Best of The Program | Guest: Krish O’Mara Vignarajah | 9/7/21

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Hey, welcome to the podcast.

It's Monday.

Today, we spent a good deal of time talking about Afghanistan: what's true, what's not.

There's a story that

I'm having to pay for hostages.

It's crazy.

There is some truth to our planes being held hostage, but unfortunately the truth is worse than what Newsweek reported, I think, and I share that with you coming up.

And some good positive things that are happening as well.

We talk about the boycott of Texas and abortion.

Also, some of the things, and it's important to watch the other hand.

When everybody is watching one direction, that's usually when the government

makes some really,

really bad moves in another direction.

Well, it happened with the banking sector.

And really, five really important stories that you need to be up on.

All that and more on today's podcast.

You're listening to

the best of the Balenbeck program.

This weekend was

epic.

This is

this should be a movie

that is made at some point.

This is one of the most miraculous and stunning things that I have ever seen.

There is huge, huge good news coming your way out of Afghanistan, God willing.

I was going to say that's what you're calling this.

No, no, no, not this.

Amounts of good news.

Coming.

Coming.

Coming.

Coming.

In the future.

God willing.

But there are

some amazing things going on.

I had two phone calls over the weekend

briefing over and over and over again of what was going on, but two in particular stand out as I hung up the phone.

And I said to my wife,

last night I hung up the phone at 11 o'clock.

And I looked at my wife and I said, write this in your diary.

Write this in your diary.

This is historic what's going on.

This is so amazing.

I can't wait to tell you all of the

details and the twists and turns,

but we can now tell you one thing

because of Newsweek magazine.

So you know, it is my understanding that no one, at least knowingly, from the Nazarene Fund of Mercury One

was involved in this story at all.

We don't want to be involved in these stories because we don't care

at this point whose fault it is or whatever.

I do, I do.

The Nazarene Fund and Mercury One don't care.

They just want to save people.

And the headline this weekend from Newsweek, Taliban holds up Glenbeck Group's planes.

At least 100 Americans are among passengers.

This, I guess, explains what the tweet was last week when they said that we were being held hostage.

I interpreted that differently.

I don't think of a plane as being held hostage.

The plane itself.

I don't really care.

Oh, you're going to slit the throat of the plane.

Slash the tires.

No.

So no people were being held hostage, at least that we know of.

But

were our planes being held?

Yes.

And at least 100 Americans among passengers.

No, there are no passengers on those planes anymore.

There were,

but there aren't anymore.

If you watched the Stew show,

Stew Does America, thank you.

Yeah, whatever.

If you watched Stew Does America on Wednesday,

I had just gotten my Wednesday afternoon briefing, and it was

this story.

And let's just play a clip of

this story.

Let me see.

Would it be better if I told?

Yeah, let me tell the facts first,

and then you can put all those facts in.

What happened last week was

there

while everybody was focused on Kabul,

others were looking for other ways out.

Well,

our group found another way out,

and

we hired Cam Airlines, which is a regional, you know, it's like,

you know, it's like United or whatever.

The Afghanistan version.

Yeah, of United.

Yeah, Southwest.

And so we

purchased these, all the tickets on the plane.

And then

people just started showing up.

We're like, hey, that's you.

You got a ticket and you got a ticket and you got a ticket.

And they were just taking off as a commercial airliner.

And Taliban didn't know anything.

They were like, oh, well, yeah, a commercial airflight.

They keep coming in and going out.

Okay.

Well, we have to keep a manifest of everybody on that plane.

And we do.

And we keep, just so the State Department knows, we're keeping meticulous records

on just about everything, not just manifests.

But anyway,

the manifest,

the State Department started seeing these manifests come in.

And they're like, okay, yeah, great.

Somebody's approving them.

And then these four planes, there's four of them loaded with people.

The article says

seeking to evacuate at least a thousand people.

You're in the neighborhood, but it's more.

And I'm not going to give you the number because we don't want to talk about any numbers.

I was explained to yesterday, no numbers, because then that says how many people are slipping through, how many people are yet to get, et cetera, et cetera.

So it's around 1,000, let's say.

And it's reported at least 100 Americans.

Yep, at least 100 Americans.

They were on the plane.

They were on the tarmac.

They were on the seats, in the seats.

They were buckled up.

They were ready to go.

The pilots are like ready for takeoff.

The State Department sees these four planes with these four manifests and said, well, hang on just a second.

Who are all these people?

And we're like, it's us, dummy.

Let the plane go.

Well, they get a stick up their butt and they decide, oh, no, we don't know what is going on here.

We're going to hold off off just a second.

Four senators, two congressmen.

I told you this on Wednesday, Tuesday morning,

subtly, that there were many congressmen.

I had Marsha Blackburn on.

She was one of them.

Many congressmen, many senators were on the phone.

We thought it was a done deal because they were ripping the State Department a new hole.

And believe me, that department seems to have a lot of holes, but they were ripped another one.

And

so I just went to bed on Tuesday night thinking those four planes were going to get off.

And I knew who was on the plane.

And I knew who was fighting the fight with the State Department.

It wasn't us.

It was senators and congressmen.

And then I get up on Wednesday morning and they hadn't taken off.

Right before I do the stew show,

I find out because the Taliban was alerted because the State Department wouldn't let these planes take off.

And so they're like, What's going on over here?

What's going on over here?

And the State Department says, Oh,

you see these people on the plane.

Here's the manifest.

What are you doing?

What have you just done?

And you know, all these people, you get all your paperwork, go get off the plane, go into the terminal, and let them look again at your passports and all of your paperwork.

Okay, what are you doing?

Did we do that after we land somewhere else?

Somewhere else?

So they were told to go back into the airport and hand everything in to the Taliban.

Well, many of them did and then fled.

Many of these people are in safe houses, but not all of them.

And when I said

one person is missing, the blood is on the hands of the State Department.

This is what I meant.

One person doesn't come back.

We have to go find them again.

Okay?

They're not just hanging out like, oh, just give me a call.

These are people who aren't using their phones because they're being tracked.

So they were

dismissed from the airport while the State Department works this out with a Taliban.

Now the Taliban is saying,

oh, well, we have some new airport fees.

So we have, we had to hire a bunch of,

I think they're called OLFAC.

Let me get this here.

Yeah, Office of Foreign Assets Control, OFAC.

There's a database that we have to run all of these things through, which we do.

All of the manifests run through OFAC.

That way we know who's on the plane.

You're not a wanted terrorist or whatever.

And they know, our government knows exactly who's on these planes.

We've been doing that from the beginning.

It's law.

You have to do it in the first place.

But we also want to do that.

Every time we create a flight manifest, it is scrubbed through the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Now, this is also the

place where they put you in prison if you're negotiating with terrorists.

And we wanted to make sure that we're not negotiating with terrorists.

So we hired up a bunch of attorneys for OFAC to make sure we were doing everything right last week.

And we're not negotiating

with the Taliban.

They are now discussing new government airport fees, but those are the government.

That's the government.

Huh.

You mean the government that the United States installed and the United States recognizes?

Okay, those guys, the good guys that are saving all of us and are helping us, right?

Okay.

So Cam Air is now in negotiation with the government of the Taliban

to try to negotiate the fees.

The State Department now is finally doing their job and they are trying to get our planes off the ground.

We have four planes paid for, ready to go on the tarmac.

We have the people.

We have the manifest.

We had it last week.

We had all of it.

We have to go back and get the people now

for those planes, but as soon as we get the green light, those people will be able to go back onto those planes.

And if there's one missing, I swear to you, we have also eight to ten other planes that are ready to fly out

if the state department will just

let us be

you're listening to the best of the glenbeck program

I want to show you the other hand.

It is really important when there's a big crisis, usually government-created crisis.

You have to look to the other hand.

What is the other hand doing?

Well, I just want to look at the banking sector and your dollar, the economy.

We told you

before COVID started, about six months before,

that there was going to be a major impact on the banking sector because of was happening with their emergency repo loan program.

Now, the Fed, what they do at night is the banks have to account

and have enough cash in to cover all their holdings in case something happens overnight.

And so, when there's

trouble in the banks, they go, it used to be called the discount window.

It was the window of shame.

And you would go there and it was public knowledge among the banks so you could

you could tell which bank was underwater whose bank is in trouble did you hear they went to the discount window they had to borrow money

that way it kept banks responsible in 2008 they I think they called it the emergency repo loan

window they got rid of of the discount window first they I think they just made it secret so nobody would know so it took away all the shame

Now

they have a $500 billion loan program, and the banks can go and borrow as much as $500 billion, half a trillion dollars at night.

And then they have to repay it over, it used to be the next morning, but now it's up to, I think, 30 days, maybe 60 days.

And it wasn't enough.

That's what was happening before COVID hit.

And then COVID COVID hit and then

everybody got a big bailout.

Wasn't that great?

The banks are just awash with cash now.

Big bailout.

Well, not enough, apparently.

The Federal Reserve has transformed its $500 billion emergency repo loan program into a $500 billion standing repo loan.

Now this came out in a press release that we were watching because we're watching the other hand.

Press release Friday at 4 p.m.

Well, everybody's around looking at the news on Friday, the Friday before a three-day weekend, right?

It's stunning news.

Given the fact that inflation is soaring at levels we haven't seen since the Carter era, and we're still in the middle of this pandemic, trillions of government of emergency spending still sloshing through the economy.

But as far as the Fed is concerned, the emergency phase of their daily $500 billion of lending to the banking administration is over,

and we're now in the new normal where you can get that half a trillion dollars every day, and the Fed will pump it into the economy.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

What if $500 billion isn't enough?

Don't worry, the Fed chairman Jerome Powell granted himself authority to increase or decrease that amount at his discretion.

Next, the New York Federal Reserve decided it was going to stop publishing the Fed now

GDP numbers for the U.S.

economy.

I know what you're thinking.

Isn't that kind of important?

Sure.

But they're saying it's getting so complex because of the new variables in their model because of COVID-19.

They just can't keep up with it.

They're tired.

And they just can't keep up with that GDP number.

Now, this is significant because this is the the longest running official GDP number that the Fed publishes.

Second reason, hundreds of underlying financial systems and models in the U.S.

rely on that GDP number for their own subsequent modeling.

So, you know, it's academic research, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Let me just break it down to this.

This affects you

because the Fed now GDP number is used for cost of living adjustments.

So your pension, retirement accounts, annuities, all of of that follow that number.

No word when the Fed can get the Fed now GDP number its third shot.

I think Fauci said it's maybe three, maybe three, maybe three.

We wish it well.

The largest investment brokerage firm in China this weekend.

There's kind of some news there you should be paying attention to.

It's called Evergrande.

It has deep ties to the Communist

Chinese Party.

All of it does.

Everything is basically a front for the Chinese.

They alerted

that

they may get payments and payment bonds due.

And that's concerns for the long-term corporate viability of

this brokerage, investment brokerage firm.

So you know, it is described as the Lehman Brothers of China.

If this thing goes down, it holds $350 billion in debt, about half of which is in U.S.

dollar debt.

Financial analysts around the world have noted a collapse of Evergrande could be as huge and as devastating to the Chinese economy as Lehman Brothers was to the U.S.

economy in 2008.

It would start, I'm quoting, a cascade of bank, pension, and corporate failures throughout the Chinese economy.

Just last week, there was a bank run at the banks connected to or invested in Evergrande, but the Chinese Communist Party stepped in by limiting withdrawals and providing liquidity.

And if that doesn't stop there, they'll just shoot people.

So, this is exciting because if you haven't gotten something, I ordered a stove

a year ago.

It was supposed to come in, it was supposed to come in at the beginning of summer, then it was the end of summer.

Now they say no estimate could be another year.

You don't want China to fall apart just because of the just because of the trade barriers for most things.

Mine wasn't coming out of China,

but parts were coming from Europe and can't get them.

If China goes down, not, not, not, not.

What do you say, Stu?

Suboptimal.

Suboptimal.

Suboptimal.

That would be suboptimal.

Americans are now paying the highest price for gasoline in history for any Labor Day weekend.

And this past week, Saudi Arabia, whom Joe Biden recently called on to increase production, of course, let's remind ourselves that Joe Biden's policies were enacted blocking all new oil and gas leases on federal grand on land,

which has netted resulted in a net decline of over 25% for U.S.

shale oil, nearly 10% reduction in natural gas production, and higher prices all around.

Well, anyway, Saudi Arabia announced last week because we're paying the highest price on any Labor Day weekend in history, and there are friends, and Joe Biden is working hard for us.

There's a 10% cut in prices

per barrel and only for a few select select markets.

My wife, Lisa Page, has been allegedly accused of putting these stickers up on gas pumps.

Blame Biden.

Oh, I love that.

Blame Biden and a picture of Biden saying, I did that.

And they seem to be pointing to

the gas price.

Oh, I love that.

And look, some photos might indicate

that she's done that, but I think she just happens to be filling up at gas pumps and taking pictures of that occurrence.

I would hope so.

That would be wrong.

Anyway, the Saudi Arabia said 10%

cut in prices per barrel for select markets.

Remember, Joe Biden went over and said, hey, can you help us out?

This is too much.

And they said, no,

we're not one of the select markets.

They're going to be discounting for China and

India.

So

that's good.

Good for them.

It's working out well.

And the Wall Street Journal reported this week, JP Morgan, JP morgan chase remember the one that doesn't want any of the flynn family involved uh won't carry their credit cards because they're disreputable uh the wall street journal has reported this week that jp morgan the largest bank in the u.s is engaging in trading its own shares of stock in what is known as dark pools

Now, what could go wrong?

I don't even know what dark pools are, but it sounds great, right?

Economists refer to dark pools as stock trades that don't happen on public exchanges like the NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange, but rather happen offline.

Dark pool trading is not technically illegal.

It's generally only

practiced by pure investment banks or brokerages.

It's unheard of that an FDIC-insured Federal Reserve and U.S.

government-backed too big-to-fail bank is engaging in any kind of dark pool trading.

The reason why this is worth noting, let's go back to 2008.

Do you remember the derivative trading, you know, in the mortgage bond market and how it crashed the global economy?

Is that dark pool trading?

That's not monitored or regulated by the SEC, right?

So now we have the largest bank in the U.S., one that has been convicted of five felonies.

JP Morgan Chase convicted of five felonies since 2012.

They have paid billions of dollars in fines to the SEC and the DOJ.

They're actively engaged in trading hundreds of billions of dollars worth of shares in offline markets not being monitored by the federal government.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Now that puts that bank at huge risk.

But remember, that bank is 100% backed by your tax dollars.

So don't worry, you can bail them out at any time.

Watch the other hand.

Something very bad is happening with the banks and

the way we are now all starting to do business at that level.

When you're not aware of these things, when you're not included in these things, you're the one that ends up getting screwed.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Chris

Omeravigna.

Did I get that even close, Chris?

Did I get that even close?

You did.

I'm impressed.

Okay.

Well, that's what people say.

I'm good with names.

Anyway,

that is

Irish obviously right

yeah so this is I guess kind of America in a name my husband Colin Patrick O'Mara nice Irish Catholic is where the Omera part comes from okay and Vignaraj Raja

yeah so so my family's from Sri Lanka came here when I was nine months old yep because you know I was just over in I was just over in I don't even remember Dublin or someplace in Ireland in the middle of the night and

just the word bathroom was spelled with J's and Gs and N's and A's, and I had no idea how to pronounce it.

Anyway, that's a different story.

I wanted to thank you for everything that you guys are doing.

You're the president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and you are part of the group of people that are actually just helping Afghan refugees with supplies and resettling.

I wanted to get an update from you on everything that you guys are doing and how we can help.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, we've never seen anything like it in terms of the outpouring.

Clearly, the American people have been eager to help.

And, you know, we've seen it in the bipartisan support.

We've seen it in this tremendous outpouring of support in the last several days.

We have 45,000 volunteers,

everything from veterans who served in Afghanistan to church groups.

I'm here at our headquarters, and we have floors just brimming with diapers, school supplies, in the hopes of helping families as they resettle here in the U.S.

Now,

you're working on the resettlement.

Are you working on things like English classes and cultural orientation and things like that to help these people?

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, we want to set these families up for success.

And so it's everything from, you know, finding volunteers to drive families to English as a second language classes, cultural orientation, so they have a sense of kind of what life will be

to making sure that we can help enroll the kids in public schools, to even working with employers.

You know, so many of the interpreters, the drivers, they've already worked alongside U.S.

troops or in the embassy, so they have a sense of kind of what it is like to be in an American workplace or to work alongside Americans.

And they're so excited.

they're driven to help and work and succeed.

How many are here right now that you're working with?

Yeah, so we know that there are about

so 41,000 Afghan evacuees are being housed at eight military sites across the U.S.

as of last night.

We are still kind of the U.S.

government's processing these families who are at different bases.

I was at Fort Lee a few weeks ago, so was helping with the legal paperwork,

helping, you know, there were medical checks happening at the military bases.

And then we expect that families will move to their final destination

in the coming weeks.

So

help me out on this.

So many

people

are,

they'll forget the the transition period and they just think we got to get these people out.

And a lot of times people are just dumped at an airport in a foreign country.

And we've been thinking a lot about these refugees that we've been over working with and saving.

That I can't imagine what it's like to be in Afghanistan one day.

And this doesn't really apply to those who are, you know, that are SIVs or people that have worked as translators, et cetera, et cetera.

But it does for those who got out because they were marked for death because they're a woman or they're

Christian or whatever it is.

They were in Afghanistan one day and then brought to a country they may not even know about

if it's not America and some country where they don't speak the language, the culture, or anything.

How important is it for the community to rally around these people?

Yeah, it's critical.

And honestly, we've seen this before, right?

I can tell you how many people come up to me and say, my family sponsored or my my church sponsored a Vietnamese refugee family.

And some of the challenges are challenges that Americans that we can relate to, like the affordable housing crisis, right?

The difference is that by contrast to us, where we still have a roof over our heads and so we can kind of navigate when we can buy or we have a nest egg that we can tap into, these families don't, right?

The only home they may have ever known here in the U.S.

is a military base.

And so we're trying to help them navigate some of those challenges.

We've really appreciated some of the even corporate support we've gotten from like Airbnb.

So many people of faith and otherwise have volunteered and given up their homes or an empty apartment that they may have.

And then some of the challenges are things that we can't even fathom in terms of, as you described it, right, the trauma of a woman who feared being married off to a Taliban militant and who had no choice but to leave the only home she's ever known.

And so our hope is that we can provide some of the medical care, the mental health services that so many of these young women, families, children, you know, we're seeing some children who don't have parents or they were separated

come in and they don't know anything.

So that's kind of the challenges that we're going to be facing and supporting in the weeks to come.

And it really is because of the community-based support that we feel like we can take this on.

Chris, thank you so much for all of the work you guys are doing.

Again, you can go to their website, lirs.org.

It is the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and she is the president and CEO.

Is there anything in particular we can do to help you?

Yeah, I mean, I will say that because the situation is so fluid that

cash donations are hugely helpful because they give us the flexibility, whether it is a medical appointment that we can pay for or housing.

Some of the landlords are asking for six months of advance rent.

So, you know, if folks have, you know, the funds that they might be able to donate anything, that's hugely helpful.

And then otherwise, please volunteer.

You know, we need people to help set up apartments, to pick up these families from the airport, to drive them to the English as a second language classes, those sorts of things.

But really, we're so grateful for the ability to explain who we are and how we do this work and how it's such a core value, whether it's a matter of faith or who we are as a nation.

Yeah, Yep, thank you so much, Krish.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Again, the website is lirs.org.

I know a little bit about Krish, and I don't think that we agree probably on very much.

And what's great is that it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

This is the one thing that is bringing people of all walks of life together.

We all know there's something about

honor

that is built into all of us, I think.

And maybe it's being lost in other generations.

I hope not.

But there is something that we know as Americans, we don't leave people behind.

We just don't do that.

And we have.

And I think that's what has people who are Republican, Democrat, Independents

all feeling this is wrong is because we don't do this.

It's just not who we are.

And the nice thing about this

as

the stories are being told, and I so want to

highlight all of the other groups that are helping.

I just happen to have a microphone.

That's the reason why the Nazarene Fund raised as much as it did because you are there.

These groups don't have a big audience and they struggle for every dime and every volunteer.

And they're doing some great work.

And I really want you to know all of the people that we can possibly feature

and what they do to help.

Because

somebody said to me,

somebody said to me the other day,

you know, it's really a miracle what's going on and how much money you raised.

And I said, it wasn't me.

It was the audience.

We all have our own role.

And I want you to understand this clearly.

And I don't say this, I mean, look, people will always say, and Stu, I think you'll agree with me, my best trait is my humility.

I am more humble than anybody else I know.

And

I think that's what makes me so great is my humility, wouldn't you say?

Incredibly accurate, yes.

So

I'm not, I am striving to be more humble in my life, but that's not why I say how important other people are.

I say this because when I was with Billy Graham, and I asked him where are, where's the next Lincoln, where's the next Washington, he said a mosaic was going to happen.

And it is happening.

And

the secret is,

I just told this to somebody just the other day on some other project because I've learned this

over time.

The secret is to not be overwhelmed with the whole picture.

It's to

It's to put into perspective what you're supposed to do.

And I've had a really tough couple of weeks and I had a

tough 10 years, you know, 10 years in the past where I was taking on too much of the world's problems.

It's not my job.

My job is to do what I can do.

And what I can do is tell you.

and connect you to other people.

I can warn you, but I can't solve it.

And so I came to you and I did my job, and then you did your job by giving.

And I know because I saw the letters, I saw the emails, I saw the remarks that people were taking from phone calls.

I wish I could do more.

I wish I could do more.

I know, so do I.

So do I, believe me.

But that's not our job.

Our job is to do what we can do.

And when each of us fall into place and do and don't look at the big picture,

it's kind of like when you're, I guess, if you're tightrope walking, don't look down.

Don't look down.

Just keep looking straight.

You know that wire is there.

You know how to walk it.

Just do that.

You look down.

You look at the big picture of where you are.

You're going to fall.

It's not going to work.

Just do what you're supposed to do.

If that's volunteering,

you know,

as we were talking to Krish,

you know, she said, you know, people need, we need people to drive them to their English-only classes.

We've seen this because we have set this system up

with the Australian government years ago for the Syrian refugees.

And it works.

It works.

That community works.

The Australians know how to do it.

And people are going to

their English classes.

They're going to the classes on what Australia really is.

I guess learn how to be a convict in the very beginning.

I don't know.

Anyway, they learn about the cultural heritage and it works.

But don't just be a volunteer.

If you want to volunteer for something like this, where there's some of these immigrants that are coming in through the United States government,

please don't just volunteer.

Be their friend,

just be their friend.

They don't have any anymore.

They have family members, but they have no friends.

They don't need a driver.

They need a friend.