News - U.S.-Iran Fighting Resumes, Trump Claims U.S. Stake in Venezuela's Oil, Israel Moves Toward Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza

0:00You're listening to American Prestige. To listen ad-free, you can subscribe at AmericanPrestigePod.com. Find the link in our show notes. In the accounts, stream Fox News on Fox One. Download today. Hello, Prestigeheads and welcome to American Prestige.

1:00I'm Danny Bessner here as always with my friend on the Comrade Derek Davidson. We're excited to bring you to news. But before we do, I think Derek, we could probably announce it now. We are in the process of recording. Welcome to the Crusades season two on the second Crusade. It will be out. I think we're deciding sometime in the autumn. I don't want to give an exact date because we don't know. It's a really fun one. It's really interesting. One Derek's laughing because we just have so much fun recording them with our friends, Eleanor and Luke. Yeah. And also because we really don't know when it's going to come out because we've had so much difficulty scheduling recording sessions. But I think, I think, you know, with four superheroes, it's very difficult to get everyone. You know, you can't like schedule the Beatles so easily. That's true. I don't know. So, but it will be out in the autumn. And we're going to do the usual thing where we give subscribers a discount to the show. So, if you haven't yet subscribed to American Prestige, please consider doing so and checking out our best catalog of things.

2:02And people who paid for season one should be on the lookout for another bonus episode. That'll be out before we do the new. Correct. We're doing another bonus episode. So, check out your fees. That's for everyone who's subscribed to Welcome to the Crusade season one. And that is just Welcome to the Crusades. I also don't know when that's going to be out. It'll be out before season two comes out. It'll be out eventually. You know, people, it'll be a nice little surprise as the summer. There you go. Yeah. It turns into fall. And that's, of course, that welcome to the crusades.com. Also check out both of our sub-sacs for our exchanges and imperialists. Realism and Derek is giving you the daily updates. This week, I published an article, two articles, one on the cult of anti-death in American culture, and specifically in Silicon Valley. And one on the famous screenwriter William Goldman. I went into his archives and I found Derek, I don't know if you're a William Goldman fan, the Princess Fry and his Re, which Cassidy. I love his sister Fry, yeah. Yeah. So, I found this wacky document that Goldman wrote in 1967.

3:06It's a very 1967 document about how he's going to totally transform the medium of television. No, no, no, where Goldman only wrote one TV mini series. It is a very long career. But I think it's an interesting sort of insight into what people were thinking in the late 60s and particularly Goldman. So anyway, check that out. Everything seemed possible back then. We had to do it. I mean, the things I don't want to give it away, but the things that Goldman thought me could do on TV were literally insane. But really interesting. And like, what imagines, what if the Golden Age of TV came in the late 60s as opposed to the first Golden Age of the 80s and then the second one that we all know with the sopranos, the wire, et cetera? Anyway, check that out at imperialistrealismatsubsec.com. All right, Derek. Let's jump into it. And we always like starting off as grim as possible. So there is a very bad climate update. So Derek, hit us. Yeah, I don't know. Very bad or just bad.

4:07It's not unexpected. The United Nations Environmental Program issued a new statement report this week declaring that humanity has failed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. That was the stretch goal of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. We're already at 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. So we're not going to make it. We're not going to keep it under 1.5. That's pretty much locked in. The main or more realistic goal of the Paris Climate Agreement was to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius. We are currently on pace with the, at current emissions levels, to blow past that as well. Get to I think 2.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. So needless to say, those prospects aren't looking great either. What's interesting about this report is, again, like we all sort of knew, I think, that

5:071.5 degrees was no longer feasible. But what's interesting about this report is the UN is adopting, it seems like a new approach to finding climate change where it is not only about limiting or reducing or ending carbon emissions. I think it's quite a quitting, Derek. The UN is quite a quitting. I mean, it may be, in a sense, I mean, while still giving people something to hope for. No, the UN is saying that we have to start removing carbon from the atmosphere on a major, major, and a major, major level, which would require things like planting massive new forests or some sort of breakthrough in all of the various technological woo-woo schemes that people have come up with that might work, but have never been tried or successfully implemented at scale to actually scrub carbon out of the atmosphere. So that seems like a pretty significant and not terribly promising change in the UN's

6:12posture that it's no longer possible to just cut fossil fuels and get out of this crisis that way, that it's actually going to require some affirmative or proactive steps by humanity to clean carbon out of the air, even if it could be done to what effect there will obviously be some undesirable effects of geoengineering if that's the way it really goes. So yeah, it's not a great update. It is not a great update whatsoever, but this is why we're buying the American Proceduse Compound in Northern Michigan, which will soon be under Sri Lanka. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? This sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, or the T you somehow always reach for. Those are the pieces that may get dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials, like 100%

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8:18Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash prestige. If you were to start a business right now, what would you create? Would it be that idea that you had been working towards since you were a kid? Something that came to mind when you were in college? Or perhaps a passion project that you've always wanted to put out into the world, but never quite gotten around to? Shopify is the go to place to finally put that idea you've had for the last decade into practice. It's easy, it's useful, and it gets you where you need to go fast. So stop hesitating and start making that money. Shopify checkout means more customers actually buy and returning ones can do it in a single click. And because Shopify handles a set up and checkout, you have more time to focus on growing your business and you've got the tools to do it. For us humble folks over here at American Prestige, Shopify's are online store. They take care of shipping logistics, they track sales, they help us interface with customers, and they've got straight forward payment processing.

9:20We've had no problems with them and sincerely recommend Shopify from our own experience. So if you're ready to hear the of your first sales today, head over to Shopify.com slash prestige to start your free trial today. That's right, start your free trial at Shopify.com slash prestige that Shopify.com slash prestige. Let's turn to Iran. And this is a big question. We should do a real episode on this because I think there's going to be a lot of like nothing you can tell the midterms personally, but we shall see. Let's talk is the war resuming. It certainly seems that way. I don't know that it's going to continue much past this week, but the US military attacked Iran over the weekend, ostensibly striking rocket launchers that were set to, I'm going to use the US military's description here, they were set to fire rockets carrying mines

10:26towards the straight of Hormuz. That's a lot of steps to go through to put some mines in the straight, but sure, why not. This was the first attack that the US carried out in several weeks. The Trump administration has been trying to shift from a kinetic posture to an economic posture. Donald Trump, you may recall a few weeks ago, sort of early August declared that he's low-king it on Iran and he's no longer interested in, or is, yes, or right early August was no longer interested in fighting the war. He was going to rely on economic pressure to do the job and get the Iranians to knuckle under and surrender whatever it is. He's hoping they'll surrender the straight, I guess, and maybe their nuclear program. That lasted about three weeks and we're back to nightly exchanges of fire because Sunday, obviously, the Iranians should expect retaliated for that attack.

11:26The US retaliated for that. The Iranians retaliated again and it's been back and forth. All week, the US has killed, I think at least 18 people at this point in Iran, several of them, at least five of them at last count, and maybe there may be more at this point, when a US missile hit a house, a home in southern Iran, where there was a wedding ceremony taking place, as I say, killed five people at last count and wounded dozens over 60. People in that particular strike, and then there have been other deaths, many of them, Iranian soldiers, I think 13 military personnel, was the latest figure I saw. So, yeah, we're back to these nightly strikes. Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that he doesn't believe this is going to last that long.

12:27His interpretation, I believe, this latest outbreak of fighting is going to last that long. And this gets us into our next item here, which, as you said, is the administration has decided to keep things on ice until the midterms. Yeah, so Derek, if you also were going to talk about that, but I'm curious your thoughts about what would, let's say, okay, the midterms end, Republicans get a drawing. What would an escalation even look like? Are we talking troops? Are we talking nuclear bombs? What are we talking? Somewhere between those? Yeah, I don't think we're talking troops. I think we're talking vastly increased airstrikes. I mean, he's been fixated on this idea of blowing around the smithereens or whatever, whatever rhetoric he's been using, bridges and power plants. And you civilian infrastructure basically, just decimating it. And that would, in a sense, dovetail with what the administration is hoping to achieve here with its maximum pressure 2.0 and the blockade, which have taken an economic toll.

13:33There's no question. There's enough reporting at this point out of Iran regarding cratering in the value of the reall, unemployment being up, fuel, gasoline shortages of gas stations, a number of other things to suggest that the Iranian economy is taking a beating at this point. Oil exports are way, way down as a result of the blockade. So, I mean, there's a lot of pain that's being felt. What did that pain reach is the upper echelons of the Iranian government to the point where leaders are willing to give in to Trump's demands on the nuclear program or the straight of Hormuz or whatever else we're after here remains to be seen. But there's still even holding out hope for some sort of popular uprising to overthrow the Iranian government, which is hard to do when people are either dodging bombs or trying to figure out where their next meal is coming from. But the geniuses in the Trump administration haven't figured that out.

14:36So I think from their point of view, if they feel that the economic pressure is working, the next step of that that involves military activity would be to blow up power plants, to blow up the desalination plants or water facilities, bridges, major highways, that type of thing, to further increase the economic pain. So I would guess that that's the escalation that they're thinking about. Thanks, Eric. I know you wanted to talk about something else. So, who wanted you to get up? Yeah, well, I mean, just the whole idea here, this was a Reuters piece this week that said that quoting some Trump insiders, that his aides are quoting Reuters here, pushing to keep the Iran War from escalating before November's midterm elections to staunch Republican electoral losses. And we may already be past that if Trump is wrong and the current fighting is not over

15:42soon or if it continues and escalates, we may already be on a path to that. But it's sort of mind boggling that these people have lived through the last six months and still think that they're the only ones who get to dictate what happens in this conflict. The Iranians have no agency, no say, they can't decide when and how to escalate. It's only the US that gets to do that. I don't know if that's an immutable fact of nature for them or if they just think it's against the rules for the Iranians to do anything provocative. I don't understand the mentality here. I'm not sure it is a mentality. It's just a bunch of really, really stupid people trying to make policy in the middle of a giant mistake that they authored. But yeah, the whole notion that you can schedule this war on the Trump administration's timetable and do it in a way that minimizes the Republican's electoral vulnerability is

16:45just laughable and nobody who has observed the way this is gone for the last six plus months at this point could possibly believe that unless they have passed the sub-mental test to get into the Trump administration, I guess. Thank you very much, Derek. Let's turn to the generals objecting to extended deployments, which I think is related to the Abraham Lincoln fiasco. It's, yes, it's related to the Lincoln fiasco. The Washington Post reported this over the weekend. They got a leaked copy of the August 14th edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders book, which is where Pete Hague Seth crawls out of the bottle long enough to tell people what he wants to do in the world. There is space in these order orders books for senior military officers to express their opinions or their takes on what the Defense Department is doing or should be doing.

17:47This one included a number of advisories from theater commanders, primarily, and heads of the various military branches, advising that the Iran war is not sustainable anymore from the perspective of the US being able to do anything else in the world, including defend or the US military being able to do anything else in the world, including defending the United States. So they have serious concerns about leaving what at this point I think is supposed to be a 50,000 person deployment in the Middle East. Basically indefinitely, there are already, depending on it's already working on extending deployments into 2027, maintaining the kind of ship coverage to keep the blockade going, keeping all these personnel in the region. It's unsustainable as far as the military is concerned from the standpoint of having any capacity to do other things.

18:49There is also, there was a report in the Guardian late last week that the US Navy is having to crib from payroll to manage its expenses because it is running out of money again as a result of the costly maintenance of this blockade and the operations before that during the heavy fighting in the war. It is running out of money basically, which is incredible to believe to hear in a trillion dollar military, but that seems to be the situation. So again, this is not sustainable, but we are going to just manage it until November and the idea, the strikes this week create an impression or the possibility that the US has decided to do a mode-alone approach, which anybody who is familiar with the Israeli policy toward the occupied territories or something, the Lebanon will be familiar with that term, which would again require just an indefinite military presence and carrying out airstrikes

19:52periodically against Iran whenever the US feels like it. That is another huge cost and logistical nightmare to sustain. So yeah, it is unclear whether the US military is actually able to do it. Yeah, the idea also extend the A's like Methuselov could join the American military now if they want to, to like 52. They do that recently. I didn't say anything about that. Yeah, I think they extended it to 52. They have been steadily doing that under the war on terror because they don't have enough personnel, like they don't have enough people signing up. Yeah, I think relatively recently, in the last five or six months, anyway, it's 42, whatever. All right, Derek, let's continue. Let's talk about Gossna. What's going on in Gaza? Well, just a reminder, I guess, that ethnic cleansing is still the order of the day as far as the Israeli government is concerned. Israel Katz, the Israeli Defense Minister, was speaking at a conference on Wednesday and basically said that the Israeli government is ready to roll with emptying out Gaza, moving

20:59the Palestinians out, they just need a green light from the United States. And he intimated that that had mostly to do with finding a place for these people to be moved to. So yeah, I mean, you know, with amid all the like board of peace nonsense and all of the, you know, smoke screens about what a glorious new resort paradise Gaza is going to be. I think it's important to note that it's still the Israeli government's policy that they're going to clear it out. They're going to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from the territory. Now, they continue to characterize this as voluntary migration, voluntary movement. You know, I don't think anybody who's seen what the Israelis have done to Gaza could possibly think that that's a voluntary, would be a voluntary act on the part of the people living there. It's a cat's claim that 80% of the Palestinians living in Gaza want to leave, which I've no problem believing at this point because, you know, they're not getting food, they're

21:59not getting water, they're not, they don't have shelter to live in. So, you know, most people would want to leave under those circumstances, but I would take issue with calling that voluntary migration, which is the euphemism that the Israelis are sticking with. Thank you, Derek. Always saying in Israel or really Palestine, let's like about the West Bank where violence is escalating. Yeah, there was an Israeli operation in Ramallah a couple of days ago that included soldiers and settlers from the reporting that I saw killed, they killed at least two people. It wasn't in Ramallah, sorry, it was in a village near Ramallah, my mistake. The justification of the rationale for this operation is entirely unclear and nor is there any rationalization for why settler militants would have joined Israeli soldiers that suggests it was not just a security operation, it was in fact a pogrom or an active

23:02terrorism, which I think is probably the best way to put it. So that is continuing. We also saw over the weekend a new attack in the village of Kusra, which is people may be aware, there are homes, Palestinian homes in that village that have been besieged for several weeks by settler militants, settler terrorists, whatever term you want to use. And that there was an attack on one or more of those homes on Saturday that included apparently IDF personnel who showed up and instead of protecting the homes as is their ostensible job, they joined in on the attack from what I saw reported around that same time in the village of Dulud, which is also in the same vicinity in northern West Bank near Kusra, you may have seen people may have seen this one because it involved Americans, a group

24:05of settlers basically attacked, assaulted, and NBC news crew, and a Palestinian woman when they were interviewing put the Palestinian woman in the hospital. This was broadcast NBC, you know, had video of it, and that incident in particular because it got play in Western median in the US caused is really prompted is really prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to condemn settler violence, which he tried to attribute to a handful of as he does, a handful of individual bad actors instead of just acknowledging that this is the policy of his government and the outcome of it. Let's move on to let me talk about the new agreement there to hold elections. Yeah, I don't know how much to make of this, but the Eastern and Western governments in Libya did agree in a UN mediated process. They agreed tentatively, preliminarily, about a week, two weeks ago at this point, I think,

25:08to hold elections for President and Parliament within two years. On Sunday, the two governments formally signed this agreement, so it's now, it's not a preliminary agreement anymore, it is an agreement. The UN has been trying to negotiate something like this for a while now. They've been meeting in Tunisia. This signing ceremony, I believe, was done intripley. Again, I don't know how much to make of this. There have been other attempts at organizing elections in Libya that have been sworted essentially by the same people who signed the agreements, the governing elites in the Eastern and Western systems because they've got a pretty sweet deal right now, and elections could only threaten their positions at the top, the political or economic hierarchy as it were. So yeah, I don't know. Two years is a long time for the power brokers in Libya to screw this up or to interfere

26:09intentionally to prevent elections, so take it for what you will. Hi folks, it's Derek here to talk to you about Mint Mobile. When we were kids, summer meant freedom, no homework, no teachers, no school, and as adults, summer still means freedom thanks to Mint Mobile's summer sale. Right now, all of Mint's plans are $15 per month even unlimited, so free yourself from big wireless and their gimmicks and gotchas and switch to Mint for high speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the T-Mobile network the nation's largest 5G network. You can even bring your current phone and your current number, choose from three, six or 12 month plans and say goodbye to a monthly bill, ditch overpriced wireless with Mint Mobile. It is so easy, sign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for $15 a month. To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com, slash American prestige, all one word.

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28:12Let's talk about Somali piracy, which is on the rise. And yeah, this was a report or data from the International Maritime Organization, AFP reported on this late last week showing that piracy off the coast of Somalia has reached levels that have been seen since 2013. 2013 was really the last year where there was major piracy issues in that region. It dropped off precipitously after that. This is, I think, easy to identify as another offshoot of the Iran War and the chaos that it's created in that region. Now that the conflict has spread to some degree, to Yemen, and we've seen a resumption of fighting between Ansarullah and the Yemeni government, or Ansarullah, the Saudis, Ansarullah's blockade of the Bobo Mandev, at least as far as the Saudis are concerned.

29:12That doesn't seem to be applying to anybody else. But within that context, there does appear to be a resumption of piracy. There have been at least 15 cases reported so far this year. Eight of them, just since May, there were only five instances of piracy in those waters throughout all of last year. So clearly, there's a trend here. Thanks, Derek. All right. So Russia is using more advanced drones to pummel Ukraine. The age of drone warfare is upon us. Tell us about it. Yeah. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the Russian military has modified its garland drones. They are the Russian version of the Shahed, the Iranian Shahed drone, the one-way attack drones. They're now incorporating jet engines on these devices. Previously, they were earlier models, older models are propeller driven. And those, the Ukrainians have gotten pretty good at shooting down or intercepting.

30:17These jet-powered drones are apparently much more effective. They're avoiding Ukrainian air defenses much more efficiently. And that explains, to some degree, if people have been following this conflict, the last several days, there have been massive Russian bombardments, especially of Kiev and the surrounding region. But also other parts of the country, including Odessa and the sort of Ukraine's remaining black sea ports. And that seems to be driven by this new model of the Garon that's equipped with these jet engines. And that the Ukrainians are having a lot of trouble dealing with. Thank you very much, Derek. Being kind of in the same world. Let's talk about German authorities accusing Russia of an attempted drone attack. Back on August 4, German authorities discovered a drone that was carrying explosives at the Leipzig airport. Apparently, it was in the vicinity of a Ukrainian aircraft.

31:21But it was, I think it had landed. And they were able to disarm it without further incident. So this week, the German government, to, I would think, no great surprise, accused the Russians of having facilitated or been behind this attempted drone attack. They announced the closure of the Russian consulate in Bonn, which will take place later this month, as well as a number of other diplomatic steps. The Russian embassy in Berlin rejected the accusation. They called it unsubstantiated, absurd, and contrary to common sense. And so that the Russian government will retaliate for whatever steps, including the consulate closure that the Germans take. But this is a tense situation here. There's a lot of concern in NATO that the Russians may try hybrid warfare style attacks or sort of low-key

32:21attacks to test the alliance, cyber attacks, drone, not necessarily even attacks, but just, you know, drone activity in NATO airspace. So this is a real concern for NATO. It also becomes a question of, you know, could some enterprising soul who wants to, shall we say, increase the likelihood of some kind of conflict between NATO and Russia take steps to make it look like the Russians are carrying out a taxi against NATO nations. That's also a possibility here, but yeah, it still doesn't, you know, alleviate the concern. Thank you, Derek. Let's talk about the United Kingdom, which may, quote, unquote, review its policy toward the Falcons Islands. Well, Trump may review US policy toward the Falcons, which is hilarious. Frankly, objectively hilarious. He told reporters on Tuesday, this is on Tuesday that he may review US policy toward the Falcons. The US policy, as it stands right now, is neutral about whether the Falcons Islands should be part of the UK or Argentina, but it recognizes the UK's authority

33:25over the islands at present. Trump could decide because he likes Javier Melae and he doesn't like Andy Burnham or he doesn't like the UK period at this point, could decide to change that policies. So the US would recognize Argentine control or ownership or rights over the Falcons. This is this really is objectively hilarious. There's a threat, I guess, in place against the current UK government, if it should walk back commitments on defense spending. The UK has committed to spend 3% of GDP on defense by 2030 and to hit the 5% level that the rest of the NATO alliance is committed to by the mid 2030s. If it were to waver on that and Burnham, since he became Prime Minister, his government has sort of waffled about whether it's going to hold to that 3% commitment at least. So the threat here is, you know, if you waffle on defense spending, we will

34:25recognize that the Falcons are Argentine territory. Also, Trump is mad as he's mad at every other European government. He's mad at the UK for not jumping, you know, feed first or head first, in this case, into the Iran war and, you know, bailing him out on that. So he's got some reasons, I guess, for doing this, but it's just so perfectly petty and Trump-ish. And I think it's I just, I'm having a hard time not laughing about it. Let's talk about Iceland's voters rejecting European Union talks. Right. Icelandic voters went to the polls on Saturday for a referendum on reopening, accession talks that were suspended in 2013. When Iceland elected a Euro-skeptic government that has now passed, that moment has passed, and there is some concern in Iceland that if Donald Trump say we're too succeed in his goal of seizing Greenland, that somehow Iceland

35:28could be next, that seems, I'm not sure that that's necessarily true, or the Trump would want that, but who knows at this point, right? So there was some, the yes campaign was really oriented around the Iceland's need to be in the European Union as a protection against outside predation, mainly coming from the US. That was not enough to sway voters who voted 52.8% to 47.2%, not to reopen accession talks with the EU. This probably puts that idea on ICE for at least another 10 years. We'll see if something drastic happens with respect to Greenland or some other unforeseen event. I guess the situation could change, but for now I think Iceland will be staying out of the EU for the foreseeable future. Thanks, Derek. Let's talk. God, I'm not the United States

36:30taking ownership of Venezuela's oil. Yeah, Donald Trump announced this late last week, Friday evening, actually, on social media that the US and Venezuela had concluded negotiations, and the negotiations had been reported for several days previously, to give the US control of, as he put it, more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserve in the reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American taxpayer. This has been fleshed out a bit since then. Basically, it sounds like the deal gives the Defense Department's Office of Strategic Capital the option to take up to a 35% ownership stake in a firm called North American Blue Energy Partners, which would basically represent this merger of US and Venezuelan oil interests. It's controlled by a

37:31Venezuelan oil magnate named Alejandro Betancourt, who just coincidentally is under investigation, has been under investigation at Switzerland, and the US for a time on corruption charges, but I'm sure that's fine. It's probably all just a mistake. The 35% ownership stake would be paired with a sweetheart deal under which the State Department would get a preferential price on the sale of Venezuelan oil. Trump has said he wants to use this oil to replenish the strategic petroleum reserve, which Joe Biden started to empty out because of the Ukraine war and rising oil prices, and that Trump has really emptied out because of the Iran war and rising to try and stem rising oil prices. He would use this special deal to buy Venezuelan oil at low, low prices to refill the strategic petroleum reserve. In the meantime,

38:34there's lots of questions about what this means for Venezuela, which is seemingly has now signed over ownership control of a vast portion, not all, but a vast portion of its oil reserves. Delce Rodriguez, who is, you know, I guess Venezuela, President, she's really a US lackey at this point, delivered an address on Saturday in which she insisted that there's no effect on Venezuelan sovereignty or control over its oil reserves. She talked about the money that this deal is going to bring into Venezuela upwards of $100 billion in private investment, which has been either the Trump administration has been working with Chevron and other companies, and now with the US basically, you know, taking an ownership stake, which I should add may not be legal, I can not be legal for the Pentagon's opposite strategic capital to take this ownership stake, but when is that ever stopped the Trump administration? So, you know, with the US coming in, I think, you

39:35know, a lot of these companies feel more confident about or feel like their investments will be protected, so there is a possibility for increased private investment, and also she's claiming that every barrel of oil that Venezuela sells to the US or provides to the US will bring 19 dollars of in tax money, basically, into the Venezuelan budget. That seems unlikely under the terms here because of the way that these oil sales are being set up and the really preferential pricing that the US is supposed to get, it seems far fetched to think that Venezuela is going to get 19 bucks a barrel, but who knows? You know, there's a piece in Jacobin the other day, I think what's yesterday actually Wednesday about the miracle, the miraculous outcome here has been that Donald Trump has united leftist and right wing Venezuelans who both think

40:41that they're getting screwed here, and like both groups think they're getting screwed, and that Venezuela is being asked as a colonial fashion to sign over its resources to the United States, so that in that sense Trump is a united not a divider, I suppose. There is, seems to be a somewhat divergent view of what this deal is if you put an Orlando Perez wrote about this responsible statecraft earlier this week, if you put Rodriguez's comments in her speech next to Trump, what Trump has said about this deal, it really does look very different. Her interpretation is that there is a by joint kind of project that's going to last 25 years, and mainly, you know, is revolves around bringing new investment into Venezuela and generating greater oil production. From Trump's perspective, this is the US-taking Venezuela's oil, like he seems to be pretty blunt

41:43about this. The US is buying ownership of Venezuela, so he's been trumpeting this as the greatest business deal of all time, which to me, if I were Venezuelan, would be the first piece of evidence, I would cite, to form the conclusion that I'm getting screwed here or that my country's getting screwed, but yeah, lots of exciting stuff going on here. We'll see how it plays out. All right, Derek, let's end on a happy anniversary. Operation Southern Spear has turned one year old. Yeah, I mean, where does the time go? Like, it was just a year ago, year and a day, as we're recording this, that the US decided to start murdering people on boats in the Caribbean, and then in the Eastern Pacific. And here we are. More than I'm cribbing from Nick Terce at the intercept here, over 65 attacks, over 225 people killed, zero evidence that any of them were involved in the drug trade other than unspecified intelligence that we're supposed to take the US government,

42:46the US military's word on, and the fact that their boats were in known drug trafficking channels, which means nothing. There's been, yeah, it's been, it's been a full year at this point. Terce, Nick Terce wrote this piece commemorating the anniversary at the intercept, quoting a number of people in the Justice Department, in the Defense Department, who all are more or less horrified without this operation, is fantasticized, and is basically just extrajudicial executions of people who are suspected, maybe on the thinnest of evidence of participating in the drug trade, it is murder. I mean, these are murders that the US military is carrying out against civilians. There is no possible way to justify this legally, or any other sense, morally, certainly. And yeah, so everybody, you know, I'm going to get yourself a little cupcake,

43:46put a candle in it. It's a nice birthday, I think, to celebrate. Thank you, Derek. And as always, thank you everyone for listening. Check out the podcast. We've got so much stuff that doesn't age. Is it our life's work, Derek? Perhaps. Perhaps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bear with me with the podcast, external hard drive. With the podcast mic, actually, bear with the podcast mic. Then also check out our sub-stacks imperialist realism and foreign exchanges. And as always, keep on rocking in the free world. Bye. Yeah.

44:47Right now news and politics are moving awfully fast. It can feel overwhelming to say the least. I'm Evan Osnos, a staff writer for the New Yorker. On the political scene podcast, we slow things down to understand how power really operates in Washington, DC. And what it means for you. My co-hosts, Jane Mayer and Susan Glasser and I have decades of reporting experience. And every Friday, we have conversations with insiders and experts to understand the forces remaking America. Join us Fridays for the Washington Roundtable from the political scene. On Mondays and Wednesdays, you can also hear insightful episodes from our New Yorker colleagues, David Remnick and Tyler Fogget, available wherever you get your podcasts.