Ukraine is the problem. Let's get into the episode.
Speaker 2:I hear that you know they're upset about not having a seat. Well, they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily. Just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without, I think, without the loss of much land, very little land, without the loss of any lives and without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides. You have those magnificent golden domes that are shattered, will never be replaced. You can't replace them. Thousand-year-old domes that are so beautiful, you can't replace that. The whole civilization has changed. Because of what?
Speaker 2:So when they're worried about not being seated, you mean somebody that should have gone in and made a deal a long time ago, and I think I have the power to end this war and I think it's going very well. But today I heard oh, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it. Three years, you should have never started it. You could have made a deal.
Speaker 2:I could have made a deal for ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed and no city would have been demolished and not one dome would have been knocked down, but they chose not to do it that way. Well, we have a situation where we haven't had elections in ukraine, where we have martial law essentially martial law in ukraine, where the leader in ukraine I mean, I hate to say it, but he's down at four percent approval rating and, yeah, I would say that you know when they want a seat at the table, you could say the people have to. Wouldn't the people of Ukraine have to say, like you know, it's been a long time since we've had an election. That's not a Russia thing, that's something coming from me and coming from many other countries also.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, that is a Russia thing, and I don't know why the president is saying this stuff. I think a historical context would be the way we look at this. When george bush was president, uh, gladimer putin invaded georgia. When barack obama was president, uh, he invaded kiev. And when biden was president, he went and tried to invade other parts of the donbass in ukraine. This is not a who is the president thing when it comes to Ukraine. This is about the who is in control of Russia. Now, I think, like I said before, I think this fails to really say who was the aggressor here. Now I have some friends on the left and on the right who say that this is about the nato expansion. Okay, well, we can say it's about nato expansion, but ukraine is not a part of nato. Ukraine has never been a part of nato, so it was. Was the invasion of georgia when george bush was president about nato expansion? Was the invasion when barack obama was president of part nato expansion? You can kind of say that forever, but the point is that, uh, russia keeps invading ukrainian territory. Ukraine is not invading Russian territory. We have had, since the beginning of this conflict, no point in time where Ukraine crept closer and closer and closer to Russia's border, where they did anything to provoke the Russian attack. And if you're saying it's about NATO expansion and you would you seriously take that tact and you have to wrestle with the fact that the US funds most of the NATO budget so it wouldn't be an attack on US colonial power. I suppose this is very serious stuff here Because, like I said on a previous episode, there is a no-win situation here for Ukraine, and now we're talking about elections.
Speaker 4:Uh, and now we're talking about elections. Vladimir putin's name has been mentioned in russia as the leader of russia for most of my adult life. Um vladimir zelensky, on the other hand, is a fairly new leader in the scene in this conflict. Do you really look at Russia and think of the democratic elections? Do you look at Russia and think of free society? Do you look at Russia and think parliamentary system? Anybody that's taken a hard look at russia knows it is an authoritarian regime. The elections are a sham. There has been leaders who were, who were very popular in russia, who were probably going to take vladimir putin out of power through the electoral process, who wound up being poisoned, arrested, killed. A lot of flying out of windows still happens in Russia. It is not a democracy, it is not a republic. It is not a republic, it is not a parliamentary system, it is a dictatorship for all intents and purposes. So, yes, the question is why are we talking about during a war? We have to get rid of Vladimir Zelensky.
Speaker 4:Let me ask a serious question to the audience. Do you think right now, if America was attacked let's just say, canada got its stones and decided to roll in and attack America and at the same time, canada got its stones and attacked America on its northern border, mexico rolled in and attacked America on his southern border Does anybody think that Donald Trump and his cabinet would take any time, any thought, before they tried to suspend elections until after the conflict was over? You already know the answer. You know full well Donald Trump would do everything in his power to try to suspend elections to stay in power.
Speaker 4:So the fact that Vladimir Zelensky, when his country is attacked, suspends elections to focus on the war, I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong. Saying whether it's right or wrong, I'm saying that I fully believe the same thing would happen in this country and not in the past. The same thing would happen with this current president and I don't know why President Trump said that he was at 4 percent, I think. I think because he was caught off guard, probably being pressed by the media. I think he was trying to say he has dropped 4%, but the guy Amir Zelensky's approval rating in Ukraine is currently at 52%, not 4% 52%. So Richard Engel, the correspondent for NBC, is on the front line and he has been in contact with Ukrainian soldiers and he kind of tried to give a little bit of analysis of what they've been thinking about when they hear these issues.
Speaker 5:So Ukrainian soldiers are watching this very closely, or as close as they can, in front line positions. They don't always have Internet, but they do have cell phone connections generally and they've been watching this with a lot of concern. They are worried that decisions about Ukraine are being made without Ukrainians input. They worry that Presidents Trump and Putin are in the process of chopping up this country. Currently, russia controls about 20% of Ukraine's territory in the east, where I am right now, also in the south, and they're deeply concerned watching this process, considering the fact that President Trump has already spoken with Vladimir Putin, the fact that he started these negotiations by talking to the Russian side, excluding President Zelensky, and then, as you said last night, blaming the entire war on Ukraine instead of on the Russians who actually invaded. Soldiers here are watching this and thinking they're on the chopping block, they're about to be divided and have territories ceded to Russia.
Speaker 5:As you know, there's an old expression in negotiations If you're not at the table, you're on the table, and people here feel very much that Ukraine is on the table right now. President Zelensky commented just a short while ago about those comments from President Trump, saying that he's responsible for this war If he'd only done some sort of deal early on. It never would have happened if he had ceded territory. And he said that President Trump is in a disinformation bubble parroting it sounds like Russian disinformation taking Russia's take on the war. And he said that he wants US officials, particularly Trump's envoy, to come hear more and learn more truth about the facts on the ground. And Trump's envoy, former General Kellogg, has just arrived in Ukraine and the Ukrainians are eager to take him out to places like this to try and rewrite the narrative that President Trump is describing right now.
Speaker 4:So again, that was Richard Engel from NBC, who is currently on the ground in Ukraine. So of course, this is going to spark, or has sparked, a fight between the conservatives and the neoconservatives versus the isolationist conservatives, paleoconservatives, etc. America has a long tradition of both camps. Now I do think Russia's endgame is exactly what Putin said. I also don't see a win for Ukraine if the president doesn't support it. I don't see a win if Putin is not going to back off. I don't see a win for Ukraine that doesn't eventually pull the United States and European allies directly into the conflict. The former vice president to when Donald Trump was a 45th president, the former president Mike Prince, stepped up to say Mr President, ukraine did not start this war. Russia launched an unprovoked, brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. The road to peace must be built on truth.
Speaker 6:Published a significant news story over at Dropside News, and that's that Elon Musk's Tesla is forecast to win a $400 million contract from the State Department in Q4 for, quote, armored Tesla. It is forecast to be the largest contract delivered by the State Department in 2025. Now this is according to procurement documents that we've reviewed. The procurement documents themselves say they were revised as of late December 2024, meaning that this came after President Donald Trump's election and after Elon Musk became the head of this DOJ committee. Because this is such a wild story, I wanted to take you into how you can go and confirm this yourself.
Speaker 6:So here's the URL that you can go to at the State Department stategov slash procurement hyphen forecast. Go down here and click on the Department of State procurement forecast for year 2025, revised as of December 23rd 2024. You click on that. It's going to bring you a spreadsheet. You sort the spreadsheet by dollar value and you'll find here this top contract is a $400 million contract, and then you just have to bounce over to this side to find out who this is for. It's FY 2025, target award quarter. It's fourth quarter. Armored Tesla is what's listed as. There's another column on here that says competition and for that it says TBD, so there you have it. Congratulations to Mr Elon Musk. Special government employee Elon.
Speaker 4:Musk special government employee. More than 1,000 new workers were dismissed as part of a new wave of layoffs, and that came out of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Now, that was said in a statement Thursday evening.
Speaker 7:Mitch McConnell has just announced he will not run for re-election next year and will retire after more than four decades in the Senate.
Speaker 8:Representing our commonwealth has been the honor of a lifetime. I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last.
Speaker 7:And let's bring in Jay O'Brien on Capitol Hill and White House correspondent.
Speaker 9:Mary.
Speaker 7:Alice Parks for more. Jay McConnell already stepped down from Senate leadership. What's the reaction to him now stepping down from politics in general, and what does this mean for the future of the Republican Party?
Speaker 9:Well, this is something that Hill Republicans had expected when McConnell stepped down from leadership. Remember, he was formerly the top Republican in the Senate. He is not for this Congress. There was another top Republican John Thune in that chamber Mitch McConnell, making it official today that he won't run for reelection. He was up for reelection just next year, november 2026. And when his term is over, in January 2027, he will no longer be a United States senator.
Speaker 9:He leaves behind this long legacy of bending, in some instances, senate Republicans to his political will, not just confirming hundreds of judges to the federal bench, but serving as a key opponent of President Obama's. Think back he was a thorn in President Donald Trump's side. They had a very public break after January 6th. They came back together to a degree in this election. There was that notable photo, remember, of them shaking hands as Donald Trump was running for the White House yet again.
Speaker 9:But just in recent weeks and months, mitch McConnell has been another thorn in Donald Trump's side when it comes to his controversial cabinet picks. He has voted against three of Donald Trump's cabinet picks, from RFK Jr to Tulsi Gabbard to Pete Hegseth. All of them were ultimately confirmed despite McConnell's opposition. But that has been really a public breaking point with the rest of his party, and specifically the White House, just in recent weeks. When Mitch McConnell leaves, ultimately it will mean that one of those in recent weeks at least moderating political voices in the Republican Party, a longtime advocate for Ukraine, someone who has not gone along with these controversial cabinet picks, will be gone. But we'll see today, because Mitch McConnell will have another test of whether or not he's going to break with President Trump in just a few hours from now when Kash Patel, donald Trump's controversial pick to run the FBI, has his final confirmation vote on the Senate floor.
Speaker 7:Diane and Mary Alice, what are you hearing from the White House about this meeting with Zelensky and the US special envoy to Ukraine, and why cancel the news conference?
Speaker 10:We don't know, we don't have many details yet. The White House press secretary is set to give a press briefing in just a little bit. She's going to be joined, we're told, by advisers both on foreign policy and domestic policy. But look, it's hard to imagine that President Zelensky wanted to come in front of the cameras when the relationship between the Ukraine and the United States is at this new, at least in terms of rhetoric, all-time low. Such a backer, such a supporter, working so hard at lockstep with the Ukrainians as they try to defend against this Russian invasion, as they try to hold their sovereign territory, to the last 24 hours, where President Trump has been bashing Zelensky by name, lobbying, insults and really sort of seeming, in his words and language at least, to side with Russia and Putin instead. So we're seeing those pictures of Zelensky shaking the hands of of Kellogg there, of Trump's envoy to Ukraine. They had a meeting, we're told. They're still meeting, but, yes, the press conference afterwards canceled, we're told.
Speaker 7:Mary Alice Doge posted on its website a list of more than a thousand federal contracts it claims to have terminated, including what appeared to be an $8 billion DHS contract. Doge then changed it to $8 million, calling it a clerical error. Any more from the White House on that.
Speaker 10:No, look, the White House has defended Doge time and time again. We've heard the president defend Elon Musk, but the reality is Musk and his team have promised transparency and accountability. There Musk is in the Oval Office. When he claimed that they were being completely transparent, it actually took reporters pressing and pressing and pressing for any receipts from his team before they finally posted a few and then almost immediately had to admit huge clerical error. So it raises real questions still about what exactly they are finding, what exactly they are cutting, who is doing that kind of accountability and still whether Musk and their team has this kind of authority. We've heard the White House say repeatedly that Musk is only basically an advisor at the White House, that he doesn't have statutory authority to be making cuts, but we're hearing agencies say that they are caught off guard by some of these cuts. So still serious questions about Musk's legal authority and what proof and evidence he has and is providing to the American people. Diane All right.
Speaker 7:Mary Alice Parks, Jay O'Brien, thank you both.
Speaker 4:So anyway, I let all that play out because I wanted you guys to hear the doge part. A lot of uh numbers have been flying around. I did a show on the um some of the alleged numbers and trying to clear some of the some of the things that are being that have been said. Yeah of you just heard the example where they claimed that they saved $8 billion and then turns out, oh, actually it looks like it was $8 million. And, like I said before, when the lie gets out, or you could say the clerical era gets out, how many people are going to hear the correction? I don't think a lot of people are going to hear the correction and I somewhat believe that that is the point of this entire to throw out a bunch of stuff to whether it's true or not, to still have the claim lingering out there as if it's true, because most people are not going to look and see if the claim is accurate. Claim is accurate. Now I've said a few times and I'll probably say it a million times more when this company actually goes through and names names and says this organization committed this fraud, these people did it, this is how much they used, then that will be a shot at reality.
Speaker 4:What has been happening is, elon will go on his platform. Elon will go on his platform, post a spreadsheet that God knows where it comes from, or somebody supposedly working in the organization will post something on X, the platform formerly known as twitter. Elon will then repost it and then say something like truth. A few hours or so later, a journalist will grab it, look at it and say well, actually that that this turns out that that's not true. They said $8 billion, it's actually $8 million, etc. And they'll say oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, this was a clerical era. Now you're supposed to be in charge of finding fraud, waste and abuse. How are you making all of these clerical errors? How are we having to have and have this conversation again about something is being fraud?
Speaker 4:And then you go look it up and it's not fraud. It's literally a line item that was approved by the state department. You say something is fraud. You look it up it's a line item that was approved by Congress. And I've been saying this ad nauseum, because you don't like a program that was approved by Congress does not mean it's fraud. It just means it's a program you don't like that was approved by Congress the that the chevron deference case, um gave a lot of organizations bureaucratic authority and because legislators don't want to legislate, that they kind of gave up a lot of their power. And an organization sends money somewhere and you don't like it does not make it illegal because you don't like it. That's not how this thing works. But the thing is there's a playing around with terms here and I think this playing around with terms is being done on purpose. I also think this throwing things against the window and seeing what sticks is being done on purpose as well these fraudulent supposedly programs that they've been, you know, they've been rooting out, etc.
Speaker 11:Except for the fact that you know all of the programs that they've suggested thus far are like well, it's not really fraud. It might just be something you don't like, but it's not actually fraudulent. In any case, they finally put out a spreadsheet and, lo and behold, even the spreadsheet they put out was blatantly wrong on any number of levels. Here's a little Bloomberg News report breaking some of the numbers down.
Speaker 12:What is the number that we have calculated, and we'll put this into the context of the $55 billion that Elon is, you know, taking credit for. Yeah, so the Doge on its website says that they've saved about $55 billion for US taxpayers, but when you go ahead and add up all of the contracts that they list online that they say they've canceled, it only comes to about $8.6 billion. So you know just a small fraction of that overall $55 billion. Also, in going through all these contracts, it's clear that there was at least one major clerical error. There was one contract that was listed for $8 billion. That was actually only an $8 million contract, so they had listed it so about $16 billion, but when you take that away, it's a much smaller figure.
Speaker 12:This is, you know, sort of really been a key tension point, as Doge has gone into federal agencies and started slashing spending and firing staff. Of that they said look, this is the most transparent effort that's out there. You can go and read all this information, but when it's both riddled with errors and there isn't oversight that normally, you know, is layered above federal agencies, things like watchdogs and the Office of Government Ethics Doge really operates independently of that and that has raised a lot of concerns, both from members of Congress as well as other federal government watchers.
Speaker 11:So it's kind of insulting to all of our intelligence that they put out this spreadsheet. They're like, oh, we save $55 billion. Ok. Then you literally just add up the column and it doesn't add up to 55 billion, it adds up to 16.6 billion. Then you sort by which you know many people online and also reporters at New York Times and whatever. Then you sort by like okay, well, what's the biggest program that you cut here? And the one that rises to the top is this $8 billion program. But then you dig into that and it turns out that is a complete error. It's actually not $8 billion.
Speaker 11:It's $8 million. A little bit of a difference there. And now your spreadsheet, which you claimed, indicated savings of $55 billion, which only actually added up to $16.6 billion, which only actually added up to $16.6 billion, now only totals to $8.6 billion. So one of the sleuths online who was digging into this let's put this up on the screen indicates that with that $8 billion to $8 million thing, apparently there was originally some typo on the contract, so the contract value was listed at $8 billion rather than $8 million. Then it was corrected.
Speaker 11:The real TCV I don't know what that stands for was $8 million, corrected in January. Three years. Only $3.5 million was awarded. So it was very easy to discern, as someone even here on the outside was doing, that this was not the correct amount of money. And then, in addition, ryan, even with the $8 million amount, if they've already spent $3.5 million, then you're not saving even an entire $8 million. And that rationale actually applies to all of the other things that were in this spreadsheet. So basically, it's a complete exaggeration. Parts of it are just completely wrong, and many of these things too. As I said before, they frame them as like fraud, but in reality it's just stuff that Elon doesn't particularly like.
Speaker 6:And it was Customs and Border Protection, I think.
Speaker 11:Yes, that's right.
Speaker 6:So people also need to use their common sense and when we think through these numbers, Customs and Border Protection's entire budget is not that high Like it's. I don't know offhand exactly what it is. You can Google that and find it. Eight billion would be a huge portion of their like entire budget, and this was like some DEI thing or something.
Speaker 11:Yeah, some DEI training or whatever. It was Something like that, something like that.
Speaker 6:Yeah, then, you have to ask yourself what are the chances that, like two-thirds of the border protectionist budget is this dei training.
Speaker 6:You don't even have to then like google and like, follow the charts and the contracts all the way back to the source.
Speaker 6:You can just be like. That's probably not true, and there are a lot of people that are frustrated that musk isn't getting all the flowers that he deserves for this. I think what they need to think about is that probably not true, and there are a lot of people that are frustrated that musk isn't getting all the flowers that he deserves for this. I think what they need to think about is that he's a government worker and if you think about it from the perspective of people who don't necessarily trust all government workers without having their work be verified and checked and don't necessarily trust the motivations that they have because they have their own interests at play play, any government agency that made the types of errors that Doge is making at this point would be considered waste, fraud and abuse of the most obvious scale. Yes, and you would say, well, cut this one. They don't have people who can fact check their work before putting it up to the public to look at.
Speaker 11:Or who can use basic common sense.
Speaker 6:And who appear to be lying like, actively lying, about what they have found Now. At the same time, I don't want to do much taunting of their inability to find savings.
Speaker 6:I don't want them to get more serious about life, to then go crazy, be like all right, fine, entire Department of Education Nuked, gone, which is not legal. Like you, you want to do that. You got to go through congress but anyway. So think about the doge people and if you're if you're on this side that thinks all government is like corrupt and and wasteful, think about doge as what it is. It is a government agency that is in competition with these other departments for money because it is run by a government contractor who wants to go to Mars and needs federal resources to do that.
Speaker 11:Yeah.
Speaker 6:And so that agency has every incentive to tell you that all this other spending is wasteful and we need to suppress it so that we can and this is what you'll eventually hear so that we can invest, you know, trillions in this project to go to Mars.
Speaker 11:That's exactly right, and I do think that that I'm reading his biography right now. The Walter Isaacson one and you know have been trying to research this creature, who is now in charge of all of us, and I do think that that is like his primary driving goal, which sounds I mean, it sounds sort of insane.
Speaker 6:At least it's a goal.
Speaker 11:He has a point in himself the savior of humanity. He believes the thing that we should be driving.
Speaker 11:That's exactly right. Savior of human consciousness. He believes the thing we should be driving towards is being an interplanetary species. He talks about this all the time and you know, when he started SpaceX it really was a sort of preposterous boondoggle, but he does it anyway. He's able to persist, he's able to get billions of dollars already in federal government contracts. And you know you should take note of the fact that you've got SpaceX engineers now in at the FAA. Well, the FAA had been investigating Elon and SpaceX for one of their launches that came apart midair, which caused huge damage. I mean, they had to scramble, they had to reroute some 12 commercial flights, it was actually very dangerous, and so that agency was investigating him. Now he's got SpaceX engineers who were there inside.
Speaker 11:I have a feeling that investigation isn't going to go very far and they're making cuts at NASA. Well, guess what? Again, if you strip down the capacity of the government, suddenly you need SpaceX even more than they already do. And I do think a big part of his rationale and motivation here is basically like he realized he needed the nearly limitless resources of the federal government treasury to pursue his goal for humanity of putting us all on Mars, and that is a lot of what is driving this, and he sort of latched on to this you know dark enlightenment, like Curtis Yarvin oh, we need a CEO dictator thing because it helps him, it enables him in that goal, so it's a convenient ideology for him to get what he wants.
Speaker 11:And so all of these little piddling, cuts and things that are going on like that is not the ballgame.
Speaker 11:I don't even think you should really consider what's happening right now as any attempt at cutting government or efficiency. It's about consolidating power on behalf of Elon Musk and his goals, and one of the ways we know that is because, listen, they put out their spreadsheet, which claimed 55 billion, which only actually showed 8 billion in cuts. The government accountability office, on an annual basis, finds some $150 billion in improper in actual fraud, not just things that somebody there didn't like, but in actual fraudulent payments. So we have a government agency that does this stuff. Now, if you want to beef that up and make it more effective, fine, go to it. But you also know, ryan, that they're not actually interested in like effective and accountable government, because one of Trump's very first moves was to fire almost all of the inspectors general that are supposed to oversee these agencies and make sure that they are being run effectively and without corruption and graft, and which have been, you know, have actually done some important investigations for journalists like yourself into presidents on both the Democratic and Republican side.
Speaker 6:Right and cutting a tiny amount of subscriptions to like Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg, like bond markets for regulators, so like SEC, ftc, cftc, cfpb these people are now they don't have access to, like you, that Musk is not the first person to have these generational megalomaniacal views of present humanity versus future humanity.
Speaker 6:I think it was Kim Jong Il, kim Jong Un's grandfather, but it might have been Chairman Mao, who said, when he was confronted with the vast amount of casualties that were involved in the creation of the communist project, either in China or North Korea, I forget which one Um, he said basically, you know what is. You can find this quote out there somewhere. He's like what is 50 million deaths when we are fighting for untold billions of people in the future? Like Mao or Kim Jong-il, whichever one it was, was arguing we are fighting for an almost infinite number of future people who will live in the communist paradise that we produce through this revolution. So how can you tell me that it's a problem that 50 million people, innocent people, died right? 50 million against billions, so all the people of the earth against the infinite expansion of consciousness yes interplanetarily.
Speaker 11:Those things like if you believe, if that's your ethic, we are not the ones that matter and this is the type of ideology that has been very pervasive in silicon valley in recent years that, like sam bank and bankman freed um, was an adherent of this um effective altruist ideology, which argues exactly that. Now I don't think elon necessarily thinks of himself exactly as an effective altruist, because they were concerned specifically about the development of ai destroying humanity, which seems to be like actually a reasonable thing to be concerned about also, they're more earthly based yes, um, but elon has a version of that and exact does exactly the calculus that you are describing right, which you can see quickly how that leads to justifying any sort of level of death, cruelty, et cetera in the short term.
Speaker 11:So when you look, for example, at, like you know, cutting USAID funding, so now you've got kids in Africa who are going to die of HIV and AIDS, it's like, oh well, that's small potatoes in the grand scheme of, you know, generations and generations, tens of thousands of years of human civilization. So Elon's perfectly willing to pay that price, let alone any sort of law breaking. He doesn't care about it. None of these CEOs care about law breaking. To them, that's just the cost of doing business and that's what. Move fast and break things Ultimately. That's core to that ethos is basically break whatever laws, do whatever you need to do, so it'll work out in the end. So, yeah, it is the type of ideology that intellectually intelligent people can use to justify absolute monstrosities on a world historic level.
Speaker 6:Yeah, whereas from. Actually, if you want to go after USAID for being a tool of, like American imperialism through a soft power, okay, that's great, that's a great point.
Speaker 11:Yeah.
Speaker 6:I'm not sure that's the one they're making.
Speaker 11:Yeah, when you're taking it and putting it under Marco Rubio's State Department something tells me that's not really the end goal.
Speaker 4:Let's take a visit to this president that a lot of people may remember. He was president so long ago and that was Joseph R Biden. So a US appeals court has blocked the Biden save plan for student loans. So a US appeals court on Tuesday blocked the Biden administration's student loan relief plan, known as SAVE, a move that will likely lead to higher monthly payments for millions of borrowers. The 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with seven Republican-led states that filed lawsuits against the US Department of Education's plan. The states had argued that the former President, joe Biden, lacked the authority to establish the student loan relief plan. The GOP states argued that Biden would save was essentially trying to find a roundabout way to forgive student debt after the Supreme Court blocked his sweeping debt cancellation plan in June of 2023. Save, or the saving on Value Education Plan, came with two provisions that the lawsuits targeted. It had lowered monthly payments than any other federal student loan repayment plan, and it led to quicker debt erasure for those with a small business. Implementing SAVE could cost as much as $475 billion over a decade. An analysis by the University of Pennsylvania Penn Wharton Budget Model found that made it a target for Republicans, who argued that taxpayers should not be asked to subsidize the loan payments of those who have benefited from higher education. However, consumer advocates say that most families need to borrow to send their children to college today, that they require more affordable ways to repay their debt. Research shows that student loans make it harder for people to start businesses, buy a house and have children. The court's ruling comes at the same time that Republicans are floating proposals that could raise the federal student loan bills for millions in borrowers. The student average loan borrower could pay nearly $200 a month more if the GOP plans to reshape student loan repayments succeed. According to an early estimate by the institute for college access and success, republican lawmakers want to use the extra revenue to fund president donald trump's tax cuts for the top of the american uh financial echelons.
Speaker 4:I was joking with one of my friends about this meme that I saw online and it just said something like believing that a small group of billionaires are suddenly working tirelessly for the benefit of the working class really does require a spectacular level of stupid. Now I was joking with one of them when I said I think it's because we were raised on Batman and now Iron man, that we believe that billionaires are going to come and saved us. I watched these games for years, from Warren Buffett to Bill Gates to Charles and David Koch to Shelton Adelson, and I fundamentally believe that they are not going to your politicians because they are altruistic and they are not trying to save you from anything. They are not trying to save you. They're actually fighting for ownership over you. They are buying your elected officials. They are poisoning your water. They are poisoning your food. They are poisoning your air. They are buying your elected officials. They are poisoning your water. They are poisoning your food. They are poisoning your air. They are sending your children to fight in wars for minerals, oils, etc. Etc. So I say that also to say that when you have to look for news organizations, you have to look for news organizations. Look at news organizations that are owned by billionaires and all the pundits are millionaires. You need to be fully aware that what you are hearing is what the millionaires and the billionaires want you to hear. I think this is time for us to look into certain things, like the famous book by linguistics professor and activist, noam Chomsky. Manufacturing. Consent is a good book, and I think this will let you know how sometimes what you think you are hearing in the free press is actually not so free. The narrative has already been set inside of a particular framework that you are allowed to argue.
Speaker 4:In a rare pushback against President Trump, a coalition of congressional Republicans from the New York area rebuked the president for cuts to a federal program that administrators say helps to aid emergency workers and others suffering from toxins related to the terrorist attack. Back in september 11th, in a letter to president trump, seven republicans urged trump, as a native new yorker who lived in new york city as it recovered from the 9-11 terrorist attack, to reverse the cuts to the World Center Health Program and rehire staff members who were fired several days ago. They echoed an immediate outcry from the Democratic lawmakers and advocates when the cuts were made, beginning last week as a part of Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Offenses, cr DOGE, which is cutting the spending and limiting jobs across a wide swath of federal agencies. On Monday, new York's Democratic Senator, chuck Schumer, kristen Gillibrand, issued a letter demanding the cuts be restored. Kristen Gillibrand issued a letter demanding the cuts be restored. The initial recognition from Republicans was more muted, but Wednesday it became clear that the blowback to the firings was widespread. The Republican resistance grew more vocal, especially from districts in and around New York City where the memory of 9-11 still is very powerful. This staff reduction will only make it more difficult for the program to survive and for the program to supervise its contracts and to care for its members who are compromised and they are made up of brave men and women who ran towards danger and helped in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attack. It was largely written by Representatives Andrew R Guerrero, a Republican from Long Island, and co-signed by five of the members from the New York Representatives Chris Smith from New Jersey, the New York representatives Chris Smith from New Jersey. The New York co-signers were Nick Lalito, mike Laura or Mike Lawler, I should say Clonada Tenney, nicole Malakitis and Nick Langworthy, all supporters of President Trump. Of course, they all had to have difficult names, so you could hear me trying to figure out how to pronounce them.
Speaker 4:The world trade center health programs 90 members staff was reduced by about 20 percent and 16 promotionary staff members who oversees the administration's program were fired and others took buyouts. According to congressional representatives, terminated employees and advocates for the program. The program is overseen by the center for disease control and prevention and the department of health and human services, which was recently taken over by robert f kennedy jr, who trump named as the secretary. The cuts were a part of a widespread agency layoffs in which several thousands provisionary health and human service workers were terminated last week. York Fire Department that compares the indices rates of illnesses in their ranks with those other of other urban departments a grant that was deemed unnecessary and non-extensial. This could not be further from the truth, the letter said. Dr David J Prizet, chief medical officer for the fire department, said on Wednesday that this study is critical because without it, we cannot definitely prove that the health impact of the attacks related to the condition. Advocates say the cuts would delay a new enrollment and make fewer staffers available to address patients' problems and assist with diagnosis treatments. So there we go, there we go, there we go.
Speaker 4:The program, which now helps 137,000 members, was created by Congress in 2011 as a part of the James Zadruga 9-11 Health Compensation Act, to provide a treatment for emergency workers, cleanup crews and those living in lower Manhattan who were sickened by airborne toxins at ground zero. Ending the show today with our blast from the intellectual past. Ending the show today with our blast from the intellectual past. We're going to go to nine years ago at least, when the video was posted Classroom Hours. Noam Chomsky on privatization. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker 3:There's a standard way of privatizing, something Like when Margaret Thatcher wanted to privatize the British railroads. The technique was defund them. And then, when they don't work, people get angry and say let's do something. So you hand it over to private enterprise, which totally ruins them. And then the state has to come back in because to try to reconstruct it somehow it's known as privatization, the uh the. And that's exactly what's happening with social. Somehow it's known as privatization. And that's exactly what's happening with Social Security. It's in good shape.
Speaker 3:Now, when you read in the newspapers as you do, that the big problem of the deficit is entitlements, social Security, medicare, medicaid Social Security is a zero problem. For one thing, it doesn't add anything to the deficit because people pay for it, and for another thing, it's in pretty good shape. Certainly, the last of the famous baby boomers will be gone before there's any problem in it. That's why there's a big payroll tax increase 30 years ago to ensure that. But if it's defunded it'll be a problem. Then there'll be pressure to privatize it. That's a huge bonanza for the financial institutions. They'll put trillions of dollars into their hands which they can then use to make a ton of money with risky investments which are therefore very profitable and when it tanks as it will. When the economy tanks, there's a technique you pick up your copies of Milton Friedman and Hayek and Ayn Rand and you run to the nanny state that you've nurtured and you make sure that they bail you out. That's really existing capitalism and it means that the scam can go on Like take privatizing schools.
Speaker 3:What's the point of privatizing schools? Well, you know, the idea is to instill in people the idea that all you care about is yourself. So I don't happen to have children of school age. So therefore, according to the ideology that's implanted in you, I'm not supposed to care whether the kid down the street has school to go to. So I don't want to pay taxes and I don't want to cut taxes because I don't care if that kid goes to school and if you know, since I have enough money, I could send my kid to private school if I wanted to. So who cares if they're public schools? So we should privatize schools to eliminate the conception that we should care if some other kid goes to school, which everybody has. You've got to drive it out of their heads. The same is true I don't know if it's happening here of efforts to privatize pension and security systems.
Speaker 3:What's the point of that, like in the US, these big efforts to try to privatize Social Security? I mean, financially speaking, it's ridiculous. It's a huge cost and everything else, but there are reasons for it. Social Security is based on an unacceptable principle, namely that each person that you should care if the disabled widow across town survives and you're not supposed to care about that. You're supposed to care about whether you have enough pairs of shoes and stuff like that. You know enough cars and video games or whatever it is. That's all you're supposed to care about. So you, you've got to privatize Social Security. Also, another advantage to privatizing Social Security is that it has the brilliant consequence of turning working people against their own interests. Because if your pension is tied up in stocks, you want to make sure those stocks go up, and the way those stocks go up is by cutting wages and reducing working conditions and sending jobs to Chinese sweatshops and so on. So as a working person, you have to be committed to undermining your own interests and that's important. So for reasons like that, you want to privatize Social Security and privatize water and schools and everything else.
Speaker 3:By definition, privatization undercuts democracy. It takes something out of the public arena and puts it into the hands of unaccountable private tyrannies that are created and supported by the state, which is what corporations are. You remember all this privatization you hear about? It's supposed to be very efficient and by some measure, you know, by some ludicrous measure it probably is efficient. You know, then, they're part of the reason why it's efficient is you don't count the costs. Okay, so, like, if you expose this, they're talking about privatizing the MTA around.
Speaker 3:You know the public transportation thing? All right, suppose you privatize the system. You and I know how to make it more efficient. By the economist's measures, you throw out union workers and you get temps for half the price. And if there's an accident because they never had any training, well, it's just. People are getting killed. You don't measure that. And you cut off the so-called unprofitable bus routes okay, or subway routes, like you don't make a lot of money at 11 pm, okay, so let's throw them out. Well, suppose somebody's stuck somewhere at 11 pm and wants to get home? Oh well, you know it's entrepreneurial values. You know, let them hire a limousine or something you know. And in ways like that you can make the system more efficient simply by transferring the costs over to the public where you don't measure the costs. Okay, so you know, it looks nice and efficient on some economist's paper, but of course you just there's huge costs transferred over the public which you don't measure.