Latest / International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better / Woody Allen Joins the Kill List, McDonald’s Becomes Tasty Period, and Sanctions Gone Mad

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Woody Allen Joins the Kill List, McDonald’s Becomes Tasty Period, and Sanctions Gone Mad · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

• 0:00
  And welcome.
• 0:02
  I am Samuel Trapp, and this is International Flavor.
• 0:07
  And you are listening on DAM Radio.
• 0:11
  And I'm damn glad to have you.
• 0:13
  You can listen to me at damradio.com forward slash live nightly at 9pm to
• 0:21
  1030pm Central Standard Time.
• 0:25
  That is Missouri, Chicago, that area.
• 0:30
  If you're looking around the world or listening around the world, I'm looking
• 0:34
  at all of my people that listen to me and I'm getting some people from around
• 0:39
  the world and I really kind of like it.
• 0:43
  Today's show, I'm going to be talking about Woody Allen being on the kill list.
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  I'm going to be talking about a bunch of news that's coming in on the Ukraine.
• 0:53
  I haven't really spent a lot of time on that over the last few days.
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  Those of you who listen to me regularly know that I am located right now in
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  Moscow, Russia.
• 1:05
  I've been over here touring in Moscow to see some things that are going on.
• 1:11
  I've been seeing quite a few today I was out on Red Square.
• 1:16
  Well, I couldn't on Red Square, but I was in the area trying to see and I did
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  see one of the African military band festival numbers got to March and I got to
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  see a little bit of that.
• 1:31
  I did a walking of the grounds.
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  I went to a historic place.
• 1:37
  I've probably told this story to you before.
• 1:40
  Again, before we get too far into this, I wanted to say that since I'm
• 1:47
  traveling and I'm not in a studio, the sound is a little bit echoey and I
• 1:53
  apologize for that.
• 1:54
  I apologize for it echoing.
• 1:56
  I also am a little bit worried about today's internet connection.
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  I've been having a little bit of trouble this evening.
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  I really hope that it lasts for the full show and that I don't run into any
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  problems.
• 2:12
  So far, it looks like it's going pretty well.
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  I'm very glad to have all of you here and listening.
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  Anyway, I was trying to get onto Red Square and it wasn't possible.
• 2:26
  I did watch the honor guard at the Eternal Flame, where the guards are
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  changed on the south side of the Kremlin Wall.
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  I could be messed up on where I was located, but that was very nice to watch
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  and interesting.
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  There was a lot of people out there today and nobody got to get on to Red
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  Square proper.
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  That's all blocked off.
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  I assume that tonight they're going to have a full series of other shows that
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  are going to be on tonight and those people will get to be there.
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  I thought about turning in my press credentials, but really I'm here for more
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  of a personal tour reasons.
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  Today, I got to go to a place called Izmailovo.
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  Again, it's more of a tourist trap than anything else.
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  I went to the Red Square and saw a couple of bands march, did some tours around
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  the areas that they do, took all kinds of photos.
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  One of the things that I got to do today that I was absolutely going to do, and
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  I ordered the book today too, is I'm a little bit of a history buff, especially
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  when it comes to interesting stories in Russia.
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  I may have told this story before, at least in part.
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  I like Russian film and I'm going to get to the film issues with Woody Allen
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  today and what they're trying to do to him.
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  He's now on the kill list, but before we get to that, I wanted to talk about a
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  movie that I watched that is based on real events.
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  I apologize if some of you've heard this before.
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  I know I've talked about it once before several months ago when I get finished
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  watching the series, but if you are into history, you may be into this history
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  story as well.
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  It is an unbelievable, very cool, it's not a cool story, it's a horrible story.
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  It's about a murder, suicide that occurred on a place called the
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  Great, you know, the big stone bridge, Bolshoi Kamenny Most.
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  That is a bridge that runs outside in the Kremlin and there is a real story and
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  I bought the book.
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  I haven't read it.
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  It's a work of fiction based upon true events and if you speak Russian at all,
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  perhaps you should watch it in, because you could watch it, you could watch it
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  in Russian and I believe there's one or two on YouTube that have it in English
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  translations or at least English subtitles and it's called Volk, which means
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  wolf and it's basically a guy named Volk, Volkov, who is a former commander in
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  the military and he, one of his generals before he dies asks him to investigate
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  the death of his son.
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  His son was investigating a murder, suicide that occurred on this great stone
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  bridge in 1942 or 43 and these things actually happened and so this book had a
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  little bit of fame when it came out and don't quote me on the exact time period
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  that it came out.
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  I want to say 2008 to 2010 time frame.
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  The guy who wrote the book wrote the book about this series of events and
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  they're really true events where a guy named Volodya, which is Vladimir Volodya
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  Shakurin, who was the son of the aviation like minister for the Soviet Union
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  back during the war, he had a girlfriend or would-be girlfriend named Nina
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  Umanskaya and she was the daughter of the ambassador to the United States and
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  later sent to be ambassador to Mexico and there's really a weird story about it
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  all and the movie did a pretty good job about it but the book is always usually
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  better than, I said always and then usually you can't do that, that's too
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  qualified of a time and you can't do that, but the book is usually quite a bit
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  better than any movie would be and so I bought the book.
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  I believe it's been purchased through Wildberries, which will show up tomorrow,
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  went to a bookstore to find it today and they said they haven't had any copies
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  since 2023 and so I ordered it to be delivered and pick it up.
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  So this might be interesting to people too because in the United States we use
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  Amazon.
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  A lot of people order things from Amazon.
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  In Russia they order from a service called Wildberries and I think there's a
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  couple other ones but I think Wildberries is the biggest and everything comes
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  from China anyway, but seems like, but I ordered this book today through
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  Wildberries and I can pick it up but they do it a little different there.
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  In Amazon in the United States they deliver straight to your house.
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  In Russia they have these shops everywhere that are Wildberry shops and you go
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  pick up your items at the shops which are literally everywhere and so you pick
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  which one it's going to be delivered to and you just have it delivered to that
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  place and then you go pick it up.
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  So tomorrow I gotta go pick up this book and I'm interested in reading it.
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  It has not been put out in English that I am aware of.
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  In fact I'm 99% certain that it has not been translated into English and so I
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  will be reading it in Russian to see if the book is any better than the
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  miniseries and the miniseries had I don't know 12, 14 series and it was like I
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  said called Volk and it was very very good and you can download it on it was on
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  I believe it was on premiere tv service might have been on start tv but you can
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  also get it on youtube and all of the series are on youtube and they have
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  English subtitles and the story about this murder and why it occurred well this
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  murder suicide and why it occurred and the involvement at the highest levels of
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  government including Stalin uh was pretty compelling and it turned out to be a
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  little bit interesting.
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  I remember when I talked about this story in particular several months ago I
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  actually included one with another history miniseries that I watched called uh
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  Petivol Ditlova and Ditlova was a uh college student that went with a bunch of
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  other college students and they were doing some research in the Ural mountains
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  in the middle of winter and they all died in weird circumstances and that too
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  is a bit of a mystery.
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  So in the U.S. we have our mysteries and tales and you know Donner Pass sorts
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  of things and they have similar items over there.
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  Well this this book is supposed to uh be pretty compelling and I know that the
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  miniseries was pretty compelling and I watched it and and it uh you know the
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  history is pretty cool and if you listen to my show last night I I talked about
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  um the I don't know the fact that if we're gonna get past this
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  war and get past all of the nonsense that we're going through right now uh
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  between the countries in Russia it's not going to be uh through diplomacy it's
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  going to be through things like art and through things like history and through
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  things uh that where we share our cultures because cultures live a hell of a
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  lot longer than uh short-term politics and so if you you should go back and
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  listen to that.
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  So I am into uh whatever forms of culture that we can exchange and I think it
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  shouldn't be limited and I'm going to get to my topic of of uh Woody Allen and
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  the badge of honor for being added to the uh kill list by Ukraine uh which I
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  think is bs as I said in my show last night but before we do that I did want to
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  tell you a little bit about my visit I went to this great stone bridge today
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  and I went to uh both areas of the bridge where this alleged uh uh well alleged
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  where this murder suicide did occur and it uh uh very very
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  interesting I mean not that it matters to have gone to a place like that but if
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  you've ever seen the movie brother one or I'm sorry which is brother two the
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  Russian movie which I really like in one of it the two brothers end up going to
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  Chicago and when I took a trip to Chicago made sure to go to the bench that
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  they sat upon and found that bench to just kind of a location for where they
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  actually showed one of the scenes because it's a you know a very famous movie
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  on the Russian side and so I did the same thing with going to see the where
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  Nina Olanskaya was killed by Volodya Shekhodin and where then he shot himself
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  uh right afterward and so uh and he died uh the next day I believe it was and
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  according to uh records Stalin himself visited this boy now there's a legend it
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  was it's a very interesting movie and I don't know if there's any truth to it
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  at all but I do want to read the uh the book which I'm sure is uh uh a creative
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  work of fiction where people are adding to the story but I don't know I've
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  always been interested in books are so cheap here um when I went to the store
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  to look for the book I bought one other book in Russian today because their
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  books are so cheap and uh you know in America you buy a book here and you're
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  going to pay 20 bucks for it no matter what and uh unless you go to some used
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  shop but you're not going to get a brand new book even a paperback for for less
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  than 15 20 bucks um maybe I'll get lucky and get a 15 12 to 15 dollar one but
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  here I bought uh the book by Frank Herbert God Emperor of Dune which is one of
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  the I suppose a very sad story in the tale the Dune saga
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  and I've read most of the ones that are put together by Frank Herbert's son and
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  another guy that helped him forget his name but most of the ones I stick to are
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  the ones that are Frank Herbert in particular I'm eager for the part three of
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  the new Dune movies to come out I've watched the two but but if they could do
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  God Emperor of Dune um that would be an accomplishment and I bought that book
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  and I plan to read it in Russian and I've read the entire series of Frank
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  Herbert books in my lifetime probably three four times and now I'm gonna do at
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  least that one in Russian I didn't buy the entire series because I don't want
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  to carry him around on a plane and books are heavy but I bought one to carry
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  with me to read on the way back uh flying you know it's a long flight and I'd
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  like a book to read so I bought that book and I have the uh the book uh it's
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  called Kamenny Most which means stone bridge about the one I just told you
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  about about the murder of uh Nino Manske by Volodya Shakurin and uh those are
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  actual events that did occur now nobody knows exactly why or what they are in
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  the investigations were you know uh interesting at least in the movie portion
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  and I'm not sure what information this man had or had access to but I'm very
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  interested in the book anyway I tell you all of that to say again that uh our
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  two countries are going to get past this idiocy of of
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  creating enemies that frankly aren't um if we can share in cultures
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  between our countries and I believe that needs to occur and I also want to
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  point out that this once again now many of you know that I interviewed Scott
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  Ritter um several weeks ago and posted his uh story as well right and
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  while talking to him he also said he was listed on this kill list that Scott
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  Ritter's on the kill list all because he says things that you know don't kiss
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  the rear end of Ukraine or that say things positive about Russia this is
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  moronic and idiotic from the Ukrainian side and you look at it from that point
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  of view this is this is nonsense and they ought to be condemned because a lot
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  of people on that kill list have really died there are people who've died on
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  that list that they are that they kill and they put on that list and so uh
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  there's a story I wanted to share with you and continue to comment on and I
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  told you about this last night Woody Allen appeared virtually he only appeared
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  like on a zoom call or something to say something on uh this movie festival and
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  uh you know I like old Soviet movies I like old Woody Allen movies I like you
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  know they don't even have to be old um I like you know recent Russian um movies
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  and series that come out I find them to be pretty uh pretty uh compelling and
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  regular but I'm going to share this story with you many of you might not know
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  what the word mirror torrents uh list is but the mirror torrents is a basically
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  a kill list and it's a website that uh uh accuses you know people of being
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  enemies of Ukraine and then adds them to this list and then they deny that it's
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  a kill list but a lot of people on the list end up dead okay and now Woody
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  Allen has been added to the list this website has accused him of participating
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  in a Russian propaganda event okay so it's propaganda to have a film festival
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  apparently unless this film festival somehow kisses the ass of Ukraine if the
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  film festival kisses the ass of Ukraine or denies Russia or says how horrible
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  Russia is then it's allowed okay that you can do but you can't have anything
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  that promotes anything positive of anything even spelled probably anything that
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  begins with the letter r would be off the table because Russia starts with r
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  therefore every word that begins with r should be outlawed right anything any
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  movie that uh has the word Russia in it any word that has a Russian actor in it
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  any uh movie that uh promotes anything remotely Russian culture means you gotta
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  get added to a kill list this is stupidity at the grandest of levels okay so
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  film star Woody Allen added to the list of Ukraine's enemies maintained by the
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  state-linked it's called peacemaker the word means peacemaker website for
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  participating in his in the Russian senate in that event the guy's 89 years old
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  you think he gives a crap i don't think he does uh and if he did he wouldn't
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  have appeared in the first place um and i think it was an honor for him to
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  appear regardless and i you know i spent a lot of time on that last night go
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  back and listen to that but now today is when they added him to this list and
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  he appeared by video link on sunday at the Moscow international film week he
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  spoke about his career and long-standing ties to Russia but the Ukrainian
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  foreign ministry denounced his participation and said it is a disgrace and an
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  insult to the sacrifice of Ukrainian actors and filmmakers what sacrifice are
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  these actors and filmmakers making are they all throwing in the towel and not
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  doing film anymore so they can go fight on the front line somehow i doubt that
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  but but we shall see they'll leave national academic theater canceled the
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  upcoming performance of of Allen's stage musical bullets over broadway in
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  protest right so now they're protesting him um this controversial database
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  added Allen's profile on Monday branding the Hollywood legend a victim he is
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  now a victim of psychological violence by Russian terrorist propaganda and they
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  accused him of conscious participation in a Russian propaganda event and uh
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  nonsense just really stupid and they have a picture of it that was posted on
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  the telegram here and it and it shows that uh his date of birth was uh is
• 22:29
  November 30th 1935 um he uh has they give basics of his name
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  where you can find in there's 17 replies 304 likes people are liking the fact
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  that they put him on this list the site which is nominally independent but
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  linked to Ukrainian state security services publishes this personal details of
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  individuals it claims are enemies of Ukraine it has been branded a kill list
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  because multiple people whose names were on it have later been murdered or
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  they've died under suspicious circumstances Allen defended the artistic
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  exchange the other day telling the Guardian that when it comes to the conflict
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  in Ukraine I believe strongly that Russian president Vladimir Putin is totally
• 23:31
  in the wrong okay so he has an opinion and the opinion mirrors somewhat what uh
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  the Ukrainians are saying I don't believe that I don't believe Vladimir Putin
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  is totally in the wrong I do not but he then says but whatever politicians have
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  done I don't feel cutting off artistic conversation is ever a good way to help
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  which is the point of my show last night because I believe the same way and
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  this is idiotic okay they're like I said you don't um you know if if your your
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  your child does something bad that doesn't mean you throw your child in the
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  garbage can and get a new one you know you don't take out this you know you
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  can't turn the entire country of Russia into bad because you disagree with
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  something that they have done if you did that America no country would be here
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  none so near to toward it says targeted a wide range of international figures
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  in the past earlier this year Hollywood actor Mark Edelstein and Russian hockey
• 24:52
  star I mean they put a hockey star on the list Alexander Ovechkin he was added
• 24:58
  to the database I told you about that a month or two ago I think it was about a
• 25:02
  month whenever he passed up Wayne Gretzky I suppose time's flying a little bit
• 25:06
  quicker um the list has also included prominent Americans such as U.S. director
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  of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and journalist Tucker Carlson nuts
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  Russian officials condemn the site as extremist and its operators insisted a
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  legitimate tool for defending national security oh really so if if you really
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  are announcing a kill list and this is to defend your national security that's
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  okay right nonsense nonsense it's it's really
• 25:46
  getting wild when you can just claim that you have to kill people that
• 25:56
  you disagree with uh really really nonsense they're involved in a war I mean
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  that you know we all know about right um so I don't know I I could
• 26:13
  probably go on about this topic for quite a bit because of how foolish it is
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  but it's it's something that needs to be addressed far more
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  regularly than we address it in America I don't think a lot of Americans still
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  aren't paying as much attention to this as they ought to be that they aren't
• 26:40
  paying as much attention to the uh the moves the what would you call it I
• 26:48
  suppose you could call it the uh inconsistencies in what is allowed on one side
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  versus what is allowed on the other you know I assume that if Russia had a kill
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  list of anyone who said anything pro-Ukrainian the world would be up in arms
• 27:12
  and Russia would be condemned more than it already is because they had a
• 27:20
  similar list if somebody ended up somebody ended up dying that happened to be
• 27:26
  on a list of people that I mean pick any pick any I mean pick uh uh
• 27:35
  Vladimir Solovyov pick uh Margarita Sumanyan pick one of those two if they had
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  a list said these people are enemies of of Russia these people are saying keep
• 27:47
  saying good things about Ukraine and they shouldn't be able to say good things
• 27:51
  about Ukraine imagine if either one of those two people both of whom I believe
• 27:56
  are on the near towards list two what if they had a list that said you know
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  these Ukrainians we really need to you know we really need to take care of them
• 28:07
  because they are on the bad side of this and we can't we can't it'd be the end
• 28:13
  of the world you'd hear it all over the planet but these things don't get very
• 28:17
  much traction in America they don't get played a lot you don't hear it and I
• 28:25
  think it should be of course we never hear any of the any of the bad things
• 28:30
  about Ukraine in America it well you know there are people like me that put it
• 28:35
  out people like Scott Ritter that say some things people like Jeffrey Sachs
• 28:40
  there you know people far more important than I am that put out a bunch of
• 28:44
  these things and more and more people are getting their news from places that
• 28:53
  are at least sharing the uncomfortable truth about about
• 29:03
  Ukraine and some of the things that they are participating in I mean think
• 29:10
  about this this there's a new case a guy named well it's not new but it's the
• 29:17
  first of its kind a billionaire Alisher Usmanov has a lawyer and he's a Russian
• 29:25
  called him an oligarch I suppose and he has petition petitioned Germany's top
• 29:32
  court for permission to sue the council so get this so you'll hear about
• 29:42
  this maybe but here's a guy standing up for his own for his own money being
• 29:50
  frozen right and an interesting story so he's a billionaire he's Russian and he
• 29:57
  has a legal team that he is seeking permission to sue the EU for defamation
• 30:05
  over its rationale for sanctioning him so they chose to sanction him and he
• 30:11
  disagrees with the reason why and you know according to your own news okay in
• 30:20
  this case is the first of its kind it's the first person to do it now I'm
• 30:24
  wondering about that I always thought and I even sent a request to speak to an
• 30:32
  RT representative while I was while I am here in Moscow it was denied they
• 30:39
  didn't want to to talk about it or maybe they didn't want to talk to me about
• 30:45
  it I don't know but but RT turned to me now and I asked him to see if there was
• 30:53
  somebody that would talk to me about sanctions because as a former lawyer who
• 30:57
  sued the governments in America frequently and quite a few times I thought it
• 31:07
  would be an interesting approach for an RT person who is being targeted in
• 31:13
  America for both criminal and for sanctions sorts of things especially on the
• 31:21
  RT level to take a court action against him I thought that would you know and
• 31:27
  I'd like to speak with someone about where they're going maybe they have a
• 31:31
  lawyer who just didn't want to talk who knows it wasn't very well explained but
• 31:36
  they said they didn't have anybody that wanted to talk about it and you know I
• 31:41
  would have been happy to speak to someone in English about it or whatever but
• 31:45
  anyway I always thought that would be a good thing to do in an American court
• 31:51
  would be to sue the DOJ the outgoing because of what they have done in going
• 32:00
  after RT and RT reporters and I also thought that if people were being
• 32:06
  sanctioned and their assets were being frozen that there are legal means to go
• 32:13
  against sorts of forfeiture and maybe they aren't forfeiture maybe they're
• 32:17
  frozen and but what they've done on the RT side is accused a lot of these
• 32:21
  people of crimes by allegedly interfering with elections and I don't know what
• 32:28
  happened post-Trump this story is an older story and but I wanted to come over
• 32:33
  and talk to RT reps and see where they were in this process I spoke a little
• 32:39
  bit to Scott Ritter about it when we did our interview a few weeks ago but
• 32:46
  anyway finally somebody a Russian billionaire is suing somebody okay or he's
• 32:52
  asking permission to sue somebody so usually just so you know in government
• 32:59
  when you're trying to sue a government usually you have to governments you
• 33:06
  can't sue the king most legal systems you've never been able to sue the ruler
• 33:11
  of whoever is in charge you know they're performing their duties and there are
• 33:17
  plenty of legal reasons for not allowing that in America you are given certain
• 33:24
  permissions in certain cases that are allowed to sue the government and then
• 33:30
  you're not allowed in a bunch of other ways well it appears and I'm no expert
• 33:35
  on it in Europe or at all and I'm a reasonably well informed about how it goes
• 33:42
  on in the United States but even then every case is different and in everything
• 33:47
  I don't practice law anymore anyway but even so each case is different and
• 33:54
  depends on its own set of facts so at any rate this guy named Alisher Usmanov
• 34:01
  has a lawyer and the lawyer's name is Joachim Steinhoffel and he is appealed to
• 34:09
  Germany's top court challenging the statement of the reasons that the EU
• 34:15
  council adopted against this his client Alisher Usmanov in 2023 to justify
• 34:23
  personal sanctions against him now he sells metals and telecoms you know
• 34:30
  according to Euronews and the allegation in the documents according to the
• 34:35
  lawyer are completely unjustified one of the reasons given is that Usmanov
• 34:41
  reportedly fronted for Russian president Vladimir Putin and solved
• 34:51
  his business problems now what does that mean we have no idea this is a claim
• 34:57
  that the EU council attributed to Forbes last year a Hamburg court ruled that
• 35:05
  the company's claim is unlawful and defamatory but Forbes has since argued that
• 35:10
  it was a protected opinion and not a statement of fact this is crap it's it's
• 35:17
  uh it makes no sense so here I mean how would you like to be accused of here's
• 35:25
  here's the reason we're going to steal your billions of dollars because you
• 35:30
  reportedly fronted for president Putin and solved his business problems what
• 35:35
  does that mean you know if I fronted someone and solved their business problems
• 35:41
  uh wouldn't there be a little bit of detail that would go into that maybe I
• 35:48
  don't know what that means but if you should be able to sue somebody for
• 35:53
  defaming you especially if that is the basis for withholding your billions of
• 35:58
  dollars anyway last year the Hamburg court ruled that this company's claim was
• 36:04
  unlawful and defamatory and Forbes has changed uh said it was protected opinion
• 36:09
  a journalist's expression of opinion cannot serve as a basis for sanctions so
• 36:14
  the council cannot publish it as a purported statement of fact if the author
• 36:19
  has clarified it was his own opinion so the guy accused into this was a
• 36:25
  journalist until a journalist is writing an article and the government takes
• 36:30
  this uh statement and uses it to sanction the guy and take all his money so
• 36:36
  he's suing them rightly so frankly I think it's long overdue and somebody
• 36:41
  should have done this a long time ago but the lawyer has argued that the EU
• 36:45
  sanctions rationale is based on hundreds of articles that have now been removed
• 36:51
  or edited following dozens of court decisions so there are people that are that
• 36:57
  are trying to uh interfere and take care of some of this stuff our concrete
• 37:02
  examples appear to show that the council does not meaningly verify sources and
• 37:09
  is satisfied with unverified press clippings even where the author recants
• 37:14
  including recantation in court so the author of whoever wrote this thing said
• 37:21
  he yeah that's not what I meant and it was uh taken out of context anyway but
• 37:27
  that's not good enough you can still use it to sanction somebody so you're
• 37:31
  using hearsay from another party published in an article and using it to take
• 37:36
  away their billions nonsense I hope the guy is successful but Steinhafel claims
• 37:41
  that this practice is short of EU's own case law standards that permit the
• 37:47
  council to cite press reports only if they come from multiple independent
• 37:54
  sources contain specific facts which these absolutely do not I mean how how is
• 38:02
  it a specific fact that you reportedly front for president Vladimir Putin and
• 38:08
  solve his business problems is that a specific fact how did you front for the
• 38:16
  it would be specific if you said how you um fronted for uh Vladimir Putin and
• 38:24
  how you solved his business problems this is crap I mean any any seventh seven
• 38:32
  -year-old lawyer a kid who wanted to be a lawyer later in life could defeat this
• 38:39
  you don't need a legal education to defeat this but they're probably still
• 38:45
  going to let it happen because remember don't go thinking that the legal system
• 38:49
  is a good friend of yours either or that it's all done uh correctly and above
• 38:55
  board because most time it isn't um but anyway he says that the EU has failed
• 39:01
  its own standards he has also argued that the council defamed Usmanov when it
• 39:08
  alleged that he actively supported the destabilization of Ukraine what does
• 39:17
  that mean what does it mean to support the destabilization of Ukraine by virtue
• 39:25
  of his business contributions to the Russian taxed budget so he gets taxed
• 39:31
  because he owns a business in Russia he gets taxed and he gets taxed a lot
• 39:36
  because he's a billionaire and so he gets these monies and these monies that he
• 39:40
  has to pay taxes on actually actively support destabilization of Ukraine by the
• 39:47
  tax that he pays to Russia this is stupid anyway sanctioning legitimate
• 39:54
  businesses in order to leverage foreign policy is coercion by proxy right I
• 40:02
  think that's that's crazy stuff the EU imposed sanctions on the 71 year old
• 40:08
  Usmanov shortly after the escalation of the conflict in 2022 Bloomberg
• 40:16
  estimates his worth at 16.8 billion dollars as of August of this year and so
• 40:26
  who knows what's gonna happen I hope that he is successful and that uh that
• 40:32
  something comes from this that is positive but but this is such crap the double
• 40:38
  standards that are implied everywhere are you telling me the Ukrainian oligarch
• 40:45
  billionaire who owns a business or a factory over there something that pays
• 40:50
  taxes to Ukraine wouldn't be in the same boat as this guy by supporting the
• 40:59
  Ukraine war against Russia now of course they're not subject to sanctions I
• 41:06
  mean we're supposed to hate Russia right we're supposed to uh want to take away
• 41:12
  billions from private citizens in Russia because their money gets paid into the
• 41:19
  uh into the tax coffers and Vladimir Putin gets to use them to support the war
• 41:26
  effort this is this is what's happening in our world today now there's been
• 41:33
  some other news on sanctions that have last week last week remember they gave
• 41:40
  another loan to Ukraine and they're the the EU and these are all being done in
• 41:47
  Brussels and Brussels is taking the money I forget the name of the bank but I
• 41:52
  shared part of the article with you a few days ago where they are saving some
• 41:57
  of taking the profits from frozen assets and want to uh
• 42:07
  what would you call it use them as leverage to repay debts to Ukraine so
• 42:16
  Ukraine gets a loan Ukraine uses that loan to buy weapons from the United
• 42:26
  States or wherever they use it to buy all these weapons and then the interest
• 42:31
  from Russian frozen assets including assets frozen of oligarchs like this guy
• 42:38
  they get to be used to uh pay back these loans so that Ukraine doesn't have to
• 42:47
  pay them back isn't that nonsense and that they get to take take the money and
• 42:54
  pay this back in so from a legal perspective when you're looking at this it it
• 43:00
  is truly demeaning to what is going on in the world of international bankings
• 43:10
  and and when you can bank and steal Russian money to fund Ukraine and
• 43:21
  their defense efforts I suppose you know we're all supposed to just say oh gee
• 43:30
  this is all just peachy we should be we should all be for this because Russia
• 43:36
  is the bad guy but the problem is is you have to believe that Russia is the bad
• 43:42
  guy now even if you disagree with what Russia did in coming in and saying or
• 43:51
  believing or proving that there were uh what do you call it um referenda where
• 43:59
  Sao Parisia, Kherson, Donetsk, Lugansk and especially Crimea back in 2014 where
• 44:07
  they all chose to join Russia if you believe that to be true which I do and I
• 44:13
  believe that their referenda were were that were real referenda here right it's
• 44:21
  uh um it's if you're funding the the money to come from that and
• 44:31
  pay for the opposition to all that with the money from Russia you're you're
• 44:35
  you're shooting yourself in the foot and I don't understand how people can't
• 44:42
  really see this to be the case how is it possible that western
• 44:51
  people across the board across the board are saying that it's okay to
• 45:00
  freeze Russian assets and then use them to pay back Ukrainian debt I'll tell
• 45:09
  you what from a legal perspective this crap is gonna be going on for quite a
• 45:15
  long time okay um but but it's okay it's okay for any other country to have um
• 45:24
  tax benefits from their own oligarchs right the U.S. don't most of our taxes in
• 45:34
  the U.S. get paid by U.S. oligarchs U.S. business interests you know they
• 45:41
  aren't paid by regular Joe Bob and his wife you know living in Kentucky
• 45:47
  somewhere they're paid by a lot of rich corporations that pay the bulk or rich
• 45:53
  people that pay the bulk of the taxes that get paid in our country because we
• 46:00
  turn around and fund that to Ukraine does that mean that Russia should freeze
• 46:03
  all of our assets by the way they have they have frozen assets on the other
• 46:09
  side as well and it's pretty funny because there's quite a few articles that
• 46:15
  have said you know things like like I'm I'm located in Moscow right now and I
• 46:20
  almost went to a вкусный точка today which is a вкусный точка means tasty
• 46:29
  period and that is the new name of McDonald's so you don't have McDonald's in
• 46:38
  Russia anymore McDonald's backed out you know McDonald's left in 2022 thinking
• 46:45
  that that would harm Russia and what it did not not remotely in fact um in fact
• 46:52
  the private let's see how did how did it actually happen when McDonald's backed
• 46:59
  out the private owners or the franchisees themselves got together changed the
• 47:07
  names and I think it was one big one because it happened with quite a few
• 47:12
  companies it happened with Starbucks which is now Star Coffee and it happened
• 47:18
  with вкусный точка which used to be McDonald's as well and I believe they all
• 47:24
  stayed the same you know it's not like if I owned a franchise for a McDonald's
• 47:31
  I could change my name you know to Sam's you know hamburgers and somebody else
• 47:37
  you know Jim Bob owns another one he changes his Jim Bob's hamburgers all of
• 47:43
  them changed to вкусный точка and it actually did a good thing for the Russian
• 47:48
  economy and the food is actually better now I haven't had it in a couple of
• 47:55
  last year was the last time I had it I had it in Nobler as they tell me and I
• 48:00
  had their coffee sucks by the way or it did the days that I had it but the food
• 48:05
  is great and it's better than the food in America the chicken at McDonald's but
• 48:10
  uh the ingredients are better I think but um but the coffee I don't know they
• 48:15
  needed a different coffee that is for sure and I did try twice and so you know
• 48:21
  don't don't hurt me on that but Star Coffee is cheaper it's tastier and I
• 48:28
  haven't gone there on this trip but I always go to coffee shops here I mean
• 48:32
  virtually every day I go to a coffee shop and have coffee sometimes twice um
• 48:37
  because here coffee shops are awesome and you can go in there and it's cheap
• 48:43
  and it's you know in America you go to Starbucks you're paying six bucks for a
• 48:48
  uh you're paying six bucks for a coffee and uh in uh five dollars and eighty
• 48:54
  cents or something when you buy a coffee and if you get one of the flavored
• 48:57
  things Jesus sky's the limit in there but if you're buying uh something uh uh
• 49:04
  here you can get a coffee for geez nothing it's uh and and it's pretty tasty
• 49:11
  you know uh in most of these places but вкусный точка the McDonald's did not
• 49:19
  have good coffee oh baby and well perhaps I should try another one and give it
• 49:25
  a year it's been a year since I tried it anyway why am I babbling about coffee
• 49:29
  I don't know that's not the point of what I was talking about but uh but I've
• 49:35
  been there I kind of go with the uh uh I kind of go with the flow of where I'm
• 49:42
  going and I got I've done that here and I apologize for that there's a lot of
• 49:47
  commentary on the uh on the board thank you all for um um listening to the show
• 49:53
  and making your commentary and I'm very glad that you are there and um and I'm
• 49:59
  very glad that uh everything is uh is is going our way uh there's quite a bit
• 50:07
  more news that I wanted to get to but I wanted to make sure to cover that
• 50:12
  sanctions case and I still am hoping to get an RT I went to uh when I was on
• 50:19
  Red Square today across the way they had an RT booth that was over there and it
• 50:25
  was actually pretty cool so there they were um with an RT huge booth and and
• 50:32
  and right out in front of it were these I suppose the best word for it would be
• 50:40
  does it is when I was a kid they had these great big chairs called papasan
• 50:47
  chairs big old round chairs and uh the ones that were out uh near Red Square
• 50:55
  next to this RT booth were eight ten feet across they were huge and they had
• 51:04
  big mattress pads in there or big puffy cushions in there and there were people
• 51:10
  laying in them well I thought that they were people that were like reporters
• 51:16
  that were hanging out trying to tell a story or something or or waiting for
• 51:21
  something to happen because across the way we I had watched the uh African and
• 51:26
  African country doing uh some of their marching because they're having the
• 51:31
  marching festival the military parades festival uh or military marching bands
• 51:37
  festival I forget the exact name of it but they were having that today and so I
• 51:42
  thought I could go up there and talk to somebody but my real goal was to go up
• 51:46
  and hopefully find somebody from RT that would talk to me in English about um
• 51:51
  the uh RT sanctions that uh the DOJ was leveling in the U.S. against
• 52:00
  RT uh reporters and if you go back and listen to my Scott Ritter interview he
• 52:07
  was telling me about the RT lady down in I think she's from Florida from in
• 52:12
  South Carolina I don't remember but but she uh they actually did a uh full
• 52:18
  cavity search on her and that is complete BS and uh you know when when when the
• 52:25
  U.S. is doing that kind of thing uh under the uh Biden administration now um
• 52:33
  I'm not so I I haven't checked the status of these cases in the last few months
• 52:40
  but I've been meaning to go back and check the status and part of me wanted to
• 52:46
  find that's why I've been trying to get an RT person to talk to me about about
• 52:53
  these about these uh cases that are coming up and so I
• 53:02
  think they need to get um I think they should sue frankly but I also hope they
• 53:11
  all get dismissed and there were several of them and I checked on one or two
• 53:15
  and they seem to have stalled the last time that I looked on the federal court
• 53:20
  system in the United States but I want to go back and make sure whether or not
• 53:28
  they are still pending or if the DOJ under Trump has finally dismissed them
• 53:38
  all all of these things that had to do with election interference remember when
• 53:44
  they were releasing all the information about you know Russian disinformation
• 53:52
  affecting U.S. elections they finally were uh hopefully putting to bed this
• 54:00
  issue of uh Russian interference in our elections which is allegedly what they
• 54:07
  were charging these RT people with in order to seize their property and but I
• 54:17
  can't get anybody in RT to talk to me about any of that so at any rate I'm
• 54:20
  going to go ahead and do some research on it on my own for another show on
• 54:26
  Sundays I usually do a deep dive show that lasts two hours not one and a half
• 54:34
  and I have been meaning to do a look into that um that issue one more time
• 54:43
  because I haven't seen it but I was hoping that I would be able to come over
• 54:47
  here and get somebody to talk to me in English or even Russian I don't care
• 54:52
  I'll talk to him in Russian about um what is going on or what has gone on or
• 54:58
  what efforts are being made to uh fight these um kinds of activities
• 55:08
  these kinds of cases they're criminal cases but I explained it before the
• 55:13
  reason these criminal cases are done the way they are is the point of it isn't
• 55:21
  the crime the point of it isn't to find somebody guilty of a crime the point of
• 55:28
  it is to seize their money their property and their assets by what the U.S.
• 55:38
  government state governments do it too but in the in the federal government
• 55:43
  system if you can get a it's called a concerted action when people call it a
• 55:51
  concerted action that means what conspiracy so if you can conspire if you can
• 55:59
  accuse someone of conspiring to commit a crime whether it's a crime or not but
• 56:08
  if you can accuse them of conspiring there's a procedure that is called
• 56:14
  forfeiture that means they can come in and steal all your stuff so the U.S.
• 56:21
  government comes in and steals your stuff by this forfeiture uh forfeiture
• 56:29
  claims right so they come in and take your stuff and that is the entire point
• 56:37
  is to steal your stuff and uh so what they did with a couple of these R.T.
• 56:43
  people was they come in they charge them with creating disinformation to affect
• 56:50
  an election in an effort to target an election which is against election law
• 56:55
  and that's count one okay but forfeiture actions are civil actions which mean
• 57:04
  they don't take place during the criminal process they are completely separate
• 57:11
  so you're charged with a crime they arrest you then the judge gives you a bond
• 57:17
  and then you get set for trial sometime later there's a criminal procedure
• 57:23
  criminal processes but if the government has has this uh forfeiture action that
• 57:30
  is a civil action and so they file a separate civil action and go here's a guy
• 57:37
  charged with conspiracy under the conspiracy law we can go after any of his
• 57:43
  assets that may have been used to forward the conspiracy so we
• 57:53
  believe that he has a home where people met in that home uh this conspirators
• 58:00
  and their co-conspirators or any part of the conspiracy that occurred in the
• 58:06
  house those people met and therefore the asset was used in the furtherance of a
• 58:16
  crime so we the government of the United States wish to seize the home and
• 58:24
  forfeiture and they take your home they take your bank account they search
• 58:31
  through your house for a safe and take whatever's in the safe they can take
• 58:37
  your bank accounts they know where you bank and they can take your bank
• 58:40
  accounts and they can freeze them and then they get a judge to turn them over
• 58:47
  you forfeit them separate from the crime and 90 percent
• 58:57
  of the time you don't get that money back okay there are stories of people who
• 59:04
  quite a few of them by the way one of the typical ways this works is call it
• 59:09
  claim is a drug dealer okay pick pick pick any drug dealer um and how the drug
• 59:16
  programs work okay so under the federal law the drug dealer gets charged with
• 59:24
  drugs and crime and there's a forfeiture amount that says if you have been
• 59:34
  involved in or you've been accused of being involved in a drug crime and the
• 59:40
  government believes that the money that you have is uh used in furtherance of
• 59:49
  these drug crimes they can seize the money so what they want to do is come into
• 59:52
  your house find the drugs find the cash they find a safe full of cash but it
• 59:59
  happens to be your wife's cash your wife just uh you know her dad died and left
• 1:00:04
  a million dollars and she doesn't like banking and so she put all the money in
• 1:00:09
  the uh in the safe right simple and i'm not saying that's the case i'm just
• 1:00:16
  saying that assume the worst assume the worst plan but the government gets to
• 1:00:22
  take that money and they do take that money and then you don't get it back and
• 1:00:30
  you have to fight to get that money back in a completely separate action and 90
• 1:00:35
  percent of the attorneys out there don't that are criminal attorneys have no
• 1:00:39
  idea what to do about the uh forfeiture because that is a civil action and so
• 1:00:49
  there's all kinds of scams but the government of the united states knows all
• 1:00:54
  about that because they are definitely experts on stealing your money and you
• 1:00:58
  just don't get it back so these criminals go to jail and they end up forfeiting
• 1:01:02
  all the money or the government keeps it or alleges it as a you know a payment
• 1:01:08
  of a payment of a fine or a levy or something like that and uh so it's it's
• 1:01:15
  really a crap system when you think about it in those terms so if you can do
• 1:01:24
  something in reverse like i am thinking and hoping that or you know suggesting
• 1:01:31
  that this guy who i was telling you about before the russian oligarch whose
• 1:01:36
  name i don't remember off the top of my head i'll have to go back and look at
• 1:01:39
  it if he gets his money back i'm all for it if he gets his money unfrozen i'm
• 1:01:47
  all for it you know i think that would be a very good thing to do now i kind of
• 1:01:54
  wanted to spin that into my next sort of basic topic okay because think about
• 1:02:02
  this and i was i might have been right on the very start of this in the very
• 1:02:10
  beginning where uh moldova was picked as a uh as a target for u.s
• 1:02:20
  agency for international development right and i was on the ground in moldova
• 1:02:26
  in like 94 or something like that for like four months and i was tasked out to
• 1:02:32
  u.s aid u.s agency for international development and we were delivering i was
• 1:02:40
  the russian interpreter on site and i was also pretty much in charge of the
• 1:02:45
  team that was there there were only like six or eight of us i don't remember
• 1:02:49
  but i was the sergeant in charge of the the group we had a commander um i won't
• 1:02:55
  tell you about that story it was you know a little bit embarrassing at the time
• 1:02:58
  but uh he was he he was african-american and they wouldn't talk to him in all
• 1:03:05
  seriousness they wouldn't so i ran the whole show he had to be there and i
• 1:03:09
  couldn't do a lot of stuff like that but he in uh yes i was and i did go
• 1:03:19
  to dli twice thank you for asking that question and but i was in moldova on
• 1:03:26
  loan to u.s agency for international development for several months and i was
• 1:03:30
  there as a russian interpreter but i was also in charge of this group of uh
• 1:03:37
  interpreters and mission control we were delivering uh health care products
• 1:03:43
  basically we in the beginnings of u.s agency for international development
• 1:03:49
  buying moldova and moldovan influence same thing we did in ukraine right and so
• 1:03:57
  uh now there's a story that came out and it's about moldova specifically and if
• 1:04:03
  you've listened about uh what's her name sandu that has been uh she's an
• 1:04:08
  economist that was well thought of trained in the west um done some pretty good
• 1:04:13
  pretty good things allegedly for moldova but now she is doing the same thing
• 1:04:19
  that zelensky is doing she is targeting her opposition putting them in jail
• 1:04:24
  destroying their ability to uh run the um um run the government
• 1:04:33
  they're very anti-russian and they're trying to do all that kind of thing but
• 1:04:39
  there was a story that came out here that says u.s agency for international
• 1:04:43
  development invested now for us it was like 18 point something million when we
• 1:04:48
  were there for that four month period we put 18 point something million we were
• 1:04:54
  getting paid 250 a day then isn't that crazy and uh and for being there that
• 1:05:02
  was our temporary duty pay crazy money and at any rate u.s agency for
• 1:05:09
  international development invested tens of millions of dollars in moldova to
• 1:05:15
  support pro-eu president maya sandu said former usaid chief samantha power in a
• 1:05:25
  call with russian pranksters now remember these russian pranksters have had uh
• 1:05:32
  quite a bit of success targeting people in these they got her to say some
• 1:05:40
  things by pretending they were somebody that they weren't so an interesting
• 1:05:43
  story um but speaking to volvin and lexus who apparently pretended to be
• 1:05:49
  western officials she recalled that under her leadership usaid made
• 1:05:53
  unprecedented investment in moldova and massively expanded its presence in the
• 1:06:00
  country i may be guilty in that in the very beginning of being part of that of
• 1:06:06
  course she wasn't in charge way back then she recalled that in the usaid
• 1:06:10
  supplementals designated for ukraine that there were always tens of millions of
• 1:06:16
  dollars earmarked for moldova and she noted these funds went much further in
• 1:06:22
  moldova than in ukraine given the country's small size well i'm gonna tell you
• 1:06:28
  that way back then when i was involved in it we were delivering medical
• 1:06:35
  supplies and there was some money we didn't have anything to do really with the
• 1:06:41
  money but it was like i don't know how many containers um shipping containers
• 1:06:47
  that would come by and would uh uh however many we were delivering 180
• 1:06:53
  something it was a big number which is why we were there for so many months and
• 1:06:59
  there were three regional hospitals one in cheshire one in belt c and another
• 1:07:05
  one i don't remember the name of the third town but uh but where we were
• 1:07:11
  delivering these medical supplies huge warehouses so these big these polish
• 1:07:19
  truck drivers would bring these containers and we would uh supervise the
• 1:07:24
  unloading of these containers into hospital warehouses hospital huge warehouses
• 1:07:30
  that are there okay and this went on monday through friday every week okay and
• 1:07:37
  we were there like i said several months and um on the weekends we would go out
• 1:07:45
  and hang out take some time off go do some things tour the town you know do
• 1:07:51
  whatever and if you went to any of the little uh markets in the town all of the
• 1:07:58
  stuff that we had delivered was being sold at the market so corruption rampant
• 1:08:07
  and we reported it but it's not like anybody can do anything or wanted to do
• 1:08:11
  anything about it you know the whole point was deliver it to fund the corrupt
• 1:08:16
  people that were this is what we were doing but that's what we did and so i
• 1:08:21
  believe it's been going on for 25 30 years in any former soviet republic
• 1:08:29
  because they were trying to buy them all and i've been in disagreement with
• 1:08:33
  that forever but she said that there was always so much more money available in
• 1:08:40
  moldova because in ukraine because ukraine is so much larger than moldova but
• 1:08:45
  she bemoaned the fact that u.s president trump halted all spending on moldova
• 1:08:53
  since coming into office and he dismantled usa id rightly so friends and
• 1:09:00
  neighbors trump had previously said the agency had been run by radical lunatics
• 1:09:06
  that's probably true too and dissolved it last month with the remnants being
• 1:09:13
  absorbed into the state department i'm not sure that's all that much better but
• 1:09:17
  at least it's the government doing it and not an ngo you know what i mean uh
• 1:09:24
  she added power added that the in funding to moldova was particularly
• 1:09:31
  concerning ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections in the country if you
• 1:09:36
  listen to me a couple days ago i was telling you that they're now worried that
• 1:09:40
  this sandu is going to be um beaten in the election but she has uh destroyed
• 1:09:49
  most arrested prison imprisoned most of her enemies right and so what power
• 1:09:56
  says sandy is the democratic bright spot and recalled that she graduated from
• 1:10:02
  the kennedy school at harvard university i don't know that that is a big plus
• 1:10:07
  but power suggested that with trump going to the sidelines on moldova meaning
• 1:10:14
  saying he wasn't going to give the money anymore it is now up to european
• 1:10:18
  people like french president emmanuel macron and european commission president
• 1:10:24
  ursula von der leyen to step in and play more important roles and hopefully
• 1:10:30
  provide the money so that we don't keep doing it and uh you know they can play
• 1:10:38
  more important roles but she said that sandu's government has faced accusations
• 1:10:44
  of eroding democracy i absolutely believe that to be true because there is no
• 1:10:51
  democracy if you are jailing and imprisoning and threatening your opponents and
• 1:11:00
  unfortunately that's what's done anymore heck it's done in the u.s anymore and
• 1:11:06
  we support those sorts of things being done these alleged democratic events and
• 1:11:12
  then if russia wants to claim that uh uh her son zaporizhia uh
• 1:11:21
  crimea donetsk and lugansk all had referenda we want to say oh but those aren't
• 1:11:29
  real referenda those are run by russia russia russia russia russia they can't
• 1:11:37
  run an election only we can run a fair election because we have us agency for
• 1:11:43
  international development funding moldova with hundreds of tens of millions of
• 1:11:50
  dollars that's so therefore those are real elections but the russian ones are
• 1:11:56
  not remember that this is nonsense and crap friends and neighbors so but
• 1:12:06
  they are this sandu is definitely facing accusations of eroding her own
• 1:12:12
  democracy earlier this month moldovan authorities sentenced the governor of
• 1:12:20
  gagausia evgenia gutzel who advocated for closer ties with russia to seven
• 1:12:29
  years in prison and her she had a co-chair too she was uh also sentenced to
• 1:12:36
  like five years or something like that but russia has slammed sandu and her
• 1:12:42
  government as blatant russophobes for targeting politicians and media that
• 1:12:49
  favor better relations with moscow if i could do anything it would be to make
• 1:12:55
  people accept the fact that you can't just one off an entire country
• 1:13:04
  because they happen to be in a dispute with another country and it's pretty
• 1:13:09
  funny to me that we have to take lessons from china from india from brazil from
• 1:13:17
  freaking nicaragua we have to take lessons from them and how to stay out of it
• 1:13:26
  those people all say ukraine is not our war we you know if people want to
• 1:13:36
  have a referendum let them have a referendum if they wish to leave ukraine let
• 1:13:42
  them leave ukraine and not be a part of it anymore and uh let's
• 1:13:51
  uh stay out of this because it is not our affair which this gets circled all
• 1:14:00
  the way back in the very beginning because ukraine cannot accept this and they
• 1:14:07
  don't and remember ukraine was developed by the same u.s agency for
• 1:14:12
  international development by the same what heck was her name i can't remember
• 1:14:19
  her name off the top of my head uh it'll come to me when i'm not thinking about
• 1:14:24
  it but uh oh it's on the tip of my tongue but whatever her name is that that
• 1:14:30
  they helped to overthrow the government in ukraine uh and oh i just about had
• 1:14:38
  it it's sorry about that but i didn't get it in uh but the double standards
• 1:14:48
  that we employ are just nonsensical and uh to for us who
• 1:14:58
  are supposed to be the shining beacon on the hill for what is supposed to be
• 1:15:05
  democracy to have to take a back seat to other countries and to
• 1:15:15
  justify crap elections in other countries to justify the destruction of
• 1:15:26
  uh opponents like ukraine they've they've destroyed any opponent to zelensky
• 1:15:34
  those guys are all arrested too same things happening in maldova they're
• 1:15:40
  arresting them all they're doing the same thing they did to donald trump
• 1:15:45
  they're arresting them they're doing the same thing in in uh quite a few other
• 1:15:50
  countries where you use lawfare they call it to uh go after the bad guys and
• 1:16:00
  the bad guys are the donald trump types in each new country and these are the
• 1:16:06
  people let's see if any good soul who in moldova has been sentenced to seven
• 1:16:14
  years in prison if i recall they actually put her in prison i'm not sure she
• 1:16:19
  still is but they put her in prison and i can't remember if she's still sitting
• 1:16:24
  there i'll have to do some looking into that but uh uh russian officials also
• 1:16:31
  condemned the arrest of good soul as evidence of the eu and its uh liberal
• 1:16:39
  dictatorship efforts that are taking place in moldova and other countries by
• 1:16:47
  the way isn't that nuts nuts nuts nuts there was another
• 1:16:57
  excuse me um i i wanted to uh uh talk about one more um
• 1:17:11
  this one's in germany actually um on the german side and this is an opinion
• 1:17:17
  piece and it's pretty long and i'm not sure i can get through all of it but
• 1:17:23
  we're going to make an effort to get through this thing and uh friedrich mertz
• 1:17:32
  and friedrich mertz is the new german leader right chancellor
• 1:17:42
  uh friedrich mertz he's made a you know media splashes ruffling feathers
• 1:17:49
  remember when he was in with donald trump in the office last week and they were
• 1:17:55
  in there and he was talking about well we still need we we still uh need a we
• 1:18:01
  need a ceasefire we gotta have that ceasefire russia's grado agreed to this
• 1:18:06
  ceasefire and he's still sitting on that and then macron helped him out too
• 1:18:11
  it's like he's uh uh you know pushing for for donald trump to uh push for the
• 1:18:20
  ceasefire and everybody knows why they want the ceasefire they want the
• 1:18:24
  ceasefire to regroup and hopefully stop russia's advances all up and down the
• 1:18:33
  front line in ukraine and the only they don't want to end the war they want to
• 1:18:38
  give ukraine a chance to regroup and if russia keeps pushing which they are
• 1:18:43
  they won't have the chance to regroup but mertz is a nutjob everything he has
• 1:18:49
  said that i have heard so far is just you wonder if any of these people at all
• 1:18:56
  think about their own people anymore i'm not saying that donald trump is the
• 1:19:02
  best president in the world and i i've never believed that anyway i i pretty
• 1:19:08
  much like him i think he's a uh you know a decent president he's going to go
• 1:19:13
  down in history as a good president um far better than joe biden you know but
• 1:19:18
  he i i'm not one of those people who thinks he can do no wrong that's not me um
• 1:19:26
  but this merch guy is nuts you can think that uh donald trump uh most of the
• 1:19:35
  time acts on what he believes to be in the best interest of the people that
• 1:19:41
  elected him into office okay and i for the most part believe that i think on
• 1:19:48
  the international level i've always been pretty clear that i think he is 60 40
• 1:19:58
  i'm for him on a 60 40 but but nationally inside the us i think he is probably
• 1:20:06
  closer to 80 20 although i i still question him quite a bit but remember i'm
• 1:20:14
  still comparing him to joe freaking biden you know nonsense and um but you can
• 1:20:23
  at least argue let's let's say for the sake of argument that you can say that
• 1:20:29
  donald trump is doing what he believes to be the best for the people of america
• 1:20:39
  not just for himself and so that is kind of how i look at politics most of ours
• 1:20:47
  in america i believe make moves only to benefit themselves and i don't think
• 1:20:56
  that's going to change and uh but i really don't believe that about donald
• 1:21:01
  trump so far i i i think he's very very high ego and all this crap about you
• 1:21:08
  know i'm saving the world and where's my where's my nobel peace prize and stuff
• 1:21:14
  like that he always has to cut up i mean why are we still spending so much time
• 1:21:19
  whenever he talks about how horrible joe biden was we know that move on already
• 1:21:26
  you know if he would stop going these places i would feel a little bit better
• 1:21:30
  well mertz i can't even say that mertz is doing what he believes to be best for
• 1:21:38
  his own country i don't believe that but of course i'm not german so who cares
• 1:21:44
  i i don't i i didn't vote for the guy i wouldn't you know he's not i'm not
• 1:21:48
  involved in that but when you hear him it's all glad handing bs with trump at
• 1:21:56
  least he thinks he's doing something for the people for the most part okay but
• 1:22:02
  i don't believe that about 90 of the world leaders well european leaders that i
• 1:22:07
  don't believe there ain't no way they think they're doing what's best for their
• 1:22:11
  people no freaking way they're just as bad as the biden of the world you know
• 1:22:16
  in his crowd but anyway mertz has made a media splash and ruffled feathers
• 1:22:22
  using his uh regional party congress of his conservatives mertz delivered a
• 1:22:30
  speech that immediately attracted national attention and it's to be remembered
• 1:22:36
  for one phrase okay the social welfare state as we have it today
• 1:22:45
  can no longer be financed by what we are achieving economically that's because
• 1:22:54
  their economics are shit these days pardon my french put differently severe
• 1:23:00
  budget cuts on social issues are definitely coming bmw's profits are down like
• 1:23:09
  26 or something like that and volkswagen's are similar and since that is a
• 1:23:17
  policy operative since at the latest 2003 there really isn't so much left to
• 1:23:24
  cut so basically much is telling his people well you better get ready because
• 1:23:29
  things are going to be worse but not the ultra corrupt political people of
• 1:23:38
  ukraine or or the elites that continue to want to fund it just before he said
• 1:23:44
  that you know germany cannot afford all of these social things that it pays to
• 1:23:49
  germans his government promised 9 billion euro 10 billion dollars per year to
• 1:23:59
  ukraine that is on top of the 44 billion already sent to ukraine germany is the
• 1:24:08
  second largest backer of the kiev regime in the world and it's obviously
• 1:24:14
  thoroughly detached finance minister emphasized with some sort of perverse
• 1:24:20
  pride that it must sound like a bad joke to many of his compatriots speaking of
• 1:24:29
  him in his nidersachen speech mertz also announced that he would deliberately
• 1:24:34
  not make it easy for his government colleagues you know to get away with it but
• 1:24:41
  they have to uh isn't this nuts there is no reason to understate merce's
• 1:24:49
  genuine ideological commitment it is true that in general he is usually brutal
• 1:24:55
  about being dishonest even for a politician i love it um germany's
• 1:25:04
  current breathtaking flip-flops staggering electoral bad faith and underhanded
• 1:25:10
  maneuvering that violates the spirit of democracy is just incredible from this
• 1:25:17
  guy in the spring his u-turn on public debt to finance germany's new military
• 1:25:23
  stance uh really was a massive breach of trust from his own conservative voters
• 1:25:33
  who didn't want this right but shamelessly exploiting a legal loophole he also
• 1:25:39
  executed this reversal by relying on parliamentary majority that had already
• 1:25:45
  been canceled in the previous election the guy's a nut likewise but he's
• 1:25:51
  getting away with it by the way likewise the coalition then proceeded to break
• 1:25:55
  promises regarding energy tax relief as well as benefits for family members
• 1:26:01
  mothers especially germans are very angry but there is no sign that mertz or
• 1:26:07
  his government care at all 62 of germans are dissatisfied with the current
• 1:26:13
  government how about that mertz of course is also a very ordinary man incapable
• 1:26:22
  of self-reflection he doesn't honestly face any of the above you know uh
• 1:26:28
  problems that he has he just pretends they don't exist and we just keep on
• 1:26:34
  going the upshot of his of his bias is uh a de facto escalation of ongoing
• 1:26:42
  redistribution of income wealth and life chances from those in germany to those
• 1:26:48
  in ukraine even now 80 of the country's taxes stem from income and value-added
• 1:26:57
  tax in other words you work you eat keep a family going be proud you're also
• 1:27:02
  doing by far the most to pay the country's bills but friedrich mertz is a
• 1:27:08
  millionaire who falls under the silver spoon rather than self-made variety but
• 1:27:13
  that is not quite enough what is much more interesting is mertz's reasoning in
• 1:27:20
  his own word the central policy challenges to prove that germany can be
• 1:27:25
  governed successfully from the center but that's not really the truth he is
• 1:27:29
  still on the far left um i'm not sure what occurred in the oval office with him
• 1:27:36
  and him and trump or if anything is going to come of that in the end but uh
• 1:27:42
  it's going to be more money for ukraine from them i didn't get to today all of
• 1:27:49
  my stuff that i wish to get to about ukraine but so far there's no real news on
• 1:27:57
  it there's no real news about anything that occurred from the alaska
• 1:28:07
  show from the alaska you know i don't know what high school um pep squad uh
• 1:28:16
  rally afterward in the in washington with all the leaders of the eu there's
• 1:28:27
  there's nothing to report really except war still going on that did absolutely
• 1:28:33
  nothing i very much appreciate each and every one of you listening to the show
• 1:28:39
  i very appreciate uh all of the likes and all the commentary uh special thanks
• 1:28:45
  to 86 bad love thanks for uh paying attention to the show and having so much
• 1:28:52
  commentary i am asking you all to get to all my previous shows which i upload
• 1:29:01
  as podcasts at international flavor.com you can listen to me live uh this is a
• 1:29:09
  recorded show that will be going out on dam radio.com forward slash live at uh
• 1:29:19
  nine o'clock central time to 10 30 central time in chicago time actually uh
• 1:29:27
  tonight and i'm in russia right now and so i wanted to you know i've had had to
• 1:29:35
  do the show in a little bit different way so i appreciate each and every one of
• 1:29:40
  you uh paying attention to the show be sure to listen to dam radio.com forward
• 1:29:46
  slash live on all the other talk show hosts too we have some really good ones
• 1:29:52
  to go out and check thank you so very much and you have a very good night