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Happened on this planet in the last seven days.

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To the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Yes, the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove in person.

And Joe the tech guy.

Hello out there, dear world.

Is our video looking okay there?

It looks strange to me.

But does that look fine to you, Joe the tech guy, or is it just me?

Yeah, I think it's got funny icons appearing everywhere.

No, it looks fine.

Okay.

Must be just me.

Well, yes, the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast where we talk about news and politics and sex and religion and Scott's been missing for a while.

Welcome back to the Velvet Gloves.

Got good to see you finally after this all this time.

Thanks very much, Trevor.

I was away because my father passed away.

Very sad to hear.

And it wasn't unexpected, but it did actually knock me for six, actually, when it happened.

Anyway, I am back now and, yeah, I'm okay.

Is your mum's still alive?

No, mum's been gone for 16 years, I think, right?

Yep.

Yeah, she's been gone since.

No, 2007.

So she's been gone for 17 years in.

In November, right?

Yep.

Joe the tech guy's here.

Joe, you're fine.

Well, as fine as a man with chronic Crohn's disease can be, I guess.

Yeah, I'm alive.

That's good.

Good to hear in the chat room.

John's there.

He's home from surgery.

I think John had either knee or hip surgery.

Probably knee.

I think it was John.

That's correct.

Hope you are going.

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

We'll try and incorporate your comments and as we deal with the topics and as we.

As we thought when he got reelected, Trump would be a source of material for this podcast.

Yes.

And of course, he's come through with some big news shortly after the last episode, so we'll deal with that and his thoughts on the Riviera of the Middle East.

So that'll be on the agenda and other bits and pieces.

So let me, you know, dear listener, I'm just scratching here to catch up because I should have prepared some stuff here.

I'm going to quickly add a video with a bit of luck and have it sitting here ready for us to go about Trump's press conference where he was talking about the Gaza and, yeah, Netanyahu sitting beside him.

I'll Just, I'll just pause that for a second.

So this is the press conference where he's sitting in front of the fire with Netanyahu explaining to people his thoughts on what would happen to Gaza.

And Netanyahu looks like the cat that's just swallowed the canary.

He looks very happy.

And let's start playing some of this and might just pause it here and there as thoughts come to mind.

But this is a big one in terms of things.

So here we go.

I know they've spoken about it with you and they say they're not going to accept.

I say they will, but I think other countries will accept also.

I think that Gaza maybe is a demolition site right now.

If you look at Gaza, it's all.

I mean, there's hardly a building standing, and the ones that are, are going to collapse.

You can't live in Gaza right now.

And I think we need another location.

I think it should be a location that's going to make people happy.

You look over the, over the decades.

The theme you notice with this press conference, guys, is ethnic cleansing.

Well, the talk about how we're actually doing the Palestinians a favor here because somehow the place is a demolition site and it's a mess and it's uninhabitable.

Somehow that has happened.

And of course, it's a hell that you would never let anybody live there.

It's evil and cruel to expect people to live.

There's all sorts of violence going on there.

There's all these shootings and stabbings with.

No mention of how this actually happened.

That is the guy sitting right beside him is the guy responsible for it.

But it's just.

It's as if it was committed by aliens.

And yeah, I'll keep.

It's all death in Gaza.

This has been happening for years.

It's all death.

If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed, not be knifed to death like what's happening in Gaza.

And right now you have in Gaza a very dangerous situation in terms of explosives all over the place, in terms of tunnels that nobody knows who's in the tunnel.

The whole thing is a mess.

And I think that if we can resettle and I believe we can do it.

You know, in my experience, guys, when.

When there's a mess in the Middle east, who better to clean it up than the Americans?

Actually, he was saying a nice.

A nice area for them to resettle.

I was just thinking there's a block of land on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that would be great for resettling Palestinians.

Just, you know, just.

Yeah, we, we go in and we're the cleanup team in the Middle East.

Yeah, absolutely.

In areas where the leaders currently say no.

I mean, I've been saying that with Mexico having to do with the border and all of the things, and you saw what happened.

10,000 soldiers and they're going to do a good job.

I really believe that.

And I believe Canada is going to do a good job also.

And they said the same thing and then they did something much different than what you were hearing.

This is a very.

Incidentally, on Mexico and Canada, basically both countries promised to do what they had already done.

But I think in Mexico's case, they already have like 20,000 soldiers and they promised him 10,000.

So it was even less than what they're already doing.

So when he claims to have got concessions out of Mexico and Canada dealing with the fentanyl crisis, the commitment that those countries made was less than or equal to the commitments that they'd already entered into.

So just as an aside, anyway, gee, I mean, if I'm going to interrupt this guy when he's wrong about something, it's going to take a while to get through this one.

Scott, did you have anything to.

Any thoughts about this before we go on?

Is there anything.

I thought it was stupidity, that it was coming out of his mouth.

You know, he obviously doesn't understand international law, which has got various provisos on moving people and all that sort of stuff.

You can't forcibly move people, you know, and he's got people that.

Well, they're.

Technique.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know that they're citizens of Israel, but they are citizens of an area that is controlled by Israel.

And he's.

What, he's.

What's he going to do?

Point move him across the border into Egypt to gunpoint.

And are the Egyptians going to accept.

Are the Egyptians going to take 2 million people?

The Jordanians going to take 2 million people?

He's a fucking moron.

Brown people will want to live with other brown people.

It's perfectly natural that they would want to go and live with those other brown people.

And sure, all those other brown people should accept those brown people.

Like, that's, that's how his mind works on this.

So anyway, we'll keep going.

A bit more difficult situation, but we're.

Going to get it solved.

I don't think people should be going back to Gaza.

I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them.

They've lived like hell.

They lived like you're living in hell.

Gaza is not a place for people to be living.

And the only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is because they have no alternative.

What's the alternative?

Go where?

There's no other alternative.

If they had an alternative, they'd much rather not go back to Gaza and live in a beautiful alternative that's safe.

I mean, who would want to go back to their homeland.

Well, exactly.

That they've been fighting for since they lost it in 48.

Yes.

And where all of their family are buried and where their roots.

Who would want to?

Who would want to.

This is a bit of a mindset.

I think I was reading or hearing something, somebody talking about this where, say, in America, for example, you might grow up in the Midwest or anywhere, really, and as you retire, you think, oh, I'll just move to Florida, and off you go, and you uproot and move to an entirely different state.

And it sort of doesn't necessarily mean as much to somebody in America that they would then go and live in a different state.

At least they're in the same country, but people are willing to uproot themselves anyway.

In Donald Trump's mind, why would they want to live there?

It's been an unlucky place, and there's more beautiful places around.

We'll keep going.

Would Palestinians have the right to return to Gaza if they left while the rebuilding was happening?

It would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good where they wouldn't want to return.

Why would they want to return?

The place has been hell.

It's been one of the meanest, one of the meanest, toughest places on Earth.

And right now it's, It's.

Look at the smaller Netanyahu picture from every angle.

He's loving it.

If I were there and nobody can live there, you can't live there.

So if we can build, if we can build them through a massive amounts of money supplied by other people, very rich nations, and they'll.

They're willing to supply it.

If we can build something for them in one of the countries, and it could be Jordan and it could be Egypt, it could be other countries, and you could build four or five or six areas.

It doesn't have to be one area, but you take certain areas and you build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like someplace where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they're going to end up dying.

The Same thing's going to happen again.

It's happened over and over again and it's going to happen again.

You can take Donald Trump out of real estate, but you can't take the real estate out of Donald Trump.

Have you ever heard of a president sound more like a real estate.

Yeah, absolutely.

Developer before.

This is going to be the best housing development we've ever done.

Yeah.

John in the chat room saying, stop it, I can't take it anymore.

And surely he's just making it up as he goes.

Has Scott left us?

Is he?

Yeah, I don't know where Scott's gone.

Hopefully he'll make it back in as.

Sure as you, Peter.

So I hope that we could do something where they wouldn't want to go back.

Who would want to go back?

They've experienced nothing but death and destruction.

Egypt and Jordan tell you no.

What will you do then?

Well, I don't think they're going to tell me no.

I don't think they're going to.

I think they're going to tell Biden no and I think they're going to tell other people no.

So you think it will happen head to end?

I think there's a good chance, yeah.

How many people are going to be.

Biden's going to believe to do all of them?

I mean we're talking about probably a million seven people.

A million seven, Maybe a million eight.

But I think all of them, I think they'll be resettled in areas where they can live a beautiful life and not be worried about dying every day.

All of the people of Gaza should.

Go, wait, wait.

Mr.

President, support building.

Settlements, Jewish settlements back in Gaza in the next years.

Say it.

Building settlements, Jewish settlements back in Gaza next year.

Do you support this?

I don't see it happening.

It's too dangerous for people.

Nobody can go there.

It's too dangerous.

Nobody wants to be there.

Warriors don't want to be there because.

This guy beside me is going to shoot them.

How can you have people go back, you're saying go back into Gaza now the same thing's going to happen, happen.

It'll only be death.

The best way to do it is you go out and you get.

This guy beside me will kill him.

Areas with the sunlight coming through and you build.

No, no, no.

It's the land.

They are not going to want to go back to Gaza.

Prime Minister Danielle, what is your message to the family?

Yeah, yeah.

People were shocked by this.

Except of course Joe, the regular listeners to this podcast because we mentioned it 40 weeks ago.

I believe when Jared Kushner first mentioned it.

Let me see if this will play.

Let me see.

This was episode 422, the title of which was the worst decisions of the Previous Seven days.

Let's see if this.

If you can.

If you can hear this, I hope you can.

Here we go.

No.

Oh, you can't hear it.

Can't hear it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Anyway, I thought that was going to play, but I'll need to test that later on.

It was us saying.

Talking about Jared Kushner, and he had the answer about.

About Gaza's waterfront property could be very valuable.

So he praised the potential of the Gaza waterfront property and suggested Israel should remove civilians while it cleans up the Strip.

And that was back in episode 422.

And, Joe, every time we've talked about what's going to happen in the Gaza Strip, you in particular have been saying, well, of course, you got to remember, Jared Kushner wants to put a waterfront.

Prime real estate.

Yeah, exactly.

So.

So it was interesting that this came out and.

And people were shocked by it.

So there's one other clip to do with this about.

Yeah.

Legal ownership of this Gaza Strip.

What did Trump have to say about that?

The US Will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too.

Will own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.

Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.

Level it out.

Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.

Do a real job.

Do something different.

Just can't go back.

If you go back, it's going to end up the same way it has for a hundred years.

So USA will own it.

Yeah.

There.

There may be some jobs for gins.

Just.

Just a few.

Mostly as porters and.

And buzz boys and waiters.

Yes.

And at some other point, he was asked, who's going to live the.

In these places?

And he said, people of the world.

Yeah.

Rich people who can afford to buy a Trump property.

Yeah.

At the Riviera of the Middle East.

That's it.

Quite extraordinary times.

Scott, do you agree?

I think he intends to do it, and I think.

I think he will try, but he's going to come a gutser because the courts and everything like that, the international courts, which I know is sanctioned, but they will actually say, you can't do that.

And I really do hope that you do have at least a few adults in the room that are saying, Mr.

President, you can't do that.

Well, adults like Jared Kushner are in the room.

Jared Kushner is a idiot.

You know, it's just that.

Or the Supreme Court, if anybody takes it to the Supreme Court.

Because of course they'll stand up to him.

They'll stand up for him.

Not to him know, exactly.

Like Trump knows.

He'll get some of this property for his personal sort of development uses.

So he can see personal enrichment from this, which is the key to working out what he wants to do.

Pulled out of business, apart from branding.

Now he just sells his name.

Well, it'll give him opportunities to sell his name.

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

So this is what the deep state needs to use in terms of, you know, the weapons industry, which Trump maybe doesn't want to support as much as other presidents.

If they just give him a cut of.

Of the money, then he'll be all for it.

So that's just what they've got to figure out.

Oligarchy rules.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

So there we go.

That was the big news of Donald Trump and his solutions for Gaza.

And.

And I'm sure there are lots of Muslims in Dearborn that are very happy they voted for him rather than Kamala.

Yeah.

So we'll see what happens.

She.

She wouldn't say that she would stop supplying weapons to Israel, and therefore Kamala was just.

Oh, sorry.

Kamala was just as guilty as anybody else.

And Trump was a better bet.

Yeah.

Okay.

What else has he.

What else has he done over there?

We'll get on to some Australian news.

But what.

You know, just kick off with a bit of Trump.

Did you see he's created an executive order, something about persecution of Christians.

Is it as bad as our local Australian laws with persecution of.

Well, I.

I don't know, but there's a Trump task force worried that they're going to investigate anti Christian hate and bigotry against Christians.

Right, okay.

Which is probably just meaning gay people existing because, you know, that's.

That's bigotry against Christians.

He's got quite an incredible Christian advisor that might be responsible with for that.

So wherever I go, would you like to see a bit of her in action?

When I walk over White House grounds.

God walks on White House grounds.

I had every right and authority to declare the White House as holy ground because I was standing there, and where I stand is holy.

To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God, and there.

And I won't do that.

We are in a spiritual war right now.

Let every demonic network that has aligned.

Itself against the purpose, against the calling of President Trump.

Let it be broken.

Let it be torn down.

In the name of Jesus.

I want me to tell you what my thoughts are.

The thoughts of the King of Kings.

The thoughts of the Lord of Lords.

I'm downloading heaven.

I'm downloading heaven.

I like that line.

That's good.

Oh, and speaking in tongues.

You gotta hand it to these Americans.

They're marketing geniuses.

I'm downloading heaven.

That's.

That's a good line.

I watched Marjo last week.

Ma Joe, What's Marjo?

He was a.

An evangelical preacher who was indoctrinated by his parents and started preaching at the age of three, I think.

Right.

He performed the wedding ceremony at five.

And he was lauded in the 1950s as this young preacher and how beautiful he was.

Basically in the 70s, he invited a film crew to witness him witnessing and him saying, I'm a total atheist.

I don't believe any of this.

But, you know, it.

It pays a wage.

Oh, he was caught on camera saying that.

No, no, no.

He.

He invited the camera crew along to show them what a scam it was.

All right.

Yeah.

Why did he do that?

He was over.

He couldn't live with himself anymore, conning these people.

He became an actor afterwards because obviously he.

He was.

He'd been acting all of his life.

Exactly.

So it's a 1972 documentary.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ah, John in the chat room.

Sorry, John.

I think I did get your message, John.

Maybe I didn't respond.

I'm sorry, but sort of not really across social media necessarily all that often, but anyway, what else we got here?

Thoughts on anything, Scott, that you want to chip in with at any time?

Feel free.

Anything that's crossed your mind in the last few weeks that you want to get off your chest?

Not really.

The Teal Independence are quite an impressive group of ladies.

Impressive, yeah.

They really are quite smart.

And.

And are they going to form a.

Help Dutton form a minority government?

I don't know about that.

I think if you ask them personally and individually, they'd say that they don't want Dutton, but I think they probably are.

They are.

They are probably closer to the Liberal Party than they are to the Labor Party.

However, they do not want nuclear power, that's for sure.

And, you know, all of them, like, you know, climate.

Climate change and nuclear power.

But, yeah, other.

Other stuff, particularly economics, you know, small government.

Yeah, small government, low taxes, China's terrible, all that sort of stuff.

I don't think they Think China's terrible?

Well, I, I see them aligning with the Liberals.

Absolutely.

And I think I was talking to somebody the other day who asked me who I thought would win.

I said, oh, I think Dutton's going to win.

And they were shocked.

And I said, well, you gotta remember wasn't that long ago people voted Morrison in and then Morrison was so bad that some of those people changed their vote to get rid of Morrison.

But the people who voted for Morrison the first time are all set to vote for Dutton this time.

I reckon so.

I reckon, I reckon he'll get over the line, but.

So the Teals have announced their independent firm, My Seat Dixon.

So yeah, I've been reading up on.

Her and the only thing that concerns me with her is her tax policy.

She wants to extend the first the write offs and everything like that.

She wants to extend the first time write offs of assets from $20,000 to $50,000 or something like that.

And I just think to myself that's not really all that smart.

And if that's the worst thing she's done, does it make rich people richer?

Well, potentially what it's going to do is just lead to another Ute led recovery, which was what they said last time.

Yet all these tradies went out and bought Utes because they got 100% tax deduction for them and that's what they called it, a Ute led recovery.

So it's potentially going to do that again, which is probably the worst thing I've read of her and everything else.

And I actually spoke to Anne Reed the other day because she was, I saw on Facebook she said that she was going to have a look at, at this lady and that sort of stuff.

And I read up on her and everything else.

I gave her a call and we chatted for about half an hour about her and everything else and she agreed that's the only thing that she doesn't really like is the income tax policy.

Wow.

Well, if that's it, that's not much.

No, exactly.

I mean, if you ask me whether the instant write off at the moment is 20k or 50k, I might have guessed 50k.

Like it doesn't seem like a biggie to me.

No, exactly.

It's just one of those things.

It's just that Ann was saying that she's probably just throwing it in there just to grab the liberal voters out there that don't locked up.

Yes.

And she's also saying that if she can get 20 of the vote, then she's in for a very.

She's in with a fighting chance of winning, of knocking him off.

Hey, Scott, did you happen to listen to the episode on Tiananmen Square?

Yeah, I did.

And so the idea of that episode was to try and demonstrate maybe the Chinese weren't as bad as it seemed.

No, but I think.

I think they are guilty of something, though.

I just.

I just don't know how.

You know, I said that right to you from Word Guy.

I said, I don't know how many we killed.

Yes.

Now, I still have.

You know, I think you said in that.

That there were no one killed in Tiananmen Square itself.

Yeah, in Tiananmen Square itself.

Okay.

Well, have you ever been to Tiananmen Square?

No.

It's quite a big area.

So Tiananmen Square itself.

Yeah, I could agree that perhaps no one there was killed.

However, there was someone that was.

Some people were killed outside of Tiananmen Square.

Yeah.

And I don't know how many of that were.

Now, clearly the Yanks were involved.

They were trying to organize a color revolution and all that sort of thing.

Yeah.

But that doesn't forgive the Chinese for doing what they did.

They did actually shoot some of their own people.

Now, I don't know how many died.

If you listen to the.

If you listen to the Independent, to the Democratic protesters and that sort of stuff, they'll say five or 10,000 people died.

I don't think that's right.

And if you listen to the Chinese government, they'll admit two people were shot.

So the truth lies somewhere between there.

Somewhere between those two numbers.

Now.

But the kind of.

I was saying to you at one point, you know, you're really hard on the Chinese, I think.

Yeah, but I am hard on everyone that does like that.

And they are.

They are the ones that have got the.

They have got the runs on the board.

I'm hard on the Russians for invading Ukraine.

I'm hard on anyone that actually tries to exert themselves the way they have.

And they have actually.

Yes, they have shut down a.

They did shoot down.

And that was the whole point.

It was the first time that they actually went out on the streets and asked for democratic reforms and they were gunned down on the street.

Now, I don't know how many were gunned down.

Now, the US were.

The US did actually shoot some of their own students, I've got no doubt about that, because they're an open country that has to acknowledge that and that type of thing, whereas the Chinese government won't even acknowledge that.

And even in your last episode, which was talking about the Chinese AI, which.

His name escapes me.

Oh, deep seek, deep sea.

You know, if they didn't actually do anything, then why wouldn't they say, oh, well, Nothing happened in June 1989 in Tiananmen Square.

But they didn't.

They covered it up and said, well, you know, this is something I can't answer.

So the evidence from the Western diplomats that everybody, the students, all left Tiananmen Square uninjured, you just don't accept.

Well, I just remember there were actual pictures of people that were being carried out on gurneys and that type of thing.

They had been shot and they were carried out.

But.

But the.

But the sort of evidence that came forward from the people who were there, including protesters saying that the student demonstration at Tiananmen Square finished with.

Basically finished peacefully.

That's fine.

You just don't accept that.

No, I do accept that.

Okay.

I accept that.

However, something happened there in that night, and I couldn't tell you people, obviously the people weren't actually, you know, bulldozed and everything else and incinerated the way Bob Hawk said they were.

Yeah, that's all been proven to be.

Yeah.

Now, I couldn't tell you how many people were shot.

I don't know.

Yeah, but it's not the massacre that Bob Hawk portrayed.

No, probably not.

But, I mean, at the end of the day, the students who were in the square were able to leave and go home after a protest, sit in that lasted, you know, six weeks or whatever.

Yeah.

So not a bad result in terms of.

For the students in the square.

No, probably not.

For the students, whoever else was shot.

Yeah.

You know, you'd have to ask them.

I just.

I remember saying to you at one point, gee, I think you give the Chinese a hard time.

And I was saying, why?

And you said Tiananmen Square as if it was something quite extraordinary beyond anything that other governments have done.

And it would seem to me that it's not.

Well, exactly.

I think you've actually found that it's not.

Yeah.

So you were right.

So, you know, it's like the Uyghurs and that sort of stuff.

I don't know what's going on over there.

Something is going on over there, but I don't know how bad it is now.

It's probably not as bad as the Christian nutters are making out in the us.

It's probably not as innocent as the Chinese government are making out either.

The truth lies between the two of them somewhere.

Okay, that's good.

I Just wanted to know whether I'd made any impression on you at all.

Well, I had read most of that.

I had read stuff like that before, and, you know, the, the casualty numbers and all that sort of stuff had been called into question sometime before that, and it made a hell of a lot of sense to me, what I was reading and that sort of thing.

So that's why I said to you, I don't know how many died?

I don't know.

You know.

Right.

If you want me to pull a number out of the air, I can do that.

It's probably, I don't know, maybe 500 or a thousand was shot.

I don't know.

But it wasn't 500 or thousand.

Probably about right.

Yep.

It wasn't.

It wasn't the 10,000 that the Democratic protesters were claiming.

And the other thing, too, is that why did the Chinese government feel it was so necessary to lock them, to lock the people up and that sort of stuff.

Like, they had a number of protesters that were still in prison years later.

Don't know the details on that.

Yeah.

So can't comment.

I mean, they were still imprisoned years later and all that sort of thing, so God knows why they had to do that.

I don't know whether.

Yeah.

I don't know what's happened there, whether that's true or not.

Don't know.

It's just.

It's like everything, you know, it's.

We are dealing with a very opaque country that doesn't really tell anyone everything.

But you could say that about a lot of other countries.

Yeah.

You could say that about the United States.

Absolutely.

And probably the United Kingdom, too.

Yeah.

Now probably Europe's got the cleanest record on.

On being open.

Australia, I used to think was open, but now I'm discovering it's not.

Anyway, so I.

I do recall we had a conversation.

It's like, why are you so hard on the Chinese?

And you said, because of Tiananmen Square.

And so I guess next time you probably wouldn't rely on Tiananmen Square as.

As making the Chinese any worse than any other country.

No, I wouldn't.

Okay, Right.

That's good to know.

However, you know, if you start telling me that Vladimir Putin's a misunderstood genius, we'll have another argument.

But.

I don't know about genius.

I'm reading an interesting book called Fission's Revenge.

Whose revenge?

Putin's Revenge.

Revenge, right.

Yeah.

Talking about Bush Jr.

And his friendship with Putin and how he basically was shooting his mouth off about NATO, who was junior.

Yeah.

And that really he had no intention of letting Georgia or the.

Or Ukraine join NATO.

But he was making noises to that extent, but he was far more interested in Iraq and his focus was elsewhere and that basically Putin had got to be in his bonnet, that the CIA were trying to overthrow him, undermine him.

But really this was Putin overreacting to nothing.

Who said this?

So this is a journalist.

But the Ukraine had said they wanted to join NATO.

Yeah.

So it didn't matter what Bush said.

Well, no, Ukraine said they wanted to.

A lot of the other countries wouldn't have let them in because of the state they were in.

Well, every country has a veto and that's what happened.

Sweden and.

Yeah, Sweden and Finland had problems joining because Turkey kept on.

Was it Turkey?

Turkey didn't think that they were.

They were treating the.

The Kurds correctly.

Right.

The Turks actually wanted them to take as tougher stand against the.

Against the Kurds.

And I think the sway.

I think the Swiss, the Swedes and that sort of stuff did actually make some statements about it, but then they just rolled over and said, no, the Kurds can do whatever they want to once they were given membership.

Yeah, well, just because George Bush said he wasn't really working on Ukraine's entry into NATO doesn't mean Putin couldn't have had concerns, given Ukraine itself was saying it was trying to get into NATO.

But, you know, you've got to.

You've got to understand that the countries that have direct historical memory of the Soviet Union, which was dominated by Russia.

Yes, they do, actually.

They all fell over themselves very quickly and did whatever NATO wanted them to so that those three tiny Baltic states could join and Poland could join.

They wanted in because they saw that.

They saw that as the only protection they would have against Russia.

Poland has been rolled over so many times.

Yeah.

They were invaded by the Germans by the west and by the Russians on the East.

Yeah.

And the Baltic states were part of Germany and oops.

Yeah, the.

The Russians took them at the end of the war and they've kept Kaliningrad, which was a German city, by the.

Way, just on Ukraine war.

What do you think should happen at the moment?

Do you think they should.

Ukraine should give in?

No, I don't think they should give in, but I think they should.

I think they should have actually opened up negotiations a long time ago.

So should they agree to a peace deal where they basically give up the territory they've lost and.

Or should they keep throwing more young men and women at the.

Yeah, I know what you're saying.

Trevor.

But until it comes with guarantees of.

Yeah, of, of third party troops on the ground to stop Russia just regrouping and doing it again in two years time.

Yeah, I tend to agree with you, Joe.

Any peace deal is worthless because they'll get wiped out next time.

Yeah.

Do all peace deals always have a third party as a, as a controlling intermediary?

Always.

But quite often the UN regularly we have UN peacekeeping troops all around the world.

Look at North Korea.

We had UN peacekeeping troops in Kosovo and Serbia.

That didn't go so well.

Yeah, I just think to myself that, I don't know, I just thought they should give in.

Whether they should surrender.

Well, no, I don't think they should surrender.

Whether they should surrender the territory they've lost and saying ceasefire, yeah, we're done.

But if they do that, Putin will duck across the border, lick his runes, rearm and come back in and take it again.

And then next time he will, he'll go in, he won't actually make the same cup ups he made the first time.

You know, I just think to myself that, you know, I.

The last president of the Soviet Union was Mikhail Gorbachev and he was probably the most sensible of them all.

And he actually said at the time, he said as far as he is concerned, Crimea should have always remained in Russia.

Okay, I don't know enough.

But if someone sensible is actually making that sort of statement, then you probably should give him, give them, give them some credence there.

And you could actually say to them, all right, we will give up our, we will give up our demands for the return of Crimea if you withdraw from the Donbass.

It's just something that you've got actually, you know, what is it, what is it?

Churchill said you're going to get more war words.

Words rather than wars.

Something like that.

He said, you know, more, more, more, more word, word.

Rather than war.

No, it was George.

Or instead of war, or the other.

Georgia instead of world war.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

I just think to myself that they've got to actually start talking so that they can reduce the number of casualties.

Now, you know, if you read the ABC and everything else, well, Ukraine is on the verge of military success and that type of thing, but it doesn't look that way.

It looks like they are going to lose.

Now if you read the BBC News.

Well, the ABC is what I was saying.

BBC, I'm just giving you one now.

I've got a headline here from the BBC.

The headline BBC News, Ukraine War.

Russian reservists fighting with Shovels according to UK Defense Ministry.

So you would think that that indicates that the Russians are not doing too well when they're.

When the headline says that the reservists are fighting with shovels.

But, but when you read the next paragraph it goes Russian reservists could be using shovels for hand to hand combat in Ukraine due to a shortage of ammunition.

The UK's Ministry of Defense says that just paints a picture of these desperate Russian reservists jumping into foxholes and bashing the enemy with a shovel later on.

It says in late February reservists described being ordered to assault a Ukrainian position quote, armed with only firearms and shovels.

The ministry said, gosh, they were only armed with firearms and shovels.

What's going on at the BBC when you.

I couldn't tell you.

It's that says Russian reservists fighting with shovels.

And two paragraphs in they admit that the reservists are armed with only firearms and shovels.

What would you be armed with if not firearms?

Heavy arted already they're just trying to paint a picture in a headline of things are going bad for the Russians and then you've got a line that says poor buggers, they're only armed with firearms plus shovels.

It's one of those things.

I just don't know whether or not the BBC is still in employing people that were there with numb.

Boris Johnson was the Prime Minister or something like that because he was very pro Ukraine could be as a result of that.

I don't know.

I don't think either side should be.

Well, the big hawk in me says that the Russians thought they'd have this wrapped up in two weeks.

It's been three years and they haven't got it wrapped up yet.

And the Ukrainians are still putting up a hell of a fight and they are not looking like that they're prepared to stand down yet.

However, I understand the population is starting to grow weary of the war and that type of thing.

So I suppose it depends on what the population wants.

They missed the memo that the war is supposed to continue.

The US was willing to fight this war to the last Ukrainian.

Did they not get that memo?

It's one of those things I just don't understand, you know.

Look, it's going to be over in two days anyway.

Two days, Joe?

Yeah.

Why is that?

Well, that's what Putin said it was a special military operation that was going to be over in a couple of days.

Yeah, it's supposed to be over in a Fortnight.

Wasn't a fortnight.

It's three years.

Yeah.

Three years ago.

I think both sides are hurting desperately.

Well, clearly the Russians are, because, you know, they, they.

You know, it's.

Are they?

Well, they are because they are.

They're running out of men and that sort of stuff to send to the front.

Are they?

Yes, because the young ones slipped across the border.

Inflation.

They referred.

Say again?

Inflation.

Yeah.

The Russian economy is booming.

No, the Russian economy is doing well because they're.

They're on war footing.

So.

Yeah, manufacturing's at 150.

They're working additional shifts.

The problem is they can't find the manpower.

They got lots of raw materials and stuff that they're selling to Iranians and the Indians and.

Yeah, but the Russian economy is booming.

I think the Russians are actually paying a larger price than what they would have actually preferred to pay.

Like, the Chinese are apparently taking their oil and that sort of stuff, but they're not paying at market rates.

They're paying at a lower rate.

And, you know, Iran is selling them drones at an inflated price.

And, you know, this talk of the North Koreans and all that sort of stuff.

Don't go there.

No, I did hear that and that sort of stuff.

You said that they weren't, but then.

There was a news headline saying that they were back on the front lines.

That's right, yes.

There was another headline saying they're back.

Yeah, it's one of those things like, you know, they reckon that.

They reckon that North Koreans have sent over their greatest troops and that sort of stuff.

Apparently they haven't.

So we had a headline a few weeks ago saying they've left.

Then we had another headline a few days ago saying they're back.

John, in the chat room, just checking.

Do you reckon there are North Koreans near the front line now or not?

Just wondering what your current position is on that one.

Well, my understanding is that, okay, the last report I read was some weeks ago, and they said that they're in the Kursk region, that sort of stuff, to try and push the Ukrainians out of that Russian territory that they held.

When you say report, what you really mean is some statement from Ukrainian propaganda arm is what you mean, like there's no reports by anybody independent?

Well, you can't find anyone independent during the war.

You've got to accept it.

You've got to accept which side you prepared your.

Which.

Which side you actually agree is lying the least.

And I think to myself that given Vladimir Putin's track record of lying, I'd be More inclined to believe what was coming out from the Ukrainian side than what was coming out from the Russian side.

He hasn't said anything about the North Koreans.

Exactly.

Silent says they're there.

And one side that hasn't said anything.

That's right.

But he loves not saying anything.

No, nobody's denied it.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's a lot.

Because he's not into that.

Stupid Westerners.

And argue about it.

Let them argue about it on podcasts.

Let them argue about it on the iron fist.

Putin's banking on the west not staying the course.

So all he has to do is keep grinding his economy down until he wins.

His economy's not being ground down.

Russian economy's going great.

I actually heard.

I've actually heard that the Russian people.

I think the economists agree, but the.

The Economist, as in the magazine.

No, no, no.

Economists across the.

Yeah, I'm sure there are some who go, yeah, Russia's going great.

I've seen reports that are saying inflation is high because you've got people working triple shifts to run factories, and therefore you've got a shortage of manpower because they're drafting them for the army, but they're also trying to get them to work in the factories, which has an inflationary effect.

Well, maybe I'll find some articles on the Russian economy and how well it's going.

A friend in Moscow who's talking about.

Yeah, there are shortages of things.

So.

But I mean, even before the war, there were shortages of things.

Yeah, we've had a shortage of eggs.

Oh, no.

The Americans have had a shortage of eggs, apparently.

All right, okay.

That's why Trump got elected.

John says, yes, I've seen evidence of North Korean troops fighting Ukraine on Russian soil.

I will not share evidence with you because I believe you judge the evidence by the sources.

That is true.

I would judge it.

That's true.

Still, on defense, we've just, because of orcas, sent the Americans.

The Americans, yes.

$800 million.

800 billion.

800 million, yeah.

For a submarine that will never get.

Just to prop up their shipbuilding.

Do you know an F35 jets?

We could have wasted that on the NDIS, because, you know, people are getting the NDIS for sitting around in their asses all the time and doing nothing.

Yes.

Could have used it for things like that.

Even if you're into military stuff, an F35 costs about 130 million.

I mean, we could have bought six F35s.

Instead, we've just sent a check for nothing.

Very true.

Anyway, Donald Trump will recognize that we're his friends and will give us preferential treatment on the submarines.

He's already slept 25 because he's already slapped 25 tariff on steel and aluminium.

Imports, which is seen.

Say again.

I said, have you seen the poor Trump voters who are shocked that their team, you and Sheen orders have been hit by tariffs?

So dhl, when they're delivering their cheap Chinese whatever, are saying, oh no, you have to pay another $50 now before we'll deliver it.

Okay.

They're getting hit with customs fees.

Yes, exactly.

But China was supposed to pay the tariff.

Yeah, yeah.

Idiots.

And I just think it was absolutely hilarious that the number that the, in the days after the election, the numbers of people that actually googled can I change my vote?

You know, still he's focusing on the important things.

He has banned paper straws.

He has.

There was an executive order which was, this is a Donald Trump with I will be signing an executive order next week ending the ridiculous Biden push for paper straws which don't work.

And then in capital letters, back to plastic.

Now, the best part of this is Elon Musk retweeted that with the comment greatest president ever.

I mean, I agree, paper straws are shit, but, but they're not that bad.

But do we have to have an.

Executive order for this?

And for Elon Musk to declare as a result, you are the greatest president ever.

So he's running around looking at cost cutting measures.

A lot of people unhappy because it seems like him and his 18 year old tech bro friends are just waltzing into places and connecting to hard drives and probably legally.

Yes.

And people are saying, of course Musk is looking at government contracts where he is a direct competitor.

No doubt.

No doubt.

Yeah.

They've also shut down the nih.

Yes, nih.

National Institute of Health.

Right.

So they provide research funding.

Okay.

So there are all these health research scientists that are likely to lose their source of funding and this includes overseas operations as well.

So I know somebody who's in cancer research who is saying they're very worried that their funding is going to dry up, that the large chunk of their funding is going to dry up.

Also stopped funding for us.

Hey, she's gonna leave it.

It's just gonna leave the door wide open for China to step in and do that.

And that's what people are saying.

But the other thing is USAID buys food from American farmers.

So all these American farmers are going, well, if I haven't got USAID buying my crops, who the hell am I growing these for?

Yeah, so all these farmers that voted for Trump are suddenly going to have no purchases for the food they grow.

And all these journalists who were working for NGOs and other groups creating propaganda overnight, being paid by USAID are suddenly out of a job.

So I thought that was a separate.

Thing that suddenly shut down and turned off the secure communications was what they were saying.

So these people don't even have a way to talk back to their head office.

Well, it seems that previously when you wanted dirty work done, you would get the CIA to do it.

But there were problems with the funding where the CIA was required to disclose where its money went, but usaid, for one reason or another, wasn't required to.

So if you wanted dirty work done, you would give the money to USAID and it would get your color revolution underway in whatever Eastern European country you are wanting to overthrow.

So headline in the Washington Post, independent media in Russia, Ukraine lose their funding with US aid Freeze.

And below that, independent media in Russia and Ukraine have been critical of their governments and provide alternative reporting, but much of it relied on U.S.

grants.

This is written with a straight face by the Washington Post that these independent media who were being paid by the United States, therefore could not be independent, have lost their funding if they were being paid by the US government, they were not independent.

According to a USAID fact sheet which has since been taken offline, in 2023, the agency funded training and support for 6200 journalists, assisted 707 non state news outlets and supported 279 media sector civil society organizations dedicated to strengthening independent media.

Like there's a lot of money as funneled through US aid, creating propaganda.

So under the cloak of humanitarian aid, it runs covert operations.

So.

So yeah, that's what's happened with usaid.

Another thing that he's been up to.

What else have we got locally?

That journalist, Latif Lat.

Alf.

Yeah, Latif or whatever it is, yeah.

She'S like a contractor as a presenter with the ABC and in her private social media was retweeting stuff that basically talked about the illegal occupation of Palestine.

And for that she was pulled off the air and unable to complete her last two days because according to the abc, that was seen as inflammatory and intimidatory to potential Jewish listeners.

So there's a guy and Anderson, one of the bosses of the ABC.

Mr.

Anderson finished his testimony inside the Federal court on Thursday.

He was asked by Latif's barrister about his claim that he observed on her social media accounts statements questioning Israel's right to exist.

And the barrister said, can I firstly suggest to you that in nowhere in Your review of Mrs.

Of Ms.

Latus Social media activity that you found any suggestion by her that she doubted Israel's right to exist.

And his response was, I saw something that related to the unlawful occupation of Palestine or something similar to that.

And he was asked, you regard that as being an anti Semitic view?

And he said, it can be regarded as, yes.

So something in her social media about the unlawful occupation of Palestine and the boss of the abc, this Anderson character, considered that was anti Semitic and sufficient to sacca.

And there's another journalist, the former SBS presenter, can't remember her name.

Off top of my head, she's in court fighting sort of hate crime charges.

There's a crackdown on different journalists around the world or expressing views opposing Zionism and they're being labeled as anti Semitic in having to go through unbelievable court cases.

So, yeah, so.

So, yeah, there was a cricket reporter who linked to an Amnesty International report about genocide.

He got sacked.

This felt that the viewers who were Jewish might be threatened by him.

You can't be a concert pianist if you dedicate a piece of music to the victims of the genocide in Gaza and beyond.

There's a lot of people getting sacked and pressured for quite legitimate expressions of sympathy and support for.

Yeah, not outlandish statements by any means.

So.

No, they're not outlandish statements by any means.

I just think to myself that what do they want them to do?

They want them to actually say, you know, what the Palestinians did on the 7th of October was disgraceful.

What the Israelis have done is an overreaction.

They just don't want to say anything.

They don't want them to say anything.

Yeah, they want to shut their mouths.

So that's what they want.

Yeah.

How are we going time wise?

8:30.

I've got to get going shortly.

What else did I want to say?

Look, you know what, that's probably enough because particularly.

Yeah, I think we will call it a day on that.

In the chat room, John says, I heard he canceled.

There was a good one about Trump going, what idiot signed these deals with Mexico?

I'll take one guess.

Trump himself.

In his first term.

Correct.

He was going, look at the terms of these deals.

What idiot signed these?

You know, the frightening part is that there were reports how people have spoken to Trump about Orcas.

And, you know, the good news is that Trump is behind and supportive of the Orcus deal.

Yeah.

Because we're paying them an absolute fortune.

Which can only mean that Trump looks at it and he goes, those crazy Australians are paying us.

What?

Let's keep that one going.

Idiots.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

I shall.

Let's call that a night.

You're gonna be with us again, Scott.

You're back to normal now, you reckon?

Yeah, it should be right.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Thank you for listening, dear listener and viewers.

We'll be back next week.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from me.

And it's a good night from him.

Good night.