Episode 2964 CWSA 09/20/25

for the show.

Well, I want to make sure I got your comments working and then we'll kick off Saturday.

Come on, technology.

Hurry up.

So, I have several things in my life where it takes 30 seconds from the time I hit pre press something to the time that something happens.

Do you know how long that is?

Do you remember the old days when you'd hit enter and then you just sit there?

Well, we're back to those days.

Good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization.

It's the best time we've ever had.

on.

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Fill it with your favorite liquid.

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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of the day.

The thing that makes everything better is called the simultaneous sip.

And it's going to happen right now.

All right.

Maybe a few things are going right this morning.

Well, in the morning I I have uh three tasks that I try to do.

One is I have to put the correct date on the comic before I publish it in the morning for the subscribers.

Then I have to publish the actual cartoon.

So that's two things.

The date then the comic.

And then there's another thing I have to remember.

I have to move a file somewhere before I start.

And if I don't do it, it's just makes me so angry.

I can't even stand it.

Well, today all three things were wrong.

I had a bug, some kind of technical problem that made the date wrong and I didn't notice till I published it.

I also selected the wrong comic also because there was a little glitch in the system.

Didn't notice until I published it.

So, I got the wrong date, the wrong comic, and I forgot to move my file.

So, I'm hoping the rest of the day goes better.

I'm 0 for three.

Well, after the show today, Owen Gregorian, as is tradition for Saturdays, will be hosting a spaces event where you can talk about more of this or whatever is on your mind.

Uh Owen Gregorian.

So, look for Owen.

Um, and I think Oh, there were four things I forgot this morning.

I think there were four things I forgot.

I forgot to re Sorry, Owen.

I forgot to repost your uh spaces thing.

I'll do that after the show or I'll probably forget that too.

Anyway, um guess what?

According to Eric Dolan at Scipost, higher caffeine intake is linked to better cognitive function in older US adults.

That's right.

If you're older and you're drinking coffee, that coffee is improving your uh um it's it's improving your uh if you're older, the coffee is improving your uh your what?

Hold on.

Hold on just a second.

Hold on.

Cognitive function.

Your cognitive function.

There it goes.

Um, yep.

So, there's that.

So, there's a new Chinese robot.

Um, it's sort of an Optimus knockoff, but weirdly, it seems to it's almost as if it looks like it might be using some of the Optimus Tesla technology.

It looks like they're they may have licensed Tesla's hybrid architecture.

Anyway, they got this robot And it's the Kepler robot.

And they claim they're going to commence mass production of the K2 bumblebee.

Uh do you think they're going to mass produce the humanoid robot?

Now, I would like to impress you by giving you my impression of everything that the amazing amazing humanoid robot can do.

Remember, this is in the news, so it's real.

Would you like to see my impression of everything that so far the robot can do?

There.

But but wait, that's not all.

It can pick up boxes.

And I can move him.

Yeah, that's impressive.

And I'll say it for the millionth time.

If a humanoid robot could do anything impressive and it was going to be rolling out soon and they're already producing them, you would see the video of it doing something besides walking around and holding a box.

No, I don't believe any of these stories.

None of them could possibly be true.

If they could really do several things.

You don't think the video would include all of the several things they can do?

If it could do two things, well, maybe walk and carry something as two two things.

If it could do three things, you don't think the video would show that if the entire po the point of the video is to impress you?

I've been watching these damn robots walking around like tards and carrying a box for 30 years.

Am I right?

Can anybody back me on this?

Do do you remember seeing like a 60 minutes or something 30 years ago where there was a humanoid robot that was always plugged in?

And they're always plugged in too.

If they're doing anything interesting, the batteries are too bad.

Anyway, robots.

We'll see.

Well, Trump's uh popularity seems to be the highest in uh fighting crime.

Um so, he's losing a little bit on the border.

Do you know why Trump's uh popularity on the border is going down now?

It's a little bit negative.

It's because he already solved it.

Nobody g Nobody cares about the border now because he solved it.

So now it's like, yeah, who cares?

Yeah, now I will only look at the bad parts now because you you solved all the other parts, you know, the the hordes of people coming across.

That's what I was really worried about.

But that's solved.

So let's talk about some guy named Jesus who says he didn't get a good deal or something.

That's all you got to talk about.

But, uh, he's got that going for him.

Crime, uh, which would suggest that he's going to do a lot more of it.

If your top popularity thing was solving crime and you had a model for doing it, which is sending in the troops, um, what would stop you from doing more of that?

Like maybe one new city every two months and just keep doing it.

I would.

Well, you know, Trump said he would pay for the White House ballroom himself, but seems he has collected $200 million in pledges from big companies like Google and Palunteer and Loheed Martin that will pay as much as I think one of them is Lockheed.

It's going to give $10 million.

So, he's already got uh almost $200 million that's pledged, which makes me ask the following question.

How the hell much does a ballroom cost?

You can't get a ballroom built for under $200 million.

Really?

I mean, it's mostly a big empty room.

$200 million.

I don't know.

Something wrong with that.

CBS News is talking about that.

Anyway, um, how many of you believed that Trump would pay for the ballroom entirely by himself?

I mean, seriously, how many of you believed he really was going to pay for that all by himself?

Now, I do kind of like the fact that he said it because it it put some distance between the story that it was going to get built and then the question of who's paying for it.

So, time goes by and then the story about who's paying for it obviously.

Yeah.

Didn't you know it was going to be donations?

Even if he didn't ask for donations, you don't think people would have offered if they knew he was going to pay for it.

You don't think one of the big companies would say, you know, you don't have to pay for all of it.

I mean, we could kick in a few million.

Of course they would.

It would be the most obvious thing they could ever do because it has a has a direct benefit to the president because he doesn't have to spend his own money.

I mean, it's basically all right, let me just say it.

He he created a new way to get bribed.

It's totally legal.

So, if you imagine that he would have lost, let's just say, $200 million of his own money if he built it, and you're a company that can say, "Uh, well, I can't pay for the whole $200 million, but I can take $10 million off your plate." You wouldn't have to pay that personally.

Is that a bribe?

Is it a bribe when you say, "I will reduce your expenses by $10 million.

I'll take that off your hands." I don't know.

I'm sure it's it's probably legal because there's no quid proquo, you know, nothing in return.

Uh it's all public, it's all transparent, etc.

It's, you know, it's well reported, but it is kind of brilliant the way he handled that.

Um, apparently there was a uh prosecutor who in Virginia who was looking into the uh Leticia James mortgage question and decided that they couldn't find enough evidence to make a case out of it.

And so Trump's firing him because he couldn't make a case against James.

Now, does that suggest that he's looking to do a little lawfare?

If if the guy who was in charge says, "Uh, we we don't have enough we don't have enough evidence that she knew what she was doing." So, it was the knowing knowing that she was doing it was the uh was that was the part that mattered.

Now, I don't know how you prove that she knew it.

I used to think that ignorance was no excuse.

Does that change?

Didn't it used to be that ignorance of the law was no excuse?

So would it matter if she intended?

Well, I suppose if it were a pure clerical accident or just an oversight, that would be probably allowable, but uh it does seem to me that Trump is uh looking to lawfare her for revenge.

I would normally say that the legal system should not be used for personal revenge, except this is revenge for all of us.

Um, if any of you thought it was a good idea that the person you wanted to be president was being lawfared like crazy, well, I didn't think it was a good idea and it felt like it was something against me.

I felt like it was, you know, it was against my interests.

So, I think I would be in favor of some lawfare only in the uh, let me say that again.

I'm completely opposed to lawfare.

I don't want my side to do any lawfare to the other side unless there is one exception.

If you're lawfaring the lawfare person, you know, the person who is the the most evil and tried to lawfare you, then do whatever you want.

I would say all the controls are off.

If somebody tries to lawfare you into jail over just trumped up literally charges uh and then you get lucky and you get in charge of that person someday and you could return the favor 100% return that favor.

Yeah, that's mutually assured destruction.

I mean that that's the only thing that will keep people from doing it forever is if the people who did it just get destroyed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

the pe the people who try that have to get destroyed.

It's best for the country.

When I say destroyed, I mean just legally and financially.

Well, uh CNN's Van Jones had a story about Charlie Kirk that we had not heard.

Apparently, uh, he and Charlie Kirk, uh, had been in a kind of a pitched battle about the, uh, question about the murder that happened on the light trail train, you know, the Ukrainian woman who was stabbed to death.

And, uh, I guess Charlie said that the motive for the attack was race because the w the woman who got killed was white.

And can somebody give me a fact check?

I I heard a lot of people talking about this, but I never heard the the audio myself.

Did he really say in a way that was captured on audio, I got that white girl?

Did he did the killer actually use those words, I got that white girl, or was that just something that was on the internet?

Because I didn't see a source for that.

All right, I'm seeing some yeses.

But uh all right.

So if you knew that that's what the killer said, would you say to yourself that's confirmation that that was a racial racially motivated attack?

Or is it possible that that's just the way he refers to white girls because maybe he doesn't spend much time with them.

So if if there's a white girl in his life, does he say the white girl?

because that wouldn't be that unusual for somebody just to refer to somebody as the white girl.

Unfortunately, that would be kind of normal.

Um, but in context, it does seem to me like a pretty good argument that he had some kind of racial motivation.

You know, probably wasn't 100% of what was going on.

Probably there was, you know, a bunch of craziness on top of that, but seemed to be in his mind.

Anyway, so Van Jones and Charlie Kirk were having a intense uh back and forth that lasted a little while and you know they were messaging each other and uh the last thing that Van Jones heard from Charlie Kirk was uh Charlie invited him to go on his show to have quote a respectful conversation about crime and race.

And uh and I think uh Van Jones called it a to agree to be agreeable.

I think that was a phrase, agree to be agreeable.

And so here again in his last moments of life um Charlie Kirk showed what made him Charlie Kirk that he was having a tense disagreement with somebody very much on the other side and his uh his solution is to be extra nice and to be extra attentive to listening to his point of view.

And that's that's how he was going to treat that.

And Van Jones, I think, got quite touched by that, which I appreciate.

I appreciate his humanity there.

All right.

Um, Starbucks apparently is having a little uh a wave of people saying that their name is Charlie Kirk, the name that they put on the cup when your when your your order is ready.

And I guess there was one case where a individual uh barista said we can't do that because it's political and that caused a big brewhaha and uh Starbucks backed down immediately.

Starbucks folded like a uh Starbucks napkin.

Now, it could be that they just, you know, agreed that you can put anything on a cup as long as it's not obscene.

It could be that they they were just, you know, reiterating the policy or maybe clarifying.

But, uh, boy, Starbucks didn't want a piece of this fight.

If you were the Starbucks management, would you come anywhere near this topic if you could avoid it?

No, you would not.

you would stay as far away from getting involved in this as you possibly could.

So when it came down to that, they were on the on the side of the people who wanted Charlie's name on the cup.

Um so it's taking on kind of a Spartacus vibe.

I saw a video of a bunch of school children uh one at a time saying I am Charlie Kirk as the movie Spartacus.

There's a famous scene where the I guess the Romans were trying to figure out which of the many slaves was a slave called Sparticus because he'd caused all this trouble.

And they were going to kill him and uh he stood up and said, "I am Spartacus." So you thought, "Okay, it's over.

He's going to get killed now because now they know who he is.

They're definitely going to kill him." And then somebody else stands up in the crowd and goes, "I am Spartacus." and then somebody else and somebody else and pretty soon everybody had stood up and said there's Spartacus and they did that because they were willing to take collective punishment over letting Spartacus die.

So that was a quite uh impactful part of the movie and it looks like people are taking the Spartacus energy to Charlie Kirk which is kind of cool.

Well, here's a Kimmel update.

Jimmy Kimmel update.

Um, are you all aware that things can happen for more than one reason at the same time?

Do we have to argue whether uh Kibble got fired because the government put pressure on Disney or because Disney and ABC were losing a ton of money and his contract was up at the end of the year and there's no way they could ever make money on him.

Do we need to know which of those was the one reason?

Those are both pretty good reasons, aren't they?

Let's see.

I don't want the government to come down to me like a ton of bricks.

I don't like losing money.

Why isn't it obviously both?

Do do we really need to have like a a big old conversation about which one it is?

Do do you feel superior if you say the real reason was economics or the real reason was the government?

It's obviously both reasons.

Am I wrong?

It's obviously 100%, no doubt about it, both reasons.

Let me put it this way.

If Kimmel made $10 billion a year for Disney, do you think they'd take him off the air?

No.

Obviously, it's about money.

if uh if the government put pressure on them like maybe you don't get approval for your mergers or acquisitions or whatever which are pretty important.

Uh do you think that they would uh just ignore the government and take their chances?

Well, we'll take our chances.

No, not really.

Not really going to take their chances.

That's too big of a chance.

Would be you'd be letting down the stockholders.

So, let's just agree it's both.

Anybody want to come with me on that journey?

Just say, "Yeah, it's obviously both." All right.

Uh, apparently the viewership was even worse than we thought.

It had been going pretty much straight down since uh several years.

And looks like nothing was going to change that.

So, um, and they probably knew that they would never get conservatives back.

I don't know if they had any, but they were never going to get conservatives back, if they ever had them, or if if they had them in the last few years.

They probably already lost him because of the things he said.

Well, um, have you been paying attention to which people in the conservative and/or libertarian view um thought that the, uh, free speech was being violated by the government, uh, by putting pressure on the FCC?

Well, not pressure, but um the FCC is part of the government and you assume that they're going to be at least influenced by the preferences of the administration of which they belong and they're the same party and you know they you know they have a lot in common.

So the president doesn't have to give does not have to give a direct order to the head of the FCC.

He chose him.

He knew he knew he knew what he was going to get right when he chose him.

So he chose him because he had a certain set of qualities and priorities and he liked him.

Um so the people who are seemingly concentrating on the u the attack on free speech would be Ted Cruz.

So Ted Cruz is saying uh no the government's can't put the government can't lean on people for their speech.

And that's when it arguably there's an argument the other way.

The the counterargument is the FCC is literally just doing it charter.

Its charter is to make sure that the airwaves are which are public and limited uh that they're used for the the best interest of the public.

However, everything has a however.

Every time you think, okay, I got it figured out, you have to go however.

Uh, however, there's a judgment call here, isn't there?

If it were not subjective as to what's too foreign and what's in the interest of the government.

If it were not subjective, well, I don't think we'd have the conversation.

We'd say, "Well, that's his job.

That's what the job says.

That's why the job exists.

Do the job." But if there is a little uh judgment about how to do that job and when to do it and when it's important and when it's not, well, that's where the free speech question gets in there.

Anyway, so Ted Cruz is going hard at the free speech being violated.

Ben Shapiro, uh, I believe did the same.

Free speech being violated.

Uh, unacceptable.

Uh, I think Cat Tim came, you know, did a free speech, pro- free speech.

I don't recall, but I'm sure that Dave Smith probably did, right?

Can you confirm that to me?

Did Dave comic Dave Smith?

I'm guessing he went with the free speech um position.

And me um I'm also on the free speech position.

Now, is there anybody here who wants to go full NPC?

If you want to go full NPC, this would be the time to say, "Scott, but it was just a it was a business decision." Scott, don't you understand?

It's not free speech.

If it's a business decision, a business decision doesn't need to worry about free speech.

It's a business just a business decision.

Do you do you feel like that would be a good point?

Is that a good point right now?

Like right now based on what I just said, is that a good point?

No, it's not a good point.

I started the whole thing by saying things could have two reasons.

It it doesn't have to be one reason.

And the fact that it's also a good business thing does not excuse the free speech element of it.

And we should be brushing back the free speech risk wherever we can.

So let me let me say it a different way.

I don't like to be on the other side of a constitutional question from Ted Cruz.

Do you all know Ted Cruz's background?

I He's literally one of the best constitutional lawyers before he became a senator.

He was famous for it.

If if Ted Cruz tells me something's a violation of free speech, am I going to say, "Oh, I don't know, Ted.

I don't know.

I I feel like you haven't analyzed this correctly.

Uh, let me use all my experience as a cartoonist to tell you where you got that wrong about the Constitution of the United States." I'm not going to do that.

No.

If Ted Cruz tells me something is true about the Constitution, I'm just going to change my mind to whatever he said.

What about Ben Shapiro?

Do you think Ben Shapiro doesn't understand the issue?

No.

Of course he does.

Of course he understands the issue better than me.

Better than you?

Probably.

Unless you're Ted Cruz.

If Ben Shapiro is on the same side as Ted Cruz on a constitutional question, you feel comfortable being on the other side?

Have you Have you not been paying attention at all for the last decade?

No.

If Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro are solidly on the same side of a constitutional question, give up.

Just give up.

just adopt their point of view because they're not going to be wrong if it's both of them and they're sure and it's not that complicated.

They are right.

They are right.

Don't listen to me.

You know, I I happen to agree with them.

But don't don't take my side.

I'm no constitutional scholar.

You know, I have no I have no track record of being right on constitutional questions or anything like that.

Um, Bill Maher, who's sort of our canary in the coal mine, uh, every Saturday morning after his show, which by the way is a tremendous accomplishment.

Um, I don't think we give Bill Mah enough credit for what he's accomplished that every Saturday morning both both sides of the country, if you want to call it that, uh, really really want to talk about what he said.

That's quite an accomplishment, right?

We can disagree with them all day long, but the fact that we figure it's important that we deal with what he said, that's amazing.

I mean that's that is really a career that worked out.

So good job Bill Maher.

Even when we disagree with you, you have created a powerful and important asset that's benefit to the country in my opinion.

Um, and yeah, and he uh went hard at the liberals for uh well, yeah, went hard at no, at the Republicans this time for violation of free speech or pressure on it.

You could just call it pressure on it as opposed to a violation.

Um, David Letterman appeared as some event hosted by the Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg was interviewing him.

Goldberg's boss over there at the Atlantic.

And uh so obviously, you know, Letterman was in favor of free speech and didn't want to see uh Kimmel fired, etc.

Kind of what you'd expect.

But here's the thing.

I feel like Letterman was showing us the problem more than the solution.

The problem was that Letterman apparently didn't know that he would lose all of his credibility with half of the country by appearing with the Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg.

Do you all know that The Atlantic, it's hard to know if they're even trying to be legitimate?

You know, they're they're sort of the MSNBC of print magazines and well online, too.

So the fact that Letterman would even appear on stage with that entity does suggest he doesn't pay attention too much to politics or how the world works.

So I would discount anything that Letterman says about anything.

Um, he's brilliant at what he did for a living, but I don't think he has any special appreciation of the Constitution or politics or the bigger picture.

Uh, he seems poorly informed just by the fact that he was on that stage.

That a poor decision.

Um, apparently it's a go for the 2026 Republican convention.

Now, as you know, they don't normally have one, a convention unless a president is running.

But, uh, Trump quite wisely, and I think this is just brilliant, decided that if the Republicans always get a bump when they do, uh, when they do a convention, why wouldn't you do another convention?

If every time you do it, you're going to bump in popularity because it's what I call the the documentary effect.

If the TV is sort of nailed on and for hours the people who care about politics watch because it's on and it's about politics and they like stuff like that, they're going to see a whole lot of one point of view.

We are great.

Democrats are bad.

Why wouldn't you do that?

This to me this uh this midterm convention by the Republicans is such a good idea that it just makes me wonder why nobody thought of it.

And if if it took Trump to think about this again, he would be impressing the hell out of me with his innovative uh innovative ways at his current age.

I mean, that's really impressive.

And if somebody suggested it to him, he still gets the credit because the boss is the one who decides what's a yes, what's a no, and who am I and who are my adviserss.

So this is a this is a good sign for Trump.

It's just brilliant.

Well, Jasmine Crockett was at some public event and she said, and I quote, "Most black people are not Republicans simply because we just dislike y'all racist.

I can't hang out with the KKK and them." Let me read that again.

Most black people are not Republicans simply because we just as like y'all racist.

I can't hang out with a KKK and them.

All right.

Now, uh, may I translate that for you?

Um, I'll translate.

I'll summarize it.

Let's say summarize it.

Uh, what she said is you should not hang out with a body of people that might have uh some percentage, not not a majority, but it would have some people in it that have a bad feeling about you.

Um, she didn't say get the away from them, but that's what she meant.

Now, I agree with her totally.

This this might be the most I've ever agreed with Jasmine Crockett.

If you believe that there's a group that has too many people in it who don't like you, it's not really your job to sort out the good ones.

Now, Jasmine uh might agree with the statement that people should be judged individually.

She might agree with that.

I certainly agree with it.

I think everybody has to be judged individually and you should not judge individuals by immutable characteristics or religions or stuff like that.

I don't believe that.

Uh, I do believe that if you're trying to protect yourself, uh, that you maybe don't want to spend time with people who very clearly don't like you and don't like you around.

I would say I would only adjust her opinion one way, which is the KKK are more geographic than party related.

If you can stay out of the town where there's a KKK presence, do you should do that.

If you're a black American, don't go anywhere near a town that has like a even one KKK chapter that's active.

Don't go near it.

Stay away.

Get the away from that town.

But you probably don't have to get away from Republicans because there are just tons and tons and tons and tons of Republican towns.

They have exactly zero KKK pe people in them.

So, you're safe there.

And uh there's nobody in the Republican party who's loving the KKK, by the way.

Well, there may be there may be some uh wild cards in there, but generally speaking, it's not like that.

It's not like the Republicans accept the KKK.

That's not a thing.

Now, if you're an NPC, what do you say now?

NPCs, I'll give you a moment to say the thing that you always say now when the KKK is mentioned.

I I know you're going to say it.

Somebody's going to say it.

Go ahead, say it.

All right, I'll say it for you.

But the KKK was created by the Democrats a million years ago.

Stop saying that.

It's true.

It It just It doesn't move the ball forward.

Um Kamla Harris, her new book is nothing but cringe material apparently and she talked about how uh she wanted to pick Pete Buddhajed as her VP, but she didn't think the country was ready to accept uh uh gay men as vice president.

So, so instead she picked Tim Walls.

Now, that was a good choice because by my estimate, Tim Walsh is a good 20% less gay than Pete Buddhajge, maybe 25%.

But, you know, yeah, that's a completely better choice.

Imagine if she had gone full gay.

Well, apparently she thinks that people would not have accepted that.

you know, the the bigots, etc.

But she thought to herself cleverly, "What if what if I don't go full gay?

What if I go 20% less than that?" We've got this guy Tim Wallace.

He's not gay.

No, he's not gay.

He's 20% less than whatever gay is.

And then I saw a joke by I don't know who this is, but Stu Burggera, I guess he's part of Stu Does America.

He must have a podcast, but he had a pretty good joke.

He said, "The only person I've ever heard admit they didn't hire someone because they were gay is Kla Harris." And I thought about that myself and I thought, all right, in my entire career, uh, obviously people say things to me in private that are often terrible.

So, I've heard every bad opinion, every negative opinion, every everything.

Have you ever heard of somebody who didn't get hired because they were gay?

I've never heard of that.

Have you?

I don't even think it's a thing.

Now, I live in California.

So the the just even the thought that you wouldn't hire somebody because they're gay, it doesn't really even come up.

It's not even a conversation.

You know, why would it be?

So I think that's funny that she was the only Californian who ever didn't hire a guy because he was gay.

But anyway, lately I've been uh reflecting on the size of the damage that the TDS um communications has caused.

People have lost family members because they voted for Trump.

They've lost friends.

They've lost careers, etc.

But the family part bothers me the most.

And I wonder I wonder if you could actually do a um a data collection in which you could find out how many families have been destroyed by MSNBC and and the other evil uh hoaxers and liars.

How many do you think it would be?

I I feel How many families are there in the United States?

Maybe maybe uh are there 100 milli million families an average of three?

No, there's a lot of single people now.

Let's say I don't know 75 million or something families.

How many of the families and let's say half of them?

Let's say half of them um were Republican families or well no it doesn't matter.

It only has to be families where there's some of both.

Um I would guess I'm just going to put an estimate on it and this is not based on research.

I would guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million American families were destroyed.

destroyed means at least one key member of the family got exccommunicated forever.

50 million.

I would bet that the Dem Democrats have destroyed 50 million families.

And that's just from one thing.

That's only from uh their communication and lying and and hoaxing.

50 million families destroyed.

Does that seem like too much?

because it's hard for me to imagine any family that has both, you know, left-leaning people and right-leaning people who were unfased.

So, I guess the real question is how many families have both a left and a right leaning element to them?

And I would think uh there a lot that wouldn't.

Maybe a third maybe one-third of families would have a mix, something like that.

That would be conservative estimate.

So I don't know.

I think there could be 50 million families that were just destroyed.

But far more lives if you count the number of lives that were destroyed by their lives.

You would include uh losing careers, getting cancelled, uh losing friends, your entire social structure.

I lost all of that.

I lost well I didn't lose any family because none of my family are batshit crazy.

Is there anybody else who didn't lose any family members because none of your family is bat crazy?

I got lucky.

I mean I have a smalish, you know, relatives.

Not too many.

But as far as I know, none of them were bad crazy.

And none of them had even the slightest the slightest problem with anything I've ever done politically.

Not even a little bit as far as I know.

And and that's even better if maybe they did have a problem and didn't mention it.

Even better.

I I have a quite an awesome uh family.

Very awesome.

All right.

Um, on other topics, I guess, uh, you know, Trump wants to, uh, look into Antifa and maybe see if they can Rico them or something, but that might be difficult because they don't have a leader.

The Democrats actually tried saying that you can't go after Antifa because they don't exist and that it's just spontaneous, you know, collections of people getting together.

Well, you know what that sounds like to me?

Sounds like the Democrats know that if uh Antifa is pursued, somebody's going to find out who is funding them.

And it could be that Antifa will be the last to find out that they had a leader.

I don't know.

I don't know.

But they might find out they do have a leader and they didn't know it the whole time.

You know what I mean?

Because what is it that gets Santifa to show up at the same place?

Well, it's not a lack of leadership, is it?

Is it their lack of leadership that gets them all to drive across the country and be in the same place at the same time?

No.

Somebody is organizing something.

If you say to me, "But Scott, you don't understand.

It's sort of all, you know, organized at the grassroots." To which I say, "No, it's not." There's always somebody who starts the ball rolling and says,"All right, everybody, you know, maybe you could go do your own thing about this, but I'm telling you what to do your own thing about." Of course, there's a leader because absolutely nothing happens at a regular, you know, sort of group event.

No, that doesn't happen spontaneously.

That's like imagining that our other protests are are organic and grassroots.

That doesn't even exist.

You don't have to wonder if the next protest is organic.

None of them are.

None of them are.

I don't even know if it's possible to have an organic one.

So, yeah, maybe maybe Antifa is more clever about hiding, you know, where their support is.

But I got a feeling uh we might find out pretty soon.

Turns out that we're not alone though because it looks like Victor Orban in in Hungary wants to u make Antifa a terrorist organization.

Uh well that that's what Trump wanted to do.

Make them a terrorist organization.

And also I guess uh the Dutch is it the Dutch?

I think the Dutch Parliament also wanted to call Antifa a terrorist organization.

So, it's not just us.

So, that should help.

In other news, um the ongoing energy infrastructure war between Russia and Ukraine, uh features, I guess Ukraine took out another oil refinery in southern Russia.

If you're keeping track, what was the number I gave you the other day from Grock?

30 oil refineries in Russia.

And now this would be a handful so far that have been attacked.

I don't know if they're operational or not, but they've been attacked.

So, and if they the estimate that some people said was if half of the oil refineries went offline, uh, Russia's economy would be in serious trouble.

Yeah.

20% so far.

But I don't know.

You can't you can't really trust any of the numbers coming out of the war zone whether something is destroyed or whether you know they've rebuilt it in two days.

You never know.

But uh clearly Kiev is going on the attacking oil refinery strategy.

Here's what I don't know.

Doesn't it seem to you like there should be a lot more of these every day?

as in um was there really only one oil refinery that got attacked overnight?

Why wouldn't why wouldn't they be attacking five to 10 of them every night?

Are they running out of drones?

Do they not have enough enough weapons?

So, I thought that uh so it must be there must be a specialized kind of drones that can get that far and do that kind of damage.

So maybe they don't have enough of the specialized ones at that distance.

But it seems to me that the inevitable direction is that however many drones are being sent by Ukraine every day, won't that be doubling every 30 days or something?

I feel like the numbers should be just doubling every 30 days because they all know that winning is almost entirely a question of how fast you could and how capable your drones are, how fast can you build them and how capable they are.

Given that we know that's the plan, are they really not able to put hundreds of drones in the air against refineries every day?

So, makes me wonder what it what it is.

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

Probably a lot.

Meanwhile, Estonia released a map showing uh the Russian military had apparently intentionally violated Estonian airspace.

Uh the belief is that Russia is, you know, rattling a saber and scaring them and making them see that, you know, they have military dominance over Estonia, which of course they do.

Um but uh if if you don't know about Estonia, Estonia is not like the other places over there.

it it kind of stands alone because they have a real big emphasis on education and the tech industry.

So Estonia is actually a real advanced country.

Uh they they could do voting on their phones.

So in case you're wondering if it's possible, yeah, Estonia does it.

They just vote on their phone.

I don't see anybody complaining.

Uh maybe there are.

Um but why would Russia be doing that?

Are they planning to attack or is it just, you know, as in as soon as they get some comfort away from Ukraine, are they going to take Estonia?

I don't know.

Don't know what's going on yet.

It It's not obvious to me how Russia wins by frightening Estonia, unless they actually plan to conquer Estonia.

I don't know.

Um the big news I think is that Trump signed this big uh uh H-1B visa fee situation.

Uh the H-1B visa people are the workers.

Almost all of them well 75% come from India.

Most of the rest come from China and then a smattering from other places.

So it's mostly an India situation.

So, Indian tech workers come over here, work for big tech companies, and uh Trump thinks that maybe they should be hiring and training American workers instead.

And so he's still going to let the big companies hire their H-1B visa people, but the company will have to pay $100,000 a piece per year.

Per year to keep these uh Indian high-tech workers.

Um and I saw a uh post by Bindu Ready who said that US tech dominance takes a massive hit imposing this fee will kill skilled US immigration to America.

Uh this fee will also be applied to immigrants graduating from US universities and seeking jobs.

There'll be a domino effect and we'll lose our technical dominance to India and China.

It's time to panic.

What do you think?

Do you think that Trump is right?

You know, maybe like he might have been right on tariffs.

Is it possible that uh we come out ahead by making sure that we have lots of domestic high-tech people who are well trained and can do the job or are we going to lose so much because the Indian workers are bringing with them you know insane amounts of talent that we couldn't possibly grow domestically which is well don't know um probably the court will block it because I guess the court can block it if uh they didn't do proper notification to you know allow people to comment on it before it happens.

So that alone might delay it or block it until the proper notifications can come and I think there's at least one other reason that the court might get involved and therefore I'm sure it will.

So don't assume it's going to happen.

The other possibility is there'll be a lot of tweaking.

So you can expect that uh I don't know some special industries will say uh okay can you make us an exception because there is absolutely no way we can do this with Americans.

We'll we'll work as fast as we can to make sure there's a day where we can do it with Americans.

But right now, honestly, there are no Americans who can do this and we just need a little relief.

That will probably happen.

And there might be some industries where uh they're important industries and the government says, "Okay, we can't really wait to get all the Americans trained up." So, all right.

All right.

For now, for now, you're allowed to have more more of them.

Maybe they'll drop the fee for some cases if there's special cases.

So, there's going to be a lot of tweaking and adjusting and you know, legal actions and stuff.

So, we don't know how this is all going to turn out.

But if the thing that happened is a big tech company uh as they they certainly can hire the high-tech people from India, they can still do it.

They just have to pay.

Would would Google be willing to pay $100,000 a year to keep uh the smartest tech person in India on their payroll?

Well, yeah, of course that would be cheap.

I don't know what a bonus uh a bonus signing bonus is at Google, but I'll bet it's more than 100,000.

Uh, and about the the bonuses per year for somebody who would be a top top top technical person, I'm sure that's over $100,000 a year.

So, what could have happened is Trump created a situation where the big companies are guaranteed to still keep the top of the top of the top.

It'll just be expensive, but they can afford it.

Um, small companies won't be able to do it all, but I don't know how much they were doing.

Were small companies doing a lot of H-1B visas?

I've never heard of it.

Anyway, um, I guess it's too early to know.

Um, my I'll tell you my uh my take from my business experience, which was not as directly related to the this topic.

Um, I didn't know too many of them.

the H-1B visa people, but I don't believe there are Americans who can come anywhere near the smartest of the immigrant technical workers.

I don't think they can get anywhere near it in general.

You know, there are exceptions, right?

Plenty of exceptions, but in general.

So I guess I would agree with uh Bindu Readyy's first take that if you're looking at the near term it's really dangerous in the near term.

In the long term it creates the right set of incentives so that American workers will be trained up and um you know maybe become uh maybe become capable so we can do everything we need.

But let me ask you this.

If you said, "We're going to take the best American tech workers, but only Americans." And then you compete against somebody who says, "I'm also going to take the best American workers, but I have access to oh, around a billion Indians." And I'm not going to take them all, but I'm going to take uh the top 200 smartest technical people in India that I can get and then I'll add them to the best people I can get from America and I'm going to compete against somebody who only has Americans.

Who wins?

Well, what do you think?

You do you think that out of a billion extra people to choose from, you couldn't find smarter people there than the people in the US who may be also very smart but have already already have jobs and you know they got lots of competition and stuff like that.

I feel like it's a no-brainer that just because of the numbers if all you knew that is is that India's got a billion people whatever the number is around there somewhere.

If the only thing you knew is that you could choose from a new pool of a billion people and a lot of them are really well educated, you would do better, right?

Both in the short run and the long run, right?

Sorry, my nose is just going crazy today.

Anyway, so I'm worried.

I'm worried.

I'm worried that Here's what I think.

I I'm just going to say it.

This is probably going too far, but I'm just going to say it.

I believe that the people who who who think that we can do just as well by ignoring a billion a billion people not all technical people but if you have a billion people to choose from and it's from a country with a good education system your best 1% of them that's a lot of people and they're going to be really good I don't believe that we can compete as well without that.

And and what I'm saying is not controversial.

It's just 1 plus 1 is two.

If if if you have three people to choose from and you have to pick a a CTO for your company, but only three people in the world, they're technical, but there are only three of them.

You just pick one of them.

And I have, let's say, a 100red million to pick from.

on average, who's going to be able to pick a better tech person?

Just numbers.

There there's no opinion or subjectivity whatsoever.

So when I see America seem to ignore the numbers, the only way that would make sense is if you believe that you could pick one of those three Americans and get a better work product than any one of the hundred million brilliant uh ITT or I it forget what it is.

Uh university graduates.

That's crazy.

And also I feel like if you never worked with the smartest Indian-American workers, you wouldn't quite understand just how smart they are.

They're not they're not ordinary smart.

You know, I consider myself a really smart American.

I was validictorian, went to good college, went to a good graduate school.

I'm I'm easily easily in the top 2% of educated you know capable Americans.

I'm not anywhere near uh a lot of the Indian tech people.

There is a whole different level of smart.

Now there are also a whole deal different level of smart Americans but again it's a numbers problem.

For every one American who is just extraordinarily capable, you know, way more than me.

For every one of those, how many do you think are in India?

And now they may be priced out of our possibility.

So I'm going to be open-minded on this one.

I believe that the administration has probably done his homework and they have probably created a situation and a structure and incentive system that would favor American workers.

Um will it be too damaging in the long run?

It might be.

I think Bindu ready is giving us a caution that we should watch out for.

But uh it's also reversible.

So I think you run it for six months or a year and then you have the big companies come into the White House and sit there and maybe privately this doesn't have to be public and just say we can't make this work.

Or they say you know surprisingly it worked.

or they say the only way this is going to work is if the government, you know, does something to train people better, faster or something like that, but more likely it'll get tweaked or reversed.

Anyway, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you remember them?

The the head of that got fired for the labor numbers being so ridiculously wrong and then always getting corrected.

uh they postponed the release of a key annual report that is central to future inflation data.

So unusual Wales is reporting this on X.

Um and they didn't explain the reasoning for the delay or when it might be released.

Well, I've got a suspicion.

Does anybody want to take a wild guess why the department of the Bureau of Labor Statistics has postponed a new data report?

Can anybody take a wild guess?

Could it be that the boss, the new boss asked a question that sounds like this?

Are these numbers real?

And then after that everything just fell off the rails.

What else would it be?

Right?

Is there any other reason it would be delayed?

You know, when it's not typically delayed?

No.

No.

The boss asked, some boss said, "Are these numbers reliable?" And everybody said, "Ah, what do you mean by reliable?" You know what I mean?

I You don't have to wonder what really is happening.

Of course, that's what's happening.

Somebody asked the wrong question and somebody gave them an honest answer and that just shut down the whole thing.

Do you know why?

I don't know if you've ever heard me say this before.

All data is fake.

All of it.

Well, I saw a Laura Lubber post today.

That's pretty scary.

It says al-Qaeda's um taking root in the United States and planning a multi-ity attack.

uh multi-ity attack.

Uh have they done that before?

I don't remember the multi-ity part, but that would be extra bad if it were multi-y.

And my question is, would that include drones?

Do you think al-Qaeda is going to start using drones?

Because if they're in lots of s cities and all they do is everybody puts a drone in the air at the same time and they're all, you know, bad purpose drones, they've got bombs or something something worse on them.

Uh, I feel like that's just going to happen.

You better get your own drone defensive uh laser system.

I want one in my roof.

Uh, oh, speaking of the H1B people, uh, Microsoft already told it, uh, H1B visa employees to get back to the US so that they don't have to pay to get in and or risk getting locked out and uh, so I guess they're scrambling to uh, to reduce the risk as they should.

Um, I saw a post by somebody called Leon Fresco, who I must dislike because I noticed I had blocked them on X, but somebody else had forwarded the uh his post.

And uh although I don't like him for reasons I don't remember, I will read his point because I think it's provocative.

Um, I'll I'll summarize it which is that he suspects that the H-1B visa thing may be a negotiating strategy with India.

Meaning that if uh 75% of them are the H-1B visa people are coming from India, India may have a big incentive for continuing that because I'm sure a lot of money gets sent back home etc.

and that maybe what this is is just more pressure on India because ultimately we want them to stop uh providing or buying oil from Russia.

So, it could be if if uh that what Trump is really doing is saying if you're going to buy uh Russia Russian oil, which is bad for the world, bad for us, bad for Ukraine, bad for Europe, if you're going to do that, we're not going to we're not going to buy your employees unless they're so valuable that you know it's good for us.

So maybe maybe I don't know maybe that's part of it.

But I don't think you know again this is uh we have to agree that there can be two reasons for things.

It might be that it's helpful for negotiating but it might be that we just want America first.

So it could be more than one thing.

Uh Trump's already also introducing his uh gold card visa.

So for a million dollars you can get a visa.

A million dollars.

Um, and if a corporation wants to sponsor the individual, it's $2 million.

Wow.

It cost you $15,000 just to do the paperwork.

So, if you want to buy yourself a visa, you can do it, but it's going to cost you.

I like have I like the United States having a a two drink minimum and a cover charge.

I kind of like that.

You can't even get in this country without paying.

Um, so have you noticed that I have not been exuberant about uh Argentina's president MLE?

Yeah, even though he was doing impressive things, you know, with cutting expenses and getting things turned around.

And you may have noticed that I was not really ever joining into that celebration parade cuz there was always something about him that I said to myself, h I'm going to wait and see.

I do not believe that this uh no matter how smart he is or well-intentioned, I don't believe he just came in and fixed everything.

Doesn't that sound a little too little too on the nose, a little too convenient, a little too not how the real world works?

like the real world's much messier than that.

He comes in and waves a chainsaw around and all of a sudden, you know, everything's working again.

It does.

It didn't seem likely to me.

But now there are reports that there are I saw from stock market not news today on X the currency is under strain and the uh there's all kinds of problems uh bad enough problems that uh they may be teetering on the edge of going back to the major problems that they had.

You know, it's that bad.

Um, that's what I would have expected even if MLE did everything right cuz the world was a messy place.

You don't just go in and wave your hands around and suddenly everything works.

That that doesn't happen.

So that seems a little more realistic.

I I think his publicity was way better than what could have possibly been the reality on the ground.

Okay.

Um, Soros organization is dropping a bunch of money on Newsome's redistricting plan according to Fox News, Emma Coloulton.

Um, so I guess the uh donors have now given to Proposition 50.

I guess that's the proposition that would allow California to redistrict and create some more Democratic seats.

There's a 70 million that's been collected for that.

70 million.

Now, is that all being spent on convincing people to say yes in the in the bluest country?

It's the bluest country.

How hard is it to convince Democrats to do something weasly to get another Democrat seat?

Isn't that the easiest cell in the world?

Hey, uh are you Democrat?

Yes.

Yes.

Well, we're thinking of doing this weasly thing to create another seat.

I mean, what would be the sales process there?

$70 million.

I mean, are they using some kind of magic pencil to draw the lines?

If I see something like $70 million collected for this one thing, that obviously it shouldn't be the easiest thing in the world to get uh accepted.

By the way, I do know that even Democrats are a little bit against redistricting surprisingly, but I think they just haven't been, you know, presented with, yeah, it's easy.

It won't hurt you.

We come out ahead that they'll they'll be flipped.

Maybe it takes $70 million to do that.

Maybe I could have done it for 1 million.

Just ask me next time.

All right, that's all I got for today.

Owen, I remind you, is hosting his spaces event.

Just go to X and look for um just uh look for Owen Gregorian and uh do a search and he'll pop right up.

All right, I'm going to say a few words privately to the beloved subscribers on Locals and the rest of you.

Thanks for joining.

I will see you tomorrow and we'll get everything fixed.

We'll figure it all out.

for the show.

Well, I want to make sure I got your

comments working

and then we'll kick off Saturday.

Come on, technology.

Hurry up.

So, I have several things in my life

where it takes 30 seconds

from the time I hit pre press something

to the time that something happens.

Do you know how long that is? Do you

remember the old days when you'd hit

enter and then you just sit there?

Well, we're back to those days.

[Music]

Good morning everybody and welcome to

the highlight of human civilization.

It's the best time we've ever had. on.

If you'd like to take a chance of

elevating your experience up to levels

that no one could even understand with

her

with her tiny shiny human brains, all

you need for that is a copper mug or a

glass of tanker shells in a canteen

sugar flask a vessel of any kind. Fill

it with your favorite liquid. I like

coffee. And join me now for the

unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine of

the day. The thing that makes everything

better is called the simultaneous sip.

And it's going to happen right now. All

right. Maybe a few things are going

right this morning.

Well,

in the morning I I have uh three tasks

that I try to do. One is I have to put

the correct date on the comic before I

publish it in the morning for the

subscribers. Then I have to publish the

actual cartoon. So that's two things.

The date then the comic. And then

there's another thing I have to

remember. I have to move a file

somewhere before I start. And if I don't

do it, it's just makes me so angry. I

can't even stand it. Well, today all

three things were wrong. I had a bug,

some kind of technical problem that made

the date wrong and I didn't notice till

I published it. I also selected the

wrong comic also because there was a

little glitch in the system. Didn't

notice until I published it. So, I got

the wrong date, the wrong comic,

and I forgot to move my file. So, I'm

hoping the rest of the day goes better.

I'm 0 for three.

Well, after the show today, Owen

Gregorian, as is tradition for

Saturdays, will be hosting a spaces

event where you can talk about more of

this or whatever is on your mind. Uh

Owen Gregorian. So, look for Owen.

Um, and I think Oh, there were four

things I forgot this morning. I think

there were four things I forgot. I

forgot to re

Sorry, Owen. I forgot to repost your uh

spaces thing. I'll do that after the

show or I'll probably forget that too.

Anyway,

um guess what? According to Eric Dolan

at Scipost, higher caffeine intake is

linked to better cognitive function in

older US adults.

That's right. If you're older and you're

drinking coffee, that coffee is

improving your uh um it's it's improving

your uh if you're older, the coffee is

improving your uh

your what? Hold on. Hold on

just a second. Hold on.

Cognitive function. Your cognitive

function. There it goes.

Um, yep.

So, there's that.

So, there's a new Chinese robot. Um,

it's sort of an Optimus knockoff, but

weirdly, it seems to it's almost as if

it looks like it might be using some of

the Optimus Tesla technology. It looks

like they're they may have licensed

Tesla's hybrid architecture. Anyway,

they got this robot

And it's the Kepler robot. And they

claim they're going to commence mass

production

of the K2 bumblebee. Uh do you think

they're going to mass produce the

humanoid robot? Now, I would like to

impress you by giving you my impression

of everything that the amazing amazing

humanoid robot can do. Remember, this is

in the news, so it's real. Would you

like to see my impression of everything

that so far the robot can do?

There.

But but wait, that's not all. It can

pick up boxes.

And I can move him.

Yeah, that's impressive.

And I'll say it for the millionth time.

If a humanoid robot could do anything

impressive

and it was going to be rolling out soon

and they're already producing them, you

would see the video of it doing

something besides walking around and

holding a box.

No, I don't believe any of these

stories. None of them could possibly be

true. If they could really do

several things. You don't think the

video would include all of the several

things they can do?

If it could do two things, well, maybe

walk and carry something as two two

things. If it could do three things, you

don't think the video would show that

if the entire po the point of the video

is to impress you? I've been watching

these damn robots walking around like

tards and carrying a box for 30

years. Am I right? Can anybody back me

on this? Do do you remember seeing like

a 60 minutes or something 30 years ago

where there was a humanoid robot that

was always plugged in? And they're

always plugged in too. If they're doing

anything interesting, the batteries are

too bad. Anyway, robots.

We'll see. Well, Trump's uh popularity

seems to be the highest in uh fighting

crime. Um so, he's losing a little bit

on the border. Do you know why Trump's

uh popularity on the border is going

down now? It's a little bit negative.

It's because he already solved it.

Nobody g Nobody cares about the border

now because he solved it. So now it's

like, yeah, who cares? Yeah, now I will

only look at the bad parts now because

you you solved all the other parts, you

know, the the hordes of people coming

across. That's what I was really worried

about. But that's solved. So let's talk

about some guy named Jesus

who says he didn't get a good deal or

something. That's all you got to talk

about.

But, uh, he's got that going for him.

Crime,

uh, which would suggest that he's going

to do a lot more of it. If your top

popularity thing was solving crime and

you had a model for doing it, which is

sending in the troops, um, what would

stop you from doing more of that? Like

maybe

one new city every two months and just

keep doing it. I would. Well, you know,

Trump said he would pay for the White

House ballroom himself,

but seems he has collected $200 million

in pledges from big companies like

Google and Palunteer and Loheed Martin

that will pay as much as I think one of

them is Lockheed. It's going to give $10

million. So, he's already got uh almost

$200 million that's pledged, which makes

me ask the following question.

How the hell much does a ballroom cost?

You can't get a ballroom built for under

$200 million.

Really? I mean, it's mostly a big empty

room. $200 million.

I don't know. Something wrong with that.

CBS News is talking about that.

Anyway, um, how many of you believed

that Trump would pay for the ballroom

entirely by himself?

I mean, seriously, how many of you

believed he really was going to pay for

that all by himself? Now, I do kind of

like the fact that he said it because it

it put some distance between the story

that it was going to get built and then

the question of who's paying for it. So,

time goes by and then the story about

who's paying for it obviously. Yeah.

Didn't you know it was going to be

donations?

Even if he didn't ask for donations, you

don't think people would have offered if

they knew he was going to pay for it.

You don't think one of the big companies

would say, you know, you don't have to

pay for all of it. I mean, we could kick

in a few million. Of course they would.

It would be the most obvious thing they

could ever do because it has a has a

direct benefit to the president because

he doesn't have to spend his own money.

I mean, it's basically

all right, let me just say it. He he

created a new way to get bribed.

It's totally legal. So, if you imagine

that he would have lost, let's just say,

$200 million of his own money if he

built it, and you're a company that can

say, "Uh, well, I can't pay for the

whole $200 million, but I can take $10

million off your plate." You wouldn't

have to pay that personally. Is that a

bribe? Is it a bribe when you say, "I

will reduce your expenses by $10

million. I'll take that off your hands."

I don't know.

I'm sure it's it's probably legal

because there's no quid proquo, you

know, nothing in return. Uh it's all

public, it's all transparent, etc. It's,

you know, it's well reported,

but it is kind of brilliant

the way he handled that. Um, apparently

there was a uh prosecutor who in

Virginia who was looking into the uh

Leticia James mortgage question and

decided that they couldn't find enough

evidence to make a case out of it. And

so Trump's firing him because he

couldn't make a case against James. Now,

does that suggest that he's looking to

do a little lawfare?

If if the guy who was in charge says,

"Uh, we we don't have enough we don't

have enough evidence that she knew what

she was doing." So, it was the knowing

knowing that she was doing it was the uh

was that was the part that mattered.

Now, I don't know how you prove that she

knew it.

I used to think that ignorance was no

excuse. Does that change? Didn't it used

to be that ignorance of the law was no

excuse? So would it matter if she

intended?

Well, I suppose if it were a pure

clerical accident or just an oversight,

that would be probably allowable,

but uh it does seem to me that Trump is

uh looking to lawfare her for revenge.

I would normally say that the legal

system should not be used for personal

revenge, except this is revenge for all

of us.

Um, if any of you thought it was a good

idea that the person you wanted to be

president was being lawfared like crazy,

well,

I didn't think it was a good idea and it

felt like it was something against me. I

felt like it was, you know, it was

against my interests.

So, I think I would be in favor of some

lawfare only in the uh, let me say that

again. I'm completely opposed to

lawfare. I don't want my side to do any

lawfare to the other side unless there

is one exception. If you're lawfaring

the lawfare person, you know, the person

who is the the most evil and tried to

lawfare you, then do whatever you want.

I would say all the controls are off. If

somebody tries to lawfare you into jail

over just trumped up literally charges

uh and then you get lucky and you get in

charge of that person someday and you

could return the favor 100% return that

favor. Yeah, that's mutually assured

destruction. I mean that that's the only

thing that will keep people from doing

it forever is if the people who did it

just get destroyed.

Yeah. Yeah. the pe the people who try

that have to get destroyed.

It's best for the country. When I say

destroyed, I mean just legally and

financially.

Well, uh CNN's Van Jones had a story

about Charlie Kirk that we had not

heard. Apparently, uh, he and Charlie

Kirk, uh, had been in a kind of a

pitched battle

about the, uh, question about the murder

that happened on the light trail train,

you know, the Ukrainian woman who was

stabbed to death. And, uh, I guess

Charlie said that the motive for the

attack was race because the w the woman

who got killed was white. And can

somebody give me a fact check? I I heard

a lot of people talking about this, but

I never heard the the audio myself. Did

he really say in a way that was captured

on audio, I got that white girl? Did he

did the killer actually use those words,

I got that white girl, or was that just

something that was on the internet?

Because I didn't see a source for that.

All right, I'm seeing some yeses.

But uh all right. So

if you knew that that's what the killer

said, would you say to yourself that's

confirmation that that was a racial

racially motivated attack?

Or is it possible that that's just the

way he refers to white girls because

maybe he doesn't spend much time with

them. So if if there's a white girl in

his life, does he say the white girl?

because that wouldn't be that unusual

for somebody just to refer to somebody

as the white girl. Unfortunately, that

would be kind of normal.

Um, but in context,

it does seem to me like a pretty good

argument that he had some kind of racial

motivation. You know, probably wasn't

100% of what was going on. Probably

there was, you know, a bunch of

craziness on top of that, but seemed to

be in his mind. Anyway, so Van Jones and

Charlie Kirk were having a intense

uh back and forth that lasted a little

while and you know they were messaging

each other and uh the last thing that

Van Jones heard from Charlie Kirk was uh

Charlie invited him to go on his show to

have quote a respectful conversation

about crime and race. And uh

and I think uh Van Jones called it a

to agree to be agreeable.

I think that was a phrase, agree to be

agreeable.

And so here again in his last moments of

life um Charlie Kirk showed what made

him Charlie Kirk that he was having a

tense disagreement with somebody very

much on the other side and his uh his

solution is to be extra nice and to be

extra attentive to listening to his

point of view. And that's that's how he

was going to treat that.

And Van Jones, I think, got quite

touched by that,

which I appreciate. I appreciate his

humanity there.

All right. Um, Starbucks apparently is

having a little uh a wave of people

saying that their name is Charlie Kirk,

the name that they put on the cup when

your when your your order is ready. And

I guess there was one case where a

individual uh barista said we can't do

that because it's political and that

caused a big brewhaha

and uh Starbucks backed down

immediately.

Starbucks folded like a

uh Starbucks napkin. Now, it could be

that they just, you know, agreed that

you can put anything on a cup as long as

it's not obscene. It could be that they

they were just, you know, reiterating

the policy or maybe clarifying. But, uh,

boy, Starbucks didn't want a piece of

this fight.

If you were the Starbucks management,

would you come anywhere near this topic

if you could avoid it? No, you would

not. you would stay as far away from

getting involved in this as you possibly

could.

So when it came down to that, they were

on the on the side of the people who

wanted Charlie's name on the cup.

Um so it's taking on kind of a Spartacus

vibe. I saw a video of a bunch of school

children uh one at a time saying I am

Charlie Kirk as the movie Spartacus.

There's a famous scene where the I guess

the Romans were trying to figure out

which of the many slaves was a slave

called Sparticus because he'd caused all

this trouble. And they were going to

kill him and uh he stood up and said, "I

am Spartacus." So you thought, "Okay,

it's over. He's going to get killed now

because now they know who he is. They're

definitely going to kill him." And then

somebody else stands up in the crowd and

goes, "I am Spartacus."

and then somebody else and somebody else

and pretty soon everybody had stood up

and said there's Spartacus and they did

that

because they were willing to take

collective punishment over letting

Spartacus die.

So that was a quite uh impactful part of

the movie and it looks like people are

taking the Spartacus energy

to Charlie Kirk

which is kind of cool.

Well, here's a Kimmel update.

Jimmy Kimmel update. Um, are you all

aware that things can happen for more

than one reason at the same time?

Do we have to argue whether uh Kibble

got fired because the government put

pressure on Disney or because Disney and

ABC were losing a ton of money and his

contract was up at the end of the year

and there's no way they could ever make

money on him. Do we need to know which

of those was the one reason?

Those are both pretty good reasons,

aren't they? Let's see. I don't want the

government to come down to me like a ton

of bricks. I don't like losing money.

Why isn't it obviously both?

Do do we really need to have like a a

big old conversation about which one it

is?

Do do you feel superior if you say the

real reason was economics

or the real reason was the government?

It's obviously both reasons.

Am I wrong? It's obviously 100%, no

doubt about it, both reasons.

Let me put it this way. If Kimmel made

$10 billion a year for Disney, do you

think they'd take him off the air? No.

Obviously, it's about money.

if uh if the government put pressure on

them like maybe you don't get approval

for your mergers or acquisitions or

whatever which are pretty important. Uh

do you think that they would uh just

ignore the government and take their

chances? Well, we'll take our chances.

No, not really. Not really going to take

their chances. That's too big of a

chance. Would be you'd be letting down

the stockholders.

So, let's just agree it's both.

Anybody want to come with me on that

journey? Just say, "Yeah, it's obviously

both." All right.

Uh, apparently the viewership was even

worse than we thought. It had been going

pretty much straight down since uh

several years. And looks like nothing

was going to change that.

So, um,

and they probably knew that they would

never get conservatives back. I don't

know if they had any, but they were

never going to get conservatives back,

if they ever had them, or if if they had

them in the last few years. They

probably already lost him because of the

things he said. Well, um, have you been

paying attention to which people in the

conservative and/or libertarian view um

thought that the, uh, free speech was

being violated by the government, uh, by

putting pressure on the FCC? Well, not

pressure, but um the FCC is part of the

government and you assume that they're

going to be at least influenced by the

preferences of the administration of

which they belong and they're the same

party and you know they you know they

have a lot in common. So the president

doesn't have to give does not have to

give a direct order to the head of the

FCC.

He chose him. He knew he knew he knew

what he was going to get right when he

chose him. So he chose him because he

had a certain set of qualities and

priorities and he liked him.

Um

so the people who are seemingly

concentrating on the u the attack on

free speech would be Ted Cruz. So Ted

Cruz is saying uh no the government's

can't put the government can't lean on

people for their speech. And that's when

it arguably there's an argument the

other way. The the counterargument is

the FCC is literally just doing it

charter.

Its charter is to make sure that the

airwaves are which are public and

limited uh that they're used for the the

best interest of the public. However,

everything has a however. Every time you

think, okay, I got it figured out, you

have to go however.

Uh, however, there's a judgment call

here, isn't there? If it were not

subjective as to what's too foreign and

what's in the interest of the

government. If it were not subjective,

well, I don't think we'd have the

conversation. We'd say, "Well, that's

his job. That's what the job says.

That's why the job exists.

Do the job."

But if there is a little uh judgment

about how to do that job and when to do

it and when it's important and when it's

not, well, that's where the free speech

question gets in there. Anyway, so Ted

Cruz is going hard at the free speech

being violated. Ben Shapiro, uh, I

believe did the same. Free speech being

violated. Uh, unacceptable.

Uh, I think Cat Tim

came, you know, did a free speech, pro-

free speech. I don't recall, but I'm

sure that Dave Smith probably did,

right? Can you confirm that to me? Did

Dave comic Dave Smith? I'm guessing he

went with the free speech

um position.

And me um I'm also on the free speech

position.

Now,

is there anybody here who wants to go

full NPC?

If you want to go full NPC, this would

be the time to say, "Scott, but it was

just a it was a business decision."

Scott, don't you understand? It's not

free speech. If it's a business

decision, a business decision doesn't

need to worry about free speech. It's a

business just a business decision.

Do you do you feel like that would be a

good point?

Is that a good point right now? Like

right now based on what I just said, is

that a good point? No, it's not a good

point. I started the whole thing by

saying things could have two reasons. It

it doesn't have to be one reason. And

the fact that it's also a good business

thing does not excuse the free speech

element of it. And we should be brushing

back the free speech risk wherever we

can.

So let me let me say it a different way.

I don't like to be on the other side of

a constitutional question from Ted Cruz.

Do you all know Ted Cruz's background? I

He's literally one of the best

constitutional lawyers before he became

a senator.

He was famous for it. If if Ted Cruz

tells me something's a violation of free

speech, am I going to say, "Oh, I don't

know, Ted. I don't know. I I feel like

you haven't analyzed this correctly. Uh,

let me use all my experience as a

cartoonist to tell you where you got

that wrong about the Constitution of the

United States." I'm not going to do

that. No. If Ted Cruz tells me

something is true about the

Constitution, I'm just going to change

my mind to whatever he said. What about

Ben Shapiro?

Do you think Ben Shapiro doesn't

understand the issue?

No. Of course he does. Of course he

understands the issue better than me.

Better than you? Probably. Unless you're

Ted Cruz. If Ben Shapiro is on the same

side

as Ted Cruz

on a constitutional question, you feel

comfortable being on the other side?

Have you Have you not been paying

attention at all for the last decade?

No. If Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro are

solidly on the same side of a

constitutional question, give up. Just

give up. just adopt their point of view

because they're not going to be wrong if

it's both of them and they're sure and

it's not that complicated. They are

right. They are right. Don't listen to

me. You know, I I happen to agree with

them. But don't don't take my side. I'm

no constitutional scholar. You know, I

have no I have no track record of being

right on constitutional questions or

anything like that.

Um, Bill Maher, who's sort of our canary

in the coal mine, uh, every Saturday

morning after his show, which by the way

is a tremendous accomplishment. Um, I

don't think we give Bill Mah enough

credit for what he's accomplished that

every Saturday morning both both sides

of the country, if you want to call it

that, uh, really really want to talk

about what he said.

That's quite an accomplishment, right?

We can disagree with them all day long,

but the fact that we figure it's

important that we deal with what he

said, that's amazing. I mean that's that

is really a career that worked out. So

good job Bill Maher. Even when we

disagree with you, you have created a

powerful and important asset that's

benefit to the country

in my opinion.

Um,

and yeah, and he uh went hard at the

liberals for uh well, yeah, went hard at

no, at the Republicans this time for

violation of free speech

or pressure on it. You could just call

it pressure on it as opposed to a

violation.

Um, David Letterman appeared as some

event hosted by the Atlantic and Jeffrey

Goldberg was interviewing him.

Goldberg's

boss over there at the Atlantic. And uh

so obviously, you know, Letterman was in

favor of free speech and didn't want to

see uh Kimmel fired, etc. Kind of what

you'd expect.

But here's the thing. I feel like

Letterman was showing us the problem

more than the solution. The problem was

that Letterman apparently didn't know

that he would lose all of his

credibility with half of the country by

appearing with the Atlantic and Jeffrey

Goldberg. Do you all know that The

Atlantic,

it's hard to know if they're even trying

to be legitimate? You know, they're

they're sort of the MSNBC of print

magazines and well online, too.

So the fact that Letterman would even

appear on stage with that entity

does suggest he doesn't pay attention

too much to politics or how the world

works. So I would discount anything that

Letterman says about anything. Um, he's

brilliant at what he did for a living,

but I don't think he has any special

appreciation of the Constitution or

politics or the bigger picture. Uh, he

seems poorly informed

just by the fact that he was on that

stage. That a poor decision. Um,

apparently it's a go for the 2026

Republican convention. Now, as you know,

they don't normally have one, a

convention unless a president is

running. But, uh, Trump quite wisely,

and I think this is just brilliant,

decided that if the Republicans always

get a bump when they do, uh, when they

do a convention, why wouldn't you do

another convention? If every time you do

it, you're going to bump in popularity

because it's what I call the the

documentary effect. If the TV is sort of

nailed on and for hours the people who

care about politics watch because it's

on and it's about politics and they like

stuff like that, they're going to see a

whole lot of one point of view. We are

great. Democrats are bad. Why wouldn't

you do that? This to me this uh this

midterm convention by the Republicans is

such a good idea that it just makes me

wonder why nobody thought of it. And if

if it took Trump to think about this

again, he would be impressing the hell

out of me with his innovative

uh innovative ways at his current age. I

mean, that's really impressive. And if

somebody suggested it to him, he still

gets the credit because the boss is the

one who decides what's a yes, what's a

no, and who am I and who are my

adviserss.

So this is a this is a good sign for

Trump. It's just brilliant.

Well, Jasmine Crockett was at some

public event and she said, and I quote,

"Most black people are not Republicans

simply because we just dislike y'all

racist. I can't hang out with the KKK

and them."

Let me read that again. Most black

people are not Republicans simply

because we just as like y'all racist. I

can't hang out with a KKK and them. All

right. Now, uh, may I translate that for

you? Um, I'll translate. I'll summarize

it. Let's say summarize it. Uh, what she

said is you should not hang out with a

body of people that might have uh some

percentage, not not a majority, but it

would have some people in it that have a

bad feeling about you.

Um, she didn't say get the away

from them,

but that's what she meant. Now, I agree

with her totally. This this might be the

most I've ever agreed with Jasmine

Crockett. If you believe that there's a

group that has too many people in it who

don't like you, it's not really your job

to sort out the good ones.

Now, Jasmine

uh might agree with the statement that

people should be judged individually.

She might agree with that. I certainly

agree with it. I think everybody has to

be judged individually and you should

not judge individuals by immutable

characteristics or religions or stuff

like that. I don't believe that.

Uh, I do believe that if you're trying

to protect yourself,

uh, that you maybe don't want to spend

time with people who very clearly don't

like you and don't like you around.

I would say I would only adjust her

opinion one way, which is the KKK are

more geographic than party related. If

you can stay out of the town where

there's a KKK presence, do you should do

that. If you're a black American, don't

go anywhere near a town that has like a

even one KKK chapter

that's active. Don't go near it. Stay

away. Get the away from that town.

But you probably don't have to get away

from Republicans because there are just

tons and tons and tons and tons of

Republican towns. They have exactly zero

KKK pe people in them. So, you're safe

there. And uh there's nobody in the

Republican party who's loving the KKK,

by the way. Well, there may be there may

be some uh wild cards in there, but

generally speaking, it's not like that.

It's not like the Republicans accept the

KKK. That's not a thing.

Now, if you're an NPC, what do you say

now? NPCs, I'll give you a moment to say

the thing that you always say now when

the KKK is mentioned.

I I know you're going to say it.

Somebody's going to say it. Go ahead,

say it. All right, I'll say it for you.

But the KKK was created by the Democrats

a million years ago.

Stop saying that. It's true. It It just

It doesn't move the ball forward.

Um

Kamla Harris, her new book is nothing

but cringe material apparently and she

talked about how uh she wanted to pick

Pete Buddhajed as her VP, but she didn't

think the country was ready to accept uh

uh gay men as vice president. So,

so instead she picked Tim Walls.

Now, that was a good choice

because by my estimate, Tim Walsh is a

good 20% less gay than Pete Buddhajge,

maybe 25%. But, you know, yeah, that's a

completely better choice. Imagine if she

had gone full gay.

Well, apparently she thinks that people

would not have accepted that. you know,

the the bigots, etc. But she thought to

herself cleverly, "What if what if I

don't go full gay? What if I go 20% less

than that?"

We've got this guy Tim Wallace. He's not

gay. No, he's not gay. He's 20% less

than whatever gay is.

And then I saw a joke by I don't know

who this is, but Stu Burggera,

I guess he's part of Stu Does America.

He must have a podcast,

but he had a pretty good joke. He said,

"The only person I've ever heard admit

they didn't hire someone because they

were gay is Kla Harris."

And I thought about that myself and I

thought, all right, in my entire career,

uh, obviously people say things to me in

private

that are often terrible.

So, I've heard every bad opinion, every

negative opinion, every everything. Have

you ever heard of somebody who didn't

get hired because they were gay? I've

never heard of that. Have you?

I don't even think it's a thing. Now, I

live in California. So the the just even

the thought that you wouldn't hire

somebody because they're gay, it doesn't

really even come up. It's not even a

conversation. You know, why would it be?

So I think that's funny that she was the

only Californian

who ever didn't hire a guy because he

was gay.

But anyway,

lately

I've been uh reflecting on the size of

the damage that the TDS

um communications has caused. People

have lost family members because they

voted for Trump. They've lost friends.

They've lost careers, etc. But the

family part bothers me the most. And I

wonder I wonder if you could actually do

a

um a data collection in which you could

find out how many families have been

destroyed

by MSNBC and and the other evil uh

hoaxers and liars. How many do you think

it would be? I I feel How many families

are there in the United States? Maybe

maybe uh are there 100 milli million

families an average of three? No,

there's a lot of single people now.

Let's say I don't know 75 million or

something families. How many of the

families and let's say half of them?

Let's say half of them um were

Republican families or well no it

doesn't matter. It only has to be

families where there's some of both.

Um I would guess

I'm just going to put an estimate on it

and this is not based on research.

I would guess somewhere in the

neighborhood of 50 million American

families were destroyed.

destroyed means at least one key member

of the family got exccommunicated

forever.

50 million. I would bet that the Dem

Democrats have destroyed 50 million

families. And that's just from one

thing. That's only from uh their

communication and lying and and hoaxing.

50 million families destroyed.

Does that seem like too much? because

it's hard for me to imagine any family

that has both, you know, left-leaning

people and right-leaning people who were

unfased.

So, I guess the real question is how

many families have both a left and a

right leaning element to them? And I

would think

uh there a lot that wouldn't.

Maybe a third maybe one-third of

families would have a mix, something

like that. That would be conservative

estimate. So

I don't know. I think there could be 50

million families that were just

destroyed.

But far more lives if you count the

number of lives that were destroyed by

their lives. You would include uh losing

careers, getting cancelled,

uh losing friends, your entire social

structure. I lost all of that. I lost

well I didn't lose any family because

none of my family are batshit crazy. Is

there anybody else who didn't lose any

family members because none of your

family is bat crazy? I got lucky. I

mean I have a smalish, you know,

relatives. Not too many. But as far as I

know,

none of them were bad crazy. And

none of them had even the slightest the

slightest problem with anything I've

ever done politically. Not even a little

bit as far as I know. And and that's

even better if maybe they did have a

problem and didn't mention it. Even

better.

I I have a quite an awesome uh family.

Very awesome.

All right.

Um, on other topics,

I guess, uh, you know, Trump wants to,

uh, look into Antifa and maybe see if

they can Rico them or something, but

that might be difficult because they

don't have a leader. The Democrats

actually tried saying that you can't go

after Antifa because they don't exist

and that it's just spontaneous,

you know, collections of people getting

together. Well, you know what that

sounds like to me? Sounds like the

Democrats know that if uh Antifa is

pursued, somebody's going to find out

who is funding them. And it could be

that Antifa will be the last to find out

that they had a leader.

I don't know. I don't know. But they

might find out they do have a leader and

they didn't know it the whole time. You

know what I mean? Because what is it

that gets Santifa to show up at the same

place?

Well, it's not a lack of leadership, is

it? Is it their lack of leadership that

gets them all to drive across the

country and be in the same place at the

same time? No. Somebody is organizing

something. If you say to me, "But Scott,

you don't understand. It's sort of all,

you know, organized at the grassroots."

To which I say, "No, it's not." There's

always somebody who starts the ball

rolling and says,"All right, everybody,

you know, maybe you could go do your own

thing about this, but I'm telling you

what to do your own thing about." Of

course, there's a leader because

absolutely nothing happens at a regular,

you know, sort of group event. No, that

doesn't happen spontaneously.

That's like imagining that our other

protests are are organic and grassroots.

That doesn't even exist.

You don't have to wonder if the next

protest is organic. None of them are.

None of them are. I don't even know if

it's possible to have an organic one.

So, yeah, maybe

maybe Antifa is more clever about

hiding, you know, where their support

is. But I got a feeling uh we might find

out pretty soon. Turns out that we're

not alone though

because it looks like Victor Orban in in

Hungary wants to u make Antifa a

terrorist organization.

Uh well that that's what Trump wanted to

do. Make them a terrorist organization.

And also I guess uh the Dutch is it the

Dutch? I think the Dutch Parliament also

wanted to call Antifa a terrorist

organization. So, it's not just us. So,

that should help. In other news, um the

ongoing energy infrastructure war

between Russia and Ukraine, uh features,

I guess Ukraine took out another oil

refinery in southern Russia. If you're

keeping track, what was the number I

gave you the other day from Grock? 30

oil refineries in Russia. And now this

would be

a handful so far that have been

attacked. I don't know if they're

operational or not, but they've been

attacked. So, and if they the estimate

that some people said was if half of the

oil refineries went offline, uh,

Russia's economy would be in serious

trouble.

Yeah. 20% so far. But I don't know. You

can't you can't really trust any of the

numbers coming out of the war zone

whether something is destroyed or

whether you know they've rebuilt it in

two days. You never know. But uh clearly

Kiev is going on the attacking oil

refinery strategy. Here's what I don't

know. Doesn't it seem to you like there

should be a lot more of these every day?

as in

um was there really only one oil

refinery that got attacked overnight?

Why wouldn't why wouldn't they be

attacking

five to 10 of them every night? Are they

running out of drones? Do they not have

enough enough weapons?

So, I thought that uh so it must be

there must be a specialized kind of

drones that can get that far and do that

kind of damage. So maybe they don't have

enough of the specialized ones at that

distance. But it seems to me that the

inevitable direction is that however

many drones are being sent by Ukraine

every day, won't that be doubling every

30 days or something? I feel like the

numbers should be just doubling every 30

days because they all know that winning

is almost entirely a question of how

fast you could and how capable your

drones are, how fast can you build them

and how capable they are. Given that we

know that's the plan,

are they really not able to put hundreds

of drones in the air against refineries

every day? So, makes me wonder what it

what it is. I don't know about what's

going on over there. Probably a lot.

Meanwhile, Estonia released a map

showing uh the Russian military had

apparently intentionally violated

Estonian airspace. Uh the belief is that

Russia is, you know, rattling a saber

and scaring them and making them see

that, you know, they have military

dominance over Estonia, which of course

they do. Um

but uh if if you don't know about

Estonia,

Estonia is not like the other places

over there. it it kind of stands alone

because they have a real big emphasis on

education and the tech industry. So

Estonia is actually a real advanced

country. Uh they they could do voting on

their phones.

So in case you're wondering if it's

possible, yeah, Estonia does it. They

just vote on their phone. I don't see

anybody complaining. Uh maybe there are.

Um but why would Russia be doing that?

Are they planning to

attack or is it just, you know, as in as

soon as they get some comfort away from

Ukraine, are they going to take Estonia?

I don't know. Don't know what's going on

yet. It It's not obvious to me how

Russia wins by frightening Estonia,

unless they actually plan to conquer

Estonia. I don't know.

Um

the big news I think is that Trump

signed this big uh uh H-1B

visa fee situation. Uh the H-1B visa

people are the workers. Almost all of

them well 75% come from India. Most of

the rest come from China and then a

smattering from other places. So it's

mostly an India situation. So, Indian

tech workers come over here, work for

big tech companies, and uh Trump thinks

that maybe they should be hiring and

training American workers instead. And

so he's still going to let the big

companies hire their H-1B

visa people, but the company will have

to pay $100,000 a piece per year. Per

year to keep these uh Indian high-tech

workers.

Um

and I saw a uh post by Bindu Ready who

said that US tech dominance takes a

massive hit imposing this fee will kill

skilled US immigration to America.

Uh this fee will also be applied to

immigrants graduating from US

universities and seeking jobs. There'll

be a domino effect and we'll lose our

technical dominance to India and China.

It's time to panic.

What do you think?

Do you think that Trump is right? You

know, maybe like he might have been

right on tariffs.

Is it possible

that uh we come out ahead by making sure

that we have lots of domestic high-tech

people who are well trained and can do

the job or are we going to lose so much

because the Indian workers are bringing

with them you know insane amounts of

talent that we couldn't possibly grow

domestically

which is

well

don't know um probably the court will

block it because I guess the court can

block it if uh they didn't do proper

notification to you know allow people to

comment on it before it happens. So that

alone might delay it or block it until

the proper notifications can come and I

think there's at least one other reason

that the court might get involved and

therefore I'm sure it will. So don't

assume it's going to happen. The other

possibility

is there'll be a lot of tweaking.

So you can expect that uh I don't know

some special industries will say uh okay

can you make us an exception because

there is absolutely no way we can do

this with Americans. We'll we'll work as

fast as we can to make sure there's a

day where we can do it with Americans.

But right now, honestly, there are no

Americans who can do this and we just

need a little relief. That will probably

happen. And there might be some

industries where uh they're important

industries and the government says,

"Okay, we can't really wait to get all

the Americans trained up." So, all

right. All right. For now, for now,

you're allowed to have more more of

them. Maybe they'll drop the fee for

some cases if there's special cases. So,

there's going to be a lot of tweaking

and adjusting and you know, legal

actions and stuff. So, we don't know how

this is all going to turn out. But if

the thing that happened is a big tech

company uh as they they certainly can

hire the high-tech people from India,

they can still do it. They just have to

pay. Would would Google be willing to

pay $100,000 a year to keep uh the

smartest tech person in India on their

payroll? Well, yeah, of course that

would be cheap. I don't know what a

bonus uh a bonus signing bonus is at

Google, but I'll bet it's more than

100,000.

Uh, and about the the bonuses per year

for somebody who would be a top top top

technical person, I'm sure that's over

$100,000 a year. So, what could have

happened is Trump created a situation

where the big companies are guaranteed

to still keep the top of the top of the

top. It'll just be expensive,

but they can afford it. Um, small

companies won't be able to do it all,

but I don't know how much they were

doing. Were small companies doing a lot

of H-1B visas? I've never heard of it.

Anyway,

um, I guess it's too early to know.

Um, my I'll tell you my uh

my take from my business experience,

which was not as directly related to the

this topic. Um, I didn't know too many

of them. the H-1B visa people, but I

don't believe there are Americans who

can come anywhere near the smartest of

the immigrant technical workers. I don't

think they can get anywhere near it in

general. You know, there are exceptions,

right? Plenty of exceptions, but in

general. So I guess I would agree with

uh Bindu Readyy's first take that if

you're looking at the near term it's

really dangerous in the near term. In

the long term it creates the right set

of incentives so that American workers

will be trained up and um you know maybe

become uh maybe become capable so we can

do everything we need.

But let me ask you this. If you said,

"We're going to take the best American

tech workers, but only Americans."

And then you compete against somebody

who says, "I'm also going to take the

best American workers, but I have access

to oh, around a billion Indians." And

I'm not going to take them all, but I'm

going to take uh the top 200

smartest technical people in India that

I can get and then I'll add them to the

best people I can get from America and

I'm going to compete against somebody

who only has Americans.

Who wins?

Well, what do you think?

You do you think that out of a billion

extra people to choose from, you

couldn't find smarter people there than

the people in the US who may be also

very smart but have already already have

jobs and you know they got lots of

competition and stuff like that.

I feel like it's a no-brainer

that just because of the numbers if all

you knew that is is that India's got a

billion people whatever the number is

around there somewhere. If the only

thing you knew is that you could choose

from a new pool of a billion people and

a lot of them are really well educated,

you would do better, right? Both in the

short run and the long run, right?

Sorry, my nose is just going crazy

today.

Anyway, so I'm worried. I'm worried. I'm

worried that Here's what I think.

I I'm just going to say it.

This is probably going too far, but I'm

just going to say it. I believe that the

people who who who think that we can do

just as well by ignoring a billion a

billion people not all technical people

but if you have a billion people to

choose from and it's from a country with

a good education system

your best 1% of them that's a lot of

people and they're going to be really

good I don't believe that we can compete

as well without that. And and what I'm

saying is not controversial. It's just 1

plus 1 is two. If if if you have three

people to choose from and you have to

pick a a CTO for your company, but only

three people in the world, they're

technical, but there are only three of

them. You just pick one of them. And I

have, let's say, a 100red million to

pick from.

on average, who's going to be able to

pick a better tech person?

Just numbers. There there's no opinion

or subjectivity whatsoever. So when I

see America seem to ignore the numbers,

the only way that would make sense is if

you believe that you could pick one of

those three Americans and get a better

work product than any one of the hundred

million brilliant uh ITT or I it forget

what it is. Uh university graduates.

That's crazy.

And also I feel like if you never worked

with the smartest Indian-American

workers, you wouldn't quite understand

just how smart they are.

They're not they're not ordinary smart.

You know, I consider myself a really

smart American.

I was validictorian, went to good

college, went to a good graduate school.

I'm I'm easily easily in the top 2% of

educated you know capable Americans. I'm

not anywhere near

uh a lot of the Indian tech people.

There is a whole different level of

smart. Now there are also a whole deal

different level of smart Americans

but again it's a numbers problem.

For every one American who is just

extraordinarily capable, you know, way

more than me. For every one of those,

how many do you think are in India?

And now they may be priced out of our

possibility. So I'm going to be

open-minded on this one.

I believe that the administration has

probably done his homework

and they have probably created a

situation and a structure and incentive

system that would favor American

workers.

Um

will it be too damaging in the long run?

It might be. I think Bindu ready is

giving us a caution that we should watch

out for. But uh

it's also reversible.

So I think you run it for six months or

a year and then you have the big

companies come into the White House and

sit there and maybe privately this

doesn't have to be public and just say

we can't make this work. Or they say you

know surprisingly it worked. or they say

the only way this is going to work is if

the government, you know, does something

to train people better, faster or

something like that, but more likely

it'll get tweaked or reversed.

Anyway, the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

you remember them? The the head of that

got fired for the labor numbers being so

ridiculously wrong and then always

getting corrected.

uh they postponed the release of a key

annual report that is central to future

inflation data. So unusual Wales is

reporting this on X. Um and they didn't

explain the reasoning for the delay or

when it might be released. Well, I've

got a suspicion.

Does anybody want to take a wild guess

why the department of the Bureau of

Labor Statistics has postponed a new

data report?

Can anybody take a wild guess?

Could it be that the boss, the new boss

asked a question that sounds like this?

Are these numbers real?

And then after that everything just fell

off the rails.

What else would it be? Right? Is there

any other reason it would be delayed?

You know, when it's not typically

delayed? No. No. The boss asked, some

boss said, "Are these numbers reliable?"

And everybody said, "Ah,

what do you mean by reliable?"

You know what I mean?

I You don't have to wonder what really

is happening. Of course, that's what's

happening. Somebody asked the wrong

question and somebody gave them an

honest answer and that just shut down

the whole thing. Do you know why? I

don't know if you've ever heard me say

this before. All data is fake.

All of it.

Well, I saw a Laura Lubber post today.

That's pretty scary. It says al-Qaeda's

um taking root in the United States and

planning a multi-ity attack.

uh multi-ity attack. Uh have they done

that before? I don't remember the

multi-ity part, but that would be extra

bad if it were multi-y. And my question

is, would that include drones?

Do you think al-Qaeda is going to start

using drones?

Because if they're in lots of s cities

and all they do is everybody puts a

drone in the air at the same time and

they're all, you know, bad purpose

drones, they've got bombs or something

something worse on them.

Uh, I feel like that's just going to

happen. You better get your own drone

defensive uh laser system. I want one in

my roof.

Uh, oh, speaking of the H1B people, uh,

Microsoft already told it, uh, H1B visa

employees to get back to the US so that

they don't have to pay to get in and or

risk getting locked out and uh, so I

guess they're scrambling to uh,

to reduce the risk

as they should. Um, I saw a post by

somebody called Leon Fresco,

who I must dislike because I noticed I

had blocked them on X, but somebody else

had forwarded the uh his post. And uh

although I don't like him for reasons I

don't remember, I will read his point

because I think it's provocative.

Um, I'll I'll summarize it

which is that he suspects that the H-1B

visa thing may be a negotiating strategy

with India.

Meaning that if uh 75% of them are the

H-1B visa people are coming from India,

India may have a big incentive for

continuing that because I'm sure a lot

of money gets sent back home etc.

and that maybe what this is is just more

pressure on India because ultimately we

want them to stop uh providing or buying

oil from Russia. So, it could be if if

uh that what Trump is really doing is

saying if you're going to buy uh Russia

Russian oil, which is bad for the world,

bad for us, bad for Ukraine, bad for

Europe, if you're going to do that,

we're not going to we're not going to

buy your employees unless they're so

valuable that you know it's good for us.

So maybe

maybe I don't know maybe that's part of

it.

But I don't think you know again this is

uh we have to agree that there can be

two reasons for things. It might be that

it's helpful for negotiating but it

might be that we just want America

first. So it could be more than one

thing.

Uh Trump's already also introducing his

uh gold card visa. So for a million

dollars you can get a visa. A million

dollars.

Um, and if a corporation wants to

sponsor the individual, it's $2 million.

Wow. It cost you $15,000 just to do the

paperwork. So, if you want to buy

yourself a visa, you can do it, but it's

going to cost you. I like have I like

the United States having a a two drink

minimum and a cover charge. I kind of

like that. You can't even get in this

country without paying.

Um,

so

have you noticed that I have not been

exuberant about uh Argentina's president

MLE? Yeah, even though he was doing

impressive things, you know, with

cutting expenses and getting things

turned around. And you may have noticed

that I was not really ever joining into

that celebration parade cuz there was

always something about him that I said

to myself, h I'm going to wait and see.

I do not believe that this uh no matter

how smart he is or well-intentioned, I

don't believe he just came in and fixed

everything. Doesn't that sound a little

too little too on the nose, a little too

convenient, a little too not how the

real world works? like the real world's

much messier than that. He comes in and

waves a chainsaw around and all of a

sudden, you know, everything's working

again. It does. It didn't seem likely to

me. But now there are reports that there

are I saw from stock market not news

today on X the currency is under strain

and the uh there's all kinds of problems

uh bad enough problems that uh they may

be teetering on the edge of going back

to the major problems that they had. You

know, it's that bad. Um, that's what I

would have expected even if MLE

did everything right cuz the world was a

messy place. You don't just go in and

wave your hands around and suddenly

everything works. That that doesn't

happen. So that seems a little more

realistic. I I think his publicity was

way better than what could have possibly

been the reality on the ground. Okay.

Um,

Soros organization is dropping a bunch

of money on Newsome's redistricting plan

according to Fox News, Emma Coloulton.

Um, so I guess the uh donors have now

given to Proposition 50. I guess that's

the proposition that would allow

California to redistrict and create some

more Democratic seats. There's a 70

million that's been collected for that.

70 million.

Now, is that all being spent on

convincing people to say yes

in the in the bluest country? It's the

bluest country. How hard is it to

convince Democrats

to do something weasly to get another

Democrat seat? Isn't that the easiest

cell in the world? Hey, uh are you

Democrat? Yes. Yes. Well, we're thinking

of doing this weasly thing to create

another seat. I mean,

what would be the sales process there?

$70 million.

I mean, are they using some kind of

magic pencil to draw the lines?

If I see something like $70 million

collected for this one thing, that

obviously

it shouldn't be the easiest thing in the

world to get uh accepted.

By the way, I do know that even

Democrats are a little bit against

redistricting surprisingly, but I think

they just haven't been, you know,

presented with, yeah, it's easy. It

won't hurt you. We come out ahead that

they'll they'll be flipped.

Maybe it takes $70 million to do that.

Maybe I could have done it for 1

million.

Just ask me next time.

All right, that's all I got for today.

Owen, I remind you, is hosting his

spaces event. Just go to X and look for

um

just uh look for Owen Gregorian and uh

do a search and he'll pop right up. All

right, I'm going to say a few words

privately to the beloved subscribers on

Locals and the rest of you. Thanks for

joining. I will see you tomorrow and

we'll get everything fixed. We'll figure

it all out.