We are pleased to send you a summary of the key stories we covered last week. These are written versions of the reporting and analysis we did on last week's episodes of SYSTEM UPDATE.
—Glenn Greenwald
MONDAY, JANUARY 15 - SYSTEM UPDATE 211
Iowa Caucus Kicks Off Primary Season—w/ Michael Tracey LIVE from Iowa
As the Iowa Caucuses get underway, officially kicking off the 2024 electoral season, our intrepid correspondent Michael Tracey braves the freezing temperatures to tell us the mood on the ground, directly from a caucus precinct.
The first actual votes in the 2024 presidential race have been counted, as Iowa held Republican caucuses around the state on Monday night. That means that the all-out establishment war to prevent Donald Trump from being re-elected president officially begins tonight. For now, the principal establishment weapon against him is the campaign of Nikki Haley, who more and more Democrats are now openly and enthusiastically supporting – not on the ground that she would be the weakest opponent for Joe Biden, but rather on the ground that she's so clearly the superior Republican candidate that, for the good of the country – as liberals and their neocon allies see it – Americans are duty-bound to vote for her.
The war to destroy Trump extends far beyond Nikki Haley, needless to say. It includes four separate criminal proceedings to try to render him a felon and imprison him, and more than a dozen legal processes to ban him from appearing on the ballot and thus dispensing altogether with the need to persuade Americans not to vote for him. But for tonight, the establishment hope is that it has breathed enough life – and cash – into Nikki Haley's campaign that she will leave Iowa and head to New Hampshire as the clear and sole Republican alternative to the Orange Hitler. (Spoiler Alert: She didn’t.)
One of the best decisions we ever made as a program was reading weather reports last week that warned one of the most severe blizzards and cold spells in Iowa’s history would be happening throughout this week, and thereafter, calling up the intrepid independent journalist Michael Tracey to cover the Iowa caucuses for us. Michael joined us on Friday night last week from Des Moines and is still suffering intensely under an ongoing cold spell – beyond that entertaining spectacle – he'll join us tonight to tell us the latest on what he's seen and heard over the last few days and what it presages for tonight.
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 16 - SYSTEM UPDATE 212
Trump’s Iowa Victory Exposes Major Establishment Weakness.
Zelensky Brings Pathetic Peace Plan to Davos.
The Revealing Case of Rep. Paul Findley (R-IL)
Despite what the establishment could throw at him, Trump scores a historic win in Iowa; Zelenksy presents a pathetic peace plan in Davos; The story of Rep. Paul Findley – and what it tells us about American politics.
Donald Trump won the Iowa Caucus by 30 points over Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, in what is the largest-ever victory in a contested Republican Iowa race since the causes began. I believe it is insufficiently recognized how remarkable this victory is, and how singularly revealing. It is not just that the entire political, media, and financial establishment is united to stop Trump, though that is largely true. It is far more than that: establishment forces unleashed on Trump a weapon that had never previously been used on a major candidate for the presidency: they formally charged him with felonies, and are trying to imprison him – four separate times, in four separate criminal proceedings.
And yet very large swaths of the public simply do not care – obviously. And it is not just Republicans but independents as well, who continue to give Trump a meaningful lead in the key swing states that will determine the election. Put another way, this means that many millions of Americans – arguably most – simply no longer trust the core institutions of power and authority in this country. That is not a healthy state of affairs, but it is a very well-deserved one.
PLUS: European, American, and Persian Gulf elites are meeting this week in their annual glamor fest at Davos. Among the attendees is Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who traveled there and appeared in what the New York Times described as a stylish, smart, war-general-chic "olive green pants and a black crew-neck sweater."
He did not only appear in his war General costume. He brought with him what he is calling a "peace plan": a proposal that is supposedly going to induce Moscow to stop the war that is so delusional, out-of-touch, and detached from reality that you have to see it to believe it, so we will show it to you. This war is one of the most horrific wastes of money and human life, and the fact that the West is still entertaining the possibility of funding this futile bloodbath shows how decayed and rotted the Davos elite has become.
ALSO: We take a look back at the fascinating career of a Republican Congressman. First elected in 1960 to represent a moderate district in Illinois, he became one of the earliest opponents of US intervention in Vietnam. As a result, he authored the War Powers Resolution – the bill that curbs the ability of the president to deploy the US military to fight wars without Congressional approval: a law that was much discussed last week after Biden ordered the bombing of Yemen without so much as a Congressional notification, let alone a debate or a vote.
What makes this Congressman – Paul Findley – particularly notable is not just how he spent his career but also how it ended. He not only opposed US intervention in general but was a specific and increasingly vehement opponent of US funding of Israel and its various wars. For that crime, he was accused by AIPAC, the ADL, and other vehement defenders of Israel as being anti-Semitic, and was targeted by the pro-Israel lobby with defeat.
In 1982 – after he had served for 22 years – AIPAC funded a young Democrat who was highly supportive of Israel. His name is Dick Durbin, and he went on to become one of the Democratic Party's most senior and most powerful US Senators and one of the most reliable supporters of US funding of Israel. The case of Paul Findley was one of the first – but by no means the last – that sent a clear signal to American lawmakers: either unquestioningly support Israel and vote for US funding of it, or face likely career destruction
READ THE FULL STORY: Part 1 & Part 2
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17 - SYSTEM UPDATE 213
Speaker Johnson & Biden Open War Over Ukraine/Border
Corrupt Congress Outperforms S&P 500
As Gaza Is Destroyed, Concern Trolling over LGBT Issues
Hunter Biden Laptop Confirmed (Again)
Britain to Investigate Palestinian Activist
President Biden and Speaker Johnson battle over House demand for border funding; Genius traders in Congress outperform the market (again); Israel defenders abuse “LGBT rights” to coerce support for Israel's total destruction of Gaza; Biden DOJ adds to piles of proof of Hunter laptop authenticity; London Police investigate Palestinian activist.
The Biden White House, for months now, has been desperately seeking to wrangle another $60 billion out of the U.S. Congress to send to their friends and allies in Ukraine. But for the first time since this branch of that war began two years ago, large sectors of the American public – along with many European nations – have decisively turned against further funding of this bloody yet futile war. House Republicans, led by their new Speaker Mike Johnson, have been adamant that no new funding for Ukraine will be authorized – let alone another $60 billion, which would be the largest authorization yet – without several conditions being met, chief among them real steps to first secure the American border before the Ukrainian border is secured, as well as meaningful oversight measures to monitor and control how those billions of dollars sent to Kiev are being used.
This week, Speaker Johnson went to the White House with other top House Republicans to meet with President Biden. By all accounts – including that provided by the Speaker immediately after he left – the two sides remain far apart, evidently unable to reach an agreement that would keep the war in Ukraine funded. We will report on the latest, and show you the Speaker’s comments, as Biden’s quest to keep this war funded with American resources is – at least for the moment – still being impeded.
PLUS: The Israeli destruction of Gaza continues, though there is no problem there when it comes to the flow of US dollars to Tel Aviv – largely because Biden has been willing to resort to clearly illegal means to keep the flow of American weapons to Israel without any congressional approval. We will show you the latest independent data that demonstrates the unparalleled nature of the destruction of civilian life there, including the very real risk – one might say the probability – that tens of thousands of Gazans will imminently die not from bombs alone but – due to the full-scale and ongoing Israeli blockade – also from a combination of hunger and treatable infections.
Our view since the start of the war has been the same: regardless of your views of this war, the fact that the US Government is financing and arming Israel, at great cost to both the country and its citizens, requires that everyone know what is actually being done there.
And we'll also examine one of the most common, and most cynical, rhetorical tactics for justifying the war in the eyes of Westerners: namely, arguing that because Hamas is vehemently anti-LGBT, people in the West – especially gay people – should consider this war against Hamas particularly just. That is an argument as corrosive and as disingenuous – given how commonly wielded it is. We'll briefly examine the reasons why.
ALSO: We will take a look at a new report that documents the amazing streak of luck members of Congress have had in trading stocks – with profits that significantly exceed the market – has continued for 2023. Produced by an anonymous but highly reliable independent data journalist, the report details how many members of Congress are now following in the footsteps of Nancy Pelosi and exhibiting remarkable skill and luck with buying and selling at exactly the right time to maximize their profits
THEN: New proof – this time from the US Government – that the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic all along. I continue to regard this as one of the worst media scandals in recent times: that most of the corporate media spread a CIA lie right before the 2020 election – that the materials on that laptop were not real but rather "Russian disinformation" – and every time there's new proof that it's real, and every time the media refugees to retract their story – like now – it's evidence that hatred for the corporate media is not only justified and well-earned but vital.
AND: The Metropolitan Police of London issued a chilling statement – one that could only be found, by definition, in an authoritarian country. It announced the commencement of a criminal investigation due to a speech that someone gave at a peaceful anti-war protest in London on Saturday. The speech, like the protest, was aimed at denouncing the now 100-day-old Israeli destruction of Gaza. Many claimed that the speech was intended to express support for the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. The speech plainly did not do that – as we'll show you – but even if it had, free speech clearly entails the right to defend violence. That's why people can urge that Iran be bombed off the map, or that Yemen be attacked by US aircraft, or that Gaza be flattened and turned into a parking lot by Israel.
Yet because the target of the criticism here was Israel – not Iran or Yemen or Gaza – many demanded that the police arrest the speaker. Yet again, we see a severe and rapid erosion of core free speech rights in the West, all in order to protect this foreign country.
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 18 - SYSTEM UPDATE 214
Saifedean Ammous on Trump’s Vow to “Never Allow” Central Bank Digital Currencies – Why Should You Care?
Biden’s Illegal Bombing in Yemen Escalates
The 2nd Gentleman, in Davos, Speaks on American Jews’ Hardships
After Trump pledged to block the creation of CBDCs; Expert Saifedean Ammous examines and explains the importance of this statement; Biden expands the illegal bombing of Yemen, threatening a broader war; In Davos, Second Gentleman Doug Ermhoff laments the plight of American Jews.
After Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the presidential race, one of the first things he did was endorse Donald Trump. Ramaswamy appeared at an event with Trump to announce his endorsement, and he then went on Fox News, where Jesse Water asked him: what did you discuss with Trump? Ramaswamy said he focused on policy discussions, and named two policies he urged Trump to adopt: one was a day-1 pardon of Julian Assange, and the other was opposition to a central bank digital currency.
After Vivek spoke at the event, Trump appeared, and one of the things he said – for the first time – was this: "As your president, I will never allow the creation of a central bank digital currency.” Given that this issue has now been elevated to a presidential vow, we thought it was important to dig into its implications and why it matters. We will speak to Saifedean Ammous, who was a long-time professor of Economics at the Lebanese American University and is the author of The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking.
PLUS: Joe Biden last week ordered that various targets in Yemen be bombed, as retaliation for the attacks on various ships in the Red Sea by the Houthis, the militia that runs Yemen. Those attacks, in turn, were motivated by the Houthis' desire to punish the countries responsible for the destruction of Gaza, particularly the U.S. and Israel. While the Yemeni attacks did not kill anyone, they have caused commercial disruption. That meant that many Americans, including many conservatives, supported Biden's decision to bomb.
One of the primary problems with that decision – as we documented last week – is that it was undertaken without congressional authorization. As we illustrated, presidents – absent some emergency clearly not present here – do not have the power to start new wars without first obtaining the authorization of Congress, and there are good reasons for it, including the fact that such wars are often implemented with no clear plan, no defined mission, no metric for success, and thus often lead to the kind of meandering, endless wars that the U.S. has found itself in so many times over the past several decades.
Since that initial bombing of Yemen, the U.S. has bombed Yemen at least three additional times, including yesterday. The Biden administration has still not bothered to explain its rationale or objectives to Congress, let alone to seek or obtain its approval. When asked today about all of this, Joe Biden gave an answer that could not have more perfectly illustrated why these kinds of bombing campaigns with no public debate or authorization are so dangerous, and we will show all of this to you.
THEN: The husband of Vice President Kamala Harris is Doug Emhoff. He made an appearance yesterday at the ongoing conference of global elites in Davos. While there, he used his time to speak on the grave plight of American Jews, a group – he said – that faces extreme hardship and deprivations in the United States. He also lamented the fact that at the time when American Jews felt most alone and vulnerable – namely after October 7 – far too many Americans proved that they were no friends of the Jews: meaning that too many Americans failed to stand and support Israel in its war against Gaza.
It has been fascinating to watch over the last four months as the same minority-group victimhood narrative that so often provoked cynicism and scorn when invoked by other groups, has now been repeatedly marshaled in favor of this one group. We'll examine the comments of the Second Gentleman in Davos and what they mean.
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