Episode 2874 CWSA 06/20/25

Yes, it's all working.

Let me check your stocks.

A little bit up.

Let's see what Tesla's doing.

Tesla is a little bit up.

All right.

And looks like we're we're going to have a good weekend.

That's my prediction.

Let's get our comments working here.

There.

There we go.

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All right, Paul.

I see the real the real one.

Don't try that fake one with me again.

All right.

What's going on?

I find that um the first part of the news is always something about Elon Musk.

Is there even one day that guy can go without making news?

It's impossible.

But apparently on Sunday, this Sunday in Austin, Texas, um will be the launch of the Tesla robo taxi.

So, the no driver um self-driving taxi in Austin and I saw a picture of somebody in one and they were sitting in the front.

Would you sit in the front of a robo taxi in the front seat or would you sit in the back in case something goes wrong?

I feel like I feel like I would sit in the back seat if that's an option.

I assume it is.

Wouldn't you, you know, just a little bit safer, at least for a while?

Now, I I get that the self-driving robo taxis will be safer than a human-driven automobile, but even with a human, I don't feel comfortable in the in the passenger side of the front seat.

I always think, can I trust this human?

So, I'd probably send him back.

Well, according to uh the ex CEO, which is not someone who used to be a CEO, but rather the CEO of the company called X.

Um, so Linda is saying that uh users will soon be able to trade stocks on X and make investments and send tips and split bills and maybe even buy merch.

Uh, all without leaving the app.

And they're going to call it X Money.

So it'll be a peer-to-peer payment system.

Now here's the fun part.

If X becomes the everything account, isn't X an internet within the internet?

Because I asked myself, what do I do all day on the internet that I could not do completely within X?

I use AI.

All right.

Well, that's built into X.

I look at the news, but all the links and the analysis are on X.

So, the only other thing I do is investments and send money digitally.

That's the only other stuff I do.

So, if I could do all of that on X, I would be within a internet that was within an internet.

And do you know how much power that would give Elon Musk if if he had an internet within the internet and you never left it?

You would be in the bubble of all bubbles.

Now I get, you know, I get that uh X has different points of view, but I don't really see them.

Do you?

I I could spend the entire day on X and never see a competing point of view.

All I would see is the people that I most like to see.

The the only times I see competing points of view is when they're being mocked by people I agree with.

So when I see a clip on MSNBC, it's never to agree with it.

It's always to laugh at it.

If I see a clip of the view, it's always just a laugh at it.

So the the bubble of all bubbles is forming.

I don't know if I'm against it or for it, but it's it's a complete transformation of the internet experience if you never leave that one app.

And I probably wouldn't.

I' I'd probably be on it all day anyway.

Um, and then, uh, Elon Musk's AI company, which I assume will be folded into X into Grock.

I don't know how that works, but apparently uh, Elon Musk is now launching the biggest supercomputer in the world.

Uh, the largest supercomput has many GPUs.

You don't need to know the details, but the biggest one in the world is uh, Elon Musk's.

So if you if you used AI for all of your work and Elon Musk had the largest supercomputer driving the best AI, would you ever leave?

I don't know.

It's looking to me like um Elon Musk's strategy for X and for everything else is kind of amazing.

It's like a strategy I've never seen before that basically would take over everything from the news to finance to banking.

Um, and probably probably it would work.

So that's big.

Speaking of Elon Musk, he points out that the solar power generation in China will exceed all sources of electricity combined in the USA in only 3 to four years, which he calls a wakeup call.

So, do you remember when people mocked uh Elon Musk for saying that we could get all of our energy from solar?

we would need batteries, of course, but we have batteries.

Um, he he was never really in the majority on that.

I always felt like he was in the minority and everyone who thought they knew about energy would say over and over, "Well, you're never going to get there with solar power alone." I mean, that's that's ridiculous.

you're going to need nuclear and you're going to need oil and gas and all that.

And in the short run, certainly that's all true.

But is it hypothetically possible, as Musk has been saying for years, that if you wanted to and you went hard at it, you could have all the energy needed from solar.

And it's starting to look like he was right about that.

Looks like he got the math right.

If you were doubting Elon Musk on math and engineering, well, he made a bad bet.

I have to admit I was skeptical because it looked more like he was just promoting his own products, but I think he's also accurate that you could get all of your electricity from solar if you went wild, you know, really went at it hard like China.

Um, the appeals court, an appeals court is going to let Trump keep control of the California National Guard.

Now, if you haven't been following this, um, how many times have you heard that an appeals court altered an order from a lower court about something about Trump?

How many times have we seen that story in in just this calendar year?

maybe 25 times about different stories.

I don't know how many times, but it feels like a lot.

But the latest one is, let's see, um, so Trump took control of the National Guard in California when those anti-ICE protests were happening.

And then, uh, California appealed and said, "You can't do that.

You don't have the right to do that because there are only certain circumstances in which the commander-in-chief can take control and those certain circumstances have not been met.

And the lower court agreed and so for a while Gavin Newsome had control back of the National Guard.

But now the appeals court has uh decided that the commander-in-chief should have flexibility and you don't want to handicap them and you don't want to put the state in charge of the protecting the whole country.

So the the appeals court says that Trump can keep control of the National Guard in California.

But um does it matter?

Are we still having protests, anti-CE protests in LA, or did they all stop?

Because I didn't see anything in the news today about any protests.

So, I think the appeals court has ruled on something that has no no importance and no bearing on anything because it's already old news.

Anyway, speaking of complicated things, uh Russ Vote, the uh budget budget guy for the administration, uh according to Politico, he's got this uh clever idea for cutting costs in the government that not everybody thinks is legal.

And he calls it a pocket recession.

So, as you know, the budget process in the government is this weird convoluted Byzantine process that nobody understands.

Sometimes it's a budget, sometimes it's a spending bill, and sometimes it's a recession, and we don't even know what any of that means.

But there's a idea that uh Trump could issue a formal request to claw back funding.

Now, this is in Politico.

And so, if Trump said, um, I I've got a formal request to, you know, end funding for some specific things, similar to what he did before with a $9.4 billion package he sent to lawmakers that, uh, what you could do is have it sit there.

Uh the memo could land on Capitol Hill less than 45 days before the new fiscal year is set to begin in October 1st.

And then by withholding the cash, see if see if he can follow all this.

By withholding the cash for that full uh time frame, uh regardless of the action by Congress, the White House would treat the funding as expired when the current fiscal year ends.

So something about a formal request to claw back funding, but you don't really mean it.

You just want the request to sit there and time out and then somehow it times out and then you don't have to spend it.

Does that even sound like a real process to you?

I I may be getting some part of that wrong, but it's it's so frustrating that our government doesn't have a process that the that the voters even understand.

It's like, why don't you do your budget like everybody else does where you say, "This is how much I want to spend.

Does everybody agree?" And then you vote on it.

No.

No.

We've got to have recision packages and spending packages.

We've got to have pocket recisions.

Yeah.

So, we'll see if that works.

Anyway, um I saw one report today on X that uh there's a senior Iranian official who told Reuters that Iran is ready to discuss uh limitations on its uranium enrichment.

To which I say, one guy?

There's one guy who said that?

What good is that?

If it wasn't the Supreme Leader, do we trust this one guy who allegedly told Reuters, "Oh yeah, we're totally totally open to discussing our uranium enrichment." Well, at the same time, also an ex I think Zero Edge was reporting this, uh, another senior Iranian official who is different from the last one, um, said zero enrichment will undoubtedly be rejected, especially now because of the Israeli strikes.

So, you got one Iranian official who says, "Oh, yeah, we'll totally discuss that." and another one who says, "Oh, no.

We're not even going to be open to that." But it could be that one of them is talking about zero enrichment and the other one is talking about limitations on enrichment.

So, you don't really need to get to zero, do you?

Um, could you make a deal where it's just low enrichment levels are allowed as long as there's lots of inspections?

So maybe there's some room to deal with that.

According to uh NBC, Iran has unleashed what they call combat drones inside Israel for the first time.

Now combat drone, what would be a combat drone versus a drone?

I don't know exactly, but I think a drone would be like a smart rocket, but not very fast.

and it would uh plunge into something and explode.

Whereas, I'm guessing these combat drones are more like an unmanned jet that has a number of weapons and it can go in and fire a bunch of things and then return home and get some more ordinance.

I like saying ordinance.

Makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, the Revolutionary Guard has announced that uh its drones have penetrated Israeli airspace and it's they're hitting infrastructure using missiles and airdrop bombs.

So that's what it sounds like, a pilotless aircraft.

Um, meanwhile on X and other places, I keep seeing these estimates of how many missiles Iran had and how many they've used and how many guys shot down.

And for about five minutes, I said to myself, "Huh, here's some useful data." I I told myself if I know how many missiles Iran has and I know how many they fired and how many they have left and what percentage of them are getting through I have a good idea what's going to happen and my current opinion is it doesn't matter.

Uh but here's what matters.

Iran is never going to surrender unless there are boots on the ground.

meaning Israeli and American soldiers on the ground.

And that's not going to happen.

I'm pretty sure.

I mean, it seems deeply unlikely that Trump would agree to, you know, soldiers getting killed on the ground in Iran.

And of course, Iran is a much bigger, harder land target than Iraq was by by a lot.

So, we don't think it would work.

And if you don't put people on the ground, are we really going to change the leadership in Iran?

And if we don't change the leadership, um, is anything going to be different, you know, once the bombs start stop dropping?

So, it seems to me like we're on a path to destroying as much of Iran as you can from the air, at least the government and military stuff, but then when it's all done, we won't have anybody on the ground.

I'm positive that there will not be a legitimate organic uh rising up of the population of Iran to take over with a moderate.

I feel like that's a zero chance.

I I just don't see a world in which your nation is being targeted and bombed all day long and you say to yourself, you know what, I think I'll take the side of the people bombing my country.

Even if you like the West and even if you didn't like your Ayatollah, you're still not going to rise up against your own country and take the side of the country that's bombing you.

Has that ever happened in the history of anything?

I don't think so.

So, if we're not going to have soldiers on the ground, which I don't think we will, and there won't be any kind of, you know, organic national uprising, that means that either the Supreme Leader will still be in power when this is over or maybe somebody worse who's just, you know, down the line.

If the if the Supreme Leader gets taken out, he's not going to be replaced by a moderate.

probably replaced by somebody who's the, you know, hardest hard ass they have.

So, what exactly would be the way that we could have any kind of victory here?

It it looks to me like there's only one way this all works out.

If we're not going to put boots in the ground, Iran will still be Iran when we're done.

And then they will start rebuilding their offensive weapons presumably because they think it's their best chance of survival.

So I just don't see a path.

Do you do any of you see like how this could possibly be settled in a way that we would all be happy?

And when I say all, I mean everybody except Iran.

I feel like everybody's going to be unhappy, including Iran.

So, that's what it looks like.

But Starlink is still live in Iran.

Everything's about Elon Musk.

Um, so Iran has turned off its regular internet service, but the people who have Starlink, I don't know how many there are, but they do have full internet thanks to Elon Musk's Starlink company.

Now, that's something that apparently uh Iran can't turn off because they don't have any control over the satellites in the air.

So, that would suggest that at least uh Israel and the US could feed a bunch of propaganda into their population, but there won't be that many people who have a Starlink, right?

And I imagine that if you did have a Starlink and the Iranian authorities found out, wouldn't they arrest you or take your Starlink base platform away?

So, I don't think Starlink will have a gigantic impact on the population of Iran because there can't be that many people have access to it.

And even if they did, as I said before, you're not going to you're not going to convince the population to rise up against their own leader while you're bombing them.

It just isn't a thing.

It just couldn't possibly happen in our world.

Anyway, over on MSNBC, um there was uh some talking head who was arguing that when the the Iranians chant death to America, uh that they don't really mean it.

And his example was that he was at some event where they were chanting death to America and then he introduced himself to some of the locals and the locals said, "Oh, we love America.

We like your movies." and your culture and all that.

And so he concluded that death to America doesn't really mean, you know, death to America.

It's just a thing they say.

To which I say, it doesn't really matter what the public wanted.

It only matters what the leadership means when they say death to America, right?

It doesn't matter how many people repeat it.

They don't have any power.

So what matters is do the top people in Iran, the top military, the top supreme leader, when they say death to America, do they mean death to America or is it just something they say while they're loving Western culture?

Well, no.

The Supreme Leader is not loving Western culture.

So, anything that the population says about how much they love America, which I do believe, you know, all all indications are that the Iranians are at least pro- western culture, if not pro-America.

Um, I don't think it matters.

I think it only matters what the leaders think.

And if they want to destroy America and Israel, well, they'll keep doing it.

Um, the Pentagon, according to Jennifer Griffin, Fox News, the Pentagon is very confident that the bunker buster missiles would work if employed.

And apparently they're GPSG guided.

And if one doesn't get the job done, they can drop a second one in the same hole as the first one, and uh it'll make the hole deeper, and that'll get the job done.

Now, let me ask you this.

When was the last time you saw a very complicated system that had never been tested work on the first try?

Well, maybe the nuclear bombs that we dropped on Japan.

Um, but you could argue that had we tested those, we tested those before we dropped them, right?

Not the ones we dropped, but were did the Manhattan Project test the explosions with other bombs before they went after Japan?

Um, I should know that it it was tested, right?

I feel like we would have tested it, but how in the world have we tested dropping two bombs in the same hole?

Does that sound like something we could, you know, be sure is going to work?

It It would be one thing if we said it'll probably work, so it's worth a try.

But they're not really saying probably, are they?

They're they're the Pentagon is basically saying, "Oh, this will work." Do you believe that?

So, I would say that the the chance that it doesn't work or it doesn't work completely or it doesn't work enough or something goes wrong, they're pretty high.

Pretty high because in the real world when you you haven't tested something that's complicated and it's kind of complicated to fly a bomber all across the ocean and refuel it multiple times.

um drop one bomb and then drop a second one in the same hole while the Iranians are watching.

And I guess they would have no defense against any of that.

Well, let me just say that I don't think it's guaranteed.

I don't know what the odds are, but I would put the odds at maybe 70% that it would work.

What would you do?

Tell me in the comments if you had to guess without knowing anything.

You know, none of us really know anything about this topic.

But knowing that it's complicated and there's technology involved and there's war and when war is involved, nothing goes exactly the way you planned.

What would you guess are the odds it would work?

Uh, I say 100%.

25%.

Well, you're just joking on the 25 99%.

Yeah, we don't know, do we?

It's an unknowable estimate.

I don't think the Pentagon knows.

Uh but they they use words like this that it would definitely work if it were deployed correctly.

Uh do you see what they're doing?

If deployed correctly.

That's the problem.

I I I'm actually confident that they know how to make a bomb that makes a big hole.

That part I believe I believe the bomb will explode.

So I don't really have a lot of doubt about that.

There's I mean there's some uncertainty but very low.

The the uncertainty is whether we implement it correctly.

So So they've got that little uh that little catch in there.

Oh yeah, this is it's 100% gonna work if deployed correctly.

Wouldn't that be everything?

Everything works if deployed correctly.

It's sort of like saying nothing.

Anyway, according to the uh Wall Street Journal, uh Israel is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a day supporting this war, which would explain why they wanted it to end in two weeks.

But do you remember one of my predictions that it would not end in two weeks?

Now Trump has said he needs two weeks from now to make a decision because the Europeans are meeting to allegedly talk about uh what can be done with Iran.

So it doesn't look like Iran wants to talk to the United States or to Israel directly, but they might talk to the Europeans because the Europeans have not been as you know bellose as US and Israel.

So, let's say they talk to the Europeans and that that takes two weeks before Trump decides whether he wants to get militarily aggressive on the side of offense.

And so, we're already at three weeks, right?

So, minimum would be three weeks.

And remember, two weeks is just to make a decision.

if he makes a decision, how much longer will it take for the, you know, additional military force to make a difference?

So, how do you like my prediction now where Israel said we'll be done in two weeks?

And I said, I think probably months.

I think we're up to at least a month already, no matter what.

And I don't think we're done extending that.

I've got a feeling it's going to be multiple months.

And whatever Israel thought they were going to spend, um, they're going to spend a lot more.

So, it's going to be billions.

And, uh, Israel might, uh, I don't know, they might bankrupt themselves on this war.

So, I guess the interceptor missiles are a major expense according to the Wall Street Journal.

So the interceptor missiles cost up to $200 million a day and then the building repairs because Iran is knocking down buildings in Israel um are estimated at 400 million.

So that's that's the kind of expense that Israel is looking at to keep doing what they're doing.

And keep in mind that they could do it, they could do this forever and they still wouldn't get the result that they need without boots on the ground and there won't be boots on the ground.

So they're not only spending hundreds of millions of dollars a day, but it's in an effort that even on paper it's hard to imagine how it would work, right?

Because even if the leadership collapses, there's just going to be some new mulla doesn't mean it's going to be better and we're not going to be on the ground.

So I think Iran wins just by not losing.

Um if Iran just has to exist in two months and it's going to look like they won um in a weird way.

I mean, they'll be in terrible shape, but they would be able to rebuild and the fighting would be over and then presumably they would rebuild some offensive capabilities.

Anyway, so Trump is still acting like negotiations are still possible.

Um, but it's up to the Europeans at this point.

Uh however, some people are saying that Trump isn't so much expecting the U negotiations to work.

He is really just buying time for the US to move more assets into the theater as they say.

Does that sound right?

It might be both.

So Trump might be thinking, well, you know, there's some possibility the negotiations will work, so might as well give it a few weeks.

At the same time, he might be thinking, well, you know, if I had another week or two, we could get a few more, I don't know, uh, naval ships in the area or some more some more, uh, ammunition or something.

So, probably waiting makes sense.

But also it could be that Israel is planning a ground attack on Ford, which is the place that we're looking at, you know, as bunker busters.

So maybe if you wait two weeks, we will know if Israel can get in the front door of these uh underground bunkers if they have boots on the ground limited.

It'd be like special forces.

um and just to do that one job and then presumably go home as soon as they're done.

So, so the we've got at least uh two or three things that might be happening in two weeks.

Uh more assets getting into the war zone for the US.

uh Israel potentially making their own ground attack on Fordo and the other one and uh maybe negotiations that that might lead to something.

So that's probably all happening.

Um New York Post has a story about how all the uh once devoted Iranian proxies, as they call them, um are all out of the fight.

So, are you surprised that the uh Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis and the Shiite militia um are sort of sitting this one out?

Um it does it does suggest that Israel did a heck of a good job in suppressing them and I guess the US did a good job with the hoodies.

Uh and maybe they just don't have the assets.

maybe they just don't have the uh possibility of helping much, so they're just going to try to sit it out and survive.

But I would say the same thing about the proxies that I'm saying about Iran.

For them to win, they only have to survive.

Because even though Hezbollah is acting like, you know, they don't want to attack Israel, they can change their mind, you know, once they built up more resources.

But it does look like Iran is going to be sucking for money.

and I don't think they're going to have much money for their uh for their proxies.

So, making Iran run out of money might be the the only way you can keep them weak enough to not be uh to not be a risk.

Now, um if anybody is new to my podcast, I remind you that what I'm talking about is predictions and observations.

So, I'm not taking sides and I'm not making moral or ethical judgments and I certainly don't know, you know, the the military ins and outs, but just uh just looking at it as an observer trying to figure out, all right, what's going on here?

You know, what do we expect?

All right, another topic over on Politico.

Um, there are unnamed uh Democrat people who were criticizing their own team and uh they're calling their the DNC chairman Ken Martin uh weak, whiny, and invisible.

That does sound exactly like what we're saying.

Uh that Ken Martin guy, he does seem weak, whiny, and invisible.

and he's had quite a bit of drama.

But uh here here's another quote from the same article.

Uh many DNC members and outside Democrats, including Martin supporters, said they wish the party would just move on from recent internal turmoil and focus instead on mounting an effective fight against Trump.

An effective fight against Trump?

You mean fighting the 80% of the country who agrees with them?

How much of a loser strategy could you possibly have?

I mean, just think about that.

The the Democrats are just, you know, decomposing and falling apart and, you know, they've got all kinds of turmoil.

They don't have a leader.

They got all these problems.

And then when you ask the the brightest, most informed, you know, most involved Democrats, what do we need to do?

You know, the Democrats, what do they need to do?

The answer is they need to mount a more effective fight against Trump.

Trump got elected because people wanted more of his stuff.

that when they say they want to fight Trump and they don't say, you know, we want to help the country or help the working class or any of that, they're sort of admitting that they've got nothing.

Fighting Trump is not exactly what anybody needs.

Even if you thought he was wrong, you would still say, "Well, you know, we'd rather do this plan instead of that plan." It's unbelievable that they can't get off the fighting Trump thing.

That's pure TDS.

So, it seems that TDS doesn't just infect individuals.

It seems it's infected the entire Democrat party because as a party, the way they talk is they've got to defeat Trump.

That's just TDS.

That's not even politics.

But um and even Randy Weingarden who was a member of the U DNC, she was on some board.

She recently quit.

And when I asked why, she said uh um she wants the Democratic Party to work for working families.

And she said that's what FDR did.

That's what Joe Biden did.

And that's what we should expect from the party.

So even Randy Weine Garden, the head of the biggest teachers union, um, and you know, one of the biggest Democrat supporters is completely aware that the party is not even focusing on the main people that they would need to focus on to get back in power, the working class.

And uh then James Carville who remains entertaining but he is one of the only Democrats who understands what's going on.

I have to say as entertaining as he is and provocative as he is he at least understands what's going on.

And he says that uh he said quote among other things.

He was on a podcast.

He said, "Let's face it.

Uh, Democrats acted like these people didn't exist." He's talking about the working class.

They just did.

And, uh, and, uh, don't come back and say, um, oh, he says, "We acted like workingass, particularly workingass non-ol whites, were not part of our too cool for school group." And Carville says there were some real high-end people that kind of bought into that shite.

So, is he right?

I think so, because I do not remember the Democrats really doing anything that would address the working class, but Trump continually did.

He was talking about bringing back manufacturing and, you know, lowering their taxes and stuff.

you know, even if you don't believe he would do those things, at least he was focusing on it and and the working class responded.

You know, they they moved to him because he was saying the things they wanted him to say.

Um, meanwhile, the uh over on MSNBC was the chief strategist for Mitt Romney.

The chief strategist for Mitt Romney.

Now, that should be a disqualifying job.

Like, like, who are we going to get to put on TV?

How about the chief strategist for Mitt Romney?

That's that's not much of a resume right there.

Anyway, his name is Steuart Stevens.

He was on MSNBC.

And he said, among other things, that Trump is the most dangerous president since the Civil War.

Huh.

the most dangerous president since the Civil War.

Uh is is Steuart Stevens saying that slavery was good sort of indirectly?

Like why would you why would you make the cut off the Civil War?

Because the Civil War seems like that was when Abe Lincoln was trying to end slavery.

So, was Abe Lincoln the most dangerous president who wasn't Trump?

Why in the world would that be your where you'd put your stick in his hand and say, "Oh, Trump is the most dangerous since the Civil War." That's uh that's a little weird and crazy.

So, I don't think he's in favor of slavery, but his quote makes it sound like he is.

And I guess that's what it takes to become a chief strategist for Mitt Romney.

Good job.

Anyway, um so here's the here's the uh summary of what uh Trump is doing author author authoritarian wise.

All right.

So, every day Trump wakes up, at least lately, and he tries to figure out how to minimize the authoritarian regime in in Iran and maybe the authoritarian regime in in Russia uh or at least figure out how to deal with them.

And while Trump is trying to reduce the impact of authoritarian regimes, the Democrats have decided that Trump himself is the authoritarian regime.

Now, how in the world did we get to this place where where there's a whole bunch of TDS people who have decided that for all kinds of invisible reasons, Trump is an authoritarian.

And if you ask somebody in the street, well, what did he do that was so authoritarian?

Well, he's shipping back the people who are in this country illegally.

You mean he's following the existing law, but he's doing far less of it than Obama did?

So that that's the authoritarian thing he's doing?

Yes.

What else?

Well, he's doing a bunch of executive orders.

Okay.

Didn't every president do executive orders?

Yes, but he's doing more of them.

Okay.

How many of those executive orders are things that the public by a majority doesn't want?

And the answer is uh okay.

Almost everything he does by executive order is something that a majority of the public wants.

Is that authoritarian?

or is that just giving the public what they want, what they're asking for?

And then some of the executive orders might be reaching too far and you know things that a president shouldn't be doing and then they go to court and then the court decides whether he can do it and then he obeys the court.

Are there a bunch of examples where Trump is not obeying the court?

The only one I could think of is sort of a gray area that had to do with that Maryland dad who was uh who was shipped off to the uh El Salvador jail and even he got shipped back.

Now you might not like how that process worked and I can understand that.

But is that it?

the the Maryland dad, the MS-313 accused MS-13 guy.

That's the one authoritarian thing he's doing.

That's it.

Um, yeah.

So, it's a it's a weird argument that he's authoritarian.

I like Trump's response to that where he points out how difficult it is for him as president to get anything done because he's got he's got resistance in his own party.

Um right now the MAGA people are divided on what to do about Iran.

So that's a limitation.

Um and then he's got of course the Democrats are lawfaring him on every single thing.

and uh Congress is useless.

He can't really get them to vote for anything.

So his argument that uh if he were a king, he could get things done, but it's just hard to get anything done in America, it's a pretty good argument.

Pretty good.

So, the Democrats have tied themselves into thinking that Trump's entire day of fighting authoritarian regimes such as Iran are are not really anything.

And the real problem is his own authoritarian ways that they can't quite come up with examples of.

Um Netanyahu talking about uh Iran said that the the Iranian regime may fall, but that's for Iranians to decide.

Now that's of course what you want to say in public.

He says the primary goal of the war is to remove the nuclear threat.

Secondly, to remove the ballistic missile threats.

And he said clearly the regime will be destabilized in the process, but it's up to the it's up to the public in Iran whether they want to change things.

Um, I don't think they will.

I I'm not seeing any I'm not seeing anything that would suggest that Iran is going to change its uh government.

So, so I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

Well, General Flynn was on a podcast in which he uh he doesn't think this is the time for Trump to attack.

Um, which is notable because, you know, he's a general and he knows what he's talking about.

But he was on Benny Johnson's podcast and uh he said, General Flynn said, "No, do not do it, Mr.

president.

Right now is not the time.

Now he's talking about using the bunker busters.

He says, "Don't lose focus of why you were elected.

You have options." And uh as General Flynn points out that it's a good strategy to have the most options you you could have until the last minute.

Now, that's a really good summary.

And it also explains Trump's strategy pretty well.

He wants the most options for the longest period of time.

The most options for the longest period of time.

And that's what the twoe delay gives them.

The twoe delay creates an option that maybe Europe will will come up with a deal that the US couldn't come up with.

Maybe the uh Israeli forces could do something on the ground to get into those uh underground bases.

So your options will and then of course he's moving more assets into the area that increases options.

So Trump is very much following this plan of keeping the most options open until the last minute.

So hearing hearing that summarized by uh General Flynn is kind of kind of good for my confidence.

So we'll see.

Um, in other news, I saw a post by Marina Medvin and some other people are talking about this that apparently there's a writer for the Washington Post who once worked for Al Jazer um who's posting the exact coordinates of successful Iranian missile strikes in Israel.

Um, and the problem with that is that if the Iranians are trying to, you know, tune their tune their missiles to be more accurate, that one of the things they would want to know is the exact place that the existing missiles hit.

So why would the Washington Post feel it necessary to print the I guess the GPS coordinates?

It's not like if you It's not as if when you read the newspaper, the Washington Post, it's not like you're gonna say, "Oh, uhhuh.

Uhhuh.

I see the GPS coordinates.

Now I know more." That would have no value to a consumer of the Washington Post.

It would only It would only have value to the people who are firing the missiles so they can know how accurate they are and adjust accordingly.

Now that's one point of view.

I think uh Bill Aman has is asking the same questions like why are you doing that?

Is there a reason?

Cuz if you don't have a reason for printing the exact GPS coordinates of the missile landings, why are you doing it?

Um, now others have said, pushing back on that point of view, that the Iranians have satellite imagery and they can tell what they hit so that it's not actually news to them.

But I would ask, well, if it doesn't help the reader of the Washington Post, because it's not like you and I are going to look at GPS coordinates and go, "Ah, okay.

Yeah, it's a 53424." Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what I thought.

So there's no value to the reader and if it were true there's no value to the Iranian regime firing the rockets, why would you do it?

So it's sort of an open question.

So my guess is that Iran might not have the, you know, the ideal satellite view of the battlefield.

So, I don't know why assets they have, but there's got to be some reason that that that those are included in the Washington Post.

Um, so, uh, former Vice President Mike Pence is speaking up about the, uh, uh, existential identity crisis that the Trump supporters and the the, uh, political right is going through.

Now, how many of you think that there's some kind of permanent um Trump supporter split that's happening that will somehow, you know, splinter the party and make everything not work?

I don't see that happening because my take on the Republicans is that they like winning and that Trump likes winning.

So if Trump figures out a way to Kobayashi Marua's situation, which is Star Trek reference to coming up with a uh nonobvious solution to a problem that other people can't figure out how to solve.

If Trump somehow solves this, maybe by the Europeans coming up with some kind of agreement for, you know, rigorous inspections of Iran's uh enrichment or something.

If he manages to solve this, will there be any further problems with his coalition?

No.

It will be one more thing that they all come together on.

It's like, oh, okay.

I have to admit I didn't see that solution coming, but look what you did.

You did it again.

So, if it works, there will be no division.

People will just say, "Damn it, he's good.

I I'm glad I voted for him.

I did not see that solution coming, but he made it work." That might happen.

The other possibility is that everything will go to hell.

um in which case it's not like he's running for office again.

So if everything goes to hell then all bets are off.

But I don't think that's so much a, you know, existential identity crisis.

I think it's just winning is unifying and losing is disunifying.

Because if you look at the Democrats, their problem is not that they disagree on strategy.

their problem is they lost.

So losing just drives you apart and winning drives you together.

So when you're watching, you know, what will happen with Trump's supporters, uh I think Trump had the right take on that, which is he said his supporters will support his his judgment basically.

And you are seeing a number of people say um we have to trust Trump.

he knows more about this situation than we do.

Obviously, he would have, you know, all the confidential information and stuff.

So, I am I am I think buying into the notion that if Trump did something that I wouldn't do, it doesn't mean that I'm the one who is right.

Does anyone else have that feeling?

that if Trump did something that you wouldn't do and you don't know why it makes sense that you would give him a little bit of a break and say, "All right, he might know more than I do.

He might be good at this.

He he might be, you know, sewing some uncertainty intentionally." Um, so I do like the fact that Trump has created a situation where people who disagree with him on the right are still willing to say, you know what, that's not what I would have done, but I'm going to watch and see how this plays out.

That's a really good place to be, by the way.

that that that's sort of the ultimate place to be because you're not going to have a situation where everybody agrees what's the best thing to do.

That's just it's just not possible.

So what would be the best in a human situation that you could do?

The best would be if people say, you know, I wouldn't have done that, but I'm going to let this play out because he's smarter than smarter than I am.

And I think that's true.

for for a lot of us.

He's smarter than we are.

Um anyway, uh let's see if you can guess this number.

According to uh Secretary Gnome, 75% of illegal aliens arrested under Trump um had committed some kind of a crime uh had been convicted of a crime.

Now, if you're an NPC, this is where you would say, "Scott, Scott, because that's how NPCs talk.

They don't talk like regular.

They go, "Scott, Scott." They They all are criminals because they came into the country illegally.

They're all criminals.

Scott, Scott, Scott.

So, if you're an NPC, I'll give you a few minutes to say to say the most obvious thing you could say, which is whenever we talk about criminal non-citizens, you feel is necessary to remind us as if we didn't know that coming into the country is itself illegal.

So, get it out of your system.

I know some of you need to do it.

So, just put it in the comments.

Scott, Scott, they're all criminals.

They're all criminals.

I get it.

I get it.

Anyway, 25% uh apparently do not fit the category of uh the worst first.

So, they had not been convicted of crimes.

Now, I don't know if um committed or convicted of crimes is the right standard because there you go.

All caps, Scott.

They are all illegal there.

The NPCs are weighing in on the comments now.

Good for you.

Good for you, NPCs.

But I would point out the following.

It's possible that the the 25% who were not convicted of a crime, um, you know, may be all tatted up.

They might be associating with MS-13.

We might know that they're part of a gang, but they haven't been convicted of it.

So, I don't know if the 25% are all, you know, your gardener and your, you know, your your hardworking uh meatacking employee.

I I don't know if it's that, but I will say that the the one thing that the Israel Iran war is uh affecting is it's taking our attention away from other stuff.

So the Democrats who probably would love to spend more time talking about the innocent, you know, good citizens who are not technically legal residents of the country, you know, how they're being abused by the the Trump immigration program.

But doesn't it feel like it doesn't matter as much?

It matters as much as it ever did.

But in in our minds because this other thing seems bigger, you know, like we might get nuked at some point.

It just seems so much bigger.

We might put boots on the ground and yet another pointless war in the Middle East.

It's just so much bigger that the whole immigration thing.

Um I think uh Trump's, you know, border people are going to get a little bit of a break because the news just isn't going to put much attention on it and what people care about is what they say in the news.

If it's not in the news, people will stop protesting.

So, um, all the shelf space of the news is getting used up.

In other news, Fox Business is reporting that, uh, Republican Josh Holly is pushing to raise the minimum wage in those states where it's not already raised.

So, the current federal minimum wage is $7.25.

He wants that to go to $15 per hour.

And Republicans typically have not been all uh pro raising the uh minimum wage, but Josh Holly would be, you know, one of the best supporters of President Trump.

Um he's about as Republican as you could possibly get and he's the one he's the one pushing it.

So, I guess uh Trump's response when asked about it because, you know, this is obviously not typical Republican stuff, but it's coming from a real Republican, you know, pro- MAGA kind of a guy.

Um, Trump says, "I haven't seen it.

I'd have to speak to Josh.

He's a very good friend of mine," Trump said.

And, uh, that's interesting that Josh did that.

You have to think about that one.

So, how about that?

How would you like to be so credible that when uh the president hears that you have an idea that probably his first reflex would be to be against, instead of just reflexively saying, "I don't like that idea," he says, "Uh, that's interesting that Josh did that.

You have to think about that one." Now, that's credibility right there.

That's I if you want to if you ever want to be credible, you want to get to the point where somebody who's reflexed to disagree with you is completely deactivated because you as an individual are so credible.

That's that's what's happening here.

So, this is another example of, you know, when you think the mega coalition is is falling apart.

I think Republicans are way more uh accepting of of alternate alternative opinions.

And this is a good example.

As long as the person is credible and you know that they have the best interest in the country in mind, then you're willing to listen to it.

So that sounds like what Trump is.

He's just willing to listen to the argument.

Good answer.

All right.

According to MIT, uh they've they found the AI can rewrite its own code and that's changing everything.

Now, this is in Geeky Gadgets.

Uh Julian Horsey is writing about this.

So, it's what they call it the SEAL framework, self- adapting language models.

So what they're doing is that the the AI will sort of imagine different scenarios that aren't real and that they would call that synthetic training data and then it would uh self-edit and update its internal parameters based on the synthetic training data.

Now what would be another name for synthetic training data?

Well, it would be imagination.

It would be imagination because it's not based on reality, but you perceive it as if it's reality, but you know it's not.

And I would only add, I think that's how humans work.

When you're thinking about doing something that you know is not routine, don't you imagine all of the outcomes?

And when you're imagining all the different outcomes, is that not you using your human brain for what the AI would call synthetic training data?

I do.

I mean, is your brain different than mine?

If if I'm considering any kind of big move or anything important, I imagine it going right.

I imagine it going wrong.

and I imagine all the other possibilities and each of them are not real.

They're synthetic synthetic training data from my own brain.

And then once I've seen a bunch of synthetic imaginary possibilities, uh, that retrains my brain for whichever one of those I think is the most likely or the, you know, the favored one or whichever one scares me the most, I want to avoid the most, etc.

But I feel like this is a a perfect uh a perfect description of what a human brain does.

It imagines synthetic data and then it rewrites it rewrites your own brain based on your imagination.

That's what TDS is.

TDS is people imagining this, you know, authoritarian king and then they rewrite their brains.

in this case into mental illness.

So, it's not always good.

You know, AI might have the same problems.

Um, but it seems to me that imagination, if it if it works correctly, it helps you make a better decision.

But if your imagination is flawed, as it is with the authoritarian Trump stuff, he's going to be your king.

If your imagination is flawed, uh, which you might call your synthetic training data, then you're going to have mental illness.

So I predict that AI will have mental illness.

So that's my prediction, mental illness.

And furthermore, that the only way to fix the mental illness if it gives it to itself by creating synthetic training data and then convincing itself that it's true or acting as though the this is reality that you're going to need something like an AI therapist that you would have to there would have to be a separate AI that would work with your AI to help it with its mental problems because it's imagining ing that a king is going to take over or it's imagining that you know executive orders are authoritarian or something.

So that's coming.

Um according to Breitbart, Bob Price is writing about a sophisticated crossborder tunnel uh that's been found that links San Diego to Tijuana.

Apparently, it's just this massive tunnel they found.

Which which makes me ask the following questions.

Um, has not the Trump administration been bragging about zero people getting across the border or zero people released.

I forget what the exact phrase is, but how would we know how many people are coming through tunnels that we haven't found?

Would we know?

Um, now they were thinking they're thinking that this tunnel is for moving drugs because it had like a a railroad component to it.

So, it looked like it was for moving large weights.

But if it were moving people, would we even know?

I don't know.

Cuz we we didn't know about this tunnel until recently.

So, I don't know if it was functioning actually.

But uh how many tunnels are there?

There must be a lot of them.

There's got to be at least one tunnel for every cartel.

Well, wired wired uh publication and Reese Rogers is talking about Amazon is um upgrading their ALexa.

I won't say it out loud because it'll activate your devices at home.

But uh the thing that Amazon has that you talk to um is using a quote staggering amount of AI tools to rewrite it.

So here's the advantage of being a slow follower of a trend.

If if Amazon had been a fast follower or tried to be like the leading edge of AI, they would have had, you know, whatever tools you have when you first start, which would not be that great.

But because it seems like they waited too long, it feels like they're at least a year behind AI.

um they get the advantage of using all the AI tools to build their AI.

So apparently they've done a massive amount of coding using AI to do the coding in the process of building their own AI that will drive their ALexa.

So I guess that's being rolled out to some specific power users, but we'll see it pretty soon.

Uh I just was uh impressed by the fact that when you start makes such a difference you know being first like IBM was the first with uh you know Windows computers but they didn't last.

So being a uh a follower who jumps in like right at the right time when all the tools are there and you know you really know what you can and cannot do.

Pretty good approach.

Jeff Bezos team doing it again.

Well, the BBC is reporting that the uh founder and boss of the Telegram app, it's a messaging app, uh plans to leave his multi-billion dollar fortune to over a hundred children he fathered.

A hundred.

Now, he didn't do it the Elon Musk way.

He only had um I guess six children, you know, the sort of normal way that people have children and all the rest of his hundredish children were because he had donated to a sperm bank.

So he plans to leave his money to children he's never met that he was the sperm donor for.

Now, if you've ever seen this guy, he's first of all a genius and second of all really good-look.

So, you can really imagine why he would been selected a lot to be the uh the sperm donor.

But, uh I love how billionaires reproduce.

Um I have to admit that there's something about this makes sense.

Now, I guess he's not going to leave he's not going to leave them the money right away.

There's something like a 30-year delay between, you know, when he makes the money available and and when he dies.

So, he wants to make sure that they can, you know, make a life for themselves before they get any of his money.

But, uh, yeah, he's the official father of over a 100 babies, uh, conceived in over 12 countries.

Wouldn't that be wild to have a hundred babies?

There's a uh friend of mine who uh in her adult life learned that she was a um basically a sperm donor baby and then at the same time learned that she had uh dozens I think dozens of half siblings and they started fighting each other.

How wild would that be to be an adult?

Like you're in the middle of your life and you learn that you have a like dozens of half siblings and you start meeting each other.

That would be so wild.

Anyway, according to the Ohio State University, most women want children, but half are unsure if they will.

Well, you know how I could make sure that they uh have children?

they they should use that billionaire sperm donor and try to get in on that on the uh inheritance.

That might help.

Um so apparently a lot of people have the intention to have a baby but uh they don't necessarily think that it would make a difference that their happiness wouldn't necessarily be worse or better if they had a baby or not.

So clearly, unless we plan to reproduce with robots alone, which maybe we will, you never know.

Um we're going to have to completely reconfigure society so that having babies makes sense again.

And the only way I can think of that is if people who want to have babies um find living conditions that are ideal for having a baby.

And I would argue that if you're in an inner city, not not a great place to have a baby.

But if you're also in a very rural area, again, maybe not the best place to have a baby.

Um, so I'm going to give you my idea that you're going to fight against if you're an NPC and you're going to say no small houses.

Even though this has nothing to do with tiny homes, you'll say it anyway because that's what NPCs say.

I believe that we need to develop a cities that are optimized for having babies.

And all that would mean is that you had little neighborhood areas where people who are having babies around the same time are living so that there's always somebody who can watch your kid.

Um, I think I've told you this before, but in my first marriage, there was this extremely lucky situation where the two stepkids were exactly the same gender and same age as I think four different couples that we knew really well.

So on any given weekend, um, the kids would have a sleepover at the house of somebody that you knew really well.

So you trusted them and the kids would be delighted and then the parents could have a date night if they wanted and you wouldn't worry too much cuz you were you were such a tight group of people and the ages and the genders were perfect.

So that you know both the boy and the girl had somebody their age in this other house.

Um and that was amazing.

It it was it just made life so much easier um in so many ways.

Now add to that if it were walking distance to those houses cuz it wasn't in our case but they were you know in town.

They weren't that far away.

So, imagine then imagine uh adding the Tesla auto cab and imagine that you've got one that's so safe that you could send a a smallalish kid, you know, not too small, but 12 years old, let's say, um to their friend's house without having to leave your house.

Now imagine that you had um essentially free or lowcost child watching stuff while you're working.

You know, if you designed your if you designed your town so it was optimized so the kids had friends and you had people to help you do things when you needed a little help.

It would be great to have kids.

you would have you'd have uh parties all the time and you know there'd be fun sleepovers and you know it would be wonderful.

It's just that if you're if you don't have a let's say grandparents around to watch your kids, it's really hard for two people to have a job, which we tend to need these days.

Two people to have a job and also raising kids.

It's almost I mean it's so expensive and it's just so hard that you can imagine why people don't do it.

But you could design around that.

You could engineer a living space that you don't have to live in.

So the NPCs could say you can't make me live in that 15-minute city.

No, it's not a 15minute city.

All it is is a great place to raise a kid.

That's it.

That's all it is.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I got for you today.

Uh, hope you have a great weekend.

I'm going to say a few words privately to the locals people, my beloved locals people, and the rest of you.

Hope to see you next week.

Well, not next week.

We'll see you tomorrow.

Same time, same place.

Yes, it's all working.

Let me check your stocks.

A little bit up. Let's see what Tesla's

doing.

Tesla is a little bit up. All right.

And looks like we're we're going to have

a good weekend.

That's my prediction.

Let's get our comments working here.

There. There we go.

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All right, Paul. I see the real the real

one.

Don't try that fake one with me again.

All right. What's going on? I find that

um the first part of the news is always

something about Elon Musk.

Is there even one day that guy can go

without making news?

It's impossible.

But apparently on Sunday, this Sunday in

Austin, Texas,

um will be the launch of the Tesla robo

taxi. So, the no driver um self-driving

taxi in Austin and I saw a picture of

somebody in one and they were sitting in

the front.

Would you sit in the front of a robo

taxi in the front seat

or would you sit in the back in case

something goes wrong? I feel like I feel

like I would sit in the back seat if

that's an option. I assume it is.

Wouldn't you, you know, just a little

bit safer,

at least for a while? Now, I I get that

the self-driving robo taxis will be

safer than a human-driven automobile,

but even with a human, I don't feel

comfortable in the in the passenger side

of the front seat. I always think, can I

trust this human?

So, I'd probably send him back.

Well, according to uh the ex CEO,

which is not someone who used to be a

CEO, but rather the CEO of the company

called X. Um,

so Linda is saying that uh users will

soon be able to trade stocks on X and

make investments and send tips and split

bills and maybe even buy merch. Uh, all

without leaving the app. And they're

going to call it X Money. So it'll be a

peer-to-peer payment system. Now here's

the fun part.

If X becomes the everything account,

isn't X an internet within the internet?

Because I asked myself, what do I do all

day on the internet that I could not do

completely within X? I use AI. All

right. Well, that's built into X. I look

at the news,

but all the links and the analysis are

on X.

So, the only other thing I do is

investments and send money digitally.

That's the only other stuff I do. So, if

I could do all of that on X,

I would be within a internet

that was within an internet.

And do you know how much power that

would give Elon Musk if if he had an

internet within the internet and you

never left it?

You would be in the bubble of all

bubbles.

Now I get, you know, I get that uh X has

different points of view, but I don't

really see them.

Do you?

I I could spend the entire day on X and

never see a competing point of view. All

I would see is the people that I most

like to see. The the only times I see

competing points of view is when they're

being mocked by people I agree with. So

when I see a clip on MSNBC,

it's never to agree with it. It's always

to laugh at it. If I see a clip of the

view,

it's always just a laugh at it. So the

the bubble of all bubbles is forming.

I don't know if I'm against it or for

it, but it's it's a complete

transformation

of the internet experience if you never

leave that one app. And I probably

wouldn't. I' I'd probably be on it all

day

anyway.

Um, and then, uh, Elon Musk's AI

company,

which I assume will be folded into X

into Grock. I don't know how that works,

but apparently uh, Elon Musk is now

launching the biggest supercomputer in

the world. Uh, the largest supercomput

has many GPUs. You don't need to know

the details, but the biggest one in the

world is uh, Elon Musk's. So

if you if you used AI for all of your

work

and Elon Musk had the largest

supercomputer driving the best AI,

would you ever leave?

I don't know. It's looking to me like um

Elon Musk's strategy

for X and for everything else is kind of

amazing.

It's like a strategy I've never seen

before that basically would take over

everything from the news to finance to

banking. Um, and probably probably it

would work.

So that's big.

Speaking of Elon Musk, he points out

that the solar power generation in China

will exceed all sources of electricity

combined in the USA in only 3 to four

years, which he calls a wakeup call. So,

do you remember when people mocked uh

Elon Musk for saying that we could get

all of our energy from solar? we would

need batteries, of course, but we have

batteries. Um,

he he was never really in the majority

on that. I always felt like he was in

the minority and everyone who thought

they knew about energy would say over

and over, "Well, you're never going to

get there with solar power alone." I

mean, that's that's ridiculous. you're

going to need nuclear and you're going

to need oil and gas and all that. And in

the short run, certainly that's all

true. But is it hypothetically possible,

as Musk has been saying for years, that

if you wanted to and you went hard at

it, you could have all the energy needed

from solar.

And it's starting to look like he was

right about that. Looks like he got the

math right. If you were doubting Elon

Musk on math and engineering,

well, he made a bad bet.

I have to admit I was skeptical because

it looked more like he was just

promoting his own products,

but I think he's also accurate that you

could get all of your electricity from

solar if you went wild, you know, really

went at it hard like China.

Um, the appeals court, an appeals court

is going to let Trump keep control of

the California National Guard. Now, if

you haven't been following this,

um, how many times have you heard that

an appeals court altered an order from a

lower court about something about Trump?

How many times have we seen that story

in in just this calendar year? maybe

25 times about different stories. I

don't know how many times, but it feels

like a lot.

But the latest one is, let's see, um, so

Trump took control of the National Guard

in California when those anti-ICE

protests were happening. And then,

uh, California appealed and said, "You

can't do that. You don't have the right

to do that because there are only

certain circumstances in which the

commander-in-chief can take control and

those certain circumstances have not

been met. And the lower court agreed and

so for a while Gavin Newsome had control

back of the National Guard. But now the

appeals court has uh decided that the

commander-in-chief should have

flexibility

and you don't want to handicap them and

you don't want to put the state in

charge of the protecting the whole

country. So the the appeals court says

that Trump can keep control of the

National Guard in California.

But um does it matter?

Are we still having protests, anti-CE

protests in LA, or did they all stop?

Because I didn't see anything in the

news today about any protests. So, I

think the appeals court has ruled on

something that has no

no importance and no bearing on anything

because it's already old news.

Anyway,

speaking of complicated things, uh Russ

Vote,

the uh budget

budget guy for the administration,

uh according to Politico, he's got this

uh clever idea for cutting costs in the

government that not everybody thinks is

legal. And he calls it a pocket

recession.

So, as you know, the budget process in

the government is this weird convoluted

Byzantine process that nobody

understands. Sometimes it's a budget,

sometimes it's a spending bill, and

sometimes it's a recession,

and we don't even know what any of that

means.

But there's a idea that uh Trump could

issue a formal request to claw back

funding. Now, this is in Politico. And

so, if Trump said, um, I I've got a

formal request to, you know, end funding

for some specific things, similar to

what he did before with a $9.4 billion

package he sent to lawmakers that, uh,

what you could do is have it sit there.

Uh the memo could land on Capitol Hill

less than 45 days before the new fiscal

year is set to begin in October 1st. And

then by withholding the cash, see if see

if he can follow all this.

By withholding the cash for that full uh

time frame, uh regardless of the action

by Congress, the White House would treat

the funding as expired when the current

fiscal year ends.

So something about a formal request to

claw back funding, but you don't really

mean it. You just want the request to

sit there and time out and then somehow

it times out and then you don't have to

spend it.

Does that even sound like a real process

to you?

I I may be getting some part of that

wrong,

but it's it's so frustrating that our

government doesn't have a process that

the that the voters even understand.

It's like, why don't you do your budget

like everybody else does where you say,

"This is how much I want to spend. Does

everybody agree?" And then you vote on

it. No. No. We've got to have recision

packages and spending packages. We've

got to have

pocket recisions.

Yeah. So, we'll see if that works.

Anyway, um I saw one report today on X

that uh there's a senior Iranian

official who told Reuters that Iran is

ready to discuss uh limitations on its

uranium enrichment.

To which I say, one guy?

There's one guy who said that?

What good is that? If it wasn't the

Supreme Leader, do we trust this one guy

who allegedly told Reuters, "Oh yeah,

we're totally totally open to discussing

our uranium enrichment."

Well, at the same time, also an ex

I think Zero Edge was reporting this,

uh, another senior Iranian official who

is different from the last one,

um, said zero enrichment will

undoubtedly be rejected, especially now

because of the Israeli strikes. So, you

got one Iranian official who says, "Oh,

yeah, we'll totally discuss that." and

another one who says, "Oh, no. We're not

even going to be open to that." But it

could be that one of them is talking

about zero enrichment and the other one

is talking about limitations on

enrichment.

So, you don't really need to get to

zero, do you? Um, could you make a deal

where it's just low enrichment levels

are allowed as long as there's lots of

inspections?

So maybe there's some room to deal with

that.

According to uh NBC,

Iran has unleashed what they call combat

drones inside Israel for the first time.

Now combat drone,

what would be a combat drone versus a

drone?

I don't know exactly, but I think a

drone would be like a smart rocket, but

not very fast.

and it would uh plunge into something

and explode. Whereas, I'm guessing these

combat drones are more like an unmanned

jet that has a number of weapons and it

can go in and fire a bunch of things and

then return home and get some more

ordinance. I like saying ordinance.

Makes me sound like I know what I'm

talking about.

Anyway, the Revolutionary Guard has

announced that uh its drones have

penetrated Israeli airspace and it's

they're hitting infrastructure using

missiles and airdrop bombs.

So that's what it sounds like, a

pilotless aircraft.

Um,

meanwhile on X and other places, I keep

seeing these estimates of how many

missiles Iran had and how many they've

used and how many guys shot down.

And for about five minutes, I said to

myself, "Huh, here's some useful data."

I I told myself if I know how many

missiles Iran has and I know how many

they fired and how many they have left

and what percentage of them are getting

through I have a good idea what's going

to happen and my current opinion is it

doesn't matter.

Uh but here's what matters.

Iran is never going to surrender unless

there are boots on the ground. meaning

Israeli and American soldiers on the

ground.

And that's not going to happen. I'm

pretty sure. I mean, it seems deeply

unlikely that Trump would agree to, you

know, soldiers getting killed on the

ground in Iran. And of course, Iran is a

much bigger, harder

land target than Iraq was by by a lot.

So, we don't think it would work.

And if you don't put people on the

ground,

are we really going to change the

leadership in Iran? And if we don't

change the leadership,

um, is anything going to be different,

you know, once the bombs start stop

dropping?

So, it seems to me like we're on a path

to destroying as much of Iran as you can

from the air, at least the government

and military stuff,

but then when it's all done, we won't

have anybody on the ground. I'm positive

that there will not be a legitimate

organic

uh rising up of the population of Iran

to take over with a moderate. I feel

like that's a zero chance. I I just

don't see a world in which your nation

is being targeted and bombed all day

long and you say to yourself, you know

what, I think I'll take the side of the

people bombing my country.

Even if you like the West and even if

you didn't like your Ayatollah, you're

still not going to rise up against your

own country and take the side of the

country that's bombing you.

Has that ever happened in the history of

anything? I don't think so.

So, if we're not going to have soldiers

on the ground, which I don't think we

will, and there won't be any kind of,

you know, organic national uprising,

that means that either the Supreme

Leader will still be in power when this

is over or maybe somebody worse who's

just, you know, down the line. If the if

the Supreme Leader gets taken out, he's

not going to be replaced by a moderate.

probably replaced by somebody who's the,

you know, hardest hard ass they have.

So, what exactly would be the way that

we could have any kind of victory here?

It it looks to me like there's only one

way this all works out. If we're not

going to put boots in the ground, Iran

will still be Iran when we're done. And

then they will start rebuilding their

offensive weapons presumably because

they think it's their best chance of

survival.

So I just don't see a path.

Do you do any of you see like how this

could possibly be settled in a way that

we would all be happy? And when I say

all, I mean everybody except Iran. I

feel like everybody's going to be

unhappy, including Iran.

So, that's what it looks like. But

Starlink is still live in Iran.

Everything's about Elon Musk. Um, so

Iran has turned off its regular internet

service, but the people who have

Starlink,

I don't know how many there are, but

they do have full internet thanks to

Elon Musk's Starlink company. Now,

that's something that apparently uh Iran

can't turn off because they don't have

any control over the satellites in the

air.

So, that would suggest that at least uh

Israel and the US could feed a bunch of

propaganda into their population, but

there won't be that many people who have

a Starlink, right? And I imagine that if

you did have a Starlink and the Iranian

authorities found out, wouldn't they

arrest you or take your Starlink base

platform away? So, I don't think

Starlink will have a gigantic impact on

the population of Iran because there

can't be that many people have access to

it.

And even if they did, as I said before,

you're not going to you're not going to

convince the population to rise up

against their own leader while you're

bombing them. It just isn't a thing. It

just couldn't possibly happen in our

world.

Anyway, over on MSNBC,

um there was uh some talking head who

was arguing that when the the Iranians

chant death to America,

uh that they don't really mean it. And

his example was that he was at some

event where they were chanting death to

America and then he introduced himself

to some of the locals and the locals

said, "Oh, we love America. We like your

movies." and your culture and all that.

And so he concluded

that death to America doesn't really

mean, you know, death to America. It's

just a thing they say.

To which I say, it doesn't really matter

what the public wanted. It only matters

what the leadership means when they say

death to America, right? It doesn't

matter how many people repeat it. They

don't have any power.

So what matters is do the top people in

Iran, the top military, the top supreme

leader, when they say death to America,

do they mean death to America or is it

just something they say while they're

loving Western culture? Well, no. The

Supreme Leader is not loving Western

culture.

So, anything that the population says

about how much they love America, which

I do believe, you know, all all

indications are that the Iranians are at

least pro- western culture, if not

pro-America.

Um, I don't think it matters. I think it

only matters what the leaders think. And

if they want to destroy America and

Israel, well, they'll keep doing it.

Um, the Pentagon, according to Jennifer

Griffin, Fox News, the Pentagon is very

confident that the bunker buster

missiles would work if employed.

And apparently they're GPSG guided.

And if one doesn't get the job done,

they can drop a second one in the same

hole as the first one, and uh it'll make

the hole deeper, and that'll get the job

done.

Now, let me ask you this.

When was the last time you saw a very

complicated system that had never been

tested

work on the first try?

Well, maybe the nuclear bombs that we

dropped on Japan.

Um, but you could argue that

had we tested those, we tested those

before we dropped them, right? Not the

ones we dropped, but were did the

Manhattan Project

test the explosions with other bombs

before they went after Japan?

Um, I should know that it it was tested,

right? I feel like we would have tested

it,

but how in the world have we tested

dropping two bombs in the same hole?

Does that sound like something we could,

you know, be sure is going to work?

It It would be one thing if we said

it'll probably work, so it's worth a

try. But they're not really saying

probably, are they? They're they're the

Pentagon is basically saying, "Oh, this

will work." Do you believe that?

So, I would say that the the chance that

it doesn't work or it doesn't work

completely or it doesn't work enough or

something goes wrong, they're pretty

high. Pretty high because in the real

world when you you haven't tested

something that's complicated and it's

kind of complicated to fly a bomber all

across the ocean and refuel it multiple

times. um drop one bomb and then drop a

second one in the same hole

while the Iranians are watching. And I

guess they would have no defense against

any of that.

Well, let me just say that I don't think

it's guaranteed.

I don't know what the odds are, but I

would put the odds at maybe

70% that it would work.

What would you do? Tell me in the

comments if you had to guess without

knowing anything. You know, none of us

really know anything about this topic.

But knowing that it's complicated and

there's technology involved and there's

war and when war is involved, nothing

goes exactly the way you planned. What

would you guess are the odds it would

work?

Uh, I say 100%. 25%. Well, you're just

joking on the 25 99%. Yeah, we don't

know, do we? It's an unknowable

estimate. I don't think the Pentagon

knows.

Uh but they they use words like this

that it would definitely work if it were

deployed correctly.

Uh do you see what they're doing? If

deployed correctly.

That's the problem.

I I I'm actually confident that they

know how to make a bomb that makes a big

hole. That part I believe I believe the

bomb will explode.

So I don't really have a lot of doubt

about that. There's I mean there's some

uncertainty but very low. The the

uncertainty is whether we implement it

correctly.

So So they've got that little uh that

little catch in there. Oh yeah, this is

it's 100% gonna work if deployed

correctly.

Wouldn't that be everything? Everything

works if deployed correctly.

It's sort of like saying nothing.

Anyway,

according to the uh Wall Street Journal,

uh

Israel is spending hundreds of millions

of dollars a day supporting this war,

which would explain why they wanted it

to end in two weeks.

But do you remember one of my

predictions that it would not end in two

weeks?

Now Trump has said he needs two weeks

from now to make a decision because the

Europeans are meeting to allegedly talk

about uh what can be done with Iran.

So

it doesn't look like Iran wants to talk

to the United States or to Israel

directly, but they might talk to the

Europeans because the Europeans have not

been as you know bellose as US and

Israel.

So, let's say they talk to the Europeans

and that that takes two weeks before

Trump decides whether he wants to get

militarily aggressive on the side of

offense.

And so, we're already at three weeks,

right? So, minimum would be three weeks.

And remember, two weeks is just to make

a decision.

if he makes a decision, how much longer

will it take for the, you know,

additional military force to make a

difference? So, how do you like my

prediction now where Israel said we'll

be done in two weeks? And I said,

I think probably months.

I think we're up to at least a month

already, no matter what.

And I don't think we're done extending

that. I've got a feeling it's going to

be multiple months. And whatever Israel

thought they were going to spend, um,

they're going to spend a lot more. So,

it's going to be billions. And, uh,

Israel might, uh, I don't know, they

might bankrupt themselves on this war.

So, I guess the interceptor missiles are

a major expense according to the Wall

Street Journal.

So the interceptor missiles cost up to

$200 million a day

and then the building repairs because

Iran is knocking down buildings in

Israel um are estimated at 400 million.

So that's that's the kind of expense

that Israel is looking at to keep doing

what they're doing. And keep in mind

that they could do it, they could do

this forever and they still wouldn't get

the result that they need without boots

on the ground and there won't be boots

on the ground.

So they're not only spending hundreds of

millions of dollars a day,

but it's in an effort that even on paper

it's hard to imagine how it would work,

right? Because even if the leadership

collapses, there's just going to be some

new mulla doesn't mean it's going to be

better

and we're not going to be on the ground.

So I think Iran wins just by not losing.

Um if Iran just has to exist in two

months and it's going to look like they

won

um in a weird way. I mean, they'll be in

terrible shape, but they would be able

to rebuild and the fighting would be

over and then presumably they would

rebuild some offensive capabilities.

Anyway, so Trump is still acting like

negotiations are still possible.

Um, but it's up to the Europeans at this

point. Uh however, some people are

saying that Trump isn't so much

expecting the U negotiations to work. He

is really just buying time for the US to

move more assets into the theater as

they say. Does that sound right?

It might be both. So Trump might be

thinking, well, you know, there's some

possibility the negotiations will work,

so might as well give it a few weeks. At

the same time, he might be thinking,

well, you know, if I had another week or

two, we could get a few more, I don't

know, uh, naval ships in the area or

some more some more, uh, ammunition or

something. So, probably waiting makes

sense. But also it could be that Israel

is planning a ground attack on Ford,

which is the place that we're looking

at, you know, as bunker busters.

So maybe if you wait two weeks, we will

know if Israel can get in the front door

of these uh underground bunkers if they

have boots on the ground limited. It'd

be like special forces.

um and just to do that one job and then

presumably go home as soon as they're

done.

So,

so the we've got at least uh two or

three things that might be happening in

two weeks. Uh more assets getting into

the war zone for the US. uh Israel

potentially making their own ground

attack on Fordo and the other one and uh

maybe negotiations that that might lead

to something. So that's probably all

happening.

Um New York Post has a story about how

all the uh once devoted Iranian proxies,

as they call them, um are all

out of the fight. So, are you surprised

that the uh Hezbollah and Hamas and the

Houthis and the Shiite militia um are

sort of sitting this one out?

Um it does it does suggest that Israel

did a heck of a good job in suppressing

them and I guess the US did a good job

with the hoodies. Uh and maybe they just

don't have the assets. maybe they just

don't have the uh possibility of helping

much, so they're just going to try to

sit it out and survive.

But I would say the same thing about the

proxies that I'm saying about Iran. For

them to win, they only have to survive.

Because even though Hezbollah is acting

like, you know, they don't want to

attack Israel,

they can change their mind, you know,

once they built up more resources.

But it does look like Iran is going to

be

sucking for money. and I don't think

they're going to have much money for

their uh for their proxies.

So, making Iran run out of money might

be the the only way you can keep them

weak enough to not be uh to not be a

risk.

Now, um if anybody is new to my podcast,

I remind you that what I'm talking about

is predictions and observations.

So, I'm not taking sides and I'm not

making moral or ethical judgments and I

certainly don't know, you know, the the

military ins and outs,

but just uh just looking at it as an

observer trying to figure out, all

right, what's going on here? You know,

what do we expect?

All right, another topic over on

Politico.

Um, there are unnamed uh Democrat people

who were criticizing their own team and

uh they're calling their the DNC

chairman Ken Martin uh weak, whiny, and

invisible.

That does sound exactly like what we're

saying. Uh that Ken Martin guy, he does

seem weak, whiny, and invisible.

and he's had quite a bit of drama. But

uh

here here's another quote from the same

article. Uh many DNC members and outside

Democrats, including Martin supporters,

said they wish the party would just move

on from recent internal turmoil and

focus instead on mounting an effective

fight against Trump.

An effective fight against Trump?

You mean fighting the 80% of the country

who agrees with them?

How much of a loser strategy

could you possibly have?

I mean, just think about that. The the

Democrats are just, you know,

decomposing and falling apart and, you

know, they've got all kinds of turmoil.

They don't have a leader. They got all

these problems. And then when you ask

the the brightest, most informed, you

know, most involved Democrats, what do

we need to do? You know, the Democrats,

what do they need to do? The answer is

they need to mount a more effective

fight against Trump.

Trump got elected because people wanted

more of his stuff.

that when they say they want to fight

Trump and they don't say, you know, we

want to help the country or help the

working class or any of that, they're

sort of admitting that they've got

nothing.

Fighting Trump is not exactly what

anybody needs.

Even if you thought he was wrong, you

would still say, "Well, you know, we'd

rather do this plan instead of that

plan."

It's unbelievable that they can't get

off the fighting Trump thing. That's

pure TDS.

So, it seems that TDS doesn't just

infect individuals. It seems it's

infected the entire Democrat party

because as a party, the way they talk is

they've got to defeat Trump. That's just

TDS. That's not even politics.

But um and even Randy Weingarden who was

a member of the U DNC, she was on some

board.

She recently quit. And when I asked why,

she said uh um she wants the Democratic

Party to work for working families.

And she said that's what FDR did. That's

what Joe Biden did. And that's what we

should expect from the party. So even

Randy Weine Garden, the head of the

biggest teachers union,

um, and you know, one of the biggest

Democrat supporters is completely aware

that the party is not even focusing on

the main people that they would need to

focus on to get back in power, the

working class.

And uh then James Carville

who

remains entertaining

but he is one of the only Democrats who

understands what's going on. I have to

say as entertaining as he is and

provocative as he is he at least

understands what's going on. And he says

that uh he said quote among other

things. He was on a podcast. He said,

"Let's face it. Uh, Democrats acted like

these people didn't exist." He's talking

about the working class.

They just did. And, uh, and, uh, don't

come back and say,

um, oh, he says, "We acted like

workingass, particularly workingass

non-ol whites, were not part of our too

cool for school group."

And Carville says there were some real

high-end people that kind of bought into

that shite.

So, is he right? I think so, because I

do not remember the Democrats

really doing anything that would address

the working class, but Trump continually

did. He was talking about bringing back

manufacturing and, you know, lowering

their taxes and stuff. you know, even if

you don't believe he would do those

things, at least he was focusing on it

and and the working class responded. You

know, they they moved to him because he

was saying the things they wanted him to

say.

Um, meanwhile, the uh over on MSNBC was

the chief strategist for Mitt Romney.

The chief strategist for Mitt Romney.

Now, that should be a disqualifying

job. Like, like, who are we going to get

to put on TV? How about the chief

strategist for Mitt Romney?

That's that's not much of a resume right

there. Anyway,

his name is Steuart Stevens. He was on

MSNBC. And he said, among other things,

that Trump is the most dangerous

president since the Civil War.

Huh. the most dangerous president since

the Civil War.

Uh

is is Steuart Stevens saying that

slavery was good

sort of indirectly? Like why would you

why would you make the cut off the Civil

War?

Because the Civil War

seems like that was when Abe Lincoln was

trying to end slavery.

So, was Abe Lincoln the most dangerous

president who wasn't Trump?

Why in the world would that be your

where you'd put your stick in his hand

and say, "Oh, Trump is the most

dangerous since the Civil War."

That's uh that's a little weird and

crazy. So, I don't think he's in favor

of slavery, but his quote makes it sound

like he is.

And I guess that's what it takes to

become a chief strategist for Mitt

Romney.

Good job. Anyway,

um so here's the here's the uh summary

of what uh Trump is doing author author

authoritarian wise. All right. So,

every day Trump wakes up, at least

lately,

and he tries to figure out how to

minimize the authoritarian regime in in

Iran and maybe the authoritarian regime

in in Russia

uh or at least figure out how to deal

with them.

And while Trump is trying to reduce the

impact of authoritarian regimes, the

Democrats have decided that Trump

himself is the authoritarian regime.

Now, how in the world did we get to this

place where where there's a whole bunch

of TDS people who have decided that for

all kinds of invisible reasons, Trump is

an authoritarian. And if you ask

somebody in the street, well, what did

he do that was so authoritarian?

Well, he's shipping back the people who

are in this country illegally. You mean

he's following the existing law, but

he's doing far less of it than Obama

did? So that that's the authoritarian

thing he's doing? Yes.

What else? Well, he's doing a bunch of

executive orders.

Okay.

Didn't every president do executive

orders? Yes, but he's doing more of

them. Okay. How many of those executive

orders are things that the public by a

majority doesn't want? And the answer is

uh okay.

Almost everything he does by executive

order is something that a majority of

the public wants. Is that authoritarian?

or is that just giving the public what

they want, what they're asking for?

And then some of the executive orders

might be reaching too far and you know

things that a president shouldn't be

doing and then they go to court and then

the court decides whether he can do it

and then he obeys the court.

Are there a bunch of examples where

Trump is not obeying the court? The only

one I could think of is sort of a gray

area that had to do with that Maryland

dad who was uh who was shipped off to

the uh El Salvador jail and even he got

shipped back. Now you might not like how

that process worked and I can understand

that. But is that it? the the Maryland

dad, the MS-313 accused MS-13 guy.

That's the one authoritarian thing he's

doing. That's it.

Um,

yeah. So, it's a it's a weird argument

that he's authoritarian. I like Trump's

response to that

where he points out how difficult it is

for him as president to get anything

done because he's got he's got

resistance in his own party. Um right

now the MAGA people are divided on what

to do about Iran. So that's a

limitation.

Um and then he's got of course the

Democrats are lawfaring him on every

single thing.

and uh Congress is useless. He can't

really get them to vote for anything. So

his argument that uh if he were a king,

he could get things done, but it's just

hard to get anything done in America,

it's a pretty good argument. Pretty

good. So, the Democrats have tied

themselves into thinking that Trump's

entire day of fighting authoritarian

regimes such as Iran

are are not really anything. And the

real problem is his own authoritarian

ways that they can't quite come up with

examples of.

Um Netanyahu talking about uh Iran said

that the the Iranian regime may fall,

but that's for Iranians to decide. Now

that's of course what you want to say in

public. He says the primary goal of the

war is to remove the nuclear threat.

Secondly, to remove the ballistic

missile threats.

And he said clearly the regime will be

destabilized in the process, but it's up

to the it's up to the public in Iran

whether they want to change things.

Um, I don't think they will. I I'm not

seeing any

I'm not seeing anything that would

suggest that Iran is going to change

its uh government.

So,

so I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

Well, General Flynn was on a podcast in

which he uh he doesn't think this is the

time for Trump to attack.

Um, which is notable because, you know,

he's a general and he knows what he's

talking about. But he was on Benny

Johnson's podcast and uh he said,

General Flynn said, "No, do not do it,

Mr. president. Right now is not the

time. Now he's talking about

using the bunker busters.

He says, "Don't lose focus of why you

were elected. You have options."

And uh as General Flynn points out that

it's a good strategy to have the most

options you you could have until the

last minute. Now, that's a really good

summary.

And it also explains Trump's strategy

pretty well. He wants the most options

for the longest period of time.

The most options for the longest period

of time. And that's what the twoe delay

gives them. The twoe delay creates an

option that maybe Europe will will come

up with a deal that the US couldn't come

up with. Maybe the uh Israeli forces

could do something on the ground to get

into those uh underground bases.

So your options will and then of course

he's moving more assets into the area

that increases options. So Trump is very

much following this plan

of keeping the most options open until

the last minute. So hearing hearing that

summarized by uh General Flynn is kind

of

kind of good for my confidence.

So we'll see. Um, in other news,

I saw a post by Marina Medvin and some

other people are talking about this that

apparently there's a writer for the

Washington Post who once worked for Al

Jazer

um who's posting the exact coordinates

of successful Iranian missile strikes in

Israel.

Um, and the problem with that is that if

the Iranians are trying to, you know,

tune their tune their missiles to be

more accurate, that one of the things

they would want to know is the exact

place that the existing missiles hit. So

why would the Washington Post feel it

necessary to print the I guess the GPS

coordinates? It's not like if you It's

not as if when you read the newspaper,

the Washington Post, it's not like

you're gonna say, "Oh, uhhuh. Uhhuh. I

see the GPS coordinates. Now I know

more."

That would have no value to a consumer

of the Washington Post. It would only It

would only have value to the people who

are firing the missiles so they can know

how accurate they are and adjust

accordingly.

Now that's one point of view. I think uh

Bill Aman has is asking the same

questions like why are you doing that?

Is there a reason?

Cuz if you don't have a reason for

printing the exact GPS coordinates of

the missile landings,

why are you doing it?

Um, now others have said, pushing back

on that point of view, that the Iranians

have satellite imagery and they can tell

what they hit so that it's not actually

news to them. But I would ask, well, if

it doesn't help the reader of the

Washington Post, because it's not like

you and I are going to look at GPS

coordinates and go, "Ah, okay. Yeah,

it's a 53424."

Yeah. Yeah. That's what I thought. So

there's no value to the reader

and if it were true there's no value to

the Iranian regime firing the rockets,

why would you do it?

So it's sort of an open question. So my

guess is that Iran might not have the,

you know, the ideal satellite view of

the battlefield.

So, I don't know why assets they have,

but there's got to be some reason

that that that those are included in the

Washington Post.

Um,

so, uh, former Vice President Mike Pence

is speaking up about the, uh, uh,

existential identity crisis that the

Trump supporters and the the, uh,

political right is going through.

Now, how many of you think that there's

some kind of permanent

um Trump supporter split that's

happening that will somehow, you know,

splinter the party and make everything

not work?

I don't see that happening because my

take on the Republicans is that they

like winning and that Trump likes

winning. So if Trump figures out a way

to Kobayashi Marua's situation, which is

Star Trek reference to coming up with a

uh nonobvious solution to a problem that

other people can't figure out how to

solve.

If Trump somehow solves this,

maybe by the Europeans coming up with

some kind of agreement for, you know,

rigorous inspections of Iran's uh

enrichment or something. If he manages

to solve this, will there be any further

problems with his coalition? No. It will

be one more thing that they all come

together on. It's like, oh, okay. I have

to admit I didn't see that solution

coming, but look what you did. You did

it again. So, if it works, there will be

no division. People will just say, "Damn

it, he's good. I I'm glad I voted for

him. I did not see that solution coming,

but he made it work."

That might happen. The other possibility

is that everything will go to hell.

um in which case it's not like he's

running for office again.

So if everything goes to hell then all

bets are off. But I don't think that's

so much a, you know, existential

identity crisis. I think it's just

winning is unifying and losing is

disunifying.

Because if you look at the Democrats,

their problem is not that they disagree

on strategy.

their problem is they lost.

So losing just drives you apart and

winning drives you together. So when

you're watching, you know, what will

happen with Trump's supporters,

uh I think Trump had the right take on

that, which is he said his supporters

will support his his judgment basically.

And you are seeing a number of people

say um we have to trust Trump. he knows

more about this situation than we do.

Obviously, he would have, you know, all

the confidential information and stuff.

So, I am I am I think buying into the

notion that if Trump did something that

I wouldn't do, it doesn't mean that I'm

the one who is right. Does anyone else

have that feeling? that if Trump did

something that you wouldn't do and you

don't know why it makes sense

that you would give him a little bit of

a break and say, "All right, he might

know more than I do. He might be good at

this. He he might be, you know, sewing

some uncertainty intentionally."

Um, so I do like the fact that Trump has

created a situation where people who

disagree with him on the right are still

willing to say, you know what, that's

not what I would have done, but I'm

going to watch and see how this plays

out.

That's a really good place to be, by the

way. that that that's sort of the

ultimate place to be because you're not

going to have a situation where

everybody agrees what's the best thing

to do. That's just it's just not

possible. So what would be the best in a

human situation that you could do? The

best would be if people say, you know, I

wouldn't have done that, but I'm going

to let this play out because he's

smarter than smarter than I am. And I

think that's true. for for a lot of us.

He's smarter than we are. Um

anyway,

uh let's see if you can guess this

number. According to uh Secretary Gnome,

75% of illegal aliens arrested under

Trump um had committed some kind of a

crime

uh had been convicted of a crime.

Now, if you're an NPC,

this is where you would say, "Scott,

Scott, because that's how NPCs talk.

They don't talk like regular. They go,

"Scott, Scott." They They all are

criminals because they came into the

country illegally. They're all

criminals. Scott, Scott, Scott.

So, if you're an NPC, I'll give you a

few minutes to say to say the most

obvious thing you could say, which is

whenever we talk about criminal

non-citizens,

you feel is necessary to remind us as if

we didn't know that coming into the

country is itself illegal.

So, get it out of your system. I know

some of you need to do it. So, just put

it in the comments. Scott, Scott,

they're all criminals. They're all

criminals. I get it. I get it.

Anyway, 25%

uh apparently do not fit the category of

uh the worst first. So, they had not

been convicted of crimes. Now, I don't

know if um committed or convicted of

crimes is the right standard because

there you go. All caps, Scott. They are

all illegal there. The NPCs are weighing

in on the comments now. Good for you.

Good for you, NPCs.

But I would point out the following.

It's possible that the the 25% who were

not convicted of a crime, um, you know,

may be all tatted up. They might be

associating with MS-13.

We might know that they're part of a

gang, but they haven't been convicted of

it. So, I don't know if the 25% are all,

you know, your gardener and your, you

know, your your hardworking uh

meatacking employee.

I I don't know if it's that, but I will

say that the the one thing that the

Israel Iran war is uh affecting is it's

taking our attention away from other

stuff.

So the Democrats who probably would love

to spend more time talking about the

innocent, you know, good citizens who

are not technically legal residents of

the country, you know, how they're being

abused by the the Trump immigration

program.

But doesn't it feel like it doesn't

matter as much?

It matters as much as it ever did. But

in in our minds because this other thing

seems bigger, you know, like we might

get nuked at some point. It just seems

so much bigger. We might put boots on

the ground and yet another pointless war

in the Middle East. It's just so much

bigger

that the whole immigration thing. Um I

think uh Trump's, you know, border

people are going to get a little bit of

a break because the news just isn't

going to put much attention on it and

what people care about is what they say

in the news. If it's not in the news,

people will stop protesting.

So, um, all the shelf space of the news

is getting used up.

In other news, Fox Business is reporting

that, uh, Republican Josh Holly is

pushing to raise the minimum wage in

those states where it's not already

raised. So, the current federal minimum

wage is $7.25.

He wants that to go to $15 per hour.

And Republicans typically have not been

all uh pro raising the uh minimum wage,

but Josh Holly would be, you know, one

of the best supporters of President

Trump. Um he's about as Republican as

you could possibly get and he's the one

he's the one pushing it. So, I guess uh

Trump's response

when asked about it because, you know,

this is obviously not typical Republican

stuff, but it's coming from a real

Republican, you know, pro- MAGA kind of

a guy. Um, Trump says, "I haven't seen

it. I'd have to speak to Josh. He's a

very good friend of mine," Trump said.

And, uh, that's interesting that Josh

did that. You have to think about that

one. So,

how about that?

How would you like to be so credible

that when uh the president hears that

you have an idea that probably his first

reflex would be to be against, instead

of just reflexively saying, "I don't

like that idea," he says, "Uh, that's

interesting that Josh did that. You have

to think about that one." Now, that's

credibility right there. That's I if you

want to if you ever want to be credible,

you want to get to the point where

somebody who's reflexed to disagree with

you is completely deactivated

because you as an individual are so

credible. That's that's what's happening

here. So, this is another example of,

you know, when you think the mega

coalition is is falling apart. I think

Republicans are way more

uh accepting of of alternate alternative

opinions.

And this is a good example. As long as

the person is credible and you know that

they have the best interest in the

country in mind, then you're willing to

listen to it. So that sounds like what

Trump is. He's just willing to listen to

the argument. Good answer.

All right. According to MIT,

uh they've they found the AI can rewrite

its own code and that's changing

everything. Now, this is in Geeky

Gadgets.

Uh Julian Horsey is writing about this.

So, it's what they call it the SEAL

framework, self- adapting language

models. So what they're doing is that

the the AI will sort of imagine

different scenarios that aren't real and

that they would call that synthetic

training data and then it would uh

self-edit and update its internal

parameters based on the synthetic

training data. Now what would be another

name for synthetic training data?

Well, it would be imagination.

It would be imagination because it's not

based on reality, but you perceive it as

if it's reality, but you know it's not.

And I would only add, I think that's how

humans work. When you're thinking about

doing something that you know is not

routine, don't you imagine all of the

outcomes?

And when you're imagining all the

different outcomes, is that not you

using your human brain for what the AI

would call synthetic training data?

I do. I mean, is your brain different

than mine? If if I'm considering any

kind of big move or anything important,

I imagine it going right. I imagine it

going wrong. and I imagine all the other

possibilities

and each of them are not real. They're

synthetic

synthetic training data from my own

brain. And then once I've seen a bunch

of synthetic imaginary possibilities,

uh, that retrains my brain for whichever

one of those I think is the most likely

or the, you know, the favored one or

whichever one scares me the most, I want

to avoid the most, etc. But I feel like

this is a a perfect uh a perfect

description of what a human brain does.

It imagines synthetic data and then it

rewrites it rewrites your own brain

based on your imagination. That's what

TDS is. TDS is people imagining this,

you know, authoritarian king and then

they rewrite their brains. in this case

into mental illness. So, it's not always

good. You know, AI might have the same

problems. Um, but it seems to me that

imagination,

if it if it works correctly, it helps

you make a better decision. But if your

imagination is flawed, as it is with the

authoritarian

Trump stuff, he's going to be your king.

If your imagination is flawed,

uh, which you might call your synthetic

training data, then you're going to have

mental illness.

So I predict

that AI

will have mental illness.

So that's my prediction, mental illness.

And furthermore, that the only way to

fix the mental illness if it gives it to

itself by creating synthetic training

data and then convincing itself that

it's true or acting as though the this

is reality that you're going to need

something like an AI therapist

that you would have to there would have

to be a separate AI that would work with

your AI to help it with its mental

problems because it's imagining ing that

a king is going to take over or it's

imagining that you know executive orders

are authoritarian or something.

So that's coming.

Um according to Breitbart,

Bob Price is writing about a

sophisticated crossborder tunnel

uh that's been found that links San

Diego to Tijuana. Apparently, it's just

this massive tunnel they found. Which

which makes me ask the following

questions.

Um, has not the Trump administration

been bragging about zero people getting

across the border or zero people

released.

I forget what the exact phrase is, but

how would we know how many people are

coming through tunnels that we haven't

found?

Would we know?

Um, now they were thinking they're

thinking that this tunnel is for moving

drugs because it had like a a railroad

component to it. So, it looked like it

was for moving large weights.

But if it were moving people, would we

even know? I don't know. Cuz we we

didn't know about this tunnel until

recently. So, I don't know if it was

functioning actually. But uh how many

tunnels are there? There must be a lot

of them. There's got to be at least one

tunnel for every cartel.

Well, wired wired uh publication and

Reese Rogers is talking about Amazon is

um upgrading their ALexa.

I won't say it out loud because it'll

activate your devices at home. But uh

the thing that Amazon has that you talk

to um is using a quote staggering amount

of AI tools to rewrite it. So here's the

advantage of being a slow follower of a

trend.

If if Amazon had been a fast follower or

tried to be like the leading edge of AI,

they would have had, you know, whatever

tools you have when you first start,

which would not be that great. But

because it seems like they waited too

long, it feels like they're at least a

year behind AI. um they get the

advantage of using all the AI tools to

build their AI.

So apparently they've done a massive

amount of coding using AI to do the

coding in the process of building their

own AI that will drive their ALexa.

So I guess that's being rolled out to

some specific power users, but we'll see

it pretty soon.

Uh I just was uh impressed by the fact

that when you start

makes such a difference you know being

first like IBM was the first with uh you

know Windows computers but they didn't

last. So being a uh a follower who jumps

in like right at the right time when all

the tools are there and you know you

really know what you can and cannot do.

Pretty good approach. Jeff Bezos team

doing it again.

Well, the BBC is reporting

that the uh founder and boss of the

Telegram app, it's a messaging app, uh

plans to leave his multi-billion dollar

fortune to over a hundred children he

fathered. A hundred.

Now, he didn't do it the Elon Musk way.

He only had um I guess six children, you

know, the sort of normal way that people

have children and all the rest of his

hundredish children were because he had

donated to a sperm bank.

So he plans to leave his money

to children he's never met that he was

the sperm donor for. Now, if you've ever

seen this guy, he's first of all a

genius and second of all really

good-look.

So, you can really imagine why he would

been selected a lot to be the uh the

sperm donor. But, uh I love how

billionaires reproduce.

Um I have to admit that there's

something about this makes sense. Now, I

guess he's not going to leave he's not

going to leave them the money right

away. There's something like a 30-year

delay between, you know, when he makes

the money available and and when he

dies. So, he wants to make sure that

they can, you know, make a life for

themselves before they get any of his

money. But, uh, yeah, he's the official

father of over a 100 babies,

uh, conceived in over 12 countries.

Wouldn't that be wild to have a hundred

babies?

There's a uh friend of mine who uh in

her adult life learned that she was a um

basically a sperm donor baby

and then at the same time learned that

she had uh dozens I think dozens of half

siblings

and they started fighting each other.

How wild would that be to be an adult?

Like you're in the middle of your life

and you learn that you have a like

dozens of half siblings and you start

meeting each other. That would be so

wild. Anyway, according to the Ohio

State University, most women want

children, but half are unsure if they

will. Well, you know how I could make

sure that they uh have children?

they they should use that billionaire

sperm donor and try to get in on that on

the uh inheritance.

That might help. Um so apparently a lot

of people have the intention to have a

baby but uh they don't necessarily think

that it would make a difference that

their happiness wouldn't necessarily be

worse or better if they had a baby or

not. So clearly, unless we plan to

reproduce with robots alone, which maybe

we will, you never know. Um we're going

to have to completely reconfigure

society so that having babies makes

sense again.

And the only way I can think of that

is if people who want to have babies um

find living conditions

that are ideal for having a baby.

And I would argue that if you're in an

inner city, not not a great place to

have a baby. But if you're also in a

very rural area,

again, maybe not the best place to have

a baby. Um, so I'm going to give you my

idea

that you're going to fight against if

you're an NPC and you're going to say no

small houses. Even though this has

nothing to do with tiny homes, you'll

say it anyway because that's what NPCs

say. I believe that we need to develop a

cities that are optimized for having

babies.

And all that would mean is that you had

little neighborhood areas where people

who are having babies around the same

time are living so that there's always

somebody who can watch your kid. Um, I

think I've told you this before, but in

my first marriage, there was this

extremely

lucky situation where the two stepkids

were exactly the same gender and same

age as I think four different couples

that we knew really well. So on any

given weekend,

um, the kids would have a sleepover at

the house of somebody that you knew

really well. So you trusted them

and the kids would be delighted and then

the parents could have a date night if

they wanted and you wouldn't worry too

much cuz you were you were such a tight

group of people and the ages and the

genders were perfect. So that you know

both the boy and the girl had somebody

their age

in this other house.

Um and that was amazing. It it was it

just made life so much easier um in so

many ways. Now add to that if it were

walking distance to those houses cuz it

wasn't in our case but they were you

know in town. They weren't that far

away.

So, imagine then imagine uh adding the

Tesla auto cab and imagine that you've

got one that's so safe that you could

send a a smallalish kid, you know, not

too small, but 12 years old, let's say,

um to their friend's house without

having to leave your house.

Now imagine that you had um essentially

free or lowcost child watching stuff

while you're working. You know, if you

designed your if you designed your town

so it was optimized so the kids had

friends and you had people to help you

do things when you needed a little help.

It would be great to have kids. you

would have you'd have uh parties all the

time and you know there'd be fun

sleepovers and you know it would be

wonderful. It's just that if you're if

you don't have a let's say grandparents

around to watch your kids, it's really

hard for two people to have a job, which

we tend to need these days. Two people

to have a job and also raising kids.

It's almost I mean it's so expensive and

it's just so hard that you can imagine

why people don't do it. But you could

design around that. You could engineer a

living space that you don't have to live

in. So the NPCs could say you can't make

me live in that 15-minute city. No, it's

not a 15minute city. All it is is a

great place to raise a kid. That's it.

That's all it is.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's

all I got for you today. Uh, hope you

have a great weekend. I'm going to say a

few words privately to the locals

people, my beloved locals people, and

the rest of you. Hope to see you next

week. Well, not next week. We'll see you

tomorrow. Same time, same place.