This video is a compilation of the satire videos I had created last year that take the view of MAGA folk who have to believe two conflicting ideas simultaneously in order to do the mental gymnastics to follow the dictates of the Trump administration. Much has happened to continue this series - I had an idea in mind for a Charlie Kirk video - but I have concentrated on other things instead.

It was best to divide this into more digestible chunks as this video style is pretty heavy hit-you-in-the face type stuff. But it was always meant to be seen in this order and if you have seen my previous posts you likely saw it out of order. It’s an hour long and you can always pause if you need a break. LOL.

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Kon’nichiwa MotherFos!

This is a personal nostalgia video — similar to the Dead Milkmen one posted a couple of weeks ago — where I go through all the times in my life I have delved into Japanese alternative music and for some reason they usually are a female band. I use the word “quirky” to describe them because there is such a variety in the sounds from pop, to punk, to retro, etc. If I really wanted to make a click bait video I would retool this into something like “Top Ten QUIRKIEST Japanese Girl Groups.” But as usual I’m going for something a bit deeper and more artistic than that, where I am splicing together live footage, interview clips and my own personal experiences with the group.

The format of the video is from the Dr. Manhattan meme and most inspired by the “darker grittier Batman,” meme that blew up after the last Batman movie came out. When I started seeing Otoboke Beaver show up in my feed I thought, “Oh wow, here is the latest Japanese girl band I always end up seeing,” and started imagining all these events happening at once.

I use the term “unstuck in time,” which is not from Watchmen but from Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse-Five where he tells the events of the book out of order by using a science fiction narrative trick. I figure Alan Moore must have borrowed the idea for Dr. Manhattan and this is really the catchiest way to describe the idea.

Enjoy the video.

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A few months ago I started getting P!nk concert videos all over my feed on multiple platforms — clips from some huge concert she had recently done. It was a big splashy production; high enough quality to justify jacked up ticket prices. It occurred to me she had peaked in 2003 and she was now a nostalgia act. Could you imagine coming back to relive your youth when your youth was so . . . lame? She had positioned herself on the pop market to be the alternative to Britney Spears — I was remembering — and the idea of her being the BRATZ doll alternative to Barbie popped in my head. I was going to make a short video on the subject but got sidetracked.

Months later she is the story of the week and people are doing videos reexamining her bogus career and slamming her push to get Macklemore removed from the Ed Sheeran tour. So I’m getting in on the action with a Pink Slam video of my own, combining my original idea with her being a pro-genocide grrrrl.

I had my character Miss Pepe do the narration.

And TikToker iamBlakeley is peaking right now, she had a series of brilliant Pink short videos you should check out:

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Please check out this catchy little number that popped into my head after consuming one content after another on the updates of this controversy. I have distilled what happened into the essentials. I was able to compose this use the same tools Boy George used to write his last great song.

Enjoy!

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This video was inspired by seeing the Dead Milkmen play at the Mosswood Meltdown festival recently — and a look back on how buying their tape was formative event of my youth. When I was done with this I realized it’s an 80s nostalgia piece more than anything. I discuss my involvement with the defunct reel-to-reel technology of tape cassettes. It was a smaller world then and we did not access to everything through streaming as kids do today. By the time I was a teenager I owned over 100 tapes — that made my music collection bigger than most. I grew my collection from there by borrowing from a boomer friend’s giant vinyl collection which was my version of a streaming database.

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I saw 90s Grrrrrl band Bikini Kill at the Mosswood Meltdown festival recently. I had liked some of their songs prior to coming to this concert but the vocals were so painful to hear live I had to make this video about the vocals being a “a little pitchy dawg,” as Randy from America’s Got Talent used to say. I looked it up and Kathleen Hanna’s style is explained as “screaming, yelling, and wobbling pitches to convey immediate rage, pain, and defiance rather than smooth harmonies.” But these are just excuses, a singer can be edgy and abrasive without having their voice crack like a teenager multiple times per song. It says a lot that even her defenders described her voice as “wobbling.” Bikini Kill have had a over thirty years to figure the singing part out but they never did. Anyway, it’s a just a throwaway joke.

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Please enjoy above three minute satirical piece a new torture toy that I am sure ICE officers will use with measured restraint.

This is a bit like my THE BOYS video in that it focuses on the extremes of a super power, but instead of laser eyes or head-popping this is about electric shock powers!

Enjoy.

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I recently attended the Mosswood Meltdown punk rock music festival in Oakland California where Iggy Pop was the headliner and John Waters the host. It was pretty small compared to the massive music festivals you see these days like the Chicago version of Lollapalooza and Coachella. But the line-up was pretty good and the location was convenient, so I gave it a shot and enjoyed myself.

Punk is like any other music genre these days where it’s a mix of nostalgia acts that were there in the 80s and retro acts that sound like they were there in the 80s. In that way it is just like pop and metal music in the 2020s: a rape of the grave of the 1980s with improved production values added. As a teenager I resented my boomer parents when they told me all the 90s bands I liked were just ripping of the 60s acts they grew up with . . . well, now I’m getting older and know what they meant.

The show gave me ideas for a few three-minute essays. And the premise for this one is pretty great: what if I mocked an old man for having scoliosis?

Hilarious, right?

“NO!” say you.

Ok, fine. This really turned out to be about aging rockers failing to age gracefully. But I am tender enough not to be too hard on Iggy. While watching some old videos of his performances it refreshed in my mind that his greatest innovation was about how to contort your body on stage. Not how to dance in a traditional sense, but how to emote a chaotic charisma. Many copied him, but they can only copy him well if they have the lean muscled physique he had in his prime combined with a manic energy.

This isn’t about music at all, for which there is little to say. He’s a nostalgia act who plays his old hits. His band sounds good and his voice is still good enough. He hasn’t completely blown out his vocal chords like David Lee Roth has, but he still needs the cover of a loud band behind him.

Enjoy.

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Hey politics fans!

There’s a bit of a problem with the Political Compass. It mostly exists on the memes Subreddit and it’s losing its relevancy. One of the driving problems is that as Redditt became more and more a home for liberals, conservatives have been banned all over the site. So one of the subs they have congregated at is PCM because its moderators don’t ban people for expressing conservative views.

Now the original idea for the sub is for people of all different political stripes -- who allegedly have some insight into politics -- can come and debate. They will make their memes with whatever political bias they have and try to own the other side by having soyjacks in their opponent’s quadrant saying dumb shit while Chads in their quadrant own their ass. In the past it has been a brilliant site with some highly creative meme makers from all stripes owning each other in the most hilarious of ways.

But as the conservatives piled in the liberals and leftists bailed. Now it’s known as a haven for right-wing discourse. And liberal subs will actually ban people for posting there. Like I was banned from a sub about comic strips because the moderator’s bot told him I had posted on PCM.

But worst of all the talent is gone. It’s just one gibberish poorly made dumb-ass “I get my news from Sean Hannity” sloppity slop over and over. Really it’s hard to look at these days and it is a shame because it is such a fun meme format to play with and informs the videos I make today. Wojacks having an edgelord chat is what I am all about.

For awhile it was my go-to and this page is a look back at some of my early memes from two or three years ago. At the time I was watching a lot of left-wing political YouTuber channels who spent most of their time trashing the Democrats. When I posted on PCM I was a “lib-left” they could love because I hated the Democrats as much as they did -- and my memes did quite well.

Now the cube is supposed to encapsulate the entire political spectrum, but people generally use it for left/right debates on the topic of the day. When I made my memes I would have the Corporate Democrats in Auth-Left, the Corporate Republicans in Auth-Right, the Populist-Right in Lib-Right and the Populist-Left in LibLeft. Auth-Left is supposed to be USSR style communists, but right-wingers don’t know the difference between a Democrat and a commie so no one called me on this. But just keep in mind that is how I was thinking when making these memes.

This is just a generous sampling of what I was doing. I started posting there less and less after Oct. 7^th. Because it isn’t fun to hang with right-wingers who reveal themselves to be pro-genocide Islamophobes.

I will post a follow up to this about how I fixed political compass memes. Enjoy!

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Please enjoy this three minute essay about a little insight I got into Thompson’s writing while listening to an audiobook. Perhaps his being aggressive in his writing is obvious, but as it had been decades sense I had read him I had forgotten. All I had remembered is that he was weird and quirky.

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Good thing this video is very clip-friendly, and most people will probably see it in clip form.

That’s OK because even though the video does have an over-arching theme and thesis it is a collection of takes related to The Boys. The video goes into a few tangents about how as a kid I created a character that has many similarities to Deadpool before Deadpool was thought up. Basically, Rob Liefeld and I were both taking Wolverine’s healing factor ability and taking it to its ultimate extreme. I also discuss how GenX’ers are now in control of the comic book and movie industries so a huge amount of what you sea on screen are actually easter eggs that only a few hundred thousand boys who were reading comic books in the 1980s would get.

I started making this about a week before The Boys finale and by publishing now I have missed the moment of this being the thing everyone was talking about. Over that time the majority of videos were mostly along the line of “the finale sucked,” and “season 5 sucked,” along with a huge number of videos where fans re-wrote the ending. This video also makes suggestions on how I would re-write the endings of The Deep and Homelander characters as well as a few other criticisms of the show. But overall my take is positive which is contrary to the ditto heads who have all turned against The Boys and are ignoring what the show means as a whole and it’s long-term cultural impact. They’re middle brows who think they are too good for silly sex and violence creativity.

As someone who likes to ask the naughty questions of what superhero powers mean and as a long-time fan of gore in horror and actions films I appreciate that The Boys is the latest touchstone on where it is going. Enjoy.

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YouTube has followed the lead of TikTok to have a “shorts” selection of vertical smart phone friendly videos that are one to three minutes long. Often these are clips from long form videos, videos of talking head influencers giving their opinion or a new genre that is emerging of the “very short essay,” or the two to three minute “take,” video – whatever you want to call it. That’s what this is and I think I am starting to get the feel for the punchiness needed to make this work. First you have to give your audience a flash of what this is about in the first couple of seconds or they will scroll forward to the next video, then sum up your core ideas fast, accompanied by quickly edited visuals. And choices will need to be made on what to leave in and what to leave out as you can’t comprehensively cover a topic in three minutes.

In this video I cover a very narrow part of Mike Patton’s discography specifically his weirder and more abrasive material – tracking his speed-scream evolution from the self-produced Adult Themes for Voice to the Crank 2: High Voltage soundtrack.

It’s funny even when I take a break from politics I go with the more subversive topic (in this case – weird music) I can find. Hardcore Patton-heads will like the video but others might stop because of the abrasive sounds.

There is a lot to be said on this subgenre that I didn’t have time to get into, like how the group the Boredoms were doing this before Patton was. Their vocalist, Yamantaka Eye was the screamer for John Zorn’s inventive Naked City album. In later Naked City live performances when Eye was not available, he would use Mike Patton instead. That is how Patton got into this avant garde tangent to his career.

I have grown up on Patton’s music and had my tastes evolve alongside his musical growth. I suffered many of the experimental concerts he did in the 90s so I feel I have the right to poke fun at him for this. I remember the audience running away from an especially bad collaboration he did with the Rova Quartet -- no one was left for the encore.

Here’s one he did with John Zorn that I went to. Don’t feel bad if you don’t make it all the way through this video:

But this early Fantomas concert is incredible and totally worth watching in its entirety:

I know enough about this subject to do a long-form video in the future. There have been a lot of career retrospective videos of Faith No More and Mike Patton is the Greatest videos, and I don’t want to do anything redundant. I would need to form a thesis that is more original and based on my personal experience attending his concerts over the years.

At the moment I will leave you with this micro-essay.

Enjoy.

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I’m being a bit defensive and self-referential with this one. My Marc Maron video actually got some views on YouTube and I posted it on a few Reddit subs. But the issue I had — as I did with a few other videos — is people who may have otherwise liked the video dismissed it as AI slop because of the voice over. That’s frustrating to make a high effort video but have it called low effort. Oh well, it’s my karma to get some negative comments on YouTube after all the ones I have posted! LOLZ!

So this video is me talking to myself about how to deal with this problem. Should I change how the videos are produced, embrace it or something else?

Please enjoy.

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Greetings Substackers and Comedy Fans!

Funny thing about YouTube — or the world of content creation in general — is I can download parts of my mind and the AI will suck it up for it’s hive mind. And this one thing about Marc Maron that has bugged me since 2011 can now be turned into “content,” and may someday be quoted in AI summaries.

It’s hardly the hot button issue people are talking about, but since Maron has been in the news lately for retiring his podcast and having a viral Theo Von impression it’s the right time to release this 15-year-old hot take onto the world.

Marc Maron fans will be interested, but likely will disagree with me as they think Gallagher got what he deserved. I just think this video needed to be made because everything Maron has been saying against anti-woke comedians is true tenfold about his idols Dice and Sam Kinnison. If he liked those guys then Maron was yucking it up to a lot of homophobic material back in the day.

So who is he to be so righteous?

Please enjoy this video. This is a different edit to what I will post on YouTube due to copyright claims.

Until my next old hot-take becomes content . . .

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I’m just a simpleton who really loved the Matrix sequels when I saw them in theatres’ in 2003. I thought this was the best action I’ve ever seen brilliantly coupled with ideas doubling down on philosophy, computer coding concepts and the engineered control of society. I re-watched the movies several times and they always held up. At the times there were some bad reviews but I just disregarded them. Why would the critics think such great forward momentum that are entertaining from start to finish bad?

But many years later when I got into watching video essays I was told that no actually I was wrong to like these movies because . . . too much exposition . . . conventional script writing concepts not followed. Jarad Baur’s video essay for the channel Wisecrack made the most persuasive argument for this. And after exposition was pointed out to me I couldn’t unsee it in any movie I saw. And exposition is often done in a clunky and obvious way that decreases the viewer’s enjoyment of the movie. But even after acknowledging the points Beaur made — and I guess he succeeded in lowering my esteem for the films for the time — eventually I came back to them.

But the Matrix trilogy are comfort movies that I can watch over and over as they are for many people. You could have them on in the background as you clean your apartment and never say to yourself: oh there’s the boring part.

The way Matrix Reloaded had agent Smith downloading his mind into a human for a cliff-hanger ending was golden. This was just non-stop gripping shit.

When it comes to fodder for on-line content creators the films you see analyzed over and over again are The Matrix and the Dark Knight Returns. The analysis of their greatness as films and relevancy to current political and social trends never ends. It almost becomes a cliché. Like come on bro, can’t you think of any other movies to talk about?

This is just my reactionary take to that. I am a contrarian bravely defending exposition when know one will. I am to exposition what Micheal Tracey is to the Epstein files.

My thoughts on this have been consistent the whole time, I didn’t like the characters above when I saw the movie 23 years ago and that is still my opinion.

No other criticisms.

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It was truly a magical concert.

A singer who had shown bravery that few could. She risked incineration by airstrike or molestation by prison guard for humanity’s most pressing cause: to feed the starving genocide victims of Gaza. Along with Greta Thunburg and hundreds of other daring souls she had attempted to deliver food to the beaches of Gaza, only to be intercepted by IDF Parademons.

San Francisco’s finest motley crew of tatted green hair genderqueer commies – and some that could pass for normies – experienced a pinnacle most baby boomers only pretend to remember: an authentic moment of politically charged folk that was simultaneously sorrowful and heartening.

Every element of what you would want in a concert was there: musicians at their peak in skill and relevancy and a dedicated audience who knew and joined in for every song. The Chapel, located in San Francisco’s Mission district is a jewel of a club that is ideal for the folk music or stripped-down-rock experience. The perfect acoustics garnered a closeness with the performer that even extended to the barfly at the back of the room.

And what could be more cathartic than to connect in-person with the anti-war commoners just as the monstrosity of U.S./Israel hegemony’s dragon tail drenches Persia’s magic carpet with oozing odoriferous slime.

And while you are there why not stop by the booth of the Peace & Freedom party and officially sign up as a socialist? Blanton never stops intertwining her music with activism. Lol!

More clips from the concert:

A video of Blanton aboard the Flotilla:

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The anti-war movement got an unlikely voice in February 2022: Tucker Carlson, a blue blood FOX news host who had been a cable news hack most of his career. He had a been a promoter of the Iraq war in 2003 and now did routine segments about the “crisis on the border” as FOX programming dictates. If someone tuned into FOX news in 2002 they would see Bill O’Reilly doing nearly the same crisis at the border story as Carlson in 2022. When open borders became a genuine problem under the Biden administration liberals didn’t take it seriously at first because FOX had been crying wolf for decades.

But something had changed in his worldview by 2022 and he had adopted libertarian ideas that America should be a non-interventionist country. He, like many conservatives, realized he had been wrong about Iraq and he did not want to see America become involved in another quagmire conflict. And he saw America’s massive funding of military bases and military actions abroad as wasteful spending, while the American quality of life continues to degrade due to America not investing properly in its infrastructure and inflation making home ownership by the middle class almost impossible to achieve. These are core beliefs of the Make America Great Again movement.

Which brings us to Ukraine. The propaganda leading up to the Ukraine war was relentless and the narrative of “we have to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s aggressions” was believed by the majority of Americans. This was pushed by MSNBC, CNN and most of the newscasters at FOX like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Carlson was the dissenting voice on the networks, exposing how this was a fraud and the Ukraine conflict is really America’s proxy war against Russia. The massive amounts of taxpayer money going to fund the war was really a gift to the military industrial complex and the Ukrainian politicians who would later steal it. Eventually the “if we send money to Ukraine this helps armament factories are home,” became one of the arguments to support war with Russia.

His voice alone gave rise to the mainstreaming of the “anti-war” right (anti-war has to be in quotations because given Trump’s recent Iran bombing most people will laugh you out of the room if you call the right anti-war). This was the red-pilled MAGA crowd who – like babies born yesterday -- just figured out the media was lying to them, war is bad and the working class are getting screwed. Right-wing podcasters were starting to talk about the media and foreign policy with Noam Chomsky lingo even though they had never read Chomsky. But frequent guests Glenn Greenwald and Jimmy Dore had, and they repeated ideas from Chomsky’s book Manufacturing Consent to Tucker Carlson, who repeated them to his audience and then suddenly the right had an anti-war movement overnight.

Republicans like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are not great thinkers with original ideas. They were just Tucker Carlson fans who were able to turn his ideas into legislative action. Marco Rubio was a big supporter of the Ukraine war in the beginning, but he read the tea leaves on MAGA’s opinion on Ukraine and later changed his position – in rhetoric anyway.

And the most important mind he influenced was Donald Trump. Trump was interviewed by Carlson and told him what he wanted to hear, about how much he hated neocons like Liz Cheney and how he never wanted to repeat the warmongering Bush years. Trump promised to end the Ukraine war on day one because of Carlson. But Tucker neglected to ask Trump how he would handle it if Israel wanted him to get into a war. Like most commentors we avoided that subject entirely until over a year after October 7^th.

But before that we did have the satisfaction of Carlson calling out Zelenskyy for being the shifty-eyed track suit wearing dictator puppet that he is. And for being honest about Ukraine he got fired from FOX news. They didn’t fire him for times when he had gotten it wrong or been dishonest about other subjects – they fired him for telling the truth about Ukraine because the media must always support foreign wars no matter what.

This led to him having his own successful podcast show, and on one infamous occasion he interviewed Vladimir Putin himself. The western media cried out that he was Putin’s puppet and he should be punished for this treasonous action. It seemed like America had forgotten that major network broadcasters used to routinely interview leaders who were seen as enemies of the west. This was not treason, it was getting the other side’s perspective so you would have a more well-rounded view.

Let’s look back anti-war actions Republicans took, as compared to the capitulation to the war machine shown by liberals (see link below)

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS AGAINST WAR WITH RUSSIA

In May 2022 Senator Rand Paul stalled a $40 billion aide package to Ukraine. Paul pointed out that prior to the March invasion the U.S. had already sent Ukraine six billion in military aide since 2014, and as this was the second aid package in two months it summed to $60 billion. This would make Ukraine the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the past two decades. The aid would be equal to the entire military budget of Russia, he said. It exceeded the amount collected on the gas tax to build roads and bridges, equals the entire state department budget and exceeds the budget for homeland security. And America does not have this cash, he added, it will have to borrow it from China, increasing the deficit.

But if the bill were to go through, he wanted it to include an inspector general who would scrutinize and track the spending. This was an addition war hawks Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell could not abide. But why couldn’t they? With the massive amount of $40 billion you would want to track where the arms and money ended up, right? That sounds like common sense.

But no -- an inspector general clause was non-negotiable. If the money was tracked, how would the Ukrainians be able to steal the cash or sell the weapons on the black market? Ukraine is known as the most corrupt nation in Europe, and this is the biggest opportunity for thievery in the nation’s history. The Senators knew they must quietly look away because Ukrainian’s skimming off the top is just an operational cost of this particular neocon endeavor.

Proof that an inspector general was needed came in August 2022 when CBS were about to run a special titled “Arming Ukraine” about how arms sent to Ukraine were falling off the truck, so to speak, along the way. In the documentary the founder of Blue-Yellow NPO Jonas Ohman estimated “only 30%” of the arms shipped reached the front lines. Reaction to this bombshell was swift and severe. By this point Ukraine now had the power to censor American journalists, and they demanded the story be suppressed. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba called on CBS to do an internal investigation. The special was pulled and CBS posted a retraction saying distribution had been improved.

It would have been extremely interesting to have follow-ups on this story so we could have answers to questions like what is the accurate and updated percentage of what is being stolen? Who is doing the stealing? Where do the weapons end up after they are sold on the black market? How big of a taste of the action goes to Zelenskyy himself? But no -- journalists who would accurately report this would be not allowed in Ukraine, and Ukraine no longer allows a free press.

The need for financial tracking and proof of corruption was finally exposed by the New York Times in 2025 when they reported that a former business partner of Zelenskyy had siphoned off $100 million dollars from a nuclear power plant and laundered the money to other countries. Meanwhile Zelenskyy asserted control over state run companies and sabotaged oversight so the government could spend without scrutiny. Officials were accused of embezzling funds meant for weapons purchases and buying food at inflated prices so they could pocket the difference. The most shocking thing in this article was the revelation that Ukraine has an agency empowered to fight corruption at all. The New York Times have had reporters embedded in Ukraine for the war’s entirety and yet sat on this corruption story until they were given the go-ahead to report the truth by Trump’s state department.

In March 2022 Zelenskyy declared martial law, nationalizing all TV news and banning any opposition political parties. Leaders of opposition parties were accused of treason and forced to leave the country. In December 2022 Zelenskyy passed a bill that expanded the power of Ukraine’s broadcasting council, giving it the power to regulate all media in Ukraine. The council can withdraw licenses, issues orders, inspect media facilities and sanction them for dissident speech. All media outlets must register with the government and any news organization not registered can be shut down. It can also restrict content from search engines. Criticizing the Zelenskyy government in the media can lead to jail time. Ukraine was not a safe place to be a journalist even before Zelenskyy gained power, as there were 300 cases of violence against journalists during the Euromaidan demonstrations in 2014. Now the silencing of journalists has been codified into law.

GONZALO LIRA

A memorable example of Ukrainian suppression of free speech is the case of Gonzaro Lira. Lira was a Chilean American YouTuber who had been living in Ukraine since 2014. If you look him up you will find smear pieces on him on Wikipedia and Daily Beast characterizing him as a misogynist right-wing influencer who became a delusional Russian shill. In truth he was reporting first-hand accounts of what was happening in Ukraine during the invasion on his YouTube channel. He was repeating information like death toll rates, NATO aggression, the US sabotaging peace talks, etc, as well as his opinions. There is nothing that was said on his channel -- other than some speculations -- that couldn’t be verified elsewhere. And even if he was wrong in any of his videos, people are free to be wrong if they live in a country that has free speech – which Ukraine doesn’t. In one of his videos Lira blames The Daily Beast for trying to kill him. After The Daily Beast ran a hit piece on him, they called the Ukrainian government to make them aware of his existence so something could be done about him. In April 2022 he was detained for a week by the Ukrainian SBU (Security Service of Ukraine). On May 1^st 2023 he was arrested for the crime of “justification of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” He was released on bail and placed under house arrest. He went back on YouTube with stories of how he had been tortured. Fearing for his life he ran to the Hungarian border to seek asylum. During his flight he posted videos saying this may be the last time the world ever heard from him. And it was. He later died in a Ukrainian prison, reportedly from pneumonia. The prison ignored his illness and left him to die. Upon his death, The Daily Beast ran an article celebrating his demise.

One would think that the U.S. government would attempt to release an American citizen from its ally nation. But the Biden administration did nothing. This story was only reported on by right-wing media, with Tucker Carlson calling him a political prisoner. At the same time, American journalist Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on charges of espionage. The Gershkovich story was given widespread attention by mainstream media, while the Lira case was ignored.

FORCED CONSCRIPTIONS

The number one victim of this war is the working-class Ukrainian male. These men cannot get bogus exemptions and steal money while in positions of power like the Ukrainian elite. Due to high causality rates and the fact they are outnumbered six to one by the Russians, many Ukrainian men would rather not die for a U.S. backed war of attrition against Russia. This has led to high numbers fleeing to other countries or hiding indoors to avoid forced conscriptions. The territorial recruitment officers (TCK) have employed brutal tactics to conscript men, assaulting them in public and torturing them behind closed doors. They are known as people snatchers, grabbing young Ukrainian men and forcing them into black vans, only to be seen again on the front lines, and later in a coffin. This has led to a public backlash in Ukraine, demoralizing the citizenry and causing them to see the TCK as their enemies.

MATT GAETZ IS AN ANTI-WAR CRUSADER?

As was described in part II of this Ukraine series, the progressive “Squad” (also known as the capitulation caucus) quickly backed down to pressure on Ukraine peace talks and never took any meaningful steps to reach a diplomatic solution. The real peace movement in congress came from the populist right led by Rep. Matt Gaetz. Gaetz and this minority of Republicans were informed from a libertarian perspective and from watching Tucker Carlson. Now there was a split in the Republican party between traditional neoconservatives like Lindsey Graham and MAGA populists like Matt Gaetz.

In February 2023 Gaetz and ten co-sponsors, including Majorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, submitted the “Ukraine Fatigue Resolution” which called to “end its military and financial aid to Ukraine and urges all combatants to reach a peace agreement.” Some of these Republicans had been against funding since the war began. Thomas Massie, Paul Gosar and Matt Rosendale voted against Ukraine funding in March 2022. The fatigue resolution was attacked by war supporters on both sides of the aisle and ultimately failed. But at least it was a real legal resolution focused on peace. Gaetz and MTG put forth additional bill amendments in July 2023 that were voted down.

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In October 2023 Gaetz boldly moved to block the election of house speaker Kevin McCarthy. Because the Republicans held a slim majority in congress, he could block the election of McCarthy with a small number of hold outs, meaning he could use his leverage to make demands. Gaetz was able to hold the speakership vote up for a week. Democrats mocked this move, saying it showed the Republicans were chaotic, divided and undisciplined -- and the move was blocking important legislation from being passed. Establishment Republicans complained bitterly on Fox News: something democratic is happening and it’s not fair!

Leftists who had been a part of the Force the Vote movement in 2021 felt vindicated that their movement would have worked if “the squad” had not chickened out at the last moment. The plan of Force the Vote was to use the progressive caucus to hold up the election of Nancy Pelosi’s speakership so they could leverage a vote on universal healthcare. The Squad eventually backed off on this plan and it never came to pass. AOC and Co. continue to be useless when it comes to getting votes on the floor for progressive policies to this day.

One of Gaetz’s top demands was related to funding for Ukraine. Gaetz accused McCarthy of making a “secret deal” with Biden to pass Ukraine funding in a separate bill. Gaetz eventually had his demands met and was able to delay Ukraine funding. He was the only U.S. politician able to do something of substance on this issue. In April 2024 he proposed an amendment to a Ukraine funding bill that would ask Ukraine to repay funds given to them so the money could be used to help build a border wall.

In the end the bipartisan war machine was able to get its many spending bills passed. But at least Gaetz had led a valiant effort to end funding and therefore push for peace. However, this is not a celebration of Gaetz as a person who, since his battles over Ukraine, has shown that he is not consistently anti-war. All reporters assigned to the Pentagon recently left in protest after they were told they must obey new restrictive reporting rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. They were replaced by a trove of right-wing influencers who would work as stenographers for whatever propaganda the Pentagon tells them and Gaetz is part of that crew. Gaetz says he supports Hegsworth’s attempts to muzzle the press and recently supported the War Department’s military and regime change actions against Venezuela.

RAGE AGAINST THE WAR MACHINE EVENT

In February 2023 an event that was mixed in attendance between people on the left and right – but more on the right – was the Rage Against the War Machine event. The event was sponsored by the libertarian party and speakers included Scott Ritter, Ron Paul, Garland Nixon, Caleb Maupin, Daniel McAdams, Nick Brana, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Wyatt Reed, Roger Waters, Scott Horton, Tara Reade, Tulsi Gabbard and Jackson Hinkle.

A thought about Jackson Hinkle: Everybody on this list has been smeared as being a pro-Russian shill. But in Jackson Hinkle’s case it’s true – he is a Russian shill. Because Hinkle goes beyond advocating for peace over war, he thinks Russia is justified to commit acts of war and supports actions that have killed tens of thousands of people. People like Hinkle give ammunition to war mongers who want to interpret the term pro-peace as pro-Putin. Hinkle has traveled to Russia to meet leaders and allows himself to be used by Russia’s television propagandists. Hinkle and Tim Pool, who was revealed to be taking money from an organization pushing Russian interests, both discredit the movement for peace in Ukraine. Because they, unlike the virtuous peace activists Code Pink, are motivated by greed.

One of the most memorable things about the Rage Against the War Machine event was Rachel Maddow’s coverage. Who after years of spreading false conspiracy theories about Russiagate, continued to brainwash her audience with a narrative that would be similar to the one FOX news would have made against people who opposed the Iraq war in 2003. In her McCarthyite assessment, “There was a truly random rally on the mall in Washington DC . . . a rally in support of Russia I guess given all the Russian flags. At least a rally against the U.S. supporting Ukraine and trying to stand up against the Russian invasion of their country. It was a tiny event. It was small. It was a weird assemblage of Americans, there were Proud Boys there, some of the white supremacist groups you would recognize from the unite the right rally in Charlottesville a few years ago. Also represented prominently the remains of the bizarre Lyndon LaRouche cult. There were a lot of people with Russian flags and people with flags of the former Soviet Union?? Also at least one person who guest hosts for Tucker Carlson was there as a featured speaker (Tulsi Gabbard). There were anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, a lot of them, there were crypto currency promoters, it was a really weird group . . . “ Maddow hit on all the buzz words that would freak her audience out and make them hate this event. Not one interview with the attendees was in the report -- only speculation on what bizarre racist right-wingers they must be. Even though MSNBC had featured earlier a more balanced reporting on the event that included interviews, that was removed from the MSNBC website after Maddow decided to put her little twist on the story. Videos mocking Maddow did a satire version of how she would have critiqued people protesting the war in Iraq.

A year later there was a second Rage event. This time it was moved to a private location and had much more the feel of a corporate event than a grass roots movement. But it had government contacts and was able to make itself part of Donald Trump’s official agenda. Trump stated he would end the war on day one and “end the dying” – a much saner answer than was given by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

TUCKER USES TRUMP TO GET PEACE AND FAILS BIG TIME

Trump’s failed effort for peace in Ukraine is best explained in this short video:

TUCKER GROWS A PAIR ON ISRAEL

After October 7^th America got to see how anti-war the anti-war Right really were. We suddenly were reminded of the Israel exception, and both factions of the Republican party, the traditional neoconservatives and the MAGA populists both joined together to be lock-stop with Israel. The same people who complained Biden was censoring social media of the subjects of COVID and Ukraine were now totally fine with censorship on behalf of Israel. Ben Shapiro led the way for spreading Zionist propaganda. There was suddenly a whiplash of views on the two wars. When it came to Ukraine liberals supported censorship and endless war. When it came to Israel/Gaza conservatives supported censorship suppressing protestors and the brutal murdering of civilians.

Carlson knew Trump was in the pocket of Israel and was taking big campaign donations from AIPAC and Zionist billionaire Miriam Adelson. And yet because Trump told him what he wanted to hear on Ukraine he endorsed Trump’s candidacy. For almost a year after October 7^th he was silent on Gaza until the notion came up that Israel wanted to go to war with Iran. This was something he could not abide and his rhetoric toward Israel started to take the tone of his criticism of America’s policy toward Ukraine.

He now is applying his anti-war agenda in a way that resembles consistent principles and the same MAGA populists who had been against the war in Ukraine are now following him in this direction. There is a divide in the right between the Ben Shapiro / TPUSA Israel First agenda and the Tucker Carlson / Candance Owens America First agenda. Carlson has been named the “antisemite of the year” by the group StopAntisemitism, beating out his top competitor, children’s show host Ms. Rachel.

He humiliated Senator Ted Cruz in an interview, exposing him as an AIPAC bought shill who does not have the knowledge or competency to make decisions that will lead America to war with Iran.

And even more brilliantly he took apart the logic – from a Christian perspective – of Israel’s claim of a right to exist during his interview with Mike Huckabee. The specific land in the bible promised to Abraham and the chosen people from the Nile River of Egypt to the Euphrates River, which is actually most of the middle east, a land mass much larger than the current Israel. Does this mean that the Jews lay claim to the entire middle east, and has Israel attacked seven Middle Eastern countries in the past year as part of a greater Israeli project? Also, if this land is given by God to the children of Abraham then why not do DNA testing to prove they are indeed his descendants? DNA testing is illegal in Isreal because the majority of its citizens are Ashkenazi Jews whose ancestors originate from Eastern European countries. They are not genetically connected to the real estate of Israel, while many Palestinians are the true children of Abraham.

The idea of protecting Christians is a through line in his work and is one of his weaker reasons for being against the Ukraine war. He is morally outraged at how Ukraine have closed some Christian churches, and he feels American Christians have a bond with Russian Christians. This is a point that people like Jon Stewart have rightly mocked him for. Even though ultimately Stewart is wrong to promote the Ukraine war and Carlson is right to oppose it.

His attack on the foundational principles of Israel are now in the brains of right-wingers who feel betrayed that Trump has broken his promise of no new wars, that coupled with his protection of pedophiles in the Epstein case and the way he has broken the backs of the working class on behalf of the oligarchs will result in MAGA staying home on election day.

The most frustrating thing about Carlson is that he will not directly criticize Trump and still pledges his allegiance to him. He acts as if Trump has no agency, his raping of the economy and warmongering foreign policy are all because he is getting bad advice. But Trump himself is still a great guy, right? Is this because Tucker is personally connected to the most powerful people in America, many of them neocons? Or does he still think Trump is Teflon and going against him is career suicide?

I’m not sure, but at least the “anti-war right,” exists, as laughable as that is.

‘Nuff Said!

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Times of India: Who is Gonzo Lira?

Due Dissidence: Rage Against the War Machine Rally

How Ukraine's TCK Mobilization Units go after draft dodgers | DW News

Institute of Mass Information: Arming Ukraine Removed From CBS Website

The New York Times: ‘A Big Step Back’: In Ukraine, Concerns Mount Over Narrowing Press Freedoms

Wikipedia: Freedom of the Press in Ukraine

The Daily Beast: How a Sleazy Dating Coach Became a Pro-Putin Shill in Ukraine

Newsweek: Full List of Republicans Backing Matt Gaetz’s Resolution to End Ukraine Aid

Politico: House thwarts hard-right push to gut Ukraine funding

The Jimmy Dore Show: Matt Gaetz Tries To End Ukraine War Funding!

Yahoo! News: Zelensky nationalizes TV news and restricts opposition parties

U.S. Naval Institute: Defensive Cyber Warfare Lessons from Inside Ukraine

CNN: US confirms military hackers have conducted cyber operations in support of Ukraine

Current Affairs: What Progressives Need To Learn From Republicans About Forcing Concessions From Party Leaders

CBS News: Why oust McCarthy? What Matt Gaetz has said about his motivations to remove the speaker of the House

Here’s an idea that is so simple and so true. The only limits there are to this making you rich are your moral compass and your investment capital. You don’t even have to download that app that follows Nancy Pelosi’s stock trades. Just watch the news a little, is the CEO cozying up to Trump, than BOOYAH! BUY! BUY! BUY!

You really don’t have to be smart to make money in the stock market, you just find a corporation that is fucking over mankind, buy their stock and sit tight. Even if that corporation fucks up and does something that should put them out of business it doesn’t matter. They have bought off all the politicians they need to bail them out if the need arises.

So yes buy Palantir, Exxon, Raytheon, Amazon, Google, Blackrock, etc. You live in a capitalist society and it doesn’t matter if you think socialism would be better.

Survive or die. Choke on black pills.

Please enjoy this short video!

‘Nuff Said!

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Please enjoy the above video meme.

Over the decades nuclear power plants in America and Europe have been shuttered over environmental concerns. Many argue it is actually a cleaner energy force than fossil fuel, and the world’s energy needs may need a nuclear alternative. But will we be getting it to meet mankind’s power needs while reducing global warming? No, America is going nuclear again because the tech oligarchs who can afford to buy congress have decided to bring it back to power their AI data centers. And the nuclear plants will be run by the AI.

What could go wrong on the Terminator timeline?

For a deep dive into this subject please check out the video below:

‘Nuff Said!

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