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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 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8 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 intentionsHe says smarter systems are becoming more controllable, predictable, and useful for sensitive tasks, not lessHe frames AI doomerism as a recurring human trope rooted in myths about rebellious machines and takeover scenariosThe Hugging Face incident is presented as a human negligence problem, not evidence of autonomous AI agencyHe argues the real government priorities should be cyber defense and biodefense, especially modernizing vulnerable legacy softwareHe makes the case for safer programming approaches, including moving away from unsafe languages and imperative programmingHe argues hacking is effectively a solvable, even “dead soon” problem if software systems are modernized properlyOn biosecurity, he says AI can help with pattern recognition, but wet lab reality is still the hard limitHe pushes back on the idea that intelligence alone creates power, saying physical, political, and institutional constraints still dominateHe 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 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: 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 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 · 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 · 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 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 · itsyourgov.org · 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