We need to talk about ideas, good.

Ones and bad ones.

We need to learn stuff about the world.

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking.

And entertaining review of what the hell.

Happened on this planet in the last seven days.

We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Yes, dear listener.

Ideas, good ones and bad ones from the last seven days.

I can think of one really bad idea from the last seven days.

Trumpet of Patriots.

My God, we'll talk about that one.

I'm Trevor, AKA the Iron Fist.

Over there is Joe the tech guy.

How are you, Joe?

I'm good.

Evening all.

And Scott is not with us.

He is busy and will be hopefully with us next week.

So.

So, yeah, just Joe and I tonight.

Scott probably looked at the Trumpet of Patriots and thought, that's it.

He can't do it any longer.

The world's reached maximum stupidity and it's just.

It's too difficult to carry on.

For God's sake.

I'm sure it'll be popular where Scott lives.

Yeah, John's there in the chat room saying, howdy, comrades.

Good on you, John.

And.

And James here in Sydney has also said hello.

So if you're in the chat room, say hello.

Bit of a short agenda.

I think this week you have a good chance of having any.

Any topics that you raised discussed.

We're going to talk about, of course, the.

The Trumpet of Patriots party.

The Trumpet of Patriots.

Yes, the Trumpet of Patriots and proposed changes to penalty rates.

Those nasty Chinese have been exercising their rights to travel in international waters.

People aren't happy about that.

Steelworks are going to be closing down.

What's going on in Ukraine?

Latest update and the latest Trump news.

So that's on the agenda for this episode.

And yeah, so Clive Palmer announced his new political party, the Trumpet of Patriots.

As Stephen Hale said on Twitter, it's the silliest name for a political party I've ever heard of, including the Monster Raving Loony Party.

I think he's right, Joe.

I was going to say the Monster Raving Leaning Party was great.

Yes.

Is great.

Yes.

That is a sensible party.

It is.

And a great name.

The Trumpet of Patriots.

Ah, dear listener, you would have seen, for those who are, well, the sort of.

In the show notes and the blurb for this particular episode, I've got the sort of logo that they've come up with for the Trumpet of Patriots.

It features a lion, of all things, blowing what to the uneducated might look like a trumpet, but is in fact a Vavusala.

And it's got the Australian flag kind of in the background and with the Latin words honor omnia, which presumably means honor above all.

And it's the most ridiculous looking logo for a political Australian political party that I could possibly think of.

Surely no graphic designer was employed in the making of that.

And he simply went to some AI program and said, generate a logo for me.

And he took the first thing it came up with.

I, I suspect there's a deliberate aim to look American in it.

I think he wants to cash in on the popularity of Trump, hence the word Trump in Trumpet of yes and the word Patriots.

A typical American.

The.

The flag in the background kind of looks stars and stripesy.

Yes, it does have a big American.

It, the whole notion of it.

It doesn't look Australian at all.

That's not the kind of thing that we do.

No, it looks like it's designed for hillbilly in Appalachia.

Yes, but.

So you're suggesting that you think he's copying Trump in some way, Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, I think he's trying to cash in on the popularity of Trump and just.

And maybe he's hoping that Elon will interfere in Australia as he's interfered in Germany, the uk.

Yeah.

Well, rest assured though, Joe, there was a.

There's an article in the Shovel which will put your mind at ease.

Yes.

So it says here in this article from the Shovel Mining billionaire Clive Palmer has denied his new Trumpet of Patriots political party is blindly following Donald Trump, saying his plan was to build a wall on Mexico's border with Australia, not America.

Yes.

And they've got a quote from him saying, I simply don't buy this argument that we are somehow just copying Donald Trump.

We have policies that are relevant to us and I will do everything I can to uphold the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v.

Wade.

He said he has always been locally focused.

One of the things I've learned over my career is that all politics is local, which is why we'll be fielding candidates in all 50 states.

And final quote, so you can make these outlandish accusations that the Trumpet of Patriots party is somehow influenced by the Donald Trump led Republican Party.

But I think once you see our plans to drain the swamp and get rid of Obamacare, you'll agree that this is very much an Australian initiative.

Sounds about right.

John's asking, can you show the logo?

I can't, but maybe.

Well, it was in the.

Actually, if I put.

I'll just quickly flash on the screen this.

We need to Talk about our ideas.

Good, we're back.

Yeah.

That was a logo, John.

Yeah.

We've reached late staged Western democracy.

When idiots like Clive Farmer can just use their money and power to, to create this nonsense and probably get 5% of the votes and you know, take over the make sort of very right wing outlandish sort of statements which will, which will garner support from the sort of Trump followers in Australia.

Saves the Liberal Party from having to go extreme to get those votes and he'll just funnel the preferences back to the Liberal Party.

So serves a purpose in that way, I guess.

Maybe.

Is he going to be pushing the Liberal Party for favors in exchange for the votes?

Probably, but just meddling by billionaires, not what we need.

Yeah.

So.

Well, I think he thinks that if Agent Krasnov can do it, so can he.

Agent Kresnov?

Yes.

Who's that?

Donald Trump.

All right.

Have you not seen this?

What they're calling him Agent Krasnov.

What?

Krasnov with an A.

Well, I know they're saying he's sort of.

He must be a Russian agent.

Is that because he's.

No, no.

The former head of Kazakhstan's KGB said that when he was in the Russian Soviet Union KGB back in 1987, he was tasked with recruiting foreign agents.

And Donald Trump, given that he was married to a Czech woman or Czechoslovakian at the time, was a great interest and was brought over on fact finding trips to become a friend of the Soviet Union.

Right.

And certainly is heavily involved with allegedly money laundering for the Russian mafia.

And of course the Kappa, the capi of the Russian mafia is no less than President Putler himself.

President Putler.

It's all entirely possible.

I hadn't heard that one.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

This, this was two days ago.

The senior man XKGB has said that Donald Trump has been a Russian agent.

He was called Agent krasn of since 1987.

Wonder why.

Wonder why Biden and K wouldn't have put forward evidence of that.

That's a good question.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm certainly.

There were FBI files on Trump because of his closeness to the Russians.

Yeah.

So what are they going to do?

The trumpet of patriots.

What's part of their agenda?

There is.

We can bring down the cost of living by bringing down the cost of energy.

We can solve the housing crisis by introducing fast trains from our capitals to open up affordable land for housing with a 20 minute commute to the CBD.

Are they going to bring down the cost of eggs?

This is the real question.

Yeah.

No, it didn't Mention that the Trumpet of Patriots believe in many of the same common sense policies as President Trump in the us.

Yeah, they don't want trans people in sports.

So, yeah, it's, it's probably going to be exactly the same.

Trying to pick on the social issues that Trump has totally ignored.

Yep.

Same sort of culture war issues.

Maybe they're going to ban paper straws.

It may be big issues like that.

So, yeah, so there we go, the Trumpet of Patriots.

And yeah, when you see the logo, the Trump, the line is not even blowing a trumpet and saying the Voosla, which is just a.

But also noisy thing.

Music.

So, yes.

Why couldn't it be a kangaroo blowing a trumpet, Joe?

Well, exactly.

A proper trumpet or a drop bear.

Yeah, drop there.

Yeah.

Penalty rates, Jo.

We're doing Australian stuff.

We're doing Australian stuff while talking about the Trumpet of Patriots, but we are.

An attempt to wind back penalty rates has been opposed by our Labor Federal government in a bid to protect workers.

The Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watts filing a submission to the Fair Work Commission in response to a proposal by some of the big retailers to take away penalty rates, meal breaks and overtime pay for a 25% pay rise.

So, yeah, some of the big retailers, Woolies and Culls etc, want to take away penalty rates, meal breaks and overtime pay for a 25% pay rise.

And as Murray Watts says, workplace relations Minister, if anyone thinks that Woolies and Coles and the other big retailers are doing this to pay their workers more, well, I've got a Sydney Harbour Bridge to sell you.

That was a good line, I think, for those people who can't work it out.

You think, yeah, it's probably worthwhile.

I want the 25% rather than the overtime.

The fact that these guys want it means they've done the sums and you'll get less money at the end.

And the other thing they'll say is, you know, in two or three years time they'll say, oh, wages for our workers have increased by X percent over the past three years, therefore they don't deserve a pay rise that deep without mentioning they traded off their overtime and their other penalty rates.

So.

So, yeah, that's something the labor government is doing.

See how that goes.

So the labor government are fighting against that.

Yes.

They've made a submission to say it's not a good idea.

James, in the chat room where we were sort of thinking, why wouldn't the Democrats have released stuff about Donald Trump as a Russian asset?

He says, I don't think if the US government release Any such documents, anybody believes them, the MAGA crowd would just scream about a deep state conspiracy.

True.

Yeah.

I did see something about.

Everyone was worried about deep state conspiracy.

It turns out there is a deep state.

It just happens to be all the oligarchs.

Right.

All of the tech bros.

Yeah, well, yeah.

Okay, what else we've got here?

That was penalty rates, Joe.

Chinese.

Three Chinese warships, Joe, have been making their way down the Australian coastline.

Apparently so, yes.

And a lot of people are up in arms about this and very upset.

I've got a bit of a clip that describes some of the local reaction to this.

First tonight we can bring you newly released images from our defence force of three Chinese warships now sitting off the coast of Sydney.

While their exact location hasn't been disclosed, the ships are around 150 nautical miles off the coast.

Around the same distance as a trip.

From Sydney to Canberra.

In a move being described as an aggressive demonstration of power.

As three Chinese warships are currently marauding along our coastline, there are concerns for zawa.

They may have been conducting live fire exercises.

The Australian Defence Force is closely monitoring a fleet of Chinese warships which were spotted sailing just 276 kilometres away from Sydney.

The vessels were first detected in international waters off the Queensland coast last week and have been travelling down the Australian coastline.

Defence Minister Richard Miles described the ship's activity as unusual.

There is no doubt that this is not unprecedented but an unusual event.

What's gone under the bonnet of the Chinese when it comes to us at the moment monitoring every move of three Chinese warships.

Naval and air force assets have been deployed from Australia and New Zealand to watch a frigate, cruiser and replenishment vessel navigating within our nation's exclusive economic zone.

The federal government says the presence of the ships equipped with missile tubes is not unprecedented, but is unusual.

To me this is positively spooky, Rita.

I mean, why on earth would the Chinese have any reason to waste a perfectly good warship sailing this far south unless they had hostile intentions on Australia?

I don't know, maybe they're on their way to.

What, two ships and a resupply ship?

Yeah, two ships and a resupply ship.

They're here to take over Australia.

Obviously, if it's not with hostile intent, because clearly that's what you do when you send.

When they say a frigate, a cruiser and a supply ship.

Yeah, something like that.

For God's sake.

Just pathetic.

I think they're showing the international waters means international waters.

Yes, we have got involvement in the South China Sea all the time because we are protecting our rights to, to traverse international waters.

These guys are in international waters.

They haven't reached any law.

They did some live firing, but again, while they were complaining about what notice was given, it's, it seems that they haven't breached any international law in relation to it.

So the whinging and moaning from these people is so hypocritical when they go what the hell are these Chinese doing down here off our coastline?

Without for a minute thinking to themselves, any chance we do the same over there in the South China Sea?

And maybe this is just China saying an Fu, we can hover off your coastline as well.

They would do the same, Joe, in the Gulf of America or something like that.

But it would start, it would literally start World War 3 if they sent the same ships in international waters off the coast of America.

Well, yeah, with Trumpeltinsky and almost certainly.

Yeah, so just the such babies where they can't recognize the hypocrisy of it.

So what have I got here?

That was that, you know, meanwhile, of course, China's just so many American missile military bases, you know, clustered around China and you know, our own Australian government media release in terms of, you know, what we do in the South China Sea, there's a media release, an old one that says for decades the ADF Australian Defence Force has undertaken maritime surveillance activities in the region the South China Sea and does so in accordance with international law, exercising the right to freedom of navigation and overflight in international waters and airspace.

So you know, of course that's what we're doing all the time.

I think another article somewhere, this is from a link I found somewhere.

This is just recently.

Royal Australian Navy has conducted trilateral operations with the U.S.

navy and Japan Maritime Self Defense Force in the South China Sea.

Allied maritime forces were accompanied by the US 7th Fleet forward deployed vessels including Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS John Finn and independence variant literal combat ship USS Gabriel Giffords during the operation on 7th and 8th of February.

And allied navies regularly participate and partner in high end maritime exercises and operations to create combined operations that enhance interoperability, boost deterrence, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, like it's no secret that we are with our allies and particularly using patrol aircraft.

Another statement here.

Since 2018, Australia has deployed maritime patrol aircraft on 13 occasions and Royal Australian Navy vessels 10 times to support UNSC sanctions in that area.

So we're there mucking around exercising our rights in international waters and the boohooing by the media is pathetic, Joe.

Opposition defense spokesman Andrew hastie leapt on the Prime Minister's response, suggesting China's actions amounted to gunboat diplomacy.

So they sailed into Sydney harbor, did they, and let a few loose a.

Few salvos and enforced Australia to buy opium?

Yes, exactly.

I'm fairly sure Australia buys it willingly.

As the opposition defense spokesman said, this is Chinese warships imposing themselves on our commercial airspace.

And that's why I come back to the question for the pm, where's his limit?

Why is he being weak about this?

Why isn't he picking up the phone and making representations on behalf of Australian people and our national interests?

Well, I think possibly life firing exercises near airways without advance notice is a little reckless.

Yeah, well, they gave advance notice.

They're just complaints that they didn't give it with more notice, but apparently they didn't breach any international laws.

So no, yeah, I.

The Courier Mail.

There's an a writer there, Rory Gibson, who's normally pretty good.

Like I think he's a former union official and he's one of the few leftish sort of voices that you get in the Courier Mail.

And I'll just read some of the article from him which just kind of shocked me actually.

He goes, Albo is struggling in the polls and can't seem to do anything right.

Gormless is the word that springs to mind.

But the solution to his woes has been cruising down the east coast of Australia all week.

And it's astonishing that PM hasn't seized on the opportunity to show the voting public he's not a limp wristed jellyback.

Our great and naval friends the Chinese have had a naval task group consisting of three warships promenading within easy missile distance down the eastern seaboard.

They weren't invited and they're not lost.

It's nothing more than a fuck you from the Chinese with a touch of look at me, look at me a la Cath and Kim.

And Rory says, I went up country midweek with some mates for a bit of a fish and a yarn around the fire.

And the dominant subject was how puerile and annoying the Chinese military is.

Well, that and the upcoming footy season.

Our lack of spine in regards to Chinese bullying is seriously irritating.

The fishing and sitting around the fire yarning about stuffed sectors of Australian society.

When the Chinese banned a raft of Australian exports like beef and wine because they thought we were getting a bit uppity in speaking our minds, Australia did nothing when they injured our navy divers with the sonar blast for reasons unexplained, Australia did nothing last week when a Chinese jet fighter dumped Some flares on the path of an RF surveillance plane.

Australia did nothing.

Why do we let these pricks push us around like this?

Like.

And it goes on humans, the most.

Powerful military in the world.

Why don't we let them push us around?

Who's the most powerful military?

Chinese.

Are they?

I would have said so.

Fairly close.

I.

I think the Americans have the most powerful military.

I don't know.

Right.

They would have spent the most.

But whether they've got the best as a result is the other question, isn't it?

They've definitely got a technology that would be challenging to the Americans.

Russia is nowhere to be seen on the scene.

Right.

But China would definitely be up there.

In terms of number of military personnel and money spent and technology deployed, I would consider them very close to appear with the Americans, if not overtaking them.

Yeah, quite possibly.

But I mean, sending three ships down 300 kilometers off the coast and firing a couple of.

Lobbing a few missiles in the ocean.

Well, shells, whatever they are, I don't know what they are, is hardly pushing us around, Joe.

No, there's hardly a flotilla.

Yeah.

James says US Navy still has a larger tonnage.

Possibly true.

US spends way more, but China's navy is rapidly getting larger.

That's Alex.

And John says New Zealand sent out a rubber Zodiac in response.

That was the best they could muster.

Well, I think they're too busy working out whether they're going to invade the Cook Islands, aren't they?

Yeah.

And Shannon says apparently there was a commercial flight that was contacted by the Chinese ships to warn them of the live fire and they had to divert at the last minute.

That would have been fun.

Sort of sarcastic.

So.

And James saying The tonnage is 1 to 3.

Difference, I think, anyway.

I mean, big warships, Joe, are just becoming obsolete, aren't they?

Absolutely.

A bit like big submarines.

Probably will no doubt be obsolete by the time they arrive in 30 years.

Well, they're just a sitting duck for.

I had to get out of the Red Sea because the.

Not the Red Sea, the.

Well, wherever the.

Yeah.

Where the Houthis were basically threatening them with a few.

A few drones and had to vacate the area.

Yeah.

So.

And John says, I've seen a good analysis of the Chinese air force.

It's a good challenge for the us.

Yeah.

There's just, for example, absolutely no way that America could defend Taiwan from China if they wanted to.

Like, it's impossible for them to conduct a naval exercise anyway, so that was that.

If you're worried about three Chinese ships, 300 kilometers off the coast.

Then relax, it's not a biggie.

What else have I got here?

Still on Australia News, Joe.

Steelworks.

Yeah.

Going bust.

And there was an interesting Mary Margulies, one of her most recent round Australia trips documentaries.

She ends up in Wyalla talking to the British owner of the steelworks who'd recently bought it and was going to turn it into a green steel foundry.

And apparently they've gone into receivership.

Receivership.

Yep.

So the government's agreed to spend a lot of money to support the suppliers and other people who are owed money and now don't have jobs and other things while they're trying to sort out the mess.

And.

And they've said that we want it run by the private sector, but we've intervened here with the administration to make sure that while that process goes on, the steelworks continue to operate, people continue to get paid.

Mr.

Albanese said we're not in the rule out position, but I don't think that nationalization would be a desirable outcome.

That's what they've also said.

So they're basically pumping a lot of money in to prop up the surrounding workers, infrastructure.

Businesses that are associated with it promise.

Grants for the new purchaser.

Yeah.

So, Joe, I mean, I think it's not a bad idea to maintain a capacity in Australia to make steel.

Like if the world goes to shit.

Well, we need a bit of diversity of what we can do other than just financial instruments and dig out of the ground.

Yes.

So the government has to spend some money to keep an industry like that going.

Probably not a bad idea if the world all goes to.

And we need that skill.

Particularly if they're talking about it was supposed to be made with renewable energy or low carbon or whatever it was.

There was some big selling point as to why we would need this steel works.

Yeah.

So Angus Taylor had something to say about it.

Opposition treasury spokesman.

I'll put him on.

What?

We don't think the right answer is for the government to run the steel mill.

We've got a Prime Minister who can't run a government, let alone a steel.

You want to run a nuclear.

Well, seven nuclear power stations, that's your own big government spend on.

Peter Dutton indicated in recent remarks that after a time these nuclear power plants could be privatised.

Is that the Coliseum plan?

Look, yeah.

Right now our focus is on getting affordable reliable energy index system in the.

I thought they wanted to keep the golf plants open.

They do, but he is such a weak piece of shit that Angus, like, he's he's not very bright.

I think he's not working hard.

He's not across his brief at all.

But, you know, the government hasn't said they're going to nationalize the steelwork yet, but it's not off the table.

And he's saying, oh, you don't want the government running a steelworks.

But it's true what the Sky News guy was saying.

You're prepared to have the government run the nuclear reactors because nobody else wants to do it, but you think the government should do that.

Why wouldn't they run a steel mill then?

And that was.

So he's getting pushback from Sky News.

Of course, the guy then just let him off the hook because Angus, it's Sky News.

Yeah.

Made a point.

Then let him off the hook.

But yeah, John says, you never know.

We could use that steel for a sub or two.

True.

Yeah.

Okay, so that was.

But only if we know how to weld it.

Yes.

When did that skill.

It'll be probably a special type of steel that's required for subscribers.

Okay.

Trump and Ukraine.

Joe, the latest is Trump has basically made a demand that Ukraine hand over half of its entire mineral wealth.

Yeah.

And what did he offer in return for that, Joe?

Retrospectively for the stuff that they've already sent out.

That's right.

So he sent a guy with a piece of paper demanding that Zelensky sign it as sort of reparations for work already done.

Hand over half of your mineral wealth to the US Of A with no guarantee of any future support or anything.

This is what you owe us for what we've sent so far.

Yes.

Despite the fact that this was stuff that the US was going to scrap and the 500 billion was the amount to replace the stuff that they were going to scrap.

So this was new stuff that America was getting and was shipping off all the old stuff that they were going to scrap off to Ukraine to fire it off before that.

Before it fell apart.

Yeah.

Strangely, Ukraine didn't sign that one.

No.

Because that was one bad deal they could look at and go, why the hell would we do that?

Hand over half of our nation's wealth, minimal wealth to you guys, resource wealth, stuff in the ground, wealth for absolutely nothing just because you say you want it.

So.

So, yeah, that was.

That was Trump with Ukraine in the last seven days also.

They're just grabbing illegal immigrants now in the US and shipping them off to Guantanamo.

Yes.

In.

In the erecting facilities, Joe.

Yes.

The facilities are tense and apparently these are the worst of the worst Illegal immigrants.

Yes.

Old grannies, young children.

Yeah, the worst of the worst.

For some reason, I don't trust them on that one.

No, I mean, literally, I have seen somebody getting rounded up and them saying, I thought this was supposed to be the worst of the worst.

And this is a law abiding citizen that pays their taxes and all the rest of it.

What the hell are they doing?

Yeah.

Elon Musk.

A tweet went out, so you find out what the government's up to with Elon Musk tweets.

He said, consistent with President Donald Trump's instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.

Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.

So, yeah, yeah, don't do your job.

Justify what job you're doing.

Dear employee, what did you get done last week?

And if you fail to respond equals resignation.

And yeah, I mean, if somebody says, I stood at a counter all day.

All week, Well, I served 300 customers.

Yes.

Will that be good enough?

Don't know.

Yeah.

Apparently Elon's popularity has plummeted.

Really?

But Trump is still just above water.

He's slightly more popular than he's unpopular, mostly because Elon is taking the flak for this.

Okay.

There's a lot of, obviously, Trump doesn't know what's going on.

You know, he promised us that he would hurt the poor black people and not us.

Poor white people.

Yes.

And he obviously, if he knew what was going on, he'd fix it.

Yeah.

Rather than going, trump doesn't care about us.

Yeah.

What else we got?

Oh, and the other thing, Starlink in the Ukraine.

So US Negotiators who are pressing Zelensky for access to these critical minerals saying, give us half of the wealth of your country, it's natural wealth, resource wealth, are basically threatening Ukraine with cutting off the country's access to Starlink satellite Internet system.

So.

And apparently Ukraine heavily relies on Elon Musk's Starlink satellite.

Ukraine has said that a.

They've not had this, that they've not had any communication saying this, and also that they've been looking at diversifying anyway.

Yes.

But probably tough to diversify quickly, though, Joe, if Elon Musk just switches it off overnight, which he could do.

Yeah.

People talk about, Joe, like, oh, we can't have Huawei or providing infrastructure because the nasty Chinese might turn it off overnight, or we can't buy their cars because the nasty Chinese might turn it off.

The most likely person to turn things off is some American oligarch.

Who's sneaking power?

There have been stories of people who have bad mouthed Trump and suddenly their Tesla doesn't work.

Yeah.

I mean, if something's going to be switched off, potentially trust the Chinese more than you would Elon Musk.

That would be my advice when it comes to those things.

What's in the chat room?

Eric says must be why Elon was on so much ketamine at the CPAC the other day.

Yeah.

Apparently he was clearly spaced out when he was being interviewed.

Speaking of cpac, did you see CPAC.

Is the Conservative Action Group?

Yeah.

Sorry.

Steve Bannon.

Oh, was he there?

Yes.

He also did a Roman salute.

Oh, it wasn't the Nazi salute at all.

Right.

God.

John, in the chat room, Musk's companies have gone up by another 200 billion since all the government agencies suing have been shut down.

Yeah.

There's a nice little infographic about all the different government agencies that were investigating his companies and that all of them have been doged.

Yeah.

You know, at the time when Musk bought Twitter, kind of forced into it because he declared he was going to.

And the sort of.

Then complained of the number of bots and refused to pay.

Yes.

But the sort of securities law was such that you've kind of made a takeover bid, you have to complete it.

And he reluctantly went through with it and it seemed like it was a disaster for him, but sort of parlaying that into a voice for Trump and then gaining access inside the Trump camp.

Well, yeah.

And the way it's panning out for him.

Yes.

And turned a bad deal into a good one.

I also saw a meme of the chain of command with Putin at the top, then Elon, then Elon's child, and then Trump, because I don't know.

Did you see the video of the interaction with Elon's child and Trump?

I did.

The child was saying some, like swearing at him or something.

Yeah.

Basically, Elon's crazy little brat of a kid was mumbling away to Trump, saying quite nasty things about he shouldn't be president and he should be out of here and like it.

It was supposed to be a bit of a replica of the JFK scene when he had a young kid in the Oval Office hiding under the Resolute desk or whatever it's called.

Yes.

And it turned into.

And the modern 2025 version of that was.

Was Musk's brat bad mouthing the president, more or less telling him to F off or something like that.

John said the kid's name is X.

Yeah.

It's a bunch of random symbols, one of which is X.

Yeah, it's X.

Chi something.

Alpha, epsilon, gamma.

Yeah, yeah, he and Bannon will probably end up being great mates down the track.

Probably.

And did you also see Musk's latest baby mama?

He's some 25 year old conservative blogger vlogger.

Oh, pregnant is she?

Yeah.

Right.

Well, she.

She's had a big falling out with them.

They had a major online spat.

Right.

And then he, apparently he sent her a message to her going, I want to knock you up again.

He's all class, that bloke.

Oh, yeah, he is.

He is turning into something out of a Bond movie.

It's the evil sort of character.

You're expecting a volcanic evil villains lair.

That's right.

He exits with his helicopter, enters into a volcano on a deserted island and strikes his cat.

Look, it's more, it's a more reasonable possibility than somebody starting a political party in Australia called the Trumpet of Patriots.

If you wrote that in a book, people would say, don't be ridiculous.

That's the most stupid idea I've ever heard of.

No, if you can't sell this book, nobody would believe it.

So, yeah, Alex says should start a pool betting on which of Musk's kids is the most messed up.

Well, his daughter's disowned him.

I know that much.

God.

Yeah.

Wow.

So, yeah, Starlink threatened to.

To just disconnect if they don't hand over the half the mineral wealth, resource wealth of the Ukraine to America for services already performed.

Wow.

Once again, if you are Taiwan thinking that America is your savior, think again.

Well, Europe is now seriously questioning after the statements about NATO.

What?

Europe is just.

They're just.

Well, one of the head and honchos of NATO just burst into tears.

Yes.

At one of their meetings, as he was describing the situation, which I saw.

Some right wing news media ridiculing.

Right.

Laughing at him bursting into tears.

Yes.

Oh, no, it wasn't right wing, it was Yanis Varoufagas.

Yes.

Well, why was he bursting into tears?

Well, good question.

Because the Americans have deserted us and we don't know what to do.

Type of response.

Yeah, I mean, the thing about NATO is that every country was given its own specialization and America was doing the heavy logistics.

Right.

Was doing the shifting of weaponry and of ammunition around.

Right.

So pull that out of the mix with no notice.

And countries have basically not had broad operational capabilities because there has always been this understanding that they would support each other.

And for a major part of that to Suddenly pull out means that the whole infrastructure that you've built out with, you know, one country doing this specialization, another country doing that specialization, just falls apart because the glue that's binding it all together no longer exists.

Right.

So it's not as simple as, oh no, what can we do?

We should have been independently capable.

The agreement was that every country would provide their own specific part.

Well, more fools them for relying on the usa.

Yes.

Yeah.

John says Trump won't stop selling weapons.

To Ukraine.

No, but it'll be transactional.

They'll want money for it.

John also says, I still think when Trump and him have a falling out, Trump will try and take SpaceX for security reasons possible.

Alex, weaponizing Starlink Once it has 100% saturation was one of the reasons people thought Musk created Starlink.

And Alex, cutting access or restricting access can bring a country to its knees very fast.

Yeah, Ukraine's on its knees services because.

The people have seen how much take up of Starlink has had and other people want a slice of that pie.

I reckon the Chinese would be the best in offering a solution there.

Possibly.

I mean, people talk about gps, which was historically an American system, but actually there are three, I believe, possibly four, because there's the glonass, which is the Russian one.

I believe the Chinese have one, the Indians might have one as well.

And modern GPS receivers actually receive across multiple systems.

So if there's an outage of any single one, generally you can rely on the others.

Yeah, look, the Chinese could make an offer to provide a replacement Internet system for the Ukraine and everyone would go, oh, but what if they switch it off?

We'll have to go with one of our allies who we can trust.

You'd be like, haven't you learned that already?

Yeah, I mean, American isolationism served them so well keeping them out of the first and second world wars, didn't it?

Yes.

Look, in the show notes for the patrons, there's an article from the Sunday Times quoting North Korean soldiers.

Nobody else has repeated the article.

Nobody independent has been invited to interview these guys.

According to this article by this interviewed North Korean soldier, I'm the only one left alive from my unit.

It was my first time experiencing real combat.

When I saw the bodies of my comrades, a lot of thoughts went through my head.

Some blew themselves up to avoid capture, leaving nothing but headless or half torn bodies.

In the dead of winter, the snow falling like this, they lay there and the smell of blood still lingers with me.

Yeah, just that's the thing that these cunning North Koreans intentionally blew their heads off so they couldn't be identified as North Koreans.

Well, he was saying that effectively being captured was a dishonor.

Yeah.

Which is what happened to the Japanese in the Second World War.

So is it totally implausible?

Yes.

Okay, so the Japanese didn't commit suicide rather than be captured.

Blowing their heads off so that they couldn't be identified in their final moments.

What did he say here?

It's just fanciful, the whole thing.

I just can't.

It's in the show.

Notes for the patrons to read.

You can believe what.

What you want to from it.

So.

Yeah, you're right.

He says, in our army, being captured is seen as betrayal.

Yeah.

Right.

I did have some stuff from an old episode about polling in Crimea, but let that go.

Gaza, just briefly want to point out that those Israelis, when they forced the Palestinians out of the hospitals, just ransacked and vandalized the expensive medical equipment in there, like MRI machines and things like that.

I mean, there were not Hamas terrorists hiding in the MRI machines.

They just destroyed them so that at a later time they would be useless.

It was just vandalism in an obscene scale.

So deliberately destroying medical machines.

Crazy.

Not crazy.

Just.

Yeah, but if.

If the poor people were there, then how could Trump build his resort?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

Got to get rid of them all.

Yeah.

Did we discuss the kill order?

We haven't, Joe.

But the Hannibal directive.

Yes.

Yeah.

Basically, plenty of evidence has come out that.

That the Hannibal directed to it, haven't they?

Yes.

So on October 7, a large number of the Israeli deaths were caused by Israeli forces intentionally killing their own people.

Yeah.

Because the Hannibal directive says that when under attack, we do not want hostages taken, and we would rather have our people killed than have them taken hostage.

And so the actual number of hostage.

Yes.

So the actual number of people killed by Hamas on October 7th is difficult to quantify because we don't really know how much.

How many were killed by Israelis.

Yeah.

Under Hannibal directive.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it wasn't even.

These were people shooting at trucks or whatever that happened.

Have hostages in them.

Yes.

Because they thought that it was enemy troops, it was deliberate.

Even if this has got hostages in them, still shoot them.

Yes.

And, you know, there's a bunch of Israelis over there, but they're clearly going to be taken by Hamas, so we'll just kill them because, you know, then.

We can't rescue them.

So we'll kill them instead.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yep.

So that was admitted.

And take all that into account.

Yes, Germany.

Current.

Yes.

A former guy heavily involved with what's the investment company Rock something.

You mean the current German election?

Is that what you're talking about?

I was talking about the elections, yeah.

Showing AfD as exit polls are showing second place with around 20%.

That's the right wing party.

Yeah, yeah.

Which previously all other parties, left or right or middle, have agreed not to work with, work with in any way, in any form of coalition.

But whether that continues is another thing.

I think they're talking about bringing them into the tent with this current.

Oh, I don't know, but we'll have to see what polling somebody said.

Well, you know, it's only 20 and forgetting that I think Hitler had 16, something like that in the German parliament when he took over as Chancellor.

So the guy who's leading the Christian.

Yes, Christian.

Christian something, yeah.

Like he is another super rich guy who was involved with that investment company Rock something or other.

I can't remember what it's called.

So, you know, another well connected oligarch type getting political control of country.

Good luck.

Germany, they're in trouble.

What else have we got?

I think Joe, that might be.

Well, the Pope, Joe.

Oh, yes.

On his deathbed.

No, that's why Scott isn't here.

Apparently he's busy praying for the Pope's health.

I mean, when you're praying for the Pope who's on his deathbed, are you praying that he lives or are you praying that he dies?

Because presumably the Pope would be on a fast track to heaven.

Well, inshallah, so.

So, you know, rather than hoping he gets well, you would hope he passes away quickly because it'll be on his way to heaven even quicker.

You're praying for euthanasia?

Possibly.

Yeah.

So I've got here a little clip, actually.

It's, it's a long clip, Aaron.

I don't think anyone can really stand nine minutes of Aaron Mullen, daughter of Jim Mullen, Sky News hostess, talking about criticizing the Pope because of his views on the Israel Gaza conflict.

And she, as a Catholic, was basically telling him off.

Yeah, blackrock.

Thank you, Alex.

The leader of the party in Germany was heavily involved with BlackRock.

So BlackRock's one of these companies like this and Vanguard's another one.

There's like three or four companies, Joe, that basically control almost all the stock market.

So in the us Are you still there or have you on mute?

You're there.

Okay, I'll subject you to just two minutes.

Hang on.

What's John saying?

Alex, what do you think the chances are that the LNP would not cozy up to a far right party if the same thing as Germany occurred in Australia.

Look, to get the numbers, they'd cozy up to them for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Now I'm going to spare you.

I should just delete that video of Erin Mulch.

Oh, no, here's a little bit.

Just first shits and giggles.

This is the message for the Pope.

I'm assuming you won't see this, but just in case you do, my name is Erin.

I'm Catholic, so you are technically my leader.

And yes, I may use the odd swear word and I haven't been to church in a fair while, but the fact that she hasn't been to church in a fair while means she's definitely a Catholic.

Oh yeah, they never go.

Except for Easter and maybe Christmas and.

When they're cramming for their finals.

We need to talk.

Twice now.

Recently you've made global headlines regarding the situation in the Middle East.

More specifically, the Israel Hamas war.

And so you should.

You're the Pope.

Your voice matters and you must always stand up loudly for humanity.

But I need to let you know that right now your voice isn't helping.

In fact, I believe it is to the detriment of us all, particularly those you say you care about.

And I believe you do.

Let me explain you.

Look.

I'm working on a theory that that's what sent the paper into a tailspin.

Possibly he saw the message and he's going, oh shit, she's right.

What have I done?

And collapsed and has not recovered since.

Or maybe he just watched a minute of that and just started throwing up like the rest of us.

He felt violently illustrated on his own.

Vomit, just like a ACDC lead singer.

How can people watch Sky News and just listen to that crap?

How can they?

How does that.

Well, how can people watch Sky News full stop.

Yeah, there we go.

I'm sure plenty of your room neighbors.

Yes, they do.

In the building I'm in, unfortunately.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I guess they sit there with their trumpets.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe you could do them a favor and break the satellite dish on the building.

Yeah, that would be it.

Well, Joe, we've just made it to 8:31.

No Scott, but he'll be back next week.

A little bit of Aaron got us over the line.

Sorry about that.

Anyway, like, hopefully the next seven days, nothing as stupidly crazy as trumpet of patriots comes, but fingers crossed.

Anyway, we'll see what happens.

I thought you were going to say nothing as stupid as Trump accusing Zelensky of being a dictator.

Yes.

Well, he hasn't had an election, Joe.

Well, no.

I mean, how dare he not have an election?

Polling places are being bombed to smithereens.

Other places had elections.

Like where?

During the war.

Which war?

Second World War.

America had elections.

America wasn't at war.

The UK didn't.

The UK was one of the community.

Yeah, the uk, that's right.

Well, has Zelensky had a government?

As far as I know.

I saw one of the.

I saw one of the opposition leaders interviewed and she was saying, no, we're all standing behind Zelensky.

You know, he is our president, our dear leader.

Not a leader, she says, you know, I disagree with him politically, but we're doing what's best for Ukraine.

Okay.

And when, when this is all over, we'll have our elections.

But until then, we, and nobody else chooses who our president is going to be.

Yeah.

Not America, not Russia.

We choose who are gonna.

Is going to be our president.

Fair enough.

So I reckon something in the next seven days will happen with regard to Greenland.

That's been quiet.

I think that's bubbling away with the next move on the Greenland thing.

Yeah.

Apparently there is historical precedent for America to want Greenland.

Is there?

Yes, apparently.

They.

They were talking about doing it in the 1800s, I think.

Right.

Obviously we're using the wrong terminology.

It's red, white and blue land.

Oh, sorry.

Yes, we should be referring to.

Because there is a bill before the US Congress.

Strangely enough, I did see some polling in the US that said the change of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America has a 12 approval rating.

Most people say, what the.

Is he doing this when he should be concentrating on more important things like the price of eggs?

12% approval rating, increasingly.

Joe, I'm of the opinion that polls are completely meaningless when people have been propagandized after their necks.

So.

But, but who's been propagated, propagandizing them against this?

Come on, this is MAGA country.

Yeah.

And even maga, think of it, it's a stupid idea.

Yeah.

All right.

We will be back next week, probably with Scott anyway.

We'll be back then.

We'll talk to you then.

Bye for now.

That's a good note from him and me and whatever.

Yeah.

That wasn't our most professional sign off, but it'll do.

It wasn't.

No.

Bye.