Glenn Greenwald
Politics • Culture • Writing
As Biden Taps Billionaire Dem to Oversee Ukraine's Business, More Insiders Are Enriched From the War. PLUS: Gabor Maté on the Explosion of Anti-Depressants in the West
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September 19, 2023
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday, at 7 p.m. Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.

It's not exactly a secret that while the vast majority of Americans are paying a real price for the endless war in Ukraine – higher energy prices, higher debt and debt servicing, threats to needed domestic programs – there is a tiny sliver of the richest Americans who are profiting greatly and will continue to do so for as long as Congress funds this war with no end in sight. Among them, the lucky ones, are the U.S. armed industry companies like Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed, which donate massive amounts of money to both parties and have former top executives running key government agencies, including the Pentagon as well as the CIA and other parts of the Pentagon and intelligence agencies whose budgets, authorities and secret powers always skyrocket during U.S. wars. That illustrious list of those enriching themselves from the U.S.-funded war most definitely includes the various oligarchs, corporate power, corrupt politicians and other hangers-on who populate the power centers of Kiev and are responsible for the country's long-standing reputation as the most corrupt in Europe. The money is flying around and those are the people covering it up. Along with others, we have done substantial reporting on the show, documenting how Western arms dealers and corrupt elements in Kiev are enriching themselves greatly at the expense of the American taxpayer that's funding this war. 

However, there is another very powerful group of profiteers waiting in the wings like vultures to swoop down on Ukraine as soon as there is something resembling peace and they may end up being this war’s most successful profiteers. At the start of the year, it was revealed that the American hedge funds, investment corporations and investment banks such as BlackRock and JPMorgan were not so patiently waiting in the wings to exploit all of the very lucrative deals awaiting what will be called “the reconstruction of Ukraine.” After this war finishes its job of destroying most Ukrainian infrastructure, whenever that is, those financial institutions working in direct partnership with the notoriously corrupt Ukrainian officials under martial law, will swoop down and make hundreds of millions of dollars, probably billions of dollars in fees, by arranging all kinds of capital deals and other financing schemes to rebuild Ukraine. Most, if not all, of that will be accomplished with public monies from the U.S. and the West, of course, and much of it will be headed directly to the pockets and the bottom lines of these Western investment funds who pay millions of dollars each year, donations and other lobbyist activities to ensure their access to and subservience from the establishment wings of both parties exactly for moments like these. 

All of this is far from just a private sector initiative. The U.S. government, which will administer the funds and facilitate these deals using all of its diverse arms of power and influence – in Washington, in New York and Kiev – will be overseeing and controlling all of it and that in turn requires someone who is very comfortable with and welcomed by these oligarchs to grease the wheels of this reconstruction. Today, the Biden administration announced what seems to be the perfect person for that job, at least judging through the framework of all these corrupt interests, to oversee it all. Earlier today, the Biden administration announced the appointment of the so-called special representative for Ukraine's economic recovery – ”In this role,” the government said, “she will work with the Ukrainian government, the G7, the EU, international financial institutions, international partners, and one of our greatest assets, the American private sector, to help forge Ukraine's future as a prosperous, secure European democracy.” For this special role, Biden has tapped the multi-billionaire heiress, Penny Pritzker, who inherited billions of dollars, one of America's richest multigenerational families, the Pritzker's founder of the Hyatt hotel chain. She used her vast wealth to become one of President Obama's earliest and largest funders in the 2008 presidential election, who nonetheless denied her expectation to become appointed secretary of commerce in his first term. That's what she wanted, but he couldn't name her due to all sorts of unpleasantries about her company abusing its labor force and another touchy scandal involving a failed savings and loan that was bailed out by the government under her management and her families. But she finally received her rightful entitlement as commerce secretary. Once Obama was elected for a second term, he no longer needed any votes and then he anointed her to that position. Penny Pritzker, whose brother is the current Democratic governor of Illinois, Democrats really love their oligarchs, and she obviously fits right in. 

Democrats once cared about such tawdry motives for a war, or at least so they said, you may remember. For those of you who lived through the Iraq war, Democrats fixated obsessively on what they believed was a key motive for invading Iraq – namely that Halliburton, a company for which Vice Cheney Dick Cheney had worked years earlier and retained a profit motive, would financially benefit from the invasion and reconstruction. And the destruction and rebuilding of Iraq was indeed a huge boon for Halliburton – to the tunes of hundreds of millions of dollars in profit – but these days such discussions are considered distasteful, or even, now, “Russian propaganda.” But we will nonetheless look at today's announcement of Penny Pritzker as reconstruction czar to oversee all of this new business in Ukraine to understand how it fits within the broader profiteering aspects of the ongoing war in Ukraine. 

Then: Almost every warning sign for mental health pathologies had already been blinking bright red in the United States and the West for years and that was all before the COVID pandemic and its lockdowns and isolation descended upon hundreds of millions of people. The solution used by the medical and mental health professions seems clear if you look at the data: They wanted to simply dole out more and more anti-depression medications, specifically the class of medications known as SSRI – serotonin reuptake inhibitors – to simply treat these rising mental health problems as little more than chemical imbalances – kind of like what happens when your car doesn't work well – that takes place in the brain and that requires simple medical solutions. You just get medications that adjust the chemical imbalances and send the patient on their way. 

One of the smartest and most interesting critics of this approach is Dr. Gabor Maté, who has worked for over a decade in Vancouver's downtown East Side with patients challenged by both drug addiction and mental illness. He is a bestselling author of four books published in over 30 languages and has really become someone who routinely appears on and is favorably received on all sorts of television, radio programs and online platforms that span the political spectrum. Something not that easy to do these days. We've been a fan of his for quite some time and are very excited to welcome him tonight to our program. It may seem that this topic is a little bit off course for what we usually cover. If that were true, that would be fine. We want to cover a broad range of topics, but we actually see these pathologies that he talks about and works on as directly linked to many of the broader social, political and economic problems we cover on this show. We think that you will see the important connections as well between the mental health problems suffered by more and more Americans, the rotted political system and the rotted society it produces in which they live. 

For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.

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Game of Thrones Actor Liam Cunningham on Gaza Activism and UK Censorship; Journalist Zaid Jilani on Mamdani, Epstein, the State of the Dems and More
System Update #484

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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There are times when we cannot cover everything that is going on that we think deserves attention, and one of the ways we try to rectify that is to bring on guests who we believe are highly informed, engaging and provocative. We have two guests tonight for you who are most certainly all of those things. 

The first is Liam Cunningham, who is the long-time working Irish actor likely best known for his central role as Davod Seaworth in the HBO hit series, Game of Thrones; but for our purposes he is also a very passionate political activist and analyst who has spent decades involved in political activism, in the last two years focused like many people, on the Israeli destruction of Gaza. 

Right after that, we’ll talk to the very independent, heterodox and cantankerous journalist – which I mean in the most flattering way – Zaid Jilani. He was my colleague for years at the Intercept until he left for all the right reasons. We're going to talk about a wide range of topics with him, including the fallout from the DOJ's announcement that it's closing the Epstein investigation with no further disclosures, the state of the race for New York City mayor, where Zohran Mamdani's primary win has sent a lot of people, especially the city's richest, into full meltdown mode. 

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The Interview: Liam Cunningham 

Liam Cunningham is an award-winning Irish actor, as I said, best known for his role in HBO's series Game of Thrones. Various outlets, including The Irish Times, have called him one of Ireland's greatest actors. He's been a political activist for decades, but recently he helped to organize and became a spokesperson for the "Freedom Flotilla,” in which Greta Thunberg and other colleagues were arrested and deported by the Israeli government for attempting to deliver aid to the people of Gaza when the IDF was blockading it. I've followed his work for some time, especially his political work and we are delighted to have him for his debut appearance. Hope it's not the last on the show. 

G. Greenwald: Liam, it's great to see you. I know it's so late in Dublin. I really appreciate your staying up to talk with us. 

Liam Cunningham: No, that's fine. It's way past my bedtime, but an absolute yes. For you, sir, anything. 

G. Greenwald: I appreciate that. All right. So, let's begin with what I just mentioned, which is the role that you played in kind of helping to organize and becoming a very well-known spokesperson for the boat that was intended to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza as a way of circumventing the IDF's blockade of food, water, medicine and the like.

I think a lot of people didn't realize at the time what an actually dangerous and courageous mission it was. I remember in 2011, a very similar flotilla attempted essentially the same thing to deliver food to the people of Gaza when there was a blockade there and the IDF actually attacked that ship and killed 10 people on board. You had Nobel Prize winners, holocaust survivors and the IDF just didn't care. They violently attacked it. What was the impetus for your involvement in this particular action, even knowing how dangerous and provocative it might be?

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Trump Mocks Concerns About Epstein; Trump Continues Biden's Policy of Arming Ukraine; Trump and Lula Exchange Barbs Over Brazil
System Update #483

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 Much of the MAGA world was in turmoil, confusion and anger yesterday –understandably so – after the Trump DOJ announced it was closing the Epstein files and its investigation with no further disclosures of any kind. After all this happened, some attempt was made to try and pin the blame or isolate the blame for all of this on Attorney General Pam Bondi. Yet, Donald Trump himself, today, when asked about all of this, went much further than anyone else when meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House again: President Trump actually mocked and angrily dismissed any concerns over the Epstein matter and how it was handled. 

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Last night, we covered quite extensively the decision by the Trump Justice Department, not even six months into the administration, to completely shut down and close and stop all investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, as well as announcing that there will be no further disclosures of any documents of any kind, that whatever they've released so far, which has basically been nothing – not basically, has been nothing – is all you're going to get. 

This is a blatant betrayal of multiple promises made by key Trump officials over the last four years, before they were in the White House, but was also a complete 180 in terms of what key Trump influencers and pundits had been saying, including several pundits who are now running the FBI, such as Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, as well as the Justice Department, including Pam Bondi. 

We even showed you an interview that Alina Habba, the Trump attorney who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, appointed by Donald Trump, did with Pierce Morgan while she was in the government, just in February, where she claimed they have a whole bunch of very incriminating lists with shocking names. She said there's video and there are all kinds of documents that are shocking, in her words, and she said they're going to be released over time because we've gone long enough where people who do these sorts of things, including are involved in the Epstein scandal, have no accountability. She said that is ending with the Trump administration. There's going to be accountability. 

Yesterday, the Trump Justice Department said, “No, there's nothing here. We looked. There's no such thing as a client list.” We know we've been promising and that JD Vance repeatedly said, “Where's the client list?” Donald Trump Jr. said, “Anyone hiding the client lists is a scumbag.” Dan Bongino, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi accused Biden officials of basically covering up predatory pedophilia by refusing to release the Jeffrey Epstein client list. Now, they're saying there's no client list, that thing we've been talking about and accusing Biden officials of hiding and promising to disclose, that doesn't exist. 

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Trump DOJ: There's Nothing to the Epstein Story; State Dept: Syria's Al-Qaeda are No Longer "Terrorists"
System Update #482

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System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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One of the most significant scandals among MAGA pundits and operatives within pro-Trump discourse generally over the last four years has been the one involving Jeffrey Epstein. 

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Earlier today, the Justice Department issued a statement, essentially announcing that they no longer consider any of the questions surrounding what had long been the Epstein scandal to be worthwhile investigation; that essentially all of these questions have been answered, that there's really nothing to look into. 

You can read the Justice Department's statement here.

They're saying this client list that most Trump supporters, I would say, have been accusing the U.S. government, of hiding to protect all the powerful people on this list, now, that they're in power – people like Pam Bondi, Dan Bongino and Kash Patel, now they're in charge – they're saying, no, actually there is no client list at all. There's at least no incriminating client list, whatever that means. 

I don't know if there is a client list or not, but according to them, there's no incriminating client list. I don't know how you can have a client list that's not incriminating: to be a client of Jeffrey Epstein seems inherently incriminating. They seem to have said what the White House briefing said today when asked about this, because as we'll show you, Pam Bondi went on Fox News and was asked, “Are you going to release the client list?” And she said, “It's sitting on my desk for review.” 

Trump had strongly suggested he would order it released. Now they're saying, “You know what? There is no client list.” 

So, all these claims that Jeffrey Epstein had recordings of prominent individuals who he invited to his island, who had sex with minors, evidently, there's no incriminating material of any kind that would implicate any powerful person. Just not there, they checked. They checked the storage closets, they looked under the beds, just couldn't find anything. All the stuff they had been claiming was there for years, screaming and pounding the table on podcasts, making a lot of money over it, too, accusing Biden officials of hiding this all for corrupt ends, just not there. They looked, couldn't find it. 

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