 G'day mate, Porty here. Let's take it over to see what Tucker Carlson has to say when I explore the greater theme of under the heel of the liberal jackboot. I think that's the origin of conservative rage. No matter how many elections you win, no matter how many politicians you put in office, why is it that conservatives professionally feel like they are living under the heel of the liberal jackboot? So let's start off the show with Tucker Carlson. Then I've got a guest coming on at 6 p.m. Welcome to Tucker Carlson saying we told you about this on Friday night and then over the weekend we put it into some context. So we will summarize the story for you once more. Last summer, a group of American intelligence analysts working for the US government issued a report on the origins of COVID. They've been asked to and they did. Now these people work at CIA, NSA, a bunch of other agencies and they concluded that the coronavirus may very well have been manufactured in a lab by the Chinese military. Turns out that's not a talk radio conspiracy theory. As a factual matter it's a very real possibility. And if it's true, if that's what happened and again many highly informed people believe that's exactly what happened, that would mean the Chinese government is responsible for killing millions of people around the world and would also raise questions, obvious questions about motive. Why would China unleash a deadly virus on the globe? To the American mind that is an unimaginable thing to do but the Chinese government thinks very differently from the way that we think. And here's why America has been the dominant power in the world for more than a hundred years since the end of the First World War when Europe destroyed itself. Empires destroying themselves always paged way for new empire, something we should keep in mind at the moment. So American attitudes about everything are shaped by generations of casual affluence. We're in charge and we always will be in charge. That's what all of us assume. But the Chinese government does not assume this about us or them. Until fairly recently China was a poor country. There are still millions of living Chinese who remember seeing their neighbors starve to death during famines. As a result of that experience China is very aggressive and very ambitious in ways that your average State Department official from Bethesda could not begin to comprehend. So would a government like that use COVID as a bio weapon? Well, why wouldn't it? The coronavirus reshuffled the global order. It crushed the American economy. It made China preeminent. If China takes over the world and that appears to be coming, COVID will be one of the main reasons it was able to. So by definition you would think we would want to know where COVID came from. That's a meaningful question. But Joe Biden doesn't want to know. He ignored the report he ordered. He ignored the findings of his own intelligence agencies. That's bizarre when you think about it. And if you think that's weird, how about this? This February Biden cancelled a counter espionage program called the China Initiative. Now the point of that program was stopping the rampant threat of our national security secrets by the government of China. But the White House decided to very little fanfare that somehow that program was racist and therefore it had to end. That means the Chinese government can now spy and steal with impunity. Not since Franklin Roosevelt colluded with Joseph Stalin has an American president done anything like that. But Joe Biden didn't hesitate. And then he kept doing things like this. Now Biden says he plans to end tariffs against China, tariffs that Donald Trump put in place and that China has been complaining about ever since. And not only is Joe Biden ending tariffs against China, Joe Biden's Justice Department has just arrested the man responsible for those tariffs. His name is Peter Navarro. He was the most effective China hawk in the Trump administration. Last month, Peter Navarro was handcuffed at a Washington D.C. airport and dragged to jail in lag irons. Why? Suppose it because of January 6th. But Peter Navarro had literally nothing to do with January 6th. He wasn't even there. But Joe Biden didn't stop there. Steve Bannon was the other notable voice in the Trump administration warning about the growing power and malicious intent of the Chinese government. In November of last year, Steve Bannon was also arrested by the Biden Justice Department also on absurd pretexts. So take a step back. What's the message here? Well, it's unmistakable. Don't criticize the Chinese government or we will throw you in jail. Now, if you happen to be watching all of this from Beijing, as Chinese leaders definitely have been, you would be applauding. Joe Biden just arrested your loudest critics. How gratifying is that? Things are going well for you. You already control Canada, whose brain dead Prime Minister is effectively a Chinese lackey. Now the most powerful country in the world is doing exactly what you want it to do. You'd be thrilled by this. You'd be especially thrilled as he Joe Biden destroyed America's single greatest asset, which is its domestic energy supply and make the United States entirely dependent on Chinese technology for wind and solar projects. If you're the Chinese government, this is the master stroke. This is the checkmate. Once you control a country's energy grid, you control that country. And you would know that because you didn't go to Yale Law School and you know something about reality as a result. And by the way, if you're watching all of this from Beijing, you would find it especially amusing to have the President of the United States sell you his country's strategic petroleum reserve, even as he declared oil and gas off limits to his own population. If you could pull that off, you would know you were entirely in charge of the US government. You could make Joe Biden do anything. But of course, you already knew that because you've seen it in action. When American forces left Afghanistan, Joe Biden turned over Afghanistan's entire mineral wealth, which is vast to the Chinese government. That would include gold and coal and oil and gas, lithium rare earth minerals, resources the United States needs to make smartphones, automobiles, power or energy grid. But Joe Biden handed all of that to the government of China. And then he kept going. Biden also dropped the Trump administration's efforts to ban Chinese surveillance programs that poses social media apps. That means WeChat and TikTok. Then Biden approved licenses for Huawei, which is controlled by the Chinese government to buy auto chips. That gives the Chinese government even deeper control over the automotive supply chain in this country. One of our last manufacturing sectors. And then, as a humiliating flourish, a deep and groveling kowtow, Joe Biden signed a so-called climate pledge with China. China will ignore this pledge. Obviously, they already are ignoring it, but we will take the pledge seriously because that's the kind of country we are. And that pledge will further cripple our domestic energy production because that's what it was designed to do. It's all pretty amazing when you think about it, when you put it in context. Whatever helps the Chinese government, Joe Biden has dutifully done. Whatever hurts America's most important strategic interests, he has also done. But why has he done this? How did the Chinese government wind up with so much control over the United States president over Joe Biden's behavior? We've been mulling that for more than a year. And that's why, since October of 2020, we have been on the Hunter Biden laptop story. Because that seems like the key to this question. How the Chinese government got so much control over Joe Biden. Now, the tech companies have tried to censor that story at every turn. They're doing so again tonight. And it's not surprising why. They're beholden to China as well. But we've continued to pull those threads. So is the Daily Mail. In April, the Daily Mail reported that a whistleblower was in possession of 450 gigabytes of deleted material from Hunter Biden's laptop. The whistleblower's name is Jack Maxey. He'd gone to Switzerland fearing retaliation. We wanted to know more. So in April, we flew to Zurich to meet Jack Maxey. Here's part of what he told us. So you've taken a look at the laptop and you now believe that there are deleted files on that laptop that nobody else has seen, but that you have found and seen. Describe how you found these files. Well, my first purpose of this trip was to get the 128,000 emails of which 120,000 were in archives on the original visible portion of it. And to catalog all of the text messages, which most of which are also in archives. And we did that relatively quickly. I was just going to make copies for the Senate, the House and all the state AGs and see if maybe local sheriffs could start enforcing the laws that the feds wouldn't. And about day five of this process, one of my guys said, hey, Jack, I feel like there's more on here. Do you mind if I try some little tricks? And I said, sure, go ahead. And within 15 minutes, he's like, oh my God, we just got 10 gigabytes of this, five gigabytes of this, that and the other thing. Ultimately, we ended up with over 100,000 more emails that we've been able to scrape out of it. 80,000 images and videos. So you can say what you want about Jack Maxey and you can dismiss him by calling him names, but the story he was telling was really interesting, tantalizing in fact, given what we already knew was on the laptop. But for some reason, no one in law enforcement appeared to be listening or even care. But the Daily Mail kept going on this. Recently they said they gained access to a backup of Hunter Biden's iPhone from the laptop. And it's a good thing they did. It turned out to be a trove of fascinating information. It included a voicemail from Joe Biden to his son talking about a story in the New York Times about Hunter Biden's business dealings in China. Here's part of it. So the context for that is complicated. Here's what's not complicated. Joe Biden has said on the record repeatedly that he had no knowledge of his son's business dealings with China. That proves Joe Biden was lying. And we have a lot more on this coming up. But just know that. That voicemail, which apparently is real, proves that Joe Biden knew about his son's business dealings with China. That ought to be enough to spur a wave of media increase to the White House. Why did you lie to us? You haven't seen that. Now, the Times piece you just heard Joe Biden reference was published on December 12th, 2018. The story reported on Hunter's dealings with a man called Yi Zhiming. He led the CEFC China Energy Company until 2018. At that point, he was arrested on charges of corruption and economic crimes by the Chinese government, which is never a good thing. He hasn't been seen since. The government of China has seized most of CFFC's assets. One of his top deputies, called Patrick Ho, was also convicted in New York of bribing African officials to help Iran avoid oil sanctions. What a group. These are Hunter Biden's business friends. So why would Joe Biden have any interest in this? Why would he be concerned about a New York Times story on CEFC and Hunter Biden? Well, it could be for the obvious reason. Joe Biden himself was making money from this, from CEFC, lots of money. According to emails obtained by the New York Post from Hunter Biden's laptop in October of 2020, one of Hunter Biden's business partners, James Gillier, explained that Joe Biden would receive a 10% stake in CEFC, quote, the equity will be distributed as follows, he wrote, 20 to Hunter, 20 to Rob Walker, 20 to Gillier himself, 20 to Tony Babelinsky, 10 to Jimmy Biden, that would be Hunter Biden, that would be the president's brother, and quote, 10% held for the big guy, the big guy. So Tony Babelinsky, whom we interviewed for a full hour, he got a 20% stake of this deal, told us that there was quote, no question the big guy is who he's so obviously is. That would be Joe Biden. This arrangement meant millions of Chinese dollars for Hunter and Joe Biden. In early 2017, just a few weeks after Biden left the White House the first time, a company controlled by Yi called State Energy HK, sent $6 million in wire transfers to Robinson Walker LLC. Robinson Walker LLC was controlled by Rob Walker, one of Hunter Biden's business partners. Then in June of 2017, Hunter Biden emailed Yi demanding $10 million more as seed money for a new company called Sino Hawk Holdings. In August of 2017, another Hunter Biden controlled company called Hudson West received a $5 million wire from CEFC. CEFC also paid Hunter Biden's law firm, Owasco, nearly $5 million. These are according to bank records reviewed by Senate investigators. If we just pause here for a moment. In their details, these stories bear a striking resemblance to the Russiagate insanity that we were dragged through for years. Remember they go on TV and bore you for an hour with how all these things fit together and then this money went that way. But in the end, there was nothing there. Operating on the theory, which isn't really a theory, it's true that they always accuse you of exactly what they themselves are doing. It's kind of striking that the truth about what the Biden family, the President, his son and his brother Jimmy is almost exactly what they accused the Trumps of doing. Except in the case of the Bidens, they really were getting rich from a foreign power that means us harm. And it's not Russia, which is globally almost irrelevant, it's China, which is now preeminent. So to continue with the details, Owasco in turn sent the $1.4 million to Lion Hall Consulting. That was a consulting firm run by Jimmy Biden, the former nightclub owner, the President's brother and his wife. And that was just the beginning of the arrangement. Emails unearthed by the New York Post found that someone called the chairman, that would be ye, promised to pay 100 Biden $10 million a year for quote and we're quoting, introductions alone. In other words, leveraging his father's position in government to get rich. That's illegal, right? It's also a violation of the FARA Act, which the Biden administration has been enforcing against its political enemies. So Hunter Biden wrote to a CEFC official that ye had amended the deal to provide for quote, a much more lasting and lucrative arrangement end quote. These payments continued even after CEFC's leaders were arrested on corruption charges. Hunter's paid another $1 million to represent his deputy, Patrick Oh, even though he had no criminal defense experience because he was a lawyer because he went to Yale Law School because he's a genius. The one that your kids can't get into because they're not as smart as Hunter Biden. This is one corrupt system the Biden's sit at the top of. And if that's not enough, Hunter once referred to Patrick Oh, and we're quoting as the effing spy chief of China, according to leaked audio obtained by real clear politics. So here you have the President's son who's talking to his dad about his business deal with China, admitting the guy he is dealing with is the Chinese government spy chief. It's almost unbelievable. Joe Biden has sort of been asked about this. His response. I didn't know anything. Watch. Mr. Vice President, how many times have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealing? I've never spoken to my son. I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses. Period. Oh, you lie. And now you've been caught lying. So after the voicemail we played a moment ago surfaced a few weeks ago, proving that Biden lied, the White House was asked about this, not the president directly, but his publicist, the glass ceiling breaking publicists are always bragging about. Watch the response. Why is there a voicemail of the president talking to his son about his overseas business dealings? If the president has said he's never spoken to his son about his overseas business dealings? Well, first, I'll say that what the president said stands. So if he if that's what the president said, that is what stands. And second, secondly, but secondly, secondly business dealings. And he says, I think you're clear. How is that not him talking to his son about his overseas business We're not from this podium. I am not going to talk about alleged materials from the laptop. I will I'm not voice on the voicemail. I'm not going to talk about alleged materials on the laptop. It's not happening then that it is not Peter. I refer you to to his son's representative alleged materials so they can get away with that because no major news organization in the United States picked up the thread. We tried to we're a talk show. We flew to Zurich because we thought, wow, maybe there's something there. But the big newspapers completely ignored this even though it's been out there for a year and a half. And it's obvious it's not just about Hunter Biden being a crackhead who liked hookers. It's about the Biden family, including the president of the United States business dealings with the government of China, which seeks to displace the United States globally. So because no news organizations would take this up and because law enforcement agencies seemed completely interested, the FBI has had to copy this laptop for years now and done nothing with it. It's falling to people like Jack Maxey to find out what this is about. So on Sunday, a programmer who worked with Maxey posted a live stream video outlining his intention of dropping Biden's Hunter Biden's entire hard drive online along with clues for users to break into the iPhone and iPad backups. He put it on 4chan, which is some sort of website that basically not very moderated and it's kind of the website of last resort for people who want to get information out there, but can't because everything is so completely censored at this point. So even on 4chan, the moderators quickly took these links down, but internet users already ceding the contents of the backups on torrent sites. Bottom line, this is going to live online forever. It's not going away. Now is it real? We have no reason to believe any of these data are fabricated. We've not independently verified them. We're not putting some of this stuff on the air. It's salacious, but it's pretty obvious that the materials that we've looked at are real. At the same time, it's becoming clear that Maxey and his former coders are the only two people making any progress in investigating Hunter Biden's criminal activity. Again, the FBI has done nothing since obtaining the hard drive years ago. Meanwhile, it's raiding people's houses because they what supported Trump in the last election. And the tech companies, as always, are on board. On China side, once again, censoring any discussion of Hunter Biden's activities, criminal activities, some of which are on video. And if you don't believe it, try it yourself. Type in Hunter Biden weighing crack on a scale, which is out there. Type that into Google and see what happens. You'll get obscure results from random YouTube channels. When you click on Google's News tab, nothing from an American media publication appears. They're stepping on the scale. They're censoring information as they have from the very beginning. Why are they doing that? Because it matters. That's why. It's not about whether Hunter Biden was a druggy. Yeah, he was with a screwed up personal life and a weird person. Yeah, knew that. That's not what it's about. They're not protecting Hunter Biden. They're protecting this administration and the Trump prevent you from understanding this administration's posture toward China. Among the latest findings as reported by Andrew Kerr at the Washington Examiner are that, quote, Joe Biden wired $100,000 to Hunter Biden during the same time frame. Hunter Biden spent over $30,000 on Russian escorts who may very well be linked to an Eastern European human trafficking ring. That's a lot like that. But again, the real story is not that Hunter Biden is a crackhead who like prostitutes and underage girls, although that appears to be very true and law enforcement should look into it. But for the rest of us, that's not the real story. The real story is that the Biden family was getting rich from business with their enemies. They were selling access to the US government to China. And that is a crime. It's certainly a moral crime. As recently as 2020, Joe Biden denied that here his family had made any money from China. Watch this. Vice President Biden, there have been questions about the work your son has done in China and for a Ukrainian energy company when you were vice president in retrospect, was anything about those relationships inappropriate or unethical? Nothing was unethical. My son has not made money in terms of this thing about what are you talking about? China. I have not had it. The only guy made money from China is this guy. He's the only one. Nobody else has made money from China. So you spent so much time noting Joe Biden's creeping senility that you can overlook the fact that in his lucid moments, he's a liar, just flat out liar. That's a lie. In fact, it's a lie. So obvious even the Washington Post, which has carried water for Biden since the very beginning, had to correct it. According to the Washington Post, quote, over the course of 14 months, the Chinese energy conglomerate that would be CEFC and its executives paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle. That would be Jimmy Biden, the former nightclub owner. Are these guys experts on energy? What are the experts on? Nothing. Leveraging the US government for personal profit. That's it. And it's not just CEFC that funded the Bidens. In all, Hunter Biden made more than $30 million from entities affiliated with China's communist government. Hunter Biden's biggest deal with China involved a Chinese investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST or BHR. In December of 2013, Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew to Beijing. It was a government trip on a government plane. And that's when Hunter introduced his father to a BHR executive. Again, that's a flat out violation of law. You can't take Air Force Two to China to lobby on behalf of the Chinese government, your own father, full on crime. The Bidens denied it, but Hunter eventually took a 10% stake in that company, a stake worth about $20 million. Then a Chinese company called Harvest Global Wired another $5 million to another company controlled by Hunter Biden, this one called Burnham Asset Management. He's got more companies than your average mafia Don. According to Washington Free Beacon, Hunter Biden, quote, reached out directly to the firm's chairman and said the investment, and we're quoting, would be important to the Biden family, Biden family, including his dad, the vice president of the United States. So what's in it for Harvest Global? Well, per the Free Beacon, quote, Biden put together a financial proposal for Burnham to pitch to harvest that promised, quote, Washington DC access for investors. They're selling influence, selling influence with the US government. Again, not to Belgium, not to Swaziland, to China, the country that has the United States in its sites. They want to displace us as the leader of the world and they will be cruel masters if they're ever able to do that. Hunter Biden also co-founded a firm famously called Rosemont Realty. This is a good one. Rosemont Realty owns commercial buildings all over the United States. Now a Hong Kong-based firm called Gemini Investments later snapped up Rosemont Realty. Gemini was controlled at the time by Sino Ocean Land. That was chaired by the head of China Ocean Shipping Corporation or Costco. As Peter Schweitzer reported, quote, Japanese government agencies report that, quote, Chinese intelligence services are closely linked to Costco. Well, of course they are. And that's true of all big Chinese companies. It's not like the United States. They don't have independent big businesses in China. They're all arms of the Chinese government. Now, China's president, Xi Jinping, has called Costco and we're quoting the dragon's head for China. What did Hunter Biden make for doing this? About 180 grand. Now we know of most of this because of reporting from Hunter Biden's laptop, which now everyone admits is authentic. But for more than a year, you were not allowed to talk about the story. And now maybe you understand why. It wasn't protecting the feelings of Hunter Biden's family or making fun of his drug addiction or seeing pictures of him with M&M stacked on his private party or whatever. It was about China. And that's why the media portrayed it at the time as a conspiracy theory. Watch. When you look at this computer store owner in Delaware who allegedly received Hunter Biden's laptop, that is more in line with that. When you think about somebody who's a useful idiot, that's kind of the entry point that is kind of again a classic indicator of the potential presence of disinformation. Right wing media has been focused on Hunter Biden, this laptop that intelligence officials have warned or is likely Russian disinformation. Law enforcement is actively investigating whether the alleged Hunter Biden emails are linked to any foreign intel ops. The story is preposterous. So we're supposed to believe that Hunter Biden and a drunken stupor dropped off his laptop in, I guess, apparently QAnon repair office. So again, having been a rich country for over 100 years, Americans are not trained to think in geopolitical terms. We're not trained to think in terms of which country is more powerful than which other country. Who makes the decisions? Who's in charge? That's the way China thinks of everything. And so this story intersects with the single biggest story taking place generationally in the world. And that's the rise of China and the decline of the United States. And the Biden family participated directly in that shift of power from the United States to China. Now, in 100 years, this will all be very, very obvious. But in the meantime, do not be distracted. This is not about Hunter Biden arguing with a hooker about how much crack is on the scale. This is about our leaders, the Biden family and not just the Biden family selling out America, including its most precious assets to the Chinese government. Well, kind of interesting what's happened in Sri Lanka. You have seen an entire country collapse in the last couple of days on TV because they were dumb enough to implement the green energy policies that our leaders suggested they implemented. More on Sri Lanka, a fascinating story, believe it or not, after the break. Also, Tucker Carlson just went 27 minutes without a commercial break. Like, where else can you see a, you know, widely watched commercial TV show go 27 minutes without commercials? Now, of course, he lost most of his sponsors because he was a little too politically incorrect when he talked about Latino littering. All right? That got Tucker into big trouble. Just imagine claiming that certain groups may be littered more than other groups. Now, looking at the chat, there's a funny comment about Tucker's earpiece that is at the CIA giving him direction. I just don't think the CIA could create such a compelling show as Tucker Carlson does. I don't see the CIA as this particularly hyper competent, sinister organization. I think that there's probably some things it does competently, a lot of things that it does incompetently. But I think this desire to believe that there are federal agents behind everything is kind of looking to check out of reality. It's like, oh, everything's controlled. So at least I know better than everyone else. I'm smarter than everyone else. I didn't have to actively work in this world to make it better because it's absolutely hopeless because the forces of evil are running everything. So effectively, there's just nothing that I can do. So I have no responsibilities. I can just kick back and have the fantasy that I'm just smarter than everyone else because I know that the CIA is behind everything. And it's just not true for anyone who believes that that is solace because your life's not working. And so you want to believe, ah, the reason that my life is not working. I'm so supremely talented. I have such excellent judgment. My life's not working. It's because there are these sinister satanic forces out there are hoarding good people like me back, right? Here are some bizarre quotes on COVID while we wait for Tucker to come out of commercial break. This is from the superb podcast, Decoding the Gurus. They devote their most recent episode to Lex Friedman and Jonathan Haidt. They call Lex Friedman the techno monk. And Haidt, of course, is the esteemed social scientist. He's as confident as he is to say to you that almost everything we were told about COVID was wrong. And then that leaves us with one big fat question as to why. Why and how is it that almost every single Western liberal democracy made the same mistake at the same time on the same issue around the world? Either they're all incompetent in the same way on precisely the same mistake, looking at precisely the same data, all coincidentally at the same time. In other words, they're incompetence managed to somehow manifest itself at the same moment. Or somebody was giving them deliberately feeding them with incorrect information and somehow managing to get their compliance in selling us this incomplete information and subjugating us to comply or follow their orders based upon this incomplete information. I know what sounds more plausible to me, but one thing is for sure now that much of the data is out. Almost every single thing we were told was incorrect. So all the other countries, they all had this coordinated response and there's only two options that they were all incompetent in the same way or there's some coordination they've been given their marching orders. That's the only possible explanation. Sound logic. Sounds sound to me. Yeah. And that was him summarizing the conversation that he had with somebody who had a previous job with Pfizer and was involved in overseeing the drug manufacturer or whatnot. But let's hear a little bit more of how he frames things. These countries are all incompetent. Yeah. Now, actually, for me, the former sounds more believable than the latter. Yes. The thing that every one of them in every country by coincidence was incompetent doesn't really make sense to me. What does make sense is that there were political pressure because we know multiple times with history, not least the invasion of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, non-existing weapons of mass destruction. Yes, I remember. We know where political pressure has led to experts in their field presenting misleading or false evidence that has later been discovered to have been a lie. Scientists have turned up dead like Dr. Kelly. And yet we've invaded an entire country with this incredibly serious thing to do. Okay, let's go back to Tucker Carlson here talking about Sri Lanka. Fads, remember the self-esteem trend in American education? Wall Street is even susceptible to this. ESG is the latest fad on Wall Street. Now, ESG has no real definition, but in effect it requires companies and countries to shut down their most productive sectors in the name of climate change and equity. So because of ESG, Germany is now rationing electricity. Because of ESG, farmers are in revolt in the Netherlands. But the saddest victim of ESG is Sri Lanka. Once a prosperous country right off the southern coast of India, Sri Lanka has collapsed. Inflation is over 50%. Food prices are up more than 80%. This week, Sri Lanka's president and prime minister tried to flee the country. Citizens stormed their residences, went through their sock drawers and swam in their swimming pools. Now, it was just a few years ago that the World Economic Forum published an article entitled, and we're quoting, this is how we will make Sri Lanka rich by 2025. Weirdly, if you search that article online tonight, it's been deleted. Whoa, weird, covering their tracks, but not very well. So how this happened? Well, in April of 2021, Sri Lanka's leaders banned chemical fertilizers. Now, 90% of the country's farms used chemical fertilizers. So what happened next? A third of Sri Lanka's farms shut down completely. Now what happens when farms shut down? Hmm, quiz. Well, people starve. This is what the largest city in Sri Lanka, Colombo, looked like this week. That's what the Green New Deal looks like in Sri Lanka. Now we know what you're thinking. Oh, so pampered lifestyle liberals in the United States just destroyed something else. They did this Sri Lanka, what busing did to American education just absolutely wrecked it and then walked away like it never happened. So that's the downside. People's lives were destroyed. It's happened a lot. But here's the good news. Sri Lanka has a virtually perfect ESG score. Sri Lanka scores 98 on the ESG scale. That's more than double our score here in the United States. So we're going to step up our efforts to shut down farms. Peter Earl is an economist who follows all this stuff. Peter, thanks so much for coming on. ESG seems like the kind of idea that winds up in the pictures you just saw. This seems inevitable for any place that applies it. Yeah, definitely. And thanks for having me. What you see here is what's really happening in a lot of places, which is where you have ideologies and in particular, woke ideologies replacing prices and markets. You get these sort of classic misallocations of resources. So it's what's so interesting is that these ideas come from woke Western liberals who are so painfully sensitive on questions of race. They did this to an entirely non-white country, completely destroyed the country. Will they ever admit that and learn something from it and stop doing it to the developing world or will they just move on like it never happened? I think we have a pretty good template for that in the way they treat socialism. Whenever it fails, they say, well, you know, it wasn't real socialism. I'm sure they're going to say this wasn't real ESG. This wasn't a real green policy, something like that. I mean, that's the playbook. So Sri Lanka had a 98% ESG score. So like they won. Why aren't the people there happy? I mean, just because they're starving to death, but are there other reasons? Don't they feel virtuous and good about themselves? It doesn't seem like it. No, I have a feeling that you need a minimum of like 1500 calories a day to really enjoy the fruits of this sort of like intellectual atrocity that's going on over there. I wish I had Sandy Cortez's cell. I would texture those videos and say, is it the Green New Deal? It comes to Sri Lanka. Are you psyched? Peter Earl, I appreciate your take on this. Thank you, because it's true. Great to be here. So we told you story last week about a convenience store clerk in Harlem called Jose Alba, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who was working at midnight on a Friday, trying to give people a lot of tickets and beer and was attacked by a violent criminal, defended himself, stabbed the guy to death. He was charged with murder. But then the girlfriend or the criminal turns out stabbed Alba. Wait, she stabbed somebody and not even in self-defense? Has she been charged? Oh, no, she hasn't. Why is that? We'll tell you next. Okay, we'll come back to Tucker after commercial interruption. Sri Lanka should be feeling a lot better because they just thrashed Australia in a test cricket match. Just really did a number on the Aussies. Quite discouraging. All right, back to some hilarious quotes on COVID. We did it on a false premise. For me, what I have experience in, what I have evidence for is that these sorts of lies can affect entire countries and the decisions entire countries make and it's more likely that that kind of political pressure was deployed than to say every single scientist in every one of these countries made the very same mistake based on the very same incompetence and the same knowledge gap. That's a bit weird. Yeah, that's some masterclass conspiratorial reasoning there, isn't it, Chris? The first thing I'll say is that the conspiracists love to give examples of other incidents where powerful groups have been less than good with the truth, but the comparisons are usually extremely weak. I mean, the comparison to the before, yes, it was a very bad thing. The evidence for weapons of mass destruction was not there, but that became quite clear quite quickly. In the lead up to the war, certainly various factors were leading to CIA and intelligence and stuff like that, telling Bush what he wanted to hear. But weapons inspectors went in and they reported back that the truth became quite clear in a reasonable period of time. So that's quite a different scenario to what we're talking about with COVID, where every scientist, every medical researcher across the entire world, all working independently in their own research labs, etc. Okay, here's Hunter Biden arguing with a prostitute about how much cracky he's been given. He's unhappy he's being ripped off in a crack deal. I mean, I know that always gets me really furious. Man, it's so hard to find an honest crack deal of these days. I mean, they just don't make the crack dealers like they used to. It's pretty sad. We need an honest crack dealer. All either lying or he thinks is more probable, but they've all been gotten to. And I think to the conspiratorial mindset, that seems plausible and it's not. So you spoke about the conspiratorial mindset. So let's see if there's another set of figures who we might be familiar with who express a similar sentiment. Brett Weinstein and Heller Haim, what have they got to say? Right. So in any case, what you've got is actually effective pharmaceuticals that we are told are snake oil. And we have something that isn't a vaccine, which we are told is a vaccine that doesn't do the two most important things that it would need to do in order to control the pandemic and to explain why they would be mandated, which is to prevent you from contracting the disease and prevent you from passing it on. In other words, what you've got is the exact inverse of a recipe for protecting yourself, right? You could have done the right thing for your family, if only you had known that you should tune out the New York Times, the Washington Times. Yeah, they had all these secret cures or not so secret or all these dissident cures for COVID, but the pharmaceutical companies, they just shut it down, bro. Post the CDC, the wisdom here from Brett Weinstein, all the major universities, right? And so this is a problem because for most of us, we are not equipped to look at the entire range of institutions and say, they've all got it wrong. I mean, even my voicing that sounds perfectly insane. What are the chances that all the institutions got it wrong? And if they did all get it wrong, my point is we have to now go backwards and say, well, what could possibly explain that? I love that. The same as Majid, all the institutions, all the medical bodies, all the governments like Majid pointed out, they've all got it wrong. There's no other explanation why they wouldn't agree with Brett and Majid. There's no possible, it's ill or incompetence, or it's some coordinated lie. There is no other possibility to explain why they might not agree with Brett and Majid under cadre of alternative experts, right? Yeah, it's such a wonderful textbook example of motivated reasoning, isn't it? You start off with the ironclad belief that whatever, the Twin Towers were brought down by space-borne lasers or they faked them in landing, right? Because you've figured it out. Then you try to contort your understanding of the rest of the world to fit that premise. And with Brett and Majid, it's a good illustration of why the narcissism and the conspiracy theorizing seem to go together so often. That insane level of confidence in your own belief, I think is what the narcissism plays into. Okay, let's get back to Tucker Carlson tonight. Jose Alba came to the country from the Dominican Republic and 30 years later he was doing what he came to do, which is working. He's 61 years old and he had Friday night a week ago at midnight. He was working in a convenience store in Harlem when a violent criminal walked in in a dispute over a bag of potato chips. His girlfriend was trying to walk off with assaulted the much older Alba, threw him to the ground, grabbed him by the neck. Ultimately, Alba stabbed the guy, clear self-defense. The videos online, if you haven't seen it, you should watch. It's very upsetting. So then the thugs girlfriend shows up and starts stabbing Alba, not in self-defense out of rage, which is not loud. But the Soros-backed DA in New York, Alvin Bragg, charged Alba with murder, but did not charge the girlfriend who stabbed Alba. So after public outcry, Alba's bail was lowered, but he's still in home confinement. He's still facing murder charges. The video that we just got from the New York Post makes it very clear that Alba did everything he could to avoid a confrontation with this criminal. Watch this. I don't want a problem with you. The guy threw the old man down and grabbed him by the neck. Now he's facing murder charges. Vina Facel has served in Congress. He's now the borough president of Staten Island, probably the best borough. He's spoken out in defense of Alba. Vina Facel, thanks so much for coming on tonight. Are we missing details? This seems like an incredibly straightforward example of self-defense by a virtuous guy against a thug. You're absolutely right. This is wrong on so many levels. Those who know the trend in the New York City know that crime was on the rise. Bodegas, which this guy worked at, robbed almost once a day. They're in very confined spaces. They're vulnerable. They tend to be in very often low-income areas. And we also know that violent criminals have been let go. They get arrested. They're back on the street. And then along comes this poor guy, just earning a living, is threatened, assaulted, trying to defend himself. And if there's anything real and right in this country, it's the right to defend yourself or your property. And rather than arrest the woman who stabbed him, this poor guy is facing 15 to 25 years in jail. So what we did just a few days ago in Staten Island, some folks may not know. New York City is comprised of five boroughs, five different counties. Each borough has its own district attorney. What we said on Staten Island is that if you get attacked, if you're assaulted, you have the right to defend yourself. And what they may put you in jail in Manhattan, Staten Island, you'll get a medal. And for some reason, we have this alternative universe that's being created where the victim has become the criminal, and the criminals become the victim. And what you want to say is, let's get our city back, let this guy go, and let's get the violent criminals off the streets. That's our message. Well, I mean, it's pretty obvious that members of politically-favorite groups are just not going to be punished, no matter what. And this Alba was not a member of that group. So he is being punished. But how can you not, if you're the DA, how can you not charge the girlfriend who also stabbed somebody and can't even claim self-defense? That's totally revealing, I think. It seems to be just absurd to insane, you know, and anybody with a half an ounce of common sense looking at this video has to feel for this guy. And as I said, rather than charge the people who initiated this, threatened him, assaulted him, are now looking to put him behind bars for up to 25 years. Something's got to give. You know, NASA is releasing its web telescope today or tomorrow. They're going to release images of New York City to foreign land in so many pockets of this community. It's a great city. It's a vibrant city. But too often, we've ceded the streets over to the criminals. Yeah, it wouldn't be hard to fix it. Just do the obvious. Reward good behavior, punish bad behavior. It's not hard. I appreciate your bravery. Thank you. Thank you, Tucker. California is the prettiest state, not just in America, but in the world. It's run by lunatics and it's collapsing. One video you may have seen as if you haven't prepared yourself shows just how far it's fallen. Children wading through junkies as they get off the school bus. This is America. It's totally real not to be depressing. You should see this. We can fix this. It wouldn't be hard. But we're going to show you how deep the problem is next. Okay, we'll catch that right after the commercials. Back to this terrific Decoding the Guru's episode on Lex Friedman and Jonathan Hyde. And then the conspiratorial reasoning allows you to just float off completely untethered by reality testing. Well, it's also that point that you have to discredit all other sources of epistemic authority, right? So all of these scientific bodies, all of these experts are saying you're an idiot or you're completely misreading the evidence. And we've got billions of people vaccinated now, and we've got reductions in every country where vaccines have been taken. And you need to explain why the people should ignore that. And if you start with the premise that all of all of those sources have been compromised, that's a good way to basically say, if you hear attacks, it doesn't discredit me. It means I'm getting closer to the truth. Alex Jones does the exact same thing. He said, people attack me because I'm right. People are attacking you because you're a conspiracy theorist arguing something which is not supported by the evidence. And that's the case for both Majid and Brett. Yeah. And the need to defend is standing and their brand basically as a far-seeing source of truth. It's directly threatened. Every RCT that comes along showing that ivermectin doesn't work is another threat to his credibility. And they quickly reach that tipping point where there's no way to back down. You just have to triple down again and again and again and keep explaining. Build a bigger and bigger conspiracy theory to explain why everyone else in the entire world is wrong and you're right. Yeah. And there's this thing which also Brett and Hello Discuss were, and I've seen it quite recently in various conspiracy communities, particularly lab-like community and so on. They try to present that there's no incentive for them to argue with the consensus. There's no benefit to them to take that stance. So let's just hear them explain that. Right. And it should also be obvious to people as they look at the supposed consensus in front of them that those who have departed from the consensus have had terrible things happen to them. All of us who have departed from the consensus who are professionally trained in any regard have been dismissed as cranks and kooks and worse. We've been called grifters and all sorts of things. And so the point is, look, you know there is an incentive to stick with the conventional narrative. And then the consensus is trotted out as evidence that the pattern is very clear. And anybody who knows how to do the analysis will reach the same conclusion that the CDC and the FDA and the WHO and the New York Times and everybody else has reached. Right. But the point is, when you see an intense campaign that punishes people for stepping out of line, then you have to ask the question, what, you know, how, how durable, how meaningful, is that a Potemkin consensus? Right. Is that a paper thin consensus born of the fact that all of those who are capable of seeing the problem with it are afraid to say what they can see? So there's no incentive. There's no patron money that has been funneled to Brett. There's no anti-vax conferences. He's headlined. He didn't appear on Bill Maher and get invited to talk about vaccines despite having no relevant expertise or knowledge. He didn't go on Joe Rogan multiple times. I mean, this is someone who had no academic career, no research career, no public profile of any kind before beginning to take these contrarian stances. No academic career off public note. He was a professor teaching in a relatively small university. So he did have an academic career, but just not technically. Yeah. You mean like not an influential one. And yeah, that's what I mean. And he did not. So he's done well out of the Evergreen crisis. He got a public profile and he's done well in a certain segment out of COVID, right? But he's increasingly associated with the anti-vaccine movement. And that's because he is increasingly hiking the ride. I mean, he just headlined an anti-vaxing conference with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dell. Okay, the chat says, I don't get it. It is 40 being ironic. Why play Tucker Carlson who says powerful people get together to secretly do nefarious things and then play guys saying it doesn't really happen? Because guess what? The world is incredibly complicated. Sometimes Tucker is right. Sometimes academics are right. Sometimes the New York Times is right. Sometimes Democrats are right. Sometimes Republicans are right, right? There's no individual. There's no party. There is no class. There's no profession that is always right, right? We need multiple points of view. The sad humiliation of the state of California continues tonight. It's accelerating. Jason Rantz is a radio host in Seattle who's got that story for us this evening. Hey, Jason. Hey, Tucker. Truly alarming video was posted to Twitter depicting San Francisco students getting off a bus. It would appear to be the end of a school day walking through a maze of drugged up, filthy homeless people who took over a sidewalk reportedly on a public transit line in the Tenderloin district. Take a look at this video. Bye, kids. Y'all get home safe, okay? Tucker, it's shocking but not necessarily surprising as we've seen how homeless policies frankly put children at risk all across the West Coast. Parents in Portland, for example, they're complaining that their kids are picking up used needles at parks here in Seattle. Two encampments were set up on a school property. One housing is sex offender and the school board refused to sweep. So now you've got this latest video servicing on Twitter and it comes just days after the city of San Francisco announced that they were doing a $3 million pilot program replacing police with social workers on low-level 911 calls involving the homeless. But with the homeless getting more and more aggressive, it doesn't seem particularly safe. In fact, there's a recent incident in Los Angeles that shows really the dangers of all of this, an Olympic volleyball player named Kim Glass. She says she was attacked by a homeless man. She posted images of it on Instagram. Now, she's blaming the soft on crime approach to homeless crimes. But obviously, I think people need to be paying attention to this. Gavin Newsom, who presides over all of this, who made it possible for mayor of San Francisco thinks he's running for president in 2024. Totally, these people are delusional. So you should know, I appreciate all your reports from the Western United States. Thanks so much. Thanks, Todd. So a couple of years ago, Alec Stein was working in a totally different business. Then he got mad and decided to make videos on YouTube. Turns out he's hilarious and brave. If you haven't seen him yet, you definitely will see him. He'll show up at school board meetings in Texas, city council meetings in Seattle, drag shows for kids. Makes these amazing and very revealing videos. Anyway, for a brand new episode, Tucker Carlson said we spoke to him about how he started doing this and why. Here's part of the conversation. The guys you make fun of all the time, like Don LeMond, who's married to a white guy that preach white supremacy is the biggest problem plaguing America. When I left that meeting, I was like a pseudo celebrity. Everybody was coming up to me because that's what they want. When I go to these public meetings and I act a fool, I know what I'm doing is cringe, but I'm doing it on purpose in order to kind of help the levity of the meetings. These things are so ultra serious. All these politicians are so self-righteous and self-important. So when you go there and you mock them, it's how they treat us. They mock us, Tucker, especially. That's basically what we're under. We're under constant mockery and constant hypocrisy. So when I'm doing it, I'm mocking them back because you see the people that are talking, their kind of voice is trembling and they're kind of nervous. So when I do all that, the people that speak after me oftentimes are laughing and they're in a good mood and there's another video. Don't pull this one up, but there's a bunch of them. In Hawaii, I said, I did the same thing and I, you know, I was controversial in that meeting and then they didn't Fox covered it, not Fox News, but the local Fox and the person who's running the meeting said, well, I don't want to give Alexine Clout, but he helped the meeting help bring us together because in these ultra serious places, when you go and be a goofball, it's like being the class clown. You know, it kind of makes a class more fun. Alex Stein, a man who will be a lot more famous than he already is. Tucker Carlson today, 7 a.m. tomorrow, Fox Nation. More news in just a moment. Okay, let's get a little bit more from an excellent podcast. You need to hear people from different points of view. This is a podcast called decoding the gurus a couple of center left academics, big tree and various other anti-vaccine superstars alongside margin. That's where they are. No. No. Yeah, look, I definitely agree that the incentives in factor in the opposite direction. If you take any controversial hot button topic, it is always the contrarians, the ones that go against the mainstream that get a disproportionate level of attention, but basically people taking a controversial establishment, sort of pro Putin, pro Russia, anti NATO, anti Ukraine stance. There are respectable foreign affairs analysts who take that position and they get a lot more attention than their colleagues that are taking the more boring stance. But what about Marjid? I mean, Marjid has suffered. He's a bona fide conspiracy theorist and it seems, as far as I understand Chris, he's suffered professionally by being too extreme. I think his contract wasn't renewed at the radio call and show that he hosted, which was his main gig. So there's been professional consequences for him, but it took some time and also means to be seen what happens as his profile grows as an alternative commentator promoting conspiracy theories in the UK or far lower field. He may very well end up a David Ike style figure or he may fade into the background. It's hard to tell, but the David Fuller is right that the contrarian IDW it basically never acknowledges the huge incentive structures that exist to take contrarian stances, not least of which revolve around Joe Rogan appearances. Staking out a position that is I'm going to tell you something that nobody else will tell you is obviously more lucrative. Yeah, I mean, a great couple of clips there Chris. For me, the takeaway is once again, just wonderful validation of our gyrometer framework because really taking together those clips illustrated so nicely how the narcissism and the conspiratorial ideation and the undermining of other epistemic sources to enhance your own credibility is it's an interlinked complex, isn't it? These things go together. It's not by happenstance. They go together for a reason. Yeah, those characters, I think are definitely towards the more nefarious end of the guru pool that we look at in part because of the level of narcissism that's on display, but also because of the consequences of what they are promoting, anti-vaccine views during a pandemic. That's pretty bad. Now, the gurus that we're going to turn to look to this week, who are they? Who are they? Lex Friedman is number one and Jonathan Haidt, I assume he's a professor. Haidt. How did he sleep? I wasn't triggering your past experience living in Japan. I was just shocked to hear Haidt, he snuck in there. We didn't announce that we were going to cover Jonathan Haidt. What's he doing there? Yeah, well, Lex Friedman, he has his podcast or video tube or whatever it's called and has a lot of guests on. Has a lot of high profile guests, doesn't he? We decided to look at two pieces of content. One of them was a day in the life, just a solo thing with Lex Friedman talking about his regime and his tips for productivity, kind of self-help-y, slightly guru-esque, I suppose, because it is that optimizing yourself and providing that kind of personal advice, but we wanted to pick something else which was more representative of the content he produces, which is fundamentally as an interviewer, right? So we have him interviewing Jonathan Haidt and we covered Jonathan Haidt in our decoding academia episode. I think it was the last one, wasn't it? And yeah, we enjoyed that one. As I said in that episode, I didn't know much about Haidt. I seem to be the only one on Twitter who's not sort of all over Haidt, but I came away from that paper moderately impressed. He's a good writer, so it was good to hear him again. Yeah, so I think the point to make here is and to remind people a little bit, because they do need reminding on occasion, that our format is we take a piece or one or two pieces of content and we analyze them. We try to find pieces which are relatively representative of a person's output, but obviously when people put out tons of output, there's always going to be a certain degree of selection bias or other stuff that they do that we can't cover. And with Lex, we could have chosen an episode where he's verbally masturbating over Elon Musk or giving a metaphorical handjob to Joe Rogan, whatever the case maybe. But that felt a little bit mean, especially when we are looking at this day in the life content, which Lex put out and that's not as normal content and anybody doing a day in the life video, it feels a little bit cringy. And I feel like Lex knows that because of some of the things that he says in the video. So it felt a little... Yeah, Lex Friedman's got these strong controversial positions. He believes in love and he thinks the Nazis are bad at his end of Tucker. Tomorrow night, Hunter Biden called his stepmother, Dr. Jill Biden, a quote vindictive moron and newly released text. Is she a vindictive moron? We'll investigate. He also called it the forbidden word we can't assess. We'll see you next Tuesday. Here's Sean Hannity. That's terrible. All right. And thank you, Tucker. And we're the women's groups outraged about that. Interesting question. Good question. Shocking, you know, hypocrisy on a level we've never seen before. Tucker, thank you. All right. Big breaking news on multiple fronts tonight out in San Francisco. Open-air drug use. Look at this. It's gone from bad to worse. Now young kids are in the crosshairs. You won't believe this video. We'll show you tonight and explain. We'll also show you a disturbing video from Minnesota tonight, where young kids are seen berating police officers because they were executing a search warrant. You ever wonder what's happening to our country? And more developments tonight in the case of the New York City bodega worker. He is being charged with second degree murder despite more video evidence bolstering clear self-defense. That argument, all of that is straight ahead. But first the walls are now officially closing in on the imploding Joe Biden presidency because his prices rise as cost surge as you the American people continue to suffer under this failing far left extreme Biden. Okay. Sean Hannity says anything interesting. I'll cop back to it. I've got a guest coming on in a minute. Like a slight low blow to legs to look at that content. So we should take the high ground when we're looking at his interview. But the problem was with height that a lot of the interview is high as the case should be. Maybe with a good interview. So it ended up when we're clipping that a lot of the clips were height themed and it seemed like, okay, so we're going to be discussing heights phases, heights approach in a bunch of the content. So we're going to treat them together. Yeah, that's okay. That falls within our remit. We've done this before. It's a double feature and height. He's an intellectual figure. He's a commentator. He's quite well known. He falls within the bounds of being fair game for decoding the guru. We've had various requests to do an episode on height. I think in part because of his role in the heterodox fear and setting up heterodox Academy, writing the coddling of the American mind and so on. And I don't think we will do a dedicated separate height episode, at least not for some time. So this is what you get. We'll have a look at well or people's critiques of height or fair based on this content. It wasn't supposed to be a height episode. That's the point. It ended up a height episode. Yeah, well, it's half a height episode, half legs, half height. Good. So we're going to start with a day in the life and just to remind you about just got to go back. As I say, you are the voice of my conscience, right? So this is going to be hard for me because Lex, as you'll see, is something of a sincerity monster. Hi, I'm good. Nice to meet you. It's good to, it's good to meet you. So great sounding good looking good. So thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Thank you so much. So tell me about why you wrote, wrote this new novel that just just came out a few weeks ago, I believe. Yes. Wow. So I felt that it was a very important human story that needed to be shared. I think that there is a common human struggle that many people go through. And I'm a big believer in the power of stories and sharing them. And so I think that was really the impetus for why I shared the story. It's, it's a very difficult story. So I think that was even more of a drive to be able to sort of dig deep and really excavate a lot of lived experience and to share that in a vulnerable and open way that could maybe open up a pathway for other people to relate who have possibly experienced similar situations and then ultimately to provide a vehicle to share optimism so that for however difficult our lives may be, I think that we always have to hold on to the light at the end of the tunnel, if you will. Yeah. And so how would you describe your book to somebody you met in an elevator? So your new book is called Dispelling the Myth. How would I describe it? I would say that it's very, it's definitely for mature audiences. It's very controversial. It tugs at a lot of life issues. It may make one uncomfortable, but ultimately it provides a lot of insight and I think hope to overcome adversity and what often appears as insurmountable odds. Yeah. And so what got you interested in Judaism in the first place? Oh, wow. So that's really a whole life story. I'm hitting 50 this year, God willing. And the first time that God came into my frame of reference, I was six years old and some Jehovah Witnesses gave my family who I was living with a kids Bible. And so I read it and I was very enchanted by this concept of heaven and peace and unity and God. And then my father and his wife got into this very religious Christian world. So I grew up having to read the Bible almost every day of my life for seven years. And fortunately for me, I actually liked it. But it really just became a real core and foundation for me as a human being that has remained with me for life and it will. So I had some interesting teen years. And then I became a mother very young and married very young. And around that time, I went back to what was familiar to me, which was Christianity. But it didn't feel right, if that makes sense. And so God always felt right. Faith always felt right. But trying to orient myself in a religious framework that sort of felt right for me became a very important goal when I was very young. So I also though began to so I was doing the Christian thing again, when I was about 18 to 2019 to 20. And then I just couldn't do it anymore. I realized that fundamentally, it was not a truth that I resonated with, though I very much like Jesus. And I I love the idea of, you know, everybody has a different way of how they understand, in effect, the same truth. But anyway, I was doing a lot of spiritual soul searching. I really became fascinated with a lot of reading about Taoism and Buddhism and, you know, Native American spirituality. So I was really just taking in a lot of different world concepts. And then ultimately, Judaism just made sense to me, mostly at a spiritual soul level, but also I want to say at a on an intellectual level as well. And so I knew that this was what my soul expression would best be most compatible with. So you left a somewhat party lifestyle in Los Angeles, you moved to Sacramento, you moved next to a conservative synagogue, and you embarked on a conversion to Judaism. What were the things that surprised you initially as you start embarking on this journey to Judaism? Well, so I first started, I made the commitment to become Jewish when I was 22. And so from the time that I made that determination to the time that I actually embarked on the path in Sacramento, there was seven years. So in those seven years, I did a lot of discovery. And in that time was able to determine for me that I am a conservative person, philosophically and politically, religiously. And a lot of that is also motivated for my childhood, which I was exposed to a lot of, I want to say extremes, and I became very averse to extremes. So that sort of like a continuum of my own growth as a human being, that aside, for seven years, I did a lot of exploration into Judaism and was able to sift out that orthodox, well, I love the teachings because I knew them like the back of my hand to the, not all the 613 rules that came later, but the actual Torah. I knew that like the back of my hand, the actual doctrine and fundamentalism of it was something that I felt was a bit too much for me. And by the same token, I also felt that the reform was a little not for me. So what I ended up determining is that the conservative movement would be the best avenue for me, though interestingly enough, I've always, well, I chose that path to enter into Judaism. And also, I chose that path because I knew that I would be able to become a citizen in Israel as a conservative Jew through the Masordi movement. There were things that I didn't know, that I didn't find out till after the fact. Yeah. And, well, how long were you going to synagogue before married men started hitting on you? That's a funny question. And I feel like maybe that just seems like a problem that might be endemic to maybe it's parcel and it's command in general, there are good men and bad men. And, you know, I guess I've known my share of both. Right. But most people who don't know synagogue life well would be kind of surprised that a house of God married men are hitting on you. You weren't surprised when that happened? Well, when I was young, I want to say I was. Maybe I'm responding from an older jaded, been there, done that point of view. But yes, when I was young, I was very stunned by the fact that behavior that was exhibited by people, like I would expect that at a rave or a club, not at a synagogue. So yeah, there were a lot of interesting discoveries along the way for sure. Now, I know another beautiful convert to conservative Judaism and she told me that she was surprised that the Jewish men don't know their level. She was surprised by all these, you know, loser Jewish guys who are hitting on her while in non-Jewish life, you know, guys have a better read for women who are appropriate for them or not. And so part of it kind of admired the confidence of these Jewish losers. The Hoxba, the Hoxba. Yeah, the Hoxba. They were hitting on her. But a large part of her was just like, come on, don't you know that, you know, I'm way out of your league. So did you experience that Jewish Hoxba? Well, oh, wow. So if I'm being honest, and I think that's what you want. And I like to be that way. Anyway, I would say that, and this is a generalization, because I don't like to, it's a broad generalization. But in my experience, and we're looking now at almost 28 years of being in Jewish circles, I have found that Jewish men tend to be very Hoxba, and it largely is dependent upon how much money they have. I don't know how to say it. So I have, for whatever reason, I guess a lot of Jewish men with some degree of, you know, green have not ever really had any, like they've been very glad to hit on me and just be dazzled or whatnot. Another thing that I noticed about Jews is that they tend to be much more open with their passions. So if they want sex, they're much more, you know, obvious about it. If they want money, they're much more obvious about it. If they want fame, if they want honor, if they want attention, if they want to make you laugh, it just seems like Jews and Judaism both have much more sense of comfort with the natural passions. While from the Protestant upbringing that I had, it was much more about repressing your emotions, because if you didn't, it might show that you didn't have a good relationship with Jesus. Very Victorian, very beautiful point. Okay, so backtracking again. So I spent, like, my entire social circle growing up, say for a, I'm growing up, but I mean, by growing up, I mean my 20s was Jewish, Hollywood, liberal types. And they are, I tell you, they're the wildest, the most liberal, the most, you know, I mean, they know how to thrive. If you're into like a very hedonistic, secular lifestyle, you want to hang around with rich Hollywood Jews because they're the most decadent. And they have the most money. So yeah, it's very true. So that's the kind of people I used to roll with. Now I had a few more, you know, innocent type friends that, you know, in a different way that I also were my friends. But when it came to my, that was my party life. So that's who I hung out with in my 20s was a bunch of wild, decadent, liberal, ungodly Jews. Did you ever encounter Bill Cosby? Thank God, no, maybe someone like him, unfortunately, but thank God, not him. No. And there's this horrifying story in the novel about someone spiking your drink and taking you out of state and raping you. Had that ever happened to you before? No, it did not. And that, you know, I appreciate the ease with which you share that. And I also appreciate the fact that I'm able to really just talk about this stuff now. But you ask, like, what kinds of things are shocking? And quite frankly, that because you've understand, I hung around a lot of party lifestyle. And I never was hurt, you know, I was around people that would serve, you know, drugs on a silver platter, but they had your back, if that makes sense. So I don't want to say I'm naive. I'm certainly not now. But in my 20s, I guess I just hung around people that I knew. So I was never going to get hurt. So even though I was in largely very doing very, you know, not the most safe things and, you know, leading a very wayward life as it were, I guess I was around people that were never going to hurt me. Yeah, you were hanging out in Hollywood with party people, with people doing drugs, with very decadent people. But you had to convert to Judaism, go to Kiddish for the first time that you get raped. Yeah. And so you got to understand, yeah, I'm having a very wild life, never once got hurt. And here's the thing, you're hanging around with all these wild people and your friends, but nothing happened that you didn't want to happen. And often I was just a person who used to just enjoy dancing and, you know, being high. So, but I, you know, had a good time and I knew how to, but it was like, I never ever got hurt. So I didn't have that frame of reference. It's like, you know, this is where the tagline in my novel, you just don't know until you know, because you can really apply that to everything in life really. But unless you have an experience, it's kind of not in your field of reference. But once you have an experience, then you're aware of the possibility that it can happen again. And so before that experience happened, no, I, and I'm not exactly like foolhardy and just, you know, whatever. I think that I just, yeah, it was really awful to think that you go to a shul and not, not some, you know, decadent orgy Hollywood liberal rave, but a shul at like 12 o'clock in the afternoon in some kind of deadbeat city. Sacramento is not, you know, fast paced LA. And you just agree to go have a glass of wine and then something really horrible happens to you. Yeah, it would not occur to most Hollywood people, even the most decadent, it would not occur to most pornographers, it would not occur to the most drug dealers, it would not occur to most pimps to put a Mickey in a woman's drink and rape her. I mean, you had to go to shul to, to meet someone this incredibly creepy. And at the end, he tells you, you know, just, just remember that you're, you're nothing, you're, you're a shixer. And I'm curious, did you encounter that attitude before with Jews that you met in Hollywood, for example? No, no. First of all, Hollywood Jews are so divorced from Judaism, they don't really care. For them, it's like they, if they had to get, you know, bar mitzvah at 13, that was because they had, it was a big party kind of thing. So they were not very religious, but with, yes, with that situation, I feel like, I don't know, it was really, I'm almost 15 a few months. So I would have to say that I've been through, been there, done that. And with that experience comes a lot of personal self-confidence, if that makes sense. Yes. But at 32, I don't know that I had that self-confidence. I might have been able to front it, if you will. But I, you know, like me hearing that, I really took that and felt bad about myself. And I was this outsider and didn't really fit in. And it really did play into my psychology 100% because I didn't have the, I had a lot of issues to still work out. And something like that only actually sent me over the edge. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, you had to go to synagogue to meet someone who would rape you and then tell you that you're nothing because you're, you're not Jewish. Like no, no Hollywood Jew would say that. You had to meet a putatively religious Jew, Jew, at a synagogue, at a kid-ish to be told that you have absolutely no value and no worth and no one's going to believe you. Is that fair? Yeah. And that, there's a lot of dynamics as I understand it though. So there's the idea that you're dealing with a very brash, cruel, awful human being that also just feels that they can treat women like dirt and that they have money. And so I think that the ugliness of the human being transcends the fact that he is Jewish. I think that if he was not Jewish, he would still be that same ugly human being. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But this- It's just unfortunate that I, it's just a very unfortunate thing. But because this thing happened, it really deeply impacted my spiritual path. And yeah, it really, really deeply marred and impacted my, my path. How frequently did you encounter Jews who had the attitude that you were just a shiksa and that you had no, no ultimate value? Was this the only person? That was the first time. First of all, again, all through my 20s. No. Most Jews, again, I hung around with a lot of party Jews. Most of them were fascinated. I was just even interested in Judaism because they really were not. So they would, they were my friends, you know, so no. I'd never experienced that before personally, but ever since then I have, and it's always from religious Jews. Religious Jews are not always the nicest people. It's kind of interesting. You really are an outsider. And particularly with there's, it's a highly politicized and environment, I think on par only with how horribly polarized our country is and the world is at present. But it's just a very hyper politicized environment. And so yeah, ever since I decided to convert to Judaism, I always found myself in the Jewish genealogy game. Everyone's always trying to figure out what kind of Jew you are, and if you're really a Jew without really saying it. And eventually I got very put off by like, you know, if you're not, if you didn't convert Orthodox, you can't touch the wine because you contaminate it. Just, it's just, it got to be all a bit much for me quite frankly. And then you get to, to meet an Orthodox rabbi who I presume is your, your, your sponsoring Orthodox rabbi who holds all those strict views about kosher, but he doesn't hold strict views about eating you out. So I really went through a phase of self doubt because of this horrible thing that happened during my conservative conversion process, which made me be, you know, self analyze and think that maybe I should have just gone Orthodox. And so what I did was determine I'm going to convert Orthodox. And I also said I at least have to give it a try to know the difference. Maybe I was wrong about Orthodoxy because that is a remaining feature of my character is that I'm always willing to introspect and figure out if perhaps I'm wrong about something and maybe revisit a situation. Maybe I was too close minded as it were. So because of that I determined I'm going to convert Orthodox to find out whether it's true, like is Judaism true? I need to know. And it would just so happen that yes, so I met a very learned rabbi, but lines were crossed. And I became involved with him. And it was a very, a very bad thing. So ultimately I determined that I had to break off from that and I went to Israel where I was going to continue my conversion in Israel. But ultimately I think about three months before I was supposed to finalize the conversion, I just canceled everything. Right. And do you think that you were the first woman going through a conversion under this particular rabbi who ends up going to bed with him? Of course. Yeah. And you know, I felt very, it was all very illicit and guilty and confusing. And it was an incredibly complex situation for me spiritually and mentally. And it also was very reminiscent of a very bad childhood that I grew up with. So there was a lot of complex layers involved. And yeah, so it was personally like I just didn't like being so dubious and devious. And it just wasn't the kind of person that I wanted to be. But then so many things came about. And I discovered that this is a pattern, not only with that individual, but it's even like a larger pattern. And it just became like another work. I'm very aware now of things that maybe at one time I was not even innocent about. But you told your truth. You told this story about what happened when you were converting to Orthodox Judaism and your rabbi takes you to bed. You told other rabbis about this. But I don't believe they ever disciplined this particular rabbi. He can keep being a predator. He can keep his position teaching Torah. He's still the holy man in the community, while he's simultaneously taking women who are not his wife to bed. Do you have any thoughts on that? Well, okay. So yeah, so I told two big rabbis. And I told them the entire truth. And abandoned the process. But what I believe happened is on the one hand, they limited him. But this is behind the scenes because of what they knew. On the other hand, like in many instances when powerful men, we just we protect them. We hide, we lie for them, we protect them. And so that he was able to continue to go about his business and do as he does. And then, of course, I just become some non existent no one. And I've maintained contact with this person over the years, by the way. And I find and I, including up to letting him know that I wrote this book. And he was not very happy about that at all. But yeah, I can, I can imagine. But I mean, this Rabbi is so ingenious that whatever restrictions they put on him knows how to talk his way out of it. He'll just say, Oh, she's crazy. She made it up. He's a very manipulative person. He's very intelligent. And he's very, you know him. So I don't have to tell you what you don't know. And I don't hate him. And I let him know that, by the way, don't hate you. I, I really had to, for my own sake, and soul growth and personal growth really do a lot of intensive healing work in order for me to put all of these, these things in perspective, and be able to say, that's the past. And here's the present. And I don't have to carry my past into my present. But I also did have to reconcile it. And so part of reconciling it was writing this book. Again, he's very displeased with the book, but I let him know, you know, and I didn't need your permission to write my story. And he'll, he'll get out of it because he knows how to just, Oh, she's crazy. She, you know, he's just, he is who he is. And I don't hate him, but it's part of the lived experience that I've had. And I thought it was important to share and not to disparage him, God forbid, but to tell a story about a truth. And that's what I said to him. I said, it's like the Bible, it says all the ugly parts. It's not a vanity. It's not a vanity project. And I think since you've taken the time to read it, you know that it's, it doesn't paint the protagonist who is, as you know, me, it doesn't paint me in a very nice light. It's, it's not a vanity book. It's a story. And I really do think it's a powerful human story that says there's a lot going on in this world. And ultimately, you know, what do we do as people when we are faced with predicaments? How do we deal with them? How do we heal? What is God? What is religion? Like they're very complex issues that we grapple with as human beings. Yeah. And I've been, I've been pretty, pretty unattractive in my dealings with webinar over the cost of my life for many years. I was just out of control sex and love addict. And, and I would just have this sense when I'd go to a party or a social event, like which women I could get into bed without too much trouble. Like I was always very lazy about it. And so predators just have, have a sense for prey. And so they don't, they didn't choose the strong, powerful woman who's, you know, really well connected. They, they choose someone who is vulnerable. And so these rabbis, these men were picking up on your vulnerability and reacting, reacting to it like a hyena to pray. Is that fair? That is 100% very psychologically astute. So for example, if I was the woman I am today 18 years ago and before, yeah, but, but you know, yeah, so I was very beautiful when I was younger and, but very vulnerable, very vulnerable, a lot of deep-seated insecurities. And you're right. And they can smell it a mile away and just pray. Now it's a whole different ball game, but absolutely 100%. Yeah, I mean, the only reason that I didn't go to bed with certain attractive women is that I just lost confidence at times or I just didn't want the, the aggravation or the complications that would come with it. But otherwise, you know, my radar would just be, be picking things up. And it was, it was stronger than I was. I mean, I converted to Judaism to try to control my, my sex, sex life, my sex urges. And, and it just didn't work. It just, you know, started taking place. And sure, not, not the actual sex, but the, the, the, the whole, the whole pickup scene. Now you, there's a Orthodox Outreach Center that sent you to Israel. And there was a special conversion program there for women, which was so nice of them. So tell me about that, that experience on the compound. So, you know, so it's, it's, you know, all human beings are all very complex, right? So on the one hand, you know, yes, I had issues and vulnerability and, you know, insecurities. But on the other hand, I, you know, worldly and street smart. And, you know, I hadn't really fully blossomed into the just strong, you know, badass I am today. Kidding. So when I went there, I mean, I'm thinking I'm just going to go to this, you know, all women's conversion program, and I'm okay with that. And that it's just going to be a really neat program of learning and growth and like a spiritual thing. And it was quite a nightmare. And I just, one thing about me, I am a fighter and a survivor. And that's how I've been my whole life. And that's how I'll always be. So I arrived on scene at a very out of order situation. And I just, I couldn't deal with it. It was like, but just not even a compound, it was like just the middle of the hills. Some, I almost feel like put together, you know, metal pieces that you were supposed to call a room. And I mean, just the whole thing was so sorted and out of order. And it was disheartening. And I felt very hard, very hurt and pained for the other young ladies who they were a lot younger than me. I was 32 at the time, they were like 20 to 23 ish in that range. And I felt very hurt for them that I presumably they're there in good faith and just, you know, so innocent and seeking God and to have been dumped on this in this situation and just completely preyed upon. I just felt really bad for them. So, yeah, that was a big shock and surprise. That was not at all what I anticipated or expected. And I was not happy with it. It was it was billed as a conversion program for women, but it was really a slave labor camp. Very much so. And it was very off-putting because you had these young ladies in this very, this situation of squalor that was just not dignified for any human being. While the lady, you know, attractive lady, well-dressed, you know, had money, clearly it was her racket. It was a racket. And I don't know that, that, you know, the person, the man at age who was very involved. He knew, he knew. I know that guy's got into other trouble. So, as he had, I haven't, I haven't spoken to him in years. I haven't had contact with him. So, I really don't know what he's up to in recent times. And I haven't had a reason to try to dig and find out. But at the time I was stunned like, really, he's, you know, putting his money here. Are you kidding me? And by the way, he was the first person who enlightened me about something. I was wanting to go to Israel. And he let me know, you should do it here because you're not going to be able to get married in Israel as a conservative Jew. So, he is the first person who enlightened me about that. And I didn't, like they don't give you that in the brochure at the Missouri Movement, you know, and I'm a kind of person. I like, I need to know all the facts because I'm fully, I'm willing to own my decisions, whatever they are, but based on facts. If you don't give me all the facts, how am I supposed to make an accurate decision? Now, had I known that in advance, you know, like, I might have, like, it's always like you have to really know all the facts. So, they didn't tell me that. So, when he told me that, well, it was already, you know, on the plane in Israel, basically. Yeah, yeah, just, just a horrifying story. I mean, people have to read the book to spelling the myth to get more of the details. Now, you leave the compound, and you go to, go to a place where you meet a girl, you call it Jessica, and she started out at age 14 as a babysitter for a rabbi with 11 kids. And she starts a sexual affair with this rabbi at age 14. And when it's discovered, he leaves, eventually he leaves his wife, he's ostracized from the community, he leaves Judaism, and she is just in a catatonic state. Do you know whatever happened to her? I don't. It was really, so I was dealing with my own stress and overwhelm. And, you know, then I walk into this room, and I don't know if you're familiar with like the absorption centers in Israel, but they're, you know, I mean, it's not a tent, it's not the most, it's just they're very, it is what it is. And so when I walk into the room, and I quickly figure out how really unstable she is, I just, I'm like beyond stressed out. And during a very brief time that we were like, you know, we passed and, you know, between me meeting her and walking into that really bad situation and getting into a different room, I just learned all the information that I did because that rabbi told me, and by the way, he's the one that told me, don't become Orthodox. He also is like, you don't want to do what I'm telling you, it's not good. So, and he's like, I was born Jewish. And, you know, like, yeah, I'll never forget. So, I didn't ever know what happened to her. I just know that at that time she was a very young girl. And I just saw that she was just completely confused, wrecked. She was a psych board case. It was really sad. Yeah, the worst thing about being troubled is that you tend to attract other troubled people. And so there's this underlying theme of suicide, people are the verge of suicide all through your book. And so you are struggling with your own psyche and with your own misery. And then as a result, you attract predators and people who are prey. And that's kind of the really unfortunate dynamic because I've experienced it myself. When I've been down, I attract down people. When I am losing at life, I attract losers. When I am at my most distraught and troubled, I primarily attract people who are distraught and troubled. And you keep coming across people who are on the verge of suicide, like that young Jewish girl who fell in love with the Palestinian boy. Yeah, that was another really interesting story. So I, in the time that I was there, I really explored Israel through and through from, you know, culturally, politically, just every way. And, you know, I've always loved Kabbalah, metaphysics, so I was very excited to go to spot. And it was an incredibly enlightening experience because, you know, there's this whole mythos, if you will, about the mystical city. And I was a little bit jarred by my discovery of how absolutely mundane, you know, it was in part, but there's a beautiful service on Shabbat, Kabbalah Shabbat that weekend. And anyway, we were all in this room. And yes, and you begin to learn about all these things that Israel, like, you know, the apartheid, you know, if I say that, I mean, there's a lot of people that don't want to hear that, but I lived there for 13 months. I know what I saw and experienced. And then you all of a sudden, you understand things that you could never even conceive of until you learn it. But yes, like this young girl grows up in a Jewish home, falls in love with a Palestinian boy, they get pregnant at the baby. But you know, there's so much animosity and hate that they're like a, they're like a sad Romeo and Juliet tale. So there were very sad stories that were very eye-opening and profound that you discover, you know, in the 13 months that just, you know, wow, they really open your eyes. And for me, by the time I was six months into it, that's when I knew I'm done. You know, it's, this is not the path for me. And on Motsi Shabbat, you encounter a Kalabakh group, Seance, where people are naked and I presume people are doing drugs. And that must have been quite an interesting experience in Jerusalem. Well, yeah, it's, there's a lot of the juxtaposition of the holy and profane is a really profound thing. If your expectation is that you're in the holiest city in the world. And so the naivety that I brought with me to Israel was, oh my God, I'm in the land of Israel, the promised land, the holiest city in the world. And I guess in some ways that innocence didn't really connect the even remotest possibility that there's a lot of unholy things that are happening in Israel, particularly in Jerusalem, where I live. And so for me to, you know, you're in the old city and you're, you know, there's a, you know, the Western wall and there's all the beautiful things about Israel. But then you, like you'd leave, you can leave a shul and, you know, or a service and then you Mosey along the way. And yeah, you happen upon like some sort of, you know, sorted decadent experience that you would expect to have, like back in the day in the rave days in LA, not, you know, in the holiest city in the world. Now there's a movie that came out in 2018 called Untogether and it sort of gives a self-serving presentation of rabbinic predation. So people can watch the movie and they can, they can feel the, the false section of the narrative. But anyway, there's a, an actress, fairly well known actress, Lola Kirk, who essentially plays a version of you. What was that like for you to see a distorted version of your story put up on the big screen? Well, here is the story with that. So I used to, at the time I was in LA, like I've always been a movie person my whole life. So I used to, you know, before movies come out, you can, you rate them, you review them and they're tested in like these private audiences. So I used to be on that racket and enjoyed it very much. And so it all happened very surreptitiously. I was just showing up one day at like what I didn't know was any, I had no idea what the material was going to be because that's part of how this works is, you know, the title of the movie and that's really it. It's all a very hush-hush thing. So I didn't know anything about it. And when I showed up to this event, it was held at a private mansion in Beverly Hills. And as the movie goes, you know, I'm sitting there and I'm like, and I'm a person who can play things off really well. So, you know, no one else would have known what I was thinking when I was watching this, but I'm like, are you freaking kidding me? So I have, the last time I physically saw Wolfie was a long time ago. I want to say maybe 11 years ago, it's been a very long time. And I tried to make contact with him up until a certain point, very sporadically, but he was very cold to me. So I'm the type of person you don't need to tell me twice to go away because I will. So there was a big gap between the last time I'd ever had any remote contact with him and me just surreptitiously happening upon this movie. And I was very stunned like why he would do that. I wanted to know. So I actually contacted him, but he was not meanable to a discussion. So I dropped it. But I wanted to know, like why would you do this? And clearly it's, if you read my book, clearly his version is not exactly the truth, but it's not, but it does pair my version enough that you can tell it's the same story, if that makes sense. You know, if that makes sense. Yes. People watch it, watch the movie and read the book. They can, they can see the difference between the, you know, the Talmudic story and the reality underneath it. So I mean, you essentially had an emotional affair with perhaps the most powerful and influential rabbi in America. What was that like? Well, you know, so when I met him, I, I was very taken with him. But I think that there again, you know, I'm just one of, I was just one of many, you know, like these guys, I mean, this is how they roll, you know what I'm saying? Yes. You just think that you're just so special, but you're just, you're not that special. And in fact, I'm very much the kind of like, I'll go back to something that in fact, Rabbi Bloom said to Mary, don't ever tell someone again that you're low maintenance because you're not. So I'm a lot of work, I guess. And yeah, I learned apparently that yeah, like he being wolfie would never have wanted to deal with that because I'm just a lot of work. And then anyway, though, over time, I've realized myself like he and I could be not more ideologically opposed. I mean, just ideologically opposed. So it really, if it hadn't, if we would have never gotten anywhere. And I think it was all just really this sort of, I feel like he's a magician, an illusionist, and he's really good. It's sort of like a hypnotist type thing where he can really fool people. And I think I just got drawn into that. I don't know how else to say it. Does that make sense? Yes. And I was drawn into the illusion, Luke, and he's like, he's an illusionist. So I was drawn into the illusion and really, and you know, I pride myself on being very insightful and just sort of seen right through. But I was drawn into the illusion, because he is very good at that. He's a mastermind at it. But and he's also gotten away with a bunch for years. But I think what's happened with him is that over time also people are knowing and he's not that innocent as I believe you know, and as I know, but that's how I look at it in hindsight is that I was really sucked into that illusion. And yeah. Yeah, I know a beautiful woman who got into an affair with a leading canter in Los Angeles. And she was just kind of amazed at the strings that he could pull. Like she became so frightened by this guy because he was so connected in Hollywood. And with power brokers, you know, he could seemingly, you know, do anything. And she she just became absolutely scared to death. So I mean, when when, when people have power and they feel like they can get away with it, they tend to try to get away with it. But one interesting point is that there are a lot of people who saw right through Wolpe. And you also were given feedback that this is not a good man. But I didn't see through him then. Now I it's different. Right. But people were telling you and you couldn't you can hear it. Yeah. And it was so bizarre. It wasn't just one person. And so I clearly was not paying attention to what I think is like, you know, God gives us signs and warnings and like, are you going to listen? And I clearly was not. Now no one knew of my friendship or, you know, emotional involvement with him. That was a very private thing. I didn't share that with anyone. But of course, for some reason, and I'm not the type to like, oh, I don't always tell people who I know or what I know. And I can be a little sneaky that way. So I so people would for whatever reason, kind of like what you said with I was attracting all these like, you know, like the crazy girl or this or that these situations will same thing, like I would kept attracting all these people that would just tell me about him. And I would be like, why are they telling me about him? You know, and so what not one person ever said anything nice to me about him, not one. Yeah. And there's another fascinating aspect to the story. And that is Jewish general columnist Danielle Baron, who a year before his divorce, like just enters his family, writes this glowing cover story, you know, praising the beauty and the grace of his wife and how wonderful this family is. She writes repeated stories on Rabbi Wolpey, you know, how mesmerizing he is. And then after these stories come out, Rabbi Wolpey gets a divorce and starts dating Danielle Baron. That's quite an interesting story. She's half his age, and she's about four inches, five inches taller than he is. So what's so bizarre about that is I how she's entered my frame of reference literally in 2009, maybe about six months after I met him. And why? Because I was dating this guy and he picked up a Jewish journal he had at his house. And it was a very weird thing. And so that's the first time I heard about her, but I didn't know her or think about her ever again until I want to say in 2011, when I was good at connecting dots, I just realized, ah, she's the girl from the Jewish Journal. You know, when the last time I saw Wolpey, it was at an event at a shool. And I went, ah, that's the girl, like I connected the dots. There again, I never really bothered with her because I didn't know her, why would I care? But it wasn't again until a year later, when the person who did this horrible thing to me in Sacramento just like gave me all kinds of dirt, like more than I put into the novel, but like they just told me a bunch of stuff. And that's how I found out a lot of stuff that I didn't know. And you had, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. And so that's when I was like, oh, okay. And so that's when I found out all the things that you said. And essentially it just seems like she be, she fell, the way I understand it is she became obsessed and really fell in love with the guy and sort of has been hanging on like her all this time. And but somehow around the time of that movie thing, I guess she'd always been very aware of me and I don't know why because I really haven't had any connection with Wolpey for years. So I don't know how she would even have wins of me, except that he had to have told her. Well, well, no, because you went to an event where he was either directing a panel or he was speaking. And it was Abby, it was Abby, you know, what's her name? I can't see her last name. Yeah, it's his friend. But yeah, she had just come out with a book. So he was doing a panel. Now I was in town because I was living in Sacramento at the time managing a tax office, but I came down to LA because Oren was the ambassador at the time and they had a big to do with the Hilton. And so I went to that. And then since I was in town and they were having this panel, I think it was the next day. I'm like, let me just go and check it out. So I went and that's when I saw I saw her and I went, Okay, so she I said, there's something going on here. But I said, that's the girl from the Jewish Journal. And it wasn't until a year later when I was told more than I ever wanted to know about a bunch of stuff. And I just not most of the dots were filled in for me. But then I started to fill in a couple that were I just like went, Oh my God, so I became enlightened, if you will. Yeah, but at that event where you last saw Wolfie, he was looking at you and she followed his eyes and was just irresistibly drawn to get up from her seat, walked to the back to try to figure out, you know, who is, you know, Rabbi Wolfie staring at. Yeah, so she was, yeah, so she was doing a little notepad thing. And, you know, yeah, fixated on the guy. And I'm a very, you know, situationally aware person. I'm just looking at everything. And she, yeah, she literally got up, walked to the side, and she was just like looking at me and looking at him. And I went, okay, she's just trying to figure out what's going on. So maybe that was the point when I entered her field of frame of reference. And ever since then, she's trying to figure it out. And I think there's not a lot to figure out because I didn't have a physical relationship with him. There was a, you know, pseudo-emotional relationship, but it wasn't, it really honestly, it wasn't, I don't want to diminish it, but I wasn't the only one. Yeah, yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah. Although I don't know if he writes movies about other people he knows, maybe I might be the only one for that. But, which really disturbed me because why would you write a movie, like include me in this, you know, movie. And obviously it's his friends and they're connected and somehow he just decided to add that tidbit in. But it's like, why would you do that? That's weird. Well, to kind of spin a story that could otherwise be damaging and everyone wants to see themselves as a hero. Especially him. Yeah. And it's interesting, like if you take 10 synagogues and they have the opportunity to hire a rockstar rabbi who will pack in the congregants who will get the synagogue enormous media attention and buzz. But the downside is that this is, you know, a rabbi who's not a good person. I didn't know eight out of 10, nine out of 10 synagogues will hire the rockstar is not a really good person. Because it's a business and that's a part, that's a turnoff. And that's the part where for me, I was able to say, you know, God and religion are very different things. And often they don't have anything to do with each other. Sometimes they do, but often they don't. And the thing too is just, you know, recognizing that there was a bizarre thread, though, you know, because I didn't find out that all these bits and pieces. So I started out in Sacramento with actually solidifying a Jewish process that I committed and bowed to do eight years prior to that. And then this horrible thing happened and it really just tainted my spiritual process. But then all these years and all these more experiences happen and unfold. And in some bizarre way, 10 years later, it all just like, like it was tied up and it all like, all these people were connected. It was bizarre. I did. How did I know? So that's kind of a fascinating thing about the story. And this the Sacramento synagogue, it prominently honors this rapist. And I guarantee you weren't the first, you know, they prominently honor a serial rapist who meets women at Kiddish and drops a Mickey in their drink, you know, holds them off to another state, you know, rapes them repeatedly. And this is the guy that they're honoring. And they're only going to take down his name and they're only going to take down his plaques when they're absolutely forced to if there's, you know, an ungodly amount of media attention. Until then, they just want to keep his dirty money and keep honoring a serial rapist. Well, Luke, that, that sounds true. But here's the other thing. I didn't make this public. And I did file a restraining order on him. So there are public records, but like what I did was hide it under the carpet, you know, the sleeping under the carpet. So yes, I filed a restraining order. And for six years, he was banned from that shul. Now, a year after this happened, I left. So there's no telling that he didn't go to the shul the whole time. But he was banned from that shul legally for six years under this restraining order. And then the other thing, Luke, is that whenever he was no longer banned and he gave a lot of money to this synagogue, you know, and because of that's like a tradeoff, I give you $3 million, you get a big plaque. That's how it works. So he not only got a plaque, but this like life-size portrait of him in this library. So that was very stunning to see, but they're going to all know now. But at that time, none of them knew, you know, and I'm not saying even that some of TAP's friends don't maybe know like it who knows who he told, but it was very like it's not something that I made public. Yeah, you weren't the first person that he raped. I mean, this, I guarantee you there are other people in Sacramento who were aware this was a serial rapist. Yeah, no, he's a sleaze bag. You know, it's not my fault. I didn't beg for it. I, you know, I, it was 12 o'clock, one o'clock in the afternoon sitting down having a glass of wine. And you know, like, no, it's not my fault. He's not a good human being. And yes, I, he's just not a good human being. You know, that's something he himself told me that. So Wolfie's, it's all so bizarre, but Wolfie's ex-wife, her mom used to be his boyfriend. And as he told me, Wolfie's ex-wife can't stand him. She hated him. So, you know, I just feel like, yeah, the guy has a lot of money and gave a lot of money to the shoals. So he can, he's inoculated. He can do whatever he wants. And, you know, if I would have said something, woe is me, because then I would have probably been really discouraged, but I, for whatever reason, took it upon myself not to say anything. And a lot of that was me, you know, a lot of it was my upbringing. You know, I grew up in a kind of culture that it was a culture of, you know, like almost like the America code, you know, you don't talk. And then you also grew up in this culture where women, it's a lot of it was very cultural as well. So for me, it was best just to sleep it under the carpet and move on. And also the stigma of I'm a schick son, I'm the outsider, and I'm just bringing all this trouble with the shoal. And so I didn't want to, like, put that spotlight on me. If that makes sense. Yeah. And had you seen Rabbi Wolpe prior to the first time you went into Sino-Temple, because you had a sense that you'd seen or that you knew this guy the first time that you went to Sino-Temple? Not to my conscious knowledge, not to my conscious knowledge. The first time I saw him physically is what I believed to be the first time. But interestingly enough, like when I was in Israel, you know, like a lot of the circles and things I was doing there turned out to be big donors at his synagogue. And then some lady I met who actually used to be Kirk Douglas's cook gave me a book that it turns out and it's like the proof of the book. It's the only one in existence, by the way. And I asked him to ask Kirk Douglas, who, you know, at the time was still alive to sign. And so there was a lot of weird coincidences. But to my, I mean, I was only at Sacramento for a year, just over like for 14 months, no, actually for just under 18 months before I left. So it was maybe 17 months in total before I left Sacramento and that I was at the Mosaic law. So he, I never saw him there. I know that much, but I don't think so. Like, where would I have seen him? Except that he did seem very familiar to me. That's what's on probably TV, probably seen him on TV or the end of that. You know what it is? It's because I used to work for some rich Jew in LA who was really into Christopher Hitchens. And so if I had to do work with this guy, then I knew about Sam Harris, and then they did videos. That's what it is. That's why he seemed familiar. So I didn't ever personally meet him or see him, but it has to have been those videos or something. I don't know because I could, I'm like, where did I see him before? He obviously didn't stand out to me then, but I just remembered that has to be it. Yeah. People are so complicated because Danielle Baron is best known for exposing all these predatory males, famous, powerful men who've hit on her in an uncouth way. But it would never occur to her to write about her own, you know, predatory ways. Like we're all kind of attuned to see the predators and others, but we don't really want to face up to the predator in us. You know, I don't want to, she's, you know, we all have to learn and grow in our lives. And I definitely, because of the fact that I discovered so many things and learned that maybe she was a little bit interested in me in ways that I didn't understand like why so, I began to dig into her as well. And listen, I, you know, we all have to heal and resolve things. And it seems like maybe she needs to do that as well. Yeah. I mean, she comes from a beautiful young girl. I mean, she's getting older now, but she's a beautiful young girl. And, you know, it seems she could really do a lot better than we'll be to be quite frank. But I, you know, it's not my business. Number one. And number two is, I think, you know, she's probably got a lot of personal healing. From what I learned about her story, it's, her behavior makes sense if you know about her story. Yeah. I mean, she comes from a broken home. You come from a broken home. I come from a broken home. You know, we're all broken people who attract other broken people. Until you heal. Until you do the work. And, and it's very hard, by the way. It's not easy. It's very, very hard. But until you say, I'm going to get this right. Because you know what? God gave me very limited time on earth. Even if God willing, we live to our 80s plus. That's not that much. So I need to get right with myself so that I can optimize my journey here on earth. And doing this is not the way I'm supposed to live. And so I, you know, I don't, again, I've never met her. It just seems like, you know, for some reason, there's this, this connection, if you will, but not really. But, you know, I mean, she is in my novel. And I just, I wish her the best. And I think she just needs to heal and all her behavior with the men and the stories. And I think if you understand her story, you realize that that's what she needs to heal is whatever hurt she has in her past. And if you know her story, then it makes perfect sense why she's obsessed with Wolfie. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, also, we have a profound effect on other people. Like even when I was in ultra hunter mode, there'd be all sorts of like serious, respect, respectful women who I would never hit on, who I'd never even dream of telling a dirty joke to, like, because we all put out a vibe, we all put out a force field. And so some people put out the force field, you know, come take me. And other people put out the force field that you better be on your best behavior or I'm gonna cut you loose right away. And so that's me now, which is why I never have a date. Yeah, I think I'm just terrified people. They know, like, you know, I'm not playing games. I'm a sweetheart, but I don't have time. And so I think I give that off in a way. I honestly, I wish I was this way my whole life. But you know, as part of your trajectory, I guess is your learning and growing. But but yeah, yeah, now I, I, you know, yeah, men don't play with me now. They're scared of me. Yeah. And what were the most important stepping stones in your recovery? Well, I had to really hit rock bottom. I mean, not only did I physically crash and a lot of that also was, you know, I was in the army before and had sustained injuries and issues and it just everything cascaded in a really bad way. And then I felt like I was spiraling from 2012. And it really is bizarre, but it was like I was not only spiraling mentally, but my body physically and I became just very unwell, spirit, mind and body. And it was really awful. And then I feel like in 2019, it just climaxed in a way that was pretty profound. I'm not sure I really want to go into that right now. Maybe that's your next book, your next book. Yeah, but it really amen to that. But it really, it would say 2019 is when I said, okay, so I kind of started in 2016. What I can say is that in 2016, I have a pacemaker. I almost died in a car accident. And then I was profoundly ill. And in 2018, I started therapy to heal my body, not even my mind, just my body. I became very non functional. But then as if things didn't go from bad to worse, they did. And so that's what 2019 was about. And at that point is when I said, you know, God wants me to be here for some reason, then I need to put in the work. And I want to say for 2019, and then it was, you know, the whole COVID thing, but I was doing the work spiritually, mentally. So for three years, and I just feel like my life is revolutionized. And I'm just so profoundly grateful. And I just feel I'm a living testament. And that's why I wrote the book also to say that, no matter what you go through in life, you can overcome it as long as you have life, you know, I mean, if you don't have life, and it doesn't matter at all. But as long as you have life, you don't have to stay defeated by your circumstances. And I think that message is particularly powerful now because, you know, there's this real victim mentality mindset that sort of prevails. And I want people to feel empowered, like, you are not the bad things that happen to you. If they didn't kill you, they can truly make you a better human being. But you do have to heal. And so much of that pain we carry. I mean, I have grown kids, they're early 30s, and my older boy, he's got a lot to heal. So I relate to I understand when people have that pain, but the other part of me says we also can't use it as an excuse to continue to be crappy people. Yeah. Okay, great. It's been really good to talk to you, Diana, any final words or anything you'd like to offer before we wind up the show? Well, look, I just want to say I'm really grateful to meet you. I'm really grateful for your time and for this opportunity. Thank you so, so much. It's been really delightful. And I'm very grateful that you really took the time to, you know, pour into my story. And I just thank you so much. Okay, stay in touch. Yes. You ever want to collab about the politics of the day? I'm all over that. I love that. Okay, great, great. All right. Thank you. Be well. Thank you for your