Double Standards, Drone Strikes, and Doordash Despair: Eurovision’s Politics, Venezuela’s Blockade, and the West’s Two Rulebooks Laid Bare.

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, good morning, welcome.
I am Samuel Trapp.
This is International Flavor and you are listening
to Dem Radio.
How do you like that?
And coming to you live here today from
the Lake Ozark Real Estate of the Art

(00:21):
Studio.
Feel free to phone in 573-746-8020.
You can send me emails at live at
demradio.com should you so desire.
You can do it at samuelt at internationalflavor
.com as well.
And you can also send them to me

(00:46):
and ask for certain issues to be addressed.
I like doing that.
And tell you what, there were a world
full of issues that is for sure.
Let's see, there was a, do you remember
me telling you about all of the cancellation

(01:09):
of Russians and anything Russian?
They cancel, you know, anything Russian ever since
the Ukraine war, right?
And they canceled, you know, these, well, they
have these media bands, but the Eurovision, Eurovision

(01:34):
Music Festival, you know, where they have a
contest and, you know, that same, I believe
Eurovision is the one that was done.
Do you remember the clogging sensation that went
on for a while where they have the,
what's not clogging, it's really tap, but from
Scotland or is it Irish?

(01:58):
Jesus, man, I can't remember.
But that was on Eurovision when they did
that, they did that tap ensemble.
Man, that guy, David Flatley, something, I think
it was his name.
Geez, if you have ever seen that, if
you haven't seen that, you should watch it
and go watch.
They stole the show in that they had

(02:18):
a dance number in the middle of it.
And it was when that sort of dance
became actually, you know, David, I think it's
David Flatley.
And if you go out and you have
a look at that, well, recently the Eurovision
winner was a person named Nemo.

(02:42):
And he returned the trophy, right?
He returned the trophy to protest the fact
that Israel wasn't excluded from the festival.
Now, as soon as they became possible, rejection

(03:04):
of Russia, as soon as it became possible,
as soon as there was an attack on
Ukraine, hey, the boy, they canceled Russia all
over the globe.
But here in a Swiss singer named Nemo,
who won the 2024 Eurovision, said he was
returning the, said they will return the winner's

(03:28):
trophy.
You know, obviously you look at the person,
they use something different in their, whatever they
would like you to refer them to.
And the Swiss singer Nemo said they will
return the trophy, right?
And so they returned the trophy.

(03:52):
And singer Nemo won the contest early Sunday
with a song called The Code, a pop
rap ode to the journey toward embracing a
non-gender identity.
So it's very political over there anyway.
And so Nemo 24 is the first non

(04:13):
-binary winner of the contest.
And, you know, the contest that has long
been embraced as a safe haven by the
LGBT community.
And he's the 60, well, he looks like
he, you know, I don't know, they, you're
supposed to call them, I guess.

(04:35):
The Switzerland, you know, contestant beat Croatian rocker
Baby Lasagna to the title by winning the
most points from a combination of national juries
and viewers around the world.
Nemo is the first non-binary winner of
the contest.

(04:55):
He's the first Swiss singer since 1988 when
Canadian Celine Dion competed under the Swiss flag.
So I suppose, you know, the Canadian Celine
Dion is really, you know, presented under the

(05:18):
Swiss flag.
And to make it easy, here's how they
quote it in the paper, right?
This makes it much simpler.
Thank you so much, Nemo said, after the
result from Saturday's final, because that way you
don't have to refer to him as they,
right?

(05:39):
Saturday's final was announced after midnight.
I hope the contest can live up to
its promise and continue to stand for peace
and dignity for every person.
Well, except Russian persons, you know, transgender, not.
If you're Russian, you can't play.
So the Russians have had to create their

(06:00):
own.
So it's pretty funny to watch these separate
set of rules because Russia, boy, they were
condemned and kicked out of everything, every sport,
everything extremely quickly.
And they were done and were not able
to participate.
And so if you check this out, you

(06:24):
know, let's let's go through this a little
bit.
Right.
Two rule books.
There's absolutely two sets of rule books.
You know, culture isn't above politics and it's
supposed to be, but it isn't.
You know, it says it is.
But right up until the moment that it's
not, you know, the headlines, you know, Eurovision

(06:46):
returned it saying Israel, their continued participation collides
with Eurovision's stated values.
Right.
But the punchline to that idiotic, I don't
know, statement is that Russia didn't get any
debate, no reform, no stern lecture, you know,

(07:08):
no, no, no letter saying, you know, change
your ways or else Russia just got kicked
out.
So we're going to do what the modern
West hates the most.
We're going to compare the two cases side
by side and, you know, of Israel and
Russia and ask why the rules look like
they are pre-printed on a rubber band.

(07:32):
Let's try that.
So the apolitical posture of Eurovision.
Right.
Supposedly not political at any stretch of the
game.
They are not.
And so now I think they are.
I think they're quite political because you have
to make sure to tell everybody they are

(07:54):
a they or a I don't know what
they are and how many different genders they
got.
They make it up as they go along.
It changes weekly.
So let's take the Eurovision and have a
look at them in 2022.
So on February 24 is when the escalation
occurred.
Now, I like to call it an escalation

(08:15):
and everyone should call it an escalation because
it's exactly what it is.
What Ursula von der Leyen said at the
EU summit yesterday, and I played that for
you, said she calls it the illegal invasion
of the Russians into Ukraine, which was the
illegal invasion.

(08:36):
And but the war, you know, that's when
the war started, according to her, started on
February 24th.
Of 2022.
Yes.
And on February the 25th, I mean, the
next day, Eurovision said they announced that no

(08:58):
Russian act could participate in Eurovision 2022, citing
that their inclusion would bring the competition into
disrepute.
Right.
So they did that themselves.
So.
Days later, the.

(09:21):
Group contest suspended Russian member broadcasters.
From showing up from broadcasting from there.
So not only can your Russian people not
appear, nobody can show up.
So the translation is Eurovision is a song
contest, not a parliament, unless the target is

(09:42):
Russia, in which case it turns into a
the cultural wing of the of NATO overnight.
You know, that's how it is.
So let's look at the Israel competition since
2024 and through 2026 right now.
Controversy.
There's some boycotts, but of course they get

(10:03):
a play.
Hell, they're invited.
Right.
Nemo says they're returning the trophy.
They are returning the trophy.
I wonder how many people have to carry
it for him to return the trophy over
Israel's inclusion.
Reuters said that Spain, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia and
Iceland also announced boycotts of Eurovision after the

(10:28):
contest declined to exclude Israel.
And Israeli broadcasters aren't being booted out.
The EBU publicly defended Israel broadcaster participation.
Well, you know, they said the EBU regarding
who can show up this EBU's Eurovision broadcasters.

(10:53):
So in December 2025, the EBU announced voting
rule reformed, you know, that they're going to
reform it.
They want trust and transparency.
So for Russia, expulsion for Israel reforms framework
update.
Let's not be political.
Right.
Let's not do that.

(11:13):
Like having a they as your winner.
I didn't watch it.
I didn't see it.
But it's important to say that a transgender
one for them.
It's something important.
Right.
They get to go.
Oh, look, this year, transgender ones.
They got to find somebody that's close.
But don't tell me that doesn't count among

(11:34):
people making votes and among doing all that
stuff.
The contest is a joke these days.
Let's look at the next part.
International sports.
Russia gets suspended.
Israel gets a review.
Russia, rapid sweeping cross-port exclusions from 2022
everywhere.

(11:55):
This is where it's like impossible to ignore
soccer, FIFA and UEFA suspend Russian clubs and
national teams from any competition until further notice
on February 28.
Took them four days.
Right.
Olympic ecosystem.
The International Olympic Committee issued sanctions regarding, you

(12:18):
know, and guidance in late February 22 that
urged the exclusion of Russia and Belarus athletes
and officials.
And even now, the IOC is only partially
loosening those restraints in specific areas.
Like in December 2025, they gave a discussion.

(12:39):
They're having talks about youth participation.
So some of the youth Olympians might be
able to participate, but they still haven't even
decided that, according to Reuters.
That shows how long this Russia exception continues
to persist.
Ice hockey, where if you can't if you

(12:59):
don't beat Russia, that means that you're not
a world champion.
You know, no doubt you're not a world
champion if you can't beat Russia.
If you haven't beaten them, you are not
a world champion.
Of course, I really say that about any
of these things.
You know, you're not the world champion of
anything if you've excluded somebody based on a

(13:21):
political.
Sentence, and that's what that's what they have
done.
So ice hockey removed Russia and Belarus from
key championships on February 28th.
All it took was four days.
And these are now extended.
These bands are extended into 2025 and 2026.
But now they're claiming it's security concerns.

(13:45):
Figure skating.
Ban on Russia, Belarus, skaters and officials from
international competitions as of March 1, 2022, a
week later.
Tennis, Wimbledon banned Russia and Belarus in 2022

(14:05):
and said it will decline any entries.
This is from Wimbledon's website.
Later, they did reverse course and allowed participation
under neutrality conditions.
That means you can't claim you're from Russia.
You can show up.
But you can't wear any Russia, Belarus colors,

(14:28):
right?
But the initial 2022 ban is still there.
You know, they call it a nationality liability.
So we have a liability.
So are we going to do the same
over us, you know, bombing bombing Venezuelan tankers,
you know, or bombing?
I'm sorry, Venezuelan boats with alleged drug drug

(14:51):
runners on them.
That's an attack.
That's an incursion into somewhere else.
Israel?
No, no, no.
They pressure Israel.
But institutions keep Israel in in all these.
So lots of pressure.
You know, there's there's a lot of a
lot of different people saying a lot of
different things about it.
And frankly, it's it's nonsense, different outcome always.

(15:17):
Palestinian Football Association pushed FIFA toward sanction and
suspension, but FIFA repeatedly defers and moves into
legal review and investigation, not suspension.
By October 2025.
These are ongoing questions, but there is a

(15:37):
little bit of pressure about why UEFA and
FIFA haven't suspended Israel.
You know, calls to bar Israel from the
Paris Olympics were publicly rejected, calling it neutrality
framework.
You know, political leaders publicly welcomed Israeli athletes.

(15:59):
Because what their virtue signaling signaling.
So there are calls for suspension, but operational
reality, you know, they aren't going to get
rid of any of them.
They're not going to be booted off.
That's not going to happen.
There's venue, maybe sometimes a venue relocation, neutral

(16:22):
venue, not expulsion.
So Russia gets collective punishment of the entire,
you know, who knows what anybody as public
policy or as political policy.
Israel gets a little bit of questions, maybe
a committee, maybe an investigation, maybe a venue

(16:42):
change.
People say things like, oh, gee, let's not
politicize sport.
Same theater, you know, different cast members, you
know, different plot.
You know, this plot is Israel good, Russia
bad, Belarus bad.
So let's and this is total cancellation of

(17:02):
culture, right?
The total treatment is it's unbelievable.
So the cultural blacklist spreads far beyond athletes
and officials.
There's opera conductors.
Valery Gergiev was dropped and fired by major
institutions after refusing to denounce the invasion.

(17:25):
Munich Philharmonic.
He was terminated as of March of 2022.
World class conductor.
The Met, the opera announced Anna Netrebko's withdrawal
after repudiation damage.
They got rid of her March 3rd of
2022.
A week.
Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, restricted Russian delegation

(17:48):
March 2022.
Broad press coverage captured the ban and exclude
momentum across cultural venues all over early 22.
Well, we got to get rid of Russia.
Remember that?
And then it's pretty absurd.
The International Cat Federation, like kitty cat, like

(18:11):
your cat, the Cat Federation banned Russian bred
cats from participation.
So a Russian cat now cannot participate regardless
where it was born.
A Russian cat was born in America.

(18:33):
Properly naturalized parents, I suppose, maybe that cat
would be allowed.
Where do we get after that?
So you naturalize your two cats, parent mom
and dad cat, and then you have a
cat baby.
And if they're born on the territory, perhaps
there would be an exception for those kind.

(18:55):
But Russian exhibitors and Russian cats banned from
shows.
Yes.
And that came from the Washington Post.
Let's have a look at this.
This is a fun story.
So if the whole thing is there, we're
going to share it.

(19:17):
Let's see.
Well, no, it won't let me get to
that show now without putting a bunch of
nonsense in.
You got to say who you are and
give up your left finger, let's say.
So moral panic is just so wide.

(19:38):
It's, you know, we're punishing cats now.
You have to be very careful.
You know, we're punishing cats, we're promoting they
people, you know, we have to promote that.
I wonder if you took a they person
and let him carry a Russian flag, could
they carry a Russian flag or I don't

(20:02):
know, would you ban Israel unless they put
up a they or them or whatever?
Hmm, I don't know.
Or if their cat, what if the cat
was transgender?
Would it then be OK if you dressed
your cat up and it's typically a gray
cat, but you put it in a rainbow

(20:24):
flag?
Would that be OK?
I'm not so sure.
I don't know.
We are apolitical is what they all claim.
We don't discuss politics.
We are a performing platform.
People can come and perform unless you're from

(20:44):
Russia.
And since 2022, you are institutionally excluded to
cost any contest, sport, cultural film festival, anything.
But if you're from Israel, you are, you
know, sustained participation, you know, maybe some reform,
you know, discussion, maybe let's investigate and see

(21:06):
if any of these participants are really bad
or if it's really just a country, if
it's just a country, we'll stand back from
that.
And we, you know, boycott boycotts come from
the participants, you know, against Israel, but not
from the organizer and from the from the

(21:27):
platform itself.
So the West, as usual, runs two rule
books, one for adversaries or alleged adversaries and
another one for those you cannot, cannot, you're
not permitted to not like Israel because then
you are canceled, right?

(21:47):
Not you never get to even question these
things, you know, so values, if you have
real values, you got to apply them consistently.
And I don't like that they don't, you
know, we're ready to, for example, another story
of a boat blown up.

(22:09):
Those are not values.
Those are not values that I appreciate as
an American.
That's not a value that isn't defense of
the country.
That's not taking American property back.
That's nothing.
You can claim it's whatever you want, but
you can't get past the fact that you're

(22:31):
blowing people out of the water for an
alleged crime with zero, zero process, do or
otherwise, right?
Crazy.
And this is what we do.
The West has two rule books.
If you apply the rules selectively, then they're

(22:52):
not values.
They are branding whoever is doing it.
So I don't know.
Eurovision, Russia out in 2022, Israel gets to
stay.
And although they've been doing arguably the same
thing, US, you know, we don't, I don't
know if we get involved very much in
Eurovision anyway.
Pretty sure we do.

(23:13):
But FIFA, Russia suspended fast, lightning fast.
And then Israel, you know, FIFA defers and
investigates.
International Olympic Committee, Russia sanctioned immediately.
Israel Olympic band called rejected because of neutrality.
We have to stay neutral.

(23:33):
Tennis, I mean, ice hockey, well, tennis too.
Russia, Belarus, you know, gone immediately.
Israel, not so much.
Culture, Gergiev, Netrebko, tennis restrictions and Russian cats
banned.
Israelis, you know, they can have cats from
anywhere.

(23:54):
So, you know, this is crazy stuff.
You get to cancel Russia, but you got
to debate Israel.
You know, Bolshoi Ballet seasons, tours were canceled.
London's Royal Opera House, Bolshoi Ballet couldn't appear.
Madrid's Teatro Real, Bolshoi Ballet booted.

(24:18):
So Russian culture is toxic, right?
Festivals and institutions are restricted.
Any, you know, any official Russian presence is
gone.
No, I mean, heck, I wonder if you
sat in the audience and said something in
Russian, you know, if they'd boot you out
for that.
Conductors, singers, they have to denounce the Kremlin

(24:38):
or lose a contract.
You got to take a loyalty oath.
Gee, sounds like Nazi Germany.
The hell is that?
Israel, maybe there's some boycotts by participants, but
nothing else.
You know, they have maybe some broadcasters.
And this guy in Eurovision, this Nemo guy,
don't know him, don't care, you know, but

(24:59):
he takes a trophy and didn't take the
trophy, gave it back, held onto it, said
he won, gave it back.
Now, that's taking a stand.
So you can't really fault him for that.
You know, I'm faulting for the transgender.
I just don't agree with that stuff.
But, you know, you can't be a they.
There's no such gender.

(25:19):
So I have a problem with that.
But more power to him.
You want to say you're a cat?
Maybe if you said you're a Russian cat,
what if you said you were a Russian
cat?
What if I identified as a Russian cat
and wanted to be in Eurovision?
Wow.
I don't know.
Russia got deplatformed by default.

(25:41):
Israel gets, you know, oh, gee, it's just
a controversy.
We want to make sure that's out.
How about media bands, RT, Sputnik?
No equivalent for Israel.
There's there's no formal, you know, prohibition against
anyone from Israel.
But the EU suspended RT and Sputnik broadcasting

(26:02):
across the entire bloc in March 2022.
Any legal analysis of that, friends and neighbors?
This came from a Verfassungsblog March 8, 2008.
Prohibited content to broadcast any content from Russia.

(26:24):
It is against the law in the EU
to broadcast any content of the Russian press.
Isn't that nuts?
So this was in March 2022.
Denouncing Russian authorities muzzling of independent media and

(26:48):
saying it supports media freedom.
The European Union banned Russian outlets in March
22.
The contradiction between a statement of principle and
the action can't be resolved, really, while the
ban is legally justified as a measure designed
to suppress propaganda.
European institutions shouldn't try to justify it by

(27:11):
pointing to these outlets track records of disinformation
or propaganda to address legitimate question of double
standards that come up in the wake of
the inevitable.
What about this?
It should be stressed that the Union's measures
differ decisively from any authoritarian censorship by virtue

(27:31):
of the Union's character.
So as of March 2, 2022, it is
prohibited to broadcast any content of a Russian
state media outlet, RT and Sputnik.
And this regulation, Article 2F Regulation Number 833,

(27:52):
was amended on March 1 by Council Regulation
2022-350.
As of March 1, amending the decision of
2020-14, on the 23rd of February, the
editor-in-chief of the English language television
network, RT, Margarita Simonyan, was sanctioned with a

(28:15):
travel ban and an asset freeze, took her
stuff, and the European Commission pointed to the
massive propaganda and disinformation that RT supplied for
the Russian attack on Ukraine, and a significant
and direct threat to the Union's public order
and security.
It's these direct threats that are so laughable.

(28:37):
You know, if a word is a, you
know, is a direct threat to your security,
you got bigger problems than what the word
is.
So the Council highlighted that to justify and
support aggression against Ukraine, the Russian Federation is
engaged in continuous and concerted propaganda targeted at
civil society in the Union and neighboring countries,

(29:01):
distorting and manipulating facts, channeled through a number
of media outlets under the permanent direct or
indirect control of the leadership of the Russian
Federation.
Yeah, kind of like PBS, right?
Having regard, or Voice of America, having regard

(29:23):
for the gravity of the situation, Council and
Commission deem the measure compatible with the freedom
of expression.
You know, this is freedom of expression.
Limiting Russian talk is freedom of expression, and
they should be maintained until the aggression against
Ukraine is put at an end, and until

(29:45):
the Russian Federation and its media outlets cease
to conduct propaganda action against the Union and
its member states.
If you still believe that Russia is the
only propaganda channel, well, you know, let me
sell you my fabulous billion-dollar island in

(30:05):
my bathtub.
I'll sell you that.
You send me a billion dollars by return
of post, and this beautiful island in my
bathtub will be yours.
You can live there.
The scope of this ban isn't readily apparent,
but so far they've gotten rid of everything,
and it is narrow, you know, and regulation

(30:28):
prohibits any broadcasting.
Regulation doesn't define what broadcasting is, but nothing
can be put out, so it's pretty broad.
It's a linear audiovisual media service like television.
Its same meaning is to be attributed to
broadcasting, and remember, YouTube's backing this up.

(30:49):
Google's backing this up.
All kinds of people are backing this up.
You can't go and get Panchenko.
What is her name?
Diana Panchenko, you know, 1.8 million subscribers
blocked her, and this was just recently.
They got rid of her, so the justification
they give, of course, is propaganda for war.

(31:11):
The prohibition to broadcast Russian state media is
justified as implementing the prohibition of propaganda, according
to European Commission Vice President Vera Zhurova.
We all stand for freedom of speech, but
it cannot be abused to spread propaganda for

(31:34):
war.
Prohibition of propaganda for war is in Article
20 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, and in the International Convention on
the Use of Broadcasting in the Cause of
Peace.
All states in the world have ratified the

(31:56):
former, and it constitutes customary international law, and
as such binds the European Union.
By all EU member states, the prohibition is
considered a general principle of EU law, so
advocating for and supporting war of aggression is
thus prohibited by international and European law.

(32:20):
So the Russian invasion, as they call it,
of Ukraine constitutes such an aggression, has been
confirmed not only by commentators, but also by
the UN General Assembly voting to condemn Russia.
Propaganda for war can be conducted through false
or misleading information, but this is not constitutive

(32:42):
of the prohibition.
Advocating for aggressive war is prohibited, even in
the opinion in support of such war is
based only on entirely true information.
How do you like that legal gymnastics or
that verbal gymnastics?

(33:03):
So advocating for an aggressive war is prohibited,
even if the opinion in support of such
a war is based only on true information,
entirely true information.
So even if it's true, if it promotes
Russia over Ukraine, it has to be banned,

(33:28):
right?
So banning RT and Sputnik as propaganda for
war relies on previous practice among EU member
states, which has already been confirmed as lawful
by the EC and the European Court of
Justice.
Since 2015, Lithuania and Latvia have suspended the
broadcasting of Russian language TV multiple times.
These decisions are based on Article 3, 4

(33:52):
AI and 6 AVMSD, which allow for the
suspension of television broadcasts if they incite hatred
based on certain criteria.
How do you incite hatred?
By telling the truth?
They just said if you tell the truth,
and you know, and if it supports war,

(34:12):
you know, but you've told the truth, you
still can be, you know, limited.
So the EC confirmed that Lithuania and Latvia
correctly considered TV shows that called for the
occupation of various states to be propaganda for
war that justified suspending those broadcasts, even taking
into account the restriction of the freedom of

(34:33):
expression.
Wow, the European Court of Justice, yeah really,
that's that's some justice for you, recognized that
countering incitement to hatred on account of nationality
in the form of propaganda for war constitutes
legitimate public policy objective.
So if you say anything pro-Russia, that's

(34:58):
naturally anti-Ukraine.
Is that true?
You know, if you say anything pro-Russia,
you're Putin puppet, right?
So, but what if you didn't say anything
negative to Russia and still justified their move
that would therefore be anti-Ukrainian, so therefore
would be done.
It also confirmed targeting sanctions against Dmitry Konstantinovich

(35:21):
Kiselyov, who had been appointed as the head
of the Russian Federal State Agency, Russia Today,
Russia Today, for government propaganda supporting the deployment
of Russian forces in Ukraine.
So the problematic justifications are this disinformation and

(35:42):
propaganda.
Is a sport?
Is tennis?
Is the Russian ballet disinformation and propaganda?
This is nonsense, people.
Even though the ban of RT and Sputnik
is allegedly lawful, great care must be taken
to ensure that the justification employed does not

(36:05):
establish a president that becomes problematic as a
slippery slope later on.
Well, it is because you don't do say
crap about condemning America for Venezuela.
You don't say crap about Israel, you know,
for, I mean, we bomb first, ask questions
later, but that's okay, right?

(36:26):
There's no, there's no referendum.
You might have a referendum that you apply
later, right?
But in that referendum, you know, any Russian
referendum, oh gee, that's not really a referendum.
Russia did it.
I mean, come on.
The only referendum you can have is a

(36:47):
referendum, you know, that results in we love
globalism, right?
We love Western elitism.
That's what we like.
We don't like Slavic Russia.
Oh, come on.
That's terrible.
Well, you know, some of us like Slavic
Russia.
I like traveling over there.
I think it's cool in there and they

(37:08):
have a great culture and great, great history.
So what's the difference between authoritarian censorship and
legitimate media regulation?
You know, remember at the Munich conference when
JD Vance went over there and said, you
people in Europe are nuts.
He was talking about it.
It's essential to emphasize the difference between state

(37:29):
sponsored media of an autocracy, according to this
article, and those of a democracy, as well
as the difference between state regulation of free
speech.
State sponsored media, i.e. PBS, of a
democratic state, not only legally, but actually independent.

(37:53):
Really?
These people are actually independent?
Oh, no, they're not.
If they depend on the money to come
from the Democratic Party, guess what they got
to spout?
If the only people that get appointed to
PBS are Democrats and liberals, it sure as
hell is not independent.

(38:14):
They don't even put a token right winger
out there.
They can and do report, allegedly, on critical
voices concerning their government.
Yeah, but only when a Republican's in office.
The BBC on a seven-year-old girl
asking the British Prime Minister why he had

(38:35):
parties during lockdown when she missed two birthday
parties, and she demanded an apology.
An apology.
This is on BBC.
So this tells you that media on BBC
is independent.
They can put a girl on there asking
why she had to miss two birthday parties

(38:56):
when the Prime Minister had parties.
It's impossible to imagine something like this concerning
the Russian president on Sputnik or RT.
I'm telling you, it exists, and they do
the same thing.
The young people get up and ask questions,
and they're not vetted beforehand.
They pick and choose who they're going to

(39:17):
see, but I've seen some very interesting and
difficult questions.
Legal concepts used to ban RT and Sputnik
sound similar to those Russia employs against domestic
and international media.
Russia has restricted access to media outlets that
disseminate deliberately false information on Ukraine.

(39:38):
There's a grain of truth to that.
You're not allowed to go and give blatantly
false narratives over there, but you're not permitted
to do it.
So I don't know.
I want to talk about, I think I've

(40:00):
had enough of that topic.
It's been, it irritates me that you get
rid of sports people, and I want to
go back to the US striking another quote,
drug boat.
The attack on the alleged narco-trafficking vessel
comes amid rising tension in the region, right?

(40:21):
It wasn't rising until we started blowing up
boats.
It wasn't.
Nobody, who gives a rip?
It wasn't there until it turns out that
we can't steal their oil for pennies on
the dollar and not let them get any
of it, right?
The US destroyed another alleged narco-trafficking boat

(40:42):
in the Eastern Pacific, killing several people.
The Pentagon announced Wednesday, the strike comes amid
these tensions in the region.
The US Southern command reported that a lethal
kinetic strike was carried out against a vessel
operated by allegedly a designated terrorist organization, as

(41:05):
it was transiting along a known narco-trafficking
route in international waters.
Four male narco-terrorists were killed in the
strike.
It added the attack was part of Operation
Southern Spear, an anti-drug campaign launched by
Trump during when Washington has significantly expanded its

(41:30):
presence in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific,
deploying naval and air assets.
The count, at least 99 people are said
to have been killed in strikes on suspected
drug smuggling vessels.
Of course, we never know because the proof
isn't there.
There is no proof.

(41:50):
You don't have to stop and identify who
they are.
Nothing.
The operation has drawn criticism from Samuel Trapp
and others internationally, with Venezuela and Colombia arguing
it's an attempt by Washington to begin a
resource grab in the region rather than a
counter-smuggling effort.

(42:11):
This is not about counter-smuggling.
It's absolutely not about drugs.
This is not about drugs, friends and neighbors.
Russian Foreign Ministry Minister Sergei Lavrov argues that
the act of sinking civilian ships without trial
is illegal.

(42:33):
That's what I say.
It is.
The latest strike was reported just ahead of
Trump's primetime address to the nation Wednesday night,
during which many speculated the president would declare
war on Venezuela, although this did.
Last month, the U.S. designated the Venezuelan
cartel De Los Soles, I think is how

(42:55):
you say it, as a terrorist organization and
alleged links to Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, an
accusation rejected by Caracas.
This week, Trump went further by saying that
Venezuelan government itself is a foreign terrorist organization
and ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers

(43:17):
entering and leaving the country.
You gotta steal that oil.
You can't let them sell that oil.
We gotta force this boy out, right?
Right, Trump?
This is how you do it.
Force.
It's gotta be force.
But force can't be used anywhere else.
People would question that.
Russia uses force as if they were doing
the same thing.

(43:38):
Oh, that's bad.
Bad, bad, bad.
You can't do it.
Bad, bad, bad.
Us?
Good, good, good.
Why?
Rules for thee, not for me.
These moves spark concerns of direct conflict between
the U.S. and Venezuela, right?
But during his Wednesday address, Trump focused on
domestic and foreign policy priorities and didn't make

(43:59):
any reference to the escalating issues in Caracas.
Maduro, for his part, he condemns the blockade
as illegal under international law.
It really is.
And so they're very careful to always claim
it as terrorism, right?
Sending oil is terrorism, right?

(44:20):
Drugs?
Okay.
But you can't arrest them.
You can't stop the boat.
You can't disable the boat.
You must blow it to bits, right?
No one can justify that to me.
Nobody.
You know, if we can do that, then

(44:40):
the person here on the ground, the U
.S. citizen here collecting the drugs on this
side of the border and distributing them everywhere,
you ought to be able to blow up
his house.
You don't need a judge.
You don't need a jury.
If you know he's in the house, you

(45:01):
ought to be entitled to take a missile
to it, right?
Yeah.
I mean, why not?
It's the exact same logic and you can't,
you will never.
If there's any lawyer that wants to call
and say, this is good stuff.
This is how it's supposed to be.
I want to know the legitimate mechanism for

(45:24):
blowing up first and asking questions later.
You know, there's, I mean, you get, once
you're a criminal, once you've decided that you're
a criminal, you get no rights at all.
Where does this stop?
Does it mean that if you've gone five
miles an hour over the speed limit and
you're going down the highway, that you're a

(45:47):
threat and you should be able to be
blown up?
Obviously, that's ridiculous.
But somewhere from the ridiculous to the other
ridiculous, which is we blow up people because
we claim no evidence necessary that this, that
all four people on there are narco terrorists.
They made sure to point out that these
are males on that boat.

(46:08):
You don't want it to be women on
there, even if the women are bad news.
Why is it important to say that they're
males?
Because that assists you in saying that these,
you know, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're criminals.
They're male.
Look, women aren't criminals in general.
That ain't true.
Not remotely.
What difference does it make?
How about if they were males of the
age of 15 that still make them narco

(46:30):
terrorists?
There are far too many questions unanswered instead
of answered.
And if you're not blowing up people in
a drug house in St. Louis, if you're
not just blowing it up, even though, you
know, they do drugs there and they sell
drugs out of there, if we're not blowing
up houses there, we shouldn't be blowing up

(46:53):
boats in open territory.
That's all there is to it.
So I don't know.
We're going to get into some, some money
parts.
I wanted to share with you, and I
still say you should read about this oligarch

(47:15):
part, but let's read about what Maduro's response
was, shall we?
Because this came out.
Venezuelan President Maduro accused the U.S. of
overthrowing his government.
That's what they're trying to do.
And turn his country into a colony, which
is exactly what it would be under the
Nobel Peace Prize lady.

(47:36):
She's already said it.
Oh, we'll give you all the oil.
We'll make sure that you get the oil,
U.S. We'll make sure of it.
And, you know, they reject it.
It's just control of a different type.
As long as we control it, we can
be dictators.
We can dictate what Zelensky will do, right?

(47:57):
That's okay.
We can dictate what Venezuela will do as
long as we can just claim, look, that
guy was a dictator.
Yeah.
But how's that going to be any different?
How's it going to be any different just
because we installed them?
The profits will be different.
We'll continue to get them.
That's true.
You know, it's Maduro rejects Washington's threats and

(48:23):
oil blockade as the diplomacy of barbarism.
There's an interesting topic.
Speaking in a televised address yesterday, Maduro said
the U.S. is attempting to impose a
puppet government in Caracas.
He says that puppet government wouldn't last 47
hours.

(48:43):
It wouldn't.
It didn't, wouldn't last the minute it's appointed
because it'll be subject to the U.S.
Period.
You got to do what the U.S.
says.
And if you didn't have the U.S.
backing, you wouldn't have any support.
That lady would not win.
She wouldn't get it.
You don't get to claim that just because

(49:04):
she won a Nobel peace prize that the
country's fixed, you know, and that they're not
going to just have somebody else do the
same thing.
So this will be another U.S. Here
it is.
It's the exact same thing as Afghanistan, Iraq,
everything else.

(49:26):
What is happening?
Dan Bongino is leaving.
I just saw Dan Bongino stepping down as
FBI deputy director.
Well, there you have it.
They wanted regime change in Venezuela to impose
a puppet government that will hand over the
constitution, sovereignty, and all of our riches and

(49:48):
resources and turn the country into a colony,
said Maduro.
That is not going to happen.
Never.
Maduro's remarks follow Trump's announcement of the blockade
on sanctioned oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude.
Trump has branded the government in Caracas a

(50:09):
foreign terrorist organization, and he accuses it of
stealing U.S. oil and assets.
Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada
ever assembled in the history of South America,
and it will only get bigger, and the
shock to them will be like nothing they
have ever seen before until the such time

(50:32):
as they return to the United States of
America, all the oil, land, and other assets
that they previously stole from us.
The Venezuelan leader insisted that the country's oil
trade and exports would continue, arguing that international
law and the U.N. charter protect freedom

(50:53):
of navigation and commerce.
This is not the time for Corsairs or
piracy.
And it's all in who's making the definition,
right?
He said Venezuela's wealth belongs exclusively to its
people, invoking independence leader Simon Bolivar and the
country's constitution.

(51:14):
Maduro warned that the U.S. escalation represented
what he called the diplomacy of barbarism, and
he contrasted it with respect for international law
and peaceful coexistence.
Maduro said Venezuela has both the legal right
and political strength to defend itself and claim
support from other peoples of the world.

(51:36):
In a regional appeal, he called on Colombia
and its forces to reject foreign military intervention
and uphold what he describes as Bolivar's vision
of unity.
He vowed that Venezuela would defend its sovereignty
with strength, with truth, and love of peace.
Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers, two house votes, clear

(52:00):
the path for continued U.S. military action
in the Caribbean.
This is crap, too, just so you know
my thoughts on the matter.
U.S. House of Representatives voted down efforts
to rein in Trump's military action against Venezuela,
rejecting two Democrat-led resolutions that sought to
limit the administration's use of force.

(52:24):
Measures were introduced under the War Power Resolution,
which allows lawmakers to challenge military operations not
approved by Congress.
First proposal sought to halt ongoing U.S.
strikes against what they call cartel-linked narco
-terrorist vessels operating in the Caribbean.

(52:45):
This vote, failed by a vote of 210
to 216, gee, wonder if that's long party
lines, fell short of a majority despite near
-unified Democratic support and a handful of Republican
defections.
Second resolution, aimed at blocking any new military
action within or against Venezuela unless the U

(53:06):
.S. Congress declares war or authorizes such operations,
was also narrowly rejected in a 211 to
213 vote.
The votes leave Trump free to continue strikes
at sea and pursuing other activity.
Tied to regime change, what I say, but

(53:30):
he call it a pressure campaign against Caracas,
including measures linked to Washington's recently announced blockade
on Venezuelan oil.
I don't like this.
This is just wrong.
And Sammy doesn't like it.

(53:50):
Let's see here.
Tucker Carlson, I think, agrees with me.
Let's see what he said.
Conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson suggests that Trump
could be preparing to declare war on Venezuela
while stressing that his information is limited and

(54:11):
unconfirmed.
He was on the Judge Napolitano podcast Wednesday
and he was asked whether Trump is going
to start a war in Venezuela.
Carlson said he had been told by a
member of Congress that lawmakers had been briefed
about a potential conflict.
What I know so far is that members

(54:31):
of Congress were briefed yesterday that war is
coming and that it will be announced in
the address to the nation tonight at nine.
He said, who knows if that will happen?
I don't.
Well, it didn't.
However, in his address, Trump focused entirely on
domestic issues.
I think he's embarrassed about this.

(54:51):
I think he knows he can't justify it.
But that's me.
And I know people probably on this station
who will say, oh, no, Trump's Trump's doing
the right thing.
He's blowing people up.
Take names later.
Hell, you never get the names.
It'd be neat to do.
Somebody should do.
Maybe I will.
And I all ninety nine of these people
that have been killed.

(55:12):
Maybe I should get a list from somewhere.
He said he is just fixing a mess
inherited from his predecessor.
I don't remember his predecessor having a mess
in Venezuela.
He didn't mention Venezuela, Ukraine or any other
international crisis.
Trump yesterday.
Carlson warned that while he had spoken to

(55:32):
multiple people about Venezuela, he could not independently
verify anything.
I never want to overstate what I know.
And it's pretty limited on this topic.
Carlson's remarks came amid heightened tension, blah, blah,
blah.
Trump administration accuses Venezuela of harboring drug traffickers
and narco terrorist allegations.
Venezuela repeatedly denies.

(55:55):
Caracas condemns the action, blah, blah, blah.
We have all of that and we have
heard it.
Let's see.
It was something I wanted to get to.
Where is it?
Oh, righty.
There was a teenage Russian girl.

(56:16):
Get this.
There's problems in Russia, too.
A 16 year old student attempted to bring
a bomb into an administrative building after being
duped by scammers.
This is a crazy story.

(56:37):
Russian law enforcement foiled a Ukrainian terrorist attack
in the southern Rostov region after police detained
a young teen who attempted to bring a
homemade explosive device into a city administration building,
said the FSB, Federal Security Service.

(56:58):
It added that the girl had apparently been
targeted by online scammers.
In a statement on Thursday, the FSB said
the police stopped the 16 year old student
in central Volgodonsk after officers were suspicious of

(57:18):
her large backpack.
That's a way to get coffee there.
Bomb disposal specialists confirmed that it contained an
improvised explosive device with a yield roughly equivalent
to 10 kilograms of TNT.
The device was packed with screws, nuts, nails

(57:39):
intended as shrapnel and fitted with an electronic
timing mechanism.
The student told investigators she had collected the
backpack from a hidden stash on the outskirts
of Volgodonsk.
Said the FSB, the agency added that her
testimony indicated she had been duped by online

(58:00):
scammers about a month earlier and she had
narrowly avoided becoming a suicide bomber.
There's a video of this.
The FSB released a video of the demining
operation which showed an officer in a heavy
blast resistant suit that approached the backpack which
was on a city square and detonated it

(58:21):
from a safe distance.
The agency said the terrorist attack had been
prepared by the security services of Kyiv, Ukraine.
Added that it was foiled due to heightened
counter-terrorist measures.
Earlier this week the agency warned that Kyiv
is increasingly increasingly relying on phone scam operations

(58:43):
to recruit Russian citizens, mainly teenagers and the
elderly, to carry out these acts.
Ukraine on numerous occasions has attempted to carry
out terrorist acts inside of Russia, targeting government
officials, military commanders and opinion hosts as well
as sabotage operations against critical infrastructure.

(59:08):
Isn't that crazy?
I want to do one more thing.
We'll try to fit this in here before
we get to some other news because the
Kremlin has said a few things.
And allegedly there's a Russian flagged tanker headed
toward Venezuela.
I heard about last night.
I haven't seen anything new on that.

(59:30):
Forgot to look it up this morning so
I don't have it.
And I'm not all that good at doing
two things at once.
So I'm either following what I've already prepared.
I can't really go out and look for
something else while I'm doing it.
It never goes well for me.
But escalating tension between the U.S. and
Venezuela carries serious risks that could lead to
unforeseen developments, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov today.

(59:55):
Today, he said this.
The warning came after U.S. President Trump
intensified pressure on Caracas by announcing an expansion
of a partial Navy blockade amid a halting,
aimed at halting Venezuelan crude export.
The authorities in the Latin American nation, where

(01:00:16):
Washington does not recognize the government, expressed defiance.
Of course, we are calling on all countries
in the region to exercise restraint in order
to avoid any unforeseen development of this situation,
said Peskov, adding that Russia considers Venezuela an

(01:00:37):
important partner.
Earlier, Russian foreign ministry urged the Trump administration
to adhere to rational and pragmatic approach, cautioning
that missteps could amount to a fatal mistake
that further inflame the situation, lead to loss
of life.
China voiced similar concerns.

(01:01:00):
Beijing's foreign spokesman said the People's Republic opposes
all acts of unilateralism and bullying.
You think this falls into that category?
And supports Venezuela's sovereign right to independently develop
mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries, even if

(01:01:24):
those countries aren't only the United States.
Trump has highlighted the U.S. naval buildup
near Venezuela and claims that the country is
completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled
in the history of South America, while demanding
that Caracas return all oil, land and assets
they stole from us.

(01:01:51):
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone killed civilians in southern
Russia.
Ukrainian drones attacked multiple cities in Rostov, the
same area where the girl had the bomb,
killing civilians, damaging residential and port infrastructure, according
to the regional area of the cities Rostov

(01:02:12):
-on-Don and Bataysk.
And Taganrog came under attack early Thursday.
Unfortunately, as a result of the UAV strikes,
civilians were killed and injured.
In Rostov, a drone strike on the city's
port set a cargo vessel on fire.
Two crew members were killed and three injured.
The blaze was extinguished after spreading across an

(01:02:35):
area of about 20 square meters.
In the nearby city of Bataysk, two private
homes caught fire following drone strikes.
Seven people were wounded.
Three rushed to the hospital.
One later died.
A governor offered condolences to the families of
those killed with speedy recovery.
Russian defense ministry said air defense systems intercepted

(01:02:58):
and destroyed 77 Ukrainian drones overnight between 11
p.m. and 7 a.m. Moscow time.
31 shot down over Bryansk, 11 over Crimea
and the Black Sea, four over Belgorod, and
three over Rostov.
Russian officials previously accused Kyiv of deliberately targeting
civilians, linking the surging Ukrainian tanks and growing

(01:03:21):
U.S. pressure on Zelensky to accept peace
with Russia that would require land concessions Kyiv
refuses to make.
Russia conducted its own military strikes in Ukrainian
infrastructure saying the attacks retaliated for Kyiv's terrorist
raid.
I saw an article yesterday that said that

(01:03:45):
Odessa has been without power for four days.
No power in Odessa.
Isn't that crazy?
I found this opinion piece interesting about the
EU.

(01:04:05):
This is an interesting story.
This is Rachel Marsden again.
I go out and I look at some
of this because she's pretty well spoken.
Do I agree with everything she says?
Absolutely not.
It's pretty long, but it's not horribly long,
so I'm going to share it with you.
These are not my words.
This is Rachel Marsden, columnist, political strategist, and

(01:04:29):
host of talk shows that come out in
French and in English.
It's Rachel Marsden.
She's at RachelMarsden.com.
I think this is an interesting take.
A kid isn't totally to blame when it
acts like a lunatic in public, particularly when

(01:04:52):
you take a good look at the parents.
Such is the case of the Bulgarian establishment,
the European Union's latest foster kid on the
verge of being fully adopted into the family
despite being in the middle of a full
-blown public meltdown.
Bulgaria is supposed to join the Eurozone

(01:05:23):
on January 1, 2026, which will completely integrate
it into the bloc.
The country's officials have had since January 2007,
when it was accepted as a member of
the EU, 18 years now, to get their

(01:05:45):
act together and stop greasing each other's palms.
You know, all of this public thievery from
the public cookie jar.
Ostensibly, that's why these things are done incrementally,
because it takes time to teach politicians that

(01:06:05):
public cookie jars are not the meal station.
Brussels has had 19 years to teach these
basic lessons, but since Queen Ursula von der
Leyen and her merry band of Eurobozos are
big on optics and lectures, but not so
much on actual discipline and results, that did

(01:06:29):
not happen.
So, just as Bulgaria is supposed to integrate
into the EU economy as the newest paragon
of stability, it turns out that the government
took one look at the latest protest action
in the streets and basically hit the self
-destruct button.
Our coalition met, we discussed the current situation,

(01:06:51):
the challenges we face, and the decisions we
must responsibly make, said Prime Minister Rosen Zhulyazkov,
said while stepping down with his coalition government,
our desire is to be at the level
that society expects.

(01:07:11):
That would be ground level after a swan
dive, says Marsden.
Hard to imagine a better moment for a
country to more deeply integrate into the EU
than right when it's yanking out its own
political wiring.
What's truly remarkable is that the EU's fitness
evaluation focus on technically fiscal criteria like price

(01:07:35):
stability, public finance, exchange rate, and long term
interest.
Bulgaria nailed those metrics, but corruption was treated
like a footnote, apparently because checking for graft
is an optional add-on service.
Other EU bodies like the European Public Prosecutor's

(01:07:57):
Office and the Anti-Fraud Office have been
investigating serious allegations of systemic corruption involving top
Bulgarian officials and EU funds.
No big deal though, just waltz on in.
Here are those minor details.
The EU has identified irregularities over €140 million

(01:08:22):
in EU funding for railway infrastructure in 2023.
Gone.
An indictment over fraud involving EU funds for
employment support made headlines in 2025.
Also gone.
Charges were laid against Bulgarian officials over alleged
fraud last year relating to $3.4 million

(01:08:44):
fishing port in Varna that EU investigators found
to be imaginary.
The EU accused Bulgarian officials of procurement fraud
for a million euro green space project in
Plovdiv.
An indictment was brought earlier this year over
suspected six million in EU construction funds that

(01:09:06):
were stolen.
But when it comes to integration into European
fiscal family, it's almost like corruption is treated
as some kind of quaint local tradition rather
than an actual problem.
Not exactly the white-gloved cleanup crew that
Brussels markets itself as to Europeans.
Or maybe it just needs to keep some

(01:09:29):
glove-free sticky fingers handy just in case
because they're corrupt too.
Hello, how's the family?
Anyway, the Bulgarian people seem to have decided
to take matters into their own hands even
after being told by Brussels that it and
the euro will be their guardian angel in
a dangerous world.
Guess they're not into fairy tales since they

(01:09:50):
flooded the streets after their leaders decided to
boost spending.
Spending on themselves and their cronies, that is.
The EU didn't seem to care much about
any of that.
Not enough to postpone eurozone integration anyway.
What really seems to matter to Brussels is
that the Bulgarian government, despite being unable to

(01:10:12):
stick to legal basics, did stick firmly to
establishment-approved script on Ukraine.
Curious.
This government, which lasted less than a year,
turned the country into one giant ammo assembly
line to jack up European GDP for washing

(01:10:35):
public cash into weapons for Ukraine.
Germany's weapons maker and stock market champion, Rheinmetall,
happily siphoning public cash to the point that
its stock value graph looks like a rocket
launch, announced in August that it is building
an ammo plant in Bulgaria.

(01:10:58):
Surely that has nothing to do with Bulgaria
still not fully weaning itself off cheap Russian
gas.
Bulgaria has been bragging about cutting off Russian
gas supposedly by 2028.
But the average Bulgarian citizen wasn't too thrilled
about paying more for energy like the rest

(01:11:18):
of Europe, so now the folks in charge
have been chased into the political wilderness by
their own people.
Time will tell whether the EU will continue
turning Bulgaria into one giant dodgy weapons factory
fueled by Russian gas they claim to hate
all under the guise of freedom and democracy.

(01:11:42):
For whom?
That's always the real question.
Whose interests are truly served when government so
clearly falters and oversight is blatantly selective?
The citizens or vested elites?
Now I like that article.
I think that she nailed it right on
the forehead there.

(01:12:04):
That's all correct.
It's there.
There was another interesting piece by another person,
and it might be too long.
I think I'm going to try it because
I think it might apply somewhat here too,
and it makes you think.
I'm not saying I agree with it, but

(01:12:25):
the article is called America's Moment.
What DoorDash culture says about economic decline?
And this is written by a guy named
Henry Johnston.
He's a Moscow-based editor who has been

(01:12:51):
in finance for a decade, and this is
interesting because it's a western article written for
an eastern newspaper.
So his article, you know, the great baseball
legend and jokester Yogi Berra once quit.
This guy's name, like I Henry Johnston, Yogi
Berra quit that a restaurant had become so

(01:13:14):
crowded that nobody goes there anymore.
Here's a version for today.
Young people in America have such dismal economic
prospects that they spend more money than ever.
A Reddit thread appeared recently in which a
man posed the question of where kids in
America are getting the money to live a
DoorDash lifestyle.

(01:13:36):
DoorDash is one of several smartphone apps in
the U.S. that deliver restaurant meals to
your door for a steep premium.
And that's true.
I use it every now and again, but
it's pretty rare because of how expensive it
is.
And I got to really be feeling lazy
to not cook something or not have anything
in the house because I've been too lazy

(01:13:56):
to go shopping or something.
But I don't go shopping anymore.
I have I have I have the shopping
done for me, you know, and I pull
up, pick it up, and that's that.
Or I have it delivered.
It's terrible, you know, but I'd rather pay
the ten bucks to get that done than

(01:14:16):
to than to go myself.
I can't stay.
I don't like going.
And it's not worth it to drive somewhere
and go in for for one deal, you
know, to cost you an extra, what, ten
bucks, I suppose.
The thread went viral, you know, but was
subsequently deleted for reasons that are unclear to
me, though many screenshots do exist.

(01:14:40):
And it's somebody and it's our money.
And Andrew Dot Today put this out.
It was where it was on the thread
on Instagram.
Here's what it says.
Supposedly the young.
Well, let's read the original article first.
Can someone explain to me where kids are

(01:15:00):
getting the money to live a door dash
lifestyle?
I can't figure it out.
I'm a 44 year old male.
No kids own and operate a fast, casual
restaurant with four locations.
I'm intimately familiar with the insane amount of
money it costs to have food door dash
Uber eat grub hubbed to your front door
at my own restaurant.
A 16 dollar poke bowl delivered with a

(01:15:23):
tip will run you close to 30 dollars
for someone making six figures.
Sure, have at it.
But trust me when I tell you almost
every high school age kid these days seems
to be using door dash multiple times a
week, including my own employees who offer a
free meal to when they work, literally any

(01:15:44):
shift.
Yet even then, I will see Taco Bell
or Chick-fil-A being delivered to my
own store because a 16 dollar an hour
employee ordered it.
That's the story.
And then a guy named Andrew Dot Today,
supposedly the younger generation is so absurdly priced
out of traditional big purchases like houses and

(01:16:07):
cars, kids, they just skip those things and
spend all their money on food.
That makes sense actually.
And they feel hopeless for the future and
end up spending their money on things like
designer clothes, phones, extravagant vacations or door dash
because that's all that is legitimately within reach.

(01:16:29):
So that's the article that he showed with
the screenshot that's later been taken down.
This thread got ping ponged around on X
and one user jumped in with an explanation.
You know, they're behaving like people living in
a post middle class economy where ownership is
unattainable.
Savings are pointless.

(01:16:49):
Buying a home is impossible and upward mobility
is gone.
So what happens?
They shift to a present maximization mindset.
If the future is unaffordable anyway, why not
buy the burrito now?
Young people are not reckless.
They are rational inside a broken incentive system.

(01:17:12):
Luke Grohman, one of today's most incisive financial
analysts, chimed in.
Watch the movie Cabaret.
The youth in Weimar, Germany behave similarly.
For most of the post-war period, saving
money made sense.
A young person or family would convert savings
into a down payment and pay it off

(01:17:32):
gradually, thanks to stable and reliable jobs.
There was a direct connection between the ability
to save and prospects for future prosperity.
The value of money was proportional to the
middle class goodies that one sought.
This rewarded discipline and delayed gratification and attested
to people's optimistic view of the prospect for

(01:17:54):
stability.
Interesting take.
The world is shattered and broken, he says.
For starters, home ownership is an ever-receding
mirage for many.
Bankrate recently reduced a report claiming that the
average American household has been priced out of
75 percent of the housing market.

(01:18:16):
Home ownership rate for households under the age
of 35 fell again last year, while shares
of first-time homebuyers of all ages has
plummeted to a historic low of 21 to
24 percent, well below the historical average of
40 percent.
Even Charles Schwab published a piece advising Gen

(01:18:37):
Zers how to avoid doom spending and defined
it as responding to a poor outlook on
your future of your finances or the planet
we are living in by saying what is
the point of saving for the future.
Financial analyst Dimitri Kofinas coined the term financial
nihilism to describe how individuals who, having lost

(01:19:01):
faith in the real value of money and
in the traditional ways of earning it, turn
to various high-risk behavior.
The old trades of gambling and prostitution return
in new guises, reckless crypto speculation, betting on
the outcome of real-world events via Kalshi,

(01:19:24):
and of course, only fans.
What this points to is a disconnect between
the wealth that can be generated by earning
wages, working the gig economy, or relying on
sporadic Venmo transfers from family members, and what
can be generated by holding assets, such as
real estate nobody can afford.

(01:19:45):
These two parallel tracks are diverging more and
more as the real-life current economy diverges
from the financialized paper economy.
We still benchmark everything to the dollar, however,
because the store of value is going down
faster than the ordinary person can earn dollars
through labor.

(01:20:06):
The path to success lies in asset ownership
and not in simply earning marginally more dollars.
In the current American economy, it is the
asset ownership that matters, or a very high
wage in an industry in a business of
asset ownership.
Accordingly, Gen Zers correctly identify $30 as not

(01:20:28):
being worth much more than a poke bowl.
For a good comparison, in 17th century England,
historians estimate that beer and ale accounted for
as much as 10 to 25 percent of
a laborer's cash outlay.
This wasn't because England was populated by inveterate
drunks or fantastically irresponsible people, but because there

(01:20:52):
was no point in saving the marginal unit
of money in a rigid hierarchical system in
which the barriers to true social advancement were
too high.
Door-dash culture is the digital version of
that phenomenon.
If this sounds a bit like feudalism, it
is because that's exactly what it is, or

(01:21:14):
more precisely, it's a hybrid of feudalism and
the type of pre-Weimar detachment that arises
when wages don't match prices.
The currency is being debauched and the future
is profoundly uncertain and ominous.
To take the analysis a step further, think

(01:21:34):
of the U.S. economy as not just
a post-middle-class economy, but a post
-growth economy.
Let's run a simple comparison of two different
eras.
The 60s were a time of growth driven
by manufacturing, industrial innovation, infrastructure, and rising
productivity.
GDP gains reflected the expansion of real-world

(01:21:55):
economic activity.
Markets functioned without hand-holding by central banks.
Debt levels were manageable.
High interest rates rewarded saving.
Housing was affordable for a working family.
The 2020s are a time of growth driven
by financial services, asset inflation, and debt-fueled

(01:22:16):
consumption, with government spending and central bank liquidity
the primary engines rather than real productivity gain.
Central banks engage in all manner of gimmicks
to prop up a system that no longer
self-corrects.
Asset prices are inflated.
Housing is unaffordable.
Real wages are declining.
These days there isn't much growth and whatever

(01:22:38):
there is has to be with great exertion
as if out of an empty toothpaste tube.
And it takes a whole lot of debt
to even attempt that squeeze.
The U.S. economy managed to expand at
a clip of 2.4% in 2024.
Hardly impressive, but it did so with deficit
spending that reached a staggering $1.8 trillion

(01:23:02):
and by vastly understating the systemic inflation.
It bears keeping in mind that the 2
.4% figure is already distorted because GDP
makes no distinction between organic growth and the
growth created by debt-fueled consumption.
This brings us back to the notion of
feudalism.
This is the type of system that coalesces

(01:23:22):
in one form or another when the economy
exits a growth phase and enters a zero
-sum mode.
Periods of economic expansion are dynamic and tend
to reshuffle the cards.
Avenues appear for upward mobility.
New elites are created and savings can be
deployed to productive endeavors.
In the post-growth world, by contrast, the

(01:23:43):
main mechanism defining economic relations becomes rent rather
than production.
You're renting.
It's the little-known fact, but the period
from about 950 to 1250 in Europe was
very economically dynamic.
The heavy plow became widespread, which allowed northern
Europe's heavy soil to be brought under cultivation.

(01:24:05):
The three-field system replaced the two-field
system, which increased yields.
The horse collar, horse shoes, and windmills all
appeared or spread widely during this period.
There were incremental but transformative innovations.
Deforestation and reclamation advanced.
Lots of forests and swamps were converted to

(01:24:26):
farmland across France, Germany, England, Poland.
Europe's population doubled between the years 1000 and
1300.
The great cathedral building boom of the 12th
and 13th centuries was a direct expression of
this surplus.
The Reconquista in Spain, German eastward expansion, and
the Crusades all represented outlets for surplus population

(01:24:48):
and ambition.
By the late 13th century, however, the limits
of this expansion were being reached.
Virtually all arable land had been brought under
cultivation.
Marginal lands were being farmed, temporarily increasing outputs
but with falling yield.
Population growth began to outstrip food supply.

(01:25:10):
It was this world of economic stagnation, after
a long period of expansion, that produced feudalism
of the high Middle Ages.
Hierarchies hardened and social structures rigidified as mobility
and opportunity shrank.
The feudal pyramid froze.
A static hierarchy of rent-seeking landed elites

(01:25:32):
presided over a peasantry with declining freedom.
Cities and noble courts were often fiscally overextended
and clung tenaciously to existing structures because the
changes felt dangerous.
I don't think I'm gonna be able to
finish this.
I hope I am.
We are exactly at that point except the
feudalism of today isn't recognizable to us.

(01:25:55):
But how different are things really?
The elites own scarce assets while everyone else
pays ever more for participation costs while securing
less ownership.
Perpetually rising asset values are perfect defense against
those rising participation costs.
If that is, you're fortunate enough to be

(01:26:15):
part of the asset owning class.
What's 8% inflation and 15% higher
child care costs if your stock portfolio is
up 25% and your home is now
worth over 2 million?
Asset prices are always rising because the system
is designed to prioritize preserving balance sheet stability.
Markets are always too big to fail and

(01:26:37):
a disorderly decline in asset prices is treated
as a systemic emergency requiring intervention.
But this means that losses are socialized on
the downside where gains remain private.
The result, asset prices trend upward over time
by definition.
To put it bluntly, central banks and government
guarantees that asset prices stay ahead of inflation.

(01:27:00):
An updated form of the old noble privileges
dished out by the medieval king.
We can extend that analogy.
Power is tied to control of finite resources.
Not so much land and financial claim, maybe
more importantly, access to credit.
Whereas average people need funding, pay 25%

(01:27:21):
on a credit card, too big to fail.
Banks have underwater bonds as collateral at full
face value, not to mention a full bailout
if anything goes wrong.
This becomes even more perverse when you realize
that this abundant and essentially free credit provided
to certain institutions is being used to bid
up asset prices even more.

(01:27:42):
Elites, meanwhile, protect their assets via political capture
while the rest of society pays rent rather
than shares in growth.
In medieval feudalism, power was decentralized.
Nobles had their own justice, militia, and taxes.
Today, corporations and asset holders function like many
sovereigns.
Hedge funds and private equity control housing, employment,

(01:28:04):
and the list goes on.
However, this is not the feudalism of Arthurian
legend that can exist in a state of
bucolic status for centuries.
This version is perched precariously on highly financialized
economies that itself is kept afloat by unsustainable
debt.
It is a system that is both highly
unstable and rigid at the same time, however

(01:28:26):
paradoxical that sounds, and Generation Z senses both
sides of that equation.
This is where feudalism meets Weimar Germany.
The U.S. is nowhere near hyperinflation, but
Doordash culture points to the psychological preconditions of
a world that can quickly turn very inflationary.
Spending money because saving it is pointless is

(01:28:47):
a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is more about wheelbarrows of devalued money.
It was an era drenched in a deep
cynicism and foreboding, and nihilism, financial or otherwise,
was rampant.
That brings us to the sudden strangeness of
the moment.
Underneath the glittering digital panacea of food delivery

(01:29:10):
apps, an instant frictionless tap to pay everything,
and despite the familiar signposts of American life,
lies an economic system now operating under very
different premises.
I finished it.
I like that article, and I think it
makes sense, and a lot of it rings
true.

(01:29:30):
Well, here we have about a half a
minute to go.
I appreciate you listening to the show.
I appreciate you being here.
You can always listen to me every morning,
7 30 to 9 here on DAM radio,
and you can listen to all shows previously
recorded at internationalflavor.com or at damradio.com
forward slash podcasts.

(01:29:53):
Please join me again tomorrow, and have a
very good day.

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