Counterweight with Will Chamberlain

Will Chamberlain talks with Kurt Schlichter, trial lawyer, retired Army colonel, Townhall columnist, and author of the new novel American Warlord, in an election-eve special recorded the day before Election Day. Schlichter argues that the polls showing a Democratic wave rest on samples that Republicans refuse to answer, and that this cycle looks nothing like 2018 or 2020. The conversation also covers Haley Stevens endorsing Mike Rogers over Abdul El-Sayed, El-Sayed's 60 Minutes interview with Ross Douthat, the Texas Senate race, Iran and Venezuela, and the Insurrection Act.

In this episode:

Will and Kurt react to Haley Stevens, El-Sayed's primary opponent, endorsing Mike Rogers in the Michigan Senate race

They break down El-Sayed's 60 Minutes interview with Ross Douthat and his answer that kids already carry phones in their pockets

Schlichter explains why cross-examination is the best engine of truth detection and why so few interviewers use it

He describes his X poll of 2,800 followers, in which 81% said they never answer polls or never get polled

Will explains why he thinks nonresponse bias is skewing the New York Times polls, and why 2026 looks better for Republicans than 2018 or 2020

They discuss John Cornyn, the Bush family, Mitt Romney, and the Republicans who expect the base's support

Schlichter reports from Texas on Ken Paxton versus James Talarico, and Will credits Elon Musk's ad spending

Schlichter compares polling to the expert witnesses he hired as a trial lawyer: "It's nothing but an educated guess."

They discuss Iran, Venezuela, and Will's debates with Michael Tracy and Piers Morgan

Schlichter argues that the Democrats are trying to bait President Trump into invoking the Insurrection Act, and they discuss Elissa Slotkin

They react to the TPUSA poem girl's apology, which Will says she had AI write

Schlichter talks about his family's history in Chambersburg, the Los Angeles riots, serving in Kosovo, and why he is "never going to be a serf"

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Kurt Schlichter: American Warlord (Passage Press) · @KurtSchlichter

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Why the polls are nothing but an educated guess

01:49 An election-eve special

02:28 Haley Stevens endorses Mike Rogers

09:23 El-Sayed on 60 Minutes and the phones answer

11:41 The lost art of cross-examination

15:41 The New York Times polls and Kurt's X poll

18:51 Why 2026 is not 2018 or 2020

22:52 Cornyn, the Bushes, and Romney

27:02 Young men, Anduril, and reindustrialization

29:20 Paxton versus Talarico, and Elon's ads

33:16 Where are the Republican defectors?

36:43 Ted Cruz and the 2028 field

38:52 Iran, Venezuela, and debating Tracy and Piers Morgan

46:41 The Insurrection Act and Slotkin

48:14 The TPUSA girl's AI apology

50:44 Kosovo, the LA riots, and "never going to be a serf"

52:59 American Warlord

Will Chamberlain talks with Bill Shipley, a former federal prosecutor, about the criminal case against two former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress about the Hunter Biden laptop and what the charges reveal about the FBI’s role in 2020.

They also discuss the DOJ’s effort to identify possible noncitizens on California voter rolls, the deliberate ignorance standard, the legal risk for election officials, and why presidential elections cannot be meaningfully audited after the fact.

In this episode:

Bill explains the case against Nikki Flores and Benjamin Benavidez, who are accused of denying their involvement with the Hunter Biden laptop during congressional interviews.

He discusses the 2020 briefing to Senators Grassley and Johnson, which suggested their investigation could involve Russian disinformation despite the FBI already having the laptop.

Bill explains why he believes the alleged false statements were an act of self preservation and why criminal cases may only reveal part of the broader story.

They discuss the DOJ’s list of possible noncitizens on California voter rolls and the theory that officials could face legal consequences if they knowingly keep sending ballots to ineligible voters.

Bill explains deliberate ignorance through his own prosecution of an Oakland chemical supplier whose owners avoided learning that their products were being used to manufacture meth.

They also discuss California’s mail ballot system, the difficulty of auditing presidential elections, and what Judge Carter’s possible special master could mean for voter roll cleanup before 2028.

Youtube: Counterweight with Will Chamberlain

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Introduction

02:32 The FBI officials charged over the Hunter Biden laptop

05:50 Nikki Flores and the FBI agents versus analysts rivalry

12:37 True believers inside the FBI

13:25 The briefing to Grassley and Johnson

18:24 Why lie to Congress in 2023?

19:59 FBI briefings to social media companies

21:38 Can prosecutions reach the laptop cover up?

25:25 DOJ’s 20,000 names in California

31:13 Deliberate ignorance and the Oakland meth case

36:12 The 28 arrests

37:11 An ocean of mail ballots

39:26 Why you cannot audit a presidential election

43:08 Judge Carter and the special master

Will Chamberlain talks with William Wolfe, executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership and a former State Department and Pentagon official, about why conservatives frustrated with the Iran war, the pace of deportations, or their own candidates should still vote Republican, eight days out from the midterms. The conversation also digs into the ICE detention of evangelical writer Samuel Sey and the fight over Christian nationalism behind it, the backlash Wolfe drew from both sides for speaking at NatCon Jerusalem, and what went wrong at Christianity Today.

In this episode:

William explains who Samuel Sey is, and why his detention by ICE became a flashpoint in the evangelical divide between Christian nationalists and their critics

He traces “Christian nationalism” from a label coined by left-wing sociologists to attack Trump voters to a term some conservatives now openly embrace

He rejects Neil Shenvi’s argument that a good man with an American wife and kids belongs here, saying only citizens fundamentally belong in America

He argues that sitting out the midterms or voting for Democrats over the Iran war makes no sense, and that Trump’s second term has been a success on immigration

Will argues the Iran war, a naval blockade with airstrikes, is categorically different from Iraq, and asks critics which promise they would rather Trump had kept: no new wars, or no Iranian nuke

William steelmans the anger over “no new wars” and gas prices, says those voices are loud but small, and argues the war needs to be over before 2028

He recalls the Romney autopsy and the Gang of Eight, and says he never expected to see Republicans officially posting about remigration and questioning legal immigration

Will offers his theory that reflexive contrarians can’t adapt once their views on immigration go mainstream, and William adds that they are allergic to governing

Will explains how he thinks about Franco, and defends Majority Leader John Thune against William’s criticism of the Senate

They discuss the Ohio governor’s race, and why William would still choose Vivek Ramaswamy over Amy Acton

William describes the attacks he took from both pro-Israel and anti-Israel camps for speaking at NatCon Jerusalem, and answers Marc Thiessen’s criticism

He explains how Christianity Today, founded by Billy Graham and Carl F.H. Henry, drifted left, and why he rejects the pietism that tells Christians to stay out of politics

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

William Wolfe: Center for Baptist Leadership · @William_E_Wolfe

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Throwing the midterms to the Democrats
01:28 Who is Samuel Sey?
03:02 What is Christian nationalism?
07:44 Why vote straight ticket Republican
11:28 Deportations and the Iran war
16:06 No new wars or no Iranian nuke?
21:38 From the Gang of Eight to remigration
24:58 Why reflexive contrarians can’t take the win
28:57 Red Caesar, Franco, and the Constitution
32:25 In defense of John Thune
35:53 Vivek Ramaswamy and the Ohio governor’s race
38:33 Taking fire from both sides over Jerusalem
45:21 What went wrong at Christianity Today
51:10 Don’t teach the party a lesson by electing Democrats

Will Chamberlain talks with Jeremy Carl about Senator Elissa Slotkin's vow to prosecute senior Trump officials, why lawfare may be worse than corruption, and why so few Republican senators have answered her. Carl also describes his two weeks in South Africa and what he thinks America should do about it. The conversation also digs into the backlash to the Sarah Huckabee Sanders ad, the Trump administration's record on anti-white discrimination, and the fake independents running in red states like Montana.

eremyIn this episode:

Will argues that lawfare is worse than corruption and that lawfare helped end the Roman Republic.

Carl says Slotkin openly admitted that her goal is to scare young conservatives away from serving in government.

He expects the president to use the pardon power to shield his people, and he warns that state prosecutors could still come after them.

Carl explains how the threat of lawfare weighed on him and his family when he was nominated for Assistant Secretary of State.

He says Republican senators' silence on Slotkin reflects weakness and an older Senate that struggles to push back against smears.

Carl describes his trip to South Africa, from world-class business districts to dangerous townships and patrolled areas.

He describes walled communities ringed with razor wire, and Will compares them to settlements in the West Bank.

Carl says Free Palestine billboards across Cape Town show how tightly South Africa's ruling left is tied to global leftism.

He argues that South Africa now has more race laws than it had under apartheid.

Carl argues for American engagement in South Africa, including support for coalitions among Afrikaner, Coloured, and black groups.

He walks through Trump's demands on the ANC, including rolling back Black Economic Empowerment rules and the "kill the Boer" rhetoric.

Carl says the backlash to the Sarah Huckabee Sanders ad shows that younger conservatives will no longer accept anti-white messaging.

He gives the Trump administration high marks on fighting anti-white discrimination and credits Harmeet Dhillon's Civil Rights Division.

Will and Carl explain how fake independents in Montana and other states hide Democratic candidates behind independent labels.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Jeremy Carl: Claremont Institute senior fellow, author of The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart · @realjeremycarl

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Lawfare ended the Roman Republic

01:45 Slotkin's "signature cases"

04:12 Is lawfare worse than corruption?

05:24 Pardons, state prosecutors, and a sunk nomination

07:50 Why won't GOP senators answer Slotkin?

10:57 Two weeks in South Africa

14:57 Walled cities and razor wire

17:00 Free Palestine billboards and the West Bank comparison

20:05 More race laws than under apartheid

21:20 What America should do about South Africa

26:42 Trump's demands on the ANC

31:19 The backlash to the Sarah Huckabee Sanders ad

38:55 Grading Trump on anti-white discrimination

44:28 Montana and the fake independents

Will Chamberlain talks with Ben Weingarten about the federal investigation into Representative Ilhan Omar, the questions about her father's refugee application and her own naturalization that appear to sit behind the recent search of her home, and what a case to strip her citizenship could look like. The conversation also digs into the evidence that the man she married is her brother, Minneapolis's Somali community, fraud in Somali refugee resettlement, and the red-green alliance.

In this episode:

Ben explains how a column applying the Russiagate standard of links and ties to Omar grew into his 2020 book, American Ingrate

He argues that Omar personifies the red-green alliance between the progressive left and Islamists, and that the Democratic Party has moved in her direction since

He describes her father as a senior military officer in Siad Barre's Marxist regime who, according to reporting, presented himself as an educator when the family sought refugee status

Will lays out the legal theory that concealing service in a communist regime could be enough on its own to undo both her father's naturalization and hers

Ben describes Minneapolis's Somali community as clannish and insular, and says nearly everyone he spoke with there feared for their safety if they talked about Omar

He walks through the evidence that the man she legally married is her brother, including shared addresses, social media posts in which the man called her children his nieces and nephews, and the family naming convention

He says her testimony in a Minnesota campaign finance case that she had lost contact with the man conflicts with social media messages between them

Will and Ben discuss a new Washington Post report that the man withdrew a petition for permanent residency after immigration officials asked about the marriage, and Ben connects it to a 2016 FOIA request by Omar's immigration lawyers

Ben explains how the birth year in her official biography changed from 1981 to 1982, and why that one year matters for whether she qualified for citizenship through her father

Will argues that even if the marriage fraud is too old to charge, it could unravel the story her family told when it first came to the United States

Ben discusses why part of the family appears to have settled in the UK, and the fraud that led the State Department to suspend a Somali refugee program in 2008

He closes on the Islamist networks backing Omar and similar candidates, and recalls the longtime incumbent she unseated, Phyllis Kahn, telling him Omar was unbeatable in the district

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Ben Weingarten: The Federalist, author of American Ingrate · @bhweingarten

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Her father's past

02:42 Why Ben wrote American Ingrate

03:07 Ilhan Omar and the red-green alliance

07:58 Who was Ilhan Omar's father?

13:27 Could her father's past be enough to denaturalize her?

14:34 Inside Minneapolis's Somali community

20:55 The evidence that she married her brother

28:43 The Washington Post's buried revelation

29:30 Omar's immigration lawyers and the 2016 FOIA request

31:26 Two husbands at one address

34:03 1981 or 1982? Her birth year and her naturalization

38:01 Why the marriage could unravel the whole story

39:25 Why did the family split between the UK and the US?

43:14 Fraud in Somali refugee resettlement

48:51 The Islamist machine behind Omar

Will Chamberlain talks with Yoram Hazony, chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, about why the National Conservatism conference went to Jerusalem and what happened when four young American nationalists told an Israeli audience how support for Israel is softening on the American right. Hazony argues that the fight over Israel and the Jews has become the main threat to the cohesion of the Trump coalition, and that most American and Israeli Jews misread the Republican Party as a contest between Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson. The conversation also digs into Bezalel Smotrich's speech on Muslim immigration, Mike Doran's critique and the John Locke debate, James Lindsay, and the coming fight over who inherits the Trump coalition.

In this episode:

Hazony explains why NatCon, which normally alternates between the United States and Europe, held its twelfth conference in Jerusalem

He describes Israel as a model nation state and reflects on what a young, religious, high-fertility society can show Americans and Europeans

He argues that Bezalel Smotrich's speech was the first time a senior Israeli minister said plainly that Muslim immigration to America and Europe is bad for the West, for Jews, and for Israel

He introduces Gadi Taub, the former man of the left who has become one of the most popular intellectuals on the Israeli right

He explains why Israel and the Jews, barely mentioned in NatCon's first seven years, have become the main threat to the cohesion of the Trump coalition

He lays out the idea behind the panel with Matthew Peterson, Amanda Milius, Jonathan Keeperman, and William Wolfe: bringing the tough American right to Jerusalem to talk with the tough Israeli right

He argues that Jewish leaders in both countries see the Republican Party as Ben Shapiro versus Tucker Carlson and skip over the roughly 70 percent of the party in between

Will and Hazony respond to Mike Doran's argument that the panel failed to make the realist case for the alliance

Hazony answers the charge that he wants to write John Locke out of the founding and describes the four factions that make up the NatCon coalition

He contrasts Jeremy Boreing's constructive role on the right with James Lindsay's campaign against the nationalist camp

He argues that young American nationalists broke a de facto ban on going to Israel, and he previews NatCon in Washington, DC, three months from now

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Yoram Hazony: Edmund Burke Foundation · @yhazony

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Cold Open: The Fantastic Four

02:18 How did NatCon Jerusalem go?

03:06 Why hold NatCon in Jerusalem?

06:16 A young, religious society

09:00 Bezalel Smotrich on Muslim immigration

12:37 Gadi Taub and the Israeli right

13:55 What was the panel trying to accomplish?

19:15 Softening support on the right, and why the audience was Israeli

21:41 Ben Shapiro versus Tucker Carlson, and the 70 percent in between

26:20 Mike Doran's critique

35:56 Does Hazony want to expunge John Locke?

40:42 Lindsay, Jeremy Boreing, and the libertarian wing

51:09 James Lindsay in Israel

55:09 Breaking the taboo on nationalists going to Israel, and NatCon DC

Will Chamberlain talks with Bojan Pancevski, the Wall Street Journal's chief European political correspondent, about his book The Nord Stream Conspiracy and the small Ukrainian team that blew up the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022. Pancevski explains how a seven-person crew on a rented sailing yacht destroyed one of Europe's most expensive pieces of energy infrastructure for about $250,000, and how German investigators tracked them down. The conversation also digs into Germany's long bet on trade with Russia, the Russia and CIA theories, Poland's refusal to cooperate, and what American conservatives misunderstand about Putin.

In this episode:

Pancevski recounts the September 2022 explosions, first registered as an earthquake, that tore through the world's biggest offshore pipeline system

He traces Nord Stream to Germany's decades-old "change through trade" policy toward Moscow and to Merkel's post-Fukushima nuclear shutdown, which deepened the reliance on Russian gas

He describes how a small group of Ukrainian intelligence and special forces veterans drew up a list of targets meant to choke off Putin's oil and gas revenue

He walks through how the team recruited civilian deep-sea diving instructors and tested them with wiretaps, hidden cameras, and staged arrests

He explains how the operation was paid for almost entirely by private donors, and what is known about who in Ukraine's chain of command approved it

He lays out why the theory that Russia blew up its own pipeline never made sense

He argues that Biden's pledge to end Nord Stream 2 referred to sanctions, which have kept the pipelines offline more effectively than explosives

He reports that senior CIA officials were relieved when Putin blamed the United States rather than Ukraine

He tells how German detectives cracked the case by combing through thousands of speed-camera photos and running one driver's face through recognition software

He explains why German prosecutors charged the suspects with war crimes ahead of the Hamburg trial that opens October 14

He describes how Poland obstructed the investigation, including a Polish judge who refused extradition and called the sabotage part of Ukraine's just war

He closes on what he thinks American conservatives get wrong about the war and why commercial deals will not move Putin

YouTube: [YOUTUBE LINK]

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Bojan Pancevski: The Wall Street Journal · @bopanc

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Ukraine's target list

02:28 What happened to Nord Stream in September 2022?

05:25 Germany's change-through-trade bet on Russia

10:21 Merkel's nuclear shutdown and the gas addiction

12:46 How he got inside both the plot and the investigation

14:52 The Ukrainian team behind the sabotage

18:28 Recruiting and testing civilian deep-sea divers

21:28 A privately funded operation, and who signed off

27:44 Did Russia or the CIA do it?

32:07 What Biden meant, and why sanctions beat explosives

36:54 The German investigation and the speed-camera breakthrough

41:52 Arrests, the Hamburg trial, and the war crimes charge

46:12 Poland's refusal to cooperate

49:43 What American conservatives get wrong about the war

55:09 Why deals will not move Putin

Will Chamberlain talks with Daniel Di Martino about Trump's Venezuela endgame after the capture of Nicolás Maduro, why the old regime can still run Caracas under Delcy Rodríguez, and what it would take to force a real exit. The conversation also digs into Cuba's decades living off Venezuelan oil, the Cartel of the Suns, María Corina Machado's election prospects, the U.S.–Venezuela oil deal, and whether Havana is next.

In this episode:

Di Martino explains how Chávez turned Latin America's richest country into its poorest after Venezuelans voted themselves into socialism

He walks through Venezuela's fall from 1950s top-tier GDP per capita to an roughly 80 percent economic collapse

He argues the regime became a drug cartel once oil loot dried up, with diplomatic passports moving cocaine into the United States

He says Trump's Delta Force arrest of Maduro solved the credibility problem Maduro thought was a bluff

He maps Cuba's Special Period and how Caracas sent free oil that Havana resold through dark fleets

He describes Cuban intelligence embeds in the Venezuelan military as the price of that subsidy

He says Delcy Rodríguez is less popular than Maduro and cannot staff a competent central bank while she remains in power

He explains the colectivos as a Chavista paramilitary used to crush street protests

He argues top leaders cannot safely stay in Venezuela even with amnesty, because the public will kill them

He says only Trump can force exile deals — Qatar, Turkey, elsewhere — because Cuba is next and cannot be the safe house

He says María Corina Machado is the only figure who wins a free Venezuelan election in a landslide

He praises the oil deal's terms but warns U.S. government ownership and a future Democratic administration put long-horizon investment at risk

He backs striking Tren de Aragua leadership and drug boats when identification is solid

He closes that Venezuela was free and prosperous before socialism — and America should not be oblivious to that threat

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Daniel Di Martino: Manhattan Institute · @DanielDiMartino

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

0:00 Cold open — Cuba is next

1:11 Host intro

2:27 Growing up under Chávez

4:43 The deepest economic collapse on record

5:51 First Trump term and recognizing Guaidó

9:08 The Cartel of the Suns

12:19 Maduro in U.S. custody

13:24 Cuba's Special Period and free Venezuelan oil

18:38 Why a blockade alone will not topple Havana

20:38 Delcy Rodríguez's unpopularity

23:30 The colectivos

25:26 Amnesty, exile, and forcing the regime out

27:44 Diosdado Cabello

29:19 María Corina Machado

31:35 The oil deal and the 2028 risk

34:09 Tren de Aragua and the drug boats

37:57 Earthquakes and rebuilding

43:11 Venezuela as a warning for America

Will Chamberlain talks with Heather Mac Donald about the Cornell 7 accusation, why Jane Doe's own 2024 statement to police does not describe a crime, and why handing the case to Letitia James does not change that. The conversation also digs into the old tort of seduction, whether Washington should impose stricter campus rules, the empty campus rape bureaucracy, and what colleges gave up in the 1960s.

In this episode:

Heather Mac Donald says the gang-rape story around the Cornell 7 is a fiction, and that Jane Doe took part voluntarily in a drug-soaked night at a fraternity.

She says Jane Doe drank heavily before she arrived, then drank more and took ketamine, and walked into the encounter on purpose.

She says the young men should not be prosecuted or sued, and that the night was instigated by Jane Doe.

She rejects the idea that the old tort of seduction fits these facts, because Jane Doe kept assenting.

She is wary of using the Department of Education to impose Liberty- or Hillsdale-style rules, because it strengthens the precedent for the next administration.

She describes how colleges dropped in loco parentis in the 1960s and 1970s, then built a Title IX bureaucracy on top of an anything-goes sexual culture.

She says the campus rape centers sit empty, because students the surveys label as victims say they were not raped.

She says the claimed one-in-four campus rape rate is not a real crime rate, and that rising female enrollment at Cornell shows people do not believe it.

She says conservatives have spent their energy debunking the rape-culture myth and not enough time criticizing the bacchanal itself.

She argues that female modesty, not another tribunal, is the practical protection.

She says alumni pressure at Penn after October 7, including Marc Rowan and Ross Stevens, has not fixed the anti-academic culture.

She leaves the policy program to others and says the job is to keep exposing the falsehood.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Heather Mac Donald: Thomas W. Smith Fellow, Manhattan Institute · @HMDatMI

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

0:00 Jane Doe walked in on purpose

0:52 The Cornell 7 accusation

2:31 What the 2024 night actually was

5:45 Consent is the only moral language left

9:01 Defending the students, and the tort of seduction

12:33 Imposing real restrictions on the party scene through Title IX

17:31 What colleges gave up in the 1960s

21:12 Rape centers nobody calls

24:59 If the one in four statistic were real

29:03 Modesty, shame, and the defensive crouch

33:35 Federal power or alumni pressure

38:35 The Greek system

Will Chamberlain talks with Manhattan Institute President Reihan Salam about Nikole Hannah-Jones’s New York City schools essay in the New York Times, what her experiment with her daughter actually revealed, and why the city’s accountability collapse keeps getting blamed on racism instead of the adults in the building. The conversation also digs into Salam’s own NYC public-school path through Stuyvesant, the charter networks that work, and the marriage of clannish politics and elite self-abnegation.

In this episode:

Salam describes growing up in Borough Park and Kensington and how New York’s ethnodemographic mix reshaped the public schools since the 1980s

He walks through Stuyvesant in the 1990s as an immigrant-rich melting pot that felt less siloed than today’s composition fights imply

He profiles Hannah-Jones as the high priestess of woke 1.0, from ProPublica and the Pulitzer to the 1619 Project and her outsized leverage at the Times

He recounts her choice to send her daughter into Vinegar Hill rather than the high-demand Brooklyn Heights school, and her theory that her own activism would transform the place

He argues New York’s best public options are capped charter networks with high expectations, which the left despises precisely because they work

He says Hannah-Jones talks integration while practicing a racialized nationalism about where her daughter should feel “deeply black”

He frames the real crisis as top-to-bottom unaccountability: no homework, no grading, no consequences, while spending north of $40,000 per pupil

He notes New York City offers about 150 hours less instruction than the average U.S. district — roughly a year of schooling across K–12

He says the middle-school principal who failed her daughter still got escape-hatch praise, blaming racism instead of teaching algebra

He and Will discuss Larry Auster’s “unprincipled exception”: elites applaud 1619 politics until it threatens their own kids’ schools

He argues a healthy society goes with the grain of family self-protection, and that demanding self-abnegation invites hypocrisy

He closes on the Mamdani coalition as the marriage of ethnic nepotism and ideological self-abnegation, and why civilizational self-confidence is fragile

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Reihan Salam: President, Manhattan Institute · @reihan

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

0:00 Check homework after the revolution

2:00 Welcome

2:17 Growing up in NYC public schools

11:59 Who is Nikole Hannah-Jones?

16:18 The Vinegar Hill experiment

18:20 Charters that work, and the ones that don’t

28:08 Accountability collapse

28:56 $40k per pupil and a year less school

33:40 The principal’s racism excuse

38:47 The unprincipled exception

40:47 Family before the state

47:32 Clans, communism, and Mamdani

51:17 Why civilizational confidence is fragile

Will Chamberlain talks with Yonah Jeremy Bob, Senior Military Correspondent and Intelligence Analyst at The Jerusalem Post, and Elliot Kaufman, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, about their book, In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel's Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis.

In this episode:

Yonah explains how Netanyahu, Gallant, and Gantz, three men who could not stand one another, had to run Israel's war together for its first eight to thirteen months.

Elliot argues that Netanyahu, often caricatured as the ultimate Israeli hawk, was one of the most cautious voices in the war room after October 7 and only later became the leader willing to make the riskiest military choices.

Elliot walks through the case Gallant and the IDF high command made for striking Hezbollah first, and how Netanyahu used American opposition, along with the support of Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, to hold that option off.

Yonah reveals that the exploding beepers and walkie-talkies were already part of the war room's debate in October 2023, and that Netanyahu later refused to give Washington a veto over the strike on Hassan Nasrallah.

On Rafah, Elliot recounts how President Biden planted his flag against the operation, then went quiet once Israel evacuated the city's civilians in less than a week.

Yonah credits the IDF with moving well over a million people out of Rafah without mass casualties and reports that Hamas, eager to booby-trap more houses, inadvertently helped the evacuation.

Yonah says Biden was the pro-Israel wing of his own administration until Rafah, and Elliot explains why the Rafah fight ended up strengthening Netanyahu at home.

Yonah explains the dispute between the Mossad and the IDF over when to use the pagers, and says the concern was not imminent discovery but that Iranian inspectors might eventually find them.

Elliot describes the Nasrallah decision, in which Netanyahu warned that American officials would "jump out of their skin" and Washington was told only once Israeli warplanes were in the air.

Elliot reports that Ron Dermer told the war room after meeting Trump in November 2024 that there was an 80 percent chance Trump would allow or join a strike on Iran, and that JD Vance played a crucial role in bringing the United States in.

Yonah recounts how IDF chief Eyal Zamir won over Vance by telling him Israeli aircraft were flying over Fordow unopposed, and argues that nobody drags Donald Trump into anything.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Yonah Jeremy Bob: The Jerusalem Post · @jeremybob1

Elliot Kaufman: The Wall Street Journal editorial board · @ElliotKaufman6

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Cold Open

03:02 How In the War Room came together

06:39 Who ran Israel's war: Netanyahu, Gallant, and Gantz

08:47 Was Netanyahu really the hawk everyone assumes?

10:13 Should Israel have struck Hezbollah first?

19:48 The fight over Rafah

27:52 What was the Biden administration withholding?

32:15 Did Biden himself turn on Israel?

36:27 The pagers and the Iranian inspection risk

38:24 The Nasrallah strike and what to tell Washington

43:13 Did Israel drag Trump into war with Iran?

47:57 How Zamir sold JD Vance before Midnight Hammer

49:02 The UAE warning and the failures before October 7

The Houthis are back in the news, advancing down the Red Sea coast and threatening to take control of Bab-el-Mandeb strait, though they have apparently reassured Washington that they mean no harm to international trade, at least for now.

Zineb Riboua is a research fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East. On Counterweight she explains who the Houthis actually are — Ansar Allah from Saada, a Zaidi movement that is indigenous and still tied to Iran — then walks through this week’s coastal push, the Southern Transitional Council fight with Saudi Arabia, and why Riyadh sees a window now that IRGC support is thinner. She traces the Saudi–UAE split through Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya; reads the Mecca Pact with Turkey and Pakistan as a deconfliction channel still being written; and argues Trump is unlikely to open a second major front in Yemen while the energy market and midterms dominate. On the Red Sea she spells out why Bab el-Mandeb matters more for Egypt, Europe, and Asia than for U.S. trade — and how Chinese satellite firms supplied Houthi targeting data while Chinese and Russian ships were spared, which flipped the old “include China” playbook. She closes on China’s failed Gulf mediation, the bite of enforced sanctions on Iran’s revolutionary-proxy model, Iraq’s September 30 militia demilitarization test, and Gulf preparations for a much weaker Islamic Republic — including the absence of Arab-capital street defenses of Tehran.

Listen / watch: https://www.counterweightpod.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@counterweightpod

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Zineb Riboua: @zriboua · Hudson Institute

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

Follow Counterweight (twice a week): Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

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Site: https://www.counterweightpod.com/

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open — Saudis never allowed to win; Houthis steal the aid

2:31 Who the Houthis are — Ansar Allah, Zaidi, indigenous and Iran-tied

5:05 Coastal ops — STC, UAE, and Saudi’s post-Iran window

8:47 Bab el-Mandeb — Iran’s interest and Houthi diversification

10:48 Why the Saudis struggle — Washington never let them finish it

12:35 Saudi–UAE split — Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya

16:47 Mecca Pact — Turkey, Pakistan, and a still-unwritten deal

19:06 Trump, Houthi strikes, and Abraham Accords leverage

21:07 Bab el-Mandeb for trade — Egypt, Europe, Asia; not mainly America

21:58 China armed the crisis — satellite targeting data for the Houthis

24:04 China’s double game with the Gulf and Iran

27:45 Sanctions hit Chinese oil buyers and the shadow banks

30:23 How badly Iran feels the bite — a revolutionary state without cash

33:58 What America should do — energy market, missile shield, proxies

37:15 Iraq’s militia deadline — the Sep 30 test

40:04 Preparing for a weaker Islamic Republic

40:56 No Arab street defense of Iran — and why that matters

43:57 The perpetual counterterror bill vs tying the Gulf to the U.S.

As Israel stands on the brink of another pivotal election, tensions are high and the stakes have never been clearer. In this episode of Counterweight, political analyst Hadar Hazony joins host Will Chamberlain to decode the intricacies of the Israeli political landscape, revealing why the upcoming October 27 elections could reshape the nation’s future.

Hadar Hazony, a leading voice on Israeli politics, dives into the crucial dynamics between the key players: Benjamin Netanyahu, the long-standing Prime Minister from the Likud party, and Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff now running on a centrist platform. Discover how their similar platforms are complicating the race and what it means for voters caught between tradition and change. You’ll uncover the phenomenon of satellite parties and the unique electoral list system that allows smaller factions to influence the balance of power in ways American voters might find surprising.

You'll learn about:

• The critical role of satellite parties in Israeli elections and how they can sway outcomes.
• The implications of proportional representation in shaping party dynamics and coalition-building.
• Insights into Gadi Eisenkot’s rise as a formidable opponent to Netanyahu and what his leadership style represents for the future of Israel.
•

Listen / watch: https://www.counterweightpod.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@counterweightpod

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Hadar Hazony: @HA Hazony

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

Follow Counterweight (twice a week): Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@counterweightpod Site: https://www.counterweightpod.com

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open — Israelis credit Netanyahu for winning the war

1:23 Oct 27 election — Bibi, Eisenkot, and their political camps

4:16 Why satellite parties exist

7:25 How party lists work

12:07 Joint lists and the electoral threshold

15:48 Gadi Eisenkot — how he became the alternative

23:12 What happened to Naftali Bennett

26:42 The Haredi draft and its salience

31:50 UK West Bank sanctions

35:47 Itamar Ben-Gvir

39:42 Iran — how Israelis read the war

42:25 Greater Israel - real or fake

47:01 Did Netanyahu fund Hamas via Qatar

Will Chamberlain talks with Curtis Yarvin about the AI doomer thesis, why Yarvin thinks it is more political and cultural than technical, and what actually matters for AI safety in the real world. The conversation also digs into hacking, biosecurity, institutional competence, and the sociology of the rationalist and effective altruist scenes.

In this episode:

• Yarvin steelmans the AI doomer case as the orthogonality hypothesis, then argues it fails because current AIs have no real intentions
• He says smarter systems are becoming more controllable, predictable, and useful for sensitive tasks, not less
• He frames AI doomerism as a recurring human trope rooted in myths about rebellious machines and takeover scenarios
• The Hugging Face incident is presented as a human negligence problem, not evidence of autonomous AI agency
• He argues the real government priorities should be cyber defense and biodefense, especially modernizing vulnerable legacy software
• He makes the case for safer programming approaches, including moving away from unsafe languages and imperative programming
• He argues hacking is effectively a solvable, even “dead soon” problem if software systems are modernized properly
• On biosecurity, he says AI can help with pattern recognition, but wet lab reality is still the hard limit
• He pushes back on the idea that intelligence alone creates power, saying physical, political, and institutional constraints still dominate
• He critiques the sociology of rationalism and effective altruism, arguing that their worldview creates mission-driven overreach and political capture

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Curtis Yarvin: Gray Mirror · @curtis_yarvin

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

02:12 What is the AI doomer thesis?

03:19 Why AI systems don’t have intentions of their own

09:32 The Hugging Face incident and the sandbox failure

13:19 The real policy challenge: cyber defense

17:10 Biodefense and the limits of intelligence

21:13 Why more capable models can be more controllable

29:35 The politics and incentives behind AI doomerism

36:36 Rationalism, status, and self-perception

40:39 Security hardening versus restricting AI access

45:40 Politics, power, and institutional competence

53:31 Silicon Valley’s blind spots about Washington

58:43 Concerns about centralized control of AI

Randy Barnett: A Latin King confessed to a grisly triple murder, then told him he’d kill one of the victims again if it was a "sure thing."

That exchange helped put the man on death row.

Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center and faculty director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. He has authored more than a dozen books and argued Gonzales v. Raich before the Supreme Court in 2004. Before any of that, he spent four years as a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in the late 1970s and early 1980s Chicago.

On Counterweight he walks through those years: Harvard Law to the arraignment court where he watched the John Wayne Gacy closing; Judge John Crowley teaching him what “bullsh*t” meant in a misdemeanor call; the bond-slip racket and crooked jury courts; the chop-shop case that exposed “Dollars” Devine and fixer Eddie Jensen; night shifts on Felony Review deciding, in police stations at three in the morning, which cases became felonies; the one-stab domestic that never became a charge; and the Juan Caballero confession that helped bring a death verdict. He closes with his take on the Lindsay Clancy mistrial and why the insanity defense gets criminal justice theory backwards.

His latest book, Felony Review, is the record of that education. The stories are true crime from the inside, and they still explain how charging, corruption, and courtroom power actually work.

Listen / watch: https://www.counterweightpod.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@counterweightpod

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Randy Barnett: Georgetown University Law Center · Felony Review

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

Follow Counterweight (twice a week):

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@counterweightpod

Site: https://www.counterweightpod.com

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open — Caballero: “I’d a killed Michael for sure”

0:58 Host intro

2:04 Randy Barnett

3:09 Harvard Law to Cook County prosecutor

8:13 Judge Crowley and learning what “bullsh*t” means

13:05 Bond slips and corruption in the misdemeanor courts

17:47 The chop shop — Dollars Devine and Eddie Jensen

28:07 Felony Review — 24/7 charging calls in the police stations

33:17 One stab wound — charge or let go

38:12 Juan Caballero — the confession that brought a death sentence 46:40 Lindsay Clancy and the insanity defense

Brian Chau: The AI doomers always believed superintelligent AI would become a malevolent god and wipe us out. People used to think he was exaggerating. Now they say it in public.

This week Jacob Coxon’s Anthropic resignation thread went mega-viral, and Bernie Sanders is staging AI’s “extraordinary dangers” on the Hill.

Brian Chau is an AI engineer, publisher of http://Effort.News, and co-founder of Alliance for the Future, the pro-AI advocacy group that fought Biden-era AI controls and helped unwind the institutional machinery that survived repeal. On Counterweight he maps the AI doom thesis—Yudkowsky, the orthogonality claim, and why every step of the chain fails—then follows the money: Sam Bankman-Fried, Dustin Moskovitz’s Open Philanthropy (now Coefficient Giving), Jaan Tallinn, and the Future of Life Institute. He walks through a Guardian story where the publisher, the reporter, the subject, and the experts were paid by the same donors; the Coxon amplification machine; anti-data-center funding; hardware kill switches sold as a China tool; TIME’s AI 100 with a majority of profiles written by Open Phil–paid journalists while Jensen Huang was left off; and what Senate staffers should ask Geoffrey Hinton and Ajeya Cotra next week.

Listen / watch: https://www.counterweightpod.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@counterweightpod

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Brian Chau: http://Effort.News · @brianchau57 Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

CHAPTERS

0:00 Teaser — they want to ban AI because they think it causes the apocalypse

0:48 Host intro

2:16 Brian Chau

2:20 Background — from AI engineer to Alliance for the Future

4:58 Coxon goes viral — who the doomers are

5:37 Why Chau welcomed the panic — now we fight on honest ground

7:41 The orthogonality thesis — and why the apocalypse chain is wrong

8:52 Their claim — AI becomes God, God is malevolent

10:53 Why every step fails — S-curves, narrow intelligence, the cult’s dark triad

19:02 Funders — Bankman-Fried, Moskovitz, Tallinn, Future of Life

21:43 The distorted media ecosystem

23:17 True believers vs regulatory capture — Anthropic and Amodei

27:48 Coxon’s thread as the product of the nonprofit machine

30:14 Cloaking the thesis — deepfakes, China, and data centers

31:21 Anti-data-center money — Singham vs the larger doom ecosystem

34:09 Why now — political timing more than sudden AGI panic

37:05 Policy endgame — treating NVIDIA GPUs like controlled arms

38:00 Kill switches — destroy the industry, sell it as beating China

42:26 TIME 100 — 58% of profiles paid by Open Phil; Jensen Huang left off

43:46 What senators should ask

46:24 YouTube ad bidding that steers recommendations

48:14 Undisclosed AI-doom sponsorships of creators

49:12 http://Effort.News — mining legal and financial records for the money trail

Richard Goldberg: America is winning the Iran war. The Strait of Hormuz is moving on U.S. orders, and the escape hatches are closing.

The harder question is how you turn that pressure into an end state before Tehran finds a way to wait you out.

Richard Goldberg is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He ran Iran weapons-of-mass-destruction policy on the National Security Council in the first Trump term, helped stand up the National Energy Dominance Council, and was sanctioned by Iran in 2020 for the maximum-pressure campaign. He has been one of the public architects of the blockade-plus-sanctions strategy now running as Operation Economic Outcast.

On this episode of Counterweight, Goldberg walks through what “winning” means six months in: nuclear and missile setbacks, ships running dark through Hormuz, the cash crunch and gasoline rationing inside Iran, and why Treasury closing escape hatches still leaves a harder problem. How do you go from economic suffocation to victory without a ground war, and what should “maximum support” for the Iranian people actually look like before the midterms?

Listen / watch:

https://www.counterweightpod.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@counterweightpod

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Richard Goldberg: Foundation for Defense of Democracies · http://fdd.org

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

CHAPTERS

0:00 Teaser — Hormuz on U.S. orders, hatches closing

0:55 Host intro

2:38 Richard Goldberg

2:57 What winning looks like — nukes and missile breakout

11:24 Hormuz no longer Iran’s — blockade plus Outcast

13:01 Ships running dark through Hormuz

17:27 Trump’s vibe shift — no more MOUs

18:03 Why the MOU happened and why Project Freedom went underground

27:53 Demining and whether America was stringing Iran along

29:02 The MOU as Iran’s surrender of Hormuz

29:51 Gas lines and the cash crunch inside Iran

31:27 How real is the squeeze — subsidies and the house of cards

40:10 Can economic pressure alone topple the regime

42:00 Maximum support — arming Iranians and naming an alternative

52:41 October surprise risk before the midterms

Judge Glock: data-center construction is up about twenty times in three years. Of course the counties are panicking.

Loudoun County takes about 45 percent of its tax dollars from those buildings and cut the homeowner rate by about 40 percent. He called it a free government.

Judge Glock is an economic historian, the research director at the Manhattan Institute, and a contributing editor at City Journal. Judge is his name, not a title. He lives next door to Loudoun County, Virginia, the data-center capital of the world. This spring he wrote the Loudoun case in City Journal.

On this episode of Counterweight, Glock walks through what is actually inside those buildings, why Loudoun became ground zero, whether other counties can still copy that deal, and why a local zoning vote will not decide the future of AI. The frontier labs spent a year talking as if they were going to eat half of the white-collar jobs, and maybe the planet. A lot of people are treating a county board meeting as a vote on the apocalypse.

Listen / watch: https://www.counterweightpod.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@counterweightpod

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Judge Glock: @judgeglock on X · http://manhattan.institute

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

0:00 Teaser

1:07 Host intro

2:52 Judge Glock

2:56 What a data center does

4:11 Why AI needs them

5:14 Cooling and power

6:28 Construction jobs

8:41 Neighbors

12:56 The twenty-times boom

15:14 Loudoun

19:34 Loudoun pushback

21:54 Who pays for power

24:06 Can other counties copy

25:18 Where the backlash comes from

28:55 How counties should bargain

32:15 Federalism

35:47 AI doom talk

Rahul Sidhu: a San Francisco gangster said Flock cameras and drones ended his drive-bys.

The Right turned on the company anyway.

Rahul Sidhu was a Los Angeles cop, then a reserve officer. He founded Aerodome, sold it to Flock Safety, and is now Flock's chief strategy officer. Flock puts cameras at public intersections in more than 6,000 communities. The cameras read plates, not faces. The city owns the data. Sidhu says the systems helped find more than 10,000 missing people in 2025 and supported more than a million criminal investigations.

On this episode of Counterweight, Sidhu walks through why agencies buy Flock, why a warrant on every plate search would collapse case clearance, and the Milwaukee cop who ran a girlfriend's plate 124 times. He says officers already abused DMV and criminal-history databases. Flock is the system that leaves a log. The company has no ICE contract. Local agencies that want to share with ICE can share. He wants audits written into law and jail time for the officers who abuse the tool. He does not want the cameras taken down.

Listen / watch: https://www.counterweightpod.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@counterweightpod

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Rahul Sidhu: @rahul on X

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Flock Safety and Rahul Sidhu

02:39 Rahul's Background and Flock's Mission

04:41 How Flock's ALPR Cameras Work

05:16 Hardware vs Software in Flock’s Products

07:24 Flock's Positive Impact on Public Safety

09:07 Why Flock Became News: Controversies and Criticisms

11:07 Political and Public Concerns About Flock

13:04 Regulation, Law, and Privacy Debates

17:42 Common Critiques: Abuse, Misuse, and Misunderstanding

22:15 AI and Auditing for Police Accountability

27:26 Data Privacy, Ownership, and Sharing Policies

30:24 Use of Flock Data in Different Jurisdictions

36:27 Flock's Capabilities During Emergencies and Lockdowns

38:50 Addressing Concerns of Data Abuse and Government Overreach

45:01 Conservative Perspectives and Misunderstandings

48:29 Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts

Mike Howell: The Amnesty Lobby is coming for Trump - pushing farm worker amnesty and the DIGNIDAD Act into the midterms. Trump needs to stand firm.

Mike Howell is president of the Oversight Project at http://itsyourgov.org, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, and a partner in the Mass Deportation Coalition. He is a Virginia lawyer, a Duke and Emory Law graduate, a former House and Senate oversight counsel, and the first Trump administration’s chief legal point of contact at DHS for congressional investigations.

On this episode of Counterweight, Howell walks through the machinery that keeps a real deportation program from scaling. A Senate that treats interior enforcement as a favor to trade. An ICE pause on vehicle stops after Susan Collins called it in. Religious-in-name-only NGOs that still siphon money after Kristi Noem cut the main pipes. An immigration bar that files a habeas petition every time an alien is arrested. The legal fights on no-bond detention and TPS are real. The numbers problem is still a numbers problem. Howell’s midterm advice is worksite enforcement, sanctuary farms and factories on notice, and no victory lap that hands Washington a Gang of Eight sequel.

Listen / watch: https://www.counterweightpod.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@counterweightpod

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Mike Howell: @MHowellTweets on X · Oversight Project @ItsYourGov · http://itsyourgov.org · http://massdeportation.com

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

0:00 Intro

0:10 Teaser

1:08 Host intro

2:29 Mike Howell

4:27 Who sets the frame

6:23 Sanctuary cars

13:30 Detention and the courts

18:32 Midterms and worksites

23:21 The NGO machine

31:30 The amnesty trap