It Could Happen Here Weekly 201

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let
you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
of the week that just happened is here in one
convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
there's going to be nothing new here for you, but
you can make your own decisions.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Hi.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
Everyone, welcome to the podcast. It's me James today and
I'm very fortunate to be joined by Francis, whose husband
Amos is facing a date in immigration court this week.
We wanted to bring you a first time perspective of
what it's like going through immigration court right now. So Francis,
thank you for joining us.

Speaker 5 (00:47):
Thank you, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Yeah, of course, we're very glad you're here. So to
start with, like, would you like to explain your families
and it's a lengthy topic, family's immigration story.

Speaker 5 (01:02):
Yes, I met my husband Amos in the Hollywood. We
were both living in Hollywood and we dated a couple
of years there and then ended up moving to his
home country of Tunisia because he had a big family
there and I don't have much family here and we
wanted to have children. It's much better cost of living there,
and at the time the government there was doing pretty well.

(01:25):
There had been an Arab Spring, which my husband was
very much involved with on this over here in the States,
like helping with that, and so he's an activist, and
at the time the government there was pretty good. So
we lived there for eight years, had our children there,
and a new presidency came in while we were living there,

(01:47):
the current president Caius said, and things started to change.
So my husband was doing a lot of organizing grassroots
movement through local farmers' unions and monitoring elections, doing pro
democracy activities for anti corruption and he's really an activist
for free speech and things like that. So he started

(02:10):
getting harassed. He was arrested, he was beaten up by
the police and things like that. So it started getting
very uncomfortable. Also, I was getting harassed. I would get
pulled over a lot by the police. They would impound
our car, they would take us out. Yeah, the police
there carry big guns, you know, as in most Arab countries,

(02:32):
and so it was very frightening for me. Yeah, they
carry big guns. They're either on their backs or even
in their hands, and they would have me and the
kids get out of the car, and it was very frightening. So, yeah,
the children and I, well, we were all planning on
coming back to the States. I hadn't been home in
a while, and so the children and I went ahead

(02:53):
and came, assuming that my husband would be able to
get at least a visa to you know, see us.
And while once we were here, he was not able
to get a visa. He tried and tried and tried,
and I was begging the embassy to allow him to

(03:13):
see us here, and they just would not. So we
were separated for nine months. So him being away from
our children they were about four and six at the time,
or maybe five and seven. It was devastating for all
of us. So he ended up taking a very treacherous
journey across South America and made his way through many
countries and presented himself for asylum at the border, because

(03:37):
again we did not feel safe living in Tunia anymore.
So he presented himself for asylum at the border and
they allowed him into this country with a court date.
And at the time Biden was president, so things are,
you know, have changed a lot since then. You know,
the immigration system is broken. Everybody knows that. It takes

(03:58):
years and years and years, tons and tons of money
for an immigrant to you know, go through the process.
You know people who say, oh, just do it the
right way. It's not that simple. It takes a lot
of money and a lot of time, and it's very complicated.
And when you're fleeing a country or a situation where
you're in danger, there is no other option, you know,

(04:21):
there's nowhere to go back. So that's what we're kind
of facing now. So he had a court date. We've
had five master hearings, and we've gone through a few
different lawyers because we have found, for one thing, it's
extremely difficult to find a lawyer these days because they're
very overbooked. Most of them are not taking new cases.

(04:43):
People tell us, oh, just get a pro bono lawyer.
It is almost impossible to get a pro bono lawyer anymore.
And you know, who has thousands and thousands of extra
dollars to pay for legal help with the situation. We
do have a lawyer now, thinks to some fundraising that
we've done so since he's been here, we've had to

(05:04):
check in at the ICE office, Like it was on
sort of a basis of after you have a court
hearing the next day or within a couple of days,
you must go check in it ICE. And it's been
very fine, like the there's a very nice officer there
who knows us and help tries to help answer our questions.
So it was pretty calm when Biden was president. And

(05:26):
then now that Trump's administration has taken over, we knew
that there would be a lot of changes and we
were very frightened. So we went for a hearing earlier
this year. You know, we're just a lot more nervous.
And the hearing went fine, just kind of as normal.
We went to the ICE check in. I think our
guard was kind of down because we thought, since the

(05:48):
hearing went fine, this will go fine. Yeah, and the
nice officer told us, you know, well this is going
to sound a little scary, but we need you to
go check in at a different place this time. And
so they sent us to a comp called ICE app.
They own i think migrant detention centers. So we went
to this place and he was there the whole day.
They were interviewing him. They put an app in his phone,

(06:11):
so that now he has to do these weekly check
ins where his phone makes this loud alarm sound. He
must stop everything and take a picture of himself. There's
a monthly home visit where they come to our house
and take his picture and ask him questions. There's we
have to go check in at their office, and also
he does virtual check in, so it's just a lot

(06:33):
more and everything was kind of going as planned. We
are last hearing in July. That was really stressful because
we didn't have a lawyer leading up to it, and
at the last second we were able to get a lawyer.
And the reason it's so important to have a lawyer
is because if you don't, you must appear in person,
and that's very stressful and frightening. Again, we have small children.

(06:57):
We don't even do babysitters, like we're always just together
that we're a very tight family unit, and so we
go to these things together. And we really wanted this
last one in July to be virtual because if it's virtual,
you know, it just feels a lot safer. We're in
the comfort of our own home and we've been hearing
in the news, you know, how they're picking up people
outside of their court hearings. So we got the attorney,

(07:21):
we got a virtual hearing. It was a very short hearing.
It was great because she just gave us the next
hearing date was September of twenty twenty eight, and the
judge said, Okay, see you in twenty twenty eight, and
we breathed a sigh of relief, cross our fingers, did
our necessary check ins, and we were just you know,

(07:41):
hoping that everything would be fine. Well just here at
the end of August beginning of September, we get out
of the blue a new notice. It was very interesting too,
because this iceapp company calls us and says, good news,
We're gonna lessen the amount of check ins you have
to do. It's going to be a lot less now. So,
you know, it was interesting because she's like, this is

(08:03):
great news for you. She like once a month, you'll
still do the weekly ones, and then it's just going
to be once a month, okay. But then she says,
and then we'll see you after your hearing in September,
meaning this September. And we thought it was a mistake
because we knew we had one in twenty twenty eight. Yeah,
like no no, you got a new hearing notice. So
that's how we found out. They didn't send it to us.

(08:25):
Even our lawyer didn't know. So we find out that
we have a new hearing out of the blue. There
was a mix up about the dates, but anyway, it
was September eleventh or fifteenth, and then our attorney asked
for an extension right and the most they could give
us was nine days. So now our hearing is this
coming Wednesday, September twenty fourth and on. This has never

(08:47):
happened before, but when again, when you have an attorney,
you can appear virtually, and on this hearing notice it
said that the attorney can appear virtually, but the respondent
must appear in person, and that is highly unusual. It's
in bold at the top. So our attorney agrees with
us that it's pretty clear. The plan is. What they've

(09:07):
been doing now is when you go to court, they
drop your case. So now it's dismissed, and therefore you
are just here without due process, and like now you
don't have a right to do process. It's done, so
you're just here illegally, and then they are sometimes waiting
for you in the hallway or outside the building to
take you to iced attention. So obviously, since we found

(09:30):
this out, I mean, we've just been sleepless nights, full
panic mode of figuring out like what to do, and
then our attorney doesn't even have answers for us. She
does not know what to do. She says, this is
all new to her, it's new to all the lawyers.
She doesn't even know what to do or who to ask.
And that's frightening, because that's why we have an attorney,

(09:53):
you know. It's we're hoping for some support or someone
who's knowledgeable about the law and what our options, and
it feels like we don't have any. We feel extremely helpless,
and I've never thought I would see this in my country,
my quote unquote free country that I have lived in

(10:13):
most of my life and grew up in. Also, about
two weeks ago, they changed the law where now we
are not entitled to a bond hearing, so if he
is taken into detention, we can't even get him out,
because that was the first thing we thought was, well, well,
let's just try to get some money together and we'll
bail him out. Yeah, that's not even an option anymore.

(10:34):
So again more fear. So we're dealing with all of
this and wondering what to do as far as you know. Again,
we have small children. They're now seven and nine years old.
We're extremely happy where we're living. We live in a
small community that does lean on the conservative side, so
we do feel a little uncomfortable with some of our

(10:54):
neighbors and their flags and everything. They're very bold, so,
you know, and you can't high being brown, so it's awkward.
And then our children because of the way that we
left before. When we left Tunisia, it was pretty sudden.
We kind of took them out of school and just
came to America and left their dad behind. So they've

(11:16):
been in therapy ever since. They each have a weekly
therapist just to help with if they're you know, if
they're going to have any symptoms of trauma coming up
for them. And they're doing great. Actually, they're thriving here.
They are so happy. They are in the best school.
I actually work at their school, and my husband volunteers
at the school and he's been their soccer coach for

(11:38):
both of their teams, which was a lot to take on.
He also volunteers in our community at a ranch, helping
with horses and at a facility for senior citizens. And
he does have a work permit. They granted him a
work permit, which took a long time to get.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
That's good because I can take a long time.

Speaker 5 (11:57):
It took a long time, over a year, but he
does have it now. So we got excited because he
only got the work permit a couple months ago. So
we're very excited. You know, he can work. And now
it's just out of the blue, our world has turned
upside down where there's a strong potential that he will

(12:18):
be taken into ice custody. And listen, I understand if
that's how they want to do things now, but if
it was like a safer situation where maybe they.

Speaker 6 (12:29):
Just I don't know.

Speaker 5 (12:31):
It's just there's so many unknowns about where are they
taking him. There's our lawyer does not think we will
be informed about where they take him. That's one thing
which means we probably won't be able to communicate with him.
We don't know how long he'll be there. They could
keep him there the entire three years until twenty twenty eight.

(12:53):
They might just want to keep him in detention and wait,
you know, for his next year. It doesn't make any
sense to me because that costs money, and he's a
tax payer. Wouldn't it pay more if he's home working.
By the way, yes, he has no criminal record whatsoever.
He has not broken any immigration laws at least when

(13:15):
he came over the border. It was legal to present
yourself for asylum when you are coming from a country
like he was where he was, you know, being harassed,
detained right and his entire family like we were being
threatened and feeling very unsafe there.

Speaker 4 (13:30):
So yeah, it's a textbook asylum place, right.

Speaker 5 (13:32):
Like, Yeah, we have a valid asylum claim. We've submitted
hundreds of documents of evidence to the court. You know.
The judge actually complimented us on how well we did
because at the time we didn't have an attorney. We
were just trying to do it on our own because
we couldn't afford an attorney. We were both college graduates.
So we put together a really organized, you know case.

(13:56):
And so I have filed to sponsor him as well,
you know, as my husband. We've been together twelve years,
married ten two kids, and they don't care about that.
It does not matter if he has an American family,
it does not matter. They are taking anybody, and that
also is very, very frustrating, and that's the reason that
we should have due process. They should be looking at

(14:18):
every single case individually and have a judge make a decision.
That's the whole point of it. Obviously, if we had hindsight,
if we had known that this could have happened, we

(14:42):
had no idea that this could have happened in our country,
we would have started this sponsorship process a long time ago.
The reason we didn't is because he was married before,
and he went through this process with USCIS to try
to get sponsorship with his first wife, and it was
extremely compli and frustrating and cost a lot of money,
and he went through a bunch of lawyers and he

(15:03):
was so traumatized by the experience that literally we had
big legal files in our house that I had to
hide because he couldn't even see them or he would
get triggered. So he didn't want to put me through that.
And we were living in Tunia anyway, and so we
just figured we were just kind of kicking the can
down the road, thinking, oh, we'll deal with it at
some point. Unfortunately, we waited way too long and you know,

(15:25):
didn't start dealing with it until he got here, and
so USCIS, which is where we you know, file for
this sponsorship.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, US Customs Immigration Service people know familiar.

Speaker 5 (15:37):
Yes, thank you. After we filed that, they gave us
a time period on when we would get the decision.
It was fifteen months that we would have to wait.
And we've been checking the site, checking the site, checking
the site, has been counting down, counting down, and about
a month ago we were down to a week oh well, okay,
that we would be getting a decision. And after the
week passed, it changed the message on the app now

(16:00):
or the website now says and definitely you'll have to
wait indefinitely for this decision. So we've been trying to
ask our lawyer please push for this because if that
gets you an answer, that would be great. But the
answer could be no on that as well. They could
just say no, come on in and they can take

(16:20):
him straight from there as well. So the whole thing
is so incredibly stressful and frightening the fact that my government,
I'm in America, I'm an American citizen with two American kids,
and my government is threatening to tear our family apart
and take my husband away the father of my children

(16:41):
and traumatize my children again to have their dad not
with us, and Lord knows where they're going to send him.
It is absolutely infuriating, and it feels like agony too,
because like every day I wake up and I'm counting
down the days to this hearing and we have no
idea what's going to happen. Right, it feels very very
threatening to our safety and our livelihood, and that it's

(17:05):
coming from our government does not make me feel like
this is a great country to live in and I
do not feel safe living here.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
Yeah, thanks for sharing all that. That's a lot, yeah
to have to put out there, so thank you for
sharing it. I guess we should just explain for people,
like there's a lot of stuff that maybe people who
haven't been through this system might not not grasp within
that right. So what the government has if I just
break down, like the dismissal of cases as I understand

(17:37):
that what the government has been doing has been dismissing
people's asylum case right which they got under Title eight
when they entered and added by the administration, and then
placing them in expedited removal proceedings, Yes, which is a
mandatory detention as you said, right, it's not a bailout situation.
And then as you say, forcing them to fight from detention, right,
which in this case would obviously stop your husband from working,

(18:00):
stop your husband from paying taxes, and instead make him
a burden on the American taxpayer while he's detained in
conditions which can often be very poor. In that situation.
You're only sort of claim is a credible fear of torture, right,
which is something that in your case it sounds like
would be very real. But nonetheless, that is a very
high bar, and we've seen the United States do all

(18:22):
kinds of things to get around that. We were put
on that all the time, so I can understand that
fear and where it comes from. I think people will
be shocked, but they perhaps shouldn't be to hear that, Like, yes,
you can be a US citizen married to a non
US citizen. This can still happen to you. It can
happen to anyone who is not a citizen in this
country right now. I wonder like it must have been

(18:48):
pretty heartbreaking to see the election, to see the rhetoric,
like how does that line up with your lives in
your community? Because I see this often even from really
conservative people, right, Like I know people who voted for
Trump who have also shown up to like cook for
asylum seekers in the desert or to help refugees living

(19:12):
in our community. Like it's a very strange thing. Have
you felt alienated from your community since the beginning of
this year, Like I'm interested in, like how your lives
have changed because of that change in rhetoric.

Speaker 5 (19:27):
Yes, Like I said, we have neighbors on our streets.
So there was a block party for Fourth of July,
which I didn't even feel like celebrating, but we had
just moved into this house, so we felt, you know,
like we should go at least meet the neighbors. And
there's a lot of Trump flags on our street, and
it was very awkward. But my husband is very charming
and charismatic and outgoing, and he just goes right up

(19:49):
and introduces himself. And there was one gentleman wearing a
T shirt that said they hate us because they ate us,
and it's got a big old, you know, Trump face
on it, and it was just so so awkward. So yeah,
we feel uncomfortable. Also, like I said, it's a lean's
conservative in this community. And our school. Even like, as

(20:09):
we're doing this fundraiser, we were very careful not to
share it with anyone that we live near, just in case,
you know, because we have been hearing reports of people
like neighbors calling ice on their neighbors to you know,
report them and you know, go pick up this person.
You know, he looks brown or I don't know what
they're what they're doing or their logic, but you know, yeah,

(20:31):
it feels very threatening. And even oh, my daughter even said,
can't Data just cover up his skin? You know, like
she was just thinking like, yeah, was he gonna wear
her cup? Yeah?

Speaker 7 (20:44):
Right?

Speaker 5 (20:44):
I mean, you can't really hide who you are, and
you shouldn't have to.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
Right, And it's very hard for the kids to be
saying that, yeah, the dad should be hiding.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:56):
And they've asked me, how can we make Trump just
forget about Data, you know, and I said, well, he
doesn't really know. They don't you know, he doesn't know
exactly your dad. He's they're doing this to a lot
of people. You know. We just happen to be in
that group. But I will say we have some close
friends that we really adore, and they are Trumpers, you know,
we see it on their Facebook page, but then when

(21:18):
we're in their presence, they don't bring it up, and
it's just kind of an elephant in the room. And honestly,
as our current data is getting closer, we plan on
having them over to talk about it because it feels
very awkward, and I just think they're there's the kindest people.
They're extremely religious, which which we are not when we're
on the spiritual side, But you know, I think they're

(21:40):
just they're just on a team. They've chosen a team,
and I don't think they're necessarily paying a lot of
attention to what's actually happening to people. So we're hoping
that just a conversation will just let them know. We
want to be honest with the people that are close
to us, and that mean a lot to us, you know,
because we don't know what's about to happen. And even

(22:00):
there's members of my family that I feel very awkward
talking to as well, where I'm kind of distanced myself
because people who are still supporting this regime at this
point to me, are too far gone to even kind
of get them to come around. I guess, I mean,

(22:20):
I just don't understand I can't understand support of Trump
from the first place. So again, if people are still
on that boat, I really don't relate to them, and
it's very awkward. Especially, Yeah, people in my family who
supposedly love me and my children, you know, are still
supporting that regime, and despite seeing all the things, maybe

(22:46):
they don't see it. I mean, I know they if
they are exclusively watching Fox News, then they are only
receiving that information, which is not telling the whole story, right,
and it's definitely completely skewed to make them look the
good guys, and anyone on that's liberal is a bad guy.
And they're very much targeting, you know, Democrats now as

(23:08):
the enemy, the enemy of the state. They have even said.
So it's I mean, it's so now I'm starting to
feel even nonsafe for myself because I'm I'm not super
active on Facebook, but I am outspoken because I can't resist.
I mean, it's there is freedom of speech in this country,
or at least there was, and there should be. And

(23:30):
it's hard to be quiet at this time. And we
would be a lot more outspoken if we weren't feeling unsafe.

Speaker 4 (23:37):
Yeah, but you have that fear, yes.

Speaker 5 (23:39):
Yes, especially my husband, because he's always been an activist
and a you know, fighter for free speech and equal rights,
and so it's that's one of the things that's really
crushing him and his soul and his spirit through all
this is that he cannot even speak out. So, you know,
for people like him. It's not even for himself, but

(24:01):
just for people like him. I know he wants to help,
you know, and it's really challenging.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
I know, it's so sad to see the whole point
of the asylum system and like, at least the sort
of stated purpose of American foreign policy, it's sort of
spread democracy throughout the world and allow people that have
stood up for democracy and been persecuted to come here
and be safe. And evidently the United States doesn't even
believe in saying that anymore, in so much as it

(24:28):
said it didn't always do it in the past. Yeah,
it is really sad to think that, like even that
it's gone. Yeah, for so many people, I think the
idea of migrants is like an abstract one, right for
your Fox News viewer, Migrants are just like an abstract
brownskin bad person. And I often think that if those
people had known migrants in their community, they would either

(24:49):
not vote that way, or they would at least not
like that policy. There are other things they liked about Trump,
which it goes that's not something I can find much
understanding of. But yeah, people do exist. But it's just
so sad to see like people turned against anyone who
wasn't born in this country. Yeah, it's simply because they were,

(25:09):
not because of any any other character trait.

Speaker 5 (25:11):
They have, particularly the brown skin though, because you have
to admit the Canadians. I mean, even though there's been
a little dungeon with the Canadians at first in this regime,
you know, they're they're pretty much under the radar and
anyone from Europe or anyone. He's even said, like send
a Nordic people, that's fine, you know, I mean, he's
he's very clear, right, Yeah, the South African refugees are welcome.

(25:33):
Come on. It's just so blatant, you know. And and
I remember when I was growing up, my mom in particular,
would would complain when when we started to have to
press one for English. I remember my mom complaining about
that or thinking, you know, you know, if you're here,
you should learn the language. Well, I got to say,
I lived in Tunisia for eight years and I did

(25:56):
not learn the language. I tried to teach myself. It's
a dialect that you know, the time. They didn't have
lessons that you could get on YouTube or duo lingo
or anything. You know, if I learned French and Arabic,
maybe I could piece something together. But I you know,
it's not as easy as people say.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
And yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (26:16):
And then just to speak of my mother, I guess
I'll say she prides herself on making friends with people
at the grocery store who are of another ethnicity, or
like really you know, getting to know a doctor. Or
she has a housekeeper who's been working for her for
like thirty years, and so I know she doesn't think

(26:38):
of that person as being someone that shouldn't be here, right,
So you know, so I think even if you do
know a family or two who's who's an immigrant, you
might think, oh, well, not them. I don't mean them,
I mean allo other ones. I mean all the bad guys.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Yeah, the bad ones.

Speaker 5 (26:54):
Yeah. And if Trump was serious about getting the bad
ones go to the gang nameihoborhoods, like we do know
where the dangerous gang neighborhoods are. But they're not sending
the tanks there, They're sending them to MacArthur Park, you know, yeah,
home depot. It's like, if you want to get the gangs,
get the gangs. But I think they're too scared of

(27:16):
that because these are really just regular people that they're
hiring to do this work for them to pick up people.
And that's why they're hiding their faces, because they are
regular people who would like to probably have a normal
life outside of this new job that they've been so
well paid.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
For, right Yeah, and certainly they're they're recruiting a lot
more people to do that right now, which is going
to only see a step up in enforcement.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:51):
I wonder like in so much of anything has helped
because people will want to help, right Like, I think
people will listen, they will understand a situation, they will
see the possibility of your family being torn apart and
want to help. But it's hard to help right now.
Runless you're an immigration lawyer, and every pro bono immigration
lawyer I know is mental health damaging levels. Have overworked

(28:12):
and stressed and traumatized. I think, so what can people
do either for you or in their communities to show
up for people who are in your situation.

Speaker 5 (28:24):
I would say donate. You can donate to the ACL,
you donate to individual families like ours. I'm sure. I
think there's a lot of gofundmes out there that people
are trying to raise money for. That's the way, you know,
everything is kind of done these days when people are
desperate and speak out, and I think the most important
thing is have conversations and get to know people and

(28:45):
even like, yeah, sometimes I see, you know, a Hispanic
person in a grocery store. I just wanted to tell them,
thank you for being here. I'm glad you're here, because
I think they must be feeling so scared right now
and so unwanted and so unappreciated when they are doing
some of the hardest jobs that nobody else wants to
do for very little money. Yeah, these are essential workers

(29:09):
that he should be paid the most. Everything is backwards,
you know, the people who are doing the hardest, you know,
cleaning the toilets and picking the fields, they should be
paid the most. It doesn't make any sense. Regardless of
where they're from, they're willing to do the work, and
Lord knows their background of where they came from and
how the struggles that they've been through to leave their

(29:31):
home country. Nobody wants to leave their home country. You
do that because it's so bad that you must, you know,
especially if you have children. You're trying to make a
better life for yourself. And we've been sold on this
American dream prospect. You know that we've heard our whole
lives and the whole world is hurt about So they
come and now we're just punishing them brutally. It's not

(29:53):
even like, oh, no, sorry, we're full. You know, we're
gonna have to send you back. It's like, no, we're
going to punish you. We're going to treat you like
daw call you animals and vermin, and call you horrible things. Yeah,
send you to places where you're unsafe and untaken care of,
and maybe, if you're lucky, you'll get sent back to
your home country, or you'll get sent to a random
country or even a prison, like a horrible prison in

(30:18):
another country where who knows what's good. It's just this
is what frightens me. You know again, if he was
sent to somewhere, to a place where I could you know,
we could have visits or calls or you know, and
he waits it out. I guess that would be more
tolerable than the unknown of his his safety. He's not
going to be well taken care of. That's a fact.

(30:39):
They don't care about these people. And my husband, unfortunately,
he's always been extremely strong, extremely brave, a fighter, and
I feel like his fight is gone. He's physically and
mentally at the end of his rope, and I'm extremely frightened.
I mean, he just feels like he's tired of fighting.

(31:00):
He's just exhausted from this, you know. Again, I mean
we've been together twelve years, and again he was going
through this process with his first wife, who he was
with for eight years, and he never got an answer.
He was never denied, but he just never got an answer,
and that was enough for them for our case, just
to you know, it's going to be really, really difficult

(31:20):
to get a yes for a green card.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it still happens. I've heard of
it happening even in the last few months, but it
is increasingly harder and less common, and that is brutal. Yeah,
Like it's horrible and the way, of course, as you're saying,
system is designed to make you feel hopeless and just
to as they call it self, deport.

Speaker 5 (31:44):
Yes, and even our lawyer doesn't know what to do.
And I feel the judge seems like a nice person,
and I would imagine it must be very frustrating too
to be a judge at this time where they have
to be the ones that are just kind of their
hands are tied. They will lose their job if they
don't do what the regime wants them to do. So,

(32:05):
you know, this is what happens in third world countries.
This is why America has been great because we weren't
like this before. With this, you know, cutting out free
speech and things like that. It's it's changing rapidly and
if people don't stand up more, and I'm sorry, but
it's going to have to take more than these peaceful protests. Unfortunately,

(32:28):
because they're not doing anything. We are being laughed at
by the Maga Republicans. They do not care about our
peaceful protests. They're just like, Okay, there's a protest on
this day. Next day, They're just going to keep doing
it harder, you know.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
Sure, Yeah, it's not.

Speaker 5 (32:43):
Changing anything, so something has to change. I'm hoping more
celebrities come out and start speaking up. I think that
would help, because people tend to back the celebrities that
they love, and I'm kind of alarmed that more people
like especially the most powerful celebrities like Oprah, for example,
Why aren't they out there every day, you know, saying

(33:05):
this is what I support and this is what I
don't support. I think they're scared.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
I'm assuming I would imagine, So what a sad thought.

Speaker 5 (33:14):
I do think that the mega Republicans are outnumbered, and
I think that they're continuously going to be outnumbered as
things get more and more you know, shocking, as we're
seeing our freedoms being stripped, the constitutional freedoms that we've
always known being stripped. I think it's going to get worse,
and I don't know how about it has to get

(33:34):
before change happens.

Speaker 4 (33:36):
Yeah, I don't think any of us do. I do
think you're right. The more and more people are not
happy with HAVS is happening, but there doesn't even seem
to be a well among Democrats to oppose this in
a meaningful way. Yeah, she's very.

Speaker 5 (33:49):
Sad and like, yeah, even the Democrats in power don't
know what to do, I mean.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
Yeah, and they seem to think that it's electoral suicide,
just to be basically decent and say we need to
be decent people and kind to people who come here
asking us to help them. There seems to be something
that is just inadmissible in lictoral politics, which is really sad.
Right now, Yeah, so you guys have your court date.
We will obviously continue covering this.

Speaker 5 (34:15):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (34:17):
We get We're going to continue updating people. We will
continue talking about this and then covering this, and yeah,
we'll try and get an update out. This is coming out.
You'll be hearing this on Monday, and we will try
and get an update out within a week or so,
just to let everyone know how things have gone and
what they can do to help. Is there anything else
you'd like to say to people before we go?

Speaker 5 (34:39):
Yeah, so, as we found out, you know that there's
a good possibility that he will be taken into iced
attention on Wednesday. We ask our lawyer, Okay, so what
are the next steps if that happens? What you know,
he has a constitutional right to do process of law
habeas corpus, and she doesn't know what to do. She's
never done it before. So therefore we need to find

(35:00):
a different lawyer that can help us with that. It's
not in immigration court, it's federal court. So we have inquiries.
We actually have a consult today with someone who maybe
help us with that. We sent emails out last night
kind of telling our story to another lawyer, hoping that
we can get some support and on that front, because
basically that's your next your next step. Once you're in detention,

(35:23):
you raise your constitutional rights of due process of law,
you know, but then again it's another fight and again
it could be from detention, which is yeah, more money.
I'm going to be at that point, a single mother,
you know, trying to support bills here in California, which
is already you know difficult, and you know, on my own,

(35:46):
and also paying lawyers and trying to fight to either
find my husband or get him out of there. You know,
we we don't want to leave the country if we
if we don't have to. We love it here. I
don't know where else to go. We can't go to Tunisia.
I'm American. Where are we supposed to go? Yeah, And

(36:07):
that's what people don't understand too with immigrants, you know,
if they can't return to their home country because of
safety reasons, which is most of the cases. That's why
we have the silent cases. Then what are they supposed
to do? You know?

Speaker 4 (36:21):
Yeah, and I don't think a lot of people seem
to care, right, they think people just want people to
go away somewhat, go figure it out.

Speaker 5 (36:28):
Yeah, it's not our problem.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
Yeah, yeah, which in this case it very much is
and in every case, and like it is our problem
that like we should take responsibility for one another as
well being right, yes, as humans care about each other.

Speaker 5 (36:42):
Yeah, just have empathy at least that's the least we
could do.

Speaker 4 (36:46):
Yeah, I know a society that says it's not my problem,
it's not one that any of us should want to
live in.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (36:52):
Yeah. And in our case, my husband's particularly worried because
if he does get sent back to Tunisia, most definitely
he would be in jail there as well, which is
also not a pleasant experience yet to put it mouth
and it would be yeah, where they torture people in jail.
So yeah, again, we don't really know what to do
or where to go. But these are the thoughts that

(37:13):
we're having.

Speaker 4 (37:14):
Yeah, and then not unreasonable.

Speaker 5 (37:16):
Yeah, if we do self deport when do we, like
we're trying to push it as long as we can stay, stay, stay, stay, stay,
stay stay, you know, and then when do we let
them know? Okay, okay, I guess we'll self deport, like
at the last second before they take them into detention, like,
you know, I don't know the safe way to do that, right,
And then if we do, can they give us time
to get our affairs in order, Like leaving the country

(37:39):
is no small task, and we don't even have money
to do that. So you know, these are our options.
These are literally our options. And again, small children second grade,
fourth grade, you know, and they're thriving here, like they
don't deserve this. And my husband even said, you know,
he said this the other day, like our children don't

(37:59):
deserve this, and I said, no, children deserve the horrors
of this planet, you know that. I mean, we're actually
a lot luckier than a lot of other children. So
but at the same time, there are children, and this
is the problem that we're dealing with, and unfortunately they
have to deal with it too. You know, That's just
what a family is. Yeah, our goal is to stay

(38:21):
together no matter what. We want to keep my husband
safe and we want to keep us together. That's our
number one goal. So unfortunately, that may mean that we
need to leave, and I will be very, very sad
if that's the case, because I have always left this country.
It's always stood for greatness, and ironically, the group that

(38:44):
thinks they're going to make America great again is failing miserably.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's incredibly sad. And like you said,
you've already up and left. Your children want, yes to
come to a safe place, to be safe, and then
to have to do it again from that safe place.
I'm sure we'll be and the old they get more
than they realized what's happening.

Speaker 5 (39:01):
Yeah, it's only two years later, you know, the poor kids.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
Yeah, exactly. Who. I'm so sorry you're going through this.

Speaker 5 (39:09):
Ye, thank you.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
This sucks. We will be thinking of you.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (39:14):
And yeah, if you're if you're listening, I will try
and keep you updated over the next few weeks.

Speaker 5 (39:19):
Thank you so much, James.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
All right, thank you, thank you for your time. I
appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (39:24):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Oh, welcome back. It could happen here a podcast where
I just got vaccinated and boy, howdie the ship this
year hits like a fucking train.

Speaker 4 (39:52):
It does. I I go vaccinated it's it's it's a
rough one this year.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Oh man. Yeah, fucking RFK Junior was right.

Speaker 4 (40:03):
The vaccine injury today.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Yeah, that's right. I've received by vaccine injury. I'm complaining
to the board. Oh man, I'm gonna nap after this.
But first, how about we talk about fucking Trendy Aragua,
the fucking narco criminal group that President Trump is currently
justifying blowing up boats in the middle of international waters
as a result.

Speaker 4 (40:25):
Of Yeah, it's great. It's a good thing that we
are now killing civilians in countries where we are not
at war with It's great.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah. This has been something Steven Miller had been talking
about since the first Trump administration, you know, and had
talked with like back when the military was willing to
push back against Trump more. People would be like you,
what the fuck are you talking about. We can't launch
strikes at just like random boats, and Steve Miller be like,
why not? And now they're doing it. Yeah, And this group,
this criminal cartel out of Venezuela has been the current justification.

(41:00):
As we'll talk about most of what is said about
this Trendy Aragua by the administration about you know, their
role in smuggling drugs in the United States is either
just completely invented or massively exaggerated. It is a really
interesting group. They have a fascinating like history. The literal
meaning is train of arugua. Yeah, sorry, And it started

(41:22):
out with like labor unions that were working on a
railway project. It was going to be connecting central and
western Venezuela together. And as has happened in history, what
started as like labor union organizing wound up kind of
morphing into a direct criminal activity. The guy who's generally
credited as the founder, although that's kind of flattening things

(41:43):
a little bit, is Hector Guerrero Flores, known as Nino Guerrero,
and he he got put in for seventeen years for
murder and drug trafficking at this prison called Tokron. Am
I am I saying that right, James, how.

Speaker 4 (41:56):
Do we see Tocron? Yeah, Sarenaxin.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah, there's a little accent over the second and oh
as you go up and down, up, thank you James.

Speaker 6 (42:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
And so this one of the things that's fun about
this is that this prison where they start loading these
guys up, becomes so heavily organized and it eventually turns
from being like a prison in the traditional sense to
more being like a tiny independent city that the gang
is based out of and acted as their fortress. They
established like night clubs in it, and you know, luxury facilities,

(42:29):
and like leaders of the gang more or less Cayman
went as they pleased, went back to their families, and
it was not really what you'd think of as a
prison in the traditional sense for a lot of these guys.
For a while, a payment system was created in order
to like basically you would inmates would pay for protection
or for access to the nicer aspects of the prison,

(42:50):
called the cause, and if you didn't pay, you know,
they had various ways of physically abusing you. There's a
good article in Small Wars Journal that talks about the
org Jens and the impact of this group, and it
quotes someone from inside. The person is saying, the first
time you don't pay, they shoot your wrist, the second time,
your ankle, the third time, and you face the death penalty.
So like you're talking like pretty traditional criminal gang stuff, right, Yeah,

(43:14):
So the journey of this group from gang that's major
in Venezuela to gang that's kind of operating in larger
and larger chunks of South America. Followed a pretty natural
path where they got involved in more kinds of smuggling
and more kinds of trafficking. Over the years, started setting
up operations in other parts of South America. But one

(43:38):
of the things that the gang has sort of done
is you've got this kind of process by which they
have these local affiliates who are not directly associated with
the gang in like the strict hierarchical sense, and that
it's not literally the gang sending an official into another state.
It's more like franchising is kind of the way things work,
and you have different local groups, some of whom are

(44:00):
not even connected in any way to the original organization,
claiming a line of descent in order to basically draft
off of that clout.

Speaker 6 (44:10):
You know.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah, yeah, which is kind of what you've seen increasingly,
And this has led to a situation where there's enough
claims of trend being involved in the United States and
other countries that it looks a lot like a larger
and more centralized criminal organization than it actually is in reality.

Speaker 4 (44:28):
Yeah, I think the state understands these things like mini states, right,
like who like with a with a leader and a
distinct authority structure and learn like a direct command chain.
That is not how my understanding gainst it they operate, right,
because they are not mini states there. They are a
different entity to that.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, and what is your Because you've actually spent time
reporting and in Venezuela, when did you first become aware
of trend?

Speaker 4 (44:53):
I mean I became aware of like the fact that
they were armed gangs at criminals. I mean I was
robbed at gunpoint when I was in Venezuela, right, so
that may be aware that that there were people who
who did crime with weapons, But I wasn't aware really
of trend that I were until like maybe the twenty twenty.
I mean, I don't report on organized crime, nor do

(45:13):
I particularly follow it, right, But I take an interest
in Venezuelan affairs and as much as I've spent time there,
and I have an affinity with the people, and I
understand that things are getting going from bad to worse
for them under their government, So so I took an interest.
I guess it was like, are you familiar with a
Narco Sobrinos affair?

Speaker 6 (45:32):
No?

Speaker 4 (45:32):
Okay, Narco Sobrinos is like Narco nephews. I think they're
actually step nephews of Maduro if I recall correctly, it
doesn't hugely matter. They're like part of his family in
a mediate and I believe they lived in his compound
and they used, like I don't want to make statements
that are incorrect, that I believe they use a presidential
hangar or runway to fly a plane to Haiti, which

(45:57):
the USDA alleges, and it is most likely true that
that that plane was stuff full of cocaine.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Sure, many such cases.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
Yeah, many such cases. They believe they have diplomatic immunity,
which they did not, which I believe came as a
surprise to them at the moment of their detention. And
so at that point I was like, shit, we can
get onto this. How the Trump administration has like basically
alled to Venezuela as a narco dictatorship. Certainly there is
overlap between organized crime and the state. Right, It's because

(46:25):
the state is so poor and so corrupt that inevitably
you will see like overlap between organized crime and the state.
So I guess right, Whenever the knack of Sobrinos affair was,
I thought was like, okay, I need I need to
sort of be aware of this. And of course, in
my like coverage of immigration, you hear of people mostly
their talk is just not that their life has been

(46:47):
made hard by organized crime, if I managed so much
as their life has been made hard by the government
completely failing to provide services and the complete collapse of
the Venezuelan economy. I'm not going to ask about it explicitly,
but if someone mentions it, I sort of take note
of it as one of the reasons why people are leaving.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Would you bring up as a really good point, which
is that twenty fourteen is kind of when the most
recent Venezuelan economic crisis really kicked off, and in fourteen
to twenty eighteen was a major period of growth for
trend Ye, and then twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two
is when they really started pushing up into and involving
themselves increasingly in Colombia and the United States as a

(47:27):
result of like the increased flow of Venezuelans out of
Venezuela and into other countries and eventually up to the
US and to some extent, and it's been since twenty
twenty two that the gang has really been pruned back,
you know, both as a result of the Venezuelan government
taking control of the prison again and like basically invading
it with the military in order to deny them access

(47:49):
to what had been like their primary centralized, like hub
of control, and also due to the fact that, like
after expansion into Colombia and Chile, both criminal organizations and
the governments of those countries increasingly pushed back against the organization, right, Yeah,
one of the reasons why they're being targeted. But also
one of the things that's like fundamentally bullshit about the
administration's description of what's happening is that we're very much

(48:13):
talking about a cartel that's on its back feet and
been on its back feet for the last several years
as the result of significant reversals in their business and
in their political situation.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
Yeah. I mean, Columbia has been near the Columbian Civil
War is one of the longest running conflicts in the world.
But things have changed their substantially right in the last
five or seven years. You know, you have people from
the fuck disarming, You have the fracture of what was
previously their territory, and some of who were previously their

(48:43):
militants into other groups, right, And so that has allowed
the state there to continue its conflict against what remains
of that and also to clamp down other groups.

Speaker 6 (48:54):
Right.

Speaker 4 (48:54):
And evidently, like the flow of drugs, United States relies
on the complicity or inability to stop it of many states.
And yeah, we've seen like a concerted effort and also
like the attempts of the United States to stop smuggling.

Speaker 6 (49:12):
Right.

Speaker 4 (49:12):
So, I guess if people aren't familiar, we should just
explain the US DHS, of which the United States Coast
Guard is part. I think a lot of people aren't
aware the Coast Guard is part of DHS claims a
universal jurisdiction or jurisdiction at least in areas where drugs
are being smuggled to the United States, Right, So the
US Coast Guard had a role to play in this.

(49:34):
In the I guess interdiction is the word they would
use of drugs coming to the United States. I probably
haven't got data on this in the last year or so,
but it certainly was the case that most drugs entering
the US entered through ports of entry as opposed to
like between ports of entry, right, like through the desert,
through the mountains and so like these these boats I
guess are not just to be clear that they're not

(49:56):
necessarily going to the United States, and most skates are
not going to United States and mostly to going to
Mexico and then moving to the United States through other methods.
But like as the government both south of the United
States and in the United States who adapted, it's become
harder and harder for those people, right, And so it's
become harder and hard for these criminal organizations to make
money off these drugs.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
And that's led to, I mean a situation that one
of the things that they've been accused of being by
the Trump administration and internationally is essentially an agent of
the Maduro regime, right. And this is something that certainly
the Venezuelan government denies. This is not a thing where
I can you know, entirely give you this is exactly
what's happened. But it seems accurate to say that as
an organization, as their actual like control and power have

(50:41):
been eroded, they have been utilized increasingly as a way too,
for example, deal with like dissidents who are hostile to
the Maduro regime right, as a deniable asset. In particular,
there's been cases that are reasonably well documented of dissidents
against the Venezuelan regime in Chile and trendy Aragua being
used as like assassins to to take out dissonance in

(51:03):
foreign countries in a deniable manner. Right, Yeah, And I
mean it looks to me like this has kind of
increased as their actual ability to directly control things and
directly contest the regime as a power center has been eroded.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Yeah, it's kind of a classic. Like I wouldn't say
that like ideologically aligned, right, but sometimes their interests aligned, Yeah,
to be clearly, Like trend Agua are one of the
sort of armed organized crime institutions in Venezuela, but by
far the only one, right you have, yeah, Trendliano for example.

(51:38):
You have these other groups who have also been active
in anti government protests, especially since the I'm going to
use that quote unquote election here in July of last year, right,
like where electoral fraud is widely alleged and I documented
that in my Daddy and series if people want to
listen to that. But it's not like these two are
lot in lockstep. But yeah, like we can under stand

(52:00):
that sometimes that they interest my aligne in those areas,
it may be beneficial for the regime to, like you say,
to use him as a deniable asset.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
Right, which does not. Like, one of the things that's
kind of most frustrating is hearing them described as central
to the smuggling of fentanyl into the United States. Which, like,
even in kind of the most elaborate version of this
group being utilized by the Venezuelan government is fanciful, right, Like,
because Venezuela just doesn't have that much to do with

(52:31):
the smuggling of fentinel into the United States. Yeah, Like,
Venezuela and Venezuelan criminal organizations just aren't that involved in
that process. That's not where it's coming from, right, Yeah,
And we'll talk some more about finnyl, But first, you
know what's kind of like fentanyl advertising. We're back and

(53:01):
we're talking about fentanyl. Well, we're talking about like these
claims because that's the justification for why we need to
airstrike these boats, the most recent of which we know
was boarded by another government and had drugs on board
it removed before it was struck.

Speaker 4 (53:18):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Yeah, And we simply have no idea, no way to verify.
I have no way to verify what the administration is
claiming about these boats. We're just seeing boats get blown up.

Speaker 4 (53:27):
But yeah, and everybody who was on that boat is
no dead, so there's not many many people to contradict
that story. Should we explain like the usual coast guard
process for.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Interdiction, Yeah, I think that's probably a good idea.

Speaker 4 (53:37):
So generally, right, what the US Coast Guard is going
to do is they will have these large vessels from
which they will launch smaller vessels and helicopters to intercept
craft right, like the most kind of I guess like
famous charismatic other like Colombian like they call them Narco subs.
There's a semi submarines actually that that they're not like
fully submersed, but they that much of the vessel is submerged.

(54:01):
What the coast Guard would normally do, to my understanding,
is to send a vessel to intercept them, be it
a helicopter or a boat or probably both. In most
cases I would imagine tell them to stop.

Speaker 6 (54:13):
Right.

Speaker 4 (54:14):
If they don't stop, the coast Guard will have like
a sniper who will shoot out the engine of the crafty.
They will then board. They will entertain the people. They
will obviously confiscate any drugs that they find, and then
they will take those people back to their vessel where
they're detained, and then they'll be tried in the US. Right,
and then they would normally it's they can't kind of

(54:36):
scoop up all these ships that they've intercepted or semi
subs or whatever, so they will normally destroy those and
scuttle them so they sink to the bottom of the ocean.
I don't know how many cases they've done this in,
but that would be the normal procedure for Coast Guard.
It gets pre twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
It's got to be fun being a fish near one
of those vessels, yeah, fish getting yeah, yeah, yeah, I
know what they do with all the ca And sometimes
they bring all the cocaine back for a photo op.

Speaker 4 (55:03):
You see that sometimes yeah yeah, yeah, that looks good.
Yeah yeah, it's nicely packaged. It's cocaine or fentanyl on
the side or whatever. That is my understanding of what
was done previously. The strikes in the last month have
been extremely different, right, Yeah, And we're looking at I
think fourteen people killed so far that we've had confirmed.

(55:25):
Although those numbers are certainly higher than the when you're
hearing them, right, because we've just had another strike in
the last day or so that I don't think we
have exact numbers on how many people were involved. Yeah,
they used, from what I understand, drones from Special Operations
Command to do these strikes, right, which in itself is
quite unusual. And then the strikes themselves consisted of did

(55:48):
they say what I guess it looks like a hell
fire missile.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
But I don't know if they've said that looked like
health fires to me on the videos I've seen, Yeah,
it's not exactly like high def video, but you see
them striking like it looks kind of like a like
a it's a speedboat, right, like it's a surface vessel.

Speaker 4 (56:04):
It's not a not a semi sub or a submarine.
It's unclear like what has happened before, at least I
haven't seen any reporting or what happened before, like whether
they got in order to stop. I think in one
case they had turned around right having noticed a drone
and begun returning towards the coast, towards Venezuela, I guess,
and they were still struck and it appears that in

(56:24):
at least one case, the drone struck them again, like
it hit them once and then returned for a second
run to hit I guess the survivors.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
Yeah. And you know, there's a couple of facts that
go alongside what we actually know in versus what the
administration's claiming about. Eighty percent of people involved in the
smuggling of illegal drugs into the United States are US citizens,
and then of the remaining twenty ish percent, a chunk
of those are resident legal aliens. In the chunk are

(56:58):
a mix of undocum limitted people, non citizens, or people
whose status is unknown or extra dieded aliens. Right like,
this is based on the United States Sentencing Commissions data
from twenty twenty four, and about eighty five percent of
drugs that are brought into the United States are smuggled
in at ports of entry. And this makes complete sense
if you think about it, in part because it's pretty

(57:20):
easy to track when you've just got like a boat
trying to smuggle stuff into the country illicitly, and the
people who are on that boat. If the art citizens
have no right to enter the country inherently, as opposed
to citizens who do have a right to enter and
ports of entry where there's a shitload of you want
to hideen plane sight with this stuff? Right? Like it
just makes sense, like would you rather if you were

(57:42):
smuggling a huge amount of illegal shit? Would you rather
be on your own with a van or a vehicle
full of very illegal drugs, or would you rather be
like hiding amongst the billions of tons of shit that
gets taken into this country every single year, right, Which
is why just the reaction of the data is so
completely different than the administration makes it out to be.

(58:04):
And obviously, foreign criminal organizations are heavily involved in the
smuggling of illegal drugs, particularly fentanyl in the United States,
but we're talking primarily about like the Sinaloa cartel and
then different criminal organizations involved in the smuggling of fentyel
out of China, right, which is where a lot of
fentanyl comes from. As opposed to again Venezuela, the government
here is going for low hanging fruit. I think as
the conclusion I'm driven to just every time I read

(58:27):
about this is that, like there doesn't seem to be
a better reason for focusing on this organization which really
is just not that involved in crime in the United
States nearly to the extent that groups like the Sinaloa
Cartel are.

Speaker 4 (58:39):
Yeah, I mean, it offers a chance to demonize Venezuelan people, right,
and Venezuelan people made up a large number of the
people who came to the United States just the asylum
under Biden. Because like, if we do believe that these
like the word in Spanish would be like a mega
bandas like megagangs are a serious threat to the well
being a people in the United States, imagine how much

(59:01):
more of a threat they are to the well being
a people in Venezuela.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Right.

Speaker 4 (59:05):
And that combined with a government which objectively sucks, which
also uses extra judicial violence, right, including in its battle
against these gangs, leads people to want to leave and
when they come here, the United States, especially the Trump regime,
has been engaged in this demonization of migrants. Right, This

(59:27):
offers a very convenient narrative for that to say that
these people are bringing crime here. The vast majority of
them are doing the exact opposite. They are coming here
because the state in Venezuela has extorted them, and slash
or non state actors in Venezuela have extorted them. The

(59:47):
vast bulk of the complaints I hear from Migran fro
Venezuela about the state. They have no interest other than
working hard and receiving a decent living wage. For that,
every Venezuelan person I spoke to almost no When I
ask what their American dream is, tell you that their
American dream is to have a job that pays them
enough to feed their family. Right, Like, we have next

(01:00:11):
to no evidence of organized crime coming into the United
States through the asylentists, and there are sure there will be,
Like I would imagine a fraction of a single percent
of cases, sure in which that is the case. But
it's being used against all these Venezuelan people, right as
we've seen. And I guess I should just clarify that,
like one thing about these megabandas that they're not like maras, right,

(01:00:35):
Like so like MS thirteen being a mara, right, like
a gang in which members are identified by certain tattoos.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Oh my god, yes, this is tattoos and emojis.

Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
Yes, yeah, yeah again, Like I understand that that is
a thing that happens in some cases, but that is
not a thing that is common to these gangs.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
No, it's it's certainly not common to trendy Aragua, right is,
like the use of tattoos. There's not even widespread agreement
among experts as to whether or not there's any sort
of centralized US based hierarchy for the group, right right, Yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
The tattooing is just as it is in the United States,
and that sort of places it around the world. A
very common practice in Venezuela. The people do for as
many reasons as there are people right to include because
they love their mum, because they love their kids, because
they're like a football team, because they are religious, et cetera,
et cetera. That is why people get tattoos. It is
not to indicate membership in any organization.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
No, and this is something that's verified. Again, Like one
of the leading experts on trend is Jana Risquez, who
wrote a book The trendy Aragua, The Gang that revolutionized
organized crime in Latin America. She specifically told in O
Tisis Telemundo during an interview, Venezuelan gangs are not identified
by tattoos. To be a member of one of these
Venezuelan organizations, you don't need a tattoo. You can have

(01:01:56):
no tattoos and still be part of it. You can
also have a tattoo that matches other members of the organization.
So like again, there's groups and different sort of because
this is a very bottom up sort of organization, which
is often the case with criminal groups, where like they
will you know, there will be money being passed in
one direction or another, but there's not tight control being
exercised in a top down manner. You can find groups

(01:02:18):
that have tattoos in common, but it's not a centralized
thing that the organization does.

Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
Yeah, and like the Venezuelan state, to be clear, is
extremely violent. They have like a special armed police which
deals with gangs, an organized crime that kills hundreds of people.
It would be unwise to be going about in the streets,
whether like I am a member of a certain gang, right,
tattoo right, And so unless you plan to live in
some area where where you feel completely safe from the state,

(01:02:45):
that would be a very unwise thing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Yeah, and we'll talk some more about things that are unwise,
but first it would be wise for you to buy
these products. We're back, and I want to quote from
a recent piece in The Guardian on the US law

(01:03:07):
enforcement claiming that emoji's signal membership in this organization. And
this is by Sam Levin and man Vy Singh from
September a couple of days ago. The first reference to
emojis in the records comes from a July twenty twenty
four situational Awareness alert from the n WYPD, which was
distributed to law enforcement across the country and warned of
trendy araguav threats in New York City. N YPD Intelligence

(01:03:30):
Encounter Terrorism Bureau has observed members of TDA in New
York City using social media messaging platforms such as Instagram
and TikTok to depict the allegiance to the gang. The
alert said TDA members often utilize emojis such as trains, Ninja's,
slot machines, double swords, shields, ogre, face mask, and crowns.
Members also use South American slang in Arabic language terms
to mask their identities on social media. They've cited the

(01:03:52):
NYPD tattoos featuring Michael Jordan fucking Ninja emojis. You're told
you that that's a TDA sybol. That's not just something
people use.

Speaker 4 (01:04:01):
Yeah, man, this is like, I mean, there's a large
Arab or population of Arab descent in Venezuela. That's where
these slangs come from. Like, people use emojis particularly in
this context because their education has not been the best right, Like,
the access to literacy is less than it would be
in other contexts. So like sometimes they use emoji, so
they just use them because it's funny. But like the

(01:04:23):
notion of like and yeah, people will use slang. People
will spell shit the way they say it. Sometimes when
I'm talking to Venezuelan people, you know, if I'm talking
to a source and they as sometimes I have to
really allowed to help me understand what they're saying. Yes,
that is very common to people in Venezuela. There's nothing
to do with being a member of a gang whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Yeah, and I mean there's a lot of that in
terms of like the fact that the Chicago Bulls and
Michael Jordan are popular among immigrants, right, Like that that's
particularly Venezuelan immigrants, and a lot of it comes from, like, well,
a lot of Venezuelan immigrants tend to like these things
in media, tend to like these musicians and get tattoos

(01:05:04):
that reference these things in popular culture or these things
you know that that different Venezuelan artists have put out,
and that's I mean, it's certainly not a sign that like,
oh these things signal membership and this criminal organization and more.
They're just targeting Venezuelans and these things are more common
among Venezuelans, but not certainly not exclusive to that group.
When you're when you're saying that like a Michael Jordan's

(01:05:25):
shirt or tattoo is a symbol of membership in a criminal,
criminal organization, well, I guess like a third of my
high school were criminals. I mean they were, but not
in this way.

Speaker 4 (01:05:36):
Yeah, like these are very common, like the Jordan logo,
I don't know what it's called at the jumping Jordan logo.
Not a big sports where fan myself, but like, yeah,
it's very common. It's because people buy fake designer power
all the time. Like you will also see people tons
of people with Louis Veton items. They're not real. It
does not indicate membership in any gang. It's just kind

(01:05:58):
of aspirational thing that you can buy any almost anywhere
in Venezuela because no one's going down there to enforce
copyright laws. Like it's not it it doesn't indicate any affiliation.
Sometimes it indicates like an interest with the United States, right,
like like that these are where these things come from,
and this is a place where these people would like
to go. I also saw a guy cross a Darien

(01:06:19):
Glap in Nike Alpha flys like the the super Fast
Marathon running shoes with the giant carbon plated spring. Like
this is not like indication of anything other than that,
Like this person thought those were cool and they purchased them. Yeah,
are you familiar with this Cartel de lo Solis thing?

Speaker 8 (01:06:38):
No?

Speaker 4 (01:06:39):
Okay, So like the Cartel del Solis, the Cartel of
the Sun of the Sun's I guess it's another organization
which the US is alleging that Maduro is is like
head of right that, like it's a vertically organized organization
and that like Madudo is literally the chief of it.

(01:07:04):
And I guess I just want to say, like the
same shit applies. Right. There are gangs all over Karrakas
as well as names we haven't mentioned. What you've got
here is state failure. Right Like in Venezuela, the state
has failed to provide people with services, and it does
not always enjoy a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
You also have massive corruption. So it is absolutely the

(01:07:26):
case that people smuggling drugs through Venezuela will be able
to buy off certain officials, right, particularly like military commanders
and people who have control over transit and border areas.
It doesn't imply like a vertical structure per se. To
be clear, I don't think Madada should be in charge
of Venezuela. I think that Madoro regime is bad for

(01:07:48):
Venezuela and bad for the world. But like it's very
oversimplified to see it like straight up as like a
narco regime, right that there is more to it than
that this is the country that hits on masses of oil.
This is a country that has been incredibly corrupt from
an incredibly long time now, and you're always going to
see these organizations creeping into the government, right when the

(01:08:13):
government can't even pay its own people will guarantee them
a decent and dignified quality of life, Like that doesn't
mean that it is okay to just kill like first
and foremost, I would imagine that if we go with
the government story that the boats that they struck were
carrying drugs, right, it is unlikely that people who are

(01:08:36):
carrying those drugs or anything other than poor desperate young
men who wanted a chance at a better life and
or were intimidated into doing this, right, and maybe some
of them chose to do this because they thought this
was the way they could get money and the progress
in a place that does not for the many opportunities.
These are not the people who are in any way

(01:08:57):
like making the calls, making the decision right, and so
killing them isn't going to do very much because there
is a massive supply of poor desperate young men in Venezuela,
and it's not going to change anything to kill fourteen
fifteen of them, other than it will obviously it's a
tragedy for those families, right, there's people who lose their

(01:09:19):
children or whatever. Yeah, and so like, I don't know
until we solve the situation that life is untenable for
people in Venezuela. Yes, there will be crime there, and yes,
people from there will want to come to the United States.
Both of those things make sense. That does not mean
that people coming to the United States are coming to
the United States to do bad things. The vast majority

(01:09:40):
of them are coming to the United States to escape
bad things. That we've had so much discourse about Venezuelan
people and crime. Even in the you know, this has begun,
I think in Chicago in the Biden administration, I have
not seen journalists of whatever political stripe talk to Venezuelan
people about this. Like, with very few exceptions, it's very

(01:10:03):
easy to find Venezuelan people, especially you know, if you
if you work at the border and you do border reporting.
But even still, you know, lots of these Venezuelan people
went to Denver, some of them went to Chicago, some
of them went to the Springs in Colorado, many of
them went to Texas. They went to all kinds of
places when they came to the United States. Right, if
you speak Spanish, it's not hard to find these people

(01:10:24):
and ask them what's it like in Venezuela, why did
you come here? And then perhaps you can you know,
establish a picture of yeah, it's pretty shit. Right, people
work hard every day and don't make enough to feed
their family, if their kid is sick, if their elderly
parents can't work and need support, it's really hard to
do that. That is why they want to come to

(01:10:46):
the US. That is why often young men want to
come to the US right because the world as it
is gives them the highest level of economic opportunity, and
so the family will send them to the US such
as they can earn enough money and they hope one
day to bring their families here. Sometimes you also see
people bringing their very young children because they realize there's
no future for their children in Venezuela, so they make

(01:11:07):
the choice to try and come to somewhere which once
promised a future for hardworking people and doesn't really anymore.
But like it just it pains me so much to
see this discussion of Venezuela without Venezuelan people, most of
whom I found to be wonderful, Like I spent a
good amount of time in Venezuela and even longer with

(01:11:28):
Venezuelan people, and I have a great affection for them,
like they've been nothing but kind to me. Even now,
like a year after I was in the Darien Gap,
I get text all the time from Venezuelan people, the
majority of them not asking for help, just asking how
I am asking? Do I know what happened to the
Bolivian girl? Do I know what happened to Zimbabwean women?

(01:11:52):
Like genuinely concerned even admits like a really shit situation
for them, concerned for the well being of other people.
And I just wish instead of talking about yeah, there
are hundreds, maybe thousands of Venezuelan people who are involved
in moving drugs United States, we could talk about the
millions of people who just want to work hard and
have a decent life and who are being denied a

(01:12:14):
chance to do that home, and are now being denied
a chance to do that here as well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
Yeah. Well, I think that's about it for our episode today.
Until next time, folks, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:12:27):
Best of luck out there.

Speaker 9 (01:12:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:12:47):
Welcome to akap here, a podcast where your host wakes
up every morning and rolls a d six to determine
whether the government wants to exterminate her for being trans
artistic or Chinese. This week, I am your host to
be a Wong. We have rolled the dice. This week
is autism Week, and by autism week, I mean anti
autism week. The Trump administration or specifically orifica junior promise

(01:13:07):
at the beginning is like April roughly that they were
going to find the cause of autism by the end
of the summer, and they are claiming that the cause
of autism is taking tyle and all when you're pregnant,
and that's not true. And to talk about how unbelievably

(01:13:30):
vile and unhinged this is. Is Crystal, who's a unionized
abortion care worker who is also Clozilla on Blue Sky
and a friend of the show, Done many things. Welcome
to the show.

Speaker 11 (01:13:41):
Yeah, thank you so much, Mea.

Speaker 12 (01:13:42):
It's always so wonderful to come and talk about horrifying
things with you and be filled with existential dread together.

Speaker 6 (01:13:49):
It's so good.

Speaker 10 (01:13:50):
And by good, I mean the worst thing I've ever seen.

Speaker 12 (01:13:54):
I'm like, this is such a great time to be
a trans, non binary abortion care worker. I just love
I love like being hated in so many different ways.
You just like a rich tapestry of hatred towards you.
It's really great, so good.

Speaker 10 (01:14:09):
So okay. That's actually kind of where I want to
start about this is that most of the media coverage
of this has been purely focusing on the tail and
all causing autism, well especifically that causing autism. And I
want to point out because most of the news articles
that cover this simply do not mention this. They are
also claiming that taking tail and all if your pregnant

(01:14:29):
causes ADHD, a thing which you think would be noteworthy
to point out, but has just not. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know why people aren't reading the transcript. I
don't know why, but they're not.

Speaker 11 (01:14:40):
Yeah, I actually hadn't seen that part.

Speaker 12 (01:14:41):
Like I was literally just reading and observing like just
the pregnancy and what that means for you know, pregnant people,
and I like didn't see any of the ADHD stuff,
So that was new when you brought that up to me.

Speaker 10 (01:14:53):
Yeah, it's it's just not being reported on. It's really baffling.
So I want to before we sort of busy get
into the wait, hold on, why the fuck are they
doing this? What is happening here? Because and as Chris
Oligo had to say, actually toile it all is safe
for people who are pregnant, it's fine. But I want
to go over a bit of like what's actually in

(01:15:16):
this because it's a really really weird. We're gonna be
getting more into the sort of like into the autism
angle in another episode next week, but I want to
talk a little bit about just like the actual stuff
that was in this announcement where Trump is saying that
a you shouldn't give talle all to pregnant people and
also saying like you shouldn't give it to like young children,

(01:15:37):
and is like, you know, it's like ranting about like
mercury and aluminum in vaccines, which like, this shit isn't real,
Like there hasn't even been anything like even remotely related
to mercury vaccines for ages. It also never did anything,
but this is all weird andiw Wakefield special shit. He
also has this thing where he's talking about like how
you should separate the MMR vaccines, which is a thing

(01:15:58):
that if you have seen the h bomber Guy video
you will know. The reason that that was an anti
vax talking point was because Wakefield was selling separate vaccines,
and so he was trying to convince parents that having
all three of the vaccines that once to give their
kids autism, but if you did it separately, it wouldn't
through scientific things that don't make any sense, even according
to his own incredibly made up bullshit. Wakefield, by the way,

(01:16:20):
is the guy who sort of kicked off the modern
anti vaccine movements by abusing a bunch of children and
publishing an incredibly fake study and then getting it retracted,
and then getting is midical license retracted because it was
incredibly fake and abused children. So Trump is sort of
just repeating the stuff that he's like vaguely remembers. There's
there's a whole bunch of this sort of like stuffy

(01:16:42):
vaguely remembers, like he's he's he goes on a random
rant about like how Cuba doesn't have taile at all,
so they don't have autism, and that homage people and
this is the one that goes around loss like, oh,
seople don't have autism because they don't take drugs, and
it's like, oh my god. I also just I want
to read a quote from RFK Junior about this, which,

(01:17:03):
again and I want to point this out, the actual
point of this thing is announcing that the FDA is
not going to recommend that you take a set of
metaphine or tiland all if you're pregnant. I'm just going
to read this and I'm gonna ask if you can
figure out what the link between this and tail and
all is. This is from RFK Junior quote. President Trump

(01:17:24):
believes that we should be listening to these mothers instead
of gas lighting and marginalizing them, marginalizing them like prior administrations,
some of our friends like to say we should believe
all women. Some of these same people have been silencing
and demonizing these mothers for three decades because research on
the potential link between autism and vaccines has been suppressed
in the past.

Speaker 12 (01:17:45):
So is this basically talking about kind of like the
celebrity anti vax people and like the grifters.

Speaker 10 (01:17:51):
And yeah, yeah, it's like I can't believe that. Oh,
I mean I can believe but like a the fact
that RFK Junior noted repeat did Lee accused of sexual
assault and whose response, when asked to about it was quote,
I have a lot of skeletons in my closet. Is
doing believe all women? But about vaccines causing autism?

Speaker 12 (01:18:13):
Yeah, I mean it's only just like a talking point
that they can use in their favor, he is, it's
never actually about you know it?

Speaker 5 (01:18:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (01:18:22):
Oh god? And like that, like this is just like
the average thing in this speech that isn't barely even
getting neuse coverage.

Speaker 11 (01:18:30):
I mean there's also what Trump said as well, which
oh yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:18:33):
Because I've seen a lot of that too, And it's
like between what Trump said, and what RFK Junior said,
it's like what where do you even like, where does
the media focus? Like, how do you explain this to
the American audience?

Speaker 10 (01:18:44):
Yeah, it's it's ridiculous. And then they also brought in
Marty mcerray, who's the Commissioner of the FDA, who has
the giant rants about how, like I learned in medical school,
just treat fevers, low grade fevers with the seed of metaphine.
Why what are we doing a study out of hop
it's actually showed treating a fever can prolong the duration
of illness in a young child. Maybe that's because fever

(01:19:05):
is a body's natural way of ridding an infection.

Speaker 11 (01:19:08):
Yeah, well that's absolutely not true.

Speaker 12 (01:19:11):
I mean there's like we know that like fevers are
dangerous for young children and pregnant people.

Speaker 11 (01:19:18):
It's yeah, I don't, I don't know. It's just it's
just total made up bullshit.

Speaker 10 (01:19:23):
Like it's just eugenics, right, Like they're they're like, oh, no,
you shouldn't actually do anything to treat the illnesses because
if the child is strong, then like they'll go through
it naturally and they'll become stronger. And it's like, no,
that's eugenics.

Speaker 12 (01:19:36):
Yeah, this goes for the pregnancy of it all too,
because it's about being able to suffer and enduring. And
it's it's the same case, the same kind of like
puritanical survival of the fittest eugenics shit, whether you're talking
about pregnancy or you're talking about like literally young.

Speaker 11 (01:19:53):
Children who have fevers, same same like approach.

Speaker 10 (01:19:57):
Yeah. This also links directly back to what they're trying
to do here, right, because the thing that they're trying
to do is get rid of autistic people.

Speaker 6 (01:20:08):
Yeah, Like they.

Speaker 10 (01:20:09):
Don't want there to be children born with autism. Yeah,
And in order to do this, they are willing to
not take vaccines. They are willing to well, I mean,
I guess I guess, I guess I should say not
letting pregnant people take tail and all is really truly
the most some of you must die. But that's sacrifice

(01:20:31):
I'm willing to make. Thing that I've ever seen. But
it's you know, it's absolutely hideous. There's like, yeah, these
people they don't want autistic kids to be born, you know.
And that's also just straight up part of the eugenics
thing that the project that they're doing, right, there's on
the one hand, the sort of pure survival of the fittest,
fuck them kids, let them just die of fevers, and

(01:20:54):
then on the other hand there's the just active like, oh,
we're just gonna do all this stuff that we think
will just make auld there not be autistic kids.

Speaker 12 (01:21:03):
Yeah, and they definitely care more about their being less
autistic children than there are about actually, like you know,
addressing infant mortality. Yeah, and it's definitely it's treating autism
as in something that can be prevented by the choice
of the parents, as opposed to it just being something
that some people are born that way. Also, you know,

(01:21:23):
same with being queer and trans and all these things.
It's this idea that you can like choose it, that
you can, like, if the parents are strong enough and
they can endure enough pain and they can suffer enough,
and if they you know, make the right choices, then
they can avoid having a child with autism. And it's
not really that dissimilar than like, oh, what to do
if you like have a queer child, a trans child.

(01:21:46):
It's this idea that like that is something that can
be controlled and eliminated, which is eugenics, which is you know,
as you've been saying, so.

Speaker 10 (01:21:52):
Definitely, Uh, do you know what isn't eugenics?

Speaker 12 (01:21:56):
The products and services? I would really hope, so fucking hope.

Speaker 10 (01:22:00):
I really I don't know. I cannot. I don't know
what these ads are going to be if they are eugenics,
let us know at I right, okay on Twitter in
blue Sky. Actually I don't know if you still on Twitter,
I have no idea, but on their in ages? Who
these ads? We are back? So let's talk about specifically

(01:22:32):
the don't use Thailand all of it all. Can you
talk a bit about just like the importance of tailan
al and pain management for pregnant people.

Speaker 12 (01:22:40):
Yeah, And I bet like there's definitely probably people out
there who are like, why tiland All, Why did they
choose this?

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
Like?

Speaker 11 (01:22:45):
Where did this come from? Is it because Trump can't
say a sentimentophen?

Speaker 12 (01:22:48):
You know a lot of people have been, you know, speculating,
And first off, I do want to say that autism
predates tilan all, Like, oh, like Thailand all like came
to be in like the nineteen fifties, and you know,
autism existed before that and has probably already always been
around to some degree, which we don't know, I don't know.
It's it's a very complex and we're still you know,

(01:23:12):
there's been so much stigma around it for so long
that it's difficult to talk about. But thilanol is basically
one of the only pain medications that pregnant people can take,
and that's why it's tail and all. I think that
that is the way of looking at this, where it's like,
why did they single out this medication, and it's because
it's the only pain medication that a pregnant person can take,
because as we know, there's other pain medications like the

(01:23:35):
N SAIDs, like hyboprofen and aproxen, and then of course
there's opioids, which is obviously not good during pregnancy. They
of course, talk to your doctor, because I'm not a doctor,
and you should always get this from doctors. Talk to
your obgian. But N SAIDs are typically not recommended in
the last three months of pregnancy because they can cause
issues with amniotic fluid and baby's kidneys and things like that.

(01:23:58):
So it is typically recomoned that you avoid byboprofen and
other things like that, and you take tile and all
to reduce fevers, to reduce pain. Obviously, there is a
lot to be sick with when you're pregnant. There's a
lot of source of pain. You know, Fever and headaches
are definitely something that pregnant people experience. But pretty much

(01:24:21):
like because it is the only pain medication that pregnant
people can take, then it's really easy to be like, oh, well,
what are they taking? This is what they're taking, and
then you can go from there. And this is very
much coming from It feels so weird saying this coming
from like a biblical sense of like Eve eat the apple.

(01:24:42):
Eve is the original sinner. I think, I don't know, like,
you know, Eve did the bad thing. So Eve needs
to suffer during pregnancy. All women need to suffer during pregnancy.
That's very much like a very biblical take on this.
And I think that is kind of why why tile
and all, because it's what pregnant people are taking to
reduce pain and to address fevers.

Speaker 10 (01:25:04):
Yeah, and I want to read a quote from the
Commissioner of the FDA that he gave while he was
speaking about this, where he says, quote, when my wife
was pregnant and delivered our son a few months ago,
they pushed her to take a seat of metaphine for
a low grade fever. She said no, and then they
looked at me and I said absolutely no. I'm also
here to announce good news today, the FDA is filing

(01:25:27):
a federal registered notice to change the label on an
exciting treatment called prescription look over and so it can
be available to children with autism. So you could see
like how casually he is doing just doing this like no, no, no, no, no, yeah,
Like I'm really proud of my wife for saying no
to taking tyle lanol for a fever, and like they
also look look at this and it's like the like, oh,

(01:25:49):
they pushed her to take a seat of metaphine for
a low grade fever. It's like that's an extremely normal
thing for a doctor to say to you, Like, take
time ellenol for your fever is like the least like
medically invasive thing a doctor can possibly recommend. Like what
are we doing here?

Speaker 12 (01:26:08):
Yeah, it's really basic medicine. And also like there's like
there's a ways to profit off of this too, because
if you can't take any pain medication when you're pregnant,
but you can take I think they were recommending something
like I don't even know it was like something fullic
acid thingy. They were recommending that you take something which
obviously now can be like profit off of and sold.
This is a very capitalist, very grifter approach to medicine

(01:26:32):
and healthcare because obviously, always talk to your doctor and
your obgian about taking any medication when you're pregnant, Like,
talk to your doctor.

Speaker 11 (01:26:40):
They're going to be the best source of information.

Speaker 10 (01:26:42):
So the fullic acid thing is a licoverin, which is
a medicine for anemia and counteracting the effects of chemotherapy meds.

Speaker 11 (01:26:52):
Yeah, I wouldn't.

Speaker 10 (01:26:54):
And then there's specifically like, oh, this will stop your
children from having autism. Okay, no it won't.

Speaker 11 (01:27:00):
No, no, no no.

Speaker 12 (01:27:03):
I mean like there are there are respected organizations speaking
up right now kind of like about like the facts,
about the studies, about what's real. So there's like Physicians
for Reproductive Health, you know, saying like there's decades of
study of studies of Thailand all being safe to take
during pregnancy. There's a COG, which is a big professional
membership organization of like tens of thousands of obgyns saying like, hey,

(01:27:27):
Thailand all is safe during pregnancy. So there's been decades
of studies on thailan al use and pregnancy. Some of
the studies published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association that says how safe it is, So like it
is it is, it is safe. It is absolutely one
hundred percent safe to take to treat pain and fever

(01:27:48):
during pregnancy. So, like, you know, in terms of like
who can you look to, Like, definitely look at the
obgyns right now and what they're saying and the physicians
and these respected organizations, because they're going to tell you
the truth. But the problem is that that this information
is not reaching the public.

Speaker 10 (01:28:02):
Yeah, and instead, yeah, they're just getting the President of
the United States and all of these just weird conspiracy
people that they've installed as the people running the US
medical establishment being like, oh no, actually this is really
bad for you for reasons.

Speaker 12 (01:28:19):
Yeah, it's all very vague, it's not really backed by
like decades of medical research. And like also too, there's
so many people who have not taken any medication during
pregnancy and they still have children who are autistic.

Speaker 10 (01:28:35):
Yeah, it's just like it's just absolutely ridiculous. And like
any way you look at the numbers, like in terms
of you know, if you look at like the increasing
race of tile and all usage by pregnant people versus
like autistic kids. It's not like the timely usage goes
up way higher and then the autistic numbers don't change
that much relative to it. It's just like it's all

(01:28:57):
just the nonsense.

Speaker 11 (01:28:59):
Well so, so.

Speaker 12 (01:29:00):
There is the eugenics of it all, and there's also
the aspect that we've been dealing with with the rampant
abortion bands and the criminalization of pregnancy that we've been
seeing over honestly over the decades. It's about controlling bodies
and like this is also with trans healthcare too, Like
it's about it's about eugenics, about kind of this necropolitics

(01:29:20):
of choosing who lives and dies and being able to
choose everything about a person's body, even how they're just stated,
you know, like oh, the parents shouldn't take this and
they shouldn't do this, And then it opens up when
it comes to control and surveillance and criminalization of a
pregnant person that can go in so many different directions

(01:29:42):
because you know they're telling you not to take tile
and all. If they just randomly chose tilan Al, they
can randomly choose anything. They could talk about epidurals, because
there is like this idea that you should suffer and
that you shouldn't shoot the fever, and that you should
experience pain during pregnancy, just like that one quote that
you shared about his wife. So they're going to like
start targeting other things. And also there's already so much

(01:30:06):
criticism and control and judgment and stigma over things like
if you're working while you're pregnant, if you're drinking coffee
while you're pregnant, if you're eating certain things. There's already
so much like policing over pregnant bodies without even touching
on abortion, but like they're also trying to control how
you even dispose of pregnancies, Like if you're looking at

(01:30:27):
the states that are requiring you to call the police
if you have a miscarriage, so that it's like they
want to control how you miscarry, how you have an abortion.
Worth noting too, because this is absolutely connected to abortion
and abortion pills. If the government is coming out and
saying that tail and all causes autism and it's not
safe to take while you're pregnant or to use to

(01:30:48):
treat a fever in young children, then they can also
say things like the abortion pill is not safe because
they've been trying to get the FDA to take away
the approval of mifipristoe saying that it's danger is And
you know, if they're going to say that tile and
all is dangerous and causes autism, then it's like it's
going to be so easy for them to say that
the abortion pill is deadly as well.

Speaker 10 (01:31:09):
And they've already been doing this with vaccines in terms
of like it like they've been restricting access to vaccines
to people without pre existing conditions, which admittedly is a
lot of people, Like the list of pre existing conditions
is really long and you should just try to get
them anyways. But like, yeah, like this isn't a hypothetical.
They are already doing this with vaccines, a thing that
we do all need in order to not get horribly

(01:31:31):
sick and die from plagues, a thing which there are
many of right now.

Speaker 12 (01:31:35):
Yeah, And I think that this definitely goes to show
how topics like abortion and early pregnancy loss and miscarriage
and abortions later in pregnancy, like the way they've been
talking about this has spread to all aspects of pregnancy,
and it's spreading to other areas too, Like so when
we haven't addressed the bands and the stigma and the criminalization,

(01:31:58):
it's it's been spreading. It's to vaccines, it's spreading to
trans healthcare. It's just it's just I feel like I've
been watching this black hole just grow and grow and
grow over the years and and just take away our
access to these to these really basic medical things. And yeah,
like I just see, like we let it happen with abortion,

(01:32:20):
and then now all of a sudden, now we can't
take thailan all during pregnancy because it caused autism. Yep,
there's so much to say about the eugenics and autism
aspect of this, so much to say more than like

(01:32:42):
we can say right now.

Speaker 10 (01:32:43):
Don't worry. There will be another episode of this show
about yeah, with some doctors next week probably just.

Speaker 12 (01:32:52):
Like focusing right now on like pregnancy and policing pregnant
bodies and tail and all and paid bandage and what's
real the fact that tailan al is safe to take
while pregnant and doesn't cause autism.

Speaker 11 (01:33:07):
You know, it's really dwelling on that. But like, there
is a lot to say.

Speaker 12 (01:33:10):
There's a lot to say about the implications of this
where like where this came from in our society and
where it's going, and it's all really horrifying.

Speaker 10 (01:33:19):
Yeah, it's it's exceptionally bleak, but I do think and
this is I think a theme we're going to be
returning to a lot in the coming days and weeks.
But like, the only silver lining for this is that
this shit is not popular. It's just not People hate it.
People hate the administration. They have been hating the administration.

(01:33:41):
Every day it goes by, they hate it more, you know.
And this is part of the control strategy, right, part
of the reason why they're making these incredibly draconian moves
into authoritarian moves into the domestic spheres because it's a
way of suppressing descent, and they have to do that.
They have to suppress dessense, and they have to take
things from us, and they have to continue to try

(01:34:02):
to just beat everyone into submission because they can't do
it through actual persuasion. What they have is the violence
of the state, and they're going to try to keep
doing that. But the violence of the state only functions
insofar as people allow it. Shoe function, you know, And
this has always been sort of the secret of the
United States, which is that like a bunch of the
things that they're doing, or they're attacked as a crackdowns

(01:34:24):
that they're attempting to do, are effectively unenforceable because people
simply refuse to cooperate with them. And you know, this
is a field well, I mean, I don't know until
they just straight up ban tile and all. This is
a thing where I guess we're mostly just trying to
spread information, but like the things that they do can
be opposed, and when people oppose them on mass they lose.

(01:34:47):
And I don't know, I want to give people a little.

Speaker 11 (01:34:50):
Tiny bit of hope, you want to be positive.

Speaker 12 (01:34:53):
Yeah, So the deterioration of public health and the United
States is absolutely state violence. Focusing on taile andol and
stigmatizing autism and people with autism is like distracting from
so many things that are actual public health emergencies. So
when they're talking about pregnancy, they're talking about tilentel and autism.

(01:35:15):
There are so much more severe things going on in
the United States right now when it comes to both
the health of pregnant people and infants. So there's the
Black maternal mortality crisis, which is so severe in so
many states that it's just constantly like abortion bands have
made that even worse. There's terrible infant mortality rates rising

(01:35:39):
in states. So for example, Mississippi declared infant debts and
emergency because they halted that CDC information data collection program.
So Mississippi declared a public health emergency from rising infant mortality.
And there's also I mean, I believe that the abortion
bands are a medical crisis as well. And there's also

(01:36:01):
huge obgyn deserts in this country, Like we're seeing like
the loss of obgyn health providers where people can't access
a obgyn for miles and miles and miles and there's
just entirely a lack of providers. These are all very
very serious public health emergencies. And yet they're talking about autism.

Speaker 10 (01:36:24):
Yeah. Well, and as such as they're talking about is
they're making all of these crises worse, Like specifically the
opgyn crisis, It's like, yeah, I don't know, they've been
kicking a bunch of people off of their access to
of their access to government insurance, and like what does
that to oh wait, hold on, it just absolutely annihilates
the income and revenue base of a bunch of hospitals
that already like weren't making much money in rural areas,

(01:36:45):
and so more of them close because they lease their
revenue sources, and suddenly all of these crises just continue
to get worse.

Speaker 12 (01:36:51):
Yeah, So we have like this stigmatization of autism, parents
of autistic children, trans people, trans children, when like they're
focusing on this and they're vilifying and dog piling and
stigmatizing and and all of these things these groups. While

(01:37:12):
there is this snowballing of crises, the damage already just
from Roe v. Wade being overturned in twenty twenty two,
Like it's like been three years and there's just been
this like cascading just ever increasing public health disasters from it.
And yet we're we're stigmatizing vulnerable people.

Speaker 10 (01:37:33):
Yeah, in the ways that we've been talking about.

Speaker 6 (01:37:35):
Right.

Speaker 10 (01:37:35):
Their ideology is about inflicting suffering on vulnerable people because
they think that it's good. And that's a thing that's
you know, i mean just obviously incompatible with public health
as a concept, which is you know, part of why
they're sort of dismantling it. Part of it is that
these people are all like selling their own weird anti

(01:37:59):
vaccine grift stuff that they've been selling for years and
years and years and years, and all of this has
just sort of come together into just the sort of
abyss where every all, everything that was the public health
infrastructure in this country, which was insufficient to begin with,
i'd just been disappearing more and more into yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:38:17):
The erosion of our public health.

Speaker 12 (01:38:20):
You know, this isn't like new, these decades of you know,
this coming into being where we are right now, but
it's been really horrible to watch as a healthcare worker,
as somebody who cares about just like everyone being able
to get like evidence based care, have access to medical providers,

(01:38:40):
and then also the ability to do whatever kind of
health care they need to be able to do on
their own as well to just have this solid medical information.
And then also there's the public education of it all too,
because already, like there's this attack on public education, which
autistic children need a lot of support in order to thrive,
and schools are you know, they could be equipped to

(01:39:02):
do that where I've seen wonderful programs and wonderful education
services that really set people up for success.

Speaker 11 (01:39:08):
And this goes for like everyone.

Speaker 12 (01:39:10):
Obviously, like any child is going to benefit from this,
but it just it makes everything so much worse. A
like parents and families and just autistic people just don't
get enough support period, just like trans people as well.
And then we're all just being thrown under the bus
for the capitalist class and the elites so they can

(01:39:30):
continue to like you know, hide their their pedophilia rings
and like the whole just the fact that they're all
like because like what you said earlier about RFK, Yeah,
these are all a bunch of child molesters telling us
that we're not strong or brave enough to endure pain
that we can easily treat with the medical technology that

(01:39:52):
we have. And I feel like I normally, I feel
like I used to not talk like this. I used
to not be like child molesters in the government, like
I kind of fe but I'm like, this.

Speaker 11 (01:40:00):
Is literally where we are right now somehow.

Speaker 12 (01:40:04):
So here I am, like, you know, talking about til
and all being safe for pregnant people Thailand all not
causing autism, and then talking about the fact that our
government is wrung run by a bunch of pedophiles. Not
quite where I expected to be if you had talked
to me like eight years ago.

Speaker 10 (01:40:21):
Maybe it's really something.

Speaker 11 (01:40:23):
It's it's really wild to be talking about this right now.
And like we knew this was coming too.

Speaker 12 (01:40:28):
Like there's been months of whispers where it's like, oh, yeah,
they're going to say tilan all causes autism. So like this,
I knew this was coming somehow. I don't even know how.

Speaker 10 (01:40:37):
It's just yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:40:39):
I feel like it's all very transparent and like there's
leaks and there's whatever. But I like, I knew this
was coming for months, and yet here we are.

Speaker 10 (01:40:46):
Here we are, Yeah, And I don't know. I think
that's as good of a place to end unless you
have anything else you want to make sure you get in.

Speaker 12 (01:40:54):
I just want to say again that it's safe to
take tailan all during pregnancy and it doesn't cause autism.

Speaker 10 (01:40:58):
Yeah, absolutely, and tell everyone you.

Speaker 12 (01:41:02):
Know that and share good resources like ACOG acog Physicians
for Reproductive Health PRH I believe is their initials acronym.

Speaker 10 (01:41:14):
We will put links to stuff in the description of this.

Speaker 12 (01:41:17):
Yeah, and also ask your doctor about medication that you
should take, whether you're predunt or not. You know, it's
cool to ask your doctor stuff, like just ask them questions.

Speaker 10 (01:41:29):
Yeah, yeah, that is what they are there for.

Speaker 6 (01:41:51):
Gooddy and welcome to here.

Speaker 13 (01:41:54):
I'm Andrew Siege andrasm on YouTube and I'm here.

Speaker 4 (01:41:58):
With James Stout. For those of you wondering what my
last name.

Speaker 13 (01:42:02):
Is, Hello, Hello, And for those who couldn't tell about
my accent or maybe don't recognize it, I'm from Trinado, Tobago,
but when and based and you may or may not
have seen Trinad's name being called up in JD. Van's
and Marco Rubio's mouths dately, particularly with the moves the
US has been making in the Caribbean Sea as of late.

(01:42:24):
So to provide a little context on the insighting incident
of this episode, the current Prime Minister Trinado Biego came
a PUSA prossessor, expressed very passionate support for the US's
recent move on an alleged Venezuela based drug vessel. I

(01:42:44):
say alleged because no proof has been provided that it
was a drug vessel or anything of that nature that
the United States struck. The Prime Minister said, and I quote,
that she has no sympathy for traffickers and that the
US should kill them all violently.

Speaker 4 (01:43:01):
Jesus Christ for those I.

Speaker 13 (01:43:04):
Mean most people do not know much about Trinitian politics.
I don't expect them to. Our current prime minister she
won this year actually, and she kind of carried on
that trend of incumbent losing the elections that took place,
you know, post COVID lockdown twenty twenty era. So the
previous prime minister was Prime Minister, doctor Keith Rowley. He

(01:43:27):
was prime minister for like ten years. He became prime
Minister after she lost her last stint as prime minister.
Because she's kind of a mess in a couple of
different ways. I mean, both parties are pretty corrupt, but
they're corrupt and incompetent in some very critical ways. Corrupt
and racists and a couple other issues. That trend continues

(01:43:49):
with her new candidacy. You know, she's not only feeling
the country in some crucial ways. You know, she canceled
our Independence Day celebrations. She fired like thousands of workers
from a local agency that's responsible for landscaping around the
country basically you know, cut in grass and clear entrains.

Speaker 6 (01:44:11):
That sort of thing.

Speaker 13 (01:44:12):
Fired like thousands of them, right, and all the entire
country is overgrown and all those people have, like like
right before their children have to go to school. You know,
they had no income to support them. So there's like
a lot of cruelty, a lot of corruption, a lot
of incompetence, and in this particular case, diplomatic carelessness, recklessness

(01:44:34):
because she goes and she says this despite the fact
that not only the US violated law, international law, but
also we are small. You may not be able to
see train that in a lot of maps because we
are small. You know, we may be one of the
more populated Caribbean countries, but we are still small. Venezuela
is our closest neighbor, and she has been exceedingly irresponsible

(01:44:59):
in the ways that she approached Venezuela. Because the previous
administration actually had an agreement with Venezuela regarding the extraction
of their fossil fuels in the waters that are between
Trinidad and Venezuela. We had to get permission from the
United States to get into that agreement with Venezuela because

(01:45:20):
Venezuela is currently under sanction, and for the longest time,
Trinad has had to walk this sort of tight rope
of playing nice with both the US and Venezuela. She's
basically come in guns blazon to make state months that
appear to be openly aggressive towards Venezuela, towards Venezuela.

Speaker 6 (01:45:40):
And sovereignty and so on.

Speaker 13 (01:45:43):
Now, her reasoning is that Trinidad has been ravaged by
a lot of violence and addiction that have been caused
by these drug cartails coming from South America, including Venezuela.
This is a very real issue, the illegal gun and
drug and human trafficking that takes place between South America

(01:46:03):
and Trinidad. We are transship one point for that sort
of activity, and that kind of thing brings violence.

Speaker 6 (01:46:08):
The US.

Speaker 13 (01:46:09):
Two is that while she may be able to say
things like make God bless and protect the members of
the US military, the US and the US military are
in part responsible for the violence that is ravaged Latin America.

Speaker 6 (01:46:23):
But it's also not even particularly interested.

Speaker 13 (01:46:26):
Regardless of what their words may say, they're not particularly
interested in deal with with the drug issue. At the
end of the day, it really comes down to regime
change and a desire to control then as well as resources.
But let me take it back for a moment and
provide a longer history of what's going on.

Speaker 3 (01:46:44):
Right.

Speaker 13 (01:46:45):
The United States became independent in seventeen seventy six. You know,
Trinidad became a colony of the UK in seventeen ninety seven,
not long after that, because prior to being under the UK,
Trinado was under the Spanish, and while being under the
Spanish was settled by French settlers, so it was like

(01:47:05):
Spanish laws French settlers and then later.

Speaker 6 (01:47:09):
On UK governance.

Speaker 13 (01:47:12):
And so the War of eighteen twelve, which is you know,
the war took place between the US and the UK,
led to some African Americans siding with the UK and
exchange for emancipation and in exchange for their services in
that war. That group of people, which became North Americans,

(01:47:32):
were resettled in South Trinidad and actually descended from some
of them allegedly, So there is this history of exchange
taking place between the US and Trinidad. You know, during
World War Two, America had military bases established in Trinidad.
We had Wall of Field which was commissioned in nineteen

(01:47:53):
forty one and the Chagram Must Naval Base which was
fully operational nineteen forty three, and that provided strategy, naval
and air facilities in the Caribbean. Thanks to the destroyers
for basses agreement with the British. The British got destroyers
and the US got basis in the British colonies. Now,

(01:48:13):
thankfully the BASS was scale back and eventually decommissioned and
return into Trinian Tobey was controlled by nineteen sixty three,
but that took a lot of protest and margin to accomplish.
It was a whole thing or trying to get Yankee
out of Trinidad. Yankee did provide some benefits to Trinidad
in terms of establishing infrastructure for highways and that sort

(01:48:37):
of thing, but there was also a not so positive social.

Speaker 6 (01:48:42):
Impact of the American presence.

Speaker 13 (01:48:44):
You know, one Calypsonian known as the Mighty Sparu sang
in a song called Gene and Dina that basically the
American presence funded a lot of households due to prostitution well,
and the song was basically about how Jane and Dinah
had to go and find other work now that the
Americans were leaving. So, after the failure of the West

(01:49:08):
Indies Federation and the independence of countries like Jamaica and
Trinantobago from the UK, the location of the former military
base Shagaramas also ended up becoming the temporary location of
the capital of the short lived Westerndies Federation. After the
West Indies Federation broke apart, Shagrammas became the place where

(01:49:33):
the Treaty of Chagaramas was signed between the newly independent
countries of Trinando, Tobago and Jamaica and so forth, which
established Cara comm the Caribbean Community and Common Market in
nineteen seventy three.

Speaker 6 (01:49:45):
CARACOM will come up later.

Speaker 13 (01:49:47):
Cara Commas kind of like if the EU was like
entirely toothless and didn't really do much of anything. It's
like a nice idea of trying to get a bit
of regional collabor and inspiration and trade and movement. But
it's still more expensive to go between islands than it

(01:50:08):
is to go from an island in the US. So
CARACOM hasn't exactly succeeded in facilitating ireland movement thus far.
But CARACOM will come up later on right trying Tobago

(01:50:30):
buyet independence in nineteen sixty two. We became a republic
in nineteen seventy six, and we were under the Prime
ministership of doctor Eric Williams from nineteen sixty two to
nineteen eighty one. Now, doctor Eric Williams, you know, was
our first prime minister, and so he's respecting that regard.
He also wrote Capitalism and Slavery, which was a really

(01:50:50):
impactful piece of literature on the you know, role of
capitalism in the abolition of slavery, or rather the economic
motivation for the abolitioners as opposed to the claimed moral
virtue of the British Empire in abolish and slavery when
it did right, right. So he did some good academic
work and you know, he was instrumental in the establishments

(01:51:12):
of Trinantibago was an independent country, but he also suppressed
the black power movements that took place a little while
after we became independent because of his failures. He also
banned the Trindadian born American immigrant Quamitia otherwise known as
Totally Carmichael, which is like a world renowned socialist and panafganist.

Speaker 6 (01:51:32):
Right.

Speaker 13 (01:51:32):
So, through the seventies we had an oil boom and
we became really really industrialized. We had another boom in
two thousands, and unlike other Cribean countries, we didn't have
to be dependent on tourism, and so we ended up
going in a different developmental direction. The thing about the
oil booms is that they really had more to do
with sitting happenings in the Middle East than really anything

(01:51:54):
that we did. You know, the oil bom just kind of.

Speaker 6 (01:51:56):
Fell on our lapse in that way.

Speaker 13 (01:51:58):
Right three, there was an invasion of Grenada by the
United States after Maurice Bishop's who and the Organization of
Eastern Caribbean States Dominica, Barbados and Jamaica called for the
US to come an assist in dealing with this Marxist
Leninist get in power in Grenada, while Tranto Bago, the UK,

(01:52:21):
and Canada criticized the invasion. It was a violation of
international law according to the UN General Assembly, but as usual,
the law doesn't really apply to the US, so nothing
really came.

Speaker 6 (01:52:33):
Out of that.

Speaker 13 (01:52:35):
Otherwise, the relation between the US and Trinato Bago has
been you know, we have a lot of trade. You know,
we have a large diaspora in the US. There's a
lot of travel between the countries. Most of our tourism
comes from the US. We have a lot of American
based oil and gas companies established in Trinidad, and our

(01:52:56):
whole consumerist culture is basically a copy in many ways
of what the US does when they sneeze, we catch
a cool as the saying goes, Yeah, I know, I'm
establishing a lot of context, but it's together an idea
of how we are where we are right now. Right, so,

(01:53:17):
next door to Trina, we have Venezuela, and we really
had this sort of diplomatic relationship going on with Maduro
and the USA at the same time under the former
Prime Minister, doctor Keith Roudi, who was of the same
party as our.

Speaker 6 (01:53:33):
First Prime minister, Doctor arc Williams.

Speaker 13 (01:53:35):
Right with the issues taking place in Venezuela right now,
there's been a large influx of migrants from Venezuela living Intronautobego.

Speaker 6 (01:53:45):
Right now, we'll mainly Trinidade.

Speaker 13 (01:53:46):
Yeah, right, I have a lot of Venezuelans now living
in trinad some of them legally, some of them illegally.
Prior to that recent wave, and by recent I'm talking
like twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, Prior to that wave, we
had Venezuelans introing that and we had Trinadians in Venezuela.

Speaker 6 (01:54:02):
Because you know, we're neighbors, right, it's close, you know.

Speaker 13 (01:54:05):
See you had Trinadians involved in the mining sector in Venezuela.
You had Venezuelan's involved in the cucoa plantations in Trinidad.

Speaker 6 (01:54:13):
So we've always been a very.

Speaker 13 (01:54:14):
Mixed up group, right right, And this idea of strict
border control between the countries is a very recent, politically
motivated situation. Now with everything going on in Latin America
thanks to the US intervention and the US is constantly
failing war on drugs, we have a lot of violence

(01:54:38):
passing between our our territories, you know, guns, drugs, human trafficking,
as I mentioned. Yeah, and then Venezuela now is I
mean their hands are not clean. I'm not saying any
country's hands are cleaning this. I'm not trying to pay
into a good guy bad guy at ecotomy. You know,
Venezuela is still whole and strong to this claim that
they have from since before they're in the penance that

(01:55:02):
like more than half.

Speaker 6 (01:55:03):
Of Guyana actually belongs to them.

Speaker 13 (01:55:06):
Guyana, by the way, is an English speaking Caribbean culture
country border in Venezuela, Surinam and Brazil. So Guyana recently
explored and discovered a bunch of offshore reserves which you know,
they're really excited to capitalize upon, and you know they

(01:55:29):
have a lot of deals and agreements taking place with
that is concerned. All of a sudden, Venezuela's like, you
know that piece of land that we've long been saying
is ours, Yeah, that that really is ours. And they started,
you know, they're putting out maps claiming that most of
Guyana is actually Venezuela and all these different things. So
it's a very it's a very threatening situation because Venezuela

(01:55:50):
is a military power in its own right, Yeah right,
Guyana turned out we don't have much military prowess. So
in a sense, I understand why both Trinidad and Guyana
are cozying up with the US right now. But at
the same time, this recent administration's cozying up has not
been the most tactful, you know, because we do have

(01:56:13):
a diplomatic approach that has worked well for US for
a very long time. Now, the argument coulding made that
maybe that diplomatic response, a diplomatic balance cannot be maintained
forever our you know, neutrality cannot persist as things are
heating up in the region. But we had an opportunity

(01:56:35):
to respond carefully to respond in a measured fashion to
the US's recent move with bombing the alleged drug vote.

Speaker 6 (01:56:44):
And we did not do that.

Speaker 4 (01:56:46):
Yeah, that's a pretty squndid chance to just like say,
you know, we should respect international law here and and
you know, like the easiest thing to say would be
like there's a set of prodigious for doing this, we
could follow them. Yeah, it's not hard to say that that.

Speaker 13 (01:57:02):
That that deal we had with Venezuela, that was a
deal that we were able to negotiate on the bider.

Speaker 6 (01:57:07):
That was the deal.

Speaker 13 (01:57:08):
When Trump came into power, he just took back. He
was like, Naya, can't do that anymore. So with Trump
going in this either with US or against this kind
of direction, that calls for extra you know care and
you know you kind of dealing with a bomb that
you're trying to work around, right.

Speaker 4 (01:57:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:57:29):
But in the same year that Trump got elected, Camera
Pasad Prossessor, our current prime minister, got elected. You know,
she's known for being reckless, she's known for being a
bit of a drunkard. She's passionately pro Trump. She was
a COVID conspiracist. In the vein of one of her
famous Coats is sunlight will kill COVID. She's passionately pro us,

(01:57:53):
passionately anti Muduru, passionately racist, and very much anti character. Okay,
right now, there's a bit of a history there because
Triniad and Guyana, two Caribbean countries, is very large East
Indian populations, as in Indians from India. Yeah, when the

(01:58:14):
Western New Federation was getting it start, both Guyana and
Trinidad's Indian populations had the concern that, considering the rest
of the Caribbean as black majority, that they would not
be adequately represented in a West Indies federation.

Speaker 6 (01:58:28):
And so that sort of opposition to.

Speaker 13 (01:58:32):
That level of regional unity seems to have persisted within
some circles of in East Indian or Indocribbean politics. Okay, interesting,
not all right, but some seem to have an opposition
to too much Carecom involvement because they feel that their
voices were drowned out by black people. And I mean

(01:58:54):
there's a lot of anti blackness in that community, but
that is not the subject of this particular episode. So
that sort of opposition to WES in these federation seems
to have carried over into opposition towards Cara com and
when there was loading out among P and M supporters,
which is the party of Dr Rowley and Doctor Williams,

(01:59:17):
as well as something parts to momentum taking place, Camela
ended up coming into power, right, And when she came
into power, she's making these moves, making these statements and
disregarding cara Com and disregarding cara Comm's opinion, disregarding cara
comm involvement in Trindad's moves and decisions.

Speaker 6 (01:59:37):
As a small country.

Speaker 13 (01:59:38):
Cara com is supposed to be our way of beefing
up our voice on the international stage. And she's basically
saying then that you know, we a will do our
own thing, right. Yeah, Well, I forgot to mention another
thing about Kamla, just for a bit of context. Cambridge
Analytica came into turnd and basically ran an experiment using

(02:00:03):
our elections to test out some new strategies they ended
up taking into the US.

Speaker 14 (02:00:09):
Right.

Speaker 13 (02:00:10):
They practiced their electoral manipulation in Trinidad, which is how
Kamla won in the first time she was elected back
in twenty ten, twenty fifteen. It was through collaboration with
Cambridge Analytica. So again yet another connection between the US
and Trinidad for better and for weeks. Yeah, So what's

(02:00:41):
happening now is that, you know, on the second of September,
the US bombed Perrogue and claimed to kill ele from
people and claimed that there was a drug vote, despite
the fact that they haven't provided any proof that the
footage was extremely grainy, and even if they did have
proof that it was a drug vote. Summary execution on

(02:01:01):
the High C's is not exactly in line with international though,
right right. If these are quote unquote violent drug traffickers
who are killing people and do not these ridiculous things,
you're supposed to bring them in. You're supposed to interrogate them,
You're supposed to go through a certain procedure.

Speaker 6 (02:01:19):
Right Yeah. All the smoking mirrors about.

Speaker 13 (02:01:22):
Drugs and fighting drugs and all these different things, it
really is that smoking mirrors, because if it was about that,
they would be trying to get information to target the
heart of the operation. What the US is doing right
now is flexing, right, Yeah, it's flexing their muscles in
the region to show what it is willing to do.
It's trying to poke and prod Veniceuelda correspond in kind

(02:01:46):
so that it has the excuse it needs or the
further excuse to intervene. There was another strike, another boat
bombing on the fifteenth of September, and there was another
strike on the ninth teenth of September against another boat.
And it's a very very worrying place to be and

(02:02:08):
time to be alive, right, I would say, you know,
we have Guyana as a player. You know, they're still
working with US oil companies. They collaborate with the US.
They have this territorial anxiety with regards to Venezuela, and
they're part of Cara com Guhyana's part of Cara Coom
trying to you know, work it out through that channel
and through other channels. Venezuela, in response to Camera's energy,

(02:02:33):
has basically put out steep bands talking about, hey, this
Cama lady kind of crazy or show about that because
if any US missile comes out to Trinidad, we are
responding to Trinidad.

Speaker 4 (02:02:45):
Right in Trinidad is like not the same as the US,
right like like that, it is not like mutually assured
destruction exactly.

Speaker 13 (02:02:53):
So she is, you know, speaking very recklessly and in
the meantime, the Venezuela's saying response, you know, if any
sort of US incursion is launched out of Trinidad, which
she invited, by the way, she said, a US CAD
based whatever they want and here if they want to
be a standing ready we right. I don't know where

(02:03:13):
she got this WII from, but she's saying, oh, yeah,
they could come and they could you know, launch stuff
from here. And Venezuela's like, you're talking kind of crazy
right now. You should care about your citizens because we
know your citizens don't like what you're doing, So why
are you doing this kind of thing? Yeah, And it's
bigger than just when as we love the US and Trinidad,

(02:03:35):
because Venezuela is also aligned with Russia. Right, it's I
believe Russia's only ally in the Western hemisphere.

Speaker 6 (02:03:43):
Right.

Speaker 13 (02:03:44):
And while the drug issue and the crime issue is
a significant concern, most of the drugs are coming from
Colombia in the first place, which the US is not
currently targeting.

Speaker 9 (02:03:54):
Right.

Speaker 13 (02:03:55):
And at the end of the day, as I mentioned earlier,
it seems to be coming down to regime change and
resources and the control of Venezuela's resources. You know, we
are now in a situation where our fishermen are having
to stay home out of fail Oh geez, that their
fishing boats could be struck out of the water.

Speaker 7 (02:04:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (02:04:17):
Yeah, you know, we are in a situation where Camera's
fan base is just as trumpion and cultish as the
Marca based seemingly seems to be perfectly fine with what's
going on. Although in some ways I think that that
might even be astroturfed or inflated artificially, because there was
recently an expos that determined a lot of the pro

(02:04:41):
unc which is Camera's party, the pro unc pro Kamela
buzz that occurs on social media.

Speaker 6 (02:04:48):
It's bot driven, Like you go into these.

Speaker 13 (02:04:51):
Profiles and their bots just you know, fake names, fake
profer pictures, AI posts.

Speaker 4 (02:04:56):
Oh geez, yeah, yeah, it's just entirely fabricated.

Speaker 13 (02:05:00):
This is also at a time when the US is
building a massive embassy in our country, when cameras seemingly
open in the floodgates to military collaboration with the US,
where we are dealing with our own economic woles and
crime wars and so on. And you know, we also
have the largest Chinese embassy in the region, and we

(02:05:21):
have a lot of collab with China. We may recently
made moves to recognize Palestine with a Palestinian diplomat now
reside in the country. It feels like we are putting
ourselves in a very risky position, and whether or not
we could have done more or less to get out

(02:05:43):
of this position, you know, considering the US has its
backyard policy with regard to the rest of the Americas,
with regard to the fact that Trump has created this
Department of War, that the US seems to be flailing
around as a dieing empire. Does the fact that the
Criminan has been called out so frequently with violence in

(02:06:04):
an effort to manufacture consent for what seems to be
coming next, With the fact that there was a field
intervention to overthrow Maduro in the past, known as Operation Gideon,
right back in twenty twenty, all this has me a
but stressed.

Speaker 4 (02:06:19):
Yeah. I mean, there was a particularly insane attempt to
throw Madeira in twenty twenty, right, the Silver Core thing.

Speaker 13 (02:06:27):
Yeah, yeah, they had this American security foom and some
Venezuelan dissidents just they tried to inflam as I see,
and basically as soon as they landed they got arrested.

Speaker 4 (02:06:40):
Yeah. Yeah, I think some of them got detained by
Venezuelan fishermen who realized they only had BB guns. It
sucks that, Like having spent time in Venezuela and with
Venezuelan people a lot, you know, for years now, it's
Venezuelan people who are going to pay price for all

(02:07:00):
of this, right, Like it's not and potentially people in
Trinidut of Tobago as well, Like they very clearly do
not want Maduro to be running their country, right. I
saw that in the election, and we saw that in
the protests after election. They have every reason to want
to leave the country and go somewhere safe, but that's
not possible for many of them.

Speaker 13 (02:07:21):
Yeah, I mean, like I said, there's a lot of
Venezuelan's intron at right now. Yeah, so any moves that
advanced with us make, and they're obviously going to make
with consideration to the fact that they have their own
people internet as well.

Speaker 4 (02:07:32):
Yeah, exactly, And like they're being demonized even though they've
done everything they can to separate themselves from Maduro and
like they are being.

Speaker 6 (02:07:42):
Yeah, there's unfortunately a lot of enophobia in Trinidad.

Speaker 4 (02:07:45):
Yeah, it's really sad, like and we see it here too, Right,
this allegation that they're all gang members, which is like,
if we think that gang violence is bad in Venezuela
and im parts of Venezuela is bad, then surely it
would make sense to people who don't want any part
in that might leave somewhere else. Yeah, and rather than
supporting them, we're just we're just killing like the the

(02:08:08):
lowest tier people, right, Like, even if we entertain the
idea that the boat could have been carrying drugs, and
when we put aside the fact that hasn't been proven
of the boats plural the people driving the boats and
other people like making the calls here, yeah, they're the
people being.

Speaker 6 (02:08:24):
Killed, exactly exactly.

Speaker 13 (02:08:26):
It's the same principle with all these these these drug
bus and and and gang bus that take place in Drainad.
You know, they go and they roll in and they
arrass these small fries, but the big bosses call them
the shots unharmed. Yeah, you know, the multinational criminal empires
that aren't moving the people and moving the drugs, moving

(02:08:48):
the guns in the region, they're untouched.

Speaker 6 (02:08:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:08:52):
And like even the Maduro's to nephews, like they were
released after they were detained for trying to run drugs
I hat right Like, like you say, the people making
the real decisions are largely insulated from all this. It's
working people in Venezuela who, like, they don't have other opportunities, right, Like,

(02:09:13):
I have heard the most disheartening stories, especially for Venezuelan fishermen, right, Like,
their economy is so bad that they are not able
to put fuel in their boats. It wouldn't be economical
to put fuel in their fishing boats, even if they
caught a full load of fish. They wouldn't be able.
No one has any money to buy the fish at

(02:09:33):
a high price, so they can't pay for the fuel.
And this is a country which sits on a massive
oil reserve. But yeah, yeah, people can't afford to put
fuel in their fishing boats. Like you know, these people
are victims of a system that has left them with
very few opportunities, and the way we're responding is by
killing them and by destabilizing a whole part of the
world that no one asks for this there, you know,

(02:09:57):
apart from apparently your Prime minister.

Speaker 13 (02:10:01):
Yeah, so, I mean, this was a very rambly episode,
more ambley than my usual, but I just wanted to
get the word out on what's going on in my
corner of the globe. To let the Americans and dance
know to you know, please do what you can to
stand to speak out against this American intervention. Educate yourself

(02:10:23):
from what's going on. For trainees who may be in
the audience, you know, probably hunkered down and have a
crisis bag or emergency bag set up if worst comes
to worst, and everyone else, really just get the knowledge
and do what you can in your area to disrupt
this machine.

Speaker 6 (02:10:43):
Yeah, yeah, that's it for me. All power to all
the people.

Speaker 10 (02:10:48):
Please, this is it could happen here.

Speaker 8 (02:11:08):
Executive Disorder our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the
White House, the crumbling world what it means for you.
I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Miawong Jamestown and
Robert Evans. This week we're covering the week of September
eighteen to September twenty four.

Speaker 4 (02:11:24):
Luckily, nothink that remarkable has happened as a bit short.

Speaker 8 (02:11:26):
One another famously slow newsweek in the United States of
America and abroad. Only the most stable out of all
democratic countries.

Speaker 2 (02:11:36):
Yeah oh yeah, I mean of the democracies were easily
the most democratic.

Speaker 4 (02:11:43):
Shining city on a hill. It's all saying that's right,
that's right, elevated. Yeah, so let's talk about this guy
who opened fire and ice detention facility to start off with.

Speaker 2 (02:11:53):
Then sure, that's the big news story today is that
there's been a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas.
This is not the first shooting at a North Texas
ice facility this year. Two detainees were killed and one injured.
Last I saw, they were in an ice van. It
looks like and the shooter killed themselves pretty quickly. It
seems like, yeah, like fired a few rounds and then

(02:12:16):
killed themselves.

Speaker 6 (02:12:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:12:18):
Cash Hotel, who's the director to the FBI, shared pretty
quickly after shooting on x dot com the Everything website
a photo of a strip eclip of what looks a
lot like ain't milimeter Mauser ammunition. One round had the
wood anti ice written on it in blue pen in
block capital letters.

Speaker 2 (02:12:36):
Yeah lazy, we can agree on that, like, especially compared
to etching them onto a bullet. This has been I
think immediately adopted by God. I mean, it seems like
I haven't done a deep survey, but most of the
liberals and leftists that I follow on both Twitter and

(02:12:58):
Blue Sky, and on just looking at friends on Facebook.
They have pretty immediately gone after this as a false
flag or something.

Speaker 10 (02:13:06):
Liberals and left us casting doubt on the authenticity of this.

Speaker 2 (02:13:11):
I'm seeing both people be like, well, the shooter must
have been a right winger who lazily put anti ice
on the bullet or this is some sort of federal
conspiracy but a lot of conspiracism here.

Speaker 8 (02:13:21):
Yeah, we simply don't know very much about the shooting
at this point. It's unclear who the shooter was aiming for.
If they were just aiming at Ice property right like
unknowingly shooting like migrant detainees inside.

Speaker 2 (02:13:35):
Did they think whoever was an advan was a cop?

Speaker 5 (02:13:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:13:38):
Yeah, most of this lines up with the person being
the sort of person who ends up being a high
profile shooter, right Like. They're not so much an ideologically
motivated person. It's someone who, like you say, pretty low effort,
wrote anti ice on their bullets at the last minute
of not on the bullet but on the casing that
holds the fucking powder that the bullet goes in. I

(02:14:00):
can understand how that works.

Speaker 2 (02:14:01):
And this just fits. This is something I tried to
talk about pretty regularly, shootings in the United States are
heavily driven by mimetic spread.

Speaker 6 (02:14:14):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:14:14):
This has been happening since Columbine. There have been more
than one hundred copycat shootings of Columbine. And you do
have shooters who are let's say original, right, like the
christ Church shooter, where they have new ideas for things
to do in mass shootings, and then in the wake
of those, because whenever someone does something really new, it
gets a lot of attention, right, Like, if there's a

(02:14:36):
mass shooting that like gets a lot more media coverage
than other ones, there will be people who copy it
and who copy specific aspects of that shooting. And what
I'm seeing with this guy that kind of just fits
into that pattern is you had a really high profile
North Texas shooting at a nice facility. Then you had
a really high profile shooting where somebody with a hunting
rifle shot at targets from the top of a roof. Right,

(02:15:00):
I'm seeing both of those things in this shooting, and
I guess it's just like, yeah, that kind of scans
to me, you know.

Speaker 4 (02:15:07):
Yeah, I guess another thing that has been fueling this
conspiracy zerm so the guy used a Mauser rifle, different
type of Mauser rifle to the last one. It looks
to me like a Con ninety eight.

Speaker 6 (02:15:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:15:21):
The previous one was a very old Mauser that had
been rebarreled the thirty eight to six, which is a
very common American round. This one looks to have been
an original Car ninety eight K that was still an
eight millimeter Mauser, which was the gun the Nazi that
was the standard battle rifle of the Wehrmacht during World
War Two. It's not weird he would have access to that.
He probably didn't have to buy it or passed a
background check to get it. Looking at Garrison found his

(02:15:43):
mother's Facebook. They'll talk some more about that, but one
of the things that was on there is her talking
about how she recently had to clean out like a
barn and a farm that her grandfather and dad had
owned and get rid of a lot of their stuff.
It kind of makes sense to me. One of them
very likely was the veteran could have brought back a
Car ninety eight K, as hundreds of thousands of gis did, yeah,

(02:16:04):
from the war, and it would have just gotten passed
down under the family right, not weird.

Speaker 4 (02:16:08):
Yeah, no way at all. Like you say, there are
probably hundreds of thousands of these in the United States.

Speaker 2 (02:16:13):
It was very common. And again that's more or less
probably what happened with the Charlie kirkshooter. Why they had
a mouser, right, Yeah, because it was their grandpa's rifle.
Probably had it re rebarreled or whatever.

Speaker 4 (02:16:24):
You know. Yeah, not uncommon at all someone in especially
somewhere like Texas where you know, those rifles even if
you didn't bring them back from World War One, like
could have been obtained by private party transfer any time
in the last seventy five years. So he'd been placed
on probation for twenty sixteen marijuana offense, for which he
pled guilty and received deferred adjudication. I guess in Texas

(02:16:49):
it's considered dealing marijuana, But it just seems to be
that he was in possession of an amount greater than
a quarter ounce but less than five pounds. Maybe that's
not that familiar with Texas law in that regard, but
that is a thing that we found out about him.
I'll just add that, Like, I don't know if that
effects his ability to obtain a new firearm by doing

(02:17:10):
a forty four to seventy three.

Speaker 2 (02:17:12):
It's it's unclear, but it wouldn't. It doesn't matter in
Texas because again, you can just meet a guy in
a parking lot and buy.

Speaker 4 (02:17:18):
A gun exactly. Yeah, it's not relevant as I.

Speaker 2 (02:17:21):
Did when I lived in Texas almost every month.

Speaker 4 (02:17:27):
Would be great today of Texas. Yeah, see, it's easy
to get a gun in Texas.

Speaker 2 (02:17:31):
How did he get the gun? It could have he
could have gotten it by accident. He could have traded
groceries for it, like you just don't know, but there's
there's no barriers to him owning this. Yeah, we still
don't know very much about this guy outside of his
like public arrest record. I have like a LinkedIn that
hasn't been updated in a few years. Yeah, he voted
in the twenty twenty Democratic primary. We know that from

(02:17:54):
Texas voting records. His mom's Facebook has a few political sentiments,
but not expressed very commonly. She's posted a few times
about Greg Abbot's pro gun stances. Yeah, she was definitely
like anti NRA, anti.

Speaker 8 (02:18:08):
Abbot, anti NRA, upset about Abbot and a Senator Korn
and Cruise not taking action for gun control.

Speaker 4 (02:18:18):
Damp. Yeah, this isn't the sort of gun that would
ever be impacted by now proposed gun control legislation, right, Like,
this is kind of central to the gun that people
generally fail is reasonable to people to own.

Speaker 2 (02:18:34):
Yes, assuming that it was something that he inherited from
a grandfather, a great grandfather. Even like gun control bills
that are looking at stopping face to face sales wouldn't
stop this because the dims always tend to include an
exception for like, yeah, inheriting your dad's hunting rifle or
something like that.

Speaker 8 (02:18:50):
Right, Yeah, On an old Google Plus profile that's cashed deep,
his profile picture is like a Soviet communist caricature. But again,
that is no indication of a recent political alignment. We
still don't have a detailed look at this guy's politics.
But people have been quick to call this a false

(02:19:12):
flag when I think this appears more like in the
manifestation of this reality brain rottedness that we've talked about
vis a vis the years of lead paint, like brain
rot inspires like ill thought or logical actions that maybe
appear akin to a half baked false flag. But this
is like just a result of this weaponized on reality

(02:19:34):
fiction inspires reality, and then reality is seen through the
lens of fiction, so people project onto the state this
like nineteen fifty Cia staging world events. Thing, like everything's
become so like Eddington pilled.

Speaker 10 (02:19:48):
Yeah, I remember there was there was a really big
example of this someone I forget exactly what it was,
like someone like graffitied like Chuck Schumer's garage or something,
and everyone that I knew was confessed it was a
false flag, like if all over Twitter's Olver Blues, everyone
thought it was a false flag. And it's just like
all of that has just accelerated alongside this process that

(02:20:11):
you'reson you're describing, where you have the unreality tunnel of
all this is a false flag. Then you have the
other unreality tunnels that are like generating these people, and
they're just sort of like, yeah, flowing parallel to each other,
nashing into each other. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:20:22):
No, Like people are so quick just to point the
Black's rule image, to discount every single thing that might
confuse you at first glance, Like if you cannot understand
that someone who is suicidal would do a crazy thing
like this inspired by recent events and scribble something onto
a bullet trying to shoot at ICE equipment or ICE

(02:20:44):
agents ice property inadvertently killing actual ICE detainees. If you
have no way to understand that as a premise, and
the only way that you can see something like this
is happening is like a beat cop walking up to
the crime scene realizing he has to alter it to
fit an agenda. Like that is a way more disjointed
and like broken reality to like force yourself to believe

(02:21:04):
than just take the facts as they come and evaluate
them slowly without jumping to a very quick assumption that
satisfies your like emotional reaction to a tragic event like
this where multiple people have died. With Trump in power again,
I think it's entirely possible that oppositional political violence will
take a form that resembles quote unquote left wing attacks

(02:21:27):
increasingly through the next few years. It's not twenty eighteen anymore.
Calling this guy a leftist right now doesn't make any sense.
We don't have a clear look at his politics or
if he really even had serious politics. But there are
a lot of like seemingly normal people who are depressed, demoralized,
or angry and might not write a stupid twitter brained

(02:21:51):
manifesto and scribbling anti ICE gets a point across, whether
that's sincere or some kind of ironic ship post if
the ICE sounds weird in comparison to fuck ice or
abolish Ice. Again, not everyone is part of like the
leftist twitter brained terminology circle. It seems like he wasn't

(02:22:11):
really thinking things through intently anyway, as is common with
these like quick copycat style attacks and attacks like this
are also sometimes just harshly driven by suicide wanting to
do something as a part of the suicidal act, And like,
who knows what this shooter was aiming for or what

(02:22:32):
they thought they were aiming for. We do not have
enough information yet, And.

Speaker 2 (02:22:37):
It's worth noting NBC has interviewed his brother. Kind of
sounds like from the text of the NBC article like
they broke the news to him, which is oof, that's
fucked up, not great. Yeah, but he said the last
time he'd seen his brothers two weeks ago, he was
not particularly political. He had never mentioned anything about ICE.
As far as his brother knew, he had no hatred

(02:22:58):
or particular feelings Ice either way. He was registered as
political independent. His brother said that his parents had a
rifle and that he knew that his brother knew how
to shoot it, but that he didn't think he knew
how to make a shot like that. I don't think
he knew anything about the quality of shot. And it
doesn't sound like he did anything but shoot into a
van and then kill himself. So he was recently unemployed

(02:23:20):
and was looking to move to his parents' land in Oklahoma,
but he was raised in Allan. The whole unemployed didn't
sound like he felt like he had a lot of
maybe opportunity going forward. His life was not going great,
like I don't know, like I'm not having trouble seeing
this all add up now.

Speaker 8 (02:23:39):
I mean, the people who do some crazy hit like
this often have a suicidal impulse running through an action
like this, and sometimes his manifests were something akin to
like you know, this is like a bad term, but
like suicide by cop right, and like similar to what
Roberts said about like mimetic and like copycat shootings. You
can see some of what's on display here in the
lineage of Luigi Mangioni allegedly writing denying to pose on

(02:24:04):
bullets than the Charlie kirkshooting with stuff for non bullets. Yeah,
but this is something that's not like in our Zeitgei.
So it doesn't require you to be like an online
communist to do something like this, nor is it relegated
to a cop trying to manufacture a fake narrative to
cover up a murder of immigrants to frame it in
this left wing violence spike that the right is currently

(02:24:28):
really running with.

Speaker 2 (02:24:29):
Yeah, look, folks, if you are convinced that this is
a conspiracy, I really doubt much that we say is
going to convince you. Otherwise. It's kind of a I
don't want to go on too bleak of a rantier,
but like I almost feel like there's not really a
point in trying to stand up for basic reality anymore,
because number one, people are increasingly going to dig into

(02:24:52):
the reality tunnel that's most comforting to them, and that's
going to be the one where, like they don't have
to deal with the complexities of the world. That like,
some people who on paper have espoused beliefs that are
similar to you will also do fucked up shit right
like that, that's just America. That's living in a country
with four hundred million guns. That's living in a country

(02:25:13):
where mass shootings go viral and where people act based
off the virality of shootings that they watch or see
or hear about. Yeah, and honestly, like, there's a part
of me that feels like caring about the reality of
the situation is almost a vanity project that like, it
doesn't win you anything. Yeah, it doesn't get you anywhere,
it doesn't help you make the world better. Maybe just

(02:25:36):
embracing a fall Like the right has gotten very far
in embracing completely fraudulent realities, So why do I even care?

Speaker 8 (02:25:43):
I mean, this is something I've talked about with like
the flattening of tactics, with the right adopting state sponsored
cancel culture and the left getting more conspiratorial in like
replies to tweet some Blue Sky posts talking about how
you know, the bulleting markings have to be a false flag.
I'm seeing people share memes like Pepe like psyop memes,
but like like leftists and like like oh wow, yeah,

(02:26:05):
liberals sharing these memes that you used to just see
under like unhinged right wing accounts to talk about how
big world events are all stage or the Feds are
faking everything, and it's it's just this complete like swap
more accurately a flattening of tactics, and yeah, like it.

Speaker 4 (02:26:22):
It.

Speaker 8 (02:26:22):
It sucks to be in a position where I'm trying
to be like slow and methodical and how I evaluate
things and not just jump to posting funny reaction images
about how everything is a syop and how everything is
a false.

Speaker 2 (02:26:33):
Flag lameo obvious psyop work done.

Speaker 8 (02:26:36):
Because that seems so much more emotionally compelling, and instead
I'm just tired.

Speaker 2 (02:26:42):
Yeah, just tired all the time. Anyway, go on and
believe whatever you want. Let's continue the episode, all right,
Let's talk about Antifa when we come back.

Speaker 4 (02:26:51):
It comes from a mind control.

Speaker 6 (02:26:52):
Pond, this.

Speaker 10 (02:27:07):
Speaking of false flags and Tiffa Antifa.

Speaker 2 (02:27:11):
I hardly No, that doesn't Garrison, just continue.

Speaker 10 (02:27:15):
I don't have anything to say about that.

Speaker 2 (02:27:17):
All right, listen, folks, We're going to be doing what
James is going to be doing with our collective lawyer
Moira Meltzer Cohen, an episode on what this actually means legally,
and we will be doing that with a lawyer who
is competent to speak on that more than we are. Yeah,
I guess kind of what we want to do briefly
in this episode is try and pull people back from

(02:27:37):
a ledge if you're feeling like you're on one right now,
because it's bad. The current situation is bad. The administration
is absolutely going after people on the left. They absolutely
will be increasingly applying terrorism enhancements to charges for anything
that can be deemed as politically motivated by the left.
But this declaration, as people pointed out, it's not like
a thing the president declaring something a domestic terrorist group. Like,

(02:28:00):
it's not like none of this is anything that like
has a legal force behind it, Which doesn't mean again
that they're not going to continue to go after people,
But this is stuff that started under the Biden administration,
applying RICO charges and whatnot.

Speaker 8 (02:28:13):
This is stuff that goes back to the nineties, like
right to scare, yeah right, yeah, with with environmental organizations.
There is no real domestic terrorism designation. That's why they're
trying to go after like funders and trying to find
ties to like international groups to have that terrorism like
label make more legal sense. But Trump did actually sign

(02:28:34):
an executive order to quote unquote designate Antifa as a
domestic terrorist organization.

Speaker 6 (02:28:40):
Quote.

Speaker 8 (02:28:40):
All relevant Executive Departments and agencies shall utilize all applicable
authorities to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations,
especially those involving terrorist actions conducted by Antifa or any
person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa, or for
which Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf
of Antifa provided materials support, including necessary investigatory and prosecutoral

(02:29:03):
actions against those who fund such operations.

Speaker 4 (02:29:07):
I mean, like anything in the United States, if you're
going to be prosecuted for a federal crime, the US
Attorney has to bring a case against you, and there
has to be a crime that you have committed. The
executive branch does not make law, but legislative branch makes law.
They try, and they tried a lot last time as well.

(02:29:31):
I do want to remind everyone that right now we
still have courts, and as we're seeing in Los Angeles
and in other places, grand juries are not returning indictments.
When the a USA brings a shoddy case or tries
to proscute some of something that isn't a crime, that
right now is the case. I'm not saying it will
be forever. I'm saying that that's where we're at, and

(02:29:53):
we can take a step back from the ledge if
we know that I hope for people who are understandably
very afraid.

Speaker 2 (02:30:01):
Yes, And I'm not saying don't be afraid because these
are scary times. I'm just saying, like, don't assume that
there's no point to fighting back, or there's no way
to do so that you'll just like wind up in
a fucking camp because people are going to court right
now and winning yea, and those court cases have not

(02:30:22):
been invalidated by the administration that they're not just taking
people into custody anyway, Like people have repeatedly gotten off
for charges of assaulting ice officers because they were bullshit charges, right, Yeah,
So that's all I'm trying to say right now.

Speaker 10 (02:30:37):
Yeah, you know, in terms of what these people are
actually worried about, I think if you read the executive order,
you can see what they're scared of, right, you know,
to do the mildly cringe and or a quote authority
is Brital, oppression is the mask of fear God, to plade,
stole is stealing my shit, pricks are holding hands, meme

(02:31:02):
coating and.

Speaker 2 (02:31:03):
Or apparently is a big Star Wars guy.

Speaker 10 (02:31:05):
But if you look at like what's actually in there, right, Like, Okay,
I mean, some of it's like obviously twenty twenty stuff,
and then they're talking about like violent assaults on immigration
and Customs enforcement and other law enforcement officials in routine dosing,
and other threats against public figures and activists.

Speaker 13 (02:31:20):
Like.

Speaker 10 (02:31:21):
They are very worried about the fact that everywhere ICE
appears a whole bunch of people, most of who are
just like random people in sweatpants. I have seen so
many pictures from every single city that there's like loscual
ice deployments are there's just like people in sweatpants who
just like walk out of their houses and start taking
pictures of ICE agents. They are very much concerned about this, right,

(02:31:41):
This is why they're trying to do this crackdown because
the resistance to this stuff is actually working well enough.
You know, it's not not that they haven't been able
to do ICE raids, but it has degraded their capacity
to do it significantly. And that's why they're rolling this
shit out so that they can, you know, as an
attempt to intimidate people and as attempt to like get

(02:32:02):
people to stop doing the stuff that they've been doing,
which has been like effective enough to really shift the
way ICE has been forced to do these things.

Speaker 4 (02:32:11):
And yeah, yeah, Like if you go back to the
like one of the first incidents of people like imposing
an ice rad it was in South Park in San Diego. Right,
These people are not like like organized members of Antifa.
Like South Park is a pretty bougey place. It's like
a vegan, small plates restaurant and cocktail place. There're people
who are pissed that their neighbors are getting abducted. Yeah,

(02:32:34):
they're just people who were there and were like, no,
fuck you, this seems wrong.

Speaker 2 (02:32:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:32:38):
Yeah, And again, like we talked about this last week,
like this is happening in Wheaton, Like people in evangelical
college towns are or seeing ice trucks roll up and
like just walking over to them and yelling at them
and filming them, and that sometimes is enough to make
them just run away. And that's what this is. You know,
they're terrified of the fact that they live in an

(02:33:01):
entire country of people who don't like that you're dragging
their neighbors away at gunpoint, and that's a sign to
do more and not you know, sort of given to
fear every time there's some executive order bullshit.

Speaker 4 (02:33:13):
That happens yep, talking about things where the regime has
not been as successful as it wanted to. Right, Let's
talk about the case of the Guatemalan children. We spoke
about this on ED I think last week potentially the
week before.

Speaker 6 (02:33:28):
Right.

Speaker 4 (02:33:28):
These were the kids who were grabbed from their beds
of a labored eight weekend, and in that time Judge
Sparkle Supernanan thesued an emergency protective order. But we've now
seen a class action which would bring a more permanent
protective order for these children. Judge Timothy Kelly, I'm going
to quote him here. He was talking about the government's

(02:33:50):
case and he said it had quote crumbled like a
house of cards. This is in part because a whistleblower's
account contradicted the government's claim, and this claim was made
by Acting Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Angi Salazar.
Salazar said under oath that the children have VIEN screen
to ensure they would not be subject to abuse on neglect.
The whistlebows claimed that at least thirty of these children

(02:34:12):
had been deemed ineligible for return because they have indicators
of being victimized by child abusers before, so returning them
would obviously return them to that situation of abuse or
potentially do so. Right. The whistleblowers further stated that this
was in an OORR database Office of Refugee Resettlement database

(02:34:33):
and such that the acting director would have access to
that information.

Speaker 6 (02:34:37):
Right.

Speaker 4 (02:34:38):
They printed a lot of other evidence to Judge Kelly,
who granted protection to the children in the case, and
to quote all un accompanied Guatemalan children who have received
neither a final removal order nor permission from the Attorney
General to voluntarily depart the United States. So, if you remember,
the government had previously said that they were resettling these
children and that the DHS had to do with it,

(02:35:00):
that it was an Office of Refugee Resettlement operation, right,
and that their families wanted them home and the families
didn't want them home.

Speaker 6 (02:35:07):
Right.

Speaker 4 (02:35:08):
They dropped that claim later, So this is a whim right.
They couldn't take these little children away in the night
and spirit them off to somewhere where they would be
in danger. Let's move on to Executive Order number two
for this week's episode. This is the one that you
probably heard less about than the Antifa one, But this
is the quote unquote gold card executive order. Oh god, yeah,

(02:35:33):
it's a gold card. Trump has been true thing about this, right,
He truced about it in June. Also in June, Howard
Lutnik announced that they were already seventy thousand people waiting
for these gold cards. Applications could be made at Trump
card dot Gov. That the original stated price was five million.
The executive order signed this week slashed the cost to

(02:35:55):
just one million US dollars one million, one million, and
their dollars, and as our currency continues to crush it,
that will only get more affordable for folks elsewhere in
the world. So that's great, it's good. This is Trump's
promise plan to sell permanent residency. Right when he first

(02:36:16):
announced this, we kind of wondered, how's he going to
do this statutorily? Right, How's he going to do it legally?
When it turns out his plan is to consider the
donation as evidence that the person is quote of exceptional
business ability and that makes them eligible for an EB
two visa.

Speaker 10 (02:36:33):
Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (02:36:34):
Yeah, so like you could you could have never engaged
in business in your life, right, you could receive a
small loan of one million dollars from your parents, sure,
and that would allow you to get one of these.
Now people will go through all the usual background checks, right, which,
according to the EO, will be expedited.

Speaker 6 (02:36:50):
Right.

Speaker 4 (02:36:50):
You can't be like a Apple background bug Daddy. He's
dead now, but you couldn't be him with a million dollars,
right and do this. For example, I.

Speaker 2 (02:36:59):
Like the idea that Abubaka Albigdadi would like try to
move to the US, but would put his real name
and his application for.

Speaker 6 (02:37:08):
Coming.

Speaker 4 (02:37:09):
You gotta check for this. Yeah, but everyone's god damaged,
unfortunate man. He shares that name with a bad guy.

Speaker 2 (02:37:14):
And there's like a fifty percent chance that it would
have gotten approved that just like no one would have
liked would have had his name.

Speaker 4 (02:37:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:37:22):
Well look guys, the Khalif of Isis is like fucking
living in Brooklyn.

Speaker 4 (02:37:27):
Oh yeah, he's going to all those founders meetings, you know,
with other CEOs to discuss managing a large organization.

Speaker 2 (02:37:33):
I'm excited for his ted doc.

Speaker 4 (02:37:37):
He's put its address as a tunnel in a HGS
controlled area of Syria. No, okay, So to be clearous
is dead. It's killed in the first Trump administration. Yes,
a corporation donating for an individual would pay two million, right,
so it's more expensive if a corpse doing it on
your behalf, and the cards will supposedly be old and

(02:38:00):
have Donald Trump's face on them, which is nice. At
the same time, the Trump administration added one hundred thousand
dollar bill to the H one B visa application, so
the visa application fee. The H one B, if you're
not familiar, is an immigration scheme for skilled non immigrant labor.
And particularly interested in this because this was one of

(02:38:22):
the moments that the Trump Coalition began to fracture in
the early days of the Trump administration, Like, we saw
the kind of tech right as exemplified by Elon Musk,
going like, no, H one B is a good they
allow us. They allow them to bring people to this
country and pay them not very much and take advantage
of their skilled labor. It's what they allowed the tech

(02:38:42):
industry to do, right, Sure. And then we saw the
more straight up white nationalists right being like, but those
people aren't white, we don't want them here. And it
seems like it is that Cadra of the the Trump
coalition that that part of his of his ideological sort
of port base, which has won out in this instance. Right,
because companies cannot save money paying someone twenty grand less

(02:39:06):
if they have to pay one hundred ges to get
them into the country, right, Like, individuals could make that donation,
I guess, and get the visa that way, like if
they came from wealthy family and in another country and
want it just desperately wanted to work in the US.
But generally h one vs are used because employees they
can't leave.

Speaker 6 (02:39:23):
Right.

Speaker 4 (02:39:24):
Your visa is tied to your employer, so the employment
can be much less favorable, especially in the tech industry
where people are always shopping and changing jobs to try
and get a better wage, better benefits, et cetera. They
can't do that, and so that will be coming to
an end. Finally, I want to talk about immigration judges,
and the Trump administration has fired even more of them.

(02:39:44):
According to NPR, when Trump came into office, they're about
seven hundred and thirty five of these judges. There are
now fewer than five hundred and eighty.

Speaker 2 (02:39:52):
Why, oh my god.

Speaker 4 (02:39:54):
Yeah, it's quite a remarkable cut.

Speaker 7 (02:39:57):
Right.

Speaker 4 (02:39:57):
Not all of them were fired. Some of them took
advantage of the quote unquote fork in the road offer.
If we remember like early early Trump two point zero
do stuff in immigration judges just so people understand, Like
people are like what they fire a judge, how can
they do that? Immigration judges are not part of the
independent judiciary. They are a better way of seeing them

(02:40:18):
would be a civil servants. Nonetheless, they have in many cases,
I guess, worked to bring the trappings and the procedures
of due process to the immigration world. Right, Like in
many cases they have you know, they're not just rubber
stamping deportation orders. Right, people do have a chance to

(02:40:38):
make their case in front of immigration judges. And even
in Trump two point o, people are still getting asylum
in the United States. The courts right now are extremely
backed up. Right, people are getting here in dates in
twenty twenty eight. As we heard earlier this week, some
courts I read that one court is now running at
twenty five percent of its capacity, have twenty one judges.

Speaker 2 (02:41:01):
And it has five yep.

Speaker 4 (02:41:03):
So this means that people will be in detention for longer.

Speaker 10 (02:41:07):
I mean that's like kind of intentional, right, Like.

Speaker 4 (02:41:11):
Well, one could make that case very Yeah. The DOJ
has reduced requirements for staffing these positions, and the Trump
administration has authorized about six hundred jags to military lawyers
to take on the role. I don't think they're going
to get the rubber stamp on deportations from those people
that they.

Speaker 2 (02:41:30):
Expect to get.

Speaker 4 (02:41:32):
It depends on it if they sort of hand pick
those jags or they just got a bunch of people
from the National Guard. But sure, I don't think that
that's going to be the just like straight up deportation
factory that some people might assume.

Speaker 6 (02:41:42):
It to be.

Speaker 4 (02:41:43):
But nonetheless, right now what we have is five hundred
and eighty judges, tens of thousands of people in detention,
and detention numbers and detention over crowding growing every single day,
So that is not good. Detention facilities are at the
best of times, and conditions are pretty awful. For I
think i've heard right now talking of things that are

(02:42:06):
pretty awful. Here are some products and services.

Speaker 2 (02:42:23):
We're back and uh, next, I think we're talking about tariffs.
Wait a second, do y'all hear that music?

Speaker 4 (02:42:31):
Sorry?

Speaker 6 (02:42:36):
Jazz right, jazz?

Speaker 9 (02:42:38):
Sorry, jazz right jazz.

Speaker 4 (02:42:47):
Wow, we haven't had the song for a while. That
was nice, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:42:50):
Yeah, that was good.

Speaker 4 (02:42:51):
That was good, just like old times.

Speaker 2 (02:42:52):
Bring it back, just like old times.

Speaker 4 (02:42:54):
Several months ago, Garrison has a star alarm clock, do
you Garrison?

Speaker 6 (02:42:59):
No?

Speaker 2 (02:43:00):
Okay, okay, good. I think that would be that would
be too much. That would be too much. I would
I would need we would need to interview.

Speaker 4 (02:43:08):
Listen if you're listening and you do stop it all.

Speaker 2 (02:43:11):
Right, Mia? How our tariffs be?

Speaker 6 (02:43:12):
Do so?

Speaker 10 (02:43:14):
We have some tariff news. One is that we have
a Supreme Court date for the case over whether a
whole bunch of the tariffs are going to be allowed
to continue or not. That is going to be on
November fifth. We also have something no movement, which I
think is pretty interesting. So when last we spoke of tariffs,
we mentioned that there were two countries that had gotten

(02:43:36):
political tariffs on them, Brazil for arresting Volsonnaro and prosecuting
him and India for buying oil from Russia. And there
was a lot of speculation that these would be fairly
quickly resolved.

Speaker 6 (02:43:51):
They have not been.

Speaker 10 (02:43:52):
They are both still into effect. This is having massive
consequences on a whole bunch of stuff. And the the
place that I want to focus on with this is
US agriculture because we have been seeing some extremely alarming
things out of the American agricultural sector. That has really

(02:44:12):
not broken out of like Midwest agriculture circles very much.

Speaker 6 (02:44:19):
So.

Speaker 10 (02:44:20):
One of the major consequences of in some sense also
the tariffs on Brazili. One of the major consequences of
the US tariffs on China is that, like China did
in twenty eighteen, China has simply refused to buy any
American soybeans. The US grows for export fifty two million
tons of soy every year, and more than half of

(02:44:41):
that is old to China.

Speaker 2 (02:44:42):
And again, if you're conspiratorial and belief that, like you know,
the soy, the soy is ruining people, you shouldn't support this.

Speaker 10 (02:44:52):
Well no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you should.

Speaker 6 (02:44:54):
You should.

Speaker 10 (02:44:54):
You should be opposed to this because you should be
wanting to export soy to China so that you can
make you can the Chinese woke in soy.

Speaker 2 (02:45:01):
Yeah, that's what I was saying.

Speaker 10 (02:45:03):
Yes, oh, yeah, there do yeah, yeah, yeah, you should.

Speaker 2 (02:45:06):
Support the export of soy to China. We're getting it
out of the US and to our greatest feel political enemy.

Speaker 10 (02:45:12):
And the other people who support the export of soy
to China are American farmers. So god, I guess this
is like This is like the farming thing that I
say on this show. I did technically. There was technically
a farm behind my house growing up. This is something
that's very common in mid Western agriculture, is a soybean
corn rotation. Doing a soybeing corn rotation is good for

(02:45:32):
the soil, So it's very very common in American agriculture.

Speaker 4 (02:45:35):
Should you can fix nitrogen and soil with legumes.

Speaker 10 (02:45:38):
Yeah, but in order to do this you have to
be able to sell the soybeans. And when this happened
in twenty eighteen, this was kind of kind of behind
the scenes, so that there was a whole big trade
stand off in twenty eighteen, and one of the things
that played a big role in ending it was the
fact they trying to just didn't buy soybeans from the
US for a year and it really, really, really messed

(02:46:01):
with the American agricultural market. I'm going to read an
account from the Progressive Farmer. This is a quote from Mackay.
For most soybean farmers in North Dakota, you're looking at
about one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars loss
per acre on every acre of soybeans planted. Grackle said
on his own farm, he expects losses to top four
hundred thousand dollars this year. Grackle said the losses are

(02:46:24):
not just tied to individual farmers. It's the small businesses.
Local grocery stores, hardware stores, are local schools or financial institutions.
They're all feeling the hurt from this. Yeah, So what's
happening right now is that there is a bunch of
soybeans that are being that are just sitting there.

Speaker 2 (02:46:39):
Yeah, you know, like no one wants to buy them.

Speaker 10 (02:46:41):
And I've seen a few things talking about like okay,
they're you know, there's processing plant opening up. We can
turn them into soybean oil and use like in the
US and do that. But like, this is becoming a
really serious logistical problem because the thing about corn and
soybeans is that it's not like you store them in

(02:47:02):
different things, right, because if you're a farmer, you're growing
both of them. The sort of storage hubs that they
use are the same ones. And the problem is that
there are basically stockpiles building up of these soybeans that
can't be sold. And this is becoming an increasing problem
because there's the corn harvest and you have to put
the corn somewhere. It's a good example of the kind
of middle miniature logistical nightmares that are cropping up all

(02:47:24):
up and down the supply chains as these tariffs sort
of continue to roll in, and as the instability of
them getting needs to roll in that you and I
aren't seen yet or we haven't seen much of the
effectives other than some small price increases, but down the
supply chain there are increasing parts of the population who
are just dealing with these just horrific logistical nightmares. This

(02:47:46):
is going to be We're going to see the acceleration
of this with a deminimous exemption being eliminated, and in
the meantime, China is just basically going to the country
that the US lap fifty percent tariffs on there go
going to Brazil and attempting to basically supply their entire
soybean demand largely from Brazil, which is like the other

(02:48:06):
major soybean exporter. So this is also very important politically
because the American farming sector is very, very powerful. There
have been some bailouts already, but they're not going to
be able to sustain the American farming sector, especially if
this goes on for more than one year only. There
was only one year in twenty eighteen when they didn't

(02:48:26):
buy and it was at fiasco. If this goes on
for an extended period of time, it is going to
cause significantly larger problems. Also, the economy was doing a
lot better in twenty eighteen than it is right now.
I mean, it's still kind of a mess. But yeah,
so this this is going to turn into an increasing
sort of political thorn for Trump among a bunch of
people who are supposed to be his base, because people

(02:48:47):
are very, very frustrated about this, and it is getting
very little press attention. This has been the American farming
tariff update question mark.

Speaker 8 (02:48:58):
No, I mean, why would we want to hear about
farming tariff news when instead we can just keep the
culture war machine going to have everyone just gobsmacked over
that instead, Like that's the whole point of their political machine.
It's not that everything is a distraction from something else, right,
It's that if you keep everyone engaged with this with
like culture war nonsense, left wing terrorism, Charlie Kirk whatever,

(02:49:21):
like all of this stuff.

Speaker 10 (02:49:22):
No one's going to care about farming tariff news.

Speaker 4 (02:49:26):
Even if you're a big liberal outlet right, you put
it out there in like half your fucking audience is
going to be like lol la maal they voted for Trump,
sucks for them, like yeah yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:49:37):
And the question effectively is are the people who previously
had been kept in line by woke bathroom anti dei
like trans women in sports stuff going to be able
to be kept in line when the soybeans are running
in the field. And we will we will see, we
shall see.

Speaker 8 (02:49:55):
Yeah, speaking of some Charlie Kirk culture war, The Department
of Education has partnered with the America First Policy Institute
and Turning Point USA for a new civics program. This
is called the America two fifty Civics Education Coalition. They'll
work with over forty national and state organizations to quote

(02:50:18):
spearhead nationwide initiatives to engage students, educators, and communities and
conversations about liberty, citizenship, and America's enduring values unquote. Other
organizations a part of this coalition include Prager You, Moms
for Liberty, Alliance, Defending Freedom, Heritage Foundation, and the three
explicitly Christian lobbying Groups. Now, all of these groups are

(02:50:41):
basically Christian lobbying groups, but three with like Christian or
religious names in the title of the organizations now partnering
directly with the state for this educational coalition. Let's play
video from the new website explaining the initiative.

Speaker 14 (02:50:58):
American education once a shining light guiding generations, built on faith, heritage, patriotism,
But over the past sixty to seventy years, that brilliance
has been dimmed.

Speaker 6 (02:51:14):
A great institution has been.

Speaker 10 (02:51:16):
Crumbled from within, playing Civil rights era.

Speaker 14 (02:51:19):
Hatred for America, false revisionist history, and division.

Speaker 7 (02:51:23):
From fundamentally transforming the United States.

Speaker 4 (02:51:26):
Oh that's a triggering phrase for me.

Speaker 10 (02:51:28):
Critical race theory, gender queer drag queens.

Speaker 14 (02:51:30):
Now on the two hundred and fiftieth nation, the Department
of Education, the America two fifty Civics Education Coalition, and
partners across America are reigniting that light, restored understanding, and
returning education to the States where it belongs.

Speaker 4 (02:51:49):
For this was a bunch of white kids right.

Speaker 14 (02:51:51):
That inspired the world, and under the leadership of President
Trump and Secretary McMahon.

Speaker 10 (02:51:58):
That's Lend MacMahon.

Speaker 2 (02:52:00):
Oh my god, Oh my god, are you fucking kidding me?

Speaker 4 (02:52:08):
AI generated lighthouse, Oh my god.

Speaker 6 (02:52:12):
Because we are Americans.

Speaker 10 (02:52:14):
The futures ours. Oh my god, it's one of the
craziest things I've ever seen.

Speaker 6 (02:52:21):
Yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 8 (02:52:25):
So the framing of the video is that this lighthouse
has gone out and Linda McMahon emerges, polishes and fixes
the lighthouse, which now shines across the nation, igniting our patriotic.

Speaker 4 (02:52:37):
Education to find a lighthouse in America. So they aied one.

Speaker 10 (02:52:41):
With audio from w W secretary.

Speaker 8 (02:52:45):
Man, it's like the most hyper reality American brain even
say that this is this is like the here's a
lead paint thing that we're talking about, like talking about
how a maried education has been like totally destroyed. And
they're playing footage of like Civil Rights era like protests
and like leaders. You can't parody this.

Speaker 4 (02:53:03):
Nah no.

Speaker 2 (02:53:04):
And it's all set to the to the soundtrack and
edited in the manner of like a big budget Hollywood
acyluster from fifteen years ago. Yeah yeah, yeah, which I guess,
you know, fucking conservative Christians are always but fifteen years yeah,
and the culture shit like so that scans but yeah,
like it, this is like it sounds like a fucking

(02:53:24):
uh uh. Who's the guy who did independence stake? God
damn it, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (02:53:29):
I don't know shit about popular culture, but yeah, we
should just know that seventy years ago education was segregated
in this country. Oh yeah, that's race they want, which
is yes, I just want to I just want to
just sort of drop that nugget.

Speaker 8 (02:53:41):
And I've listened in person to Charlie Kirk argue that
we should repeal the Civil Rights Act, like that's what
these people want.

Speaker 4 (02:53:47):
Yeah, yeah, I just want to join the dots for
folks who haven't and history as an heerenty revisionist, that's
what we do. We don't just like go to go.
We've done it all now, we've worked it all out.
No need for any more historians. That's that, that's not
how history works.

Speaker 10 (02:53:59):
The chief education officer of Turning Point Education, this is
his real name, doctor hutts H Hertzburg triple H said
that quote that.

Speaker 4 (02:54:09):
Was also wwe character Is it the same guy?

Speaker 10 (02:54:13):
No, this is a this is a Christian educator.

Speaker 8 (02:54:16):
Oh okay, he says quote Turning Point USA is more
resolved than ever to advance God centered, virtuous education for
students flourishing across our nation. With that in mind, we
are honored to partner with the distinguished organizations that comprise
the America two fifty Civics Education Coalition to restore, revive,
and reclaim robust American Civics education for all students throughout

(02:54:40):
our country unquote. Earlier today is Wednesday, the state of
Oklahoma has announced that they will be establishing TPUSA chapters
in every high school across the state. Oh great, here's
the Superintendent Ryan Waters of Oklahoma.

Speaker 7 (02:54:58):
I'm excited to announce it that every Oklahoma high school
will have a Turning Point USA chapter. We have seen
the outpouring from parents, teachers, and students that want to
be engaged in a meaningful work going on a turning Point.
They want their young people to be engaged in a
process that understands free speech, open engagement, dialogue about American greatness,

(02:55:22):
a dialogue around American values. We're so excited to partner
with Turning Point USA with this initiative. For far too long,
we have seen radical leftists with the Teachers' Union dominate
classrooms and push woken doctrination on our kids. They fight parents' rights,
they push parents out of the classroom, and they lie

(02:55:44):
to our kids about American history. What we're going to
continue to do is make sure that our kids understand
American greatness, engage in civic dialogue, and have that open discussion.
We will continue to do all that we can to
make sure Oklahoma students have the best education plots.

Speaker 10 (02:56:02):
Part of this announcement, He's written on Twitter. Quote radical
leftist teachers. Unions have dominated classrooms for far too long,
and we are taking them back. I think, Robert, we
talked with this guy last year at the rn C.

Speaker 2 (02:56:14):
Yep, Yeah, we should.

Speaker 10 (02:56:16):
We might do something with that interview at some point.

Speaker 2 (02:56:18):
I wish he'd got he'd been out of a job
by now. But life, life, Huh.

Speaker 8 (02:56:25):
The last thing I want to discuss today is quote
unquote transgender terrorism, something I've seen many friends and posters
across the internet be really, really concerned about, for you know,
a lot of good reasons. Ken Kleppenstein has released a
few articles the past few days. First to one from

(02:56:48):
last week, quote the FBI ready's new war on trans people.
The FBI is preparing to label transgender people as violent
extremists in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder. That is
how hand framed that on the headline, and for his
tweet alongside the article. Other outlets like them dot Us
has spread this reporting even further. Quote FBI to categorize

(02:57:10):
trans people as nihilistic violent extremist. Threat Group report says
the Federal Bureau of Investigation is reportedly preparing to categorize
transgender people as violent extremists. This framing is incorrect, and
I will explain why in great detail shortly. The Federal
Bureau of Investigation is not getting ready to categorize transgender

(02:57:34):
people as like a category, as like a class of people,
as violent extremists. There is no evidence that this is
currentlyh they're doing. There's no internal communications arguing this. Even
the Heritage Foundation's proposal to create a new category of
trans terrorism is not arguing this, as I will quote
from here shortly. But let's get into what the first
article from Clippenstein actually wrote. Based on a source inside

(02:57:57):
the government quote the senior official explains that there is
no process per se for dealing with trans people as
a quote unquote the threat group, but feels that trans
individuals will be increasingly targeted under the banner of violent extremism.
Under the plan being discussed, the FBI would treat transgender
subjects as a subset of the bureau's new threat category,

(02:58:17):
nihilistic violent extremists unquote. We've talked about nihilistic violent extremists
on this show before, back in spring, and we all
know that the Trump administration has been targeting trans people
like this is something that everyone who listens to this
show is aware of. This is this is a real thing.
But there is not actually any new verifiable information in

(02:58:37):
this report. There's rhetoric from people like Donald Trump Junior
and right wing influencers talking about transgender terrorists and this
trend of transgender terrorists as they have been for the
past two years. Me and Mia did that piece about
fake trans terrorists, like almost two years ago. That was
two years ago to we we've been tracking this rhetoric

(02:58:58):
for a long time. So stuff like that that fills
up a lot of the space in articles like this,
but new verifiable information is actually quite short. In this article,
Ken has a single unnamed official who quote unquote feels
like trans people could be labeled nihilistic violent extremists. Now,
in Ken's previous reporting about this label, he misunderstood the

(02:59:19):
ENV label. This label exists just essentially for seven to
sixty four. The child this exploitation group that operates on
the discord and telegram and branch off groups from that.
We've talked about them on the show be here before
as well. And the nihilist of violent extremism term predates
the Trump administration. This isn't a cash betel thing. This
this predates the Trump admin. This was active last year,

(02:59:40):
and it primarily is to categorize and map these child's
exploitation rings and some overlapping communities like the school shooter fandom.
But in Ken's article here, there's no like leaked documents
in this report showing like current memos or communications on
this topic. Ken's great for leaks, but there's there's not
lea documents in this report.

Speaker 10 (03:00:02):
Now.

Speaker 8 (03:00:03):
As we all know and we've reported, the right wing
hate campaign against trans people is a real thing. It's
coming from the Trump administration, from state level government as
well as the entire conservative media apparatus. But I think
right now especially, it's really important to read reports like
this very carefully. Trans Fear mongering massively boosts social media engagement,

(03:00:26):
which then can encourage people to use framing like this
that might actually kind of be irresponsible. Now, a few
hours before Pilplstein published this first article. The Heritage Foundation
and their Oversight Project released a petition to have the
FBI designate a new category of violent extremism, which they
call trans ideology inspired violent extremism or TIV.

Speaker 2 (03:00:51):
Quote.

Speaker 10 (03:00:51):
TIV is based on the belief that violence is justified
against those who do not share radical views of transgender ideology.
It has led to an increasing trend of TIV domestic
terrorist events across the country in recent years. TIV has
played a role in the majority of mass shootings at schools,
that is the Heritage Foundation's claim. The petition includes a

(03:01:14):
list of quote unquote TIV motivated attacks, including multiple attackers
who either were not trans or were clearly not motivated
by trans ideology, as reporting at the time and government
documents have shown, including acts from the past like six
or seven years. But Heritage rights that quote experts estimate
no citation that fifty percent of non gang related school

(03:01:38):
shootings since twenty fifteen have quote involved or likely involve
trans ideology unquote fifty percent.

Speaker 8 (03:01:46):
Have involved or likely involved. Yet in this list they
can only list three school shootings. They can only list three,
even their own list, which they say fifty percent likely
involve trans ideology.

Speaker 10 (03:02:00):
There's been more than three school shootings this year.

Speaker 8 (03:02:03):
This month, There's been more three school shootings not involving
trans people this year.

Speaker 10 (03:02:07):
This is a wild, wildly atrocious.

Speaker 4 (03:02:10):
Is sad?

Speaker 2 (03:02:11):
Yeah, it's just fabricate dude, right, Like and again like
reality doesn't matter, Like that's that's the point.

Speaker 8 (03:02:18):
Like, no, this is the Heritage Foundation, Like come on, yeah, yeah.
But importantly, like a violent extremism designation would not mean
that all trans people as a class are deemed violent extremists.
What it would do is it would create a category
to use for investigations into violent acts, graph patterns of violence,
argue in court documents, and possibly include some preemptive surveillance

(03:02:41):
on people or groups that are deemed as threats as
a part of this strut group. But in the petition,
Heritage says that no, not all transgender individuals or their
allies are domestic terrorists.

Speaker 2 (03:02:55):
Quote.

Speaker 10 (03:02:55):
They are even free to engage it in offensive and
hateful speech under the First Amendment, so long as they
do not stray into unlawful incitement, defamation, true threat, obscenity,
or some other category of non protected speech.

Speaker 8 (03:03:07):
The domestic terror destination becomes relevant only when individuals or
groups one are motivated by an ideology that encourages, promotes,
or condones violence, and two take or incite unlawful violent
action or threats based on that ideology. Both criteria must
be met. Unquote, that's from the Heritage's own petition.

Speaker 10 (03:03:25):
It's not.

Speaker 8 (03:03:26):
There's nothing in Heritage's own petition or Ken's article that
says that trans people entirely are going to be deemed
terrorists or a domestic like extremist threat group. That's not
what either Heritage or what the actual details of articles
like Ken's is saying. And to further kind of show

(03:03:47):
this divide, the Heritage petition also addresses the nihilist violent
extremism label as a completely separate thing, unrelated trans people
that they do not want combined into one single category.
I don't know why Ken keeps pushing this label so much.
It's really important to understand how trans people are actually
under threat right now, because they are right The biggest
threats to transporople right now are access to healthcare specific

(03:04:09):
for people who are under the age of eighteen and
things like bathroom bands and trying to restrict transmitter people
from public life.

Speaker 10 (03:04:15):
But the other biggest.

Speaker 8 (03:04:17):
Threat to transpeople right now is like ourselves, and we
don't need to do the government's work for them to
keep us so demoralized. Spreading misinformation or unverified reports like
this that just makes everyone panicked and freak out actually
harms us and our community. The trans panic industrial complex
is dangerous, and people need to be very careful about

(03:04:38):
this because it's an extremely dangerous time and having an
accurate assessment over what's going on is going to be
crucial to survive the next few months to years.

Speaker 2 (03:04:49):
No, and again, we've seen this on the right, and
this has played a role in radicalizing a lot of
people on the right and getting them to do fucked
up shit. Is year of like they're coming for you.
They're coming for you. They're going to be coming for
you tonight, right like you're already dead. You know, there's
money in pushing and there's clout in pushing hopelessness. Yeah,

(03:05:12):
And I don't want to be telling people everything's good,
because it's not that things are very dangerous for trans
people right now in a way they have not been
at any point previously in very recent history. Things are
much worse right nobody's denying that, but you have to
look at like the facts of how they're worse, as

(03:05:33):
opposed to not reading an article or analyzing what the
article actually says, or analyzing what the Heritage Foundation says
and saying they've they're declaring all of us terrorists, right,
because that's.

Speaker 10 (03:05:45):
Not going to end well, no, don't panic organize. That's
the actual solution to this. I also want to briefly
note on I've seen a lot of comparisons of this
to the black identity extremism designation, and I want to
bring this back to something that Garrison mentioned earlier about
the way that the nihilist extremism category was like specifically

(03:06:07):
designed to target like a specific sort of complex network
of yeah, pedophile discord servers. Yeah, this is the same
methodology that was used for Black identity extremism. Black identity
extremism wasn't a category they conjured out of nowhere to
go after all black people. It was a category that
was specifically designed to go after specific activists in the

(03:06:30):
wake of Occupy and the wake of Ferguson. Yeah, and
this is completely just not the process that is happening
for this, right, Like, we're not dealing with Okay, there
is a specific group of transactivists that the government wants
to target, so they're creating a label for it, right,
We don't have any evidence of that at all. What

(03:06:51):
we have is anonymous sources saying they feel like something
might happen.

Speaker 8 (03:06:57):
That trans people could be targeted, and you're like, yeah,
trans people have been targeted like that, that's what's happening. Yeah,
Are they going to be labeled denialist of violand streamists
at this point?

Speaker 10 (03:07:06):
Unlikely? Could the FBI consider adopting something like the Heritage
proposal for FORTIV?

Speaker 4 (03:07:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (03:07:12):
Possibly, Yeah, that is that is absolutely a possibility. Would
that come into reality the same way that people are
talking about it online or the way that headlines are
framing it. No, it's not about designating all trans people
as terrorists as a class.

Speaker 10 (03:07:27):
It's not about that. And it also wouldn't function like
the black identity extreamist thing, because again, that was like
they already had people they were going after and they
wanted a legal category that they could deploy in order
to go after them. That's not what's happening here. They
don't have like a list of like trans discord servers
that they're about to round up for like doing a protest,

(03:07:48):
Like that's not what's happening here.

Speaker 8 (03:07:50):
No, but they could go after people who make threats online,
and that's something that I'm sure Cashtel's FBI yeah, would
love to do. And if they can sort those people
into a category like tive to argue in a prosecution
or to or to make like a flow chart to
direct investigations, then that's the realm they're gonna use.

Speaker 10 (03:08:10):
Yeah, but even that, we are so far away from
them even like starting that process that you should be
concerned about the actual threats from like I don't know,
I mean just like literally there's there's been a series
of attacks on trans people, just like in neighborhoods in
Seattle by just like gangs of dudes. Right, That's like
an actual, substantive thing that is happening. That is not this,

(03:08:34):
that is not some sort of nebulous like we are
relying on opinions of unnamed officials. We can look at
and evaluate and figure out what we're going to do
about it instead of just giving into the panic industrial
complex and panicking about it.

Speaker 8 (03:08:47):
Yeah, things that are frame bombastically like this go super
viral and they spread a lot, and that's what the
algorithms are encouraging. I mean, same thing with the algorithmic
boosting of you know, false flight conspiracy theories, because those
are so much more satisfying. They spread like wildfire across
blue sky and Twitter and like even things like Instagram stories,
and just be very careful about anything that goes viral

(03:09:09):
because that claim is trying to influence your brain. It's
trying to worm its way into your brain to take
the form as a thought that you had yourself. And
be super careful because this type of weaponize on reality
has been used so successfully the past ten years against
the right. This is how the whole like you know,
migrant panic wave started lies about immigration. This like panicked framing.

(03:09:31):
These things spread like wildfire online and now you have
large swaths of the country believing in this genuine like
like you know, migrant crisis. And this is how social
media functions to influence how your brain thinks and how
your brain process is fact from fiction and forms like
a collective sense of reality. And you are also being
targeted by this same process in different ways than the

(03:09:53):
right is, but this process is still targeting you as well,
and it's like super important to like, read things critically
and take time before jumping to conclusions, because I don't
think we need more quick, emotionally satisfying conspiracy theories in
our life.

Speaker 6 (03:10:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:10:10):
Anyway, that's the news this week, we sure did report it. Yeah,
the news.

Speaker 4 (03:10:15):
This week we reported the head out of media go away.

Speaker 2 (03:10:20):
We reported the news. Hey, We'll be back Monday with
more episodes every week from now until the heat death
of the Universe.

Speaker 1 (03:10:32):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

Speaker 10 (03:10:43):
You listen to podcasts.

Speaker 1 (03:10:45):
We can now find sources for it Could Happen here,
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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