#Russia #China #Vietnam #Cuba #Putin #Marxism #Havana #60Minutes #HavanaSyndrome #Mystery #MilitaryInvestigator #TheInsider #DerSpiegel #NationalSecurity #highenergybeamofmicrowavesorultrasound #Florida #FBI
national security #VitaliiKovalev #WorldWar #Dictators #NeedToKnow #France #NuclearPower #NuclearWeapons #Uranium #Africa #Wagner #CoalBurning #GreenEnergy #Romney #Obama #ObamaRussianUraniumOneDeal #War

https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/109694/documents/HHRG-116-II06-20190625-SD004.pdf

The Uranium One controversy involved the sale of a Canadian company, Uranium One, to a Russian state-owned corporation, Rosatom, in 2010. The controversy arose due to allegations that the Obama administration, particularly then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, approved the deal in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation. Opponents of the deal, mainly conservative politicians and media outlets, claimed that the sale compromised U.S. national security interests by giving Russia control over a significant portion of U.S. uranium production capacity. They also alleged that the Clinton Foundation received substantial donations from individuals connected to Uranium One, suggesting a quid pro quo arrangement. Investigations into the matter, including a 2015 review by the U.S. Department of Justice, found no evidence of wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton or the Obama administration. Despite this, the controversy persisted, with some critics continuing to use it as a political talking point against Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign.  Note: While U.S. "officials" deny anything and everything: A Russian assassination unit linked has been Havana syndrome.

Think About It

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  0:00  
This morning, I woke up at around three, four o'clock in the morning or closer to three. And I had something come across one of my feeds. And we talked about this morning, we were writing in 60 minutes had an episode about the Havana syndrome and really interesting.

Paul Truesdell, II  0:18  
Yeah, I didn't see the whole interview. But I did end up seeing a few clips from some of the interviews in that that episode. And yeah, it kind of confirmed some of my suspicions and clarified. Yes, some of the things that have been floating around for a long time.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  0:34  
So today, we're going to talk a lot about Russia. Again, we're talking about China. Again, we're gonna talk a little bit about our members of Congress. Again, we're going to tie all this into economics, again, there's a lot of things are going on. And we're going to also tie this in to France. We do not rehearse these, do we? No, we do not. And we have no notes. And we're just going to spit ball up because this is a conversation that we have on a fairly regular basis. So do you want to give a little history of the Havana flu or Havana syndrome, whatever they want to call it? Which is a joke. Yeah. My

Paul Truesdell, II  1:09  
My recollection of it is that sometime around 2000, I don't know what 1314 15. Somewhere in there, they started recognizing the certain people that worked for consulates in different places. I believe the investigation started in Cubot. Hence the name Havana. And these people had unknown brain anomalies, injuries, something that resembled a TBI. That made no sense because most of these people were working in the let's call them, like collar kind of administrative roles. Is that correct?

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  1:45  
Yeah. And the consensus, kind of moving forward now to today is that almost all of them talk about hearing a horrendous high pitched whine. One guy said, Imagine you have a ear infection and you stick a Q tip in your ear. But instead of a Q tip, it's a needle. And imagine the pain of a sound of like a pin, piercing your eardrum. From there you have brain fog, and all sorts of items where they can't stand, they fall down. They can't concentrate. It is pretty, pretty hard.

Paul Truesdell, II  2:23  
Yeah, that's really odd for somebody that is now usually a white collar worker, usually in an office building.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  2:32  
And there's one lady. She's had several surgeries spend time in the hospital. She has metal plates in her side of her head, whatever it did, I didn't. I was I was not in any kind of shape to go into the details. Because early in the morning, but I won't abstain up. Yeah, it's a big thing. So it started in Havana least that's where they say they found it. But one of the things, everybody who knows me knows how much I despise the word journalist out most of these journalists are nothing more than opinion. People spouting their views and not doing real investigative journalism. This was a real investigative journalistic piece.

Paul Truesdell, II  3:17  
Yeah, yeah. I, from what I saw, they've been working on it for years. And he finally got enough sources and enough people to talk to come to some conclusions on not only what is it but who is doing it is

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  3:30  
60 minutes collaborated with the intercept and other news organizations. A What a great length about a fella who is a expat Russian. And he was able to, he's able to read things, and he has sources. And they have they have what they think will be the smoking gun in this a email with that they talk about they talk about the guy down in the Keys, who was arrested by police on high speed chase. So we're just going to lay a few things out here. This is not unique to Cuba. This has been going on. And we've talked about for a long time. I think the most outrageous thing was in Vietnam. Did you see that section of it? No. So apparently in Vietnam, Vice President Camilla Harris was going for a state visit. And there's going to be a lot of trade talk and negotiations there. So

Paul Truesdell, II  4:27  
So pause for right frame of reference. I think I know. So if it was a Biden administration, I know what happened on this visit. Yep. And it was extremely important. She was just there to show face. A lot of the negotiations that already been prepped ahead of time. Oh, sure. And the this is one of those really important visits, if I recall, correctly, that they it was kind of shocking in hindsight, the pull away from China, that the Vietnamese decided on a Um, and it kind of broke the ground for really consequential realignment in policy and in an ally, but a total realignment geopolitically? Because you know, less than, what, 50 years ago we're at war are there. So we're about about 50 years. So, to us, it's kind of you don't typically do that. No, it's very unusual in the grand scheme of things. And I believe they wanted to buy a bunch of our military equipment and stuff like that. So it was a huge sea change, let's call it, and I think a lot of it had to deal with just kind of how awesome their backyard is. And not so

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  5:41  
according to CBS, and from what I heard, is that the Russians gave the covert operations, which, of course, Vietnam has that domestically, supposedly, under the auspices that this is a fantastic tool to listen in on conversations pointed at people, and you can hear what you want to hear the bionic ear. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. No. Yeah, absolutely. Unfortunately, it fried the brains of a bunch of our advanced military people, soldiers, Special Forces, seals, and at least one very close person to the Vice President.

Paul Truesdell, II  6:26  
Yeah, that's not good. It's interesting, because, you know, when you think about that area of the world, the motivations of the Vietnamese in their kind of sea change. The other thing to consider is a lot of manufacturing. Last couple years has started to move to Vietnam because of various reasons. So if, if there's obviously there's Russian involvement in this, the likelihood is there's also Chinese involvement in this. I wouldn't doubt that one. But Vietnam is just one of those places where their interests overlap a little too much. Well, I

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  6:57  
think also, we should bring up the fact that we have talked previously in other episodes about the outrageous attempt that China made right after our loss in Vietnam. When we pulled out the invaded North Vietnam. It didn't do

Paul Truesdell, II  7:14  
so well, today. Yeah. Well, they Vietnam was, quote, unquote, unified at that point in time. And yeah, they they invaded Vietnam. And because Vietnam was not working well with anybody at the time. And yeah, they were only there for maybe 60 days or something. They got a they had the they had to tuck tail and run. They got shellacked. Yeah, it was bad. It's one of them. It's literally the only conflict in recent history that we have to judge the modern Chinese military. And it's a horrible example because, you know, it proves that at least at that point in time, they had no idea what they're doing. But

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  7:55  
before we continue, I want to take a real quick break. This episode of The Paul Truesdale podcast is brought to you by Truesdell wealth a true fiduciary based registered investment advisor, the home of fixed costs investing in the principles are pretty simple here. Traditional, transparent and truthful. Wealth, advice and management based upon our philosophy of fixed costs investing. With that visit Truesdell, wealth.com Truesdale wealth.com. Now we were talking about the war between China and North Vietnam. It didn't last all that long. But I want to roll back. And before I do this, remind everybody we forecast and we look a lot of at history, I think is interesting. If you think about it, Nixon opened the door to China, I haven't going to drop this on. You haven't talked about it. Nixon open the door to China ping pong diplomacy and one thing led to another Yeah, we have China entering the World Trade Organization, very controversial at the time back in the day. But it was also Nixon when he was a US senator who went after the Russian spies, the pumpkin, the microfilm, and that's something that we can talk about. We also know that Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy were actually friends, they were acquaintances in the Senate, they got along but they were they were opponents, they were adversaries. And no doubt that, you know, when Kennedy beat Nixon in 1960, election net kind of highlighted the depths to which political shenanigans would go on as reference just real quick reference. Lyndon Johnson known as landslide Linden down into Rio Grande got more votes of as president and carry Texas than even lived there. This goes back to his days of being a senator and a member of the House of Representatives and we have John Daly in Chicago in the last minute, pull up boxes that came in votes. Stealing elections is an interesting thing has been going on for a lot of years. Now getting on the current phase of things, but just it's a real thing. Huey Long, you know, Louisiana, all that sort of stuff. Even Harry Truman was part of the Pendergrast machine in Missouri. So one of the things I've always found interesting is that when Nixon resigned from office, he resigned from an office because of a real simple thing. And this is all going to tie together. The Watergate burglary, people understood that if you go to Hillary Clinton, and you look at the cattle futures, nobody understood that no, absolutely not. I remember back in the day, I would talk extensively about that with people who are clients who are knowledgeable, no clue, no clue what that was for, I don't get it. So if Nixon is an a hardcore, anti communist, and he was, although he did open the door to China, although he did embrace Brezhnev, and, and last notes and all the other stuff, although he did have Kissinger, I just find it really interesting that sometimes a long term time horizon pay backs are hell. And the depth to which our nation is penetrated with Russian covert operatives, was always at spy versus spy. Oh, they're going to activate and they're going to take over the US that kind of thing. That's not the case. I think this demonstrates that from tick tock to sound, ear penetrating disabling devices, we are at war,

Paul Truesdell, II  11:32  
yes. Now this, these types of things have all the hallmarks of the Cold War. And the thing people are just now starting to wake up to the reality is that we not are we aren't the Soviet Union did not go away, Soviet Union is still around, they just went under a strategic reorganization, they added a buddy in China. So you know, it's disappointing to realize that, you know, people are not taking this or have not been taking this as seriously for a very long time. But it's instance like this, and all the various shenanigans in Eastern Europe and all this other stuff. That should make it very clear to people that, you know, the Cold War didn't really end. And this is just a continuation of the same thing.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  12:19  
One of the items I think is important to always remember never forget, is that China and Russia have had border disputes, and they've had some most skirmishes in the past. The sino Russian war is a real thing. If you want to look it up, look up what went on back in the day. And I I truly do believe that Nixon's efforts to open up China caused a lot of consternation in Moscow. And people need to realize Russia has a really big border. And Siberia is very heavily Chinese influenced.

Paul Truesdell, II  12:57  
Yes. Yeah. I mean, the closer you are to China has more influence there's going to be but I've seen some video and stuff of people walking around, there's just no name does out in the middle of nowhere, places north of Mongolia and Siberia and whatever. And it is kind of shocking, because it's it's basically little china, shops and stores and all that sort of stuff have pretty much all Chinese products. And yeah, I mean, it's to be expected to be honest. So

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  13:26  
what I'm laying the foundation for is Russia has an ally in China, but it also has an adversary in China necessary, especially when it comes to technology, manufacturing, and military muscle in the area. Yeah,

Paul Truesdell, II  13:43  
they do. And they don't it kind of depends on how you look at things. over the Ukraine conflict. It looks to me as though China has taken Russia as more of a vassal state than anything due to Russia's reliance on Chinese banking, facilitation, trading, calm trading cutouts, you know, on paper, it's Chinese, but it's actually Russian. As well as energy exports, growth in the energy export market in Russia is China. They're building tons of pipelines to get natural gas and stuff all the way across Siberia, all the way into China, which is quite a long way. So they are enemies, but the same time I think Russia has has kind of sleepwalked their way into becoming a vassal state. And that may not be entirely true yet, but it will be within a matter of time if things continue as usual. So that's why I always kind of kind of consider you know, Russian intelligence and all this stuff is still very good in theory anyway. But I wonder how much of this is being done behalf of the Chinese or or in joint venture because this is one thing we see with Chinese and Russian propaganda is they they utilize the same. Let's call them playbook Talking Heads. Yep, they will literally exchange CGTN, the Chinese called the outward facing Chinese propaganda arm, they utilize the same characters that RT does in different outlets, so, and then they will, they will switch people back and forth to use them for different projects. And oh, here's our great Russian friend Oh, now he's now he's American. Now he's, he's a great Chinese friend. Anyway, the point is, is that they have a lot more exchange going on and cooperative efforts than I think people realize. And if it's at the kind of propaganda level and state propaganda level, it's got to be an intelligence as well, because those two things go hand in hand. So

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  15:52  
one of the items that we should always remember, never forget that when we go to war, we tend to not kill the head of state, we tend to not kill the House State, tend, it has not been the case historically, in the world, as a state get killed, are the risks that you take when you step up. And we're now talking about that because of some of the interesting items that come out of the mouths of both Biden and Trump in their lackeys, which is, I find utterly disgusting, no matter what anybody says the the level of discourse is, can be quite raucous, ridiculous, but I think it's gone way beyond what it should fire. But that being said, what you I've always said this, if you want to take out a US senator or a congressman or the or any government, you take out the not the second, but the third and fourth level, people start really working on that. And

Paul Truesdell, II  16:51  
if, you know, kind of redirect back to the Havana thing, and this is a way of doing that. You mentioned earlier that and I saw this part of the clip, or as one of the people they interviewed was a former DEA, Defense Intelligence Agency officer who I guess was in charge of this investigation or something. And he talked about how one of the correlations they came up with fairly early on, was that these weren't, you know, B or C tier people working for a State Department or intelligence or whatever. So were you top five 5%, or one percenters who are very successful in what they're doing. And a lot of them had very successfully their operations or investigations with regard to Russia. So it's interesting, because that's a good way of going at it, taking that same kind of philosophy, they aren't going to go after, you know, a head of state or head of a department or something that just go after the people, they need their job. So

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  17:51  
when I heard that, this morning, I was in the den in my study, and I just leaned back in my chair and just went no, fill in the blank. And I said, That's, I've been talking about this for years, you know, it's it's no different than any kind of a criminal organization, you know, everybody Oh, go after the head go after the head. You don't have to go after lieutenants, you don't have to, you have to go after a street level people and you cripple them. And eventually they make the mistake and one leads to another it says a small fish bigger fish type thing. But in in global diplomacy and and how we conduct ourselves, we, we tend not to want to go after the head of state, although, in my opinion, Kennedy was assassinated, I won't say any more than that, but I think he was assassinated, a way of foreign influence. And there's very little doubt that there was, in my opinion to outside nation states working together, and they're still a pain in our ass now, but it is what it is. So, you know, you start looking at these things, you just connect the damn dots. And the thing that one of the fellas said in this, in we talked about this, just before we went live, is that the government doesn't want to doesn't, I'm not going to work this well. They know what's going on. Don't want to admit what's going on, because to admit what's going on and to get other people involved, meaning the rank and file citizen of our country, you're walking into that line of war.

Paul Truesdell, II  19:23  
Absolutely. And this is something that has been frustrating to read about in history because throughout the entire Cold War, there's there have been incidents like this. Now everybody always kind of points to Cuban missile crisis or whatever. But there's lots of others where there was an incident and we kind of just shrugged our shoulders and butter roll off our back as if we were just ducks. And it's frustrating because everybody's afraid of you know, the the nuclear deterrent is only a deterrent for our actions. It seems typically everybody else gets to just stomp all over us and then when They say when they start to say, you know, the N word there, and everybody gets very scared and backs off. And, you know, it's just it's a strange element of the of the Andrii, that you're in with international diplomacy with regard to nuclear weapons. But I also think that, you know, as other aspects of this to consider that, you know, they don't want to talk about it, because we'll still don't know, you know, they're digging into things and they want to get, they want to get down to the center of something. And know for certainty, what mechanism of action was, because I know, for a long time, that was a question like, what's even happening here, but then also, who's doing it? Now? They they, they know, pretty much for certain. So I would say that this investigation is kind of authorized by the government. And the recent this report, no way, any of this would have happened without, without official, an official Greenlight. But then the other thing is, you know, if you go back, and if you don't really have answers to something, you know, and you start binding everybody up that makes people afraid to do their job. So, you know, there's multiple angles to this, but, you know, what are what are the outcome? What is the outcome of this, my response would be if the outcome to this, in particular, if we had a Congress that was not completely compromised by foreign agents, and I don't know, just anyway, if we, if we had a Congress that was willing to do something, we would very much be able to do the one thing that the Russians are afraid of just supply a ton more very strategic weapons to Ukraine, that would be a fantastic Cold War style response to a problem that, you know, sits right in front of us, you want to continue to do this to us, we will make sure that your state is on the verge of collapse forever. And instead, it's like the, what I'm seeing out of the National Security Council is they want to get their plan was to get Russia to a certain point where they would be forced to the negotiating table sometime this year. That's not how Russians work. They're never if they if they don't, if they're not deeply afraid, and, and teetering on collapse there, they don't, they're not even going to respect you at all, they're going to think you're cowardly. And I believe that's where they think we're at right now. So it's just it's a misalignment of understanding of ways of doing business ways of perceiving the world. But also, it's a pattern that kind of extends throughout the past decades with how we handled things during the Cold War, when things were, in theory a lot more tense than they are now.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  22:39  
So we're going to continue this. And I want to take a quick little break and give you our disclaimer, because we're going to begin talking about a couple of things that well, we'll throw it in here, and it'll make sense. We'll be right back.

Speaker 1  22:59  
You're listening to Paul the elder and Paul the younger, and this is the Paul Truesdale. podcast to Paul's in a pod. Due to our extensive holdings and our clients, you should assume that we have a position in all companies discussed and that a conflict of interest exists. By listening, reading or using this document, video, podcast and or website in any manner, you understand the information presented is provided for informational purposes. Nothing said written or otherwise communicated should be construed as an offer recommendation, advice or solicitation to buy or sell a security. The Truesdale companies are a conglomerate of independent professional service firms, including wealth, insurance, consulting, law, media, software and real estate development. Let's now return to today's thoughts.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  24:03  
So one of the things I think it's absolutely critical to understand is you help you have leadership, people who are leaders are not necessarily smarter than anybody else. In the case of Biden, there's no doubt that he has a tremendous amount of experience in government.

Paul Truesdell, II  24:19  
Sure. He's been he's been. He's been in government since before he was allowed to be

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  24:24  
true. Yeah, you want to tell what? I'll do that real quick. So Biden got elected before the age of 35. And he's from Delaware. And he had to wait until he turned 35 to accept his position as the United States senator was a member of Congress. And I think his entire life he's been in government, which is fine. But, you know, he's got a lot of experience, but he's everybody. Oh, they're so smart. No, these people are not smarter. The the difference between people who are in leadership positions and people who are not as to do with one single thing, and the overwhelming thing is how Violence Are you willing to be? So you, for example, are working in a business, right? And well, you're not a leader. While you might say, Well, Paul, my guy who's leading the companies, he's not violent, nobody's wanting to fire you. Yeah, he's willing to do what he needs to do to take credit for something he didn't do, and then trash the other person and then send them to Siberia. You know, that is a form of warfare. So whether it's in a bureaucracy of the government or bureaucracy and private sector, or even charities, I mean, look at Jim and Tammy, Faye Baker and look at all these, these House of Cards, hogwash, preachers that are out there over the years, same thing that is just Are you willing? What are you willing to do to get ahead if the Russians are willing to do whatever? Russians have a whole different mindset in and I think one of the things that we have to we have to derive drive home today is that they have targeted the top five and 5% of our our bureaucrats are government officials. And that is going to that's a heavy toll. Yeah, there will be reverberations. So let's now move over to France, because one of the things we've talked about this, I am very impressed with Macron. He has basically said, I've had enough with Russia. And a couple of quick things on what you'd elaborate one, they're no longer exporting weapons to any nation, except for Ukraine. They are muscling up, Trump, for all of you, who are who were on the Trump wagon. Please listen to this. The Europeans are muscling up in ways that we never could have thought. So what has happened in the past is not happening. Now. You want to cover a little bit about France? And of course, nuclear energy. Yeah,

Paul Truesdell, II  26:54  
the France has had a huge kind of turn about in the past couple months, in particular, from the start of the Ukraine conflict, everybody in Europe has kind of been, you know, they don't want to do too much. They don't want to they didn't want it to go too far. But at the same time, you had history of Europe kind of dragging everybody. Like, like a bunch of children kind of kicking and screaming. And the United States, at least in the beginning, took charge and took the lead, because we understood, oh, look, these guys actually put up a fight. That means this isn't going to be a cakewalk. We can, there can be long term benefits for this. So, you know, a lot of the Western European powers have been reluctant to do a ton. They don't want to provoke anybody too much. And with the let's call it the delinquency of the United States, his leadership over the past six, eight months, the complete inability for us to do really anything. The Europeans started to see how important this was without us leadership. Not that it wasn't obvious, but it became increasingly Stark when they made commitments that go out into the future. But Ukraine needs those commitments to come to fruition right now. situation on the battlefield requires physical material, and the United States effectively hasn't provided anything for the past six, eight months, um, at least, not much. I mean, you know, we've done a few little things and whatever. The Biden administration refuses to use their executive authority to send a multitude of things that they could do. There's a lot of loopholes and things they could do. They are currently doing them. For states, like Israel has been bundled up in this unwillingness to pass additional at least toplines congressionally passed aid is administration continues to to pass. Secret, it's call it? Well, it's not really secret, because we know about it, but let's call it loopholes and stuff to find ways to send planes and weapons and ammunition and stuff to Israel. But Ukraine does not seem to have that kind of clout within his administration.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  29:10  
And the truth is, there's always a loophole for Israel. There's always

Paul Truesdell, II  29:14  
a loophole for everybody. This is the thing. I mean, I've read so much. And anyway, so the political will is just not there. Just leave it at that. Which is, which is really disappointing, because we are the ones who took the lead on this. And so anyway, the Europeans are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Very, they're very much in a situation where it's kind of if you view it this way, I mean, you could view it this way that our support for Ukraine amplified the situation in such a way that now that we're leaving, it's kind of like starting a bar fight and then just leaving because while I don't want to get hurt, so in our case, it's because we have members of Congress who are undoubtedly being controlled by foreign agents, but that's a story for another day. Reminds

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  29:59  
me of Being a police officer and having a little tiny officer who shouldn't have had a uniform. And as soon as I roll up to the big guy, then they start being big man on campus and threatening, I'm gonna put you in jail and blah, blah, blah, well, who's gonna fight? That's me, you know? Thank you, Vicki. A lot of law had a lot of fights for you, over you. You caused rather,

Paul Truesdell, II  30:20  
but anyway. So, you know, the reality is, is that the Europeans have had two years to prepare for this, to get themselves set up. They themselves different countries have been some of them more delinquent than others in this, mainly looking up Germany, lots of promises, lots of delivery of stuff, you have not really a good mobilization of your industrial base, even though you have a substantial industrial base that you could mobilize, but that's kind of the story of Germany in the past 40 years is want to do just, we don't want to do anything too aggressively too fast, because it might scare people.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  30:59  
When when when Vietnam collapse, we had the Vietnam syndrome where everybody was afraid to do anything. Your money now still has the World War Two syndrome, and they just are I don't know what's going on there.

Paul Truesdell, II  31:10  
So, you know, the issue is that, you know, again, Ukraine needs material to continue what's going on and and to do what needs to be done. And the French are finally stepping up to the plate. Macron has openly talked about the possibility of sending French troops to Ukraine. From the polling, it looks like the majority of the French population supports this

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  31:34  
and not just a French. Yeah, it's other than the Portuguese. It's well,

Paul Truesdell, II  31:39  
so what I'm what I what I'm saying is sending troops,

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  31:43  
but I'm saying the yes, the French are, I think you said they were like 65 plus percent willing to send troops to help Ukraine was that

Paul Truesdell, II  31:52  
now that that stat is reinstating conscription? That's right, my mistake all across Europe, countries from the recent polling show that countries that don't have conscription are in favor of reinstating it. And that's for a multitude of reasons. But I think a lot of it has to do with very simple fact that they see what's going on in Ukraine. And for a lot of Europe, that is very close. So for reference, you know, this is kind of something I've used as an example for the past couple of weeks is the farthest point east to west and Ukraine. If you were to take that distance, whatever it is, I can't remember off top my head and you start at the polish the Polish Ukrainian border, which is where Russian border would begin if Ukraine were to completely collapse, you know, you're now talking someplace in eastern France, is that range. So imagine, imagine now the Russians are hell bent on going all the way that far west. That is the range that they can send cruise missiles, and set off air raid alarms every day, like they do in Ukraine. Nobody has the stomach for it. And nobody even is prepared for that kind of a nightmarish scenario. But that's the world we live in long range cruise missiles exist. Russians are willing to use them. If they're willing to turn our top diplomats brains into, you know, chicken noodle soup, do you think that they would have any problem with bringing missiles into Europe on a daily basis?

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  33:20  
We have no problem of raping and kidnapping children and bombing?

Paul Truesdell, II  33:25  
Yeah, yesterday was the was the anniversary of the liberation of Bucha. And the Ukrainians had been, you know, it's kind of a somber remembrance. But you know, they, they're making it a point to remind everybody that this is what happens under Russian occupation. All the while it was a highlight, that became clear to everybody in the West. This is what they come across in every place that they try or succeed and liberating the mass graves, and the torture, and all this stuff is is what happens everywhere. I mean, even the terrorist attack I mean, a good a good phrase, I don't know who coined it, but, you know, a country is not, is often best judged by how they treat the worst, most most horrible people in society. Right? And, you know, you look at these people who conducted this terrorist attack in Moscow, you know, we have pictures of them cutting off a video of them cutting off the ear of one suspect right after they pulled them out of out of a vehicle on the side of a road. And enforcing said suspect to eat said earlier, you have pictures of them using a World War Two, a hand crank radio is, of course, still in use by the Russians because you know, are Russian and ancient. And this is something that I've read many, many accounts of, not just from the Chechen war, but also from the Afghan war and now the Ukraine War, where this is a common thing. They distribute these field telephones with this handcart Like, not for any other reason, then this hand crank generates electricity. And it's a fantastic torture device. So they attach wires to places that you don't want to be electrocuted, and they start spinning the wheel. And they, you know, is what it is. But we have pictures of this happening to one of the suspects. Now, you know, we have P helps us we have one of these suspects in court with a plastic bag that they were obviously using to do some type of suffocation torture regime, they just left it around his neck. So we got to see pictures of them 24 hours apart, he looks like he's aged 20 years. And then on top of that, there's lots of rumors of basically the standard in Russian prisons, which is called routine sodomy. That is just ridiculous. I mean, and I wouldn't believe some of the stuff that I've heard if it wasn't for some guy like within the past 10 years, who leaked all these surveillance videos, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them from Russian prisons, and how routine a sexual abuses not just in Russian prisons, but also among the Russian military. And I've literally read stuff from Russian military officers in particular, they say this isn't gay. This is This is punishment is different.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  36:24  
So one of the things that you're going to hear the Nimrods in the world.

Paul Truesdell, II  36:29  
Point is if they do that to themselves. Imagine what they do to the people that don't.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  36:34  
Yeah. So you're gonna have Nimrods in a world that will listen to something like this and say, Oh, well, we had Abu Ghraib. And so that's the same thing. Well, no, it's not. It's like equating, you know, a common jail here to a concentration camp. No, it's not as far as I've been called.

Paul Truesdell, II  36:52  
Those people all got punished. Yes. And drummed out of the military. Yes. And it is an example of stuff we don't do. But

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  37:00  
but the point being is, you know, they're going to use that as an example. Will you do it too? You know, that's the case. Well, but that is

Paul Truesdell, II  37:07  
that is the Warren foreign intelligence, freakin propaganda media training. It's part of the reason they do what they do, and get this knee jerk reaction of what about autism? Well, you do it to what about these guys? They do this over here. So somehow, it's, you know, you I've literally seen interviews where people will bring up stuff like, of the mass murder of women and children and stuff in Ukraine, and people will be like, well, you know, what about this, it's like, somehow, because there's another example of it that justifies an action happening in the 21st century, like that is BS. And if that's the level to which you our cognitive dissonance goes to, to somehow protect some truth, or at least a truth that you think you have inside your head, you need to re evaluate yourself, because I can tell you, this conflict in particular has forced total revaluation of lots of things that I've predetermined notions and things in my head that I thought I understood. And now you have to take everything like that you can't just be stuck in your rut and in your way, you have to have to open your mind and kind of see it new information for what it is you can't just reject everything that it doesn't fit are a specific little puzzle. Sometimes the puzzle is messed up somehow. I mean, we've all we've all put a puzzle together, maybe maybe not people younger than they bought a ball put a puzzle together. There's one missing piece because they included a duplicate of something or something like that. And, you know, sometimes that's that's an important truth.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  38:36  
So one of the items I think it's important to always remember never forget is that we have a military procurement portfolio here at Truesdell wealth, and it seems to do pretty darn well. I'm not going to give you any further details on it. But if you want more information, give us a ring leave a message or text 212-433-2525 That's 212-433-2525. It's our military procurement portfolio. And basically a lot of what we're talking about, is influenced by that whole genre approach to investing. Yeah, the other thing is we brought up France. Yeah, Sam, France has power, and they have a power source that has a issue. And this then ties back into Russia with the Wagner group, and now is moving to Africa.

Paul Truesdell, II  39:23  
So people don't really see the big picture on this. And I definitely don't see anybody talking about in a mainstream format, although somebody like 60 minutes would, I think they would be benefited to do to try and do this. But anyway. Yeah. So Francis is kind of this anomaly in the world where they have a substantial portion of their of their energy needs are met by nuclear power plants. And much like how they're doing this big, half a trillion dollar, military upgrade and retrofit, not retrofit but a modernization program. They also are in the middle have a big modernization of their nuclear power reactors one, or power, but also modernizing them just because a lot of them built in the 60s 70s and 80s. So they're, they're old, you know, you gotta gotta repair and upgrade things. But regardless of all that, you know, nuclear power does need, doesn't need uranium. So, France obviously does not have any uranium. So I'm aware of, they get most of it from Africa. And we could go through the specifics, but the Wagner group and other various Russian foreign activities have pretty much rolled up and collapsed. The governments and made hostile the governments that France has traditionally worked with are like, all of them are in a post colonial era where the French basically support them and help them run their governments, but they do it independently, right. And front, and the Russian and other allies have gone through them and made most of them hostile. So Russia, France is in an interesting spot where not only do they have a problem geopolitically with Europe and all that, but they also have a domestic, serious national security problem now, where, where's the uranium gonna come from? Because, you know, the majority sources of all the uranium in the world are come from the United States, a couple of countries in Africa, and Russia. So you're stuck between a rock and a hard place on where to get stuff from French don't trust us and never have trusted us, is probably a smart thing. One

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  41:30  
other thing, what nation in the world is building more nuclear power plants than anyone else right now?

Paul Truesdell, II  41:37  
Believe it's China, China. And what does China not have are also building the most coal power plants in the world. They're building the older building 10 times more coal power plants, and they are.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  41:49  
But but but we're going to be green and airy are green. They're green. And in California, we're going to have all electric vehicles. Gold Rush ended. And we like watching that usually watch that on a Saturday or Sunday or even even on a Friday, but we'll have a glass of whiskey and we enjoy that show. I like to see them manufacture and dig out gold in the Yukon with electric vehicles.

Paul Truesdell, II  42:18  
That'd be interesting. I don't think they'll be able to run all day all night like to do? No, I don't think so. So So for France, it's an interesting conundrum. Because they need they need these resources that Russians have, obviously, is very strategic, the Russians are working with the Chinese to cause as much chaos and problems. And people just don't see it all over the world like this is we are in the middle of a Cold War. And anyway, so France, obviously has woken up to this, and they're realizing that probably a little too late. But you know, it's time to do something about this. And they know, is they've dealt with the Russians for ever. They understand very clearly how to deal with them. Don't try to negotiate with them. You show them who's more willing to commit violence than anybody else. Yep. So they are allocating right out the chute 10s of billions of dollars worth of equipment, and all of their modernization programs, the US the equipment they are sending to Ukraine as well, they're not destroying it or selling it off to us or countries, they they see Ukraine is the only country that is necessary to support at all right now based on their industrial capacity. And they have openly considered and talked about, obviously, the laying the groundwork for supplying troops. But you know, you have to kind of put that into context, it's largely going to be specialists that can fill certain gaps that the Ukrainians don't have at the moment or don't have enough of, it's not going to be this doom and gloom, you know, Alex Jones tier, oh, the French are gonna invade like Napoleon and be riding on horseback and stuff. No. It's I mean, at some of the Quran has made it clear that if it comes to that they will. But you know, Ukraine still has a, an army basically. There's more people being trained every day. manpower is not the issue. It's material. So they are fully dedicated and, and to supporting this cause and forcing the issue, forcing the issue is going to be I've read a ton of stuff. There's one important thing I read fairly recently from somebody who's been in Ukraine since the very beginning. And one thing he mentioned is that, while the sentiment is probably uncommon, outside of Ukraine, inside Ukraine, especially for people who are on the front line, they see how spread thin the Russians are, and the feeling is that if only they had the ability to really interrupt the Russian logistics, a substance initial level, are there any deeper than what they currently have the resources to do? You know, so things like longer range, missiles and things like that. And they had the ability to really clear up the Russian Air Force from using dumb bombs against them on the front line, that within a few weeks there, you could have the Russians in some form of full retreat on most of the frontline, just purely from the lack of ammunition because their logistics are spread so thin, and they have so poorly invested in long term warfighting logistics capabilities up to this point. So it's interesting, because you know, while in the West, a lot of doom and gloom about it. On the ground, it's effectively a stalemate, but they also see huge opportunity, if only they had a certain, certain few extra resources. And those seem to be the things that you the French, are looking to assist with immediately, longer range fires, helping with the air defense gap that is growing, because the United States has all but given up on the situation, and helping with artillery, but something we could talk about another time, or detail is how the checks of the new Chet president has orchestrated this huge purchasing program for existing already manufactured artillery shells, or the Ukrainians and something that the United States very well had the capability of doing that brought the ball on.

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  46:30  
Well, we're at that time, where I'm going to remind you that we can literally go and do this for hours and hours and hours on anything good time to cut wait to say, Yeah,

Paul Truesdell, II  46:39  
I think this kind of gives a good overview of what's going on and then nothing super major as happened. But it's a it's a strategic realignment of interests, focuses, that is kind of important to keep your eye on. And the 60 minutes piece in particular with the Havana syndrome is so glad to see it because we have some clarification on something that I think a lot of us have kind of had sneaking suspicions on for a while. Will

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  47:03  
you sound like a conspiracy nuts? Oh, I mean, let's let's be apps, you know, like, for example, I'll be really blunt with you. I mean, dead serious with you, when this whole COVID thing started, okay. I met a couple people over the weekend. They have a tremendous academic background. They were they had to take their shots. And even today, they were kind of like, well, you know, whatever. But guess what? One of them has a health issue. Okay, so I no surprise, right. But when I used to say Do you know the difference between an RNA and a DNA virus? Do you know what the this is not a vaccine. It's a it's a DNA modifier. People would just you, you know how frustrating it was, you

Paul Truesdell, II  47:43  
know, people just chickens are coming home. People just accepted. Oh, well, it's an oranges and oranges and oranges. Like, no, it's this is an apple. And

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  47:52  
so sometimes you can't believe the government. You know, it's sometimes it'd be nice if the government would say this. What's really going on? And I get it need to know, believe me, I know that. But Gosh, darn, you know, you just hope that 60 minutes, this will spawn some real Oh, and wit and by the way, I asked you the question, who is a who is a member of Congress who has introduced a declaration of war against Russia, and why won't it happen? Yeah,

Paul Truesdell, II  48:17  
no, there's nobody who's done it. And I contention is people are too afraid and bought off. Yeah, I'll say it. Yeah, no, there's there's definitely some of that. Okay, with

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  48:29  
that. We're gonna wrap it up. I'm going to give you a clip from the Obama Romney debate. And you can listen to that very carefully. And we talked about this in a couple of prior episodes. With that. I'm Paul Truesdell the elder and I'm Paul the younger rod here to Paul's in a pod the Paul Truesdale podcast typical New Tyler to rod here.

Speaker 1  48:53  
Stay tuned for the post show clips after this.

Speaker 2  48:59  
You have been listening to the Paul Truesdale podcast for additional items serious to humorous wisdom to occasional outrage of various degrees. Visit Paul truesdale.com. That's Paul truesdell.com.

Speaker 2  49:27  
Ground truths down, roger that dust off in fire

Unknown Speaker  49:37  
on the floor now

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF  49:44  
so one of the things I want you to always remember never forget, I have no use for Mitt Romney. I think he is a blowhard. I think he is a man who should never have been in the US Senate should never have run for president. I had no use for him then And I have no use for him now. But today is Monday, April, the first 2024 or 1179 days ago, loving years, five months and 10 days or 137 months and 10 days ago, we had a debate, or Bob Schieffer sat down with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and they sat at a table and they talked. And so in that debate, we're going to play a few things here that will show you what Romney said. And he was right, it's time to admit that Romney was right in 2012. Russia is not only a bad actor, Russia is an enemy of the United States, and we are at war. And it's just a matter of time before all Billy hell breaks loose. Now, war is not about throwing hand grenades, shooting bullets, GI Joe, fighting Tojo and the Germans and World War Two is over. But make no bones about it. The reality in life is, we are still at war. We are fighting Marxism. Many of you like to use the word communism, but we are fighting Marxism in China, and in Russia, in those two places have dictators, they have no elected government, and people are killed are literally covering news. And journalists. Well, journalists are paid off. Journalists that work for organizations that use advertising are paid off all the time, just like your members of the House in the Senate. They're paid off with political contributions in the money that's flowing into the United States, by way of Russia and China and their proxies is astronomical. But Romney was right. He was right then. And the same goes for today. Let's take a listen to this. As we begin to wrap up this add on extended version of two polls and a pot clip one, Governor

Speaker 3  52:01  
Romney, I'm glad that you recognize that al Qaeda is a threat, because a few months ago, when you were asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, that al Qaeda, you said Russia in the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War has been over for 20 years. Oh,

Unknown Speaker  52:19  
next clip to first

Speaker 4  52:20  
of all, Russia, I indicated is a geopolitical foe. Not I'm gonna want Excuse me. It's a geopolitical foe. And I said in the same in the same paragraph, I said, and Iran is the greatest national security threat we face. Russia does continue to battle us in the UN time and time again, I have clear eyes on this. I'm not going to wear rose colored glasses when it comes to Russia, or Mr. Putin, and I'm certainly not going to say to him, I'll give him more flexibility after the election. After the election, he'll get more backbone.

Speaker 1  52:50  
This concludes this episode of The Paul Truesdale podcast. This podcast is available at Paul truesdell.com and through your favorite podcast player. when time permits, tell family friends, neighbors and relatives about the Paul Truesdale podcast and to contact the Paul's use the contact form found on Paul truesdale.com. Produced by the Truesdale Media Group.