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cover of episode Michael Deibert Discusses Haiti's Gang Violence & Elizabeth Mitchell on States Protecting Minors from Gender-Affirming Care

Michael Deibert Discusses Haiti's Gang Violence & Elizabeth Mitchell on States Protecting Minors from Gender-Affirming Care

2024/12/6
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Michael Deibert 深入分析了海地当前的帮派暴力危机,指出其根源在于长期存在的政治不稳定、经济困境以及国家机构的衰弱。他认为,解决海地问题需要一个多方面的策略,包括加强治理、刺激经济增长以及加强国际合作,特别是在安全部队建设和打击有组织犯罪方面。他还强调了遣返海地难民的危险性,认为这将使他们面临极度危险的境地。Deibert 还分享了他与海地帮派领导人“Barbecue”的采访经历,揭示了帮派内部的复杂性和政治背景。 Elizabeth Mitchell 报道了美国最高法院就各州禁止未成年人接受性别确认治疗的法律所进行的听证会。她描述了法院外支持和反对该法律的抗议活动,并分析了案件的核心论点,包括性别认同的不可改变性以及未成年人自主权的问题。Mitchell 还讨论了该案件可能对女性体育运动产生的影响,以及一些医疗机构和医学协会的政治化倾向。她还提到了对为未成年人提供性别确认治疗的医生Johanna Olson-Kennedy 提起的医疗过失诉讼,以及对举报人Ethan Hamm 的噤声令。

Deep Dive

Key Insights

Why did Michael Deibert focus on covering Haiti?

Deibert was drawn to Haiti due to his interest in foreign policy and the country's unique political and cultural environment. His first visit in 1997 left a lasting impression, leading him to cover Haiti extensively for 25 years.

What is the current state of Haiti's security situation?

Haiti's security situation is dire, with gangs controlling approximately 80% of the capital and large areas outside it. The Haitian security forces have shown heroism but are undermanned, and international peacekeeping efforts are insufficient.

Why is the political leadership in Haiti considered unfit to lead?

The current political leadership in Haiti, including the seven-member council, lacks a grasp of the severity of the situation and is more concerned with internal power struggles than addressing the crisis. They are seen as part of the problem rather than the solution.

What is the significance of the Supreme Court case on gender-affirming care for minors?

The case could set a precedent for recognizing transgender status as a protected class, potentially affecting women's sports and other gender identity cases. It challenges the notion of immutable characteristics for protected classes, which could have broader legal implications.

How did the ACLU argue in favor of gender-affirming care for minors?

The ACLU argued that denying gender-affirming care to minors is sex discrimination because puberty blockers are available for medical conditions like precocious puberty. They claimed it's discriminatory to deny similar treatment to transgender minors.

What are the potential consequences of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of gender-affirming care?

A favorable ruling could undermine lawsuits against gender clinics for harmful treatments, set dangerous precedents for protected classes, and threaten the integrity of women's sports by allowing biological males to compete.

Why is the Biden Justice Department seeking a gag order against Dr. Ethan Hamm?

The DOJ is trying to silence Dr. Hamm because he exposed illegal gender-affirming treatments for minors at a Texas children's hospital. They fear his testimony could undermine their agenda and are using legal threats to keep him quiet.

What is the significance of the Michigan Democrats' proposal to teach minors about abortion as a family planning option?

The proposal seeks to remove restrictions on teaching abortion as a viable option in sex education, potentially normalizing and promoting abortion to minors, which critics argue is inappropriate and politicizes medical education.

Chapters
This chapter explores the ongoing crisis in Haiti, marked by gang violence, political instability, and a lack of effective international intervention. The discussion includes the historical context of paramilitary forces, the role of political actors in empowering gangs, and the urgent need for stronger governance and international collaboration.
  • Haiti's history of irregular paramilitary forces supporting political figures.
  • The evolution of gang violence from a Praetorian guard model to freelance armed groups.
  • The weakening of the state alongside the rise of gang power.
  • The ineffective response of the international peacekeeping force.
  • The urgent need for stronger Haitian security forces and international support.

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
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Sam Stone: Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with yours Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone.

Jumping right into our first interview of the day, Michael Deibert is an author and journalist who has covered Haiti for 25 years. He is the author of several books, among them Notes from the Last Testament, The Struggle for Haiti, and Haiti Will Not Perish, A Recent History. He has done, as we were talking with him right before we began this segment today,

He is doing work that almost no other journalist on the planet is doing. It's been, we've covered Haiti several times. It's really hard to find people who know what's going on there. So we're very, very excited to talk to Michael. Michael Deibert, welcome to the program. Thanks so much for inviting me, guys. Michael, first question for you is what got you so involved professionally in covering Haiti? There's not many people who do it. And again, we think that is a foolhardy decision by a lot of people. But what

What made you say, I'm going to focus on Haiti and write a lot about it? So when I graduated from college, which was in 1996, which now seems like a lifetime ago, many lifetimes ago, I moved briefly to Miami.

And I had always been interested in two countries kind of growing up as a working class kid in Pennsylvania who was nonetheless interested in kind of foreign policy and things. One was Mexico, one was Haiti. I had some glancing interactions with the Haitian community in Miami, which were very interesting. And then I moved to New York.

where I was doing kind of odd jobs trying to make it writing in New York City. And I had a friend who was Dominican who kind of had some contacts in Port-au-Prince. And this was, you know, almost pre-email days, certainly pre-smartphone or app days and on a very scratchy phone line.

I called one of these contacts and he said, sure, I have, I ran out of places to journalists and anthropologists come down. I landed in, it was, let's see, end of October, beginning of November, 1997. And,

Of course, the person who was supposed to meet me at the airport wasn't there and I didn't speak Creole yet. So I had to kind of gesticulate and find my way from the airport to the place I was staying at. And I was immediately captured by the country. I mean, the sights, the music, the people, the whole environment. I mean, it was extremely charismatic. And also the Shakespearean kind of political scene there, which has only grown more so in the ensuing 30 years.

So we – Haiti is going through a major crisis. I mean it is a human definition of hell right now based on what we have read. And Sam and I are big believers of – that this is the most important issue for the United States regarding national security than Ukraine is even.

Can you explain to our audience what is going on there and why on earth there are only 400 peacekeepers from Kenya when there are supposed to be a thousand and then 1500 more from other countries? Because they're just not doing the job. Sure. The kind of succinct way I could explain it is that throughout Haiti's history, there

you have often had kind of irregular paramilitary forces that have supported this or that political aspirant. You know, going back to the mid-1800s, actually, under Faustin Soluc, who was a guy who declared himself emperor, who had a group called the Zenglen. Under François Duvalier and Jean-Claude Duvalier, you had the Tonton-Lacoute, who your listeners may know a bit about. They're kind of well-known. And then

Afterwards, the current template for the gang model, the kind of youth gang model, really came into force

post-1994, so basically after Jean Bertrand d'Aristide was returned to Haiti in 1994 with U.S. Marines and he formed the Famille Lavalasse party in 1997, a lot of the original kind of members of what they call the bas or the base were kids who were kind of in the orbit of this home for street kids called La Famille C'est la Vie that Aristide had formed when he was a Catholic priest.

And so they became this first generation of this kind of Praetorian guard of his government against its enemies. Now, he was overthrown in 2004. And much to my horror, rather than than say, OK, that was a terrible thing that this government did. We don't want to go back. A lot of different political actors in Haiti looked at that model and said, hey, we want to get some of that, too.

And so it went from one guy kind of being the boss of all of these people to them being freelancers for various business actors, various political actors. And it kind of spread through the body politic of Haiti. And the Parti Aïssien Técalé, which was the political party that was founded by Michel Martelly, was president from 2011 to 2016.

also was very involved in this kind of phenomenon. And then when Jovenel Moïse became Haiti's president at the beginning of 2017, both his government and his government's opponents were very involved in kind of liaising with these very varying armed actors. And the ironic thing is, as these various kind of patrons in the political and business elite

helped to buttress these armed groups, these illegal armed groups in these neighborhoods, the power of the state decreased, you know, in tandem with the power of these armed gangs increasing. And when Jovenel was killed in July 2021, you rapidly had a scenario where these guys started being more powerful than the people who were ostensibly giving them the orders. And, you know,

eventually began the downward spiral into the situation that you see today where they, you know, control, I would say probably 80% of the capital and, you know, large swaths of the area outside of the capital. So when you're driving north between Port-au-Prince, which is the capital and Cap-Pays-Yann, which is the second largest city in the north,

You used to drive along Route National 1. It was a very kind of sedate drive. You had the Caribbean on the left side. You would stop and get conch, you know, from these cups with the spicy sauce as you were driving. Nowadays, I mean, that would be taking your life in your hands. The role is completely controlled by armed groups. And I have to say, you know, with the... I understand the complexities of inserting an international peacekeeping or international security force in Haiti. But when I was in Haiti about six weeks ago,

I went all over the Capitol on a motorcycle, and I did not see one foreign peacekeeper in that whole time. Well, there's only 400 there, supposedly. And I was reading the Miami Herald yesterday that 37 have resigned because they haven't been paid since October.

I mean, yeah, that doesn't surprise me. I mean, my initial impression was I thought the first wave of guys were there basically to secure the airport, which obviously if the airport isn't working, you can't do much else in terms of getting people in and out of the country. But then it seemed like it kind of stopped there. I mean, I know they're doing...

occasional patrols in different areas, you know, downtown and stuff, very occasional. But I would say, you know, my analysis is that when this gang uprising, they call themselves, the gang coalition called themselves Vive Ensemble, which means live together in Creole, but it also means kind of die together, quite frankly. You know, when they rose up at the beginning of the year,

the Haitian security forces, so the Haitian police and the Haitian army, in various instances, behaved quite heroically. I mean, they did a two-day battle defending the airport where they killed hundreds of gang members. They defended the national palace downtown. And my analysis, I mean, having seen kind of how Haiti's security situation works over the last decades and just having been there, I think what you really need is

for the security forces, the Haitian security forces to have more personnel. I think they have a lot of equipment already.

But I think they're the ones who are ultimately going to have to fight this battle because I don't see a lot of motivation for the foreign troops to do it. It seems like that's something where the model we're using in Ukraine would actually make a lot of sense in terms of direct support training and potentially putting some foreign fighters under their command to expand their forces. But some of your recent articles have pointed

It talked about how the leadership that's currently in place doesn't appear suited to lead that transition that a lot of them have ties to difficulties and failures in the past. How do we stabilize the political situation enough to be able to work with their security forces at that level?

Yeah, that's one of the thorny questions. I mean, so after Jovenel was assassinated, the president in 2021, a prime minister named Ariel Henry ran the country until earlier this year. And I mean, ran it is kind of being generous. I mean, he sat atop a furnace of violence and anarchy.

And one of the conditions, you know, and basically the gang uprising earlier this year drove him from power. And he was replaced by this seven member council. There's nine members, but only seven can vote. Who was drawn. I mean, that was hammered out in Jamaica, largely under the aegis of CARICOM, the regional body, the Caribbean community.

And really disturbingly to me and a lot of people, I mean, it essentially recycled a lot of the guys who were from the original political class who had brought Haiti to this cliff in the first place. And they have shown, to my observation, I mean, no grasp of the severity of the situation. They're fighting over...

ministerial posts and reforming the constitution and holding elections in a place where basically their power extends to a couple of neighborhoods in the capital. I mean, I don't know how you would hold an election in Barbecue's fiefdom or in the village de Dieu or Quoi de Bouquet or some of these other armed group controlled areas. And I think one thing that I've always tried to impress upon certainly foreign political actors who get involved in Haiti

is a lot of the guys in the very nice suits who speak all the correct kind of social democratic discourse, they are more dangerous than the gang leaders downtown. And a lot of people still seem to have a hard time kind of, I don't know, processing that or something. Well, we want to get to your interview that you had with the Haitian gang leader barbecue here on the next segment since we've got about two minutes left. I want to ask you this question. So the United States is deporting Haitians.

back to Haiti. We've done about 27,000 plus. The Dominican Republic has doubled that amount sending them back.

It would seem like unless these folks are criminals, that this would fit under what we in the United States would generously call appropriate asylum seekers. What are we sending these people back to? Yeah, I mean, you're sending them back to a state that more and more resembles something akin to Liberia in the early 1990s or Somalia in the early 1990s. It's a place where there is, you know, no rule of law and basic services are completely non-existent. And I want to

Want to say one thing. I mean, you know, certainly in my experience with the vast majority of Haitians who come to the United States, I mean, all they want is a job like these people are not here. I've never I've never known a Haitian to take any sort of public assistance in the United States, at least in my experience.

And, you know, I certainly think that of all the countries where you have, you know, humanitarian parole, which is something that Biden did a couple of years ago. I mean, Haiti is, I would say, the best candidate of the countries I've worked in, aside from perhaps, you know, Afghanistan or somewhere like that, because really, I mean, there is there is nothing that these people are being sent back to at the moment.

It makes a lot more sense to apply humanitarian parole to the Haitian population than it does to the population of a lot of the Latin American countries or Asian countries that are claiming this status. I mean, you're sending them to hell. Well, and the mess we have in not being able to separate those individuals from countries that truly are worthy of that status versus countries where that really is just an excuse to emigrate.

I think it hurts the debate and we end up not being able to have the nuanced conversation that we need in situations like this. So –

We have just 30 seconds left. We're going to break here. We're going to be coming back with more from Michael Deibert in just a moment. He is a journalist and author. He's covered Haiti for 25 years. You can check out his books, Notes from the Last Testament, The Struggle for Haiti, and Haiti Will Not Perish, A Recent History, both of those available at Amazon. Breaking Battlegrounds, coming right back.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Our guest right now, Michael Dybert. I've been mispronouncing his name this entire time, Michael. My apologies. As our guests know, as our listeners know, and many of our guests have learned, my ability to mispronounce people's names is unmatched in all of radio. So thank you for your patience.

By the way, you can catch Michael on he has a Substack account. I subscribe to it this morning. It's very good. If you like thorough analysis of certain parts of the world that aren't covered a lot, I highly recommend you subscribe to it.

Michael, two questions. You first went to Haiti 25 years ago. You just went there six weeks ago. How would you describe it 25 years ago versus today? Yeah, I would say, I mean, actually, I mean, my first visit was almost 30 years ago. It was 1997, which is pretty terrifying to think about. We don't admit here that that was 30 years ago, man. You were early 20s then. I'm a good Gen Xer, what can I say?

And, you know, then I would say, I mean, certainly as a guy who was coming from New York at the time, I was shocked by the level of poverty and things like that. But...

you know, that this, it was still somewhat functioning as a state, you know, I mean, you had had elections, you had an elected parliament, you had an elected president, you know, you could, you could kind of drive around the city at night and, you know, go out at night and things like that and live relatively normally. Now, you know, and even when I was living there in the early 2000s, when there was periods of really intense political violence, when those periods were not happening,

It was perfectly normal for me to walk down to the Champ de Mars, which is the main square in front of the National Palace. I would walk up to this neighborhood called Bel Air, where I knew two voodoo priests who also made what they called Rapo Voodoo, which are these sequined voodoo flags. They're very beautiful. And hang out there for the afternoon. I mean, that would be unthinkable to walk to Bel Air and into Bel Air now. And you've just had this real... I mean, the degradation of the security situation is really hard to...

And it's really hard to bring into words unless you've seen it. I mean, you live in a, I mean, the last two times I've been in Port-au-Prince, you know, I really have the feeling, and I live a very kind of privileged existence as an outsider who can come and go as I please. But still going around and doing my interviews, I certainly had the

the impression that anything could happen at any time and I might not come home at the end of the day. And now a lot of these neighborhoods, you know, because the armed groups are gradually expanding their areas of control, even with this international security force.

And so some of the neighborhoods that are kind of on the front line of this have now erected barriers of gates and things like that. And they're armed by militia, you know, manned by armed militia, local militia who are trying to to keep the gangs from from taking over their neighborhoods. And, you know, you have a it's just it's you have the situation, as I said, of just almost it reminds me of something.

what I've read about what Liberia was like in the early 1990s, because you also have now the gangs kind of garb themselves in these really strange outlandish costumes, like women's dresses and wigs and things sometimes, which I never saw. I mean, when I was reporting in Haiti, living there in the early 2000s, the armed groups were, they looked like any guy you would meet on the street. I mean, you couldn't tell them apart. And it's also because of the advent of social media, and this is something that's a bit similar to what goes on in Mexico,

There's become this kind of glorification and dissemination of sadism, of torture. I mean, I receive horrific videos from the gangs. I mean, of people being set on fire while they're still alive, of people being executed. I had a video that was sent to me a couple of weeks ago of a guy called Lamu Sanju, who's the leader of a gang called Katsama Uzo, which is a gang that was actually...

which actually came out of a contraband network run by four different Haitian politicians and then kind of branched off into its own. But it's this guy gunning two people down in the field with an AK. And, you know, so that also has, I'd say, changed the culture in a really disturbing way. And, of course, it scares the hell out of the people who live there and have to deal with that. Well, 100%, so you went there six weeks ago.

And you interviewed the gang leader. He's actually over like about a dozen gangs. He's nicknamed the barbecue. How did that interview go? What did you take away from it? Yeah. So Jimmy Cherizier, who's known as Barbecue, who's kind of this, I would say the spokesman of this coalition of gangs. You know, I went to him. Basically, there's a there's a major road in Port-au-Prince called Delma, which runs from kind of Delma 1 to Delma 90, basically.

And at about Delma 33, there's a turnoff where you can go to the international airport. You can keep heading down from Delma 33 to the bottom of Delma. I mean, I went in there on a motorcycle and there was nobody on the street. All you saw were burned out cars. There was a destroyed police station. You hear gunfire from either side of this main road. You go in and you interview Jimmy, who was, you know, for 14 years, he was a police officer. And for several of those years, he was a member of an elite squad of police officers.

And, you know, it's strange when you I say this about I mean, I've interviewed a lot of these guys, these armed group leaders over the years. And one thing that's always stuck with me is you see a great deal of pain in their eyes when they're talking when you're talking to them, despite whatever terrible things they're also doing. You know, you see that they're also in a way these kind of damaged and traumatized people growing up in this situation, right?

And, you know, I mean, as I was talking to him, I mean, he was very much against the transitional council. He was very much against kind of the international security force, not surprisingly. But when I asked him, you know, he has talked about how political and economic leaders in Haiti fund these armed groups. And I was like, OK, who are you talking about? And he's basically wouldn't wouldn't say, you know, he wouldn't give me names. And you sense that this is a secret he's kind of going to take to the grave with him. And you also get the sense that he

realize his days are numbered probably. I mean, that's what I felt when I was told he did. We have just about two and a half minutes left. I want to focus if there – where is the hope for Haiti? We've talked about potential U.S. intervention. Are there leaders outside of Port-au-Prince, outside the capital who have maintained some type of real civil order in their area and who could potentially step forward and

and fill a role as a national leader and be someone that international communities could be comfortable working with.

I mean, I think that you have a really strong and robust civil society in Haiti that combines with, as I said, there are members of the security forces who are proud to wear that uniform and do their job with a lot of esprit de corps, you know, and a lot of dignity. And I think those two kind of pillars of society are what really need to be courted and addressed by the international community, not so much the traditional political actors who are being, you know, elevated right now.

And in terms of direct assistance, if you were, for instance, the president of the United States, the head of the UN, what would you say is the first thing that needs to happen to turn this around?

You rapidly need to vet and increase the Haitian security forces by hundreds, if not thousands of people. And you need to, you know, continue to train them and let them go do their job of restoring order, because I think they'll do a much better job of it than any international peacekeeping force.

Is there a sense, you know, from when you're visiting there among the population that they would be ready for that kind of transition, that there would be real popular support to help make it happen? Yeah, I mean, I think there's no popular support of the transition council that currently runs the country. I mean, I think most people don't even pay attention to it because politics is viewed for many years now as kind of a la-di-da thing, very separate from their daily lives.

And, you know, I think the kind of scenario I'm envisioning would would maybe in the popular consciousness mark a break from that traditional political class. Michael Diver, thank you so much. We really appreciate having you on the program. We're definitely going to be reaching out to bring you back on to follow up on this in the future, because I know a lot of our audience are following along. So thank you so much for taking the time to join us today.

Hey, thanks so much, guys. It was great. Love talking to you. Appreciate it. Folks, you can follow him on X, Michael C. Deibert, D-E-I-B-E-R-T. Breaking Battlegrounds will be coming back in just a moment.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, check out our friends at 4freedommobile.com. Go to the number 4freedommobile.com and learn how you can get – look, there's just been this report about China's hacking on cell phones. All the major companies are victims to this. If you're with 4FreedomMobile, you don't have that problem. So check them out, the number 4freedommobile.com today. And if you could put in, quote, Battleground to check out, you get a fantastic deal. So check them out.

We're continuing on now. Our next guest here is Elizabeth Mitchell. She is a reporting fellow for The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcast. You can follow her on X at TheElizMitchell. She has been doing brilliant work in covering...

What was, Chuck, one of the wackier cases and question and answer sessions at the Supreme Court I have ever seen? Well, I showed two of our Supreme Court judges are complete morons with this court case. That was my take. So, Elizabeth, let me start with this. You had a piece out on Daily Signal about what you saw outside the Supreme Court amid these oral arguments. And basically, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week about whether states and

For minors.

And Violet's parents told you she knew she was trans when she was one and a half, the mother claimed. She has known since birth. And I was telling a friend who's an attorney this morning, he goes, my son thought he was Spider-Man at one and a half. And I said, I mean, I don't know how anybody at one and a half... I was Batman. ...takes someone...

Well, you have a limited vocabulary. I mean, how did you view this? I mean, did you just about die? I was absolutely shocked to hear this family say this. They said that their child knew that he was a girl at birth and started communicating that to his parents when he was one and a half years old. Absolutely insane. It really seems like this might be a case in which the parents thought, oh, I'd rather have a daughter than a

Right. Or maybe they thought we can get a lot of attention for this. I'm not really sure what was going through their heads, but it's clear that their son, who's going by the name Violet, never had a chance at living as a little boy if his parents were willing to transition him at such a young age. One and a half. I mean, is there any pediatrician who could say a one and a half year old has a valid opinion on their future? I sure don't think so. They don't have a valid opinion on what they want to eat now. No.

I mean for crying out loud, that's insane. So on this short segment, what did you see happening outside the Supreme Court during these oral arguments? There were two conflicting rallies at that time. There was one on the right side led by a medical watchdog group called Do No Harm, which was mostly parental rights advocates, people who say that no child is born in the wrong body.

and really affirming biological sex for kids and talking about the dangers of gender transitions for children. And then on the left side, we had a large group of transgender activists organized by the ACLU, who was one of the plaintiffs in this case. And there were a lot of transgender-identifying people, a lot of families who had children who they say are transgender, and that was a very lively display as well with speakers on both sides.

We have only about two minutes left before we go to break. We're going to be coming back with more from Elizabeth Mitchell here in just a minute. But before we do, on that specific point, I want to expand a little more. The ACLU and some of the arguments they made in this case were absolutely nuts.

Is there a sense that there is like a desperation among those activists outside the courthouse that they realize they're kind of losing on this issue and they're essentially making a last stand or something similar?

Definitely. The family that I talked to with the parents of Violet particularly said that Violet is really concerned about her health care, which is, you know, of course, a euphemism for these hormones that are going to probably make this child infertile later on in life, tragically. But they're really concerned about Violet being able to get these hormones after Donald Trump won. And they would be really concerned about it if they were to get these hormones.

the Supreme Court were to rule in favor of the Arizona law. So they definitely know that their ability to trans children is at risk here and they were having a very lively display against such things. How old is Violet now? I don't remember that from the story. Violet's 10 years old now. And so this child has basically been raised their entire life, enforced on a belief that they are different than their biological birth.

I'm even struggling to ask questions about this because I don't want to be that rude to the child. But is there any sense of autonomy or personal agency when you're talking to these children? It's very sad. It really does seem like if your parents told you, you look like a boy, but you're actually a girl from the time you were a baby, you would always, you of course believe them being just a tiny child. You'd of course believe that you were actually a girl.

And so Violet clearly has been coached to say a lot of talking points on these things, talking about how she's afraid about her rights as a transgender youth, etc. It seems like her parents really have used her as a poster child for this movement of so-called transgender children. But it really is sad to see Violet being used as a pawn. This is child abuse. We're coming back with more from Elizabeth Mitchell in just a moment. Stay tuned, folks.

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Continuing on with Elizabeth Mitchell, you can follow her on X at the Elizabeth Mitchell, also at the Daily Signal. She is co-host of the Daily Signal podcast and has been covering the Supreme Court gender affirming care case. Elizabeth, before we went to break, we were talking a little bit about the little girl you ran into outside.

who's been transitioned by her parents since they were one and a half years old, which strikes me as child abuse. But some of the arguments made by the ACLU, which is the lead plaintiff in this, and Chase Strangio, who is a biological female transitioning themselves into a male, some of those arguments I thought were frankly patently offensive to humanity. I mean, I have...

I become increasingly and more embarrassed, Chuck, over the years that at one point in my life I was a card-carrying member of the ACLU, except I have to remind myself that this organization bears no relationship to the organization that I supported in the 1980s. Elizabeth, what were the basis of their arguments for folks out there who might not be paying attention?

The basis of the argument from the ACLU and the U.S. government in this case was that it is sex discrimination to deny what's so-called gender-affirming care, so that's puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and these transgender surgeries to minors. It is sex discrimination to deny those things to children because if a child had something called precocious puberty or early-onset puberty where they start going through puberty at maybe age 18,

eight or nine, which is not the healthy time for that, they could take puberty blockers that would be prescribed to them. And so a little boy could get puberty blockers in order to go through male puberty at a later time. They're saying it's sex discrimination to say a little girl can also cannot get those same puberty blockers because she wants to become a boy. So that was kind of the crux of their argument. But the the

The core of that argument, as I understand it, I mean, Judge Kavanaugh really just ripped that apart because the basis of these rights they claim has always been immutable characteristics. Right. And their own testimony kind of threw that entire argument out the window.

Absolutely. So just as Alito really dug into the lawyer for the ACLU, Chase Strangio, a biological female identifying as a transgender male, about this, pressing her to say, is transgender status immutable? And ultimately, of course, Strangio did say that it is immutable, which Alito then responded with, but how could it be immutable if people could identify as trans and then stop identifying as trans, maybe go back to identifying as it clearly is immutable?

up to choice, something that you can go back and forth on. And so I think that really kind of tore apart that immutable argument there. But you're right, for something to be a protected class, it has to be immutable. They're also pushing that if these kids do not get this transformation, this sex change, that they have a high rate of

of suicide, which the court shot back on. Am I correct on that? Yes. So that is a really big argument from the transgender lobby is that if kids don't get hormones, surgeries, et cetera, they'll commit suicide. But Chase, the lawyer, said that there's actually a very low rate of completed suicide. The thing we're trying to decrease here is depression, anxiety, maybe the temptation to commit suicide. But

actual suicide rates are very, very low, kind of showing that actually kids do not need these transgender procedures or do not commit suicide. And that message is something that I think has scared a lot of parents into giving their kids these transgender procedures. And it's really an incredibly dangerous and harmful rhetoric. You wrote an article for Daily Signal. The Supreme Court case on transgender procedures for kids could threaten women's sports.

Explain to our audience why is that the case?

I was able to talk to the defendant in U.S. v. Scrametti, Attorney General Scrametti of Tennessee, and he said that if the Supreme Court were to rule that the Tennessee law banning transgender procedures for minors is unconstitutional, that would set a lot of precedent for other gender identity cases, and one of those would be the integrity of women's sports. So if transgender status became a protected class and if women's

discriminating against transgender people was seen as sex discrimination that would affect boys being allowed to play in women's sports, which, as we know, males have an extreme biological advantage over women. So ultimately, this could destroy women's sports forever. Absolutely. And talking about the precedence of that, but also I want to circle back a little bit

on the precedence of the immutable characteristics because I think one of the arguments that – and I said Judge Kavanaugh. You corrected me with Judge Alito that he was getting at is that if protected class status is not based on immutable characteristics, then isn't everybody potentially a protected class at any time? Like anytime I'm in legal jeopardy or facing any kind of government sanction –

Couldn't I claim, oh, today I'm a transgender woman, so I have that protected class status and change it back again tomorrow? I mean, that becomes –

A matter that throws out really the basis of a lot of law that's been built up around the Civil Rights Act and protected classes. Totally. We know that things like race, things like sex are things that, of course, you cannot change. You're born how you were born. But other things like transgender status, even disability, change.

do sometimes change and those things as a result are not protected classes by the Supreme Court in the same way as race and sex. So I think it would be huge to declare transgender status as a protected class and it seemed like that was not something the court was leaning towards doing.

Let's switch topics for a minute here. So today, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who leads the Center for Trans Youth at L.A. Children's Hospital, is being sued by one of her former patients. Can you tell our audience a little bit about that, if you know anything about it?

I missed that. Could you say that last part again? Yeah, she's being sued. So Johanna Olson-Kennedy, who leads the Center for Trans Youth at LA's Children's Hospital, she's being sued for negligence by one of her former patients. Can you explain a little bit about her role in the trans campaign and what she's being sued for?

Absolutely. So she is one of the doctors who provide transgender procedures to children at the forefront of this movement. A really interesting thing about her is that she came into some research showing the transgender procedures actually are not good for minors, and she refused to release that to the public.

She was concerned about the political implications of that. So she clearly is a very dangerous doctor who's very passionate about giving transgender procedures to minors who really are too young to consent to that. So I'm not surprised that one of her patients is suing, saying that they regret going through what they went through with her and that she shouldn't have done it. Do we know the percentages of how many people have gone through the transition who transitioned back?

Is there a number? It's pretty hard to get data on that because a lot of those people are not coming forward with that. They're just going back, living normal lives. They're not going public with that, especially because often that's a really painful experience to have gone through all of these medical procedures that change your body forever and then go back. It's something that a lot of people...

aren't speaking out about, but we do have some really strong voices on that, like Chloe Cole, Prisha, who underwent surgeries that they can never go back on, but still somehow realized that they didn't want to live in accordance with their biological sex and are being really excellent advocates for other detransitioners.

And this – one of the things we've talked about before, I tend to think that there's going to be a lot of potential lawsuits coming down against these gender clinics that have pushed this treatment. And frankly, that may be as effective as legal sanction in rolling back what they're doing. But this court case would pretty much eliminate if it were ruled for – that gender-affirming care is a right –

That would pretty much eliminate a lot of those lawsuits, wouldn't it? Other than very extraordinary circumstance.

Yeah, I think you are making a really interesting point there. And as we see more and more people come forward saying they regret undergoing these transgender procedures, I think that that is going to make a really big impact on this movement of people realizing that it's not necessarily something that you can't help. You just always know that you're transgender and there's something you can do about that. It is something that a lot of people get wrong, get confused about and end up regretting.

I want to switch topics here for a minute. I want to talk about the gag order that the Biden Justice Department is pushing against Dr. Ethan Hamm, who was a surgeon and was a whistleblower on sex change procedures on minors. Why do they keep trying to get gag orders on this doctor who's obviously the recipient of lawfare?

They are afraid for this doctor to tell the truth that he knows. Dr. Etenheim worked at a children's hospital in Texas when Texas made it illegal to do transgender procedures for minors. And he blew the whistle saying that they were continuing to treat patients by giving them gender privileges.

procedures, hormones, et cetera, even though it was illegal. And as a result, the Biden DOJ has really come after him and targeted him. And now they're trying to make him be silent with the threat of throwing him in jail if he speaks out. When is his trial?

His trial is in February, which he says is a big win because, of course, President-elect Trump will take office January 20th and will hopefully turn this whole situation around. Do you think Trump just drops this the first month? Do you think he just tells DOJ you're dropping these silly charges?

I think that's definitely possible. The charges against Dr. Haim are a clear example of the lawfare we've seen from the Biden-Harris administration against people who have things to say that are a threat to their administration. And I think that, of course, President Trump will not feel that way about Dr. Haim, will want him to be able to share his story and shed light on the truth of what's going on in our medical institutions. So I think that's a very likely outcome. Have we had an administration...

And I'm referring to the Biden-Harris administration.

that has spent more time and effort on censorship of people who disagree with their social agenda than any other administration? I don't know, but it has been something that has been very prevalent throughout this administration from silencing pro-lifers to silencing President Trump himself to silencing Dr. Itzenheim. It's clear that they don't want opposing viewpoints to get any airtime. Well, and that ties, I want to, before we wrap up, we have about three minutes left here.

You had a different piece, 26 medical societies have issued political calls to action on topics like racism and climate change. I was really thinking about the local children's hospital here in Phoenix. Phoenix Children's Hospital is having their big fundraising drive. I have always contributed to that. I did not do so this year because they have become a major center for gender transition. That hospital is doing a lot of this.

What needs to be done to depoliticize these hospitals and medical societies? Because this is just, it is anti-science, anti-medicine, and frankly, anti-human what many of them are doing. Totally. I think there's an idea going around in the medical world that it's part of their job as doctors to spread political ideas. I talked

the one woman who said that part of public health is making sure that people vote and that people are civically engaged, which I really would not agree with. That does not really seem to have any relationship with the role of healthcare professionals. And you're totally right that it is so sad to see these once great hospitals providing transgender procedures to kids and making political statements on climate change, racism, all sorts of topics which really have no place in the medical field.

Speaking of no place in a particular field, before we wrap up, I want to touch on one other piece you did. Elizabeth, folks, you need to be following her on X at the Liz Mitchell. She's on a roll. You have another piece here. Michigan Democrats want to teach minors about abortion as family planning option.

What in earth are they taught? That is just insane. Yeah, a coalition of about over 20 Michigan Democrats proposed a bill to remove a restriction from Michigan sex ed standards against teaching about abortion, basically. So they want abortion to be able to be taught as a good

These are medical interventions with potentially very serious side effects and long-term lasting consequences. It's...

This stuff has just gotten completely out of control. Elizabeth Mitchell, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate having you on the program. Look forward to having you back in the future. Folks, if you are podcast listeners, stay tuned. Kylie has more murder and mayhem on the way than you can possibly handle. I think we're going to stick a good story in there.

Check us out on Substack at our website, BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. And we will be back on the air next week for Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone, Kylie Kipper, Jeremy in the booth. Talk to you soon. Hey, folks. This is Chuck Warren of Breaking Battlegrounds. Do you want to prepare for a secure retirement? Grab a pen and paper right now and write down 877-80-INVEST. As our loyal listeners know, Breaking Battlegrounds is brought to you by YREFI.

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Chuck Warren, your host. I'm Sam Stone. We've got Kylie Kipper here. She's going to bring you all the murder and mayhem. But first, Chuck, you wanted to start with one of our favorite news stories from Holly Weird. Yeah, Holly Weird. As you all know, we just had an interview with Elizabeth Mitchell of the Daily Signal who's been covering the Supreme Court hearing on transgender care. And in the midst of that, this morning it was announced that Oppenheimer star Emmett Dumont, and I think saying she's a star on that is...

I don't really remember her in the movie, so she was not the star. She was in it. She had lines. She got her SAG card, but she's not a star. But she has come out as transmasculine non-binary. What does that mean?

You're looking at me as if I know what that means. You're up on all these terms. You're the youngest person in the room, so we're going to hope that you have the knowledge. I don't know. The wonderful Riley Gaines replied to a tweet where she now says, someone explain trans, masculine, non-binary to me like I'm five.

And I think that about sums it up, doesn't it? That exactly sums it up. I mean, I just feel like people are just throwing out words. Well, and, you know, so with the one, the case that Elizabeth Mitchell was talking about with this young girl, boy, girl, whatever, Violet, that is a case very clearly in –

of parents who wanted a trans trophy to show around in their community of their far left friends. And this is a Hollywood actress to me just claiming that similar type, a different trophy from the same shelf for herself. And it's just silly. I miss the days when the only question in Hollywood's sex life was who's boinking who. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's like Demi Lovato who went

She transitioned apparently in her head, went to male, and now she's – then she went to non-binary where she didn't identify as either. And then I think she may be back as female. I'm not really sure. But this is all over the span of like a year or two. Transmasculine, thanks to a person on X, is denoting or relating to a person who is registered female at birth where she clearly played an Oppenheimer. I don't think she would have had the job as a transmasculine, yada, yada, yada.

but whose gender identity is in the same way aligned with or characterized by masculinity. With more trans masculine characters, audiences will be able to see far more diverse experiences.

What the hell does that even mean? Nothing. So we won't get into this. Again, look, folks, if you're over 18 and you want to do this, you do this. If you're a parent that doesn't want a half-year-old, you probably should be in jail. And if they were here in this room, I would tell them that. It's child abuse. You know, the other thing, though, to back this up, specifically with the kids, because I had a long talk with a family member who's gay about this. We knew who he was gay from the time he was very young. Right.

Right, right.

Here's the thing. He's like, he was straight about this and thank God this is the podcast segment so I can say this. He said, they would have cut my dick off. They would have. They would have. No, no, no. They would have. And he's a perfectly happy gay man. I mean, you know, like this is just, he's like, they would have ruined my entire life. 100%. Look, again, if you're 18.

And you decide that this is the path you want to take. More to it. That's your life. You do you. I'll end this before we go to Kylie's corner because she has so many wonderful stories to share with us today. Ty's Toff Talk on X said the following, trans, masculine, non-binary is really a long way to say your brain is soup. Yeah.

And we thank Ty's Toff Talk for that wonderful analysis there. Butch lesbian with soup brands. All right. Kylie, the world's not gotten saner since we were here last week. I mean, I could have had a list of 15 things because last week I had to keep it all positive because, you know, Thanksgiving episode. We did. No, we do. And

We got Christmas coming up. And I was saving all of these stories. It was amazing, all of the wonderful comments from old ladies and men about Richard Paul Evans. It was so sweet. They're tagging their friends like, I already read this one. You got to read this. It's one of his best ones. I get why Richard's in a good mood. I love it. Yeah.

I love how much he impacts people. It was the most positive comment section. Well, think about it. You go through a mission in life and you want to make a difference. And I think he wakes up and he writes. I still laugh at the fact that he has no plan really. He's like, oh my gosh, I got a week. I got to go hole up in a hotel room.

I'm going to go to lunch on the Christmas side. What are you doing the rest of your time? But anyway, Kylie's Corner, what do we got today? Well, we potentially have another, well, attempted police cover-up in Suffolk, Virginia. Not another one necessarily in there, but we talked a lot about the Karen Reid case, which is...

still up in the air. The trial is for the Karen Reed case, side note, right now scheduled for January, the retrial of it. But I think that'll probably be pushed back a few months because both ends of the people are looking for...

They want more information from either side. So the judge hasn't ruled on that. But stay tuned in the beginning. From our perspective, that one can go on for years because it's entertaining as hell. Yeah. It's very entertaining. But this one is about James King. He's a 22-year-old man who was riding in the back of an Uber a few weeks ago when the car was struck by another vehicle.

The crash was so bad that he was actually rushed to the hospital and underwent a 10-hour surgery on his brain and had facial injury repair. So the night of the accident, a police officer went to James King's family's home and

and showed up and just said there was a really bad accident that James was involved in. I'm stopping by to give you this insurance paperwork because you're going to need it. Didn't tell him where he was, which hospital he was at. And on that paperwork, it listed 57-year-old detective from the police station was the driver of that vehicle. So after calling around, James King was under an alias name. So he wasn't under his real name after calling.

calling around to different hospitals. His family finally found him. The next day, another detective showed up and said that the driver, they're asking questions, what was going on? Oh, sorry, I missed something. When the police officer showed up, they said, you're going to need the insurance paperwork because James was severely intoxicated, which

regardless, he was riding in the Uber. He wasn't driving the car. He was literally just a passenger, so it didn't matter. So at the hospital that next day, he had to go. He was in the ICU, so they tested him for alcohol drugs. He was completely clean, didn't have any of that in him. And the detective that showed up said it was actually a 17-year-old, the son of the detective that was driving the car. And so ever since that report, they have been able to get no information on the case. They just continue to say that the case is

I suspect there's a drunk driver involved and it wasn't the passenger in the Uber. Yes. And I'm thinking it was the 17-year-old detective's son. There was also a witness to the crime who said that they saw two to three other teenagers leave the scene that night. And when the news stations have called the police station, apparently they put out a press release for every crash that happens and they did not do one for this incident. And so when the news station reached out, they just said, this is an ongoing investigation. We can't give you any more information on that. Mm-hmm.

Smells dirty. It smells dirty. It's amazing how many things in this country don't work. You know...

It is like it's like the king and security force in Haiti. Well, but you know what, though? I was about to say this is a this is a really important kind of thing. Right. Because when law and order starts to break down and people see people being able to walk free from having done really heinous things and you can go back to the summer of 2020 and everything happened there.

That starts to spread. And unless you put your boot down on top of it, then pretty soon it starts to spread to people like police and judges and courts. And that's what we're seeing right now. And it's incredibly dangerous. It made me think back to the other case you were talking about. And I forgot to follow up on a while ago with the.

Not the Karen Reed case, but the other one that was maybe a police cover up. Oh, at the same station? Yeah. Oh, that's still ongoing as well. I forget her name, but she was in the police detective training program. Right, that one. And so I just think that this...

This – we have a problem we really need to nip in the bud right now before this gets any worse. Well, and the holdup with the Karen Reid case right now is the defense wants the text messages from the DA because apparently he's also involved in this and the judge hasn't quite ruled on that yet. But his texts are also scheduled to delete after every 30 days. So I'm not sure even if they did get the information. Speaking of texts that are – sorry, total random thing here.

We talked about it briefly when we if you were listening to the intro for for freedom mobile. There is a really serious hack right now of US communications cell phone communications. Well, we I did an opinion piece on it and they're doing it so they can you know, bribe and blackmail people. I saw an article today. I forget where I saw it saying. Yeah, you probably start using a landline more. Yeah.

And you all make fun of me for having landlines in my home. All of you. All of you did. I haven't had a landline in 14 years. It's like $10 a month with Cox or something. I've never had one, so. I mean, you all make fun of me. Now look at me being head of the security game. Well, unless Starlink starts offering landlines, I don't have one. Okay, yeah. So anyways, we'll keep up. We'll stay up on that one. So this next story is Victoria Sillars. She was married to a guy named Emil.

and I do have an ending to this story because he was prosecuted but Emil was previously married to a woman named Carly they got a divorce after having two children he was then involved in the skiing accident where he needed physical therapy and that's actually where he met Victoria and

They quickly got married, had two more children, and then things started going downhill from there. He started going into debt, spending all of her money. When she would ask him why, she would say, my paycheck got lost or something's getting messed up. I don't think he was actually going to work.

He would just disappear on days on end, not without any explanation. I'm assuming this is a very abusive relationship because she's staying in this through all of this. One of her friends came to her and said, I don't want to be the one to tell you this, but your husband has been texting my 16 year old daughter. Very explicit, gross things. She then it prompted her to go look at the email or look at their computer. He was emailing sex workers. He apparently was signed up for a sex workers newsletter. Didn't know that was a thing, but that is. I didn't know that was a thing either.

He has a full-blown girlfriend on the side. Okay. And at this point, she still stays with him. Wait, the girlfriend stays or the wife? The wife. Even through all of these things, she stayed with him. Okay. So he's having an affair with some woman he has as a girlfriend. Yes. And then also- Frequenting prostitutes. Yes. Yep.

But this isn't like the crazy part of the story. Make him double bag it at least if you're going to keep him around, I guess. Yeah. So now at this point, he's running out of money, but he's trying to figure out how he can run away with the girlfriend, even though the wife wants to stay with him. So he starts coming up with ways to kill her for life insurance. Do they have kids? They have two kids. Okay. So this first incident that he tried to kill her, he was tampering with the gas line while her and the kids were in the home.

And luckily, the wife got them out in time. Didn't know that this was him tampering with it. She just thought it was an accident. Yes. Yeah. Just thought it was a gas leak. So when that failed, he then decided to go with the route of I want to revamp our relationship. I want to rekindle these things. And early on in the relationship, I guess they would go skydiving a lot. So they went skydiving and he cut her cords of her parachute. He went to the bathroom prior to getting on the plane, cut the cords.

She survived 4,000 feet fall. What'd she fall on to survive? So the ground. But what happened was I guess they had plowed the ground prior to them skydiving. So it was softer. And it was softer dirt. And like it was literally just by chance she fell 4,000 feet. You don't have no parachute in that situation. There is some resistance. She did have some resistance. So the parachutes and the backup parachute were both cut but they were tangled so it was slowing her down in a way. But it was to the point where people watched her fall and they just went and got the body bag. They didn't even try to

help her because they thought there was no way. What did she break? She broke everything. She broke her pelvic bones. She was recovering for years. And then the trial, it took two...

trials to finally get a conviction, but he finally got convicted of this. And now he's serving life in prison for... What state is this again? This happened in 2018, but he just finally got... Oh, no, this was in Britain. Great Britain. So again, why is he not facing the death penalty? I know Britain doesn't have it, but again, this is... See, I'm a big believer... Add this to the Chuck Warren list. Well, cut your wife's strings of the parachute, death penalty. Yeah. See, here's my take.

I think in that situation, good for the goose, good for the gander. So you take him up in a plane. Just drop him. Just drop him. Without the plowed field. That's pretty soft dirt. Yeah. Yeah. So she wrote a book. You can read it. It's called –

I married a charming man and then he tried to kill me. So is Netflix or anybody doing a story? Not that I've seen yet, but... This has to be on Netflix. Why is this not being done? Yeah. No, I think it soon will be. I feel we need to have Hugh Grant play this role. I think he'd be very charming in it. He could get away with it. I think after they do the Hannah Kobayashi missing girl case, then they should do this one because that one was a crazy case. And I could talk about it, but I don't know if I want to give them more...

I think they just have a bunch of secrets that they're not telling the public. But I wasn't going to discuss that today, but I have done enough research that I could. So anyways, my last story, this is also kind of a happy ending, but it's like a dark story of a happy ending. So we're counting falling in a field that was recently plowed and you don't die but break every bone as a happy ending? A happy ending. Okay. She got remarried.

Hey, look, is she physically sound? She is physically recovered. Yeah, yeah. This works in England and almost nowhere else. They have the world's best soil. They do. It's soft. It is. Yeah. And it had just rained previously in that week, and so it made it even softer, and the air was- Has anybody thought about interviewing the farmer who plowed the field? He's obviously, you know, he's got a skill set. Yeah. That needs to be- Not all heroes wear capes. Right.

Which leads me to Joey. That guy's gotten all the rocks out of his field. Well done. That leads me to Joey. He's probably a little OCD. Anyway, continue. Joey Grundle, he's also a hero. He is a Domino's pizza delivery man who, in Waldo, Wisconsin, he showed up to this home. Dean Hoffman opens the door, and he's paying in cash for his pizza. Yeah.

He then leaves the home and he calls the police and he's saying, I don't know if I saw something I shouldn't have seen, but there was a woman, I'm assuming his wife or his girlfriend, standing behind him. And it looked like she had a black eye and maybe was pointing to it and mouthing the word help, but I'm not sure. So I could, he goes, I could be, you know, making a situation out of nothing. But if there's a cop in the, I'm assuming this is a small town. So there's like, if there's a cop in the area, stop by and check on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they had stopped by.

to do a welfare check. And it turns out that it was his ex-girlfriend and he was holding her hostage for a day now. And I guess this pizza was their last meal together.

And so he had shown up that morning and was like, let's get back together. She said no. He punched her in the face and then tied her together with the vacuum cord, tied her arms and her feet with the vacuum cord, and then said, I'm going to shoot you with the .22 – shoot the both of us if we can't be together with a .22 caliber. But he had ordered the pizza as his last meal. And he went to Domino's. And he went to Domino's. Right.

And Joey was a hero and saved her life. What pizza do you have for your last meal? It ain't Domino's. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's not Domino's. I'm going to Spanato's if you're from Arizona. That is a place. And if you're not, you don't like Spanato's. It's okay. Oh. Well, which is all be in agreement. It's not Domino's, but God bless that Domino's driver. Yeah. Did they give him the key to the city? He should. Waldo, Wisconsin is now Joey Grundle's town. I mean, look.

At the very least, that guy, you got to when these people pop up, you got to be like, do you want to go to the police academy? Yeah. No, no, no. I mean, 99 percent of the people would not caught that. Right. No. No. Yeah. He's very observant. Yeah. Yeah. He really does need to be in the police. Yeah. He's very observant. It's wonderful. Well, those are great stories. Yeah. It's fantastic. Thank you.

We're going to end here. We're talking about the Hunter Biden pardon. We have two clips. We're going to, Jeremy, we're going to have you start first with a clip from Chuck Todd. If you could play that, please. I followed the Hunter Biden trial very closely. I read every transcript, all the testimony, because that's what you, all that was made public. And there is, you want to, you want to read, you want to, you want to get angry.

just as a, as somebody in, in, in just all these mixed emotions. You read the Hallie Biden transcript and that's both widow. Yes. And, and essentially he turned her into a crack addict. And this was all happening in 2017, 2018. And Joe and Jill Biden were so concerned about their family that they decided to run for president. Yup. I just, so when you talk about the word selfish, I, it's almost like the word doesn't, I mean, I,

Their decision to run for president put the entire Democratic Party and the United States of America in the position that it's in now. All right. And then, Jeremy, why don't you play the next clip from Jon Stewart? And then we want to talk about this pardon for a minute. Go ahead. Faith in the rule of law. Finally, Democrats have a moral perch from which they can judge without shame, hypocrisy or nuance.

Breaking news. President Biden has issued a pardon for his son, Hunter Biden. Mother******. We were so close. But you know what? Get fined. It's good. It's right. It's his right. He's an 82-year-old man. Doesn't want to spend the rest of his life visiting his son in prison. Republicans get away with this shit all the time.

I'm sure the pardon is a narrowly written, precisely drawn farewell note of compassion for a loved one. The pardon sweeping, covering offenses that Hunter Biden, quote, has committed or may have committed or taken part in over the past 11 years. 11 years is a very specific.

and not rounded amount of time. So, Hunter, I'll give you a pardon. A few years, five years, ten years. It needs to be 11. And if you would be so kind, make sure this upcoming New Year's Eve is also covered. Shit's going on.

I didn't know pardons could cover crimes you may have committed. I'm surprised Biden didn't include the phrase on Earth one or any of the Earth's in the multiverse. First of all,

Did Joe Biden's pardon surprise anybody in this room? No. I mean, he always knew he was going to do it, right? Look, always. I actually would think less of him if he didn't pardon. Yeah, I mean, I understand it being a dad. Right. I think the funny part, I think there's two points in these statements I want to bring. Well, three points. The first point is Republicans. What Republican has done this?

None. Yeah, exactly. They tried to make that claim, though. Well, they tried it with Clinton. Bill Clinton shot back and said, my brother served his federal sentence in prison. He served all of them. And they just made it up with George Bush. Yeah, they made up with George Bush. They literally were like, he pardoned Neil. It's never happened. And they made up with President Wilson. Right. They can't even tell the truth, the full truth. It's always a lie. But there's two points that were brought up by this. First, Chuck Dodd.

You and I have talked about this on the show. We've been on two years now. There is no reason that man should have ever ran for office. That family is a train wreck.

I mean, it is a true train wreck in every sense of dysfunctional families. It would make the Soprano family look normal. And it is very clear that at least internally, Jill Biden and his family knew that he was suffering from age related dementia or whatever specific diagnosis it is. They knew that when they made that run. I agree.

They knew that, but I'm even more concerned with the fact that the press has always tried to play, and Republicans have too, that he's just a good guy. He's never been a good guy. This is a bad human being. He's a horrible human being. And the fact that he would run when he knew his – I mean Hunter got his ex-daughter-in-law, who he was having a relationship with, addicted on drugs. Yeah. While he was showering naked with their niece. Yeah. It's just – so there's that.

And the Jon Stewart comment, it's just so true, because we have talked about this, you and I, just on private conversations. 11 years. I mean, just like, so, like, covering 11 years. So now it tells me, and I'm waiting for Molly Hemingway to do a book on this.

I really feel we need to reinvestigate the whole Ukraine fraud, Burisma stuff. Because the fact that he did that, I don't need any other evidence that what happened and what Rudy was claiming they did happened.

Yes, and I would add that part of the pardon of Hunter was Joe pardoning himself, taking Hunter away as an avenue to get him. 100%. They need to go back and get him through another avenue because they're out there. They may be in Ukraine, but they're out there. Because there's also another reason why I believe now the whole Ukraine thing – I mean there's always some exaggeration, but I believe it happened – is he could have simply commuted the sentence. Right.

He didn't have to pardon. He could have communicated the specific sentences and he didn't do that. Right. So this is all about protecting their legacy and so forth. And liberals are outraged, but they'll get over it. There's going to be some rich donor. There's going to be some insurance company that's going to put Hunter on some high payroll. I mean, Hunter's $300,000 behind on a lease in California. Well, which probably went away with the pardon the way it's written because it would be – that's enough where it is a criminal matter. Oh.

That's right. No, no, you're right. Yeah. Think about that. Yeah. So anyway, I like I said, I don't fault the father for doing it. I think if I was busy, I would just commuted it. No, I. But 11 years. You just know he did so much more. And the Ukraine accusations are true. Joe admitted that Joe Biden is a fellow. And what they've done on that as well. And what they've done. And this is what irritates me is the show Neocon.

is because they put such a stain on Ukraine. You've had elements of our party, and I get it, who say, why are we protecting Joe Biden's racket? Yep. Right? Instead of the fact that Russia's bad and they're villains. Instead, we've not been able to get that because the right have not got away, which I get, which I totally get, right? Well, because the government of Ukraine, the current government of Ukraine, is a corrupted government put in place during this power struggle that Biden apparently organized. I mean, again, I'm...

I don't think we can allow Russian aggression. No. But I think NATO should take care of it, the cells. But have we even audited the billions of dollars that have gone over there? And we've allowed – while Democrats were screaming democracy at Donald Trump and Republicans, they have allowed Ukraine –

To throw democracy entirely out the window, Zelensky canceled the elections. He's an unelected dictator. So think about the hypocrisy on this. OK, so we've allowed him to do that. And again, I'm not I'm not I'm not a person who hates. He's here campaigning against Donald Trump. Again, I'm not a person who hates him. I don't hate him. But here's the point. That's funny. Democrats don't say a word about that.

But they literally have a meltdown about South Korea for six hours of martial law, which is basically what he has. Right. And they compare it to the Trump. They compare it to the possible Trump administration. I mean, you just can't make this stuff up. There's just no logic with these people. These are the people who think a year and a half old kid.

can decide what sex they are. But these people, these people are fundamentally very, very racist and bigoted. The reason they're jumping to that conclusion on South Korea is they view Asians as white. Right.

I mean – By the way, Americans, South Korea is fairly important for the United States. A little bit. A little bit. I mean they're next door to the craziest people in the world, North Korea. Well, and unlike Japan, they're very well coordinated with our military. Japan has pushed our military away in many aspects and now that may be changing again. I think it's changing against Trump. But with Korea –

That is our most important strategic partner in that region. Well, it's worse than that. I think we've just talked about it, and we're close to entering contracts where they start building our warships because they're one of the great ship producers in the world. And we can't build a darn ship. No, so you're going to have to count an ally. So we need that to be stable. Yeah. So, well, folks, we're going to have a Christmas show in here in two weeks, I think, aren't we? Yeah, always. We're going to do something nice and cheery. Yeah.

On behalf of Sam, Jeremy, Kylie, and myself, we hope you have a wonderful weekend. Please share the podcast. We had some interesting topics today that we believe your family and friends would enjoy. You can find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. Sign up for us on Substack. We have a lot of great opinion pieces coming out. And anywhere you get your podcasts. Expanding stable of writers on Substack, too. We're getting good writers, too. Got a whole bunch of new content coming out. We're doing great. So on behalf of all of us, have a wonderful weekend. Bye.