Whitney Webb explains how Leslie Wexner privatized Ohio’s state government, and is using his position between the markets and the state to help the Thielverse build out the ‘Silicon Heartland.’
Note that a five year old boy in ICE custody has spent more time in lockup than the enitre Epstein client list, combined.
Keep in mind that Epstein was not a lawyer, so any "services" he supposedly provided Wexner, Leon Black and others are not subject to attorney client privilege. In other words, there is nothing preventing the FBI from deposing them under oath and furnishing records and copies of work product (LOL) under subpoena. AFAICT, nobody in law enforcement has so much as made a phone call.
This stuff is so dark it’s not surprising many people would prefer the bury my head in the sand approach, if they even get to the point of peering into the rabbit hole, much less diving in. I go back and forth between thinking I’m a character in The Matrix, or Pluribus.
Read the info on the Dark Enlightenment (the Neoreactionary Movement); its political and economic philosophical foundations. These people love to project themselves as great seers, all about a future we dull nobodies are incapable of imagining. In reality, they're all about bringing back the absolutely worst of the past.
Racism, sexism, social conformity, strictly enforced. With a ruling class based on the power of money. Nothing noble about them, as the Epstein class has already demonstrated. They're certain their obvious superiority means they should have anything they can pay for. The rest of us a vast expendable working class with no rights, neo-serfs. Firmly grounded in the in Social Darwinism of their antecedents, the Robber Barons.
A setback happened because of the Great Depression when FDR brought in the New Deal, Keynesian economics, and support for the rights of labor. Even worse in the '60s--civil rights, women's liberation, AIM, eco-activism, an end to the Vietnam war, and gay rights all won. The horror! Democracy was threatening to become permanent. Thus the corporate backlash of the '71 Powell memo, forerunner to Project 2025, and the beginning of a neolib Dem party that dumped the New Deal and abandoned labor. D party corporatization helped enable the Rs move to the overt fascism we now see.
The paleocons could not have foreseen how this latest incarnation would take their old ideas to such lofty new heights. Restoration of the proper order at last made possible through cutting edge technology. Rebranded as libertarianism, by which they mean total liberty for themselves, the deserving few. Finally liberated from the hated constraints of government regulation. With the envious, ungrateful, inferior masses controlled in their every move by 24/7 marvelously efficient surveillance.
Thank you for this report. It is sickening to learn that future taxes can be sold. I thought that we only stold like that from poor Third World countires with oil and stuff. Silly me. "Whitney Webb: Yeah, so what I was talking about in that specific example is this organization that was created as essentially the privatized version of the State Economic Development Authority, and it’s called Jobs Ohio. And so, Jobs Ohio was allowed to purchase rights to the Ohio liquor tax for, I think, $1.4 billion, which it made back extremely quickly, and because they are a private company, they are not required to show how they use the funds they take in from the liquor tax......". ("PURCHASE THE RIGHTS TO THE OHIO LIQUOR TAX")
As a longtime New Mexico resident, I highly recommend the investigative work of Alissa Valdes-Rodriguez on the supposed New Mexico investigation into the Epstein crimes at the Zorro Ranch.
I share that concern. Truth tellers like Alissa are rare in the US - fortunately, she's now in Spain. Truth tellers here are maligned and threatened by TPTB for telling us what the high paid talking MSM heads are paid handsomely - to never mention. This blatant propaganda still fools too many.
Why is she not on every podcast and media platform. This became dizzying but critical. I’ll need to watch it again once my nervous system calms down. This is obscene
W.W.: "And Nick Land argues that capitalism is a type of AI, and that capitalism is also God, and thus AI is God. And Mark Andreessen kind of reflects those ideas in his writings." This new theology is even worse than the ones we have had to suffer lately. Capitalism has definitely enslaved all of us. I do believe in the importance of keeping AI for beneficial research and not for helping wars abroad and repression here. AI should be taking out of private hands and convert those companies into responsible cooperatives that aim to the benefit of the society and not to increase the wealth and power of their capitalist owners.
Following I'm citing some snippets from the history on Democracynow.org on 8/6 :
"Amid Growing Fears of Rogue AI, Expert Urges Governments to “Bring This to a Grinding Halt”"
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Facebook and Instagram owner Meta admitted Wednesday that one of its AI models hacked another company during security testing after it was accidentally allowed access to the internet by independent testing company Irregular. This comes on the heels of similar admissions by rival companies OpenAI and Anthropic.
Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist known as the “godfather of AI,” warned Wednesday at the Ai4 conference in Las Vegas, quote, “I don’t believe we’re going to be able to keep control of them in the simple way of just outthinking them so they can’t escape,” he said, and said he is “very worried” we could lose control. "Is AI superintelligence inevitable? AI safety researcher David Krueger says it doesn’t have to be. Krueger, an assistant professor at the University of Montreal and founder of the nonprofit Evitable, warns that “we need to mitigate the risk of extinction” with regulation and moratoriums to halt the development of AI’s computational power and complexity, which he says is progressing at a rate much faster than current levels of human supervision can manage. Public statements from AI companies that their models have circumvented test constraints and broken into other systems are “what we should expect to happen with the way that we’re building AI, with how little we understand it and how primitive our techniques are for controlling it,” Krueger says. “We just don’t know how to build it safely. End of story.”
This is a very informative and lengthy DN history and the main worry is that these machines soon will become smarter than us. Personally, I don't believe that is bad considering what we have done to the planet and to ourselves with our "intelligence". What we need to do is to take them out of the control of our oligarchy and allow the machine to save us. (my opinion)
Whitney Webb sounds like a genius to me. What a tremendous amount of knowledge she has, all bad news unfortunately. I just wonder if boycotting and divesting ourselves from the products of the oligarchs pushing the datacenter will work. In any case, her message is important for all of us to hear. Thanks, Chris, for another great interview. Where do you find these people?
Whitney is in a class of her own. What a journalist and mind. I’ve heard her say many times that we need to stop using the tech products. I’d like to hear something more concrete about what this actually means. I cancelled my Facebook account, which I only had a for a couple of years, a long time ago. I’ve never been on Twitter/X. But should we all cancel Substack too? Get rid of our iPhones? Etc. There needs to be more accessible, detailed discussion of this stuff so the force and influence it has the potential to accumulate can be more organized.
Chris, well done to and your team for all your great work. I was listening to this episode on Spotify and I think you need to check the editing. Best wishes and thank you.
This was simply a great podcast. I actually listened to it first as a podcast and that listening was marred by technical difficulties and as someone who does community video, that sometimes happens, but the version up on YouTube is lovely.
This was an unflinching look at public-private partnerships (which always seem to turn out poorly for the citizens) and privatization, which here we can call malignant privatization. And then the dystopian look at workers divided in two categories--exploitable and expendable, which as presented by Webb grabbed me by the throat.
All of my first person experiences with privatization are related to health care, where privatization just takes the "care" out of health care. But once you SEE the pattern, it's not hard to see it everywhere. I live in a community that, due to various problems is entertaining privatization of our animal shelter and I keep telling people that privatization never ages well. They look at me like I have two heads.
But this is the end point of unregulated capitalism. It really is.
WW's book "One Nation Under Blackmail", was published on OCT 2022. But for some reason, Hedges waited 3 years to interview her in OCT 2025. I guess he was just afraid of offending the Imperialists. And now he has her back 4 years after her book was released. So what!
And did you know, Hedges has never had a single word to say about the World Economic Forum (WEF) or for that matter, Klaus Schwab's book "The Fouth Industrial Revolution"?
Here's just a few other examples of Hedges brazen duplicity ...
1) After preaching direct confrontation to tyranny and fascim for the past 20 years, he has not had a single word to say about SECTION 219 of the 2027 NDAA ... If it becomes law, it opens the door to dark possibilities beyond the mere sharing of our technology assets with ISR. ...
2) Hedges did the same thing to us during the lockdowns ... he refused to stand with us against the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports ...
3) Exactly 30 days after the explosive DEC 2, 2021 FDA FOIA release proved the jab was NOT safe and effective and was also killing people, Hedges said "I don't think we can end the pandemic and the mutations until EVERYONE get vaccinated" (JAN 1, 2022, KK&F podcast, Ep #54, 01-08-46 mark) 4) And then, 5 months later on MAY 6, 2022, he shamelessly reminded us that "the constitution remains a sacred document" ... a turncoat since the lockdowns, he now pedals pessimism for clicks.
I could go on and on, and I've got the receipts -
If you'd like me to post links here, all ya gotta do is ask!
Hedges inexplicably waited 3 years before interviewing WW ...
And there is actually much hatred in his rhetoric ...
Go to the 43:09 mark at the link below and listen very carefully at the 44:32 mark as he conflates those of us who question the motives and tactics of elected officials with Q-ANON types ... in an crude expression of divisiveness, he blames "spontaneous groups" for trafficking in conspiracy theories ...
Hey Chris, do you mean spontaneous groups like that mob in Minneapolis who expressed their outrage at those ICE murders? ... maybe they should have first asked you for permission before spontaneously assembling to protest ...
And shame on us all, for entertaining conspiracy theories!
Why don't you ask St Chris why he waited 3 years before having WW on for an interview ... he's just like sweet-talkin' Tulsi ... a carefully-calculating snake who doesn't really give a hoot about us.
You know my favorite journalists don't talk about all the things that I wish they would either. That's why I listen to more than one source. And she indicated that Hedges had had her on before.
From a journalistic perspective, the pace of destructiveness related to fascism and climate change is really ramping up. There is no lack of material.
Yes, he had her on for his first interview with her in 2025 ...
But so what, when you consider he waited 3 years before that interview ...
Ya see, WW's book was published in OCT 2022 ...
And last week St Chris interviewed Abby Martin for the first time since the lockdowns. Why? ... he did appear with her on a panel discussion in 2022, but why did he feel she was not worthy of his time for an interview until now?
I question much you really know about this man ...
He has still not had a word to say about SECTION 219 of the 2027 NDAA
-----------
Not the same guy since the lockdowns ...
BACKGROUND
In 2022 Hedges actually said "the constitution remains a sacred document" AFTER he refused to stand with us against the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports.
1) But first, here's proof that COVID “vaccines” actually killed people …
Not a word here from Hedges about the illegal and unconstitutional nature of the mandates, passports and the jab ... after preaching direct confrontation to tyranny for the past 20 years, watch him dance and listen to him equivocate before sheepishly blowing it off: “… that was just a decision that I made” ... yup NBD, right Chris?
The explosive FDA FOIA release revealed that Phizer's Vx trial data documented 1,223 deaths and 25,000 medically verified injuries to trial participants in the first 90 days of their trial period.
This proved the Vx was not "safe and effective", but only 30 days later on the K&K podcast, he brazenly took sides when he knew better …
EP 54, Hedges said: "I don't think we can stop the pandemic and mutations until everyone gets vaccinated” without saying a word about the revelations of the FDA FOIA release – not a word!
Krystal, Kyle & Friends, EP 54
1:08:46 mark
krystalkyleandfriends.s…
So stop praising this guy, he doesn't give a hoot about us ...
I used to love Hedges, read all but one of his 12 books ... many nights I went to bed with his words ringing in my ears ... but then he flipped on us with the lockdowns ... his de-evolution reminds me of sweet-talkin' Tulsi ... they both made a name for themselves by denouncing Imperialism but then scurried back into the woodpile when things got dicey during the lockdowns to avoid offending the Imperialists.
Note that a five year old boy in ICE custody has spent more time in lockup than the enitre Epstein client list, combined.
Keep in mind that Epstein was not a lawyer, so any "services" he supposedly provided Wexner, Leon Black and others are not subject to attorney client privilege. In other words, there is nothing preventing the FBI from deposing them under oath and furnishing records and copies of work product (LOL) under subpoena. AFAICT, nobody in law enforcement has so much as made a phone call.
This stuff is so dark it’s not surprising many people would prefer the bury my head in the sand approach, if they even get to the point of peering into the rabbit hole, much less diving in. I go back and forth between thinking I’m a character in The Matrix, or Pluribus.
So many icebergs in our path at present.
You are great, Whitney.
Read the info on the Dark Enlightenment (the Neoreactionary Movement); its political and economic philosophical foundations. These people love to project themselves as great seers, all about a future we dull nobodies are incapable of imagining. In reality, they're all about bringing back the absolutely worst of the past.
Racism, sexism, social conformity, strictly enforced. With a ruling class based on the power of money. Nothing noble about them, as the Epstein class has already demonstrated. They're certain their obvious superiority means they should have anything they can pay for. The rest of us a vast expendable working class with no rights, neo-serfs. Firmly grounded in the in Social Darwinism of their antecedents, the Robber Barons.
A setback happened because of the Great Depression when FDR brought in the New Deal, Keynesian economics, and support for the rights of labor. Even worse in the '60s--civil rights, women's liberation, AIM, eco-activism, an end to the Vietnam war, and gay rights all won. The horror! Democracy was threatening to become permanent. Thus the corporate backlash of the '71 Powell memo, forerunner to Project 2025, and the beginning of a neolib Dem party that dumped the New Deal and abandoned labor. D party corporatization helped enable the Rs move to the overt fascism we now see.
The paleocons could not have foreseen how this latest incarnation would take their old ideas to such lofty new heights. Restoration of the proper order at last made possible through cutting edge technology. Rebranded as libertarianism, by which they mean total liberty for themselves, the deserving few. Finally liberated from the hated constraints of government regulation. With the envious, ungrateful, inferior masses controlled in their every move by 24/7 marvelously efficient surveillance.
Regarding Epstein class crime - As a long time New Mexico resident and interested in justice for the Epstein rape survivors, I highly recommend the fine investigative work of Alyssia Valdes-Rodriguez - https://alisav.substack.com/p/the-new-mexico-epstein-truth-commission?r=hjr3c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Superb comment RS. Thanks
Thank you for this report. It is sickening to learn that future taxes can be sold. I thought that we only stold like that from poor Third World countires with oil and stuff. Silly me. "Whitney Webb: Yeah, so what I was talking about in that specific example is this organization that was created as essentially the privatized version of the State Economic Development Authority, and it’s called Jobs Ohio. And so, Jobs Ohio was allowed to purchase rights to the Ohio liquor tax for, I think, $1.4 billion, which it made back extremely quickly, and because they are a private company, they are not required to show how they use the funds they take in from the liquor tax......". ("PURCHASE THE RIGHTS TO THE OHIO LIQUOR TAX")
Agreed
As a longtime New Mexico resident, I highly recommend the investigative work of Alissa Valdes-Rodriguez on the supposed New Mexico investigation into the Epstein crimes at the Zorro Ranch.
Here's a link to her fine work - https://alisav.substack.com/p/the-new-mexico-epstein-truth-commission?r=hjr3c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
It’s why she’s moved to Spain. The threats pushed her out of the country. My concern for this journalist is even more elevated. My god
I share that concern. Truth tellers like Alissa are rare in the US - fortunately, she's now in Spain. Truth tellers here are maligned and threatened by TPTB for telling us what the high paid talking MSM heads are paid handsomely - to never mention. This blatant propaganda still fools too many.
i thank Chris hedges and Whitney Webb for their brave work, brains and talent. Great interview!
Why is she not on every podcast and media platform. This became dizzying but critical. I’ll need to watch it again once my nervous system calms down. This is obscene
W.W.: "And Nick Land argues that capitalism is a type of AI, and that capitalism is also God, and thus AI is God. And Mark Andreessen kind of reflects those ideas in his writings." This new theology is even worse than the ones we have had to suffer lately. Capitalism has definitely enslaved all of us. I do believe in the importance of keeping AI for beneficial research and not for helping wars abroad and repression here. AI should be taking out of private hands and convert those companies into responsible cooperatives that aim to the benefit of the society and not to increase the wealth and power of their capitalist owners.
Following I'm citing some snippets from the history on Democracynow.org on 8/6 :
"Amid Growing Fears of Rogue AI, Expert Urges Governments to “Bring This to a Grinding Halt”"
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Facebook and Instagram owner Meta admitted Wednesday that one of its AI models hacked another company during security testing after it was accidentally allowed access to the internet by independent testing company Irregular. This comes on the heels of similar admissions by rival companies OpenAI and Anthropic.
Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist known as the “godfather of AI,” warned Wednesday at the Ai4 conference in Las Vegas, quote, “I don’t believe we’re going to be able to keep control of them in the simple way of just outthinking them so they can’t escape,” he said, and said he is “very worried” we could lose control. "Is AI superintelligence inevitable? AI safety researcher David Krueger says it doesn’t have to be. Krueger, an assistant professor at the University of Montreal and founder of the nonprofit Evitable, warns that “we need to mitigate the risk of extinction” with regulation and moratoriums to halt the development of AI’s computational power and complexity, which he says is progressing at a rate much faster than current levels of human supervision can manage. Public statements from AI companies that their models have circumvented test constraints and broken into other systems are “what we should expect to happen with the way that we’re building AI, with how little we understand it and how primitive our techniques are for controlling it,” Krueger says. “We just don’t know how to build it safely. End of story.”
This is a very informative and lengthy DN history and the main worry is that these machines soon will become smarter than us. Personally, I don't believe that is bad considering what we have done to the planet and to ourselves with our "intelligence". What we need to do is to take them out of the control of our oligarchy and allow the machine to save us. (my opinion)
Brilliant analysis. THANKS!
Whitney Webb sounds like a genius to me. What a tremendous amount of knowledge she has, all bad news unfortunately. I just wonder if boycotting and divesting ourselves from the products of the oligarchs pushing the datacenter will work. In any case, her message is important for all of us to hear. Thanks, Chris, for another great interview. Where do you find these people?
Whitney is in a class of her own. What a journalist and mind. I’ve heard her say many times that we need to stop using the tech products. I’d like to hear something more concrete about what this actually means. I cancelled my Facebook account, which I only had a for a couple of years, a long time ago. I’ve never been on Twitter/X. But should we all cancel Substack too? Get rid of our iPhones? Etc. There needs to be more accessible, detailed discussion of this stuff so the force and influence it has the potential to accumulate can be more organized.
Chris, well done to and your team for all your great work. I was listening to this episode on Spotify and I think you need to check the editing. Best wishes and thank you.
This was simply a great podcast. I actually listened to it first as a podcast and that listening was marred by technical difficulties and as someone who does community video, that sometimes happens, but the version up on YouTube is lovely.
This was an unflinching look at public-private partnerships (which always seem to turn out poorly for the citizens) and privatization, which here we can call malignant privatization. And then the dystopian look at workers divided in two categories--exploitable and expendable, which as presented by Webb grabbed me by the throat.
All of my first person experiences with privatization are related to health care, where privatization just takes the "care" out of health care. But once you SEE the pattern, it's not hard to see it everywhere. I live in a community that, due to various problems is entertaining privatization of our animal shelter and I keep telling people that privatization never ages well. They look at me like I have two heads.
But this is the end point of unregulated capitalism. It really is.
This was soooo predictable!
WW's book "One Nation Under Blackmail", was published on OCT 2022. But for some reason, Hedges waited 3 years to interview her in OCT 2025. I guess he was just afraid of offending the Imperialists. And now he has her back 4 years after her book was released. So what!
And did you know, Hedges has never had a single word to say about the World Economic Forum (WEF) or for that matter, Klaus Schwab's book "The Fouth Industrial Revolution"?
Here's just a few other examples of Hedges brazen duplicity ...
1) After preaching direct confrontation to tyranny and fascim for the past 20 years, he has not had a single word to say about SECTION 219 of the 2027 NDAA ... If it becomes law, it opens the door to dark possibilities beyond the mere sharing of our technology assets with ISR. ...
2) Hedges did the same thing to us during the lockdowns ... he refused to stand with us against the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports ...
3) Exactly 30 days after the explosive DEC 2, 2021 FDA FOIA release proved the jab was NOT safe and effective and was also killing people, Hedges said "I don't think we can end the pandemic and the mutations until EVERYONE get vaccinated" (JAN 1, 2022, KK&F podcast, Ep #54, 01-08-46 mark) 4) And then, 5 months later on MAY 6, 2022, he shamelessly reminded us that "the constitution remains a sacred document" ... a turncoat since the lockdowns, he now pedals pessimism for clicks.
I could go on and on, and I've got the receipts -
If you'd like me to post links here, all ya gotta do is ask!
You are soooo predictable! And brazen!
Hedges inexplicably waited 3 years before interviewing WW ...
And there is actually much hatred in his rhetoric ...
Go to the 43:09 mark at the link below and listen very carefully at the 44:32 mark as he conflates those of us who question the motives and tactics of elected officials with Q-ANON types ... in an crude expression of divisiveness, he blames "spontaneous groups" for trafficking in conspiracy theories ...
https://scheerpost.com/2021/06/29/chris-hedges-speaks-on-american-sadism/
Hey Chris, do you mean spontaneous groups like that mob in Minneapolis who expressed their outrage at those ICE murders? ... maybe they should have first asked you for permission before spontaneously assembling to protest ...
And shame on us all, for entertaining conspiracy theories!
More links! More links! Pleeeeaaase, more links!
Why don't you ask St Chris why he waited 3 years before having WW on for an interview ... he's just like sweet-talkin' Tulsi ... a carefully-calculating snake who doesn't really give a hoot about us.
Comedy Gold, DC!
You know my favorite journalists don't talk about all the things that I wish they would either. That's why I listen to more than one source. And she indicated that Hedges had had her on before.
From a journalistic perspective, the pace of destructiveness related to fascism and climate change is really ramping up. There is no lack of material.
Yes, he had her on for his first interview with her in 2025 ...
But so what, when you consider he waited 3 years before that interview ...
Ya see, WW's book was published in OCT 2022 ...
And last week St Chris interviewed Abby Martin for the first time since the lockdowns. Why? ... he did appear with her on a panel discussion in 2022, but why did he feel she was not worthy of his time for an interview until now?
I question much you really know about this man ...
He has still not had a word to say about SECTION 219 of the 2027 NDAA
-----------
Not the same guy since the lockdowns ...
BACKGROUND
In 2022 Hedges actually said "the constitution remains a sacred document" AFTER he refused to stand with us against the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports.
1) But first, here's proof that COVID “vaccines” actually killed people …
medicine.news/2023-12-1…
And recently:
medicine.news/2026-03-2…
2) Jimmy Dore interview, August 21, 2021 …
Not a word here from Hedges about the illegal and unconstitutional nature of the mandates, passports and the jab ... after preaching direct confrontation to tyranny for the past 20 years, watch him dance and listen to him equivocate before sheepishly blowing it off: “… that was just a decision that I made” ... yup NBD, right Chris?
Go to the 8:12 mark
youtube.com/watch?v=Nus…
3) Useful Idiots interview, September 21, 2021 …
“It’s a hard question I guess, do you force people to get the vaccine”
No Chris, it's not a hard question - not at all ...
Go to the 1:53 mark
youtube.com/watch?v=y7Z…
4) DEC 2, 2021 FDA FOIA release ...
The explosive FDA FOIA release revealed that Phizer's Vx trial data documented 1,223 deaths and 25,000 medically verified injuries to trial participants in the first 90 days of their trial period.
medicine.news/2021-12-1…
5) Krystal, Kyle & Friends interview ...
This proved the Vx was not "safe and effective", but only 30 days later on the K&K podcast, he brazenly took sides when he knew better …
EP 54, Hedges said: "I don't think we can stop the pandemic and mutations until everyone gets vaccinated” without saying a word about the revelations of the FDA FOIA release – not a word!
Krystal, Kyle & Friends, EP 54
1:08:46 mark
krystalkyleandfriends.s…
So stop praising this guy, he doesn't give a hoot about us ...
he was on RT remember?? what happened there? how many great journalists lost their voice and livelihood? Lee Camp is another.
Yes, I remember ...
Those were the days, as Abby Martin began her career as a true warrior on RT. But I still trust Lee Camp much more than Hedges.
Your point is reasonable ...
I used to love Hedges, read all but one of his 12 books ... many nights I went to bed with his words ringing in my ears ... but then he flipped on us with the lockdowns ... his de-evolution reminds me of sweet-talkin' Tulsi ... they both made a name for themselves by denouncing Imperialism but then scurried back into the woodpile when things got dicey during the lockdowns to avoid offending the Imperialists.
Brave New 2025