Palestinian Polling and Hamas: Is it concerning?
Hello, really big fan and long time premium member, I have a question for Crystal specifically. Considering you mentioned approval ratings of Palestinians for Hamas being around 70% with bad polling, let’s say margin of error x5 is about 50-55% approval of Hamas leadership, our current administration has a 44% approval rating. Considering even shotty polls and the Palestinians mainly approving of Hamas, do you think it is concerning if we accept refugees, see so much protesting, allowing is fine but negotiating with these ideas is a problem if most of the people approve of a terrorist organization. Thanks!
US Funding of Taliban & Hamas
Hello, question for you both, and hopefully Saagar can give more of a light on the finances of it. To my understanding, we give 40M dollars every week to the Taliban, who then redistributes it to their network, including the Houthi’s and Hamas. Considering this, how do we still in the US government give aid when we have called out Hamas/Taliban for war crimes and many other things, and it is clear our money also goes to them. Is the Leahy Law unusable?
Krystal's New Love for the 1st Amendment
I am glad to see Krystal has a new love for the constitution. The government has been playing this carve out game with the constitution for decades, it just been focused on the 2nd Amendment. Krystal said "there is no carve out for hate speech in the 1st Amendment". Well, there is not a carve out for "assault weapons" in the 2nd Amendment, in fact it straight up says "shall not be infringed". Yet, there are lobby groups that try to carve it out every day. I want my freedom so I understand that means I have to give others their freedom. I hope to see more Americans standing up and being constitutional absolutists and stop the power hungry bureaucrats from carving out our freedoms one bill at a time. My question is for Krystal: after seeing how the politicians manipulated the situation in order to infringe on the 1st Amendment, do find it hard to believe that is what they have been doing against the 2nd Amendment all these years? I know you believe that there should be "assault weapon" bans but that is no different than what they did against the "anti-sematic" speech carve out. It is all manipulation and making issues seem way worse and dangerous than they really are to gain power and control. Love the show.
Why doesn’t Saagar like Manhunt?
Hi Krystal and Saagar! I’ve been a big fan since the Rising days. I have a question for Saagar. Twice on an AMA, you’ve expressed your dislike for the Apple TV series, Manhunt, though you said you enjoyed the book. Can you please explain why you don’t like the show? What does the book include that the show excludes?
Certainty may be eroding your mission statement
“Build the best news organization in the world”. As mission statements go this may be somewhat out of reach but I really like the idea of you guys using this as your north star for the many decisions building your organization requires on a weekly basis. And for the most part your content reflects this fact, that is why I’m a subscriber and listen every week. But the Howard Stern, Joe Biden piece from a couple of days ago made me take pause. Because this is where I think certainty may be working against you. I understand you guys are certain that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and most probably you are right. But you may also be wrong and only time will tell, as it does with everything. The problem comes when you turn a piece that should be about how Biden’s team was able to land such an interview into a 10-minute indictment on Biden’s Israel/Gaza policy. That is no different than Shapiro turning almost anything into a moral indictment of the excesses of the progressive left. He does it because he is certain that the decline of moral values impacts the culture which impacts politics. Or Maddow turning almost anything into a Trump indictment. She is certain that Trump will end democracy as we know it. Kind of the if I have a hammer all I see is nails principle. But everybody knows their bias and neither of them is even remotely pointing in the direction of building a serious business organization. The problem with certainty is that is corners you into positions that you should not be cornered into. For example, this week Krystal talking about the college protestors was cornered into defending them as fully form adults that 100% understand the consequences of their actions. But if my memory serves me right a couple of months ago Krystal and Sagar mostly agreed that the students that penned the Anti-Israel letter were just being normal young people that don’t think about consequences of their actions. Now this does not mean that you should not have an opinion, on the contrary, listening to both your opinions is part of why the show is as good. But please share your opinion from a place of less certainly, and even some humility that there is a slight chance you may be wrong. For example, in the Stern/Biden piece making the point that Biden is not as good a person as they are trying to portrait because he is enabling a genocide should have taken less than a minute, not the whole piece. Jorge