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.

Worry about the last seven days, what's happened in the last 14 days.

Because seven days ago I did the Tiananmen Square episode.

So we didn't do anything about news and politics and sex and religion at that stage.

So we've got 14 days to catch up on.

I'm Trevor, aka the Iron Fist.

Over there on the screen above me is Joe the tech guy.

How are you, Joe?

Good evening all.

Joe's good.

And we don't have Scott, but Scott has got issues happening with his family.

So very, very sad in fact.

So I'll let Scott talk about that when he eventually makes a return.

So I'm sure Scott is not avoiding us because of Tiananmen Square.

It's because of tragic circumstances in Scott's family.

So thoughts and prayers, Scott.

Anyway, look, I don't know how far this episode's going to go today, dear listener, because I've been a bit distracted in the last few days and particularly today didn't get to do the normal editing and making the videos and clips and things that I normally do.

So if you've got something to talk about in the chat room, there's a good chance we'll refer to it.

John in the chat room says, hi champions.

I didn't realize you did a pod last week.

That's right.

This is an audio podcast show.

Primarily it's supposed to be with a bit of video and live streaming for the Johns and the essential Lord dons of the world.

So yes, if you're just watching the video and you never listen to the audio, you should get onto a podcast app and subscribe because we do actually do the occasional audio only version while you're there.

John in the chat room.

Good news, John.

We've found some Asian looking soldiers in a place they're not supposed to be.

Problem is they're Chinese, but in there.

But they're in Panama somewhere.

They're not supposed to be.

That's according to Donald Trump.

Do you hear about that one, Joe?

No, I mean, I know that that was the reason he wanted to invade Panama was because apparently China owns some ports on the Panama canal.

I don't know, something to do with Chinese and the Panama canal and how critical it is for U.

S, for U.

S Naval Power.

Because they need to move their warships backwards and forwards.

Yes.

Because the U.

S.

Spent a lot of money building the canal.

It's important for their national security and therefore they have the right to just take it whenever they want to.

Yes.

Ignoring the fact that they actually dismantled a country in order to create Panama in order to put the canal in in the first place.

Details, details.

And I think they've more than taken the fees that they took whilst running the Panama Canal.

Almost certainly more than paid for it.

Wouldn't doubt it.

And of course, the French actually built half of the canal anyway.

Yes, they gave up.

Yes, those Frenchies.

Yeah.

So.

So one of his tweets, Donald Trump, merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China who are lovingly but illegally operating the Panama Canal, where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago.

Always making certain that the United States puts in billions of dollars in repair money, but we'll have absolutely nothing to say about anything.

He goes on about Trudeau.

So you say if 38,000 people died, it wouldn't have been Americans, it would have been poor brown people, you know?

Well, he.

He did say.

Oh, he said, We lost 38, 000 people.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You would think that was Americans, but, yeah, no.

So, yes, Merry Christmas to the soldiers of China who are illegally operating in the Panama Canal.

Joe, what's more likely, Chinese soldiers in the Panama Canal or North Korean soldiers in the Ukraine?

North Korean soldiers in the Ukraine.

But Donald Trump, President of America, has said there are Chinese soldiers in Panama operating.

Donald Trump is talking.

Yes.

His mouth is moving.

You know when Zelinsk.

He's talking.

When his mouth is moving.

Do you know when the South Koreans are talking?

But when their parliament's open, when their mouths are open.

How is it that for some people.

Yeah.

If some.

Lindsay says it.

Or the South Korean side, that's probably true.

Meanwhile, United States saying, yeah, somebody's writing good copy about the North Korean colonel who had a shotgun and machine gun, and the shotgun was for shooting down drones.

And that the North Korean soldiers are showing bravery in one of them lying out as a target to draw drones in, whilst two of his comrades sit there with shotguns to blow the drones out of the air.

Who wrote that copy?

I have no idea.

Right.

I just saw that as a news.

Headline in the fiction section of a newsstand or something like that.

Was it?

No, no.

Yeah.

It was Apple News News Headliner.

Right.

John says you believe anything.

DT Says, I'm just waiting for one of Sources to actually acknowledge North Korean troops fighting Ukraine.

There is no chance you would believe anything I sent you.

Well, what's the difference?

You say to me you'd believe anything Donald Trump says.

And I say, would you believe anything Zelensky says?

That's the whole point of this discussion.

It's not just Zelensky, and we know Donald Trump's a loose candidate.

It is just Zelensky.

Donald Trump is unhinged and Zelensky's not.

No.

Okay.

Zelensky can string a sentence together.

He's actually quite fluent, all things considered.

Donald Trump can't even make it to the end of a sentence.

So if.

If Zelensky says something, we should, on the face of it, believe it, as opposed to.

Certainly.

Because he's much more credible than Donald Trump.

He's there.

Yeah.

When it comes to.

Look, my mother is much more credible than Donald Trump and she's hallucinating because of the drug she's on.

John, I'm making a point here.

President of the United States claims that Chinese soldiers are operating the Panama Canal.

And we all go, so why don't we say it?

When.

When other people of similar levels of credibility make similar statements, why can't we do this?

He doesn't just come up with shit continuously.

I mean, come on.

Because there's also the self interest factor in all this.

Oh, I agree.

The self interest factor.

Yeah.

All right.

Okay.

Just thought I'd mention that.

Joe, you didn't listen to the Tiananmen Square episode.

You read some of the transcript.

I read some of the transcript.

I have to say, though, that again, we can't.

On the one side, we have the American story.

Fond of a better word.

On the other side, we have the Chinese story, and we don't know whether these independent witnesses are actually very positive towards China.

And a lot of them witnesses were actually anti China.

So some of the reporters that were quoted, for instance, we can say absolutely that nobody was killed in Tiananmen Square itself because people who hate the Chinese government, who are normally running articles against them, Americans were saying, no, nobody was killed in Tiananmen Square.

So we're really certain of that basic fact.

So that's a big sort of hole in the story of Townaman Square.

Yeah, but I mean, those poor unarmed soldiers in their armored personnel carriers, in their buses.

Yeah, but also their armored personnel carriers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, how many.

How many armored personnel carriers have turned up to any peaceful protests you've been to?

Well, how many turn up in buses unarmed?

Apparently, a lot of Them did.

Well, you've got to get them there somehow.

Yeah, well, probably more likely to be trucks than buses, but.

Yes.

Yeah, but a significant number of them turned up unarmed and got burned to a crisp.

Why the army, not the police?

It's a sort of a National Guard type response that.

That they had thing.

I.

I don't know.

There are questions about the story that make me go, yeah, I mean, I can believe that there were no people killed in the square itself, and I can believe that the tanks didn't run over people indiscriminately, but who fired the first shots?

I don't know.

There we go.

All right.

If in the chat room.

Well, yes, John didn't listen because he didn't even know it was on.

Anybody else in the chat room listened to the Chinaman Square.

Anybody have their mind changed as a result?

So John says the funniest thing is that Putin believed Trump would save him.

Did Putin believe Trump would save him?

Yeah.

In Ukraine, he thought that Trump would put pressure on Zelensky to basically hand over half of you, the half of Ukraine to Putin.

How did we know Trump.

How do we know Putin would believe that?

Well, certainly Trump was at one stage saying, there's going to be peace on day one.

And it sounded like.

And this is why Zelensky was snatching land in Russia, because he thought he was going to be forced into a ceasefire and the negotiated settlement and that Trump, on day one would stop arms going to him.

We don't know what Putin believed.

No, we don't know what Putin believes.

The funniest thing is Putin believed Trump would save him.

We had no idea, no idea what Putin believed about what Trump would think or would do for him.

Yeah, well, I think.

I think they did the counter offensive just to try and show some strength, that they weren't a hopeless cause, so that more money and arms would be sent to them.

But.

Well, I mean, certainly the outside, nobody knows the thinking in their minds apart from them, but the outside belief was that this was in case of a forced ceasefire, they had land and troops to negotiate with.

You know, hand back some of our land and we'll hand back some of your land.

And the same with the soldiers problem.

Was it very costly.

There's a whole load of shocked Pikachu faces amongst the.

The dearborn Palestinian Americans that they're very surprised that Trump has basically suggested that.

That the Gaza should be completely cleaned out so that he can build some luxury hotels there.

Yes.

And he's always said it's a great Piece of real estate.

Well, exactly.

No, I think it was Jared Kushner who said that.

Yes.

Yes, that's right.

So, I mean, that's what's shaping up there, isn't it?

But he's saying that Jordan and Egypt should take some more Palestinians so that the place is emptied out.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so ethnic cleansing, in other words.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, of course, despite the ceasefire, people are still being shot.

Yes.

And although I heard that was the.

Lebanon people in Gaza.

Yeah.

You know, the really disgraceful thing about that ceasefire was they agreed, okay, on this day, at this hour, we will do a ceasefire, which was, I don't know, 12 hours ahead, 24 hours ahead, something like that.

Like we agree to a ceasefire at this point in time, which didn't stop them from then just lobbing a whole bunch of missiles and bombs on the Gaza.

Anyway, having agreed to a ceasefire that would take effect in a matter of hours that were like, oh, we've still got time to lob a few more bombs and kill some more people.

Well, apparently BB had said that he wasn't going to agree to a ceasefire when Biden was in power because he didn't want to give Biden the win, he wanted to save it for Trump.

Yeah.

Anyway, so I'm interested to know, dear listener, if any of you listened to the Tiananmen Square episode, if it has changed your thoughts in any way about anything or was it a complete waste of time?

Keen to know.

Dutton, your local member.

He's going to bring back business expense lunches, Joe.

And he's also.

Have you seen, he's now got a shadow minister.

I don't know if it's a minister.

Certainly there is a shadow position for government efficiency.

Right.

It sounds like the Doge.

It is he.

He's copied Trump.

Did he put a billionaire in charge of it?

Is that Jean Reinhardt going to be in charge of it?

I.

I haven't seen.

I mean, the.

The vote.

The news clip of that announcement had Senator Price alongside him, but I don't know if that was just by the by, or whether the announcement was that she was going to take over as government efficiency czar or whatever the role is.

John in the chat room says on the 11th or the 11th, 1918, both sides kept shooting until 11 o'clock.

Is that true?

No idea.

Is that true, John?

Did people know there was a ceasefire and they just kept shooting up until that point?

If they did.

Disgraceful as well.

Yeah.

So, Dutton, it was during the Hawk era that the sort of idea of deductible business lunches was done away with and Peter Dutton was to turn back to that time and make it all deductible again, which of course is basically foregoing tax revenue and is an expense that the government will incur.

But they'll make it back on the GST on the lunches.

Oh, wait, no, they won't be paying GST on the lunches.

Such a pathetic bunch, Jay.

But I don't even like, as I've said in my prediction at the beginning of the year, that I think the LNP are going to form a government somehow.

Possibly.

I mean, the, the.

What I saw was if the Liberals can screw up Queensland enough in the time preceding the election, then Queensland will vote against because most people can't tell the difference between state and federal.

And if State are pissing them off, they'll vote against Federal and vice versa.

Yeah, and, and I'm honestly.

Albanese has been sympathetic.

I'm beyond caring.

I really don't care.

I don't think it.

Well, I've seen a couple of interesting news reports about nuclear waste and basically it's going to be a fait accompli with your Aboriginals being told that they need to suck it up and nuclear waste is going to be stored on their land.

Right.

If it ever happens.

Right.

And as I said, you know, there was the Christopher Pine saying it's just.

Not feasible, the nuclear power.

Yeah, yeah.

It'll never happen.

No.

But it's just that renewables will be kicked down the can and also it's.

A, it's a good way for Dutton to make promises that he doesn't have to keep.

And, you know, what was it?

Jobs.

Jobs and growth.

Yeah, yeah.

And tough on crime.

Essential.

Lord Don says that Dutton is just.

Well, I think he's saying Dutton has just bought a restaurant recently.

No, no, he's saying.

Has he?

Is that why he's doing it?

And Andrew says, have a look at the story of the shells and munitions fired off on the morning of 11th of November 1918 before armistice at 11am There we go.

Andrew's confirming John's statement.

So in any event, disgraceful by everybody who did it.

If that's the case.

God, where are we up to?

So, yeah, that was Dutton.

Back to Trump before he left.

Joe Biden issued pardons for his family members and political figures in the final hours of his term.

Well, he'd pardoned Fauci a while back, I thought preemptively, because he knew that Trump would try to start prosecutions against Fauci.

For definite.

Especially with rfk.

And because RFK blames Fauci for the vaccine.

Yeah.

And wants to blame thousands of deaths on him.

Yes.

So an outgoing president has to preemptively pardon the.

Well, it hasn't happened historically, but in this case.

Yes.

Yes.

So just in case the Trump administration goes after him, he's basically been pardoned of any possible crime that might.

Might be levied against him.

And any federal crime.

Yes.

I guess that's the only one that they've got they can pardon for.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yes.

On that score, Biden says, I believe in the rule of law, and I'm optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics, but these are exceptional circumstances and I cannot in good conscience do nothing.

He called the pardons unfortunate.

So you know what?

Probably a good idea if you were the outgoing president, Joe, and someone like Trump was coming in looking to collect scalps, like.

Oh, yeah, very much.

Can't blame him for that one.

No.

And of course, he didn't do the ultimate and pardon himself, which was always the suggestion that Trump would, if he'd been convicted on any federal charges, he would pardon himself on a second term.

Yeah.

So a bunch of executive orders that 100 issued.

Over a hundred that Biden issued.

No, no, no.

Yeah, Biden issued a bunch just before he left.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then Trump issued a bunch just as he got in.

Yeah.

Some of which canceled the ones that had only been issued a few hours beforehand.

Some of the executive orders that Biden issued in his final weeks banning new oil and gas drilling.

Well, of course, that's the ones Trump would get rid of.

Drill, baby, drill.

Removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

You waited all this time, Joe Biden, in your dying days, you decide to remove Cuba from state sponsors of terrorism.

AI Some stuff about that.

Joe, have you heard about the new Chinese AI Yes.

Supposedly trained on cheap chips for considerably less money and is outperforming the best models out there.

And it's free or nearly free.

It's like open source and almost free.

Almost.

Well, I think it's free for individuals to use.

If you want to use it in a business, quite possibly there's a charge.

Yep.

Those sneaky Chinese inventing something really good and giving it away for free.

Yeah.

Diabolical.

No wonder people are up in arms about them.

Well, I was going to say Llama is a free model.

There's a number of free models that are already out there, so this one's.

Supposed to be pretty Good.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm skipping all over the place here.

I thought you were doing Biden's executive orders.

I was.

I sort of.

He canceled student loans for more than 150,000 borrowers.

Extended deportation protection for hundreds of thousands of people from Sudan, Ukraine, El Salvador and Venezuela.

Meanwhile, it seems that Trump is getting the troops ready to.

Not just getting the troops ready, find illegal aliens.

And so there have been a number of ICE arrests.

So there's a Californian farm that said 25 of their workforce didn't turn up on the first day, 75 didn't turn up on the second day.

I don't know if ice had been there or there was just threats of ice.

They turned up at a couple of other places and were turned away because they didn't actually have warrants.

And then there was some confusion around a Chicago school, primary school, where it turns out it was Secret Service who turned up, not ice, because a child, I think maybe an 11 year old, had posted an anti Trump video and Secret Service wanted to interview them.

Right.

It's just going to get crazier and crazier.

Do you think?

Yeah.

Anything keeping the country running is immigrants.

Oh.

Oh, yeah.

Picking fruit and vegetables, construction and menial tasks.

There's already a lot of business owners going.

My business is going under.

My staff aren't turning up.

There's also a plane load, a military plane that got turned around that was heading for Mexico, full of migrants and Mexico refused.

Refused to let it into their airspace.

Yes.

And I think Trump then said, well, we're going to lever you with like 50.

Well, so that was another country.

He's in an argument.

Maybe that was Columbia.

Columbia, okay.

Yes.

But yeah, Mexico turned round an aircraft.

Yes.

As well.

Yes.

And of course he renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

To which the Mexican president said, well, that's fine, you're now north Mexico.

I think the Mexican president's pretty good.

It's a lady.

She's pretty good.

She, she seems to have her head screwed on.

She's not putting up with any.

Yes.

And with a bit of a sense of humor about her as well, I think.

As much as you can have.

Yeah, yeah.

The book, the Biggest bully in the history of Civilization as your next door neighbor.

And Trudeau has actually set up, I believe, a government department to look at American tariffs on them and implement exactly the same in law.

The Trudeau's going, probably, but.

Yeah, yeah.

Ah.

What's in the chat room?

Let me just see, Let me catch up, let me See if I can.

Why can't I see the old chat?

Hang on, I.

I presume, John, you're taking.

Or it was a spoof video of people in mega hats cleaning toilets and picking fruit because they don't actually want those jobs.

Okay.

John says, I saw a great video where people in maga hats were cleaning toilets and picking fruit taking their jobs back.

Essential.

Or Don says, maybe it's the Chinese.

Is Ukraine pretending in Ukraine pretending to be North Korean?

Alex has just been reading about Deep Seek, which is the AI thing from China we've just been speaking about.

John says some of Trump's new orders have been placed on hold by the courts already.

That's true.

Yeah.

So orders he was going to revoke the right of anybody born in America, in the US without at least one parent being a US Citizen.

So what they call anchor babies because a lot of migrants come over, have a baby on U.

S.

Soil.

So the baby is American and then they get to stay on as a family member of a U.

S.

Citizen.

Yes.

So some of the legal groups in America are.

Were aware of.

Absolutely.

They were ready for this day one.

And they had the paperwork all done, executive orders made, and within 24 hours they've filed court documents and they're often running with court challenges.

Amazing speed.

Time magazine have said that two thirds of the executive orders align with Project 2025, despite Trump saying he knew nothing about Project 2025.

Funny that.

Yeah, Project 2025 being the one where they're really getting rid of regular everyday public servants and.

Oh, that was already happened schedule f or whatever it was that happened in his last term.

It got overturned.

It was a month before he left, and that was overturned immediately by Biden.

So that was well on the cards for where the Project 2025 was there or not.

John says 100 true.

I've watched several documentaries on it.

The ceasefire was announced about 5 in the morning.

Some commanders on both sides actually started offensive around 10:30.

All right, John, I believe you on that one.

Doesn't matter, though.

The Israelis are still pricks for firing on the Gazans after agreeing to a ceasefire.

That doesn't mean it's any.

It's okay.

There's still pricks for doing it.

Imagine just this President.

Imagine you've, you've made it all the way through to this point in Gaza and the ceasefires announced and you think, thank God we've made it.

And an hour later, thank a lot.

Come on.

Yes.

And an hour later you're holding your dead son in your Arms because these pricks are still lobbing bombs.

Just because it was done in 1918 doesn't make it any better.

What else we got here?

I think I've scrolled to the bottom.

Okay, well, I think we should talk about Elon at the inauguration with, with his Roman salute, which honestly wasn't.

Wasn't still.

Not that he's defended it.

He's remained resolutely quiet on the particular matter.

The Anti Defamation League, who are the big pro Zionists in America, said, no, no, no, of course it wasn't a Nazi salute.

Following that, he then tweeted out, or, yeah, tweeted a whole load of puns with Nazi leaders and then went on to give a speech to Alternative for Deutschland, which is the Neo Nazi Party in Germany.

He's also been pushing, promoting reform uk, who are basically the National Front in the uk, so the Neo Nazi Party.

So he's embraced the far right of various countries.

He's making puns on Nazi senior figures, which the ADL then said, come on.

Joking about the Holocaust is just not on.

So now they're against him.

And all the right wing commentators are going, of course it wasn't a Nazi salute.

And apparently have been taken down in the comments with people going, come on, then, you do it on camera.

Right, right.

Well, the inauguration with him, Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos all in the audience just demonstrated that the oligarchy.

Oh, absolutely.

So we previously, they were kept, you know, behind the curtain a bit more shamelessly brought out in front.

And it's clear to Everybody that those three guys have more wealth than the.

Bottom 2% of Americans there as well.

Yes.

Well, apparently Zuckerberg's told, been told he needs to toady up yet more because he hasn't towed it up enough.

Yes.

So an amazing state of affairs.

And it's just the beauty of Trump is he's so brash and just doesn't care.

The things where people would normally maybe keep things a bit quiet, he just exposes it and says, well, this is how it is and it's there for everyone to see.

Well, the oligarchy's in charge.

Hopefully soon enough the repeat of the French Revolution happens and people will know who to go for.

I don't think it's going to happen, Joe.

No, no, there.

I mean, I, I enjoy the subreddit Leopards ate my Face.

Yes.

Which is, you know, people who voted for a fascist party being totally shocked when they are fascists.

Yes.

Being totally surprised that Trump is doing exactly what he said he was going to do.

And it's hurting them in the hip pockets.

You know, people who wanted all those bloody civil servants fired, then moved to a civil service job and then found that their position is no longer there, but they were one good civil servants.

And then somebody saying that they had to explain to their boss that tariffs meant that all the products they imported would now be more expensive.

And it wasn't that he suddenly had an open market and he was going to rake it in, but that he wouldn't be able to afford to buy parts anymore.

No.

Funny that.

Yeah, yeah.

I think everybody who voted for Trump is going to be sorely disappointed because John is saying that even the oligarchs will be disappointed in him.

No, I think they'll be getting their tax cuts, they'll get their kickbacks.

The value of their stocks has increased since his inauguration, so they'll be happy talking about that.

Values of stocks.

Did you see the Trump meme coin?

Did we discuss this?

No, we haven't.

Okay.

But basically some sort of shitcoin.

Yeah.

You create your own crypto and the idea is you persuade everybody how great it is, they buy it and then you cash out and you're a billionaire.

Pump and dump.

Pump and dump.

Absolutely.

I believe four and a half billion was put into Trump coin and then 48 hours later, or whatever it was, he then announced Melania Coin.

So everybody took their money and ran to that as well.

I wonder how many of them, Joe, know what's.

It's a pump and dump and are just banking on that.

They're in the pump phase and they'll get out before.

Well, yeah.

Whether they actually think Trump.

From what I've seen, people are saying, oh, no, Trump is, is going to make an announcement and then the stock's going back up and I'll, I'll.

I won't have lost all this money.

Honestly.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

The credulity of these people.

So did you see, did you see his son?

The one who fell asleep at the first inauguration?

The youngest son.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can't remember his name.

Eric, isn't it?

No, hang on.

Eric's one of the older one.

Baron.

Baron.

Yeah.

He looks so creepy.

Yes.

It's like something out of.

He looks like Frankenstein's monster without the bolts.

There's something undead about him.

It's like.

Or maybe Dracula.

Yes.

He's got a sort of a Dracula type thing happening.

That's one weird looking kid.

Although we shouldn't be mean about people who are thrust into the spotlight just because their parents an asshole.

No, but I think that's got.

He's one to watch.

Yeah.

Because you know when you're watching a movie and you know they used to put a sort of a curly mustache on people and a black hat to tell you who was the bad guy, in case you had trouble figuring it out, you can look at that stage and you could see that kidney go.

I think that's the really bad guy.

Like, he looks spookily evil.

If he gets anywhere near the reins of power, look out one creepy looking kid.

So, yeah.

Ah, John says a Trump supporter on Reddit lives on Reddit live streamed himself losing 1.2 million on Trump coin.

A lot of it about John also says, like Putin, the oligarchy will be sorely disappointed in Trump.

He only cares about himself.

Yeah.

And.

And Alex reckons painfully obvious he had practiced the salute before he did it in public.

Hell no.

Yes.

Yeah, it's.

What's that movie?

Mockingbird.

Oh, just dystopian future.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Had Donald Sutherland as an evil character and had.

No, I can't remember a name, famous chick.

Now, apparently she's good, fun, but totally mad.

Anyway, all of the evil baddies in that movie were like caricatures in their makeup and their looks and they're carrying on.

And honestly, American politics have just reached that stage where these people not only act extreme, they look extreme.

It's.

They're a caricature of, of some evil characters out of a Bond movie or a, or an Austin Powers movie.

Do you remember in 2016 everyone was going, poor Melania, you know, she's a hostage.

And then Melania's best friend came out and said, no, no, she's exactly the same as he is.

She's transactional.

She's in it for herself.

So this poor kid is the child of both of them?

Yes.

Alex says he's a vile little man.

It has been reported by some people who have had contact with him.

There was a really obvious interaction between Biden and the kid at Biden.

Yeah, there was.

You could see him lean over, talk to Biden, who initially had a friendly face about him.

And his face just dropped and turned to stone after whatever this kid had said to him.

So probably off old man.

I think maybe even worse than that.

So.

Right.

Hunger Games.

Thank you, essential Lord Don.

That was the series.

These people are like the caricature.

Evil characters from Hunger Games.

Yeah.

Ah, Julius is not me.

Never felt sorry for Melania.

It was obvious she was comfortable with everything.

Remember the I just don't care.

Message on the overcoat.

I remember more than that when she wore the green dress, which allowed everyone to green screen it and replace it with all sorts of things.

Yeah.

It was obvious she was comfortable with everything.

I think everything except kissing her husband.

Julia, she always seemed, again, her best.

Friend said everything they do is measured, is planned.

You know, there's a reason why she isn't kissing him, showing him any affection.

This is all calculated.

It's all part of their media strategy.

She's a damn fine actor.

That's the case.

Yeah.

Andrew says, going by the old trope of kids rebelling against their parents, maybe he'll turn out to be lovely.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah, yeah.

JLo is Jennifer Lawrence or J.

Lawrence.

Lawrence.

So my brother looked a little bit like Donald Sutherland.

I've been told by somebody here, Joe, that I sound like Billy Crystal.

I can't say I've listened to Billy Crystal enough to be able to.

If anybody can confirm or deny that I've not listened to Billy Crystal enough either, saying.

But that was said by some of the other day.

Apparently when I speak like I speak French, I sound like Dougal from the Magic Roundabout in French.

Who said that?

I can't remember.

French friend of mine.

I guess.

Poo pooing.

Your French accent.

Well, no, I mean, apparently Dougal in French has an upper class British accent.

So.

Yeah, very good.

So what is Anthony Albanese said about all of the Trump antics?

I have no intention of having a running commentary on what incoming President Trump has to say from day to day.

That's a matter for him.

I'll leave the commentating to the commentators.

My job is to look after Australia's national interest, to ensure that Australia has a positive relationship on an ongoing basis with our friends in the United States.

And that's what I intend to do.

Fair enough.

Probably a good tactic, actually.

Just keep your mouth shut and don't get into the Donald Trump world if at all possible.

I think, you know, what was it?

If you sink down to their level, if you wallow in with a pig, you end up covered in the.

And the pig wins anyway.

Something like that.

There'd be no victory in picking a fight with that mod.

Just keep your head down.

Yep, fair enough.

Elbow.

On this occasion, keeping your head down makes sense.

Californian fires, Joe.

Well, of course it's all California's fault because they didn't have enough water.

Well, they probably.

They didn't have enough prisoners.

Right.

The prisoners who were doing all the firefighting.

But.

But also there was complaint about a lack of water pressure.

And the problem was there were so many fire engines drawing water on so many hydrants that basically the pipes weren't big enough to cope.

And that's not something that you fix overnight.

It wasn't something they'd ever planned for, especially this time of year.

It's the middle of winter.

Florida has literally just had snow.

I had a friend in the panhandle of Florida and they had a couple of inches of snow.

That's unheard of.

The coverage, particularly on abc was ridiculous.

Like the ABC News online had.

You know, the first six articles were all on the Californian fires and other events in the world were just left behind.

So of course brown people dying in other places at the hands of Israelis or the U.S.

yeah, didn't matter.

But more important than millionaires are losing their houses in the Hollywood Hills.

Indeed.

Yeah.

Andrew says, I do think it's unfair to speculate on the character of Barron Trump.

Look, it is unfair, but by God, he's a creepy looking character.

And he obviously said something to Joe Biden based on just the look on Biden's face.

Yeah.

And of course they have prisoners, Joe, doing the firefighting.

Oh, yeah.

So prisoners get sort of time off their sentences and stuff if they go into firefighting.

Get voluntold.

What's.

What's that?

Fallen told.

What's voluntold?

Well, when you're told you're volunteering.

Right.

You've never heard that?

Well, I don't think they have to, but if they get years off their sentence, they'll give it a go.

Like Putin and sending Russian prisoners to the front.

Yeah.

And Julius says Baron was working to campaign to the younger generation on behalf of his father.

That's true.

Well, if you make yourself a public figure, then yes.

Yeah, it's fair game.

Yeah.

You know, other presidents, the kids are out of the limelight.

Not fair game.

But the second you start messaging, you know, certainly all the other Trump kids are very much headline grabbing.

So their fair game.

I've not seen anything.

But if Baron was doing social media or whatever, then.

Yep.

Ideally fair game for.

For criticism on policy.

Not.

Well, yes, because we wouldn't be, you know, talking about somebody being obese or something like that.

But no, but we would talk about Ivanka being so hot that.

Sorry, is Ivanka.

No, Ivana.

Whichever one.

His daughter.

Yeah.

So hot that he's attracted to her.

Yeah, absolutely.

Anyway, Joe, you sent an article to me a few weeks ago which involved a swastika combined with a star of David.

Yes, I was trying to remember.

It was down in Melbourne, wasn't it?

It wasn't.

It was in America.

So a rabbi and his son were arrested for vandalizing a swastika mural.

Are they heroes or hooligans?

So they've drawn kudos from Jews who favor an aggressive response to anti Israeli protests.

So Milwaukee.

It was a mural that had gone up on the side of a commercial building.

It featured a background that appeared to depict mass graves, weeping mothers, drones, and other scenes of carnage in Gaza.

At the center, a Jewish star with a swastika inside it, along with the words, the irony of becoming what you once hated.

Yes, so.

So it was a.

A political comment on Israel and its ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

And I think it's fair comment.

And yes, it might be hateful, but I think it's.

It's as hateful as.

It's less hateful than the act.

It's kind of like the Star of David turning into a swash sticker, which is a sort of the analogy of the.

Of the state of Israel turning into a fascist Nazi party.

Yes.

Yeah, that was the commentary.

There are parallels there.

So, yeah, can't remember the result of that one.

But no, I don't think because of America's free speech laws, I don't know that the.

I'm sure that the rabbi hasn't yet faced a court, but the mural itself.

So the mural itself, they tried to get it taken down on the free speech.

Free speech law says, tough luck.

It's staying up.

It's free speech, it's political commentary.

So they decided to face it, which.

And I think they actually damaged the building itself.

They didn't just deface the mural.

Yep.

So they were charged with criminal damage, right?

Yep.

Can't remember what happened to them.

We've got the whole article here.

Oh, they were charged, but I don't think they faced a court yet.

Yeah.

What else we got here, Joe?

We've been talking about submarines a long time on this podcast.

And the other thing we've been talking about a long time, this podcast has been things like the Trans Pacific Partnership, international free trade agreements between countries, which, dear listener, invariably have contained clauses, ISDs, investor state dispute settlement clauses.

Because if, for example, Australia enters into an agreement for free trade with America, and as part of that, we agree that we won't pass laws that would interfere with the free movement and exercise of trade between the countries.

And if it's thought that we breach that agreement, then we could be taken to a court which is not like your normal court, a tribunal which is staffed.

The judges aren't judges, they're like just other lawyers who are involved in litigating other cases and occasionally sit as tribunal members in other cases.

There's this closed little shop of.

Of lawyers who specialize in this field.

And that's where we got to the situation with Philip Morris.

When Australia changed its packaging laws for cigarettes to stop them from putting branding on there.

And we started covering it with warning signs about the dangers that tobacco would cause to your health.

And Australia was claimed to be in breach of.

Well, they moved a free trade agreement.

To Singapore for a start.

Yes.

That we had with Singapore.

Yes.

So they picked up and moved their operation to Singapore and then sued us.

Yes.

So that they could claim under that free trade agreement and head off to a dodgy tribunal.

Yep.

And this sort of thing happens all over the world where countries decide, okay, we're going to ban mining.

And then the mining companies go, well, we're going to sue you under this investor state dispute settlement clause.

Yeah.

I mean, mining might be a valid.

But yeah, we're going to ban mining asbestos because it's killing people.

Yes.

Oh, or just for greenhouse gas reasons.

Well, yes, we've decided as a sovereign country, we're no longer allowing mining of coal or something like that.

Well, I'm.

I'm surprised.

Oh, actually, no, it wasn't in place.

So the, the weapons buyback after.

Yes.

Port Arthur.

Yep.

So there would have been tighter weapons laws at the time.

Yes.

Now, the us, if we had an ISDS in place, the US gun manufacturers could have taken us to court saying that those laws affected their ability to sell guns into Australia.

Yes.

Despite the fact it was killing people.

Yes.

And you end up in a dodgy tribunal.

That's not bound by precedent.

It's.

It's good lawyers who are not qualified judges in your normal sense.

And it's incredibly costly.

And if you, if you lose, you can be up for massive amounts of money.

Well, dear listener, Clive Palmer claims to be a Singaporean investor.

So his fourth claim for $10 billion from the Australian government using foreign investor rights in trade agreements, became public in December.

This is his fourth claim.

So he's gonna say, didn't he sue wa at one stage?

We'll get into it.

There's a bunch of them already there.

So this is his fourth one.

He's registered his mining company, Zef Investments, in Singapore and claims to be a Singaporean investor using investor rights into Australian trade agreements.

I wonder why.

Set up in Singapore.

I wonder the first claim was for $300 billion after he lost a High Court appeal against Western Australian government decision to refuse an iron ore mining license.

The last three claims are for a total of 120 billion are because a Queensland court refused his coal mining license and a license for coal fired power plant and it was refused for environmental reasons.

These last three cases are a challenge to government actions to reduce carbon emissions.

So his first one was 300 billion.

The next three in Queensland total 120 billion.

Joe, if Clive Palmer wins $420 billion.

Of Australian money into his pocket to bribe more politicians.

Sorry, I didn't say that.

Allegedly goes to that.

It would be a shame if he went swimming and did a Harold Holt.

Yeah.

Even if his cases fail, the government has to spend years and tens of million dollars defending them.

So yeah, Philip Morris claimed billions in compensation over Australia's 2012 plane packaging law.

The case was unsuccessful for Philip Morris but The government spent five years and $12 million defending it.

So all of the Palmer cases are now before international tribunals.

But the last three have been suspended while the tribunal decides the threshold issue in the first Western Australian case of whether Palmer can legitimately claim to be a Singaporean investor.

So, so the cases are at the point where they're basically saying this threshold question.

Are you really a Singaporean investor able to take the benefit of this free trade agreement?

What is the Albanese government been doing in the last four years?

Why couldn't they have just said all those investor state dispute clauses, we're no longer recognizing them.

They're gone.

Who would complain?

Can't.

Can't they?

Surely they can drag up some.

What did they do to witness K.

Some.

Some.

It's against the interest of Australia and stick them in a private cell in, in.

In front of a closed court.

Yeah, yeah, apparently not.

Anyway, we should just unilaterally withdraw from all of these free trade agreements and say to the countries involved, happy to reconnect but not with those clauses in place.

Surely most countries would think that's a good idea because the people who actually take advantage of them are not the countries themselves.

It's the multinational corporations based in those countries that take advantage of it.

So they were in there historically because there had been a spate of governments nationalizing industries and foreign investors getting screwed over.

But it was never supposed to be.

But you know, sometimes it was a good thing to nationalize those countries.

Those companies.

Yeah.

Because they had reached unfair agreements with dictators.

Yes.

So there was a lack of legitimacy about their, their business Dealings, but.

But yeah, I mean, it was certainly.

It wasn't aimed at governments making decisions on public health, which I think is very different from nationalizing infrastructure, even if it was a bad deal.

Anyway, there we go.

That's Clive Palmer for you.

And your average Australian would have no idea, particularly these, the ones who vote for him, what that guy's up to.

Is he still running a party?

I don't know.

But if he did, he'd get 5% of the vote again if he.

Well, yeah, if he gave it a crack.

So, yeah, I remember a colleague saying, I figure I'll give him a try.

It's got to be worth it.

Yeah.

In this article, I think it's from.

Crikey.

From Bernard Keane.

Actually.

I should double check that.

Hang on a second.

Who is this Patricia Reynolds?

I don't know who Patricia is, but she writes that Labor's long standing policy is to exclude ISDs from future trade agreements and review it in existing agreements.

Inspired by the Philip Morris case and widespread community opposition, labor has excluded ISDs from current negotiations for a comprehensive agreement with India and from the EU Free Trade Agreement negotiations.

However, labor has been slower to move on removing ISDs from existing agreements, as Palmer has found to his advantage.

Labor's policy is a point of difference with the lnp, which defends isds clauses.

Joe, what a surprise.

What a surprise.

Yeah.

Anything that profits big end of town.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Joe, what time we're going for?

Time?

My clock doesn't seem.

8:30.

8:30.

I've got to get in a car and head somewhere.

Juliet in the chat room says, last I heard his party was deregistered.

You can still run.

And you're saying he could still run as independent?

John says it would have to be a big sell for Clive.

Boom Boom.

And Andrew says, I think the reason why disasters in California get reported worldwide is simply because there is a massive media infrastructure on the ground there of reporters and TV camera crews.

It's just easy for news channels.

That's true.

They're lazy, Andrew.

And it's just.

Yeah, easy footage.

It's affecting rich people.

Yes, I would say that if it was a trailer park in downtown la.

Yes.

They wouldn't care as much.

Yep, yep.

So here we go.

No, John, I didn't see the interview yet and that's about it, I think.

So.

A bit of a scrappy episode, dear listener, but we'll be back to normal next week.

I will have done more homework and have more clips for you, but that's what you get.

This week.

I did a lot of research last week, you have to admit.

So, anyway.

All right, we're going to go.

I'll talk to you later.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from him.