Episode 162: Trump's Debate Meltdown and the Scourge of Disinformation

Van Badham and Ben Davison (and Germanicus the dog) HAVE RETURNED!

As Ben recovers from twelve months of illness, this long overdue return to The Week on Wednesday begins with heartfelt gratitude for the Medicare system, as you’d expect. Our delighted duo then analyze the first U.S. presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, highlighting Harris's effective preparation and Trump's off-chops - and certainly weird - shouty rants about pet-eating in Ohio.

They also explore news from the word of “Disinfoland”, concerning the arrest of Telegram's Pavel Durov in France, the suspension of Elon Musk’s “X” platform in Brazil  and the indictment of two alleged Russian agents for “information laundering” pro-Putin talking points through U.S. right-wing influencers. Ben encourages you to JOIN A UNION, and Van cuddles the dog.

A big shoutout to our supporters who’ve stayed with us all these months; friends, we are SO BACK.

More on the US Presidential debate: https://www.npr.org/2024/09/11/nx-s1-5108401/donald-trump-debate-eating-dogs-cats-immigrants-false-stereotype

Great piece from Alexander Howard about the present window for effective social media platform regulation: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/opinion/telegram-tiktok-x-social-media.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Sally McManus explains the allegations against the CFMEU: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/Srn4vDrnuCrxcmCa/

Come see Van’s new show about Nazis in Melbourne: https://melbournefringe.com.au/event/werewolf/

Buy us some coffee (and we’ll spend the money on ads): https://buymeacoffee.com/weekonwednesday

 

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Trump's election debate meltdown, the whirlwind of disinformation,
and the good news is we're back.
This is The Week on Wednesday.
Hello and welcome to The Week on Wednesday. My name is Ben Davison.
And I am your co-host for this somewhat absent podcast.

(00:26):
We have, however, returned. And sitting with me today, as always,
is the great, the glorious.
The best-selling author of QAnon and On, a short and shocking history of internet
conspiracy cults, the book and story writer of The Questions,
the critically acclaimed smash hit musical uh that

(00:48):
premiered in south australia and now they go on to do
wonderful things around the world uh and of
course just guardian colonist extraordinaire
my wife your friend and the cuddler
of germanicus van badham
how are you van well i'm thrilled to be back doing the podcast
as you all know poor ben here has been

(01:10):
extremely sick for almost a year
is it a year almost a year almost a
year in about 12 days it'll be a year oh
and hasn't it been fun you've really loved being
sick haven't you darling yeah and can i just
say to all those listeners who have sent their messages um whether it's on um

(01:31):
twitter i'm still calling it that or facebook or email or however you've sent
your messages of support um very very glad to be back thank you so much for
your support. It's meant the world to me.
Whether you've sent a comment going, when's the week on Wednesday coming back?
We missed the week on Wednesday.
We need the week on Wednesday to tell us what's really going on in this situation.

(01:54):
Or whether it's just to say, we hope you feel better soon. All of those messages have really.
Touched my heart and hopefully now we'll
be able to get some regular episodes under the belt this
is technically episode 162 but we've
only done three or four episodes in the year 2024 that's the
kind of year it's been for me van has obviously been flat out busy you could

(02:18):
if you've caught her work in adelaide or sydney or in brisbane with the something
digital conference or any of our Capital Cities on your recent disinformation tour.
We will, of course, be talking about disinformation today and social media and
regulation of social media.
So we're hoping this will be a shorter episode than the hour-long episodes we

(02:45):
were doing, partly for my health reasons.
He's got to ease back into it, my friends. He's still a little bit pasty in the face.
And the short version of this whole story is
Ben has had an inflammatory condition which
has been just a nightmare and I just want
to say a huge shout out to everyone who supported us since Ben

(03:06):
got sick because we've had comrades from the trade
union movement come down and send baskets and friends from overseas who sent
me the most beautiful Dachshund teapot you've ever seen like it really has been
incredible my theatre friends have really stepped up but it's rough and I've
got to say Ben in the context of being about to talk about the American presidential election.

(03:27):
This year of you being ill and the constant tests and just the frightening uncertainty
of what was going on, I just fell down on my knees every day that we live in
this country, that we have a Medicare system,
that you could get in to see a doctor, that you could get the help that you needed.
It's been really incredible.
And yeah, and we will not be bankrupted by your illness, which is fantastic,

(03:52):
which is an experience a a lot of American families don't have.
Well, that's right, Van. And, you know, among my thanks, of course,
to the supporters of this podcast,
and we will, of course, give shout-outs to our cadre and Extend the Reach supporters
at the end, which Van will read out, because some people have stuck with us
through this whole period. And, of course- Which is incredible.
We've continued to promote the podcast on many channels because there are some

(04:17):
really interesting stories in
our back catalogue that we would really like people to listen to as well.
But I do also want to thank all of the health professionals,
because we did go from a point where we were a bit frightened,
I was a bit frightened about what the future might hold, to where we are now,
which is sort of slowly recovering,
but confident that we're past the worst of it.

(04:37):
And now, you know, it's just about getting back on the feet,
which is why we're going to bring you two stories today.
The good news, we have got some good news features that some listeners have
sent us while we've been off air, so do send those through.
And we will get to those in future episodes.
For today, the good news is that we are back. Yay! I am not going to die.

(04:58):
That's my favourite bit of this whole story. Because, you know,
for a while there, we thought he was going to die.
And, you know, we try not to let that dust up the public brand.
But now that we know that he's not immediately going to die,
I mean, death awaits us all.
Yeah. I mean, it got a bit rough, guys. Like, it was a bit hairy.

(05:18):
And words I don't like are shadow and end-of-life plan. because I've been through
them with both my parents over the past decade and somewhat brutally, as you would know.
So very thrilled that the husband is not about to imminently perish.
Talking of shadows and imminently perishing, let's talk about Trump's performance

(05:38):
in the presidential debate between himself and Vice President Kamala Harris
because you and I were able to watch some of it.
Of course, it's in the middle of the day here in Australia earlier,
and for those of you who do work full-time, you will have probably missed it,
but for those of you who have a portfolio career like Van and I,
we were fortunate enough to watch it.
And I say fortunate enough, Van, because it really was a case of Kamala Harris

(06:03):
taking the handle of a broom, shoving it into Donald Trump, and mopping the floor with him.
Oh, it was a bloodbath. It was, and a lot of people have said this,
including a lot of people on the right, a lot of not only former Republicans,
but present Republicans have admitted that it was a terrible,
terrible performance by Trump.
The line that has emerged is, if you thought Joe Biden's last debate performance

(06:29):
was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Like it was a really hold my beer moment from Trump.
And she just, like I was watching Jen Psaki on MSNBC.
Jen was the.
Press Secretary to Biden in the early part of the Biden administration,
you would recognise her from her red hair.
She's now a MSNBC commentator.

(06:50):
And she just went, this was all about preparation.
And Kamala Harris just seized the moment. She was prepared.
She, all her prosecutors, because she used to be a criminal prosecutor,
who prosecuted rapists, sex criminals, very good qualifications for debating
Donald Trump, let's be fair, given the adjudicated rapist scenario.

(07:12):
Anyway, what she did, the way she started the debate was just phenomenal.
She just walked in. She walked across the front of the stage,
and Trump had gone behind his podium already.
He couldn't even look at her. This has also been remarked upon. He could not look at her.
He did not say her name once during the whole debate. He referred to Kamala
Harris as her or she, and quite pointedly.

(07:34):
Anyway, Kamala Harris went around. She stuck her hand out, and she shook his hand, and he was thrown.
From that moment and she introduced herself. She went, hello,
I'm Kamala Harris. They'd never actually met before.
And the fact that she demonstrated she was not afraid of him absolutely broke
him because I remember the 2016 debates when he did get elected prior to that with Hillary Clinton.

(07:59):
Hillary Clinton, one of the most fearsome people in the world,
like a terrifying human being, which was, of course, the source of my admiration
for her. and he chased her. There's this extraordinary.
Yeah, I remember that debate. Yeah, he chased her, physically chased her around
the stage. He lied so often and so belligerently and so frequently.

(08:20):
Someone like Hillary Clinton, who's a policy wonk, could barely keep up to fact check him.
Obviously, he steamrolled Biden in the last debate when Biden was basically.
What? Come on, man. What is this?
You know, and Kamala Harris was having none of it. And she did something that
was so brilliant, which was to let him talk.
Tom Nichols, who's that American conservative, he's not so conservative anymore,

(08:44):
but who used to be like a ragged Russia expert, which is extraordinary,
who I really admire, whose work I read all the time.
He was saying that it was just that she let him talk.
And Tom Nichols has been saying that the whole thing with Trumpism is the spell
breaks if you actually sit there and listen to him.

(09:06):
And a lot of people, and I have been like this in the past going,
oh, they're over-platforming him. They're giving him all this earned media.
Tom Nichols is like, let the people see him. Let all the low information.
Oh, yeah, I don't know. Maybe things were better four years ago.
They weren't. Like a million people died of COVID in a crisis that a bit of
leadership could have prevented. Yeah.
He's like, let him talk. It's the worst thing he can do.

(09:28):
If people see what he actually is and they can't string a sentence together, like they will know.
They cannot in good conscience or in good faith vote for him.
And this is what Carmel, she let him hang himself, which was extraordinary.
Well, this was one of the things that was really obvious during the course of
the debate and then obviously in the commentary afterwards was that she baited him.

(09:49):
You know, she knows his weaknesses, his ego, the fragility of that ego.
His desire to be loved and his desire to be perceived as popular really overrides all else.
So, you know, she did talk about his rallies and people leaving early,

(10:10):
which of course he responded to. You can see him have an ego aneurysm on the footage. It is amazing.
It is the first timestamped ego aneurysm in history.
So she drops it in. She's like, well, I want to, And she said,
you know, I want to encourage everyone.
You won't be expecting this. I want to encourage you to go to a Trump rally
because if you go to a Trump rally, you'll see how he goes on with this nonsense.

(10:32):
And you'll also see people leave and people leave.
And the term she used was because it's exhausting and it's boring.
And the moment the word boring came out of her mouth, his little lizard brain
takes about half a second to process that she just called him boring.
His eyes pop open like, you know, those squeezy stress dogs,
you know, that you squeeze them and their eyes shoot out, that is literally what happens.

(10:54):
The makeup almost falls off his face. It is incredible.
And he was just thrown. And one of the commentators, and it might have been
Tim Miller, or Michael Steele, guys who, by the way, used to be my worst enemies on the earth.
They were all the Republican operatives 15 years ago who are now light in the
eyes, Kamala supporters, which is amazing.
They were talking about how.

(11:15):
She would start with a policy. Her tactic was she'd start with a policy position.
She'd be like, well, I'm from the working class and middle class and I want
to create tax breaks and I want to make sure that you've got $25,000 to put
towards purchase of your home and $6,000 tax credits and there's. And I'm like you.
And then she would drop in the provocation. And the provocation would be,
your rallies are boring.

(11:36):
Everybody who worked with you thinks you're a disgrace. And she said this to
him. And she didn't break a sweat.
She didn't get flustered she didn't try and i
like she she didn't fact check him but the moderators did
this time and they could do it in real time which made a huge
difference as well the moderators did fact check him saying well
that's just not yeah there's no evidence there's no evidence of migrants

(11:58):
legal or otherwise in the united states eating
people's cats and dogs yeah no migrants in anywhere
in the united states are eating eating people's cats although
trump said he saw that on television so it
must be true and it's like well last night we
watched humanity battle the aliens on television and
it wasn't true if you think television's true are you sure

(12:19):
you have should have control of a nuclear arsenal and but
that was her tactic and she dropped the bait into the middle of the delivery
and then she'd hit up with another point about making a comparison well the
difference between me and you is obviously that i'm committed to these policies
blah blah blah and it was an absolutely ingenious tactic because he fell for it every time.

(12:41):
Every single time he fell for it.
So she would get her policy statement out, drop in the provocation,
and then be like, I'm not like you, and she'd do it so calmly,
so reasonably, you know, and then he would just take the bait and be like,
I'm popular, I'm heaps popular.
Yeah, and real people don't even go to her rallies. Why would they?
They're not real people. They're bust there. They're paid to go.

(13:03):
And then it's, you know, it's not true. and he just looked like a raving crazy person.
Yeah, he absolutely did. One of the things that
What always interests me about American presidential debates is when it comes
to things like health care.
And we talked about Medicare here in Australia. Obviously, they have something
called Medicare in America, very, very different, not a universal system.

(13:24):
Really, it's about low-income families. But he was asked specifically by the
moderators about his plans for health care because he'd been against so-called
Obamacare, but he didn't repeal it.
But he kind of went on a weird rant how he had saved Obamacare,
but the Democrats wouldn't do it.

(13:45):
They fact-checked him immediately with the story that John McCain,
as we've talked about before, actually was the one who scuppered it.
Yeah, John McCain, former presidential
candidate, was the Republican candidate who ran against Obama.
Yeah, and he was the Republican senator who voted against scrapping a program
that has helped tens of millions of Americans Tens of millions of people.

(14:07):
Get access to healthcare that they wouldn't otherwise get.
And they pushed him and said, well, okay, you've been against this policy for
the better part of a decade, so what's your plan?
And he said, well, we're working on it.
And they said, well, surely after a decade, you've got some idea of what you

(14:28):
want to do. And he said, well, we've got the concepts of a plan. Concepts of a plan.
That's a good one. I wish I'd known that one when I was at school.
Vanessa, where is your assignment? meant, well, look, at the moment I would
describe it at the concepts of a plan stage.
I give permission to anybody to just sprinkle this into their day.
Actually, you know, why haven't you met the deadline?
I have concepts of a plan. What is your strategy? I have concepts of a plan. Are we making dinner?

(14:52):
I have concepts of a plan. I mean, it's got myriad uses.
Seriously, it was just deranged. And she looked so presidential in comparison,
just absolutely exquisite planning.
And I want to put this in the context of an outrageous story that appeared this
week. I can't remember which publication it was in.
Criticism might have been the Washington Post with former staffers criticising

(15:16):
Kamala Harris because whenever they went to a meeting with her, she was prepared.
This is a criticism. Yeah, she was really hard to brief because she'd read all
the notes and she had specific questions that she wanted answered and she wouldn't
just do what she was told.
And I'm like, rather good from a potential president of the United States, am I wrong?
She's prepared. She's across the detail. She asks questions.

(15:38):
She doesn't make decisions without considering implications.
I would say that was quite good. Whereas Donald Trump has concepts of a plan.
Has concepts of a plan. Oh, that's right. And, you know, having worked myself
as a staffer many, many, many years ago now and,
knowing many staffers, you actually want your minister or president or the primary

(16:00):
person you're supporting to be across those details.
That's why you write those briefs. That's why you elect those people.
To be well-informed. Oh my God.
And it really is a stark contrast between someone who is well-informed, has some ideas,
wants to do certain things, and somebody who just really, his only argument

(16:20):
is, I'm just better than her. I'm sure they're American great again.
So make me president again because they're no good at it. And it's like that's
not really an argument to become president.
It's not really an argument for anything.
Yeah. I mean, don't they still elect rat catcher in the United States or dog

(16:40):
catcher? Some parts, yeah.
Maybe that works at that level. Maybe you can go, look, I'm just better at catching
dogs than Kamala Harris would be. And I'm sure, you know, someone who's been
elected four or five times as a dog catcher would be better than Kamala Harris at catching dogs.
But Donald Trump's problem is that they're both running now to be president of the United States.

(17:03):
I'm not saying I would vote for Donald Trump to be dog catcher,
but I'd certainly be more likely to vote for him to do that than be president
of the United States with the world's most powerful nuclear arsenal and 11 aircraft carriers.
I know. I love how hung up you are on the aircraft carriers.
Well, Elon Musk the other day was on- Does he want one now? He wants another one.
So they were talking about governmental waste. Elon Musk is obviously very pro-Trump.

(17:26):
You know, if we want to talk about governmental waste, do you know what we could
do? Stop funding Elon Musk with government money. It's very simple.
But does that mean his entire fortune is down to massive, massive government
contracts? Oh, I absolutely agree.
But he was saying that, oh, if we hadn't had all this waste,
we could have rebuilt, we could have built all these new aircraft carriers.
And the reason why I get obsessed about it is it's like, mate,

(17:46):
You've already got nine more aircraft carriers in any other country,
the most of which somebody has two. You have 11.
You have more aircraft carriers than there are oceans.
We know Ben is all right because he's back to talking about aircraft carriers.
Pretty soon we'll be talking about the strategic oil reserves,
and I just feel like all is good and right in the world.
But it is a sign, Van, that the disinformation machinery that Donald Trump is

(18:11):
going to rely I'm going to have to rely on more and more as we get closer to
the American election, which I think is like 56 days away, depending on when
you're listening to this, obviously.
But that infrastructure is in place.
That infrastructure is gearing up. Okay, so I want to use the they're eating
dogs because he says that. Yeah. Actually says that in the debate.

(18:33):
Donald Trump says, they're eating dogs.
And that's his criticism of the Democrats.
To be clear, we love our dog. Yeah. And we're not suggesting for a moment that
the eating of dogs in America or Australia.
Or somewhere where it's not been part of the cultural make-up for centuries
or thousands of years is something we would endorse.

(18:55):
Oh, I've eaten dog. Did you know that about me? But didn't you eat it in like a – In Korea?
Yeah. Yeah, from – I think it was called Happy Dog, and it was a Korean barbecue
with a big picture of a happy dog on the front.
And so I ate it because – It's a cultural thing. It's a cultural thing. Like whale in Norway.
Yeah, I mean, we need whale because they're endangered. to dogs in Korea,

(19:18):
there's kind of a lot of them. There's different types of whales.
Apparently, from friends of mine who have eaten whale for cultural reasons because
they're from Japan or Iceland, not that I support the eating of whale in any
context, apparently kangaroo tastes just like whale.
Have you ever been like, what does whale taste like?
Kangaroo. And I have blind tested people on this and they have been convinced
kangaroo tastes like whale. Just saying.

(19:39):
So, yeah, but the eating of dogs things, and I want to put this into the context
because it's a great piece of understanding how the disinformation narrative works.
So obviously America takes lots of immigrants.
This is the basis of America's huge
economic success is that they take immigrants. That's their whole act.
They take immigrants because immigrants come, immigrants work,

(20:01):
immigrants do jobs that other people don't want to do, typically,
habitually, as is the same all over the world, and they have actually been the
industrial power of America for literally centuries.
That is where America comes from. It has extremely strong internal markets because
it has a population of more than 300 million people.

(20:22):
So a lot of immigrants have come from Haiti. Haiti, obviously,
absolutely wrecked by natural disasters, all kinds of problems in Haiti.
And immigrant communities typically congregate around specific geographical
areas where they share languages and share cultures and can,
you know, work together and form communities.
I noticed, for example, that our current City of Melbourne Lord Mayor and candidate

(20:43):
for the upcoming local government elections, Nick Rees, has made one of the
laneways that I used to often walk to get to work, Koreatown. Yeah, great.
We should have a Koreatown. Because it's full of Korean restaurants and Korean businesses.
We should have more of it. Because when I do tourism, and we know I do tourism,
these are the really interesting parts of a city. Cities are of different communities. Yeah.

(21:05):
Amazing. developing their own internal cultures and rituals and behaviours.
Anthropology Van goes absolutely crazy for it.
What I'm not so crazy for is racism. I'm right out on the racism.
And when you have communities that are taking immigrants that don't have good
infrastructure or a deeply polarized political environment,
say, running a xenophobic narrative around the idea of foreigners coming to

(21:28):
take over our country and steal our jobs, you end up in a situation where there's
a town in Ohio called Springfield,
because there are like 40 million towns in America called Springfield,
and it's got a large population of Haitian immigrants.
So it's something like it's a town of about 60,000 and there are around 15,000
to 20,000 Haitian immigrants there.
The reason why is there are factory jobs there. Yep.

(21:50):
Factory jobs that other people don't want to do.
Are they food processing? Yeah, food processing and light manufacturing, things like that.
And so the Haitian community has gone there to work, to win American dollars,
to get established in this new country.
And CBS NewsHour did a little documentary about it because what's happened is
a lot of they're taking out jobs. It's like, well, the jobs are there and you're not.

(22:14):
Like you've moved interstate or you're not in that community anymore or you're
in that community and you do something else.
So it's not really being displaced from a job if it's a job you don't want to do.
And they wouldn't be employing them if you were doing the job.
Not wishing to get very logistics around it, but wishing to get kind of logistics around it.
And, of course, there's been tension about settling in a new community or whatever

(22:36):
with typical Trumpian xenophobic disinformation narratives that because these
guys are from Haiti, because Haiti, of course, has traditions of voodoo practice,
you know, and various other kinds of, you know, religious and faith-based practice.
And also a very interesting political path. Oh, yeah, totally.

(22:56):
Slavery, getting rid of slavery, throwing off the French shackles,
getting other shackles put on by other colonial powers.
America is obviously the dominance of that kind of Central America region.
So there's a lot of historical, cultural, and political individuality about
Haiti, I suppose. It's unique.
I believe it's the only country that was formed from a slave revolt,

(23:20):
like where they actually fought and overthrew their French oppressors and instigated statehood.
Like super interesting. And then all sorts of things along the way with dictatorships
and democracy and backwards and forwards.
Absolutely punished for it. And the United States, of course,
is one of the reasons why Haiti has been a bit of a mess. Yeah.
Old school US capitalist imperialism.

(23:43):
So, and then getting hit by natural disasters.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is beside the point. The point is that there's a Haitian
community that because...
Some people's understanding of Haiti is based on not incredible empowering narratives
of self-liberation, but on they do voodoo, I don't understand it.
And I saw a horror movie with Bill Pullman in it once where he wasn't really dead.

(24:05):
Or that Bond film where they're the options of the bad guys.
Yeah, or the Bond film. Yeah, like it's not live and let die. Live and let die.
That's right. And anyway, this has morphed into immigrants coming over here,
tagging our jobs and eating our cats and dogs because they're voodoo people
from Haiti. Like this is literally where this is coming from.
This was fact-checked on national television where it's like the guy who's like

(24:28):
the equivalent of the mayor or whatever it is in this particular town was like
this has not happened. This is not a thing that's happened.
But in the Trump disinformation environment, it is absolutely this is what's
happened. They eat cats and dogs.
It's all Kamala Harris' fault. She's let the borders be completely open.
Let's remember that Kamala Harris proposed one of the strongest border bill

(24:51):
in American history and the Republicans voted against it because Donald Trump
told them to because he wanted to keep the issue alive because conservatives,
you know, traditionally have a bit of a security bent.
Like, you know, strong borders.
Oh, absolutely. You can see that here with Dutton trying to play off. Absolutely.
The funny thing being that they're always so very, very bad at the implementation part.

(25:13):
They spend more money, they get worse results, and they damage their own economies
in the process. And create humanitarian nightmares.
So, you know, on all four counts, conservative approaches to,
quote-unquote, border control or, quote-unquote, immigration fail.
And that's a general statement.
But when you look at Australia, the UK, the US, it's a statement that holds

(25:36):
up to history. Yeah, absolutely true.
For those of you who haven't watched Adam Rowan's Everything You Should,
it's a great show hosted by comedian Adam Conover, who's like just a big nerd
who fact-checks everything. and he's got a really, really great,
episode about border in america and how basically if you
allowed people like seasonal work visas the whole

(25:57):
problem would go away that's really good and
we do recommend that show anyway the point is the disinformation narrative which
of course gets workshopped in various channels on the right you know sites like
i don't know where this specific room and began whether it was 4chan whether
it was acorn whether it was you
know uncle bob's slop factory i don't know telegram Telegram, wherever.

(26:18):
So they've workshopped this one and been like, immigrants are pouring over the
border in the billions, Trump said today, okay, in the billions and they're eating dogs.
He said this. Right. And Kamala Harris just shot him this look like you'd have
to be off your rocker, which was great and responded to it.

(26:40):
But the point is that these narratives get purchased because so many people
amplify them. And, of course, to neatly segue into our discussion,
one of the great amplifiers of disinformation narratives is,
of course, the government of Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Of course, their whole desire is to destabilize Western democracies.

(27:00):
Of course, Russia is terrible.
Russia is a terrible place. You and I have both been there. I almost got murdered.
You had to take a man to hospital because his arm had been cut off by the mafia.
We had what we would describe as colourful experiences in that particular country
because civil society doesn't function, because it's run by criminals and oligarchs
and a guy named Vlad who used to be at the KGB.
It is terrible. There is no democratic freedom. And so when we say that,

(27:24):
I can imagine some people going, well, you know, well, that's their system and,
you know, that's up to them.
But the reason, you know, so why would they interfere in our system?
Well, the reason they interfere in our system is that their system is very bad.
And what Vladimir Putin needs to do is convince a very large country with a

(27:47):
very large population that the other alternative, democracy,
the systems that we have- Is inferior.
Is inferior. And that it causes disharmony, that it causes a lack of national
pride, that it makes the country weak,
that it will weaken you individually in some way, that it will diminish you as a man.

(28:09):
There's a very sort of masculine, heavy dictatorships when we talk about Vladimir Putin.
If you only get strong men, you don't really get strong women.
Yeah. Closest we got was Marine Le Pen, and wasn't it a relief that she didn't
actually break that glass ceiling, you know, like one at a time. Absolutely.
Yeah, so Russia really relies on stirring up trouble in its Western enemies

(28:34):
by causing as much trouble as possible.
Russia has a terrible army, a terrible navy, a terrible air force.
We can see that in Ukraine.
The joke used to be Russia didn't have the second best army in the world.
It didn't even have the second best army in Ukraine because they were relying on mercenaries.
And the fact that the Ukrainians have been able to hold out against that war
of invasion, The Russians have many, many, many more resources than the Ukrainians do.

(28:57):
They're just like corrupt and incompetent, disorganized and willing to feed
bodies into a machine to keep the war going.
It's also interesting, just to go back to the debate for a moment,
we'll stay on disinformation,
but that in the debate, Trump was given multiple opportunities to say that he
thought Ukraine should win the war and he refused to do it. Yeah,
of course he refused to do it.

(29:18):
He refused to do it. Because we know that the Russians interfered in the 2016
election in order to help Donald Trump win because he was a weak,
incompetent, vain, and absolutely self-obsessed leader with absolutely no strategic
capacity for the job. And that was in their interest.
Whereas Hillary Clinton was the absolute bane of their existence and had been,
and had been working on, in her capacity as Secretary of State,

(29:40):
all of these soft power resistances, cultural strength.
You know, forming alliances, strengthening democratic governance all throughout
the world, particularly in Africa.
And the Russians did not like it and did not want her to win.
She was, as many women are, punished for her competence.
So what the Russians do is they actually look for, and they're not the only
country that does this, not Korea does this, Iran, also not a very nice place,

(30:03):
does this, China does this, particularly in Australia.
Chinese government was involved in the creation of 9,000 Facebook and Instagram
accounts that, what do you know,
campaigned against the voice of parliament in Australia that was all exposed
by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute recorded by the ABC,
but not a lot of people seem to know about Operation Spamouflage Dragon, but
There you go. Now you know. Now you can look it up. But what the Russians have

(30:26):
very successfully done is identify this sort of fracture points in America.
There is tension in a town of 60,000 people where over the course of a decade,
the population changes by 30%.
You know, of course. Of course. We live in a small town.
If 500 people, you know, suddenly turned up a couple of streets away,
it would be culturally difficult for people, especially if infrastructure hasn't been invested in.

(30:50):
Ohio is run by Republicans. It hasn't been.
And this puts a stretch on the community. Very easy to blame the immigrant,
not the government, let's be fair.
So, and obviously for the government, rather in the interests of you to have
them blame the immigrant.
So these sort of fracture points, the Russian state examines and looks at and
then sees the kind of narratives that get created around that by those who are most antagonized by it.

(31:15):
And they amplify, amplify, amplify, amplify, amplify.
And we saw them, we've seen them do it around Trump. and we know that their
operation is quite sophisticated because it's not really about backing one side or the other.
It's about, unless it's Hillary Clinton, but it is about making America as dysfunctional
as possible so it doesn't give weapons to Ukraine.
So it can't resource Poland, for example. This got brought up in the debate.

(31:36):
If Poland has to mount a defence against a Russian incursion,
they want NATO weakened very conspicuously. Donald Trump, not a fan of NATO,
is going to defund it. That's very interesting.
It's the strongest military alliance in the world. Why would you give that up?
In the history of the world. In the history of the world, and obviously,
by the way, if you want to know if you're in a conversation with someone who's

(31:58):
been trapped in a disinformation community.
The dead giveaway is the term NATO proxy war because that person is getting
their information from the Russians, which should be obvious.
Always do a bit of a check before you share something, Twitter,
Facebook, whatever, just search their past posts and type in the words NATO
proxy war and you'll be amazed what comes up.
So, what they do is they encourage this division by stoking these divisions

(32:23):
that already exist, they're real, and then pumping them, pumping them, pumping them.
QAnon, if you've read my book, which was a crazy conspiracy theory started on
4chan, within four days of that conspiracy theory coming into existence,
4,000 Russian-backed accounts had pushed it out to the internet to speak to
pre-existing tensions and fissures and fractures.

(32:44):
You should read my friend Annie Jankovic's book, How to Lose the Information
War, which is all about this stuff.
But the big news that has broken over the past week is that the sort of Russian
disinformation operations are coming more and more to light all over the world.
So you have the situation where Pavel Durov, who's the owner of Telegram.

(33:04):
Telegram is a company that Pavel Durov started.
He is Russian. He claims to be an exile from the Russian government because
he wouldn't give his original messaging at VKontakte to the state.
That's the story. He has been back to Russia 60 times since entering his exile,
so it's a very warm and friendly exile.
I can tell you. More of a, what do you call it? Turnstile.

(33:27):
Turnstile. More of a turnstile than an exile. Yeah, turnstile.
Oh, wait. If you can come up with a better name, email it to us.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so he has been based in France, and Telegram,
can I just say as an absolute cesspit, it is the worst of all the social media
platforms, although I haven't been on Truth Social, which Trump owns,

(33:48):
it's probably worse, but Telegram's pretty bad.
And he's been arrested in France, and of course a whole bunch of the bros came
out and went, oh, no, this is censorship.
I'm like, well, Telegram does host, let's have a bit of a go.
It does workshop a lot of these anti-democratic disinformation narratives.
I've seen that happen in real time.
It agitates and organises people towards violence.

(34:11):
I saw that happen. The anti-lockdown protests that resulted in violence in Australia,
which were coordinated by a bunch of right-wing Germans, by the way, not Australians.
They were all bubbling away on Telegram.
Telegram has also been enabling drug deals, which are against the law of a lot of countries.
Most countries, yeah. Yeah, and drug deals that also fund terrorism,

(34:33):
So a bit of narco-terrorism, I believe that's facilitated on Telegram.
And also it's been hosting massive exchanges of child sexual abuse material
and other sexually abusive material.
So overall, not a great platform. Not a great platform, and he is in rather a lot of trouble.
But people are out literally going, but this is a free speech issue.

(34:54):
And I'm like, really? Because what about the raped children?
And this is not a conspiracy.
They have evidence, so they arrested him. and that
so that is happening in france and that has kicked off
because in france they can the government
can take percentages of the ownership of your platform if you are found in breach
of various eu laws around this stuff so it's bringing into question the whole

(35:18):
nature of this sort of borderless rule-less social media platforms and the defense
of free speech is not really enough No. Yeah.
And, I mean, obviously there's the ruler in Brazil as well.
Well, this is what... Has taken action against Twitter. So in the 2022 Brazilian
election, what happened was...

(35:39):
There was massive influence campaigns that were running particularly through Twitter.
We know that in Brazil there was heavy disinformation campaigning taking place
through YouTube when Bolsonaro, who was the fascist before Lula,
the Trump-like Brazilian,
before Lula, Lula's obviously on the left and the hero of the people,

(36:00):
Bolsonaro was being backed by, like you would be a young man sitting down to
do a YouTube guitar tutorial and halfway through the tutorial well,
they tell you that feminism was evil and, you know, really Marxists had to die.
Like that kind of stuff. There's some really interesting stuff on it.
So a disinformation environment has been nurtured by the right in Brazil for some years.
And, of course, to find out the extent of what was going on,

(36:23):
a number of investigations have been started in Brazil under Brazilian law,
and they went to Twitter saying, hand over your data.
And this is also what happened to Pavel Durov with Telegram.
The French government said, hand over your data.
And he said, no. So fine, we'll arrest you. That's how this works, buddy.
There is no Twitter office in Brazil anymore. Elon Musk closed it when he took

(36:43):
over, or X, and the X company and Elon Musk has been refusing to comply with court orders.
So the judge who is enforcing the law is part of this investigation in Brazil, went fine.
X can no longer exist in Brazil. Shut it down.
So they're looking at what they can do in Brazil around policing in the platforms

(37:07):
to stop disinformation.
At the same time this is happening, in the United States of America,
the Department of Justice announced that they had shut down more than 30 websites
and also advised that they were pursuing various arrests for two Russian terrorists.
Activists who had been involved with RT, which by the way, stands for Russia

(37:29):
Today. Don't share it. It's not legitimate.
That's a Putin pamphlet. And through an incredible series of shell companies,
what these two Russian agents had managed to do was funnel 10 million American
dollars to a group of six right-wing influencers who work for a company called Tenant Media. media.

(37:51):
These influences include Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, who used to be Bernie bro,
was a meaty everywhere, was part of the Occupy movement and then had a come
to God moment and then decided he was like a right winger. He's become very convenient, Tim Pool.
Lauren Southern, you would know because she came to Australia a few years ago
and tried to be controversial. She was just really racist. Benny Johnson's just crazy.

(38:12):
And Taylor Hanson's another one who makes himself look a bit like a hipster
and then dispenses all this right wing bile.
Vile and there are another two i can't remember who the other two are but
they're like just vile republican trump party
gross nastiness although tim
pool was supporting rfk because he's such a renegade okay yeah so they were

(38:32):
offered some of them were offered up to four hundred thousand dollars a month
to create four youtube videos a month that would have some talking points that
were in the interest of this so-called owner of the company who is a patron
who had supplied the $10 million called Edouard Gregorian,
who literally they were given a one-page CV of a man, of a stock photo of a

(38:52):
man flying in a private jet.
And they were like, oh, yeah, it seems legit because it's very normal to get
paid $100,000 per YouTube video.
You're saying if anyone's listening, $100,000 per episode, no matter how sick
I get, I will turn up for that.
Well, I mean, they are sort of being indirectly tasked with destroying democracy,

(39:13):
and I wouldn't be into that. no no we'd be we'd be,
promoting and defending democracy. Yeah, promoting and defending democracy is
what we do. It tends to come with a smaller paycheck.
Yeah, yeah. It tends to, but you've got a lot better at it. But,
you know what I was going to say. So, anyway. Clear conscience.
What's come out is a story of Russian information laundering, and this is what they do.

(39:34):
You know, they supply this money. It's all a bit murky. You're not told what
to say, but you are given a few talking points, and wouldn't you know what those
talking points are about? Can you guess?
How great Donald Trump is? How terrible Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are?
I want you to think very specifically about Russia's immediate interests.
That America shouldn't be funding wars in foreign countries?

(39:55):
Which foreign country in particular?
Ukraine. Oh my God, Benny, you're the smartest boy in the room,
even if you have been sick for a year.
Yes. I can imagine. That was rather a lot of heavy pressure to say really mean things about Ukraine.
And America shouldn't be funding Ukraine. Why are we spending money on Ukraine?
And you know, like how bad could that Putin guy be? they
were given specific instructions to share the tucker carlson

(40:16):
who's that reprehensible who was too much of
a lizard for fox news is no longer at fox news and
has been in moscow would you believe it shooting little documentaries about
going to the supermarket for the first time because it's very clear if you do
watch the video of tucker carlson in a russian supermarket where he's there
to go oh it's so cheap here and it's like it's cheap there because they have
no regulations around even you're probably eating styrofoam i would not purchase

(40:39):
those biscuits and it's very
clear fish sticks air, literally the air to a multi-million dollar fast food
fortune that you've never shopped for your own groceries in your life.
But they were told to promote this video and these other kinds of propaganda.
And if you do watch that video, it's also useful because it doesn't provide
this context that while the full trolley full of groceries is 200 US dollars

(41:01):
or whatever it might be, that's more than the average...
Weekly wage for someone working in Moscow. So he talks about, oh, it's so cheap here.
It's like, yeah, but you're failing to take into account the localization factor,
which is how much money do people actually... Because they crack down on unions
in Russia because it's not a democratic country. Exactly right.

(41:22):
When I was in Russia, the people were taking down street signs in Moscow and
St. Petersburg to charge tourists for directions.
When I was in Moscow, people were selling garden clippings at at the train station.
Like it is not a functioning society.
And Tucker Carlson going, oh, this is great. I'm just like, yeah,

(41:43):
maybe, maybe in the company you're keeping, but I don't know how much they're really showing you.
But this is a really good example of all of those influencers have built these massive followings.
Like they have followings in the millions because they feed people rage bait.
And having done this counter disinformation tour with Nina,
it's like her whole line is the most
engaging content is the most enraging content and the

(42:06):
reality is and i can tell you this from working in the
media myself yeah that if it bleeds it leads you know people respond to advertising
when they're angry and they're frightened yeah this is the fundamental rule
this is why tv news usually starts with a bloody accident because it's terrifying
or some terrible scandal because it's enraging and then oh my god you're getting
advertisement for a comfort object drawn towards it.

(42:29):
So you have these influencers stoking Americans into this false sense,
you know, like division, chaos, and hate, and, you know, the Democrats eating
cats or supporting people who eat cats. They're coming for your pets.
And then they're going to sell you on the comfort of object of,
we've got so many problems, man. We've really got to stop giving money to Ukraine.

(42:49):
That's how that works. So, you know, the fundamental rule is if you're getting
angry, If you're getting enraged, touch grass, put the phone down,
get off the computer, walk outside, breathe some air, go in.
Maybe I should just go back and check if the person feeding me this content
has said the words NATO proxy war, and then I can maybe move on with my life
and block them and not share it and be part of it.

(43:11):
And I want people to know they target left-wing people as well as right-wing people.
Absolutely. A lot of the spamouflage dragon accounts during the voice campaign
were targeting a progressive no sentiment,
which we know from the fact that overwhelmingly Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Australians voted yes to the voice, crazily enough,
because it was in their interest to do so.
A lot of people were demobilised from actively campaigning on yes because they

(43:35):
thought it was a murkier and more divided issue in the First Nations community than it really was.
There were, of course, thousands and thousands and thousands of foreign government-run
or backed or linked accounts willing to encourage them to believe that.
So don't get sucked in. Social media is not real. Go to a masthead.
Apply your critical judgement.
You know the political positions the mastheads are coming from And you should

(43:58):
be able to work the truth by peeling that back.
One of the things too, Van, that I think is interesting about the tour you did with Nina,
talking to people about how disinformation works and why we have to combat it
here and maybe why we're a little bit behind places like, say, France on it, is that.
We do have a very consolidated media market here.

(44:20):
There is a lot of people who don't trust the Murdoch media or don't trust the Stokes media.
Why would any union member, for example, trust a Murdoch newspaper,
let alone the Courier Mail in Queensland? There I said it all out. Yeah, obviously.
And so one of the things I was going to say is the Australian union movement
does have a lot of social media channels.

(44:40):
It does put out information, whether it's the AU talking about funding for public schools.
Whether it's the Health Services Union talking about the reforms to the NDIS,
whether it's the Nurses Union talking about what's really going on in our hospitals
and in our ambulance sectors,
whether it's the AMWU, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union,

(45:01):
talking about what's actually going on in manufacturing in this country.
Many lies from Trump about, I created manufacturing jobs. And Kamala was like,
no, you didn't. Here are some facts.
Or the United Workers Union talking about what's really going on on our farms
when When it comes to migrant workers, for example, you know,
Australian Unions does have a lot of information that is available to people

(45:23):
through their various channels.
And so we'd recommend that you, if you're not already a union member,
you become a union member, go to australianunions.org.au slash wow, that's W-O-W,
and get yourself into an information environment where you can actually see
democratic values expressed through the the way information is presented,

(45:47):
the details and the facts are actually provided.
And a great example of that, of course, is Salomon McManus, the leader of the
union movement, recently put out a video explaining to people what's really
going on with the CFMEU issue, for example.
Oh, excellent. Whereas the media is all over the place with speculation.
Sky News is calling for the end of the union movement. Dutton's liberals want

(46:11):
every union shut down and every unionist round it up and all the rest of it.
I'd encourage you, if you've seen any of that stuff, to look at Sally's video.
It's on her social media channels. I shared it on mine. It's on yours.
It's on mine. It's on the Week on Wednesday ones.
That's really worth looking at. And just generally absorbing information from
unions, because it does tend to be detailed, tends not to be rage bait, but it is actual fact.

(46:38):
And it gives you the capacity to talk to people about what's really going on
in various sectors and industries and even right down to the workplace level.
If I think about you and I recently.
Gave some money to support the Saputo workers in Tasmania. We did,
and we proudly stand with Saputo workers.
Who are just trying to get the same wages as people on the mainland.

(46:58):
Now, if you listen to Saputo or the kind of Murdoch-style media,
you would think that those workers in Tasmania are trying to hold the whole
of Tasmania to ransom and hold up dairy production across the whole country.
Not the case at all. In actual fact, these are workers who just want what their
colleagues and comrades on the mainland are already getting.

(47:21):
So it's important, I think, that where you get your information from is a proper
verified source, not a blue tick on Twitter.
That is not a verified source. It is not a verified source.
But it's a good masthead like Guardian where you've got trustees rather than
a billionaire owner, or it's from the union movement where you've got people
who are democratically elected to provide that information.

(47:41):
SBS. SBS. ABC, International Mastheads. The BBC.
And read widely. you know one of the best things i ever did was subscribe
to the atlantic and the bulwark which are both conservative in
the united states or but are openly conservative and
they're openly conservative and i read those because
i don't want to demonize other people who support democracy yeah you know if

(48:04):
you're a pro-democratic conservative we have more in common than we have apart
despite the fact that i'm a rabid socialist because the fundamental you know
value that we share is democracy and it must be protected at all costs otherwise nobody is free And,
you know, and that's the thing.
Like I haven't become any less of a socialist.
I haven't abandoned any of my socialist positions by actually considering issue

(48:27):
by issue what respectable conservatives, principal pro-democracy conservatives think about an issue.
Tell you what, it's done me the world of good. It's made me a better person.
That's good. Yeah. Less susceptible to disinformation because I don't actively
dehumanize my ideological opponents. There you go.
We've sort of reached the end of the show. We have. How are you feeling?
I'm feeling quite tired, and I

(48:49):
really appreciate everybody who's listened through to the end of the show.
I appreciate that you've carried me through this episode, darling.
Darling, I would carry you on my back through a river full of broken glass,
and I think we both know that.
That's lovely. Hopefully, it won't ever come to that.
But of course, hopefully, we'll be able to do a bit of a weekend wrap on Sunday.

(49:10):
We'll see how the health is going.
We will prioritize doing Wednesday episodes because we know that's where-
People like to get their information. There's lots of stories,
obviously, we've missed while we've been off the air because we've been sick.
We're not going to go back and cover all of those.
We are a forward-looking household. We look forward.

(49:30):
There is obviously the American election. There's an upcoming Australian election.
It's going to be a very busy six months in terms of policy and politics.
We know there's stuff going on in workplaces around Australia with the changes
to some of the workplace relations laws.
We know there's been lots of media reporting about behaviour in certain unions.

(49:52):
We'll come to all of those issues in due course. But we do really want to talk
about the disinformation thing because Australia's currently having this debate
about social media regulations and young people accessing it and the rest of it.
And I think there's a capacity for a much more sophisticated debate than we're having at the moment.
And the Labor government does have a disinformation bill that was drafted and

(50:15):
shelved when the Liberals mysteriously pulled their support from it. Yeah, funny that.
Just before the voice. What an incredible coincidence.
And there's space given what's going on in France with Durov and in Brazil with
X and in America with all of these influences for us to, as a country,
make some decisions about how we regulate social media, how we make that safe,

(50:36):
and how we ensure that these platforms not platforming hate,
division, destruction and the kind of information that can kill people.
And I think there's, and we'll be talking more about this because obviously
this is my beat after writing the QAnon book and I have been very concerned
by the things that I have learnt in my travels around disinformation land.

(50:58):
And this is going to be something that we're going to be talking about a lot
and what we as pro-democracy principled Australians can do, especially you and I who are very, very
you know, committed positions on freedom of expression, what that means in terms
of getting the balance right to keep us all safe from nefarious foreign influence
campaigns and, you know, domestic terrorists,

(51:20):
narco-terrorism, and the providers of child sexual abuse material,
how we actually regulate platforms to bring them into line with our value.
Absolutely. We have to protect our democracy and we have to protect our commonwealth.
We've always talked about that. And if we allow foreign billionaires or foreign
governments to make money out of destroying our democracy,

(51:46):
then we as citizens, not just you and I, but all of us, those listening and
those who probably should be, are not fulfilling our duties as citizens to protect that democracy.
And you and I are more than happy to make that pledge that we are here to protect that democracy.
And if that means that Elon Musk doesn't get to take his $12 a month from blue

(52:10):
ticks in Australia and the alleged criminals who run Telegram no longer to get
to make Australia a petri dish for anti-democratic sentiment, so be it.
Because fundamentally, democracy, protecting and improving our commonwealth,
those are the two things that are most important in this country.

(52:31):
But what's important, one of the things that is vitally important to you and
I, and continuing to get this podcast into the ears of many,
many people, as many people as we can, is that people listen to the podcast,
they share the podcast, and where possible, they visit our Buy Me A Coffee page,
which is buymeacoffee.com slash week on Wednesday.

(52:53):
And people go on there, they give a buck a week, they're our Buck a Week supporters they give 10 bucks.
Month, which are our Extend the Reach supporters, or they give $20 a month and they're our cadre.
All of that money goes into advertising, not to Elon Musk, but yes,
some of it does go to the other slightly strange fellow who runs Meta, and it does go to Google.

(53:21):
But importantly, it means more people hear the podcast, they hear the messages,
they hear the pro-democracy messages, the pro-union messages,
the pro-worker messages that you and I, Van, talk about all the time.
And because people do that, we like to give a shout out to our Extend the Reach
and our CADRE supporters.
And I think you've got a list there. Okay, you ready? Yep, go.

(53:43):
Extend the Reach, Library Academy of Victoria, Jeremy Moe, Donald Vaughan,
Damien Marley, Cameron Strauss, Trey Dragon, Daniel, at Crazy Kezza,
who I met the other day, lovely person.
John DeHaan, Melody Dinning, JDA not on Twitter, Penelope Judge, S.
Wood, at Didham, Sharon Kelly, Richard Gravern, and Dita Hannam,
Laura Louise Hawker, Graham Oxley, Gail Fiss, Greg Martin, Traynor,
Amy Fawcett, Mild on Twitter, Eliana and Andrew, Ivis, Philip,
Pedro, CQ, Patterson, Buncombe, Basha, Katie Ward, Blagoia, Marky Mark,

(54:06):
Adrian Valente, Missouri, CarrieDale68,
Frank Nahouse, Erica Pizzuti, Joe Lupino, Rachel Fitzpatrick,
Stuart Maung, and our cadre, Elizabeth Walsh, Karina Haythorpe,
Brittany Slap, Jessica Dovey26, Mega Itchy, Soros Matricez.
Atroskena888, Roman Cockington, Tamari Butler, Gail Ferguson,
Ellie Vance, Mary M, Love Your Work, Thank Yeti, Claire, Camille,
Gabe Kramer, Steven Aitken, Trish, Corey, Greg Miller, Kathy Birch,

(54:28):
Fiona Mitchell, Jay Carney,
Bronwyn, Punch Trunk Veteran, Jenny Forster, Seven, Cassandle,
Tui, Hannah, Honda, Matt Bush, No Relation, Brash Daniels, Kylie Phillips,
Leanne Shingles, Kerry Nash, 20, Billy, Trey McCabe, Nerissa Simon,
Laura Nash, and Bajo, at Meringa Man, John Sharpe, and Louise Watson,
Red, White, and Blue Lou.
Riley C, Sue Schlesinger, Misty Ann Weir, Joe Lockery, Steffo,
Karina Barley, at Jane C. Campbell, Riley C, Sue Schlesinger is there twice.

(54:51):
And that is everyone. There is a copy at the end.
Can I just say thank you so much for sticking with us, even though we've been
in and out of emergency wards and urgent care and four different specialists,
and it's really been rough.
It has. Can I just also say, even though we're not entirely sure it was the
whooping cough infection that set this off, Please make sure,

(55:13):
especially if you don't have children and maybe haven't been reminded,
that you do need to get a whooping cough booster.
And I'm just saying that that might be really good just in case you didn't do
that because you didn't have children and didn't know.
Absolutely. And there are whooping cough outbreaks.
Obviously, my hometown of Ballarat is having a fairly awful whooping cough outbreak right now.
So particularly if you're in a vulnerable category or in a place where whooping

(55:38):
cough is now running rampant, get the immunobooster.
That's what it's there for. Get the vaccinations. Absolutely. Oh, my God.
The dog didn't wake up once. The dog didn't wake up once. That brings us to the end of Episode 162.
We hope that you have managed to find us again after such a long sabbatical.

(55:59):
We hope that you'll stick with us as we continue to
bring you the news that's important to working
class people here in australia wherever they may be from around the world and
that we continue to protect democracy and indeed beautiful way of life we've
built here in the commonwealth of australia and i just want to add slava ukraine

(56:20):
i can rhyme slava love you vanny i love you too bye.