Title: New Years Eve Part 1 (English)
Show: Potkaars Podcast
Date: 2020-01-01
URL: https://www.potkaars.nl/
Duration: 144:00

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[00:00] It's December 31st 2019. A couple of hours to go for the New Year's Eve podcast that's supposed to end right around midnight. Now we're actually recording this the day before. Now this is podcast, which in Dutch, can you see that thing? Yeah, it's a podcast with Kendall. It's not really a word, more of a gimmick, but phonetically it's podcast.

[00:37] And literally it's podcast with Kendall. Conversations of hope. Where are you there? Yes. Welcome. Oh, I need to change my camera. There you go. And this thing. There you go. I'm the host, Rico Brouwer. This is Jonathan van Dijken. We are the bridge crew of this marathon thing. We're going to talk for hours with 20 people from all over the world. From Kazakhstan all the way to East Coast, maybe West Coast, USA.

[01:10] I don't know where everybody is. We're going to ask that during the conversations. First half is going to be in English. Second half is going to be in Dutch, so allow me for 30 seconds. Dutch people are English-speaking guests. So we do the first half in English. If you skip to the front, if you don't understand English. Half way and that's two and a half hours away. We go to the Netherlands. Welcome to my house. This is my couch. The proverbial couch that activists get out of to do stuff.

[01:41] I invited those guys in to sit on this proverbial couch and talk about their activism. So we got activists, journalists, whistleblowers, and ourselves. And ourselves, of course. We'll forget ourselves. So you're an activist, no? I used to be an activist. I kind of changed away from it. But activism is in my heart, yes. I was a member of the prior party as well. Prior party is an activist party. Before that I used to be with the SPA as well.

[02:14] The SPA is also an activist party or was an activist party. SPA would be socialist party. The socialist party in the Netherlands, yes. Left-wing party, it is. Now I'm with the party of the animals. You're a member of the party. So this is not going to be a political podcast per se, but politics is going to play a role in this, especially with the American guests and Canadians. I'm sure we're going to talk impeachment, we're going to talk presidential elections.

[02:44] We have a member of parliament, European parliament, in this broadcast as well. From the party party, yes. We're going to start off with some of the more well-known, well, should be well-known anyway. If you haven't heard of them, you'll hear of them today, whistleblowers. So the original whistleblower, as far as I know, of NSA, Thomas Drake, he's going to be here. And also from CIA, the guy that told us that there was torturing taking place

[03:18] in Guantanamo Bay, the waterboarding, that was made public by John Kiriakou. And these guys, they were waiting for somebody else to fix what was wrong. And when nobody did, they, well, okay, maybe we should stop doing this. Thomas Drake, what did he whistleblower? NSA, so you might know Edward Snowden. He became well-known to everybody. But before Ed Snowden, there was Thomas Drake who went by the internal channels,

[03:51] blowing the whistle on a wrong course there. So he's going to be here. Before we do that, I would like to talk to Reality Winner. Reality Winner is the whistleblower that has been convicted to the longest sentence, prison sentence, as a spy, convicted as a spy in the United States. However, she's in jail. So I invited her sister, and that's Brittany Winner.

[04:21] And now when you hear Ding Dong, that's my online connection tool. So we're going to allow her in and talk to Brittany Winner. If you would move to the technology stuff of this. So this is a living room conversation. So bear with us, see if we can get the technology to admit to the blue thingy. There you go. Hello, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you.

[04:52] There you are. I need to move myself into the picture here. So welcome. Hi. For me, it's 1.30 in the afternoon. We're going to broadcast this New Year's Eve, so the 31st in the evening. You got up early for this or what? Where are you currently? Where are you in East Coast? Oh, yeah, I'm in Maryland. Yeah, where's Maryland? Oh, near Bel Air.

[05:22] So that's East Coast USA, no? Yeah, it is. You're talking to Europe. Most Americans would know where the Netherlands is maybe even or would they? What do you think? That's a good question. I know because I've been to Denmark a few times. So it's kind of in the close proximity. Yeah. Okay, so great that you're here. I introduced you somewhat as reality winner sister. Would you, in your words, tell us why she's not celebrating New Year's Eve with you guys?

[05:56] Why is she in jail? Sure. So my sister was 25 and she was working as a contractor for a security company when she was arrested in June 2017. And for anybody who's listened to my mom talk about this, our family had no idea what was going on. You know, she couldn't tell us much. So reality was held in county jail for a while before we figured out what was going on. And so she was accused of leaking a classified document to a news agency.

[06:30] Of course, we didn't we didn't know what was going on or whether she had actually done it. But more distressing, I think, to us was the fact that she was not allowed to come home. She was not allowed on bail. She was denied. I think it was two or three times because they thought that she posed some sort of risk, flight risk or otherwise. So she spent more than a year in county jail in Georgia before she decided to take a plea deal where she would serve 63 months for pleading guilty to the charge of espionage,

[07:02] which would imply that at least from the government's perspective that the document that she said to have leaked was harmful to the United States and that she had intended to harm the United States. So in a nutshell, that's that's what why my sister is at Carswell Federal Medical Facility in Fort Worth, Texas. If she hadn't taken the plea deal and it had come to court and she would be convicted, how many years would she be in jail for?

[07:33] I heard that the government, the prosecutors were threatening 10. So we had we had John Kiriakou on on an interview earlier this year and we're going to talk to him in a short while. But he said his lawyer stole them. John, this is either going to be a small part of your life or it's going to be a defining thing in your life. Choose how long you want to be in jail for take to take the plea deal or go to court and expect to spend way longer.

[08:05] So basically the same thing happened to your sister, I think or no. Yes. So I interviewed you as well. I talked to you, your mom and Wendy Meir. For an hour and a half, I think it's a lie. I recommend everybody go look at that thing. There you have the full account of what happened to you guys and reality. But one thing I didn't ask was you got you got the phone call by FBI or by whoever had arrested her.

[08:40] You have never had a private conversation with reality at all about what she's in jail for. Have you? That's right. No, we can't talk about it, especially when she was when there was still the possibility of her getting bail. We didn't want it to sound like, you know, she wanted to come out and talk to us or the press or anybody else. You know, all we really wanted during those excruciating months before she took the plea deal is for her to come home. And so we were very guarded about what we said, you know, once we realized that everything was being recorded and everything could be used against her, you know, to deny her bail.

[09:18] We were just walking on eggshells. And I think that was probably one of the hardest times in our family because, you know, she's there. She's not dead. She's alive. You know, we can talk to her on the phone, but it's all very shallow. It's just like pleasantries. It's like, you know, imagine somebody in your family has cancer and you can't talk about how sick they are. You can't talk about what's really going on. So you talk about the weather. You talk about movies. You talk about, you know, and that's great for for a little while, but for an entire, you know, more than a year.

[09:49] It's a lot. And even now we still can't really talk about, you know, what she's in prison for or any sort of, you know, touchy subjects. But it's got. little bit better because now she knows, you know, she has at least a term that she's going to, you know, have to sit out. But not knowing was probably the worst thing when she was in jail. Yeah. And so what I wanted to ask you after the interview we did like a month ago, have you talked to reality? Did you dare mention the interview? How does that work?

[10:23] I didn't mention the interview. I'm always kind of wary about that when, you know, there's somebody listening. I don't want them to, you know, think that it was anything bad or it was anything, you know, like noteworthy, I guess, even when it is, even when something blows up on Twitter, for example, or, you know, somebody is announcing support for her, I just, I tell her kind of in general, like, oh, you know, you've got a lot of support today, or etc. Because as much as,

[17:36] while she tried to find a way to go overseas and do humanitarian work. And so her contract with the Air Force had ended. And so she had gone back down to Georgia from Maryland to work for this security company as a contractor. And she was using her expertise in Middle Eastern languages, Dari Pashto and Farsi to read and comprehend and understand transmissions and read documents for this company. Okay. The reason I'm asking you this, I talked to John Kiriakou,

[18:11] who is going to be on in short while, CIA whistleblower. And he, some of the jobs he did the way I understand it, he did them because he was linguistically very strong. He knew the language. And same goes for reality. And what you said in your interview when we did that month ago was, yeah, there are stacks of books, books in Arabic. So that was highly suspicious. And she got all kinds of questions. So what are you doing? What's your affiliation? Why are these books here? And it was just her job, right?

[18:43] All right. So she was sentenced for five years in prison. Am I correct? 63 months. And how was, did you talk about, could you relay how New Year's Eve was last year for reality winner in prison? Do you know? It was sad. I mean, she didn't feel like she had much to look forward to. It's hard when you feel like you're going to be stuck there forever. And even

[19:17] though you tell yourself that, you know, I am going to get out of here, she would tell herself that she is going to get out of there. It can feel incredibly isolating, obviously, being away from the people that you love, feeling like they really just made an example of her, which most people believe that they did, charging her with espionage instead of something else that was, you know, smaller. I think that for reality, she loses hope in a given moment. And it gets really dark with her. You know, she does have an eating disorder

[19:50] that makes it hard for her to cope with her life in prison as well. And as much as she tries to help out other inmates with her. or spending classes, or even learning new languages in prison from other inmates. As much as she tries to do those things, I think that she still feels, she feels really negative towards the future most times. And I'm sure that on a pretty momentous day as New Year's Eve, where everybody else in the world

[20:22] is looking forward to the promise of a new year, she thinks, well, it's another year and I'm just gonna be here and I'm not moving and I'm not going forward. Okay, thank you for that. So, let's at this time, ask John to join. So Brittany, stay, don't go away, you're in. So let John in, see if that works. So this is our first. Yeah, there you go. Maybe you can put it on gallery view, Ayanna, on the right top.

[20:54] This one? Yeah, on top of screen. Morning, guys. There you go, there you go. And hang on, I'll do this thing. There you go. No, no, no, what'd you do? Hang on, I need this one, so. Hey, John. Morning, how are you? Good afternoon. Yeah, afternoon for me. It's almost two o'clock. You're in the same time zone as Brittany. Have you ever met the both of you or no? No. So I'd love to introduce the guy on the bottom

[21:25] for my screen anyways, John Kiraku. The lady to my left is Brittany Winner. Hi. Hi, how are you, nice to meet you? Good, how are you? Good, thank you. So John, we're just only good things talking about you, among other stuff. Brittany is Reality Winner's sister. Yeah, you know of the situation of Reality Winner. Yeah, I've written about reality a number of times. And actually your mom and I are friends on Facebook. Oh, nice. Yeah.

[21:55] Very nice to meet you. John, in your words, what did you blow the whistle on? And how long were you, how were you punished for that? Yeah, I blew the whistle on the CIA's torture program and then served 23 months of a 30 month federal sentence under Obama. Under Obama, yeah. So we're recording this day before New Year's Eve.

[22:29] How was New Year's Eve for you when you were in prison? New Year's Eve was fine. It was Christmas that was depressing. Christmas was hard. And I've remained in touch with a lot of guys still in prison, including Terry Albury, the FBI whistle blower. And I've tried to sort of help them get through Christmas. Christmas is the only holiday that people really start to sink emotionally.

[23:00] Yeah. Sorry, I just took your phone a little bit. There you go. OK, carry on. OK, and so do you have any knowledge on how your conditions as a prisoner were back then as compared to what United States is doing to a reality winner at the moment? Is that comparable or has things changed?

[23:30] Yeah, it is comparable, definitely. Of course, reality is in a women's prison. I was in a men's prison. That's pretty much the only difference. These are real prisons. These are not, I hate the term club fed. There's no such thing as club fed. Prison is prison. Whether it has guard towers or not, it's prison. Even a minimum security prison is still prison. You're still incarcerated. There's still a solitary confinement unit. And so, yeah, the federal government,

[24:04] the Bureau of Prisons is doing nothing to help ease reality's time. This is rough, and it's meant to be rough. So has that changed then? Because with all due respect, you were let out early. And the way I see it, what you did, as seen from the agencies, is possibly worse than what reality did.

[24:35] Oh, sure. Oh, listen, reality, I think, got it far, far worse than I did or so many others. Tom Drake, Bill Binney, Kirk Webe, she got it far worse. And I think it's because Donald Trump is president. I gave an interview to a Latin American newspaper. A week or two weeks after Donald Trump became president. And the reporter asked me if I thought things

[25:09] would be better or worse under Trump. And they didn't just talk to me, they also talked to Tom Drake and a couple of other people, including Chelsea Manning. So I was the only one who said, and I was very foolish to say it, that I thought things would be better under Trump because they couldn't possibly be any worse. than they were under Obama. And in fact, the Trump administration initiated three times as many leak investigations as the Obama administration did.

[25:42] And the sentences that the Justice Department has sought and has won under Trump have been longer than those under Obama, and that's what reality ran into. It's worse. All right, we have, oh, okay, before we let the next guest in, it's going to be crowded, but that's okay, I'll let everybody speak. That's cool, before we do that. John, has there been a play made out of your story,

[26:13] theater play? There was a play that was written in 2015. It was written for the National Theater in New York, but in the end, the CIA put so much pressure on the theater owner that it was never performed. Seriously, did you know reality has a show made out of her story? Yes, yes, her mom's been writing about it on Facebook. I think it's a wonderful thing. You know, this is the thing.

[26:44] Whistleblowers are- Hang on, John, John, one second. We're going to let the director of that play in the conversation here. So if you let her in. And I don't know, I haven't tested her connection. So if you hear us, Christina. Hi. Oh, there you are, your audio is working. I don't see you yet. Maybe you need to enable your camera, if you have one. I did. Well, struggle with the thing. I was interrupting John Kiriakou who is in this meeting

[27:14] and Brittany Winner, the sister to reality, who's in the meeting as well. John, sorry for interrupting you, but I think Christina might want to hear it. So we were talking about this play being made out of reality winner story and I asked John, are you in the play? There we are. Yeah, the CIA killed the play that I was going to be and it was written by Scott Burns, who is the writer and director of the new Amazon movie, The Report. Scott's an old friend of mine. He was interested in my case, but the CIA killed it.

[27:45] They just said that they wouldn't clear the information and I was saying how important it is for people like you to do plays on people like reality because whistleblowers are easily forgotten and we really need to inform and educate the American public as to the national service that whistleblowers perform, especially in national security. Was any pressure put on you, Christina?

[28:15] Sure. Sorry, what? So John said, jokingly, because I really didn't know John, jokingly I asked John, has a play been made out of your story and he said yes, but it never got played because there was pressure put on those people by CIA. My question to you, Christina. Yes. Did you communicate on that level with services? How did that work? With people like the FBI? Yeah. No, we've heard nothing from them. We just keep doing the play and no one has said anything.

[28:49] Okay, so somebody sent me a link to, I think New York Times article that was really positive about your play. Yes. So it's doing good for you, no? It's gone very well. People are really, really intrigued to see this information and to learn about reality and to see this content in a theatrical form on a stage. I mean, and we don't really do much beyond literally, literally stage word for word that interrogation that happened to her that day.

[29:19] Yeah, and it's really, people seem to be finding that pretty fascinating and important to hear and see. You read the transcript of that first FBI interrogation of reality winner in her house. What in those words made you decide, oh, I'm gonna make a play out of this? How did that work? I mean, so many things about it. I think the first one that I had just read a long form article about reality,

[29:50] that's how I came to the link. And so I was already really fascinated with this young woman. I was like, wow, this person is incredible. This is a really interesting. thing I hadn't paid attention to it very much when it first happened in the news like so many of us here actually unfortunately and so then as I started reading this transcript where you and because I read plays you know what I mean I immediately could see the character in her dialogue in her actual answers and I immediately was like oh she's really funny and she's really

[30:22] brave and she's it was just this fascinating thing watching her you know because she doesn't admit at all right away and she's you see her in this crazy horrible situation and I just got really fascinated watching her humanity and humor play out in this document and then of course like the animals there's so many other amazing aspects to that day and to reality moving through that you know hour or so that it was so it was really watching her character unfold

[30:52] on the page as it were having just read a bit about her how is it being received by the by the audience what about people leaving the theater chatting about it online what's their reaction I mean at least for we're doing it now which is a big commercial opera in New York House like people everyone when we do talk backs which happened quite frequently in the original run of it last month almost everyone says I did not really know about this story this is fascinating

[31:23] and like almost everyone you see people immediately pick up their phones in Google and then online on Twitter and stuff people are just like this is a really important story this is way bigger about horrible things going on right now or this person's really inspiring so I mean overall it is just really activated people about reality and the larger terrifying things that this you know moment in her life to have to do with her own life and the bigger issues happening in this country at this moment and I do I mean I I really think

[31:56] people are feeling that after they see that or they get activated to think about it John you've been out of prison a whistleblower for a number of years now as you've been trying to raise awareness through the things that you do with the radio show and the books that you've written what's the power of theater here as you call it the power of theater is immense it's immense you know we can't whistleblowers are not going to have access to the whole

[32:28] country all at one time you have to educate people one at a time and that's hard work well theater the power of theater is such that it has such a broader reach because because as Christina said you know people people love the the play then they start googling and then they start telling other people about it they go on social media and start talking about it the New York Times writes about it that's the way you educate people you know my ex-wife gave me

[32:59] some advice when I was first arrested it was in my darkest day and I think it's really appropriate here she said you have to keep talking about this even after they stopped talking about it because eventually your side of the story is going to become the side of record and then people will see the truth in what you did and I would give reality the same advice keep talking about it get the word out there keep keep educating people because they're going

[33:31] to talk to others and then eventually Americans are going to understand national security whistleblowing and they'll come to finally appreciate it so in the Netherlands not many people watching this show eventually might know where the Netherlands is so that's in european union that's in europe but in this small country the Netherlands there was a play called if I translated taken by the bank which deals with how financial institutions would drive people to ruin over debt and how they're without any

[34:06] scruples and but they were touring the Netherlands delivering it in all kinds of theaters so Christina what's gonna this play is gonna go on for another month or so can you tell us how long this play is gonna run and where people hang on hang on where people can see it and also if there's plans after that well at the current place at that which has now been extended essentially like six weeks at this Broadway theater it goes um through February I'm sorry through January 19 and then it we're touring

[34:39] it up so a bunch of places in the winter in the spring um throughout the U.S. we're going to Minneapolis and um and arbor and Austin Texas and California and then it actually goes to London and to Brussels which just has a big um avant-garde theater world and then we do this run for three weeks in Melbourne um and then that then there is a decent chance the people working with it right now really want to bring it back to New York because it's been so well

[35:11] received so nothing's definite yet but that would be the hope that it can come back in another long run in New York but in the meantime we'll go off and do it um in places like I said around the world in the U.S. had you any idea that this might happen when you're reading that script and the idea of holding your mind so I'm gonna play a play no I mean not at all I mean I made plays and I definitely that's like my work but none I mean we talk about this all the time this one felt so truly experimental I mean you know we it could have had a week long run last

[35:45] January that's when it first premiered at the show that Anne Brittany and her mom and stuff were at and but from almost the first night there we realized there was something really special with this content you know and by the end of that first the it's first week which we thought really could have been its only week we already knew there was going to be more life in it so people just really responded I think again at this moment in American life to hear like this kind of document that exists that's so about a human being in a particular moment of life operates

[36:17] on this amazing micro level and then of course again these huge issues like you all are talking about so yeah we never expected it at all to keep having this life and it feels incredibly amazing that this show of ours in particular because its reality story is the one that is just getting more and more opportunities to be seen by people good for you and now you're talking to the Netherlands about your play so this is this is this is totally cool and I agree with you John this is the way to make to make to gain more public knowledge about these about these matters

[36:51] through art yeah so any anything so John you're definitely saying over I want you in the talk later on with with Thomas Drake also who's going to be on in a little while but in closing Brittany if people want to voice their support or want to read up what's on the on the situation of reality what should they do where can they go well a couple weeks ago I spruced up her Wikipedia page to include some information about who she is as a person maybe a little context into

[37:27] again why she had so many Arabic books or you know books on Islam in her apartment and so to kind of put the human touch on a lot of what people might have been hearing through the news I also added a picture of her on Wikipedia so people can see her there's a lot out there on Twitter as well Wendy Mir is a fantastic advocate so is my mom so you know following anything to do with with a reality winner in their handle on Twitter I believe the Facebook

[37:59] is also going going strong and then there's also a stand with reality.org which is another kind of website that people can go to for more information I also recommend that everybody read the piece by Kerry Howley on Reality Winner John you you're a linguist you told me that the reason that you one of the reasons that you did your job properly in in the war in Iraq and whatever you did there was because you're a linguist as well you know your languages so

[38:32] did that backfire in any way also? You know an old boss of mine at the CIA once told me that I was cursed with the ability to speak Arabic I jokingly complained one time why do I always have to go to Khartoum in Sanaa why can't I go to London in Paris and Rome and he said that's the curse of speaking Arabic well the curse of speaking Arabic put me on the ground in places where frankly the CIA had secret

[39:09] prisons or liaison relationships with torturous regimes and so you know I guess if you if you look at the entire equation speaking Arabic put me in a position where where I had to make decisions whether I wanted to be consumed by by the illegality and hatred that had taken over the CIA post 9-11 or whether I wanted to stand up and object to it and I chose to stand up and object

[39:40] to it after after I led the raid that caught I was a beta in Pakistan in March of 2002 and I objected to the torture program I was actually passed over for promotion and I very angrily went into the office of the deputy director of the counterterrorism center and I said, what do I need to do to get promoted around here? Do I need to catch bin Laden? And he said, it's that you displayed, these were his exact words, a shocking lack of commitment

[40:12] to counter-terrorism. That was because I declined the torture training. And I said, but at least I can sleep at night. Well, I became known as the human rights guy, which was not a compliment at the CIA. And finally, I was given what's called a field promotion and out of cycle promotion because you can't catch someone that is supposed to have been the number three in al-Qaeda and not get promoted. So they promoted me. But I became branded as the only person really

[40:44] who cared about human rights in this so-called war on terror. And it was not career enhancing. All right, Kristina, last question to you. Where is the play? How can people get tickets? How long does it run? Yeah, the play right now is at a place called the Vineyard Theater in New York City. So I think if people Google Vineyard, it's immediately easy on their website

[41:14] to find the tickets for the remaining run, which is through January 19. And then I think if you go to our company's website, is the best place to follow it for going where it's going to go to all these venues throughout the US and then the sum in Europe and Australia. And that is halfstraddle.com. H-A-L-S-T-R-A-D-D-L-E.com. That has the information on all the venues we will travel to.

[41:45] Excellent. OK. Any last things you want to say here, Brittany or Kristina? Maybe Kristina first. Thank you so much for including me in this forum and for covering this content. And with people like you have on here today, I think obviously there are two people who have a really specific relationship to this. And I think at the end of the day, it's always been about discourse around reality and these issues. And I think as much of it as continue can happen, that's the thing that's over the long game is, as you all said, going to hopefully change

[42:17] some of these policies and ways we think and act on this stuff. Yeah. Sorry. I'm the amateur host that didn't kill his phone. And I told my bridge crew, Jonathan, here, turn off your phone. Turn off your phone. You don't want to think the wrong. I forgot myself. Thank you, Kristina, for being here. Brittany, any last words from you? I'd also like to thank you guys for having me. Nice to meet you, John. Nice to talk to you again, Kristina. And I'm looking forward to seeing the play in Ann Arbor.

[42:48] I'm traveling to Michigan. So I'm super excited to see it again. It definitely affected me very, very much emotionally the first time around. And yes, it's my cat in the background as he decided to pay as a visit. So yeah, thank you so much. And I'm looking forward to seeing it again. All right. Thank you both. So yeah, for being here. Excellent. John, don't go away. Brittany, Kristina, have a great day. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Bye, everybody. Bye, bye. So they're now leaving the conversation.

[43:19] So, John, we have talked earlier this year. You are one of my first guests on this small podcast here in my home. Yes, indeed. How are you doing now? How's life treating you? Life is going to be good if I can get through January. What's up with January? I've got four different court dates in January. This never ends. Once you fall afoul of federal law enforcement,

[43:50] it just hangs over your head like an anvil. The FBI raided my house in October. My ex-wife and I are involved in a custody battle. So she called the FBI and told them that I was hoarding weapons. 22 FBI agents raided my house. They took everything, my phone, my car, my desktop, my laptop. I'm speaking to you on an iPad because I have no computers here anymore.

[44:21] They punched a hole in the wall of my kitchen. I mean, a hole like this big, looking for weapons. They took my mother's 12-year-old laptop. They took my external hard drive with 6,000 pictures of my children on it. It took everything. It took everything I had. So I've got to go to court on the 10th, on the 15th,

[44:52] the 27th, and 28th all about this custody thing. The crazy thing is they raided me and they took everything. And then they never charged me with any crime. And my lawyer kept saying, what are they going to find? What are they going to find? I said, nothing. I have nothing. I've done nothing. He said, even a little bit of weed, if you have any weed. I said, no, I don't have any weed. I don't have any drugs. I don't have anything. I didn't do anything wrong. This is a custody battle. Do you feel they're coming down extra hard on you

[45:24] because of the pest that you have as a whistleblower? I'm 100% certain of that because as they were raiding the house, one of them turned and said to me, we know all about you. And I said, bring it on. I'm not afraid of you guys. I said, I wasn't afraid of you guys in 2012. I'm not afraid of you today. You should have had that second donut today instead of harass me. So we're going to court. And then as soon as we're through January, my lawyers believe that I have a federal case against the FBI.

[45:57] So I'm going to sue the FBI in February. OK, cool. You are a linguist. You have worked in the Middle East. Now, not too long ago, news came out out of Syria that there was supposed to have been a chemical attack in Douma in Syria. And the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, the OPCW, went there, found nothing,

[46:29] but reported that they found chlorine anyway. And whistleblowers now expose that. And it's still not making the news. What's your take on that OPCW story? I followed the OPCW story very closely. And it's not just one whistleblower. It's 15 whistleblowers, 15 investigators who were involved in the investigation on the ground in Douma. They found no evidence of a chemical attack. Now, the final report was changed so that it was altered

[47:02] so that it does not conform to the actual evidence that the investigators collected on the ground. When the report was published, the investigators went public because they said that they could not sit by and see their own findings warped by politicized analysis. This is an ongoing theme, especially in Syria and especially as it relates to chemical weapons. There is a narrative in the West that Bashar al-Assad gasses his own people. That is just simply not true.

[47:34] This is another issue that I've followed very closely. The civil war in Syria and the aftermath and the fallout from that war in Syria. The United States very simply, and not just the United States, but other Western countries, very simply are on the wrong side in Syria. There are, I think we find ourselves in a situation where there is no good guy. And that's fine. There doesn't always have to be a good guy. But there can be a guy who is less bad than the others. Well, the US has chosen to throw its lot in with al-Qaeda

[48:09] and elements that have broken off from al-Qaeda. All they've done is to change their name. You can call them al-Qaeda. You can call them the al-Nusra Front. You can call them whatever you want. They're still al-Qaeda, and they're still terrorists. And they're now the recipients of US weaponry. And that's just simply wrong. Now, Bashar al-Assad, for all of his faults, is literally the only thing that is standing between the Syrian Christian community and complete annihilation. So do we really want to be on the side of al-Qaeda

[48:40] and other Islamic fundamentalist groups? Or do we want there to be peace in Syria? Because we're going to have to pick the side, and so far we've picked the wrong one. OK. Now, when I talk to you, at that time, things were going on in Venezuela. So if we move there, and I stress the fact that I'm going to do now again, because we're going downhill with optimism, right? So this is a New Year's Eve conversation. I want to see the optimistic things going on in the world

[49:13] as well. And you closed that interview like nine months ago. And you said, you want to talk about the embassy, what we're doing on the Venezuelan embassy. I said, yeah, yeah, what's going on there? And you said, well, we're trying to protect that thing from our own. Law enforcement people, so civilian people went into the Venezuelan embassy to keep the thing safe at that time. So how did that play out afterwards? It did not play out well. It just so happened that when I left the embassy,

[49:46] I was one of what was called the Venezuelan Embassy Protection Collective. I left the embassy, along with a handful of other people. Some stayed inside. And about four hours later, the embassy was attacked.

[1:00:00] number of whistleblowers and digital dissidents. Okay. And that was played, that play was quite, quite acclaimed in terms of the stage rendition of it. Yeah. But I would add one thing to that too. Tom and I, along with Jaisalyn Radek were the subject of a documentary film called Silenced by Jim Spione. That ended up doing well. It had quite a long run on Netflix and Amazon

[1:00:32] and was nominated for an Emmy Award. That's another thing that I'll be forever grateful for was Jim Spione coming into my home that year and really telling the story. It was also brave on his part because there were so many people who didn't want to touch either one of our stories. Yes, absolutely. Many were afraid to, they were afraid of the truth. Has that changed by now? I think there is a growing awareness in terms, I mean, that's one of the sort of the silver linings

[1:01:03] in all of this. The publicity itself, the fact that it's become more publicly known helps people inform themselves in terms of what's at stake. The question is, what will people do with the information? And power does not yield itself, right? Willing, it's not gonna give up power very easily. If anything, it's gonna protect it and grow it. And so no matter where that power comes from. But yes, the documentary silence was in fact, it highlighted John's case, my case,

[1:01:35] as well as Jess and Radax. There was another PBS, the US PBS frontline, did United States of Secrets. It was a three hour special in which I was threaded throughout the first two hours. And it also had extensive interviews with Bill Binney and Kirk Wiebe and Diane Bork and Ed Loomis, the other NSA whistleblowers. I was ultimately the only one charged on the Esmeajak. And it would be remiss for me. I mean, there's some, it is surreal for me to say this,

[1:02:05] but even Jelson Radak, when I was so publicly charged, and then publicly indicted after being secretly charged by the government for having quote, unquote, exposed state secrets, that was all, had five counts of the Esmeajak against me and obstruction of justice and making false statements which in themselves were false. That whole thing was framed, of course, by the FBI, which also raises other questions

[1:02:36] about those who ostensibly stand up for the truth. But when I was so publicly indicted, the only person, she knew there was one person at a time, you have to remember, it's kind of hard for me even it's all these years have gone by now, that was the spring of 2010. So I was only the fourth American at that time who had been charged as a non spy, but under the Esmeajak, the first person was Ellsberg. And she knew there was only a universe of one

[1:03:08] who understood exactly what I was going through. And so she introduced me to Ellsberg, I actually met him at DC not long after I was indicted and we hit it off right away. And then of course, full circle silver lining, I did plead out 240 hours community service, one year probation, and although the judge didn't know at the time, I ended up interviewing veterans from World War II to the present day and probably one of the most extraordinary of the interviews, it was the longest one

[1:03:38] for the Veterans History Project, the Library of Congress. No one had interviewed them for the Library of Congress's Veterans History Project until I came along. And so I had about a six hour plus interview with Ellsberg in his home, you know, out in Northern California. It was an extraordinary interview. If you go out to the Library of Congress website, Veterans History Project, you'll actually see the interview as well as about three and a half dozen other veterans. Okay. Now, Ellsberg is now regarded as one of the most,

[1:04:11] as a journalist of the most integrity, pretty much out there. And I feel the same way about you, both of you, the way you're keeping awareness going and relaying your own story. Now, before you joined, Thomas, John and I were talking about what's happening currently with the OPCW and presumed a poison gas attack in Douma, Syria,

[1:04:43] which wasn't a poison gas attack, was a fake report, pretty much. Nobody's reporting on that. So press still is not reporting on new stories the way I see it. How do you look at that? Well, unfortunately we have too much of the press. It doesn't really want to get to the truth of what's behind the news. In fact, this is very Orwellian where you have Newspeak where you present... Hang on. Hang on, do you want to say something?

[1:05:14] Oh, sure. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I just, I have to leave for work. So for me, I've got to go. Great to see all of you. Have a happy new year. All the best of luck in January. We'll talk again. I look forward to it. Bye-bye, guys. Take care, John. Take care. Bye-bye, Tom. Yeah. He was too modest, too much a gentleman to interrupt. But we had to say goodbye to him. Okay, carry on, Thomas.

[1:05:44] Well, Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, right, his pen name. You know, he was a freedom fighter. He was a repentant colonial officer. He had seen what happens with empire. He had seen what happens when freedoms are taken away from other people. And he began to write about it. And, you know, the famous 1984 book, which to me is more relevant now than ever. It's something I've actually lived on a very personal level. I keep, that's one thing I keep putting out there when I talk to people as I go around the world

[1:06:16] to various conferences and in front of university students and other fora. I bring up 1984. And it's not just science fiction. He saw, I think he really did see based on his own experiences. I mean, context is everything. But in many cases, things have actually gotten far worse even since he wrote that book. And although 1984 is actually a few decades ago, it's actually more relevant now than ever. And he referred to something called news speak.

[1:06:48] And it's sort of a double entendre, right? That news is not necessarily real news. The news is intended to manipulate. And so often what passes as news is really propaganda. And propaganda, especially when you wrap the truth in a body of lies to quote, unquote, protect it. I put air quotes around protect, really to hide it, becomes extraordinarily dangerous because then you get people to believe it. And when you get people to believe propaganda as if it were the truth, then that's a form of the big lie.

[1:07:20] And history's not kind when it comes to big lies, but it's meant to manipulate. It's meant to manage perceptions. It's meant to divide people. It's meant to cause confusion, something from my military, but, you know, fog, uncertainty and doubt. And then it's like, well, what's the truth? How do I know what is true? And it really takes dogged investigative journalism to get behind the truth. And that's not always easy,

[1:07:50] especially when it comes to power. Power wants to protect itself. And my concern is that increasingly you have organs of government and organs of the press who simply begin to spout the lies of those in power. And it's very concerning, especially when you have mainstream platforming, right? But you also have a number of others, so-called independence, who themselves fall into the same trap.

[1:08:22] It's like both sides end up engaging in a very similar way, sort of the narrative counter-narrative. And the narrative is not, it doesn't matter what the facts are. And in fact, what are its representative facts are usually intended to maintain the official narrative. So the narrative becomes a story that turns into what's supposed to be the truth. And then the truth is actually propagated as a lie, but you're supposed to believe it as the truth.

[1:08:54] So it doesn't really matter? Well, no, facts don't have anything to do with actually exposing the truth. Then we're all living a fiction. And I think that's the real concern and that's what Orwell addressed, right? What kind of reality are we living in? Well, let's turn that to a real-life example of something I cannot understand what's going on. What's with that Trump whistleblower situation? Well, this is where I do believe and there's some interesting dynamics.

[1:09:28] Member, I accept that there is a person and there are names out, there's a name out there, there's actually more than one whistleblower, quote unquote. I do accept, what's interesting about this is if you're looking at how Trump has reacted in others, then there's gotta be something that was actually said-shared through channels that must be at least close to the truth. Why would there be such an extraordinary response

[1:09:59] to take out- and take down the whistleblower, whistleblowers. Look, I went through the same type of channels. I actually went, it was the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act has been updated since my whistleblowing, except this one actually made the press. In my case, it was suppressed. I went to Congress, but everything was suppressed. And it's surreal for me, because I was speaking about crimes that were actually willfully committed by the up to and including

[1:10:30] the president of the United States and those around them. Highest levels of government. They were actually impeachable offenses. They were in violation of the Constitution, but it didn't rise to a level what Congress cared, because they were in on it. They were in on letting the executive branch have extraordinary sway. Here, it's become highly politicized. There, you had both sides. So now, you're weaponizing each side against the other. And it's just quite extraordinary. We've actually, the president is impeached.

[1:11:00] That will always be on the historical record. Whether or not he's acquitted or found guilty, we don't know yet. The articles have not been turned over. It's a very interesting clause within the Constitution in terms of our system of governance. But it's just extraordinary. The weaponization of truth and lies, it's both. So how do you tell the difference? This is where, and I'm the first to acknowledge

[1:11:31] that if you look at those in Congress that are in positions of power, there's a lot of hypocrisy. Because where were they when I blew the whistle? Where were they? Look, some of the people running for president right now, including Bernie Sanders, literally crickets when directly approached about my case, would not touch it. Wonder why, right? This is Bernie Sanders, right? I used to live in Vermont. I remember growing up when he was the mayor of Burlington.

[1:12:04] But he would not say anything. He would not. My perspective here on the politicians is quite cynical. Even those who apparently adhere to a message that resonates with, in this case with Bernie with a working class, quote unquote, I just have to take everything any politician says with significant grains of salt.

[1:12:34] All right. Just before we continue, allow me to introduce somebody you know already. Here's Bailey. Ah, Bailey. You have to take it out of, yeah, there you go. Hey, Bailey. Hello. Hey, Bailey. Hey, mom. So for the audience, this is Bailey LeMond calling in from Canada. All right. And you... Yeah, our friendly, our friendly Northern neighbor that we, you know, we have the longest, well, now it's semi-guarded, but the longest border between two countries that doesn't have,

[1:13:05] well, there aren't some fences along the border, but yet I consider, I consider, I really like Canada. I've been to Canada a few times. So yeah, welcome, Bailey. Thank you. We were just coming out of a conversation about the Trump whistleblower and Thomas touched upon impeachment. Thomas, I wanted to ask you, even impeachment appears to be weaponized now. Yes, I, yes, it does. I read your... I keep reminding people, right? I would, I could easily argue

[1:13:35] that the previous administration under Obama and the previous administration to Obama, Bush, they engaged in all kinds of conduct, both front door and back door that rose to the level of impeachable offenses as defined by the constitution. Yeah. But yeah, Bush was quote unquote the patriot and Obama was a nice guy, right? Then we have Trump. So yeah, it's a very interesting and very concerning and disturbing dynamic.

[1:14:06] When it, I mean, I'm reminded of the late Philip K. Dick. You know, he's the science fiction writer. I'd actually just finished the Amazon series in terms of the Man of the High Castle, which is based on his book, which actually is a what if of history where the United States did not win, win prevail in World War II and the United States was split between the Imperial Japanese and the Nazis. It's extraordinarily dark series. But he actually said quote reality

[1:14:38] is what continues to exist whether you believe in it or not. The problem is what's reality? So my take on that is when truth is stripped from reality all that remains is a wallpaper of lies. So yeah, if you want to shade truth, you know, with multiple veneers of lies and then that's presented as a truth because that's the only thing you often see unless someone strips the wallpaper

[1:15:08] so you can actually see the truth behind it. Why are people so afraid of the truth, right? So that's where facts don't seem to really matter when it comes to any narrative, including counter narratives. And so this is where we live and look, I just had an experience, I will share with you. It's really, it's the first time it's happened to me, right? I mean, there are certain conferences I am not invited to, but I've never had a situation. This happened a little over two months ago

[1:15:39] where after being officially accepted for Australia's premier cybersecurity conference held in Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia in the state of Victoria, at the last minute, actually just days before I got an airplane to go there down under, I was literally removed as a speaker. I was gagged. Well, it turns out long story short the person who literally took full responsibility in front of their own parliament was Rachel Noble.

[1:16:09] Not only she was the current, she's the current head of the Australian cybersecurity organization, right? But she just got nominated and accepted to head up their NSA equivalent ASD, their signals directorate. Wow, interesting, isn't it, right? In terms of power. I mean, it's just, I was declared in, that my presentation was incongruent, right? Yep. My presentation? Wow, I guess, and I didn't even go there

[1:16:41] to speak about whistleblowing, went there to speak about the golden age of surveillance. So dissent is increasing stigmatize and of course my own past was being held against me. That's the millstone burden that I continue to carry, but this is the first time that I was actually gagged. It's a really strange feeling. I have to tell you that, like they're gonna silence me. The irony is that there have been so many attacks on the press down there that they were starting to wake up as much as they were attempting to continue to give the government due deference.

[1:17:13] I was on every major independent as well as mainstream media outlet, morning shows, national radio. They couldn't get, in some ways they couldn't get enough of it because this was an example of a foreigner coming into the country who was not allowed to speak. So far more people found out about what I would have spoken about than those who would have actually heard me talk about what I was gonna speak about. If I hadn't been gagged, I mean, this is sort of what's called a Streisand effect. I was just gonna say. Yeah, so that's just, hang on, that's the cool bit.

[1:17:45] You're intimidating, which is a compliment in itself. And for me, with this little channel that called podcast, so we're gonna air it through other channels as well. This whole thing revolves around the truth coming out. And so it's gonna win anyway. So it's a very, it's an easy podcast to run. Yeah, but see, power, it's interesting. I mean, that's one reason your podcast is so critical to informing people and for historical record. I keep talking about, it's that long arc of history.

[1:18:16] It's important to serve as I witness. I trust that in the end, that long arc of history does bend eventually toward justice and I now like to add in mercy. But along the way, it takes hits. Along the way, it gets shot at. Along the way, power will try to hang you off that arc as they did with me and others. And it's just interesting when you confront power and the abuse of power, especially power over others and that's really what we're talking about.

[1:18:47] But when you once, when I personally experienced, once again, the power of power exerting itself, literally ordering the conference sponsors to keep me from speaking. The irony of course, I was, I could go, I went there as a delegate, they call it a delegate. So I, they still honored, I think the conference sponsors were extraordinarily embarrassed by it, but it was literally in order given by the head of their cybersecurity agency.

[1:19:20] I mean, it was just extraordinary. And yet I was in sessions in which the media, ironically enough, were actually banned. Nothing was discussed, it was classified, but the media couldn't attend sessions that I attended as a delegate. It was just, it's just upside down inside out. All right. Okay, thanks. Remember, this is important. It's important, you know, power, I wanna, there's something here, I realize I don't, I limited on time, I can hang in probably for about another 15, 20 minutes or so before I need to get ready to go to work.

[1:19:51] All right, I still need to work. You have to remember that power doesn't get its power. You know, though you, used as instruments, like in my case, I blew the whistle on mass domestic surveillance. It was an extraordinarily well kept state secret. It was approved at the highest levels of the US government, up to and including the president. It doesn't get its power from turning people into informants or using informants. It doesn't get its power from even punishing crimes.

[1:20:23] Those are just tools of the state, because that's where the real power resides. We have to remember that. Use the real power. Power over others is the real power. So how you have to ask the question, and this to me gets back to 1984, then how does it wield that power? How does it wield the power in the first place? Because the power is only real power when it actually has control in the first place. So what, here's where the real power is.

[1:20:57] That's with us. Some would argue it's when, I remember I'm using, this is sort of the empire language, okay? I say empire. It doesn't matter what the empire is, it could be eastern, western, and everything in between. This is not restricted to just US empire, although it practices the fine arts of control quite well. All right. It has to do with language. It has to do with owning what's inside your head.

[1:21:29] That's where the real battle is. You're on the roll. Okay. Thanks for that. I want to go to Bailey, because Bailey, one of the two reasons that I invited you in here, the other one is your chair to the Pirate Party International. We're going to talk about that one when we have Marqueta Gregorova of the European Parliament in. The other reason that I invited you here is that you're writing a book. Well, you're doing it with me. We're doing it together. And would you please explain what that thing is about and the role that Thomas has in it? Yeah. So, okay.

[1:21:59] First of all, well, thank you so much for having me. This is, it's really cool to be here with you guys, and I already love the conversation. Yeah, just philosophy. I love it. And I feel like everything Tom is saying is definitely true. I'm not done yet. Yeah. And that's the good part. There's more. So, the book, yeah, Rico, this is actually your idea at first.

[1:22:30] You sent me a message one day and said, let's write a book. And I was like, yeah, let's do it. And basically, the book that we're working on, it's about, well, it started as a book about whistleblowers specifically, right? And it still is, but it's kind of expanded since then, hasn't it, a little bit, into the transparency movement overall. So we have lots of different stories from different whistleblowers.

[1:23:01] Tom is in there. I wrote a chapter about Tom. And yeah, so we have all of these different whistleblowers from different parts of the world, from different institutions, European Union, like obviously NSA, CIA, just all of these different agencies and institutions. And it's interesting because you get to see kind of how these things play out in different

[1:23:32] settings and stuff. And what are the processes that are supposed to be there? What are the reactions? And you see a lot of similarities, some differences too, but a lot of similarities. And like I said, it's kind of expanded because we're also going to be working on a chapter on hacktivism and on FOIA and all of these other things that are very much a big part of the transparency movement, but aren't necessarily whistleblowing specifically. Or they're, you know what I mean?

[1:24:02] Like Jeremy Hammond, for example, is not necessarily a whistleblower. But you know, it's thanks to him that we have a lot of information about things like strat horror and things that are completely related to a lot of leaks and stuff that came from other whistleblowers. So these things are all very connected. And with the individual cases as well, we see, you know, different similarities and differences.

[1:24:33] And yeah, so that's our book, that's what we're writing about. And we're trying to keep it very accessible. We want it to be something that's easy enough for anybody who maybe is not so familiar with these issues to be able to pick it up and read it and learn a lot. And so we're trying very hard to make it accessible and at the same time talk about the important issues that are there. And yeah, it's going well and I'm really excited to finish it this year.

[1:25:09] And the finish it this year, now we're in a hurry. We have a couple of hours to go. Yeah, no, I mean, I don't mean like we're going to finish it out sometime this year. No, it's like priority. All right. One of the first, maybe the real the first person that I interviewed in this new concept of this podcast. After I got my table in so I can't show it right now, but this table here, this thingy, it's actually a chest. And one of the first people that I interviewed was Thomas Drake and asked him, you have on

[1:25:40] your Twitter, you have, you have this thing. What is that? And on the bottom is hope. And he and Thomas explained to me, well, that's Pandora's box. And you need to open that thing and let the bad stuff out, let the pixies out, let the smoke out. And after the smelly stuff comes out, there will be hope on the bottom. So Tom baptized my little table chest thingy to be Pandora's box. Now when we had that conversation, like almost a year ago, I hadn't thought of a book about

[1:26:11] transparency the way Bailey just described it. It came a couple of months later. And then Bailey took that interview and she's knowledgeable and the other information she knows and turn it into a chapter. Thomas, what's your take on Bailey's writing capabilities? Well, I shared with her, you know, she wrote it up and then sent it to me for, you know, any updates or edits, but she certainly captured the sort of the essence of what I was describing as what my experience being in front of Pandora's box and then opening it up and then having

[1:26:49] the abyss staring back at me and all the theories are escaping. And that's really the myth of Pandora's box. But it was extraordinarily true that I was willing, as uncomfortable as it was, right, having to confront it, I knew I couldn't remain silent. I would have to speak about what was staring back at me and what was escaping that was in essence polluting who we are as human beings. And this gets back to seizing the power wants to seize control of truth itself.

[1:27:26] I think this is something I want to really, really emphasize. I'm increasingly focused on this is what is it that drives power for those who have control over others? They want to seize control of truth itself. And so that means if you want to seize control of truth, you have to redefine it as whatever we say it is. So if we say whatever we say, that is the truth. That gets back to Orwell's double think and double speak.

[1:27:56] And so you have to falsify much of what actual reality is to hide the truth. But you can't really do that unless you seize control of truth itself. And that's in essence what's at stake. It's really the truth of who we are, but also what we really are. Ultimate power wants to control who we are and ultimate power ultimately wants to control the truth itself. I mean, that's where Lord Acton I think is right. Power does tend to corrupt, doesn't always, but you put power over others and it's

[1:28:30] extraordinary. I mean, I was well aware of what happens to people in power. There's something weird that happens as part of the pathology of powers when you have control over others, whether it's small or large, like up to and including the president of the United States or heads of state or those unelected in the background. Even simple things, right? Power itself is extraordinarily pathological, especially when it involves control over others. And so my concern is what happens to truth in all of this?

[1:29:06] And I think part of what it does is it shuts people down and they start to look at all this. How do you sort it all out? And it's critical, I'm full circle, thank you, Bailey, and thank you, Rico, for creating a now vehicle of transparency in which truth can actually ride along. I mean, you do have to protect the truth, but you also have to reveal it at the same time. You can't protect it to the point where you can't see it.

[1:29:38] You can't protect it to the point where it's hidden. It must be revealed. And that's really where Pandora's Box is. For all the ills of society and all of, you know, inhumanity of mankind against itself, it's important that we keep the lid open. It's important that we keep staring into the abyss, even when it's staring back at us and is uncultivated. as comfortable as it is, is all those fears are whizzing by and hitting us in the face. It's at the hitting us in the face. But we actually have to take the common action of keeping that box open,

[1:30:11] because if power wants to control the truth, it wants the lid shut. And if the lid is open, that it doesn't want the transparency that's provided by keeping the lid open of the box. And that's why once all of those lies, you wouldn't say lies, then what's left at the bottom? Well, that's where that's lies hope. And it's interesting turn, right? The lies are actually are actually subverted by the truth. And so to me, any revelation or transparency of truth is a subversive act.

[1:30:46] And we need more subversive acts. Oh, that's what we're doing happily, even from here, talking to the United States, talking to Canada, happily prying open Pandora's box and enjoying the smelly stuff coming out, laughing out, talking about it, talking about it the way we are. But there is so in closing then, Tom, because you're off to work. I talked to you Bailey like yesterday or day before yesterday. And you said, well, 2019 to you felt like a down year to pretty much to you

[1:31:17] and pretty much everybody around you. Thomas, in closing, how was 2019 for you? And how do you perceive 2020 coming up? Well, speaking of Pandora's box, I think we've only seen the beginning. I think in some ways 2019 is actually a prelude. So I think the question is in terms of our own history. I'm talking history worldwide. The trend lines are not positive. The trend lines are not good and have not been for some time.

[1:31:47] There's an increasing, if what I saw down under is any indication, right? They're even further along that we are the United States. And they don't even have a constitution, you know, let alone a bill of rights. There is no bill of rights, right? There just isn't. The constitution as it exists is nothing like what the United States is. And, you know, it's, it was created with all kinds of false employables in terms of even who we are. And it was a grand experiment. The trend lines are not positive. I'm really concerned about what does it mean?

[1:32:19] Because a lot of people just want to see everything burned down, right? They really do. And I keep going back to, well, then who are we in all of this? What really does matter is what I'm increasingly focused on. It doesn't matter what the governance structure is. It doesn't matter what the ideology is. It doesn't matter. Given my own ordeals with the pathologies of power and treatment as a trader. I've dedicated the rest of my life to the hopes and freedoms and ideals

[1:32:50] and inspire all of us. Obviously that means you've got to subvert the lies with the truth. Because I'm focused on the best of who we are. I'm focused on what we can be together as human beings along that long arc. But that long arc is made up of who we are, both our individual sovereignty and our collective moral agencies. We have mutual interests. This is our lifeboat. It's the third rock from the sun. We have any able rights. How dare anybody take them away?

[1:33:20] Simply because they want to control us. Tom, thank you for being here. You are a beacon of hope, if ever there was one. I'm just going to keep shining my light. I'm not going to keep under a basket, right? Take care. I see the light on top of the box in your studio. I'm smiling. We'll talk again. Thank you for being here. Have a great day. Take care and thank you, Bailey, for moving it forward. Oh, thank you.

[1:33:50] All right. We're all in together. All right. Take care now. Bye-bye. Okay, Bailey, Tom is going to leave the conversation. We're writing that book, and in it we're going to do a chapter on journalism. Now, in walks Lorraine. Here we go. Lorraine. You know that Lorraine and I are never awake at this time, right? But we did it for you.

[1:34:21] We have to test audio still though. We can see you, Lorraine. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Oh, excellent. There she is. Oh, great. Yeah. It's early morning for every guest so far. Lorraine, can you aim your camera? A little bit lower, just an inch? Yeah, cool. Excellent. This computer is not full of subtleties. That's as good as it can get. Thank you for waking up for this thing.

[1:34:51] My apologies for doing it early morning, but we are going to talk to Kazakhstan as well. So yeah, we were kind of in the middle of this. You have to do what you have to do. You're from Canada, right? Yes. Okay. Bailey is from Canada. So who did the honor of introducing Lorraine and also her role in the book? Yeah, so this is Lorraine Murphy, aka Rain Coaster. She's a journalist and she's written a lot over the years

[1:35:22] about digital issues, digital rights, hacktivism, whistleblowing, and like all sorts of different topics. She's super awesome. She's a friend of mine. And yeah, Lorraine's amazing. And I don't know what else to say other than that. Was that a decent introduction? So hang on. I've removed you from the screen for one second because we've changed the couch layout for a bit. Yes.

[1:35:52] There you go. Now you're back. So I'm going to be the techie here from... Switching the couch. And we're here. Well, again, could you step out, please? He's going to be back. So this is Jonathan. Hello, I'm Jonathan. Yes. Hi. You've met... Yeah. So Lorraine is going to be writing a chapter for the book also on journalism and the role of journalism. When I catch up with everything that I'm supposed to be doing. Yeah. Join the club.

[1:36:22] All right. Good. I don't feel so guilty. I still feel guilty. I am like the worst right now. So when I introduced this New Year's Eve podcast concept also to Lorraine, she said, Oh, I have a thing of two to say. Can we talk about the current state of affairs in the United States in Canada unemployment, the divide in society? Well, that's what we're going to talk about. That's the next topic, if you will, for the coming 15 minutes.

[1:36:57] Maybe you want to kick this off, Bailey and Lorraine with Jonathan here from the Netherlands. Please. Well, where do we even start? Well, start with the impeachment thing because it's only, it's divided across party lines without any content of what's going on there. The impeachment thing. So, okay. So like, first of all, okay.

[1:37:27] So my personal opinion here is like, so I support Trump getting impeached. Absolutely. However, I feel like a lot of what's happening now is a lot of background noise. And I don't understand why this didn't happen much sooner. It's been three years, Zomolstadt, the end of his term, and yet, you know, kids in cages and like all of these horrible things that have been happening was not enough to start the impeachment process.

[1:37:58] But this Hunter Biden thing was, and I guess for me, the impeachment stuff is a lot of background noise. And it's kind of distracting from a lot of the issues that are there and have been there for a long time. But don't get me wrong. Like, I support it. Like, I'm all forgetting rid of Trump. It's just, I feel like it should have been done much sooner and I don't understand why. Well, I do kind of understand why. This didn't happen sooner.

[1:38:28] Well, we have lower standards than we used to. Yeah, that's why I mean, like, look at Clinton. Okay. Clinton lied to Congress and that was really why he got impeached. Yeah. And I support impeaching presidents who lie to Congress. But does anyone think that this Ukraine thing is the first time that Donald Trump has ever done something like lie to Congress? Well, yeah. We have lower standards. I mean, obviously, people actually support Donald Trump.

[1:38:59] Clearly, we have lower standards than we used to. Yeah. George Stephanopoulos, for God's sake, who's a television host, was a Rhodes Scholar. And the rumor persists that Donald Trump paid someone to write his Wharton papers. And I believe that because look at his writing. Yeah. It's the deranged ramblings of a man who lost whatever he once had. He's a television star and that's all the American people

[1:39:34] demand of their leaders nowadays. America gets the leadership it deserves. Yeah. And, you know, I'm sitting here in Ontario with Doug Ford in charge. Oh, God. I'm sitting here in a glass house throwing stones. But I think that things have changed, not just in the last 20 years, but in the recent years. passed in the last year because people used to support Donald Trump. I'm seeing them saying

[1:40:05] different things now before it was any time you said anything bad like putting kids in cages is bad. Oh, you just don't understand. He has so many important things on his mind. No. Now those same people are saying it is wrong. Yeah. Yeah. There's a house not very far from me here in Ottawa, the nation's capital that used to fly a bunch of Nazi flags, not swastikas, but you know, the, what is it, Britain first and all of those kinds of things. He had like eight flags in his yard. Someone shot one of them. And

[1:40:42] now all he has is a Canadian flag. And I just think that's kind of awesome. We didn't hurt anybody, but you know, he can have his symbols and we can have ours. And once we've had that dialogue, he can make his choices in like, like take them all along. I do wonder about the Donald Trump impeachment. Will this impeachment ultimately help Donald Trump or will it stop him in any way? Because to me, it feels like this impeachment is doomed to fail. And it will actually improve his popularity

[1:41:15] because he can then say, well, I was impeached, but I was acquitted. And now there's nothing so I can continue on. I don't see any way he can be acquitted. They have the votes and they have votes that are so determined to get rid of Donald Trump that it almost doesn't matter what proof there is, although the proof is pretty clear that he's guilty. The the underdogs who thought Donald Trump was their guy are realizing that he turned on them as he turned on every single person who's ever made

[1:41:49] a deal with him, which may or may not include Julie and Assange. We'll probably talk about that later. But I don't think he has that wide base of support. You know, they used to say he could shoot a man in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it. And now he can't because they're bird dogging him and they have finally stopped squabbling amongst themselves and knuckled down and said, well, it's basically a choice between the U.S. Constitution and this megalomaniac. Which one are we going to choose? And nobody wants to be seen

[1:42:24] with the megalomaniac anymore. I'd love to know where Steve Bannon is right now and who he's talking to and what he's saying, because he must be losing his mind, because this is more or less the only thing that can stop him. Steve Bannon is probably somewhere talking to the next president then because he's sitting on a tropical island with Julie, Julie Maxwell, you know, chatting about Jeffrey Epstein. This is a ridiculous statement, but we live in ridiculous times, don't

[1:42:56] we? That's the thing is it's not it's not out there at all. This is the time we live in. Yeah. And it's also good to keep laughing about things because don't let the world get you down. But there's one thing that bothers me about the whole Trump impeachment thing. I'm not a fan of the guy either. Let's get that out of the way first. But his election is sort of a product of something brewing and certain movements in society. And I'm just so afraid that if he gets impeached before

[1:43:30] that movement has run its course, then it will just come back again, and perhaps even worse. That's a legitimate fear. But I, like I said, I think that the tide has changed. And I think that that movement has broken one of the things that has been propping up these nationalist, racist, fundamentalist movements around the world is a lot of money flowing out of Russia. And I'm seeing that slowing down now. I mean, they did hack the DNC.

[1:44:04] They did interfere with the voting process, which is all electronic in the US, which is a very unfortunate thing. And I'm seeing them being thwarted more and more. And the homebrewed spontaneous movement, which was always there, I mean, the US invented the KKK has been running out of steam. The people there are saying, no, he's been bad for us. Uncle Daddy

[1:44:34] lost his job. And, you know, they just cut our food stamps. And we didn't think he was going to do that. We thought he was just going to mess with Washington people. So I think he is responsible for the undercutting of his own popularity. Is Trump has a half life and people are just realizing it now that we passed that point. That is from then the worst precedent will ever have or is it possible that we can get an even worse precedent in the future in the United States?

[1:45:04] I wouldn't put anything past America at this point. I'm almost scared to put that sort of thing in words because it's like when you say the name of the demon, the demon materializes. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Let's hope that this is it. Talking about torture and stuff. We also have a problem with Assange Assange is a whistleblower. And recently in the news, there was news that he was mostly constantly sedated in

[1:45:38] prison. And does the US have a role in his capture now in the United Kingdom? Is there something going on there? Can the president help him or not? Because I know that President Trump was at one point was a fan of Julian Assange during his campaign. He said, well, Assange is a great guy. And now he seems like to want to get Assange. Do you think Trump can help Assange or will he make it worse for him? He could, but I don't think he's going to he's screwed over

[1:46:10] every man who's ever made a deal with him. And he's going to do it to Julian Assange. I think he already has. The the net go around Julian Assange was in place two presidents ago. But it's it's being drawn tight now because Donald Trump doesn't need anything else from him. Donald Trump truly believes he will not only be reelected, but he will be raised to heaven in a chariot of fire. And, you know, and he was literally looking into making titles so that Jared and

[1:46:43] Ivanka could inherit government roles when he died. The petition, this is a man whose megalomania knows no limits. He doesn't need Julian Assange for anything. Julian Assange is a loose end. And that is why this is all happening now. The British were never going to go into the Ecuadorian embassy to get somebody on a charge of bail jumping. I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's like invading a foreign country because of a J Walker. This was a huge

[1:47:13] diplomatic deal. It called into question the whole idea of sanctuary, which is still at risk. And I mean, if one president gives you sanctuary and then we get a new president, is he bound by that? Well, he's supposed to be. But Ecuador's like, no, no, we change your mind. Yeah, it's watching things happen around Julian Assange has been very frightening. Jeremy Hammond, they got Chelsea again. Chelsea

[1:47:46] was just minding her own business, doing her own thing. And they got her on a bullshit contempt of court charge. And they can keep her effectively indefinitely. But she and Julian, or she and Jeremy Hammond will never break. I'm so proud of both of them. And I'm very interested. We'll never know. But I'd love to know what Adrian Lama would say in this case, because they're all being gathered together to be witnesses in the case against Julian Assange. That's the

[1:48:18] only reason they've got these people. And they would have gotten Adrian Lama, too, if he hadn't died under mysterious circumstances. I mean, I do think he died from the official cause of death. Well, the official suspected cause of death, which is a drug interactions. I mean, it was it was Adrian, that was likely on any given day. But the timing is very convenient for a lot of people, because I think Adrian would have said some things that would have surprised people at this trial, some things that were

[1:48:50] different from what he said before, which is very interesting because he could very well have transitioned from a snitch to a whistleblower. Those two concepts are very closely linked, but also antagonistic. Is it just a matter of perspective? If someone's a snitch or a whistleblower? Or is there a specific definition for one or the other? Like I would not say Julian Assange is a whistleblower. I would say he's a publisher. He's a publisher of whistleblowers leagues and a protector of whistleblowers. But he

[1:49:22] himself isn't a whistleblower. Is he a journalist? Is he allowed protections? He's a journalist. He's allowed those journalistic protections, and they have not been afforded to him. Exactly. I want to just stay there. Okay. This is just a couch conversation or whatever. I'll just could you in closing of this segment, could you both Bailey and Lorraine tell us how you see the extradition hearing of Assange play out in

[1:49:55] 2020? And also, could you Tell us how you how you're now looking at the presidential elections coming up and how that thing is going to play out They maybe maybe maybe start So, um Yeah, that extradition hearing honestly, um, I Don't know. It's it's so hard to say like on one hand. I think that he is Is totally going to get extradited to the US and that there's no question

[1:50:30] On the other hand, I don't know. I there's a chance that the British courts could stop it I guess so, but I really feel like he's probably going to the US and that's a complete shame and I mean just like on top of the situation now in prison and his health and all of these things he can't even he can't even like From what I'm from what I'm hearing like he he can't even communicate with his lawyers all that well because he's in such bad health and he's like

[1:51:06] isolated all the time and It's just he can't he's like not really able to Prepare a defense for himself and I know that he has a legal team and stuff who are doing a lot of that work, but You know, like he's just Not My question is is this a designed torture to break him to to make sure that he will never be able to defend himself and To actually just yeah, let's really break him. I

[1:51:39] Mean, yeah, I I could get on board with that. Yeah, like I could I think that that's totally like constructed and intentional and Absolutely Because if they if they didn't do that to him if they didn't try and break him Then he would actually be able to prepare a defense for himself And it would be easier for his lawyers to prepare a defense and it would just be he would actually have a chance and I mean There's part of me that that thinks like, you know, maybe the extradition case

[1:52:13] Might not go through like I don't know that's the thing But I think that there's a much higher chance that it will unfortunately because there are much bigger forces and much more powerful people who Are working on this then I mean we even Know about I'm sure like I can't I can't imagine this being like a completely Just process I can't imagine everything we read in the press and that we hear about from

[1:52:46] Like people who who are actually going to the court dates and stuff Like I can't imagine that like that's actually all that's going on like there There's so much there has to be so much more going on in the background that we have no clue about and It's really overwhelming when you think about it And it's like depressing too and because you want to believe that due process exists and you want to believe that like you know, oh, there's like you know, there's this It has to go through the legal system and it you know, like there's due process and and

[1:53:20] It's all fair and and you know what I mean But it's just not the case and when you when you realize that and Tom Tom Drake talks a lot about this like when you realize that everything you believe about the system is Like not true and that that narrative in your head that you You know that you develop from a young age growing up in whatever society like when that gets broken down and

[1:53:51] Like you realize like the reality of everything. I don't know like there's just no going back from that and it's depressing and it's overwhelming but it's You know, I feel like I feel like a lot of us who follow this case understand that We're we're not seeing we're probably not seeing a Whole lot of what's actually going on in the background and I have no idea how that's gonna go. It's in February. I believe the hearing and

[1:54:22] Yeah, I just I have I have no idea What's gonna be some good news on that front? Yeah, oh again Referring back to the fact that we live in ridiculous times. Our last greatest hope is Boris Johnson. God help us Oh But hear me out hear me out Boris Johnson was aggressively against the extradition of the two hackers Ryan Oh, I can't remember now. I should have looked this up But there was a case where two hackers were wanted by the United States and they were wanted as much as Julian Assange's and

[1:55:01] Boris Johnson took to his Quarter million dollar column in the Tory graph, which he referred to as chicken feet Quarter million. Oh quarter million pounds. Excuse me. It's a half a million dollars. Anyway, I digress He took to his Tory graph column and came out very strongly for Keeping those people. He I believe came out in favor of Lowry Love Turning down the extradition request British people British laws British justice all of that sort of thing and I mean Boris is still a flaming nationalist

[1:55:37] So he might just do that He might on the other hand say well, I want to do Donald Trump a favor So it's Boris Johnson. It's a flip of the coin But he does have a record of opposing the overreach of US justice, but don't don't you think that it's the same thing as with trumpet Assange that these guys Just need the whistleblowers to bring down the current establishment just so They can that wasn't the case with the other two whistleblowers. It wasn't the case with Lowry Love

[1:56:10] Those people were not Useful to the British establishment at all they were a threat And some of them remain a threat to the British establishment But the British establishment actually did say no No, it's not right that the US can just point to anyone anywhere in the world and say we want him That's him and that's more or less what they're saying with Julian Assange So the question is does Boris Johnson want to be obliging or will he use this as a point of national pride and stand up to the

[1:56:46] US because he could use that politically very well He's very adept at that sort of thing. Yeah, but that's again doesn't go to the justice of the case at all Just this political expediency Yeah, but that's exactly it the point that he can make the decision is political leverage for him So it's all about the leverage and perhaps not that much about actual justice Well, it does have to go through courts and the British judges can be unpredictable More so than the US judges

[1:57:18] So we'll see I'm not completely pessimistic about it But I do think if the extradition is denied it will be appealed this will go on Help his health will get worse while he's in prison And there's no question that his treatment in prison is justification for a human rights appeal, but that will take years as well I'm my personally I'm wondering Trump's dead. Does this all stop?

[1:57:52] That would be an interesting question. Personally. I'm also wondering if the brexit's happening and uh, barris johnson really wants the brexit's happening Thus barris johnson wants actually to improve The relationships with the united states and will this be of influence in this case as well He certainly does. I mean boris Is or was an american citizen. He was born in Manhattan He wrote big column about how he renounced his us citizenship a few years ago

[1:58:23] But it turned out he hadn't actually done the paperwork. So for all, I know he may still be a us citizen Okay Yeah, the two of them may be getting their heads together about a new commonwealth They both of them will go rogue at on an instant. It is really unexpected Okay, and hey lorraine. Thank you so much for being here And getting up getting up early for us. Yeah Well, I have my coffee as you can see so as long as I have that everything's good. Well, what you're missing out on

[1:58:56] Bailey, I told you about olibola. Uh, where's the camera? It is at that street. That's the dot street. We have them here. You're missing these as well It's kind of like a dutch donut. All right. I had strew waffles earlier Our strew waffles are the best. They're really really good. So thanks for being here We're going to move on to our next guest marqueta gregarova. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Take care. Take care. Bye. Bye

[1:59:30] Yes, I'm gonna allow marqueta gregarova into the room. Okay, once we're in Hello, uh, yeah, let's let's Yeah, it's a little bit of catch shuffle. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Excellent All right. Um, so what we have here is the setup is uh, renko koppel who is uh Board member now to the dutch pirates I am, my secretary to be precise.

[2:00:03] And Bailey LeMond, who is chair to Pirate Party National, but they're nothing compared to our member of European Parliament, Pirate Wells Wessecad. Please don't say that we have the same value. And my cats. We brought a pro for this one. Oh really? I think she won, so. Oh cats. Hi. And I'm Jonathan. I used to be a member of the Dutch Pirate Party.

[2:00:34] I'm now more or less a freelancer. So I do stuff. I do stuff with privacy. Hi. Love your work, by the way. So Marqueta, could you tell us how your first half year, or three quarters of a year was? Oh, such a gross question as a starter. It has been very new, but very, very interesting. I think that we found a good team, which let me tell you, it's like the most important thing to start doing,

[2:01:07] you know, because you can't do it on your own and alone. And I'm kind of proud of my team, you know. So this is my way of telling them, thank you also. And well, of course, we had to wait till the commission is established and voted on. So we didn't really have any kind of new legislation going on. But so it was a lot of work, which makes me thinking, well, what will we do when the legislation comes to you?

[2:01:38] It was really interesting setting up in Brussels, you know, because I moved here because of the cats, so that he has one specific home. And yeah, I don't know, ask more specific questions. It's impossible to answer some specific question could be into your colleagues who used to be Catalan politicians and not definitely Spanish politicians, but still not allowed in European Parliament. So how does that work?

[2:02:10] Well, as you've probably seen and heard, there has been a ruling by the EU court that they pretty much starts the mandate and gets immunity. Once they are elected, so they were elected and thus they have immunity. So apparently they will hopefully and finally be able to join us. Of course, the Spanish government might not agree with that. So they might take it further in the court.

[2:02:41] I'm not sure about all the instances, but I hope that the EU will fight for their MEPs because they are democratically elected, you know. But now it seems it's on a good roll, you know, better than it seemed like two weeks before I go. Okay, there are 850 elected MEPs, I think. I don't know if the number is correct, but I think that was 850. But those people are going to do for them so that they can come and work basically. Sorry, the question was...

[2:03:13] Sorry, what have the European Parliament done in the last nine months to get their three colleagues from Catalonia in? Or have they? Or can they even? Well, we honestly can't. Of course we can make resolutions, but it has been mostly on the European Court of Justice because we are not an entity above Spanish law.

[2:03:46] We can't tell Spanish government what it has to do. Of course, the EU as the body passed its own legislation, then it might be then above the Spanish law, of course not above the Constitution, but above the Spanish law. But as I said, we didn't have commission. So of course no new law could have been produced to deal with this kind of situation. I'm actually not sure what will the respective commissioners

[2:04:19] do in this regard in the future, but maybe they should start thinking about dealing with this more because of course we see, let's say, very nationalistic tendencies in a lot of countries. This is not just the problem of Spain and Catalonia, which is of course historical and a whole other level. But always when there's let's say autocratic regime,

[2:04:50] it tends not to really support the EU costs. And then it's up to the other member states to decide whether I either want to stay with this country or want to help it to somehow move on and maybe overcome these autocratic tendencies. And of course I'm saying it as if I know what's best for them. I don't want to sound like that. On the other hand, I think that most of us can agree that democracy is better than autocracy. So if it is like that, of course we in the room, yeah.

[2:05:25] I think in general in the EU. And if it is like that, then maybe some legislation that will ensure that this will be preserved is should be happening. We'll see. I'm not a commissioner to decide that. I can just talk to them and they might listen. Marqueta, if you look at your job since you were elected, what has been the most fun thing and what has been the most gruesome thing about it?

[2:06:02] Honestly, the fun thing will sound boring. But I immediately know what I want to mention, what I love about the job. And that is that I have finally time and I actually am obliged to educate myself more on topics I care about and read more. Before I connected, I was reading like this book and I've read several more before that. And since I was in university or maybe even high school,

[2:06:35] but university, I didn't really have much time to read books or even like longer articles or whatever. I had time for just brief summaries because there was always so much going on, you know, it's cool that it work, etc, etc. And now it's actually my job to be on top in the topics that I want to focus on and to be really knowledgeable about them and educated and not just, you know, the basic knowledge of course the standard politician can decide

[2:07:05] based on just regular knowledge. And it's like, all right, we can be experts on everything. But if I want to really even persuade others in the topics that my point of view make sense, I need to have arguments, I need to understand the topic. So now I'm educating myself and reading everything and I really love it and enjoy it. And of course, someone might be like, well, so you are paid for reading books.

[2:07:36] Not really, of course, I'm still using that. But it's really like, I'm always dedicating at least like one hour per day to do this kind of stuff. And I want to do more, but it's impossible, you know, they have only 24 hours. So that would be the best part, through some part. There's more. It's a long list. Okay, so I will pick.

[2:08:06] Pick the number one. I will be really dedicated to do the work because of course, then does the, you know, moving and living in Brussels, but I will pick something in the work related to work and shit, that is meowing. And that is, you know, I am an idealist person with ideals, you know, kind of idealist, but I wasn't going there completely like naive, you know,

[2:08:37] that's, I don't know, everybody will listen to me that I will change the world and whatever. But still, when you see how the system is even rigged for especially the European Parliament, not to have any power, it really pains me, you know. So I'm now kind of also trying to bypass this and I look for ways to not really get stuck in the work that, you know, they want you to do.

[2:09:11] I will explain it so that you don't think I'm a paranoid crazy person. There is a lot of activities and events and committees and meetings that you don't really have to attend and it's really not important to attend them. And the only reason they are happening is to give the like image and the attitudes that something is happening and that you are working, you know, when in reality it's not true.

[2:09:43] For example, committees, committee meetings, of course, later on, sometimes there might be an important one. I'm not saying like they are useless completely or please don't quote me on that. But

[2:20:00] for the first time here, you know. And yet you have to deal with all these new things. I'm not talking about you specifically, but more like just the different parts there. No, it's actually the same thing for everybody, you know. Even if we are 20, 40, or 60, you are still, and sorry to all Buddhists, but you're still most probably living your first life, you know, that was my point. And we are all doing this for the first time. And of course, you can have some years of experience,

[2:20:32] but then even if you are 60 and you encounter Brexit, it's like very new thing, you know. You never experienced it before. And you experienced the beginnings actually when UK wanted to join so badly and couldn't for so many years because it has been vetoed by, you know, France and everybody. So I think that everybody is really trying to solve the issues at hand. And I'm not talking just about Brexit, but in general, the challenges of our time,

[2:21:04] the information age, you know, this information age and everything. But as we are all kind of new to that, I think that we need more like time and everything. And, oh, sorry, my cats scared me. And well, learn from our experience. And of course, transfer it to the other generations to let them know from our experience, you know. Now we are in the information age we are,

[2:21:36] it's even like easier to transfer the information and knowledge and know-how and how to do things. So I hope that we can use that like in the future. And I'm usually, you know, thinking more long-term than just, you know, five or 10 years, I'm thinking about whole new generations. But I know, I know, we are living now. Yeah, in closing and thank you so much for being here. What would be your, yeah, excellent. We talked like three quarters of a year ago, nine months ago

[2:22:06] and you were running for elections and hopeful and then here you are. It's very much fun to hear you talk about this from the inside. Is that funny? What's your, what would be your closing statement or remarks looking forward to 2020 to all pirates and other people watching you here? Well, I would definitely say that I would like to follow up actually on what you just said, you know, like a few months ago we talked like this

[2:22:38] and I was running for elections and I was like, yeah, we'll see, you know, and hopefully there will be more pirates and everything. And there are now more pirates. There are four of them, not just one of them. And, you know, I'm there even though I was talking just about it, you know, like a few months ago and I wouldn't expect that actually like precisely year ago, you know, because I wasn't even yet on the candidate list, nothing and now here I am. So my message would be like have hope

[2:23:12] and focused on everything you want and everything you want to achieve and in some way or another it will come. Like I always wanted to somehow help to make the world a better, more piratey place but I never had like a serious plan how to achieve that but I focus on the like dream and now I'm in this position and hopefully I will be able to fulfill that dream like that. But don't worry if your position is like different because maybe that position is helping you, you know

[2:23:43] following your dream if you're focusing on that a lot. So focus on your dreams in 2020 more and have hope. And for pirate party. Yes. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, Marguerite Gregorova and Bailey LeMond, both of you. Thank you so much for being part of this New Year's Eve, All Year's Eve podcast and all the best of luck for the next year. Thank you for having us. Take care, bye. Bye. Bye guys. That was cool. Bye guys. Now we're gonna take a small break here on our end.

[2:24:16] Just grab a smoke for those who smoke. Grab an olive oil for those who don't have. Grab an olive oil for those who have olive oil. Exactly, but people watching this will not see a break so if you need a sanitary stop, rush because we're gonna pause and then we're gonna continue with next new guests.
