Latest / Before You Speak / Before You Speak | Episode 19 | Texas Primary winners and Iran War

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Before You Speak | Episode 19 | Texas Primary winners and Iran War · Before You Speak

• Derek Peterson: What's up y'all? Welcome back to the Before You Speak podcast. I am your host, Derek Peterson, just processing the fire hose of my newsfeed with, I'm gonna get it right, this, no, this guy over here. I always point the wrong direction. You're gonna be pointing the other direction. Elwyn: This guy. Yeah, I can let I'm not even getting it right. I'm not even getting it right. It's why I'm wearing my glasses so I don't poke myself in the eye. I am Elwin. am just processing the firehose of my newsfeed which right now is being bombed like Tehran. Derek Peterson: It sounds about right. Well, why don't we just jump straight into it? You want to lead off with your thoughts on the ⁓ current Department of... ⁓ What are we? don't need... Depart... You want to go... It is... I'm like, have they changed the name of that as well? Department of Justice? Department of Incompetence? Elwyn: Justice. Still the Department of Justice. Department of In- the Department of Injustice. Yeah. So yeah, that's just something I've been noticing for the last like month is reports from court filings and from admonitions from judges and from want ads, job- job seeking ads or seeking attorneys. The Department of Justice is like beyond incompetent at this ⁓ Their filings in court on cases in Minneapolis, in West Virginia, and all the stuff that we hear about ICE primarily, this is all related to ICE, ⁓ they're awful. Like they're below the standard that anybody would expect for any attorney. There's regularly misspellings. But on some level, who cares? Last week there was a ⁓ filing where the attorney for the government basically wrote, I missed this filing because I don't know how to use the electronic filing system. So, you know, I thought I would just wait till the next day and file it the next day. That's incomprehensible negligence, right? If you're in federal court, everybody's been filing electronically for 25 years. I did it when I was an attorney. If you're the attorney for the government, you have to know how to file your papers on time. That's like the most basic thing in the world. They don't know how to do that. They had one woman in January. got up in front of court and the judge was like, Madam Attorney, it was a woman, he's like, I just heard this from your government, they said this, they said this, they said this, and you're telling me something different. And she basically said on the record, she's like, I can't do this anymore, I have 85 of these cases, I have no idea what's going on, I haven't slept in a week and I need a break and I'm sorry, Your Honor. It's like this. posting ads for US attorney positions ⁓ fucking Facebook. When I was in law school, getting a job at the US attorney's office anywhere in the country was ⁓ competitive and a highly sought after role if you wanted to go into any sort of litigation, criminal or civil. ⁓ was like the cream of the crop beyond ⁓ court judge clerkships. Derek Peterson: ⁓ Elwyn: Now they're posting ads on fucking Facebook for it. The judges are regularly just saying, we don't believe you. What are you doing? They haven't sanctioned yet, but the level of incompetence being shown at the Department of Justice is incredible. they actually had a US attorney in New Jersey ⁓ kicked off because they're just putting people in as as senior, as US attorneys for regions and for states without going, you're allowed to do it for 120 days and then you have to go through a Senate confirmation. And they're just not doing the Senate confirmation, they're leaving them in place. So the judges now are saying, no, you're fired. They're firing the US attorneys. And in one instance, the court actually appointed a new US attorney because they're like, we have the power to do this, we're putting someone in. Derek Peterson: You Elwyn: and they were fired the next day also by the actual Department of Justice. it's like this almost every day I see a filing where there is some technical error, they're just completely misstating the facts or a court order where the judge is basically taking the United States government through their attorneys just to the woodshed based on misrepresentation, lack of honesty, and just horrible horrible job as attorney to use plain language about it and these are the highly should be the most highly respected professionals in the field and it's worth noting just to see how this bubbles up throughout this term. Derek Peterson: I was gonna ask you, you think that, what is the ultimate, like with this kind of like, idiocracy and negligence, like what is like the long term outcome of this? Like what is the like the two to three year like downside to this kind of, know, just like terrible, terrible ran justice department. Elwyn: Well, I mean, in the immediate short term, it's probably an upside because you have incompetence throughout and it creates this whole raft of technical openings for a judge to throw out a case. And since most of these cases are against ICE protesters and like the sandwich guy and shit like that. So that's. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah. Do you think in the longterm, when we get, like if, like when things change, we get a new president, does the DOJ go back to where it was before? Are those, is it a sought after position again? Elwyn: It will be pretty quickly, but there'll be some lag time. You know, I think people understand that it's a function of a loyalist regime seeking loyalist attorneys. But, you know, we need... If the Department of Justice is functioning properly, it really works as an independent arm that everybody can trust to arrest and convict drug traffickers, arrest and convict terrorists, arrest and convict... Companies who are polluting the environment, that's asking too much. ⁓ gone too far. Arrest and convict corrupt public officials. ⁓ if we don't have that trust and that faith that the attorneys representing the government, ⁓ by extension us, are competent and at the top of their field, and if the judges can't trust that... then it really is a problem and you'll see some bad people get out on technicalities and it will right itself but you know it is it's just kind of this we know this administration has filled itself with complete loyalist incompetence it's interesting to see it on such a ground level because that the the assistant US attorneys they really are boots on the ground and they really are like by and large incompetent that one woman who wanted to but said I need to sleep you know she's been there for a while she wasn't even hired by this administration she's just sitting there going ⁓ my god everybody quit around me I have to Derek Peterson: Is that the same woman that asked the judge to put her in contempt so she could have four? Elwyn: Yes, that's exactly right. I forgot that, right, she had said, please put me in contempt so that I can get some sleep. You know, it's a, right, what an incredible thing for an attorney to say, like, no, I'm really fucking up. Please, man, I'm overworked. The only way that I get out of this is for you to throw me in jail for 24 hours. It's like my cousin Vinny, you know, when he goes to jail and he's in prison and he sleeps well because it's just chaos around him. Derek Peterson: Yeah, so she can get 24 hours alone in jail. Hahaha Elwyn: So it's actually happening in real life right now in the Department of Justice. Derek Peterson: Yeah, unbelievable. But yeah, I mean, I could see a flood of attorneys ⁓ if the tide turns on any of this stuff later getting in because I mean, dude, there's going to be the amount of attorneys that I have started to or legal analysts, whatever you want to call them that are sorting through just the Epstein files that are available right now. Like I could see a flood of people being interested in those jobs just to prosecute that. You know, there's people doing just straight pro bono work just to understand it right now. So I'm, I, I can imagine for a lot of those attorneys, it's like, would be a glorious day to actually be able to be part of the team that prosecuted some of those people down the road. So, ⁓ I mean, I could see some people coming back. Elwyn: That, yeah, sadly, I mean, I don't think neither of us are completely confident that those prosecutions will ever happen. Derek Peterson: yeah, don't think, ⁓ mean, ⁓ gotta have the evidence somewhere. Like there's no way it's all gone. ⁓ just, we need somebody with the, yeah, we just need somebody with the cojones ⁓ going to get ⁓ the files and just be confident enough to release them the proper way. Elwyn: ⁓ it's not even, they've committed crimes. I mean, Prince Andrew was not arrested on pedophilia charges or sexual assault charges. He was arrested on charges basically of treason and whatever. They got Al Capone on tax fraud. I don't give a shit. The bars are the same. know, the jail cells are the same. Derek Peterson: Yeah, I know. Yeah, but that's just because they don't have the unredacted files, right? I'm sure if they had the unredacted files, they would probably get Andrew on. I mean, even just the evidence they had from that Netflix documentary was enough to sway me. Well, we're gonna get into what happened in the Texas primaries here in just a second and then the war in Iran, but I thought it'd be briefly touch on just what's going on with, you know. Everything is touched when the Middle East is in conflict and oil prices are directly connected to the, you know, the Strait of Hermous is, provides 20 % of the world's oil. And so when that goes down, you know, everything that we consume and purchase is connected to oil in some way, or form. It gets, flies on a plane, moves in a car. ⁓ you know, get or a truck to get shipped, you know, this includes food, all of our clothes, like pretty much everything we purchase. So, you know, the long term, like right now there's, you know, there's always a stabilization in the first phase of any kind of conflict where most people have reserves and, you know, we'll find a way to mitigate short term losses. So we'll see a little bump in prices, but nothing too extreme. But man, if this conflict goes on like This is the thing that frustrates me. So, you know, I work in real estate and the last two years has been relatively rough because of interest rates and uncertainty. so uncertainty the last year and a half or so has been the biggest thing. And we finally started to hit like a little bit of a stride the last couple of weeks where interest rates got below 6 % for a second. Everything was starting to like buyers were starting to get a little bit excited to get back in the market. And then, you know, we wake up this weekend, Saturday morning, and, know, we're bombing Iran and, you know, interest rates go back over 6%. And, you know, I'm showing houses on Monday afternoon and my buyers ask me directly like, hey, we don't even know if we should, should we pause our search right now? Like, we don't know what's going to happen over these next few months. ⁓ You know, and it's really And this isn't just my industry. This is just the sediment from everybody in our country right now. in it. And I don't even think this is just people on the left. I think people on the right are feeling this as well. People on the right might be feeling it even more, which potentially is why they dig in a little bit harder on what their beliefs are because they have to, you know, like there's a, when your, when your life's threatening, being threatened and your way of life is being threatened. Oftentimes you, you go one of two ways either. admit you were wrong and join the resistance or you dig your heels in and double down. And we've seen both things happen but the shitty part is that it needs to happen. Like you know what I mean? There's just this collective exhaustion it feels like with our entire country right now which just makes me sad because we don't need to be here. have such a, like as much as. crap as the US has gone through. think the one thing this last year and even Trump's first term reminded me is just, we live in a ⁓ freaking amazing country with all of its like terrible shit and, you know, taking advantage of people and all of the bad stuff that can go on, man, we still, and if you just want to live a normal life and you want to just work hard, like there's the, we've always had the opportunities to do that. And It makes me sad that people are starting to lose those opportunities. Like if you're just a normal person and you don't desire to be extremely wealthy, but you're good if you make enough money to, you know, put your kids through school, you know, go on vacations, know, own a house. You don't need multiple, put some money away for retirement. Like, dude, there's a lot of people that are just content with that lifestyle. And that is what scares me is being, is at being threatened right now. And that's what sucks. So. Elwyn: Yeah, I mean, think the exhaustion, I feel it too, right? And like now with Iran, I feel like we all need to not be exhausted, right? We need to know what's going on. We need to be able to follow this stuff and hold our officials to account because they're acting in our name and they're acting with our money and they're acting with our soldiers' lives and, you know, they're putting us as a nation at greater risk. But I think that... There's a level of what you described there, the opportunity that this country presents. I think that opportunity has become narrower and narrower and over the last 20 years, and I think that is people are already exhausted. And now you have this thing of Iran, and it's just like, some people are being exhausted for the first time, but I think for the most part, the population is already completely tapped out. It'll probably, you know, I think historically that would manifest itself in one of two ways. One is apathy or nihilism and thinking that no matter what you do, you can't change anything. who fucking cares? Go kill Charlie Kirk. Cause you know, there's a compelling argument to be made that that's what had affected that guy, Tyler Robinson, if it was him. You know, or anger and activism and outrage, which is probably a decent lead into the elections last night because... Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: You know, one of the things that was notable yesterday was the votes, just the number of votes cast amongst the different parties. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Well, and let's jump into that because this ⁓ is a critical thing. I think let's start with just kind of all that you run with this for a second with what was happening in Dallas, because there's reports coming out that, ⁓ and I saw a few videos of predominantly black and brown voting location. People were arriving and being told that they couldn't vote there. ⁓ a location that people had been voting at for the one guy I saw that was interviewed said he'd been there for eight years, been voting at the same location for eight years. And now they were asking him to drive to the other side of town essentially to vote. Like, what are your thoughts on that? Elwyn: Yeah, so it's a little in the weeds, but we'll get into it. Worth noting at the outset that this didn't, it was news because Dallas is Crockett's home base. ⁓ And that's where this was primarily happening. But it also happened in Williamson County, which is just north of where we are. And that's Talerico's home base. It's just that there's not nearly as many people in Williamson. But so what happened was, Up until January of this year, I think every county in Texas had countywide voting where you could go to any polling place in the county and cast your vote. And Dallas and Williamson counties changed that under Republican leadership. This was not Democratic party fuckery. And we'll get back that in a second. So Republican leadership changed that to precinct level voting. So what that means is that when you register to vote, you give them your home address and you're assigned to a particular precinct. ⁓ So what happened in Dallas and Williamson was people got to the place they were used to voting at, because anywhere in the county, and they were told, nope, you can't vote here anymore. You have to go to your home precinct. ⁓ To me, that's like ⁓ a window into the kind of thing that the Republicans are going to try and do in November. It's probably unfortunate for the Republicans that it became news now because now people will know and local Democratic parties will make sure that people know where to go to vote. So now we can get ahead of that for the November election. ⁓ You know, they, the Republican, you know, Ken Paxton, Greg Abbott, they didn't update the election website to really tell people that this was the case. There was no way to kind of find this out if you didn't know. And that's why people got, you some people got disenfranchised because they went home and they didn't go back out to vote. ⁓ But it was the Democratic Party. wasn't Crockett's campaign. So there was a lawsuit filed to extend the voting hours in Dallas, which were, they were extended for two hours, although the Supreme Court then closed them at the end of that two-hour period and said, you can't count those votes. Put those votes aside. Don't go ahead and vote them yet. So I'm not actually sure if those votes from 7 to 9 p.m. were actually counted at any point. Derek Peterson: Mm-hmm. Elwyn: But it was the Texas Democratic Party that filed that lawsuit. It was not Crockett's campaign. I don't think this was like intra-party fuckery amongst the Democrats. ⁓ I do think that this was a Republican change, the kind of way they mess with the rules and it just coming up in a hotly contested Senate primary. And I think Crockett, to her credit, called it out, but didn't go after Talarico for it. And she has conceded in... the race. So, shouldn't happen. I also don't think, from what I heard, were like hundreds of people who potentially were affected. She lost by over 100,000. I don't think it swung, I don't think it swung anything. But not a good look, ever. But it also gives us a little warning. Derek Peterson: What's interesting, yeah what's interesting though is that Paxton and Cornyn are in a runoff now, right? Elwyn: Yeah, so there was a third party or a third candidate, Wesley Hunt, and to advance out of the primary to avoid a runoff, you have to get 50 % of the vote. Neither of them did. It's like, when I saw this morning, it's like 42 to 41 or 43 to 41. It's very, very close with Cornyn and Leed. And that's just a... If you're John Cornyn, you have a really, really uphill battle because when it comes to runoffs, historically, incumbents don't do well. If an incumbent was popular, they would have gotten to 50 % in the primary. So that 57 % of people voted against him, even though they didn't all vote for Paxton, is not great. If you're a Wesley Hunt voter, why didn't you vote for Cornyn? That's a tough get. Plus, Cornyn spent $70 million in this election. Next most spent in this election was... Tallerico at 24. There was, I think, roughly just north of $100 million spent in this primary, and close to 80 % of it was either pro-Cornan or anti-Paxton. So he absolutely flooded the airways with ads, and he couldn't get it across. So doesn't look good for Cornan. I think that's, I mean, you're always worried when a nutjob like Paxton is on the ballot but if I had to pick and I feel like would, you know, the Democratic Party would agree, the most favorable matchup for the Democrats is Tallerico versus Paxton and that's winnable. Derek Peterson: Yeah, no, I agree. Iran, we talked about this before, but I'm like, man, all of these conservative Christians, if you're backing Paxton over Talarico, it makes no sense. literally a guy that has just like done some of the worst shit ever ⁓ and runs like. I'm not going to be surprised if we find out Paxton's in the Epstein files at some point. That's an off shoot. Meaning, he's that kind of guy. If he had the opportunity to hang out with Jeffrey Epstein, I'm sure he would have. ⁓ Elwyn: ⁓ yeah, right. Yeah. Yep. He certainly would have not been morally opposed to it. Derek Peterson: Yes, and we've seen that. Even Joe Rogan was morally opposed to hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein, but Paxton would not have been. ⁓ But yeah, I agree. I think it's a winnable thing. What do you think about the governor race? Elwyn: So, ⁓ mean Abbott and Gina Inajosa both won their primaries handily, no surprise there. I think that the... Fuckin' Greg Abbott, man, he's been around forever. ⁓ But he's gotta feel pretty good, because Inajosa really has no name recognition. Only in the last week have I started to see some ads for her on my social media. So good. The thing that though, I think, why this is a bad sign for Inajosa is... If you look at the votes cast in the Democratic primary, it's something like 2.25 million votes cast in the Democratic primary. There were 2.15 million votes cast in the Republican Senate primary. There were 2.15 million votes cast in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. So 100,000 Democrats went in and voted for the senator and not for the governor. Right, and that's, it just speaks to a lack of enthusiasm, a lack of familiarity, you where you had this, the Democratic turnout, this in early voting and election day was historically through the roof, was unbelievable, you know, driven no doubt by Talarico and Crockett, but you just had a bunch of people, you had 100,000 people click those two boxes and move on. And I don't think you want to see that. I think you want to see people looking down ballot or being like, no, no, no, I'm voting for everything because that's where there are people who will just go and vote for the senator who are like, I don't know who this fucking in a host of person is. not, just, I know, I know who Talarico is. I'm voting for Talarico and I'm out and they just go and she'll need every single vote. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah, you was else else was interesting as I saw a guy breaking this down the other day and he was talking about the percentages of of per age group that voted. And this is freaking terrifying because it was. Around 40 % of the registered Republicans that voted in the primary were over the age of 65 or even 70. 40%. That is insane. the Democrats weren't that much different. I mean, the majority of them were older, obviously 50s, 60s, 70s. predominantly, we still had a little bit higher percentage in the... the younger age range. this is what is the and look, I know these were primaries. So a lot of people aren't crazy paying attention. But man, like this is what scares me about all of this is if young people don't vote, old people are going to continue to run the country exactly how it's been run for the last 70, 80 years. So and that's the Elwyn: But young people have been voting. Young people voted for Trump, right? Young people are why Trump won. Young people voted for Mamdani. Young people are voting. They have no clear political loyalties, which is fine. But yeah, they have been voting. think there is an interesting sort of breakdown. And we talked about the Talarico-Crocodile election before, so it's fun to talk about a little bit afterwards. ⁓ Derek Peterson: Which is great. I'll take that. Elwyn: One, Hispanics broke huge for Tallerico and huge for Democrats, right? There's just the number of Hispanics voting in the Democratic primary when you compare it to 2022 and 2024. There was just a huge swing in the number of voters going in. And in Texas, have to select which primary you're voting in. And then they give you the ballot. Your ballot is populated accordingly. So they went in at the beginning and said, I'm voting for... want the Democratic ballot. ⁓ And that's going to be ⁓ disaster for the Republicans and their gerrymander because they're counting on that side. But you know this argument that, ⁓ don't know if it's true, we talked about this before we started, like on threads there was this weird thing with with Crockett supporters and or bots talking about ⁓ shitting on Talarico in a number of ways and one of the arguments that they were making was that Democrats can only win in Texas by expanding the base of voters. And I've heard that, I've been in Texas for 10 years, and I feel like I've heard that line every time there's a major election. And what's behind that is this idea that the people who aren't voting are younger people, are minorities, are persons of color, and that if those people only went out and voted, the Democrats would win, right? And that was going to be Crockett's Strat that was not what's going to be that was Crockett strategy was to expand the base of people who are voting Because cast there there are plenty of areas in Texas that are majority Minority where the white population is like 40 % ⁓ And it didn't work. It's never worked right which was kind of what I what we were talking about before It's never worked. It didn't work for Beto It didn't work for like Joaquin Castro in any primaries or any shit like that didn't work for Kamala Harris. It's never worked What has a chance of working is a soft-spoken seminarian religious guy who can get some white moderates and independents to cross over and vote, who can motivate all the young people, Talarico is pretty young, Crockett would have been motivating too, ⁓ but who can also speak to the Hispanics, you know, would, I'm making an assumption here, I would assume because both communities are, because Talarico and Hispanic community are fairly religious. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: and he can speak to them in that language and he can appeal to them when it comes to topics like immigration through the language of the Bible. So this idea, this race really was an identity politics race because you had two very, very similarly qualified candidates running in a white kind of racist state and that's being generous. I feel bad for the people who are like, fucking Jasmine Crockett has been a good soldier and she deserved to win and she deserves her shot. She's a great politician. She's a great asset to the Democratic Party. But it's not identity politics to say in a state like Texas, she's not the right type of candidate. It is identity politics to say she's a black woman and you should have voted for her because black women deserve their shot. That's identity politics. And that's the shit that the Democrats have to stuff. And that's the shit that I hope Jasmine Crockett gets out and just ignores and gets behind Talarico full-throated. If she does, and if that all happens, yeah, this is easily the best shot the Democrats have had to take a Senate seat. And if they take Texas, you know, there was great enthusiasm in North Carolina. It wasn't a contested primary, really, but the Democratic primary had... Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: 200,000 more votes than the Republican primary for Senate and that's an open Senate seat You've got Plattner in Maine and now you know I'm clear about how I feel on that fucking idiot But you know he's got a shot to take down Susan Collins. You've got a good candidate in Alaska You know you've got what could be competitive race in Iowa and Montana You know if Tallarico can take Texas then the then nationwide then yeah Democrats have a shot at taking the Senate Derek Peterson: That's, which would be great. And we'll, we'll see how that, how that all starts to funnel out. I, ⁓ what do you think is next for Crockett? Like where does she go from here? Elwyn: think she still has her seat, but they've districed her out of it. I don't know. I'm not quite sure. She's great in the house. Derek Peterson: She's great. I was gonna say, cause she's great and she's already, she's already come out and said that, you know, she backs Talarico fully. So, you know, there's, there's, I'm, I'm, I'm happy that the, Democrats look like they're starting to get a little bit of this stuff to together here in Austin. ⁓ Going back to the governor race a little bit, I remember I was having I have a friend that works in local politics here in Austin. She helps. She's worked in politics for like 20 or 30 years here. ⁓ And she, she is a Republican, but she's a Republican that doesn't support the current administration. And she helps different people with her, with their campaigns. She's kind of a consultant at the moment, but she was telling me that she doesn't think Abbott is beatable. at the moment. She thinks that the amount of money he's raised is just through PAC money is just so high and that having a Republican governor is something that they don't want to give up and they will fund. We have mega billionaire donors that are just going to fund the crap out of all this. do you think even if we had a strong governor candidate like Ina Hosa, I hope if she Attaches herself to Talarico campaigns hard and Talarico with enough name recognition could I mean those two have to be like hip and hip I feel like for the next you know what six months or eight months whatever it is Elwyn: Yeah, I agree, but I also think Abbott's going to be... it's a really uphill climb. Because I think that the other thing that will happen is, Tallerico will get some moderates and moderate Republicans and independents to vote against Paxton, right? There will be, I think, not a small number of people who look at it and are like, I'm not fucking voting for Paxton. I can't do that, and I like Talarico, and he's soft-spoken, and he's not like Beto or what I've been faced with in the last few Senate elections. And they'll split their ticket. They'll vote for Abbott, and they'll vote for Talarico. think that's... You'll probably see a real meaningful number of voters that do that. And Inahosa simply can't afford any of that, because she's going to be fighting that uphill battle. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah. And that's what she said. She's like, yeah, we're going to see a bunch of split tickets on that. So, well, let's transition to our next favorite subject. ⁓ The ⁓ war in Iran, which our government is and Fox News is very much trying incredibly hard not to call this a war. So our military engagement in Iran, like whatever you want to call it, it is a war. Elwyn: No, we'll call it. It's a fucking war. They want to call it the Department of War. They can put their name behind a war. In honor of our administration's handling of this, I am going to ⁓ lie. Everything I say from here on out will be untrue and the inverse of what is actually a fact. And I am delighted to be able to say it on Not A Podcast. If it's not a war, this is not a podcast. You know, speaking into my not headphones in my not home office. Derek Peterson: You Hahaha It was just two guys talking on the internet while videoing it and putting it out on Spotify and Apple. It's not a podcast. It's not a podcast. Anyone that says it's a podcast can go fuck themselves. Elwyn: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, on all the podcasts. Right. Not a podcast. Yeah, I mean I think what's, what cannot be ignored at this point is a couple of key points. One, the administration is just fucking lying every time they open their mouth and it's partly because they're, you know, awful people who lie all the time. It's partly because they don't know what the fuck they're doing and they are so, they got caught somehow. They got caught without a compelling. PR message, a compelling rationale for why we're doing this. Right? They've had like five different rationales over the weekend and then Rubio came out and kind of gave up the game on Monday when he said that we did this because Israel, we struck Iran because Israel was going to strike Iran and in return Iran was going to strike Israel and we were going to be dragged into the war and therefore we had to go ahead and strike Iran, which took me 36 hours to understand. So the best I can understand it is if my wife, if I cheat on my wife, this gives me the license to go to her and say, well, you were gonna cheat on me. So, and if you cheated on me, then I would have to cheat on you in return. So I just went ahead and cheated on you to skip all the fucking foreplay on the cheating, right? It's a completely bonkers rationale, which it's... Derek Peterson: You I wonder if that would work. Elwyn: You try it. I do not have a spare room, man, I'm sorry. ⁓ But like, it completely gives up the game that this is, that we're being pulled into this by Israel, that Israel is actually calling the shots here, right? And Netanyahu didn't do anything to dispel that. And Trump hadn't said anything except for on Tuesday, he said, hey, go watch Hannity, because Netanyahu is going to be on Hannity. Derek Peterson: I'll let you know. Elwyn: Netanyahu is making the case to the American people, right? And Rubio is now trying to walk it back, but everybody fucking knows that this is why we did it, that Israel wanted us to do it. And they pulled us along into it. And Netanyahu has always had Trump's number. And just, we're all just left trying to figure out what story did Netanyahu give to Trump that got Trump to be like, yeah, I like that, we're in. Because I honestly don't think it was anything other than that. And the administration is now realizing that that's just a horrible horrible they've listened to themselves and been like fuck this really sounds bad we better come up with something else and they can't Derek Peterson: Yep. Yeah, it's terrible. It's interesting to me because there's two things that immediately pop into my head when I think about like why we're in this war. One is obviously the Epstein files. know, Jeffrey Epstein's ties to Israel were all there. We know that. ⁓ And that, you know, essentially what's going on right now is just that Trump is being as a puppet for what Israel is wanting to do, which feels real. Like if I'm not, I'm not going to lie. mean, it feels honestly very much like something that could be a very real case when if, if, and when all of this stuff is ever unpacked and we get the truth, ⁓ there could be a lot there. The other part of this, what was interesting is I watched a woman that did her, her PhD or doctoral thesis on, on the, project 2025. ⁓ started following her on Instagram like six months ago and she was ⁓ smart girl, but she was, she kind of regularly like chimes in and breaks down something that's like the progress of what they're doing ⁓ project 2025. And ⁓ one of the things that she said is that, no, this is not about the Epstein files that ⁓ one of the, one of the items in project 2025 is essentially to ⁓ in the holy war. and basically, you know, go after, you know, support Israel and go after basically the rest of the Middle East if they need to. And that is also terrifying because, know, if that's the, if that's the, if that is what is actually happening, this is the start of World War III. this has been the hardest for me to wrap my head around all this too is because, ⁓ know, ⁓ if you walk and somebody in the face and then just tell them to like, look, I hit you, it's over, chill. Like what response do you think they're gonna get? ⁓ No, you're gonna, ⁓ best just gonna get throwing haymakers swinging back at you. Worst, you're gonna get that person going and collecting all of their friends. waiting until you're alone and then they're going to jump your ass outside of a building and you know, whatever it is, right? And this is just what war is. And I feel like that's exactly what we've done. We've just continued to create the monster, ⁓ perpetuate the cycle that we've already been in. But also now we're making the US even more of a target in all of this and all of this shit about that, you know, there was a threat to the US that they had They were making bombs that could, you know, get to us cities. heard somebody talking about that. like, you know what? Dude, I literally watched bombs get intercepted by, ⁓ Israel and, ⁓ like when, when they were having their conflict prior to this, cause it, ⁓ they, ran in Israel have already been bombing each other recently. Correct. Like. Elwyn: Well, the last time was really June with Midnight Hammer, which we were part of, but yeah. Derek Peterson: June, yeah. Yeah, the midnight. Yeah. So, and in that, I remember seeing like as missiles were going, like you counter with another missile that explodes that missile in the air. And like, you know, there's a bunch of counterintelligence, right? And I'm like, so you expect me to believe with the defense budgets that we've had over the last, you know, 50 years, which are exorbitant. to say the least, but probably the biggest expenditure in our country. You're telling me that we can't intercept a missile that's coming from halfway around the world with enough time and that's a legitimate threat. I'm like, I'm sorry, like none of this makes sense. It's all stupid. I'm like, it's all just straight lies. And it's all straight lies to justify a reason that they're not going to tell us and that, and they're not, at least not going to be honest. And so we're left to, you know, do what we've been doing, which is try to solve this Rubik's Cube and we have no idea. It's like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube in the dark is what it feels like. Elwyn: No, I think, you know, it's not just we don't have the... What's more incredible about the defense budget thing is we're running out of munitions. We're going to run out of munitions. Like one of the probably honest things that came out of, I think, Marco Rubio's mouth was Iran has way more missiles than we have interceptors. Right? And we're using a lot of bombs and anti-aircraft missile, ⁓ anti-missile devices to stop what's gone on already. And it's pretty well known. that we are going to run, that we're not in a good place, we're not stockpiled well for our $900 billion defense budget. ⁓ You know, I think the, it's funny, I was listening to Mike Johnson this morning. Derek Peterson: Yeah, that's because the CEO of Lockheed Martin is making $800 billion a year. Elwyn: Yeah, I was listening to Mike Johnson this morning and he was talking about, you know, how we have to do this. have to be, we're bombing the shit out of Tehran today. We are just fucking carpet bombing that place. And he was like, we have to do this because they bombed our embassies and that's sovereign territory. That's United States sovereign territory and they bombed our embassies. And he stopped there and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why did they bomb our embassies? And he was like, we have to do this because they bombed our embassies and that's sovereign territory. That's United States sovereign territory and they bombed our embassies. And he stopped there and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why did they bomb our embassies? You know, of course they bombed our embassies. No fucking shit. You don't get to bomb someone, have them bomb you back, and then get mad that they bombed you back. You know, of course they bombed our embassies. No fucking shit. You don't get to bomb someone, have them bomb you back, and then get mad that they bombed you back. It doesn't fucking work that way in logical thinking, okay? But ⁓ the holy war part of it is something that I'm glad you brought up because this scares the shit out of me too, ⁓ and it is prevalent enough that need to know. I'm going to go for a little bit here because there's a little bit of background needed. ⁓ So first, there have been 30 plus complaints within units in the field up through this kind of military chain where you can complain about, ⁓ you know, sort of religious influence into your orders. There have been 30, more than 30 complaints since this war started about how the commanders in the field are terming, are talking about this in the language of a holy war. Okay, that's happening in the Middle East, in our army, now. Okay, we had Mike Huckabee last week say he's fine if Israel wants to take the entire area over because that's what's in the Bible. We have Pete Hegseth is good friends with this guy Douglas Wilson who is a Christian nationalist pastor who is all about all this shit and the shit that they're about is partly Christian Zionism and partly something's called millennial dispensationalism. So Christian Zionism is this idea ⁓ not this idea, ⁓ a group of Christians who are Zionists. They believe that the state of Israel has a right to exist ⁓ as a result they are very very very ⁓ ardent in their support of the state of Israel and have been since 1948. That's why Republicans, particularly sort of neocons and older Republicans are so strong when backing Israel and it's why people certainly in the nineties like Paul Wolfowitz and shit like that were willing to go to war in the middle east over everything because in part they really want to protect the state of Israel because of the idea of dispensationalism. So in the end times in the Bible one of the first signs that Christ is coming back is that all the Jews return to the land of Israel. Okay, leave aside for the sake of this discussion that when all that shit was written the state of Israel as a political entity didn't exist. So it's a little bit ludicrous to talk about it in those terms anyway, right? But they say the state of Israel does exist, we're gonna protect it because before Christ comes back we're gonna see all of the Jews come back to the state of Israel. The next thing that happens is they're all gonna convert to Christianity. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: Okay, Christ is not coming back to save the Jews. The dispensationalists like Mike Huckabee are not saving the Jews. They're saving the state of Israel and if this is a holy war, what better way to create an atmosphere where Jews want to return to the state of Israel than to create a life or death fight for the state of Israel? To create the very conditions that you claim the Bible ⁓ speaks to. But it doesn't work that way. You can't create a war that you hope will bring all the Jews back to Israel for the sake of them saying, ⁓ look, all the Jews came back to Israel, so Christ is about to come back. No, no, no. They came back because you started the war. They didn't come back because it's end of times. You created the end of times. It's not a random act. It's something that you caused. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Is it? Elwyn: Normally this shit would seem way more cuckoo than the Epstein files and honestly while I completely agree with you The idea that the Epstein files would cause a war in Iran should be fucking cuckoo, but it's not Okay, this shit. I just described should be completely cuckoo, but it's not it's too high up in our government in Huckabee and in Hegseth and it's in the field we now know in these unit commanders and it's certainly being buttressed by extremely expansionist language coming out of Israel where Naftali Bennett, who was prime minister, who might become prime minister again if Netanyahu loses, is talking about how now we need to bomb Turkey because of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, yeah, the idea of a holy war here, there are certainly undertones to it and I just think people need to know. They need to start to learn what dispensationalism means, who Doug Wilson is. why Hexeth is going to his church all the time, and what the fuck Mike Huckabee was talking about last week. Because that is like 37 fire alarms. 37 alarm fire. Derek Peterson: Yeah, who was it? I'm looking it up right now. Somebody recently just compared Trump to Jesus Christ. It was somebody high up in the military. It was like Rubio or Hegseth. It was one of the main players. I think it was Rubio. One of them said, which is also like, again, like... Elwyn: Oh, I've heard that. I forget who it was, but... Yeah. think it was Rubio. I think it might have Rubio. Derek Peterson: after listening to that woman, you know, kind of break down what she was, her thesis on all of this, I'm like, I mean, a lot of what the rhetoric is that's coming out of all this, it tracks, but yeah, and we're still not getting any, like there's no clarity. It feels like the response to everything that they're doing is similar to the Steve Bannon, like basically Blitzkrieg, like let's just. Like it feels like every person that speaks in front of a microphone gives a different reason for why we're doing this. And it feels intentional. Elwyn: because none of them, yeah, I don't think it's intentional, actually. I think it's because, no, I think it's because they don't fucking know. And the stories change and they're trial ballooning stories. think I read somewhere, somebody reported this weekend that Trump had called six or seven different news outlets and told them all the different reason. He's just trial ballooning all this shit to see if any of it will stick to hide the fact that nobody wants this. It's still. Derek Peterson: You don't think so? Yep. Elwyn: It's still like 70 % unpopular. Okay, even though MAGA is, you know, once again exposing their total lack of values and just like, oh yeah, no, they've been bad for 47 years. Two weeks ago you didn't want to go after them and they were bad for 47 years two weeks ago. Now that your guy did, now it's fucking worth it. So MAGA's all therefore totally gone on all this anyway, but like they didn't know how to get American citizens out. There are 3,000 American citizens that we know of in the Middle East who can't get out of there. And when Marco Rubio is asked about it, he's like, well, it's because the airspace is closed. Hey, fucking dumbass, did you not think that if you'd started launching a bunch of weapons from the Mediterranean Sea and from Israel over the airspace of all these countries that the airspace would get closed? Like, that's first grade level planning that they failed to do. You know, they... They're surprised that people are bombing hotels when it's known that when these attacks happen, the United States puts its embassy personnel in hotels under the idea that nobody's going to bomb a civilian hotel. Like, little human shield is going on there. And now they're bombing hotels. So it's like, our government was completely unprepared for all of this, for the spin, for being held to account. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Elwyn: and for the actual mechanics of it. They just wanted to lob a bunch of fucking missiles and make things go boom. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Yeah. It almost feels like, we have all this pent up military, like grade, you know, equipment that's never going to get used. We better go kill some people. ⁓ that, that, mean, that logic tracks just as much as everything else, not to mention that, like, there's so many Americans in the region that were, that didn't get out, ⁓ all of the, ⁓ there's so much, but what I was going to, I was looking for something just now because somebody was posting recently about all of the, ⁓ All of the MAGA accounts over on X that there's like some literally like even a lot of the ones that were that have been relatively loyal to Trump through all of the stuff thus far have started to separate themselves a little bit now with the war stuff, which is interesting. mean, you know, you heard what's his name. ⁓ racist McGee. They're all I guess it's a clear. Fuentes. Matt Walsh. Elwyn: That's all of them. Well, I know Matt, Matt Walsh, Matt Walsh is a really big one. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Matt wash was one that finally was like, ⁓ like probably I think that he's the first time he's really posted anything that was against Trump. ⁓ Nick Fuentes said he's honestly going to vote for a Democrat. ⁓ Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson, Tucker Carlson tracks, but. Elwyn: Is Meghan Kelly against it? ⁓ that's interesting. That's the most interesting one. Like, Matt Walsh is interesting. Nick Fuentes, like, he's... There's the, we'll call it the Marjorie Taylor Green wing of MAGA, right? She's against it and she's raging. ⁓ You know, because part of what Trump's message was, was America first. I mean, lower groceries, right? I'm gonna lower the price of gas. Fucking gas is up like 30 cents by me in 24 hours and it's only gonna go higher. ⁓ Derek Peterson: Well, that's the last thing, right? Gas is the only thing that they could stand on as far as economic prosperity goes. Because everything else is more expensive. Gas going up is the linchpin that makes everything else even more expensive. So if gas goes up, not only does gas get more expensive, but so does everything else. I mean, like economically, this is the worst thing they could have done. Yeah. Elwyn: Sure. Shipping, right? Like, shit has to get from one place to another and it gets there mostly on trucks and trucks run on gas. ⁓ But yeah, Matt Walsh was an interesting one, but you that America first wing of MAGA, they're gonna be against this hardcore because there's no domestic benefit. The shit you just said before is completely right. There was no threat. There's no credible threat to the United States from Iran. Zero intelligence agencies are saying it. Zero reports from Israel are saying it's just complete crap. And at least they're adhering to that value. At least they're consistent about, no, no, no, I wanted America first, and this is about as not America first as you could possibly get. They're, sure, motivated by some hatred for Israel, too. It's in there. It's in the sauce. But here, Israel, we could tell Israel, don't do it. Like, even if that story about Israel was going to bomb Iran is true, right? Even if that's... Right, we... Derek Peterson: We could tell Israel that don't do it, but then they would be like, well, we're gonna leak the Epstein files. Elwyn: Yeah, right. But like we have the authority. They're our client state, right? They get all their shit from us. We give them an incredible amount of money, an incredible amount of aid. Presidents starting from Reagan through Biden really have at different times said, no, you got to stop. So if Netanyahu came to Mar-a-Lago a couple of weeks ago and said, I'm doing this on February 28th, know, Trump could have said, we are not You don't have our backing. You're on your own. We're not giving you any more money. We're not giving you any more missiles. We don't agree. This is not America First, and I'm an America First guy. That was my platform. He had every ability. His mouth works and forms words. He just chose not to say those words. So, not good. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Well, we'll, ⁓ we'll wrap that conversation there, but, I think, I think there's some truth to all of that. And I'm, curious what hap, what comes out of all this in the, the near future. I don't think this ends well for anybody in my opinion. And to be honest, and to be honest, the worst part about it for Israel is I think it's, it's going to generally create, ⁓ a generation of people that don't support Israel, ⁓ behind us and that, that Elwyn: No, certainly not. Sure. They're a pariah. Derek Peterson: You know, it sucks. know, we're far enough away from the Holocaust now and we're living in a time where we're watching Israel, ⁓ you know, use the United States as a puppet. And yeah, there's going to be a generation of people behind us that are really pissed off about that and potentially unreasonably pissed off about it. And that sucks. So, but. Elwyn: People have never separated Jews from conspiracy or from Israel and they won't now. you know the stats on who believes the Holocaust was fake are awful. ⁓ You know we're only getting worse as we move farther away in time from that event. No this is like... Derek Peterson: No, well at least there was video from then still. At least video was a thing because it's those... Elwyn: This video of the moon landing too. Derek Peterson: Very different. Very different. Alright. What's your favorite conspiracy, Alwin? By the way, fuck Clarence Thomas. I haven't said that in a while. Who are we angry at today, Alwin? Besides Clarence Thomas. We're not angry? Elwyn: Yeah. Fuck, yeah, fuck Clarence Thomas. We're not angry. We're not angry. We're going to be a proud dad for a time when... No, she did shut the fuck up and it was smart and it was mature and it was great. It was great. So she is a diver and she's a senior and she just finished her last state high school diving championships and she really, really, really wanted to win. She's finished third a couple times, fourth once and you know... Derek Peterson: Wait, are we telling Bianca to shut the fuck up? Elwyn: had an opportunity this year to win the state championship. She really wanted it. ⁓ And she didn't dive well on, it's a two day event, she didn't dive well on Friday. So she put herself in a position where she needed to do two things. She needed two things to happen on Saturday in the span of three dives, which is not a lot of dives to make up a decent chunk of points. First thing she needed to do was crush everything she did, crush her three dives. She could not afford any lost points on her dives and she did that. She had the highest score of any diver on Saturday. She was far and away, visibly the best diver on the boards on Saturday. But the second thing she needed to have happen was for other people to screw up and have those screw ups be properly scored by the judges. And I've been watching diving for a long time and every time people I talk about diving, they're like, ⁓ it's such a subjective sport. And I actually stick up for the sport. I find that the scoring is really quite consistent. in events, ⁓ it's rare that I watch an event and I watch a lot of diving. I watch all the college conference championships. ⁓ It's rare that I'm like, whew, what the fuck was going on there? There will be one or two dives where I'm like, okay, that's odd. But it's rare that kind of for the duration of an event that I'm really like, what the fuck is going on here? This was definitely a what the fuck is going on here. event Friday and Saturday and on Saturday the judges scored two people who she dove better than they scored a dive that they did so egregiously wrongly that Bianca wound up missing second place by 1.3 points and all the caveats about she could have dove better on the first day aside because they're all valid and true right you do rely on the judges to be competent and to do their jobs and they didn't and they fucked her out of a silver medal and anybody who was watching it knows it. talked to a number of people who watching it who were like, really? Why'd that score what it did? You know, and to her credit, she spent the next four hours on deck surrounded by the people who beat her and people coming up to her and kind of being like, hmm, you all right? That was a tough result. She never once shit on the judging. She never once said, those other girls didn't deserve it or I can't believe they won or I should be up there. She handled it at 18 years old with grace and maturity. It's not to say like if you know her you could see she was upset. You're allowed to be upset. Right? But she was able to shut the fuck up until she got out of there. And when she got out of there, you know, she let it fly with me, ⁓ with Lisa and I, as she should. She should let it fly with us. But I was so proud. Derek Peterson: Yeah, that's the right way to do it. Elwyn: Yeah, I was so proud of her for having the wherewithal to, you know, and I didn't help, by the way, because when she came up to the stands, I was fucking hot. I was raging about it. Right? So, and then when I left, I'm sure I left her just with all this anger that I fucking threw into the, into the world, right? On her, on her behalf, but anger nonetheless. And she just didn't let it move her to do the thing that would have taken away. from everybody knowing that she got robbed. Because if she was complaining that she got robbed to everybody or that other people didn't deserve it, then nobody gives a shit anymore. Then they're like, well, you also missed that, right? Like, it's not entirely their fault. You didn't do well on that dive. Right? So proud of her for knowing at 18 that sometimes, man, you just gotta shut the fuck up and wait until you're in a place where you're surrounded by people who can absorb and help you. through that anger. So, it's a good shut the fuck up. Derek Peterson: Yeah, yay B. I'm ⁓ happy to hear that and also understand that feeling as a dad because I've already had moments where I was ready to jump out of my skin and much less at stake than that to fight a referee. I'm like, I'm thank God. My mom, when I was wrestling in high school during the state tournament, Elwyn: Yay, Bing! White Hot Fury. Derek Peterson: There was a few times I literally thought my mom was gonna jump over the railing and fight somebody. There was a few situations that happened where, dude there was one time a kid slapped me after a match because I beat him. I heard my mom scream from the other side of the arena. She was like, ⁓ It was like, whoa chill mom, I'm fine. But there's nothing like parental rage. Yeah. Elwyn: Hahaha It's like the Princess Bride, know, that's the sound of someone whose heart has been broken. You know, that's the fury, right? His true love marries another tonight. Who else has the cause for ultimate suffering? That was me in the stands. That was your mom in the stands. know, ultimate suffering on behalf of our kid getting fucked. Derek Peterson: Yeah. Oh, a thousand percent. Yeah, a thousand percent. So, all right. Well, what are we talking about next week, Owen? Elwyn: Probably Iran. Or we were going to do a Maha deep dive. We can still go Maha deep dive. Derek Peterson: I was gonna say. ⁓ Wait, we might have an interview episode next weekend. Maybe. We might do our first interview episode on data centers. I've already sent some questions out to a friend of mine that works in the data center business. So she can give me, not specific questions we're gonna ask, but so she has a way to prepare and make sure that she's ready for them. Elwyn: ⁓ that's right. That's right. That would be great. Derek Peterson: That'll be exciting. So we'll probably cover the news for the first half of it and then we'll have her jump in and for the second half and Grill her a little bit about data centers. See how that goes something new Yeah, before you speak expanding expanding out into the world We're growing up Ellen. It's a good thing. Well, see you next week ⁓ Elwyn: I think it'll be awesome. Yeah. That's right. Go buy some carpets. See you next week.