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Good evening. It's Tuesday, December 12.
Tonight, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, goes to Washington today, again, with his hand held out for more American money—again. The Biden administration, after first blocking any possibility of a diplomatic resolution at the start of the Russia-Ukraine war almost two years ago has now spent more than $110 billion in American resources to fuel this war, accomplishing little other than guaranteeing the destruction of Ukraine, sending hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian men to their deaths and all but ensuring that Russia will end up controlling roughly one fifth, at least, of what had been Ukrainian territory.
Over the last month, President Zelenskyy's closest allies in Kiev have run to the Western press to turn on both Zelenskyy and the war, accusing the Ukrainian leader of everything from having become an authoritarian to becoming “delusional” about his obviously baseless belief that Ukraine still has some chance to expel all Russian troops from Ukrainian soil. But none of that stopped Zelenskyy from going to the White House today and doing what he does best, demanding more American money. He made the rounds with the American media and also met with members of Congress to plead, demand and insist that still more American money be transferred to keep fueling this increasingly futile but as destructive as ever war.
Most revealingly, Zelenskyy even met with the CEOs of most of the true beneficiaries of this war, the only beneficiaries of this war, the arms dealers in Washington. We’ll tell you the key events that are transpiring on his trip.
Then: few people outside the world of high finance and academia knew the name Bill Ackman on October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel. Yet almost immediately, almost overnight, this multibillionaire, a hedge fund manager and fanatical supporter of Israel, went on a rampage against anyone and anything inside the United States insufficiently supportive of Israel, at first in a very public way, helping compile blacklists of American college students who committed the crime of placing blame on Israel for the long-standing conflict with the Palestinians – insisting that they not be hired by other CEOs – and then using his vast wealth to coerce Harvard and other institutions to intensify their censorship attacks aimed at Israel critics. It has been bizarre watching so many Israel supporters and assorted Republicans and even conservatives march behind Bill Ackman and celebrate him as a hero and to watch him celebrate himself as one (he really did recently praise his own courage because what could be scarier than being an American billionaire supporting Israel in the United States? One can barely fathom the courage that it must require!)
Bill Ackman is what every conservative and even many liberals claim—usually—to despise: a billionaire who weaponizes his wealth to cancel and destroy the careers of those who disagree with him and who tries to dictate to major American universities which political views they may and may not permit to be expressed. And he's hardly alone when it comes to pro-Israel billionaires in the United States. But the last few months have taken people like Bill Ackman out of the shadows and thrust them into the very public spotlight and it's vital to realize that his cause, while masquerading as some sort of noble fight against university wokeness, is really nothing other than an attempt to force universities to prohibit and punish criticism of this foreign country for which he harbors so much affection.
Finally, the Justice Department prepares to go to trial against Google in one of the most significant antitrust suits brought by the U.S. government, one that was commenced, incidentally, by the Trump administration. Google just suffered a major defeat in a courtroom in San Francisco against a private corporation. A company named Epic Games, which is the creator of Fortnite, won a jury verdict that Google's use of its Google stores on Android phones violates America's antitrust laws. They sued on 11 counts and the jury quickly after just three hours of deliberation, ruled against Google on all eleven counts. We'll speak with one of the nation's premier antitrust and Google experts, Matt Stoller, of the American Economic Liberties Project to tell us what all of this means. It doesn't seem to bode very well for Google and many of its upcoming fights with various private and public entities that are claiming it is a legal monopoly.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting now.
