It Could Happen Here Weekly 219

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool 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):
Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Admidst
attempts by President Trump to seize control of Greenland. Last
month during the World Economic Forum, administration officials started posting
images of a penguin. On January twenty third, the White
House shared in artificial image of Trump walking hand and

(00:48):
flipper alongside a penguin holding an American flag across a
snowy tundra towards mountains bearing the flag of Greenland. The
caption read, Embrace the Penguin. The flags look like poorly
photoshopped stock images, while the rest of the image appears
to be generated by AI. Immediately, this post sparked ridicule

(01:11):
across various online platforms based on the fact that there
aren't any penguins in Greenland. Erm Penguins don't live in
the Northern Hemisphere save for zoos and the Glapcos Islands
of Ecuador. So haha, the foolish trump has been bested
once again in the arena of facts and logic. Except

(01:32):
this White House penguin post was actually in reference to
a TikTok meme that was currently going super viral. In
mid January, remixed footage from Werner Herzog's Arctic documentary Encounters
at the End of the World, featuring a lone penguin
breaking off from the flock and marching towards some icy mountains,

(01:54):
started spreading around TikTok sinked to an organ cover of
Lemour Tejoure, a song which is adopted by far right
anti immigration groups in Europe the past few years. This
combination of music and footage soon spread to other short

(02:14):
form video platforms like Instagram reels, with the featherless subject
being dubbed the Lonely Penguin. On January twentieth, a more
explicitly political version went kind of viral with over twenty
thousand likes. With the addition of a Frederick Nietzsche quote,
I know of no better life purpose than to perish

(02:35):
in attempting the great and impossible quote with the caption
save Europe hashtag remigration. That same day, an edit with
thirty six thousand likes by the TikTok account Epic History
thirty two, captioned do the Hard Thing played the documentary
footage with herz Aug Generation overlaid with images of historical

(02:58):
figures and pop culture characters like Alexander the Great, Caesar,
Joan of Arc, King Richard the First King, Baldwin Fourth
Genghis Khan, Aragorn, John Snow, Luke, Skywalker, and Spider Man.
An op ed in Fox News by the daughter of
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy referred to these as quote unquote
Western heroes. To quote this op ed, in the film,

(03:22):
Herzog shows a lone penguin peeling away from the safety
of its colony and heading inland towards certain death according
to Herzog, But the online right saw something else. Users,
mostly male, saw the penguin as a powerful rebuke of
secular modernity. They interpreted the penguin not as lost, but
as a freethinker. To them, he was rejecting the colony.

(03:46):
In today's terms, that means rejecting secular postmodern orthodoxy and
marching toward a greater purpose unquote. So though Herzog in
this documentary refers to this penguin as Drain as a meme,
users identified with the penguin as a symbol of masculine
rebellion against what they view as mainstream culture and the

(04:10):
solitary trek up the mountains as a metaphor for the
struggle of the individual greatness. Clips of men on outdoor
adventures and climbing mountains Zarathustra style with the caption be
the Penguin spread wildly online, the most popular reaching four
point two million likes, and other penguin themed videos getting

(04:31):
hundreds of thousands of likes. The Herzog penguin meme piggybacked
and partially merged with an older, right wing penguin based
meme video from two years ago of a drag queen
asking a kid about boys wearing makeup. The kid responds
that boys can't wear makeup, so the drag queen asks
the kid who told him that, and this confused child

(04:52):
looks around and sees a cartoon penguin on the wall,
points to it and says that penguin over there one
hundred and eighteen thousand likes.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
What do you think about menwear? Who wear makeup?

Speaker 5 (05:06):
To boys?

Speaker 6 (05:07):
Who said.

Speaker 7 (05:11):
The penguin in there?

Speaker 5 (05:12):
The penguin.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
This video and this figure of the penguin has since
been used as a symbol for masculine resistance to the
LGBTQ agenda, and this new penguin meme pertains to tap
into a uniquely masculine urge, as explained by this TikToker
who racked up forty two thousand likes.

Speaker 8 (05:41):
I hate to be the one to say it, but
the penguin didn't make it. But does that mean he
died in vain? No, his life was not a tragedy.
It was an inspiration. He left a legacy most of
us could.

Speaker 9 (05:54):
Only hope for. It would be easy to quote Nietzsche.

Speaker 8 (05:56):
Here, but that wouldn't do it justice. The penguin's spoke
to something inside all of us men, a desire for more,
to push our limits and see what we're truly made of.
Sometimes our purpose is the impact that we leave behind.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
On January twenty third, the Department of War Rapid response
account posted be a Warrior Embrace the penguin with an
AI generated image of five men wearing the uniform of
each military branch walking towards the mountains alongside a penguin.
Secretary Kennedy posted a Make America Healthy Again edit of

(06:32):
the penguin meme with the organ music over an AI
video of RFK Junior and a penguin walking to the mountains.
Onscreen text reads the mainstream made us sick. Choose the
healthier path. The Health and Human Services government account quote
tweeted this video with the caption locking in after watching

(06:54):
that penguin edit unquote, soy occupied government. An anti immigration
advocacy account created a viral aiimage of a large, evidently
prosperous colony of penguins gathered under the banner of multiculturalism.
It reads that as a giant banner, juxtaposed to a
lone penguin facing the mountains and a sign reading remigration

(07:18):
now across the pond. The London mayoral candidate for the
far right Reform Party in the UK, Lila Cunningham, copied
Trump's version of the penguin meme with an artificial image
of her holding hands with a penguin walking towards some
snowy mountains surrounding the Tower Bridge in London. The caption reads,

(07:40):
choose a new path for London before it's too late.
The last penguin post will consider is a video edit
from the Department of Homeland Security. It starts, like many
of the viral TikTok and reels videos with footage and
narration from Herzog's documentary, which I will find play here.

Speaker 10 (08:01):
But one of them caught our eye, the one in
the center. He would neither go towards the feeding grounds
at the edge of the ice nor return to the colony.
Shortly afterwards, we saw him heading straight towards the mountains,
some seventy kilometers away.

Speaker 9 (08:25):
Doctor Ainley explained.

Speaker 10 (08:26):
That even if he caught him and brought him back
to the colony, he would immediately head right back for
the mountains. But why.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
After the narration cuts out, the music continues as a
fan cam style montage plays Trump, military helicopters, swat style
home raids, and Icen border patrol arresting people. The video
is captioned Americans have always known why. In response to
Herzog's query, this post from the DHS asserts that part

(09:07):
of the essence of America is breaking away from the
herd and forging your own path. Those who don't understand
Trump's desire to control Greenland at the risk of further
damaging our geopolitical standing just suffer from herd mentality and
will never be strong enough to take the kind of
risks that are core to the existence of this country.

(09:29):
On January twenty fourth, the White House posted the penguin
does not concern himself with the opinions of those who
cannot comprehend. For Trump, Venezuela Greenland imperial expansion is an
existential mission to achieve some mythic frontier greatness, and only
true Americans can understand why. The Fox News penguin op

(09:54):
ed by Christian nationalist Sean Duffy's daughter, Wow, that's a
nightmare sentence reads quote for Trump, the penguin is an
apt symbol for the President's decade long fight against the
radical left. Everything Trump does is opposed by the global
power brokers. Even the president's pushed to obtain Greenland has
been fanatically opposed by hysterical European elites. America was built

(10:19):
by penguins, and by that I mean rebels, pilgrims, frontier
men and women, conquistadors and cowboys. We are a nation
founded by risk takers who left the colony for the mountains.
We are descended from men who suffered and died to
carve civilization out of wilderness. It is our inheritance unquote. Now,

(10:41):
what this DHS penguin video doesn't include, but has already
been alluded to by some of the other videos I've played,
is the actual context of this lone bird's journey and
its sad fate. We will return to discuss penguin insanity
after this ad break.

Speaker 11 (11:12):
We're back, though.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
The twenty twenty six version of the penguin meme was
dubbed the Lonely Penguin. Earlier meme videos of this documentary
footage from years past carried the titles deranged penguin or
nihilist penguin. Before the footage of this lone Penguin plays.
In the documentary, Herzog asks a penguin expert if they

(11:36):
can experience insanity?

Speaker 12 (11:39):
Is there such thing as insanity among penguins? I try
to avoid the definition of insanity a derangement. I don't
mean that a penguin might believe he was. She's lending
a Napoleon Bonaparte.

Speaker 10 (11:55):
But could they just go crazy because they've had enough
of their.

Speaker 13 (11:59):
Column Well, I've never seen a penguin bashing his head
against the rock. They do get disoriented, they end up
in places they shouldn't be, long way from the ocean.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
The political invocations of this footage largely ignore ourner Herzog's
own speculation on why the penguin is marching towards the
mountains in the far off distance and its inevitable state.

Speaker 10 (12:33):
One of these disoriented, deranged penguins showed up at the
New Harbor diving camp, already some eighty kilometers away from
where it should be. And here he's heading off into
the interior of the vast continent with five thousand kilometers

(12:53):
ahead of him. He's heading towards certain death.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
The penguin is not the uber match. The penguin will
not achieve individual greatness at the summit of the mountain
because it's never going to get there. As friend of
the pod Dan Olsen so eloquently put it, the penguin
is going to die. Though the penguin does not bash
its head on a rock. This separation from society is

(13:22):
still an act of suicide. The deranged penguin has literally
turned its back on food, water, shelter, and the colony
to die, wandering towards mountains that it will never reach.
The Trump administration's embrace of this suicidal penguin as a
that's literally me figure is a shockingly open display of

(13:42):
fascism's relation to the death drive. It's just so naked
to make your mascot a symbol of suicidal defiance against
perceived cultural norms. They're doing a first as tragedy, twice
as farce for fascist death emblems. The Nazis get the skull,
we get a fucking penguin. But the penguin is not

(14:03):
the first modern American suicidal folk hero. The Kildozer rampage
of public destruction, which ended in the suicide of the perpetrator,
has been a mascot for the libertarian right for over
two decades, and in twenty eighteen, a twenty eight year
old airport ground service agent named Richard Russell hijacked in

(14:24):
empty plane at SeaTac to fly over Mount Rainier before
killing himself by purposely crashing the plane, very similar to
Herzog's deranged penguin. Russell left behind a wife of six years,
but became a sort of nihilistic folk hero to overly
online young men, especially among the online far right on

(14:46):
places like four Chan and Telegram, where he was dubbed
sky King. Last August, a Congressional Republican from Georgia, Mike Collins,
who serves on the Republican Transportation Committee, posted a glowing,
multi paragraph memorial for Richard Russell on the anniversary of
his suicide, signing off the message with rest in peace,

(15:09):
sky King. But the direct identification of the Trump administration
with a suicidal penguin is a step farther. The fascist
appetite for death is well understood, but the death drive
represents a usually subconscious desire to not only harm or
kill others, but ultimately yourself, an attempt to ease the

(15:35):
tensions driving social life by returning to a prior in
organic state. This desire can be channeled through the politics
of fascism, which allow for violent, paranoid manifestations of repressed
internal contradictions which attempt to be resolved through death. But
fascism itself is a contradiction between a primitive war machine

(15:58):
and a stable state apparatus, and the way that tension
is released is also self destruction. In the second volume
of Capitalism at Schizophrenia A Thousand Plateaus by philosopher Jills
Deluze and psychoanalyst Felix Quattaie, they discuss the ways in
which fascism and totalitarianism differ. They write that totalitarianism is

(16:20):
a state affair made up of material components that over
manage society.

Speaker 11 (16:26):
Quote.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Even in the case of a military dictatorship, it is
a state army, not a war machine, that takes power
and elevates the state to the totalitarian stage. Totalitarianism is
quint essentially conservative. Fascism, on the other hand, involves a
war machine. When fascism builds itself a totalitarian state, it

(16:48):
is not in the sense of a state army taking power,
but of a war machine taking over this state unquote.
This analysis from Deluze and Quataree is build holding off
of an essay by the French writer Paul Verilio called
the Suicidal State, where Verilio argues that in fascism, this

(17:10):
state is far less totalitarian than it is suicidal. An
evolution of this state that quote no longer pretends to
be guided internally by reason and progress, but rather non
progress and terror, founded on the repulsion and fear of
all development in this civil domain unquote. This repulsion and

(17:34):
fear were manifested in the accelerated destruction of state institutions
during the first few months of Trump's second term and
Doge's scorched earth approach to slashing government agencies. Verilio writes
that during the disappearance of public service quote, infrastructures of
service are reduced as the wire taps of the vermacht

(17:55):
are restored colonial geometry of decolonialization. So as the federal
government rescinds public services, the everyday presence of the federal
government is reduced to masked armed agents in the streets,
disappearing our neighbors and shooting civilians, while the president fights
in court for the ability to deploy the military against

(18:17):
American citizens within our own territory. During the tension of
total war or total peace, Filio says, the system expands
and reproduces itself, a material process without an end, but
no longer without limits. To quote the Brazilian philosopher of
Vladimir's Fatley the Suicide State quote, is not just a

(18:42):
manager of death. It is rather the ongoing agent of
its own catastrophe, the maker of its own explosion. To
be more precise, this new state mixes the death management
of entire sectors of its own population with an ongoing
and risky flirtation with its own self destruction unquote. Verlio's

(19:15):
idea of the suicidal state emerges as this new mode
of governing to solve the crisis of post war liberalism
in Germany after World War One, as well as risked
by the United States after each of our many wars.

Speaker 11 (19:31):
Quote.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
One of the keys to the present situation is on
one side, the overly informed status of experts of the system,
and on the other the underinformed status of all those
who are supposedly thinking outside of it. Verlio says that
the experts no longer know how to use their hordes
of information except to gain money and status by continually

(19:55):
adding to their body of work. Meanwhile, the outsiders produce
the polit and cultural undercurrent of modern folklore and ordinary life.
But this limp dichotomy cannot last for very long on
its own, so I Verrelia proposes the new emergence of
a third category of people who make use of information

(20:17):
for an end. The ultimate end the directors of the
suicidal state, while the outsiders, ideologues and artists simply try
to simulate Catharsis quote. By contrast, the third category, the
suicidal state it self produces a feeling for the real
better it aims to retain the exclusivity of its production.

(20:40):
This feeling is a contempt for and hatred of the
every day unquote, to paraphrase Verilio, the fascist project exploits
man's alienation from his environment through pollution, economic insecurity, emotional insecurity, socialization,

(21:01):
and seeks to replace any legitimate grievance he has with
society with a more repulsive and expressive force, the fear
of society, which is superimposed on a new military schema
of total war and internal invasion, all towards a nihilistic

(21:21):
end of dropping the bomb on ourselves. The oscillation of
external and internal destruction epitomized by the death Drive is
mirrored by the imperial boomerang, where the violence of colonial
expansion is forced to return to its homeland. Once home,
the drive remains, resulting in a war on society directly

(21:46):
or through other means. But this is a war on
its own people. Whereas Trump would say the enemy within,
to quote a paragraph from a thousand Plateaus, so called
total war scene is less a state undertaking than an
undertaking of a war machine that appropriates the state and

(22:07):
channels it into a flow of absolute war whose only
possible outcome is the suicide of this state itself. There
is in fascism a realized nihilism. Unlike the ttalitarian state,
which does its utmost to seal all possible lines of escape,

(22:27):
Fascism is constructed on an intense line of escape, which
it transforms into a line of pure destruction and abolition.
It is curious that from the very beginning, the Nazis
announced to Germany what they were bringing at once wedding
bells and death, including their own deaths and the death

(22:47):
of the Germans. They thought they would perish, but that
their undertaking would be resumed all across Europe, all over
the world, throughout the solar system. And the people cheered,
not because they did not understand, but because they wanted
that death through the death of others. Like a will

(23:07):
to wager everything, you have every hand to stake your
own death against the death of others. Unquote in a
thousand plateaus, Deluze and Guatai quote an excerpt from Klausman's
nineteen thirty six novel Mefisto, which contains fascist speeches and
ordinary conversations from Nazi Germany. The quote they include is

(23:31):
eerily similar to the visuals of Trump as the suicidal
penguin quote, heroism was something that was being ruled out
of our lives. In reality, we are not marching forward.
We are reeling, staggering. Our beloved fear is dragging us
toward the shades of darkness and everlasting nothingness. How can

(23:55):
we poets who have a special affinity for darkness and
lower depths not admire him? Unquote Deluze in Guataye then write,
suicide is presented not as a punishment, but as the
crowning glory of the death of others. The insufficiency of
economic and political definitions of fascism does not simply imply

(24:17):
a need to tack on vague so called ideological determinations.
We prefer to inquiry into the precise formation of Nazi statements,
which are just as much in evidence in politics and
economics as in the most absurd of conversations. They always
contain the stupid and repugnant cry long Live death. Even

(24:39):
at the economic level, where the arms expansion replaces growth
in consumption, and where investment veers from the means of
production toward the means of pure destruction unquote. Verilio calls
this a psychosis which governs its entire politics of production,
and he writes that the replacement of the American industries

(25:02):
of the automobile and the cinema with the military industrial
complex quote does not involve a rational, functional, or useful choice,
but rather entirely psychological, or rather psychopathological. It stems from
contempt for an abandonment of productive rapport with the milieu.

(25:23):
Every investment is made to escape from it. For contemporary reference,
go check out the stock price of Pallantier. And on
the larger economic and international level, Trump's tariffs, his trade wars,
and the self destruction of the United States geopolitical standing
are all expressions of this suicidal state in action. Filio

(25:48):
claims the state of total war, where the economy of
war has become the economy of peace, is facilitated by
a transformation in the American sense of freedom, where quote unquote,
the free as a subject as in the Land of
the Free, Quote is no longer properly spoken of as

(26:08):
a citizen. He has an anonymous organism, without culture, without society,
and without memory. This figure has no historical precedent. Assistance
has become survival, non assistance, a condemnation to death. All
liberation henceforth has for him invariably the appearance of death

(26:29):
of the end, suicide or murder unquote. This sort of
freedom from social services, freedom from this state, freedom from assistance,
as a movement of the death drive, also provides insight
into people's willingness to and even desire to vote against
their own material interests, especially when their political struggle has

(26:53):
turned against society itself. Only in transformation of ordinary social
life in to the horrific in the minds of the
populace can the fascist Quote find their surest means of governing.
The legitimization of his politics and military strategies, and right
up to the end, far from weakening the repulsive nature

(27:15):
of his powers, the ruins, the hoarders, the crimes, the
chaos of total war will generally only increase in scope.
In Hitler's nineteen forty five telegram, seventy one, he writes,
if the war is lost, may the nation perish. Here

(27:35):
Hitler decides to join forces with his enemies in order
to complete the destruction of his own people by obliterating
the last remaining sources of its life support system, civil
reserves of every kind, putable water fuel provisions. This is
the normal outcome of the politics of dialectical retreat from

(27:56):
the man who had written the idea of protection, haunts
and fulfills life unquote. Fascism hijacks the mechanism of evolutionary
and revolutionary escape and reverts it into a mechanism of destruction.
Instead of resolving crises, it produces constant crisis for it

(28:19):
to feed off of forming as delusion guatris, say, a
war machine instead of resonating in a state apparatus, a
war machine that no longer had anything but war as
its object and would rather annihilate its own servants than
stop the destruction. To quote a thousand plateaus, this is

(28:41):
war not for conquest or revolution, but war as its
own end. The hollowing out of public institutions and social services,
the divestment from the milieu of life, leads people to
turn towards the suicidal state as the only force of
mood movement resting on, as Filio says, quote, the advanced

(29:04):
exploitation of our instincts for death. A new tatalitarian state,
defined by the constant ascent of statistics toward planetary death.
Crime and madness will no longer be the defects. The
madman and the assassin are the legitimate children engendered and
recognized by the suicidal state unquote. And what phenomenon has

(29:30):
risen in the United States the past few years, the conspiracy,
theorist and the assassin. The embrace of total war and
the campaign of civil fear necessitates a break from sanity
and the bizarre strangeness of means that inevitably result in
a self destructive end. Verilio claims there is an insanity

(29:51):
at the heart of the fascist project. The imaginary potential
of the fascist state arises quote from a finished war
world where insanity has become the goal of order, the
very product of organization unquote. There's a quote from Goebels
to one of his aides, Prince Frederick Christian. The world

(30:14):
in which Hitler moves is a world of absolute fate,
a world in which even success makes no sense. It's
not a mistake that the White House has cast itself
as a lost penguin marching to its own death. They
know the absurdity of their replies. They know the world

(30:35):
looks upon them as insane. They know that they'll never
reach the make America Great Again mountain. The self destruction ice,
the tariffs, the broken treaties are not for any greater purpose.
The means are the end. This is total war, the
psychological purpose of which is terror, which for the fascist

(30:59):
is synonymous with peace. But let's not forget how Hitler
and Goebbels finally resolved their contradictions.

Speaker 9 (31:21):
So Trump is kind of moving like a bull in
a china shop, or rather a bulliner missile shop. You know,
I think that's a more apt analogy. The system of
government wasn't exactly benign beforehand, you know. Yeah, I think
it really needs to click for people that Trump is

(31:41):
not truly exceptional m hm. Rather, he's a product of
the normal that people seem to be uni for. Yeah,
you know, and the other issues we're dealing with too.

Speaker 4 (31:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (31:55):
I think like this is the the crux of what next. Right,
It's like, we have this, like I don't want to
I don't want to disparage people. We have this tendency
in American politics, this liberal tendency, progressive liberal tendency. Even
to think that like, basically things have been magnificent until

(32:17):
the first week of November in twenty sixteen, right that
America was progressing on this like linear pathway towards total
equality and justice for all, and that what's happening now
is an aberration. It's the idea that there's a few
individuals conspiring rather than there is a system which inherently
creates interests which were opposed.

Speaker 14 (32:35):
To our own.

Speaker 9 (32:35):
I guess, yeah, exactly. It's like all of these these
these problems, the genocides, were waging long before Trump came
into power. You know, the economic strains people are feeling
today that people have been feeling for decades for their
entire lives. You know, the climate crisis that is only

(32:56):
worse and this time is going on. You know, all
of this is a problem of that normal, of that
pre Trump normal. And I still hear people asking, you know,
when are things going to go back to normal? When
can we settle down? When will we go back onto
the track of normalcy? And well, if you're listening to
this podcast, I think you already know what time it is.

(33:19):
This is it could happen here. I'm Andrew Sage and
I'm joined.

Speaker 5 (33:23):
By James again here to talk about the new normal.

Speaker 9 (33:27):
All right and welcome, thank you. The new normal, the
ever shifting normal, the phantom of normal and why it
is that it's really not coming back, and why normalcy
as a concept is actually pretty weird. So part of
I think what feeds into this notion of normal is

(33:48):
this myth of progress that people are obsessed with. You know,
recently I read this book Progress by Samuel Miller McDonald
and I would like to do a review of it
at some point for the podcast. Butt of it is
it a get into just how pervasive this concept of
progress is in kind of tripping people up and keeping
us serving systems that don't serve us. You know, you

(34:10):
mentioned progressives earlier, and you know even that notion I
think of being a progressive. He kind of calls that
into question in the course of the book, going from
ancient times to talking about a religious sense of a
promised land to the sort of modern sense of a
secular or technological progressive improvement or a social progressive improvement.

(34:37):
He identifies it as a story, and a story that's
so powerful that it acts like a sedative. You know,
we don't engage with the degree in reality the world
around us because be wrapped up in this all powerful
feet were balance of progress or progress is linear, that
we are ever striving forward, you know, and we point
to examples of things like social progress. But as he

(34:59):
quotes in the book, it's like what Malcolm X said.
You know, if I stick a knife into you and
I only pull it out three inches, that's our progress.
Put it out six inches, that's our progress. Nine inches,
that's a progress progress will be, you know, removing the
knife completely and mending the wound. But I would take
it a step further and say that is it really

(35:20):
progress to go back to a state that already was?
Is it progress to abolish slavery when there was a
time when slavery did not exist? You know, going back
to a previous default state is not necessarily contributing to
the nat same thing with patriarchy, you know, patriarchy did

(35:41):
not always exist. Eroding and abolishing the patriarchy reaching a
point where the limitations placed on women are no longer
there can we call that progress or is it just
rectifying a previously imposed state? And so these are some
of the questions he grapples with. And there's also, of

(36:02):
course the techno utopian promise of you know, we can
in self driving cars any minute, you know, fusion energy
AI and then work forever. You know, all these things
are blind to the social or ecological reality of collapse.
But where else would you say, might see this myth
showing up in politics? I think I covered a good few,

(36:22):
but I might be missing something.

Speaker 5 (36:24):
Yeah, Like, I mean it's almost in everything, right, Like
it's a fundamental myth of liberal capitalism, I guess. Like
it also underlies a certain logic of colonialism, right, the
idea that like progress towards that then a neoliberal state
is this can be like the logic of explicit or

(36:44):
less explicit colonialism, I guess. But like you see it
there too, right, Like you see it in the sort
of do you see a lot in nineteenth century, So
it's very explicit the idea to uplift, civilize and christianize
our little brown brothers.

Speaker 9 (36:59):
Yeah, the civil mission, yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:02):
They're the white man's burden, and these things that became
very very on vogue in the late nineteen thirty twentieth century.
I suppose you see it a lot there too, right.

Speaker 9 (37:12):
Yeah, this whole notion I think that idents really starts
with the concept of civilization. When you have that civilized
other divide that binary of the civilized and the barbaria,
and or the civilized and the savage, and how that
gets turned into this mission that civilization expands, that you
bring those savage peoples into the fold and you slowly,

(37:36):
you know, bring them up, make them upright men, and
closer to being human than the state that they were
in previously. And the whole narrative around that is what
has as it has evolved with time, led to the
situation a bit in now.

Speaker 11 (37:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (37:53):
And there's this idea as well that even when there
are these ruptures in normal that everything will go back
to its right place. As of people say, you know,
history is a series of unprecedented things, you know, And
one of the unprecedented things in history that I wish
people would realize is not ever going to come back

(38:14):
is that sort of post war economic boom, you know,
that nineteen fifty era growth and excess that has become
the default day that many people are striving to return
into when in reality, something like that is a historical
normally driven by artificially cheap and abundant energy. Yeah, you know,

(38:38):
the normal that people are talking about. Sometimes it's just
this fifty to seventy year fossil fuel binge, a binge
that we are reaching the end of. And I think
a fantasy to believe that we can replicate for all
the time.

Speaker 5 (38:53):
Right yeah, but it's the time that so much of
the like the world that we exist in was created, right,
And like people almost see themselves as like a different
species from human beings in the in the nineteenth century, right, Yeah,
they can't conceive of society that way.

Speaker 9 (39:12):
Exactly exactly, And it's something that I've been well on
because like, what a time to be alive to see,
you know, personal cars being so ubiquitous. But the ubiquity
of personal cars is an aberration. It's a historical laboration.
It's not one that is likely to be sustainable in
the long term. You know, even if there are electric

(39:34):
cars taking a place of gas powered vehicles and we
run out of gas oil, even the materials in story
to produce electric cars are not always going to be around.
They're not always going to exist. We can't supplement each
and every individual person with a car for all of time,
you know. Yeah, so many of the rare earth minerals
that are again quite rare, we've we've spent them on

(39:59):
things that that may serve a novelty or an interest
in the short term, but it's something that we can
maintain forever. You know. I hear people talking about this
EI bubble, you know, and it is in the sense
of the financial markets, the financial aspect of AI and
how it's affecting our perception of the economy and whether

(40:21):
that bubble is going to boost economically. But I'm more
interested in the EI bubble in the sense that how
long can this EI everywhere thing persist when the material
is necessary to maintain it because it is material, despite
the sort of cloud marketing they get associated with it.
How long until we run out of those materials, until

(40:43):
those material needs cannot be sustained.

Speaker 5 (40:45):
Yeah, we keep shifting, like the goalposts, but like the terrain,
right like you know, we okay, well we've run out
of fossil fuel, so that's fine. We will do electric okay,
we you know, with the electric actu She relies on
on rares. So that's fine, We're fine. Different thing to
make batteries out of fra other than acknowledging that like
we've created a system, or we'll just.

Speaker 9 (41:06):
Go to space.

Speaker 5 (41:07):
Yeah yeah, yeah, and and trash another planet for another
few hundred years. You know, when you're driving your track
and you have a lot of stuff in it and
it's hitting the end of the rev counter, you know,
like you're trying to pass someone, it's bouncing. It's in
the red zone. Like we've been running in the red zone,
certainly for most of this century, you know, since the
Industrial Revolution, or certainly since the end of the Second
World War. And like sustainability is a phrase that's been

(41:29):
co opted, but like it's just not possible to keep
doing it.

Speaker 9 (41:33):
Yeah, I mean, it's really an anomaly, U blipin our timeline,
I would say, And I think ruptures in that normalcy,
like the ruptural experience and now provides an opportunity for
us to you know, take an eggs at ramp to
kind of control the transition, to control our descent. But instead,
you know, it seems like we were just rapidly moving

(41:54):
towards the more forceful transition the transition made so by
the laws of physics, and that transition I don't think
will be nearly as pleasant as it could be. You know.
That's why a lot of people call it collapse, and
that transition is being delayed currently, both the collapse of
the material resources and also the collapse of the financial

(42:15):
economic system. That stuff has been delayed by rent seeking,
by new frontiers or exploitation, and by ramping up theft
in parts of the world that we're not as pillaged
as other parts of the world, or ramping up surveillance
and violence to make it harder to resist. But eventually
is going to hit, you know, and I hate that

(42:35):
it makes me sound like a second comment of Jesus
conspiracist or something like that, just like well, yeah, it's coming,
it's coming, you know, like like like I'm a profit
screaming into the into the streets. But you know, it
may not be some kind of prophesiede end times, but
we are approaching that point, you know, where that sort

(42:57):
of narrative of economic growth going back to normal. You know,
there's this big group project of making the literature because
that rise and tide will lift all boats. You know,
there's this story that everybody wins, that nobody will have
to lose anything because the pie will just keep getting bigger.
It has to come to an end.

Speaker 5 (43:27):
It's amazing how long it's lasted, right, Like, certain group
of society has been able to make the rest of
society believe that the pie will just keep getting bigger
when the pie has got smaller for most people, you know,
certainly for the last few decades, but arguably you know,
like lives have become worse for us since the Industrial

(43:48):
Revolution in some ways.

Speaker 9 (43:49):
Right exactly. And you know, people will point to improvements
in health and sanitation. Sure, you can have improvements in
health and sanitation without all this other baggage though, Yeah,
you know, we can have improvements in literacy without literally
poisoning our fresh water and bleaching our oceans and killing

(44:15):
off biodiversity by the millions of species.

Speaker 5 (44:18):
Yeah, it's not a like a package deal, right, Like
we can have vaccination against diseases without having super fun sites.
We didn't need one to make the others. It's not
a like this way or the Dark Ages.

Speaker 9 (44:33):
Exactly exactly. For example, all London had to do I mean,
I'm oversimplifying, but all London had to do was stop
dumping their sewage in the Thames.

Speaker 5 (44:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's a remarkable It's
not that hard. But like just look at the disposal
of hazardous waste and the way that rather than being like, huh,
maybe we should stop making waste, it will be hazardous
for centuries. For the better part of one hundred years,

(45:07):
we've just been finding somewhere else to put it.

Speaker 9 (45:09):
Yeah, just keep just keep dumping it.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (45:11):
Even as a child, I was like, what are we
supposed to do with all these moms in the garbage? Like, like,
are we just going to keep on piling it's up
until we reach the moon?

Speaker 5 (45:20):
I mean, yeah, it's like it in San Diego they
dump these dump it in the bay. There's a whole
part of our bay which used to be a landfill site.
And like I like to to free dive sometimes I
would be practicing or diving in the bay or whatever,
and like you dive down and be like, the fuck
is a barbecue grill doing on the bottom of the ocean?
And people just continue to chuck shit into the bay, right, Like,

(45:43):
even though we have another landfill, what we put it now?

Speaker 9 (45:47):
No, But you see games it's like that barbecue grill
was seven dollars on TMO Yeah, right, you can't pass
up that deal, you know.

Speaker 5 (45:57):
Yeah yeah, and then when it when it turns out
to be absolut crap, it will be on our planet
for longer than any of us. But we've created a
system where there's no disincentive to buy a t moou
barbecue grill, use it once, and then throw it into
the bay. And like we can't see that that's a problem.

Speaker 9 (46:14):
Yeah, yeah, because of how this system is set up,
you don't have to think about it. We had a second,
why is the barbecue grill seven dollars? You know, who
is suffering so that this barbecue real? For example?

Speaker 5 (46:25):
Yeah? Right, because they were so detached from that, right, Like,
despite being so connected, we're also so far away from
the people who the misery is a consequence of our
consumption or of the system which which makes our consumption
the way it is exactly.

Speaker 9 (46:41):
And you know, instead of thinking about how we can
make society resilient, how we can reasonably and ethically, with
consideration for seven generations, use the resources that we have,
and without endless throughput all the years, continue to chase growth,
they continue to progress perpetually like a cancer. Yeah, you know,

(47:05):
and everybody's seeing the consequences. At this point, the work
situation is getting worse because these platforms, these these employers
are finding ways to game the label laws. You know,
we're seeing shrinking margins and sit in sectors. Because when
you rely on growth, when that growth comes to an end,
there's nowhere else to grow. You have to squeeze what

(47:26):
there is. What's the phrase squeeze blood out of a stone. Yeah,
you know, you have to force over work. You have
to and shitify existence services so that you can extract
more subscriptions, more pay months, more upgrades, whatever the case.
Maybe the liverability of entire cities of it has been
wiped out because you know, you have ABNB and a

(47:47):
private companies holing out something as basic as hose in
for all, and so the pressure is to keep the
whole machine run and just how ways any long term considerations.
I keep saying this normal was never sustainable. I will say, though,
when we criticize the system and we call it out

(48:08):
and we talk about how these leaders are pushing things
in a certain direction, they are, But at the same time,
it's easy to fall into this notion that they are
manipulating the whole thing, you know, that they manage the
system in its entirety. It's tempting to see the system
as coherent, you know, to act like it's all piloted

(48:31):
by one vidual or group as some wise or malevolent
parental figure. And you know, these institutions, they all rely
to vary lining degrees under the appearance of competence, right.
But I think what recent times has revealed is that

(48:51):
things are a lot messier than that. That political leaders
know that they don't know, but won't admit that they
don't know, or they don't know that they don't know,
and in either case, they are pretending or believing that
they have this grip on things that they can anticipate
and smooth out the shocks to the system. You know,

(49:13):
there are those who think that if they share the
honest truth, that they could trigger a panic into populace.
So they think they're doing something you know, brave and
benevolent by not giving people all the information they need
and whose yet they failed by sharing all the information
that needed to make accurate decisions, that they might lose investments,

(49:35):
They might lose investors. You know that the economy will
take a hitter as results. That's why you have situations
where like when the Texas grid field in twenty twenty one,
that the officials were insistent that it was stable and
so they wasn't, you know, Or for the years the
UK is has water, it's what infrastructure is used, it

(49:57):
continues to claim that thing's under control, and sewage were
still getting into people's reverse. Yeah you know.

Speaker 5 (50:03):
Yeah, Like I think a lot about Flint, Michigan, where
the water that people have to drink to survive is
killing them. And this has been happening. We've known about
it for a decade, and there have been a series
of politicians for both parties who have just been like, yeah, no,
don't worry, We've got this cupboard, and like that. We

(50:24):
fundamentally have not got this cupboard right. But the machine
is moving so far so no one person can can
stop and turn it around because the machine will just
bulldoze them.

Speaker 9 (50:34):
Yep. It's not as steady as and stable as it
puts forward. You know, in fact that that whole image
of the system as coherent stays stable. I think it
also seems to keep us from defying it. Yeah, you know,
because we get this sense that yeah, this is this,
like this this behema of this all powerful love crafty

(50:57):
and entity that us may have. Individuals come truly challenge
when there are things that we can do directly to
throw you know, spokes in the wheel, if that's the expression, No,
it's something in this spooks.

Speaker 5 (51:12):
Yeahs Spanner when sticking the spokes maybe right?

Speaker 9 (51:17):
Yeah? Sure? Would you say there was like a pit
secular moment when you realize that nobody actually knew what
they were doing? Though, Yeah, I'm trying.

Speaker 5 (51:27):
To think if it was like a momental recognition for
me or like a sort of gradual one. You know.
I think a few of the times, like you see
it a lot when you travel more, right, because the
perception that, like we are helping here, we've got this
under control. Like I think with immigration it's a great

(51:48):
example actually, right, Like so I've obviously spent a lot
of time with the immigrants, and I think you see this.
I remember twenty eighteen we had the migrant caravan, right,
Like there have been many migrant caravans, this one was
just coincided with a mid term in a way that
allowed it to become like a political football, and the
American government is like, we are stopping them at the
border so we can check if everyone's okay. And government

(52:11):
in Mexico is like, well, we are taking care of them.
And you get there and you're like fuck, like these
people haven't had water today, and like at that point,
you know, I was already sort of predisposed to thinking
that perhaps the state didn't have all the answers, and
like to be clear that Mexican states a lot more
than the US state in this instance, and provided these
people with a place to be, which it would have

(52:33):
been much worse if they hadn't had that, But like
it was just this realization. I was with a few friends.
All of us happened at the time to be full
time bicycle people, so we didn't have jobs that needed
us to be like in a place at nine am.
So that realization that like, if these people are going
to get water today, it's going to be because we

(52:54):
go to Costco and buy all the water bottles and
then we we ride back whilst slowly destroying the suspension
of this pickup truck we've got so much weight in it,
and give them out, like because no one else is
going to right and like there's this whole world of
NGOs and governments and states and like didn't matter right

(53:17):
this people stidn't have water.

Speaker 9 (53:19):
Yeah, there's a lot of rule for direct action still.

Speaker 5 (53:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (53:23):
And the part was that be're not as competent as
they may a first glance appear. In other words, if
they say they have everything under control, don't believe them.

Speaker 5 (53:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (53:45):
I think also that instability within this system is part
of it, you know, it's part of how it works.
It's part of what's necessary for it to keep going.
The competitive tune of the capitalist markets, the shifts of
industries that you know upgroove people's lives just part of

(54:05):
how the system operates. You know, the booms and bus
in real estate, they all always for the powers that
be to expand their wealth in some way, to expand
their regions and territories, and people, for the most part,
just go along with it. You know, daily life is
complex as it is. Without having to grapple with the
full scale of all the global issues, you know, the

(54:29):
following the leader, just going along with what they say,
it does give you some psychological breathing room. You know,
it's hard to grapple the existential threats that we face.
I don't have time too in many cases, especially when
you have an administrative strategy that involves flooding the zone
with so much mess, with so much drama, with so

(54:53):
many different controversies and lies and incidents, that it feels
like the best thing to do is just throw your
hands up and your foot And then I'm speaking both
from the perspective of what I'm observing in the Chunitian
government and what I'm observing in the American government. But
I see this attitude of our guns, callousness, and corruption.

(55:21):
So I'm not even trying to maintain a veneer of
legitimacy or intelligence or anything like that. Studies go through
the motions to provide the things that it claims it's
necessary to provide, you know, but they're feeling that even that,
and they're so cocky about it. They're so careless about

(55:43):
it too. So they're smiling in your face and lying
to you. Yeah, people do see what's happening, and they're
responding in a couple of different ways. You know. They panic,
of course, or they fall into conspiracies, or they deny
that there is an actual problem. They continue to insist

(56:04):
that everything is normal, that everything is fine. If they
double down, they hustle harder, they consume more, they carry
on as if nothing's wrong. And there are those who
see that something is wrong, but they see everybody else
carrying on as if everything is fine, and so they
go along as well, you know. Or there are people,

(56:24):
of course who disengage, who are burnt out to a
numb who are just drifting or going through the emotions.
But only a portion have turned to challenge the concept
of normal itself, whether it is that they're experimenting with
simpler living, developing some program for survival, some strategy either

(56:46):
for themselves, for their household, of their community, engaging mutual support.
And of course this is only a portion of the
population because many of us, like fishing water, you know,
we can't really recognize the socioeconomic structure that we are within.
It's hard to recognize what you are immersed in as

(57:07):
a thing itself, and so really in seeing and reading
about alternatives that you can get a glimpse of this
normalcy and question to realize that this system isn't natural
or inevitable. There's an aberration destined to decline no matter
how much we want to believe otherwise that the script
of work, in consuming career, in accumulating property in all

(57:30):
is unnormal. That is actually kind of weird, you know, like,
it's strange that an entire society is dependent upon globe
spanning supply chains, volatile markets, and oriented entirely around the
quarterly evenens of elites. You know, it's strange that whiteness, maleness, cis,
heteronous evilness are treated as the default, the starter kit,

(57:53):
even though only a fraction of humanity fits in any
one of those molds, let alone the combination of all
of the You know, it's strange that normal is so
narrowly conformist with those who don't conform a marginalized It's
strange that normal means an illusion of independence, the disguises
the webs. You will always rely on that. You can

(58:15):
claim to be independent and say, yeah, well I just
bought that seven dollar grill of TMU, and not think
about the the well of relationships that brought that seven
dollar grill to your doorstep and eventually to the landfill.
You get to feel self sufficient while the system hides
the label the ecosystems logistics, and the people hold them up.

Speaker 5 (58:38):
I'm just thinking now about like people whose whole thing
is being like homesteaders, but their homesteading is in itself
a performance for the global supply or like the global
market for distracting or entertainment or whatever you want to
call it, right Like, and they do not exist outside

(58:59):
of those supply chains, but like they are doing this
performance of of like independence because they are so codependent,
right Like, like they exist to generate like a revenue
or affiliate links or however influences make money, sponsorships.

Speaker 9 (59:14):
Oh yeah, it's like one of the influencers. Yeah.

Speaker 11 (59:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (59:18):
Like there's a guy who I remember like a year
ago am because I'm like, I know, broken inside. I
had gotten to an argument with someone on x dot com.
Oh yeah, this guy was like posing as a homesteader,
and like, you know, I grew up on a farm, right,
Like I've I spent lots of my life around like
domestic animals and around domestic like I know how to

(59:42):
fix things, I know what tools look like when you
use them, and like this guy was very clearly just
posing and posing a series of photos. It just really
like I don't know why that particularly threw me for
a loop, right, But like the idea that this guy
is performing performing independence for a system he himself is reinforced.
It was just such a strange thing to understand.

Speaker 9 (01:00:03):
Yeah, a system means dependent on.

Speaker 5 (01:00:06):
Yeah, exactly, a system he's entirely dependent on, like more
so than most of us even, right, Like, he makes
nothing other than photographs so that people look at on
their phones. Like, he makes no tangible product, Like at
least if you're a you know, you could be a
cabinet maker, right, and yeah, you install kitchens for each people,
but you know how to make things with your hands.

(01:00:27):
This guy just gets, you know, a saw that looks
like I hadn't been used since he had Wardian era
and stands around for photos next to a log in
the same breath. I guess that I condemn that. I
feel like the way that we deal with the end
of this, it's the same way that we help each
other get through the middle of this and the and

(01:00:48):
the collapse of it. Right, Like, I've seen people do
mutual aid with such scarce resources and manage to make
such amazing things, both in terms of like physical objects
and in terms of like these beautiful things we do
for each other. We're so little and like the ingenuity

(01:01:10):
that's still there. It's not like people have forgotten how
to exist without temu, right, but we just haven't created
a way a situation where we have to and in
mutual aid spaces. I sometimes feel like we already have
the solution to this, which is to depend on and
care for each other. It's just that we need that

(01:01:33):
to be the way we do everything, not just some.

Speaker 9 (01:01:38):
Stuff exactly exactly. You know, the whole homestead and fantasy
is very comforting illusion and fiction in my view, because
if we're talking about going back to the land, people
who live on the land, who live off of the land,
they did so in community. Yeah, you know, very very

(01:01:58):
very very rarely did someone live entirely by themselves without
contact and anyone else. Because you can't be an axe
maker and a carpenter and a cook and you know,
a farmer and a hood and all these different things,
all of these different roles, a medicine maker, all these
different things at the same time. That is why we

(01:02:20):
as a species have survived and succeeded, because we are
able to share our skills with others and you know,
collectively accomplish more than the summer of our parts.

Speaker 5 (01:02:33):
Yeah, it's a fantasy. I was recently in a place
called Chako Kanyon. I don't know if you've if you're
familiar with Chako Kanyon at all, No, but there's this
idea I think that like pre the arrival of capitalism,
that's how Indigenous people lived. And it's just not like like, yeah,
this was a large, thriving communitium. I'm interested in Chako

(01:02:55):
Kanyon because I'm interested in what you're talking about, like
a society which consume at an unsustainable level and then
collapsed and what came.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Out of it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:04):
But what came out of it is what kept the
working class people in that society of life throughout it,
which is helping each other, right, Like yeah, sure people
have these little plots where they grew grain, but also
like by doing their ceremonies, by coming together in community,
they had something which could sustain them even when the
economic reality completely changed for them. And it's like it's

(01:03:27):
that part that people forget, right that they think they
can Yeah, they think they can grow their own food.
Yeah you can, But when you need a new plow,
what are you going to do? You're going to buy
a forge on TMU, you know, like it's so detached
from the way anyone has ever lived.

Speaker 9 (01:03:45):
Yeah, it is, and it kind of lasts, and me perstatly,
I would rather not wait until supply chains break down
completely and stones wipe the sleep and out's cut all
communication none. I would rather wait for those things to
create and sustain those networks of dependence, networks of interdependent

(01:04:09):
so it's local networks of aid and cultural practice and
you know, meeting of mutual needs. There's a saying that
the sort of hustle bros would say that your network
is your net worth, and to that I must concur
you know, the community support and the share resources. They're

(01:04:30):
going to matter a lot more than your personal purchase
and power. Being part of something is emotionally easier than
carrying everything alone. The matter now and the matter even
more in the future, as crisis makes the invisible all
too visible. The normal that we remember is an illusion,
but once you've seen it, you can't unsee. I think

(01:04:54):
the departure from normal is an opportunity or chance to
make something battle, to be adaptable to the shocks that
come with courage and with clarity, and I hope that
this conversation is able to put towards when I'm sure
that I'm not alone in feeling. That's all for me today,
all about what to old people. Peace.

Speaker 5 (01:05:29):
Hi friends, and welcome to the show. It's me James today,
and I'm very lucky to be joined by Sam Hamilton,
who is the senior litigation staff attorney at Asian Americans
Advancing Justice Atlanta.

Speaker 7 (01:05:41):
Hi Sam, Hi James, Thanks for having me.

Speaker 5 (01:05:44):
Yeah, thanks for joining us. And we are gathered here
today to talk about the new proposals that DHS has
to detain people in literal warehouses. Right, if people aren't familiar,
maybe you could die out by explaining what those proposals

(01:06:06):
are and how they specifically relate to the areas where
you're organizing in Atlanta.

Speaker 15 (01:06:10):
Sure So, Around December of twenty twenty five, a journalist
leaked a list of about twenty different cities across the
country where ICE was intending to open new detention facilities
in warehouses specifically. And this list contained the names of

(01:06:34):
the cities and the expected or projected occupancy of each
of these facilities. And so I live here in Atlanta, Georgia,
and there were two cities on that list with warehouses contemplated.

Speaker 7 (01:06:53):
One is located.

Speaker 15 (01:06:55):
In the city of Flowery Branch, where the warehouse there
is is intended to detain up to one thousand, five
hundred people. And the other is in the city of
Social Circle, Georgia, where ICE intends to use a warehouse
that is over one million square feet to detain about

(01:07:16):
eight five hundred people.

Speaker 5 (01:07:18):
That's vast, Like I think that this would dwarf the
capacity of any Like I'm trying to think if there
are maybe prisons sort of bigger than that. I don't know,
but like in immigration terms, I don't think there is anything.

Speaker 15 (01:07:32):
Yeah, I mean, you know, So for the last four
years or so, I've worked I've worked on various different
shutdown ICE campaigns here in Georgia, and for the last
four years I've been working with the campaign to shut
down the Folkston Ice Processing Center, which is an ice
facility in South Georgia pretty close to Florida, but it's

(01:07:52):
about a five hour drive from Atlanta, and that ended
up expanding lasts summer. But the number of beds at
that facility was projected to be around three thousand, and
at the time that was going to be the largest
ice attention facility in the country. So to jump from
three thousand to eighty five hundred is yeah, it's massive, obviously.

Speaker 5 (01:08:18):
Yeah. I mean people wanted to like it's not fascism enough.
It comes from the Fascio Rain area of Italy, right,
otherwise it's like sparkling authoritarianism or whatever. But like unless
you're looking for like a gate with our Beckmark Fry
on it or whatever, like these are concentration camps. Like
that is what this is. It was really interesting in

(01:08:40):
twenty twenty three we had out the outdoor attention under
the Biden administration, and like we didn't really have much
coverage in the US media when we were participating in
mutual aid there, but we'd had a lot from non
US media, like folks from Japan and Singapore and Italy,
and they'd just come and be like, oh, yeah, it's
a concentration camp. And then they'd write the story and

(01:09:00):
be like these concentration camps. And I think I would
never have got that past an editor in LA or
New York. To them, it seems so self evident. Now
we're just doing it on an even bigger scale. I
guess it's it's terrible. It's the ship. So I know
you've been organizing in social circle specifically, right or part

(01:09:20):
of an organizing group, I should say that it's been
opposing this detention center. So I think it'll be really
instructive to people because either are all of these are
going to be all over the country, and this won't
be the only expansion of immigration detention we see in
the next few years. I imagine, given the massive budget
and the priorities to the administration, can you explain a
little bit about like how that campaign got started and
then like the nuts and bolts of how this is

(01:09:43):
being opposed.

Speaker 15 (01:09:44):
Yeah, So before I get into that, I think providing
some context on who the social circle community is it
will be, you know, would be instructive. So it's a
pretty small it's a very small city. It's got a
population of about five thousand people, overwhelmingly Republican, overwhelmingly white,

(01:10:07):
and pretty wealthy, Okay, And it's about an.

Speaker 7 (01:10:11):
Hour drive outside of Atlanta.

Speaker 15 (01:10:15):
And in December of twenty twenty five, a news article
was published in the Washington Post announcing, you know, the
list of the twenty cities where these warehouses would be
would be popping up. And it was that article that
told the residents of Social Circle and the elected officials

(01:10:35):
of Social Circle for the first time that this ICE
mega prison was coming to their community. There was no
notice to the city by ICE or anyone in the
federal government at all, certainly no opportunity to respond, no
opportunity for public input.

Speaker 7 (01:10:54):
So they felt really blindsided.

Speaker 15 (01:10:58):
Yeah, and I'm not this community, and you know, I've
met many of these people only for the first time,
you know, within the last couple of months. But I
think it would not be so far fetched to say
that some of these people feel, you know, especially the
ones who identify as Republicans or as you know, conservatives,
I think they feel really betrayed by you know, by

(01:11:19):
their government, by their party. Yeah, and so you know,
a lot of these people, I mean I've just described
the demographic. I think many of them have never been
involved in organizing of any kind before. Some of them have,
I think, but I think due to you know, their
life circumstances, just might not have found themselves in a

(01:11:40):
place where they've needed to organize for anything. So a
bunch of these residents got together and have been holding
you know, in person kind of town hall community meetings,
and they held one in January where they were about
you know, I think forty to fifty people in the room,

(01:12:01):
and they wanted to get together and you know, just
have a public discourse about what could be done. And
I was invited to this meeting because of my history
of involvement with shutdown campaigns here in Georgia.

Speaker 7 (01:12:20):
I got started with shutdown campaigns in.

Speaker 15 (01:12:23):
Twenty twenty, okay, when a nurse, a whistleblower who worked
at an immigration detention center here in Georgia called the
Irwin County Detention Center, alerted the public that there was
a doctor who was contracting with ICE who had been,
you know, providing medical services to women detained in this facility. Well,
he had actually been performing non consensual and medically unnecessary

(01:12:48):
medical and gynecological procedures.

Speaker 7 (01:12:49):
On women in ICE attention.

Speaker 15 (01:12:51):
Remember this here, Yeah, And when these women spoke out
about it to their family members, to journalists, to their
law layers, to members of Congress, our staffers for members
of Congress, they were retaliated against by being swiftly deported
and I'm talking put on planes within hours.

Speaker 7 (01:13:11):
Of speaking to a congressional staffer.

Speaker 15 (01:13:14):
And at the time, I was working at the University
of Georgia, School of Laws First Amendment Clinic where we
were providing you know, free legal services to people across
the state, including you know, helping people with getting access
to public records and suing the police and you know
and federal agents. Yeah, when they were retaliated against. And

(01:13:36):
so we represented those women. And it was through my
work at Irwin and you know, connecting with the organizers there,
that I got involved with shut down campaigns, or rather
the shutdown Irwin campaign here in Georgia, and then from
there later got involved with the shutdown folks in campaigns.
So I had been asked to speak to this group

(01:13:57):
of people who I think were new to the immigrants
rights struggle, to talk about, you know, what it's like
to try to prevent a detention center from popping up
in their community.

Speaker 5 (01:14:06):
And because they like, it's not a community that might
traditionally be demographically the same as the people who we
associate with like microan advocacy, migroan activism. I guess when
a group like that comes into a moment like this,
I mean there are some areas of like activism, I
guess civil society stuff, where like white suburban folks have

(01:14:29):
some experience, right planning is one of them, right, Like
the recent bike planes only go north south in San
Diego is because they think that those of us who
can't afford live by the sea don't deserve to cycle safely.
Like there are many other examples of this. But what
there were there like thoughts when they when they first met.

(01:14:50):
I'm really interested to know that. Like they're obviously upset
and they feel abandoned and betrayed, but like, how did
they want to organize to prevent this?

Speaker 15 (01:14:59):
Well, a lot of them were upset about the decrease
in their property value. That was what was really breaking down. Yeah,
that was that was the redicalizing movement.

Speaker 5 (01:15:10):
Same with the bike lanes.

Speaker 7 (01:15:11):
Actually, oh yeah, I bet yeah. And you know, but in.

Speaker 15 (01:15:16):
Addition to the property value stuff, it's also you know,
the strain that this would impose on their small community.

Speaker 7 (01:15:23):
I mean, you know a number of the people who.

Speaker 15 (01:15:25):
Live there might be of you know, well to do means,
but you know, their city police department employs a total
of fourteen officers and they have two on duty at
any given time. They have a fire department of you know,
comparably you know, small size, and they have you know,
water and sewer infrastructure that was built to accommodate about

(01:15:49):
as many people as live there now, you know, between
four thousand and five thousand people. And it's that impact
that is also you know, really maddening and activating and
agitating to people. Those arguments are not new to us
who have organized in South Georgia and also very red areas,

(01:16:12):
a lot more rural and a lot less wealthy. Yeah,
you know, we'll try to We've canvas door to door
in the city of Folkston to try to ask people
how do they feel about this mega prison opening up
in their community, and a lot of people, you know,
we're against it, despite the fact government officials might try

(01:16:33):
to bill it as you know, an economic boon, you know,
unemployment opportunity. A lot of people said like, hey, I mean,
I don't necessarily want a prison in my backyard, but
if it's bringing jobs, then you know, that's what this
community needs. That's something that I think makes Social Circle
distinct from the previous shutdown campaigns I've worked on in

(01:16:54):
Irwin County and in Folkston is that this isn't really
an area that is starved for employment or starved for
you know, economic support, Like these people are doing okay.

Speaker 7 (01:17:10):
And you know, another thing that makes it distinct.

Speaker 15 (01:17:13):
Is before all of this warehouse business, the vast majority
of facilities in this country are formed through intergovernmental service agreements,
you know, or iggsa's for short, is the acronym. But
there are agreements between the federal government and the county,
the local government where the local government says, yes, you
can use our land or our facilities, and in exchange

(01:17:37):
you pay us I mean in the case of folks,
and it's a comparably measly amount. It's only two hundred
thousand dollars per years. Not much, yeah, even though the
federal government is giving i mean fifty million dollars a
year to insert your favorite private prison corporation here, you know,
whether it's corcivic or geogroup.

Speaker 7 (01:17:55):
Yeah, I mean your favorite.

Speaker 5 (01:17:56):
There are only two, really, yeah, not much of a joice.

Speaker 11 (01:17:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:18:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:18:00):
And so typically, like we see this sort of like
co opting and manipulation of the local community and the
local government by the federal government, you know, coercing them
economically to you know, to take on these detention centers
or else. But here I mean social like I said,
Social Circle is doing fine. They're not starved for economic investment,

(01:18:22):
and I didn't you know, consult them at all. It
really just like, you know, in the dead of night,
just bought this warehouse from a private company and pushed
this deal through. So those are some aspects that I
think might throw you know, some of us who might
have been involved in these similar fights before, like for
a loop a little bit, because yeah, there's this assumption

(01:18:46):
I think by some of the local officials that the
supremacy clause governs here and the federal government can do
whatever it wants. So there's no point in us trying
to use our local zoning ordinances or what have you
to try to put a stop to this, because there's
nothing that we can do, right is at least what
you know, some people might be.

Speaker 5 (01:19:06):
Saying, yeah, let's take a break for advertisements. I can't
think of anything mean to say, I know, buy some
shit this have come from, or don't buy anything you
don't need. Okay, we are back. So you were talking

(01:19:30):
about this assumption that the supremacy close would mean that
the federal government could build a mega prison in a
warehouse in your town without asking you if it could
do that. First, can you explain, like how people are
able to use, like you said, like various local tools
to oppose is like you said, it's a huge burden.

(01:19:52):
Like when I first read this story, I remember thinking about, like,
just like the water and sewage demands of housing eight
thousand people would be crippling for the infrastructure in a
lot of places. So how are people opposing this?

Speaker 7 (01:20:08):
Well, it's been.

Speaker 15 (01:20:09):
Really inspiring for me to see these local leaders who
again many of whom have you know, never been involved
in activism we're organizing before.

Speaker 7 (01:20:18):
They've been very.

Speaker 15 (01:20:19):
Consistent in holding demonstrations on a weekly basis at the
site of this facility and have garnered the attention of
different media who have come and interviewed them. So that's
been one way that they've been trying to you know,
get their message out there. I was just talking about,

(01:20:40):
you know, the residents who are concerned from you know,
sort of fiscal perspective and are concerned about you know,
their own property values and things like that. But there
are a fair number of people who are concerned about
you know, the core human rights abuses and you know sures.
Some of the line might be well this isn't the

(01:21:01):
right place, you know, our city is not the right
place for a detention center, suggesting, you know, implying that
there are some places that are suitable for a detention center.

Speaker 7 (01:21:12):
But there are a fair.

Speaker 15 (01:21:13):
Number of people in this community who who are opposed
to detention centers in general. I mean, they see that
they see the violence that ICE is inflicting in broad
daylight on public streets, and I think they're they're horrified,
and they don't want to be complicit in in something

(01:21:33):
like that, you know, coming to their community. And I
do think that along the way, I'm seeing more of
a shift in the consciousness or at least an openness
to understanding the different influences that bring us to the
same table.

Speaker 7 (01:21:54):
Yeah, it is. It has been very cool.

Speaker 15 (01:21:56):
Yeah, and we can agree that you know, we're not
going to have one hundred percent unity of ideas, but
we can have a unity of action, and you know,
we can save these debates on you know, I mean,
whether someone is illegal or not, but you know, we
can continue to have them along the way, as we

(01:22:18):
are also identifying the very concrete ways that we can
work together.

Speaker 7 (01:22:22):
And I'm thinking of one, for example.

Speaker 15 (01:22:25):
I work pretty closely with some staffers for different members
of Congress I mean in terms of like uplifting you know,
human rights and civil rights abuses that we see in
detention centers, because as part of my job, I go
inside detention centers, immigration detention centers in Georgia pretty frequently,

(01:22:45):
also federal prisons, and we'll meet with people and learn
about the conditions that they're facing and will you know,
fight for them to get released and also share what
I learned from them with you know, different members of Congress,
and most of our connections are with people who are

(01:23:05):
aligned with the Democratic Party, you know, I mean to
be to be frank, you know, I've never initiated correspondents
with a Republican but I think I kind of just
assumed that they wouldn't want to that I wouldn't get
anywhere with them, or that they wouldn't you know, that they.

Speaker 7 (01:23:20):
Wouldn't talk to me.

Speaker 15 (01:23:22):
But what's been effective in working with this coalition of
residents is some of these people, I mean, yeah, like
they I you know, they've been card caring Republicans for
a long time and feel that they you know, can
wield influence over you know, certain Republican elected officials and
and one of them, you know, I mean, well, I

(01:23:44):
don't know how many of them, but a number of
these local residents have gotten Republican, you know, Mike Collins
to come out against this ice facility.

Speaker 5 (01:23:55):
Yeah, that's especially right now in the Republican party and
like that that could be very difficult for them to do.
And I sort of once it's not hugely sympathetic to
Republican politicians, and I would still like to see them
get better, Like that's we want people to get better,
that's the whole thing. And like I think for these
people whose politics may not be the same as ours,

(01:24:16):
sharing the space, sharing the movement, sharing the struggle, like,
I hope it makes people better. I hope being exposed
to people who are not of the same background as
you be it like class rise, race wise, politics wise, whatever,
like makes people realize that things are not quite how
they're presented to them on the television or in the

(01:24:37):
media they consume totally. So I'm sure that's yeah, Like
I hope that it's positive. What can like a local
government do, or even like elected officials do, given that
the elect officials on a federal level do, Given that,
I mean, I suggest appears to be operating like without
a great deal of oversight right now.

Speaker 15 (01:24:59):
Yeah, I mean with each of these warehouses, there are
different circumstances around each of them. I've been really inspired,
honestly by the folks in Maryland who are dealing with
a warehouse, maybe multiple warehouses, I'm not sure. Yeah, where
you know, at both the local and the state level,

(01:25:21):
they have really pushed for legislation that would effectively, yeah,
I mean, prevent these warehouses from existing at all. It
is a different set of facts than what we're working
with here in Georgia, because there's more involvement by private actors,
and so the government, you know, the local government can
can regulate them more. But Maryland is certainly not the

(01:25:44):
only place where where those fights are happening. And so
I would really encourage folks to, yeah, to learn from Maryland.
And I get you know, I'm talking about you know, legislation.
I mean, I will be the first to tell you
as a lawyer that I don't think legal tools will

(01:26:04):
liberate us.

Speaker 7 (01:26:06):
You know, the law will not make.

Speaker 15 (01:26:07):
Us free, sure, Yeah, And I do think it's it's
the people power, it's the coming together, it's the mass
collective action that is, you know, that's what's going to
do it. And also there are multiple you know, there
are multiple tools and multiplement instruments that we can they
can wield. And so right now, I mean with respect

(01:26:30):
to the Social Circle warehouse, ICE is saying that they
intend to detain people in their starting in April, jeez,
in less than two months. Yeah, and so right now,
the strategy truly is to use just like every tool
at our disposal, identifying Yeah, like what legislation can be filed,

(01:26:52):
what litigation you know, what lawsuits can be filed, what
you know, demonstrations, what kind of you know, canvassing, door knocking,
you know, you name it? Like, how can how can
people come together? How can we try to identify which
companies would be supplying the labor to turn this warehouse

(01:27:13):
into something, you know, where people will be detained? I
mean not that not that I think ICE gives a
damn about making any type of facility habitable for humans.

Speaker 7 (01:27:27):
But there's gonna be there's gonna be some work that
needs to.

Speaker 15 (01:27:29):
Be done in order to you know, turn this you know,
would be Amazon warehouse into a place for people. And
is there work that you know, local organizers, because they're organizers.

Speaker 7 (01:27:43):
We're all organ you know, we're all organizers.

Speaker 15 (01:27:46):
Is there work that local organizers can do to try
to unite with laborers, with workers who you know might
be working on this facility, to try to like prevent
them or like city workers, Like can they prevent city
workers from like actually hooking up this warehouse to the
city utilities?

Speaker 5 (01:28:07):
Right? Yeah, yeah, presumably Yeah, that will be a building contractor, right,
Like they will want to build thousands of cells in
this giant Yeah. The call of that stuff, and especially
with it happening so quickly, like you know, anything that
delays that will cause it to at least slow it down.
I guess.

Speaker 7 (01:28:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:28:38):
I think another angle that we haven't talked about yet
is the environmental angle, Like with social circle. You know,
this is I mean a town of five thousand, it's
gonna trip. It's gonna nearly triple the number of people
in this place, and I mean and also triple the
amount of of waste and sewage that's going to be

(01:29:00):
coming out of this place.

Speaker 7 (01:29:01):
I mean, So that's one thing.

Speaker 15 (01:29:02):
Another thing for people to look at is, you know,
what would the environmental impact of these warehouses be on
local waterways?

Speaker 7 (01:29:12):
For example?

Speaker 15 (01:29:13):
And that's what you know temporarily put a stop on
the detention facility in the Everglades in Florida, was a
legal challenge in federal court under NIPA, the National Environmental
Protection Act, because the federal government had failed to conduct
the proper environmental impact assessments. Yeah, and the only thing
that they actually really had to do was you know,

(01:29:35):
something very procedural and you know, tick a box.

Speaker 7 (01:29:38):
And ultimately the facility ended up moving forward.

Speaker 15 (01:29:43):
But it was a tool to buy time to figure
out what other types of organizing can we do.

Speaker 5 (01:29:50):
Yeah, and it's still like even if it's only time, right,
Like harm isn't being done in that time, and it's
still a good thing. Yeah, that makes like a form
of harm reduction. It reminds me a lot of the
struggles here against the newer, larger border wall that we've
seen since twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen when Trump got elected.
Like I'm thinking about how there have been ecological challenges

(01:30:13):
to it, there have been social challenges to it. Right.
The city of San Diego is currently trying to sue
the fed to trest bus for part of its war construction, which,
like I'm not a big fan of our city government,
but like, I'm glad they did that, and all these
different tools have at least at least in the last
Trump administration. I remember in the late summer at twenty

(01:30:33):
twenty being out with some Kumai folks who were in
ceremony because the war construction was destroying Kumia ancestors right
who are buried there and then the spaces where they
are buried, And they ran out the clock on the
Trump administration. Right by using their rights as indigenous people

(01:30:54):
to be in ceremony, the refusal of the workers to
literally drive a trucks through the middle of their ceremonial practices,
they were able to like run the clock out on
the Trump administration. Unfortunately now we have another one. But
like all those different things had to work together to
mean that, like in that little part of the border,

(01:31:15):
somebody's great great grandparents remains weren't dynamited out of the earth,
and that's still a good thing. Like however we got there,
that's a good thing. Absolutely, it makes me happy to
hear that. Like even folks who might have otherwise been
politically aligned with the project were appalled by this because
the idea of literally warehousing humans, like it's so fucking bleak,

(01:31:38):
Like there's these big warehouses where we fulfill them with
shit that we don't need, and now definitely in with
people that apparently we don't want. Like it's it's one
of the more horrific things that I know. It just
it's so bleak to me.

Speaker 15 (01:31:51):
Yeah, yeah, I agree, Like the veil has just been
totally lifted, Like we know that they don't view immigrants
as human, Yeah, but now they're like not even pretending anymore,
just truly treating people like chattel.

Speaker 5 (01:32:07):
Yeah again yeah again right in the same places, yea,
in this instance, Like, I guess I'm glad that even
people who are not politically on the same team maybe
like are opposed to this because it's, uh yeah, it
is repugnant.

Speaker 7 (01:32:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:32:23):
I guess what if people are hearing about this for
the first time, right, and will include that link to
the article so people can look up where these locations are,
if any of them? What advice would you have for
people if you're listening to this, you click on that link,
you find this one half an hour from your house
or whatever, Like, what advice do you have for those people?

Speaker 15 (01:32:43):
I think if you're already an organizer, regardless of whether
you've been in the immigrants rights fight or not.

Speaker 7 (01:32:53):
Now is the time.

Speaker 15 (01:32:54):
When it really is like all hands on deck, So
don't be afraid to get involved. But also, you know,
like we were talking about before we started, is I
think guarantee that there is some immigrants rights movement in your.

Speaker 7 (01:33:14):
Locale or somewhere close by.

Speaker 15 (01:33:16):
And I think it's just so important to you know,
approach this work not with the assumption that you are starting,
you know, launching this new campaign, spearheading this you know, new,
previously untapped, you know, area of work, because I guarantee
you that you know, there are people who have have

(01:33:38):
worked on this before. And so I think connect with
you know, connect both with people who have been doing
this work for a long time and also try to
connect with people who you might not otherwise have thought
to connect with. And I think it's important to call
out the nimbiism, the not in my backyardism of how,

(01:34:01):
you know, some people are coming at this issue because
they're you know, they're worried about their property value.

Speaker 7 (01:34:07):
But it's also something that we can capitalize on.

Speaker 15 (01:34:10):
Right It's energy and oftentimes it's people with capital and
connections that you know that you might not otherwise have
had access to either. So I think you know, the connecting,
you know, and the community organizing needs to go in
multiple directions. But I do think it's important to move. Yeah,

(01:34:31):
it's important to move.

Speaker 5 (01:34:32):
Fast, Yeah seriously, Like that is a very constrained timeline,
like everybody has to be, but that means it's also
important to move respectfully, right, because like, if we just
blow each other ship up, because yet people assume that
migrant communities have somehow not been advocating for themselves in
each other for centuries, then we're not going to have

(01:34:55):
time to organize because we're going to be dealing with
that shit. And I've seen that so much just personally, right,
like having been involved for some time in migrant advocacy
and seeing folks like pop in and tell us how
to do everything. It's tiresome, and I understand that you'll
want to help. But yeah, if this is something that

(01:35:15):
like you're organizing around, super easy to find those organizations
to be like how can I help?

Speaker 7 (01:35:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (01:35:22):
And it's also such a good like this fight in
particular is such a good vehicle for fighting for abolition overall.
As someone who's been saying abolish ICE for years. It
is amazing to see how much traction that phrase has gotten,
especially over the last six months. And we can't just

(01:35:45):
be fighting against you know, preventing.

Speaker 7 (01:35:47):
New ICE facilities.

Speaker 15 (01:35:48):
We need to be fighting for shutting down all ICE
facilities and for abolishing ICE as an institution. We've been
around before ICE, and we will be around after ICE.
As you know, as an agency, ICE has only been
around since since two thousand and three. Sure there was
a predecessor, there was the in s, but I mean

(01:36:10):
it didn't operate in nearly the type of way that
ICE does now as this you know, law enforcement agency.
And even before Trump, like ICE was still a really
you know, horrible like horrible yeah, yeah, agency, And so yeah,
I think it's important to continue to you know, point
these things out while also you know, welcoming people into

(01:36:32):
the fight.

Speaker 7 (01:36:33):
And yeah, and pushing them, pushing them further.

Speaker 5 (01:36:38):
Yeah, I think that's really it's really important. Like I
think we have to rebut the assumption that this is
an aberration and we can fix it and go back
to normal, because normal was bad and you just couldn't
see it because it wasn't on your screen, right, like
children died in outdoor attention and Abiden. I saw people's

(01:37:00):
suffer immenseally in outdoor attention under Biden, Like, we don't
want to go back to that either, And I think
it's really important that when we build these coalitions we
build them with that in mind. That like, we're organizing
very quickly, but also we're in this for the long haul,
until everybody's free. Is there anything that you'd like to
leave people with resources or a bit of advice, any

(01:37:22):
like closing words you'd like to share with him?

Speaker 7 (01:37:24):
Abologize?

Speaker 14 (01:37:25):
That's all I got, perfect, all right, So ladies and gentlemen,
we're gonna dive in politics.

Speaker 11 (01:37:46):
Prop This is special for me.

Speaker 14 (01:37:48):
We're calling this the Art of Petty and the playoff
words you may or may not know is that Petty
is actually my last name, and like, like literally government,
it's my last name. And as a child they used
to bother me. As a grown up, I'm like, not
us sounds about right. So what made its start? First

(01:38:10):
of all was the bio, says the writer of the
Pettysburg address.

Speaker 11 (01:38:16):
Yeah, that's one of the funniest things.

Speaker 14 (01:38:18):
It makes me mad because it's my last name and
I'm like, why did I not think of that?

Speaker 11 (01:38:23):
Like, it's so brilliant. Amanda Nelson, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 7 (01:38:29):
Thank you, thank you so much, and thank you for
appreciating my ridiculous Abraham Lincoln joke.

Speaker 11 (01:38:34):
It's brilliant.

Speaker 14 (01:38:35):
I and super producer Ian separately came across your content
like at the same time. I know when I first
hit the follow within a day or two, I was like,
have you heard of there? Have you heard of this president?
And he just simulated. I was like, dude, I just
started fall and it's and I think there's a there's

(01:38:55):
a kindred spirit in the sense of like history being
actually not that difficult to grasp if you just speak
like a regular ass human you know what I'm saying,
and politics the same, Like you know, the premise of
the Hall Show is that like if you understand inner
city living, you understand politics. Like if you grew up

(01:39:16):
in and around our streets, it's really not that different.
You know, even whether you was like a nerd, you know,
running as fast as you can to the library, you
still knew I better not go down Seventh Street, because
like you still know how this works. You know what
I'm saying, or whether you were completely outside, like you know,

(01:39:37):
stilling people's bikes like you get it, you know. So
what we appreciated about what you do is the accessibility
of it.

Speaker 7 (01:39:47):
So thank you, thank you, well, thank you. That's that
was the goal from the beginning, especially the you know,
on Mondays, I do a series called the Whiteboard, which
is literally just a whiteboard with a bunch of sticky
notes on it, Yeah, where I track congressional legislation as
it moved its way through Congress or doesn't, as is
more often the case. Yeah, And that was one of
the first things I started doing when I started making content,
and people were so appreciative of it in a way

(01:40:07):
I found surprising. I thought people would find it nerdy
and boring and silly. Yeah, but it's such an unnecessarily
complicated process and explaining it in ways that people can
grasp that. There's been a lot of appreciation for it,
which I love.

Speaker 14 (01:40:20):
Yeah, which leads me to the next question, which would
be like, Okay, so you're formal training your upbringing, like
I need to know the origin story of the nerdery,
but before that, this is the week of the super Bowl,
So I'm just wondering as a Latina who's not a
Latina who I just found out an hour ago is
not a Latino. Have you recovered from Benito's performance?

Speaker 5 (01:40:45):
I am not a Latino.

Speaker 7 (01:40:46):
That is true. And I just when I was talking
about it, when I was talking about it online about
Bad Bunnies halftime show, I got so many people asking me, wait,
you're not Latina, so apparently I am presenting, which is nice. Yes,
I have recovered because after the halftime show, I went
to bed, so I was in mine. It was such
a boring game, Like I'm not going to say to her.

(01:41:08):
Last game was trash, four hours of freaking field goals.
But then of course I went to bed and it
gets spiced up a little bit.

Speaker 11 (01:41:14):
Then it became a game, right, but it didn't matter. Yeah,
so you're on the East coast.

Speaker 7 (01:41:18):
Then I am. I'm in Virginia.

Speaker 14 (01:41:20):
Yep, yeah, no, that's that's absolutely hilarious. We are on
the West coast, to which the game starts at three pm.
But definitely my wife was like ready to go after that.
My wife is a first gin Latina and she was
just like, wait, there's more game.

Speaker 11 (01:41:36):
She's being silly, but yeah, do we have to stay?

Speaker 14 (01:41:38):
We're at my sister in law's house, and she was
just like, uh, we're good unless you want to stay,
you know, since I'm a Cali native, I'm like, I
really don't care about either of these teams and the
same yeah, and my I mean down to my Mitochandria, Like,
I cannot ever cheer for a new England team.

Speaker 11 (01:41:56):
Yeah, I can't.

Speaker 14 (01:41:58):
Just the Celtics the boss thing as an la boy,
I can't anybody remotely close to that.

Speaker 11 (01:42:05):
I just can't cheer for.

Speaker 7 (01:42:06):
I think I have like twenty ten's PTSD for having
to constantly listen to the Patriots be off show in everything,
and so I have an ingrained bias. Also their owners
like a weird maga dude, and you're weirdo.

Speaker 11 (01:42:19):
Yeah he's weird.

Speaker 7 (01:42:20):
So and Tom Brady is also weird, Like he's a
weird guy.

Speaker 11 (01:42:24):
You weird man? Did you see his roast?

Speaker 5 (01:42:26):
Yes?

Speaker 11 (01:42:27):
Yes? I like, yeah, you weird bro like he is.

Speaker 7 (01:42:30):
And I can't decide if like Giselle leaving made him
weirder or if he was weird and she left because
of that. I can't figure it out.

Speaker 11 (01:42:39):
I don't care that much, but I honestly that's a
good thought.

Speaker 14 (01:42:42):
Man like because I've I've considered that a few times
because I'm like the level of competitive you have to
be to be someone like a Tom Brady, like Michael Jordan,
like Tony Hawk, Like you have to be insufferable if
with your will and drive to be as good as
you are. And now, my wife has a PhD in

(01:43:03):
ed policy. She's one of the most self driven people
I know. Even with her just doctoral nerdiness, there's a
level of like, will you chill like about you know,
certain stuff. But we're both like we're both nerds, you
know what I'm saying. So we're both nerds a lot
of ways. But like I can imagine, I can't imagine
being married to someone where you're just like, can we

(01:43:25):
talk about anything anything but this?

Speaker 11 (01:43:28):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (01:43:28):
Anything else?

Speaker 13 (01:43:29):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (01:43:30):
The answer is no, no.

Speaker 14 (01:43:32):
Yeah, So okay, so tell me about Okay, formal training
and upbringing, Like why are you like this?

Speaker 7 (01:43:37):
Why am I?

Speaker 5 (01:43:38):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (01:43:39):
Well, I have a history degree and undergraduate history that
I got. How do I explain why I'm like this?
That's such an interesting question.

Speaker 5 (01:43:46):
So I was.

Speaker 7 (01:43:47):
Raised in South by very conservative white people, Okay, and
I did not understand why I was kind of singled
out a lot growing up. Like, as we said at
the beginning, I'm not Latina. My grandmother's from the Philippines,
and so that was like enough, like enough one dropness
to make all the white people around you, yeah, like

(01:44:07):
very weird. And I didn't get it. And as I
grew up and I realized more about understood more about
the South and about Virginia specifically, which is the capital
of the Confederacy and all that, I got kind of
obsessed with history, Like why are these people like this?
So I've always been into history. I got a history degree,
and then I became you know, I kind of actively
once I got out of my parents' house, to be honest,

(01:44:29):
and I'm not conservative anymore. But once I got out
of my parents' house and discovered like a world of
active I went to college, which is the case for
so many kids who grew up in you know, the
rural South. I went to college, discovered activism and organizing
and people with different opinions. Yeah, and I don't know,
a whole world opened up for me and I got involved.
I've been politically involved ever since. I've done all kinds

(01:44:49):
of things. I've volunteered for campaigns, I've been a clinic, escort,
an abortion clinic here in town, all kinds of it.
But I've worked with the ACLU, so I am like,
I suppose because my family is strange.

Speaker 11 (01:45:03):
I respect it.

Speaker 7 (01:45:03):
Well maybe not strange, maybe just normal for where they're.

Speaker 11 (01:45:06):
From, normal for where they are from. No, I respect that.

Speaker 14 (01:45:09):
In your defense, the Philippines, y'all are the black and
Latinos of.

Speaker 7 (01:45:14):
Asia, Mexicans specific.

Speaker 14 (01:45:17):
Yeah, you're the Mexicans and the black people. That's what's
that's what sucks about being what's great about being Filipino?
Y'all get to be black and Latino and Asian. It's
not fair. My step mom's from the Philippines, So like,
I have this affinity because raised by a Filipino woman. Well,
I was raised by a black woman and a Filipino woman.

Speaker 11 (01:45:33):
Long story.

Speaker 14 (01:45:34):
The point is that that makes a lot of sense, dude,
Like that thing that radicalized you was I'm using radicalized
as a stand in word, but just exposure, right, Like
that's super interesting to know that, like not even the
awareness of because like you said, like you you existed
in this white space and you like, I don't understand
why y'all exactly? Yeah, yeah, what did I do. It's

(01:45:59):
like it's cause you're kind of not You're like, well,
but yeah, I am right, Like it was it was
kind of kind of one of those scenarios or like
or did you kind of like I'm maybe putting a
little more on like you, like you said you weren't
aware of you you're presenting, but did you did you
feel sort of culturally that like I.

Speaker 11 (01:46:18):
Feel like I belong here?

Speaker 9 (01:46:19):
Is that was?

Speaker 11 (01:46:20):
Is that true? Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:46:21):
I mean I didn't understand. I understood that I looked
a little bit different than everybody around me. Fine, yeah,
a little bit not a time, like I'm not you know,
I'm a core a Filipino. Like it's not. I understood
that I looked a little bit different. I did not
understand why that mattered word for a really long time.
And then like the older I got, the more it
would be, Like I go out into school and the

(01:46:41):
sort of racism that I would get would be when
people mistook me for being Latina or when people mistook
me for being black. That's when I would get like
act like really bad. Because where I'm from in Virginia
Beach is the largest Filipino population on the East Coast,
so be if Filipinos being around people were kind of
used to. But it was when people thought that I
was not just other, but a whole other other, you know,

(01:47:02):
than what they were used to.

Speaker 10 (01:47:03):
And I didn't.

Speaker 7 (01:47:04):
I didn't understand, like I was born into this household.
Like we've all watched the same fucking NASCAR races, we
eat the same talten. I have to listen to your
stupid ass Rush Limbaugh, So like, why am I different?
It doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 11 (01:47:19):
That's so interesting.

Speaker 14 (01:47:21):
I love that my undergrad was going to be history,
but it kind of switched to like intercultural studies. I
was just more interested, a little more like sociology. I
majored in illustration and because I wanted to do art
and cultural studies and then did social science for like
grad school. Mine was a little different in the sense
that listeners know. But like my father was a My
father was a black panther, you know what I'm saying.

(01:47:41):
And you know, you know, we grew up in the
space and it wasn't sort of like like you said,
like this like light bulb was not my experience. My
experience was like this is necessary for our survival. And
I think I was more thrown back because which is
again what I want to get to about, Like kind
of the way that you present this stuff is like

(01:48:02):
I feel like this information is available for all of us,
Like it didn't take a lot of digging.

Speaker 11 (01:48:08):
For you to like I feel like it was not.

Speaker 14 (01:48:10):
Really I loved even even you talking about your your
experience in like working in politics and organizing and volunteering
where it's like a lot of times we feel like
the access to entry is much harder than it actually is.

Speaker 11 (01:48:23):
You could just go there, just.

Speaker 14 (01:48:24):
Go over there and just be like, yo, can I help,
and it's really like it really be that easy, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:48:30):
And people will be so happy to have you.

Speaker 14 (01:48:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, I just feel like especially
you're You're I'm jumping around, but like you You're Trump's
l's for the week are like, I mean, it's right there,
like you know what I'm saying, Like he'd just be
saying I.

Speaker 11 (01:48:46):
Don't take a lot of work, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 14 (01:48:48):
Like, but obviously us as like you know, having formal
training and research and fact checking and tumble checks, like
you know, like having the formal training that definitely helps me.

Speaker 11 (01:48:57):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 14 (01:48:58):
But besides that, sometimes I'll be like, well, this is
just I mean, this is what he said he was
going to do, and then it didn't happen. So I'm like,
that's an l ain't it? Like, I just don't it.
Don't be that hard. Okay, Now the next question is
about your sense of humor, so like why are you
so funny?

Speaker 11 (01:49:16):
Like what why are you like that? Because I mean,
I love it.

Speaker 7 (01:49:21):
I'm mean to people you're not supposed to be mean to, Like,
you know, there's such an Americans let me rephrase this.
White Americans have such an ingrained, like inherent respect for
positions of authority, like like the president, Like how can
you talk shit about the president?

Speaker 13 (01:49:35):
You know?

Speaker 7 (01:49:36):
I don't care.

Speaker 11 (01:49:37):
Because he trash, because he's garment.

Speaker 7 (01:49:39):
I don't give a shit the color of a rusted
out worstrop. What do I care? So I have no
problems being being mean, and I'm mean in ways that
give people like permission to be a little like thrilled
by it or a little delighted by it. And that provides,
I think, an entry away for people to learn a

(01:49:59):
little bit of I love it. I don't know, America,
We're not We're not great again, I should clarify white America, specifically,
especially my people.

Speaker 11 (01:50:06):
I was like, oh no, man, I ever really yeah, yeah,
you're right.

Speaker 7 (01:50:10):
Yeah, Like the people that I speak to are a
lot of like suburban moms, right, I'm a forty one
year old mom, and they are not used to middle fingers.

Speaker 11 (01:50:19):
Up at all.

Speaker 7 (01:50:20):
Especially Yeah recently, you know, like Biden got an office
and everybody kind of fell asleep. Yeah, a democratic why
people fell asleep. So being mean and just pulling out
some claws. It's both like funny and fun for me,
but it's also strategic because I do want there to
be I want to present a permission structure for people
to start learning to have a bit more backbone.

Speaker 11 (01:50:40):
I love that. I love that. I love that, Like
you said, the term you use is permission, and that's
what I enjoyed. I think that.

Speaker 14 (01:50:47):
Yeah, like knowing that, like you're from the South and
that like adds even more of a color to what's
happening here makes me like it even more. Yeah, I
don't have no second thoughts about dragging a public figure,

(01:51:08):
a politician like I. I have no second thoughts about it
because again, like you asked for this, you know, what
I'm saying, You signed up for this, you said you
was gonna be this, Like all right, I'm about to
get real black, But like there's parts of me that's
just like, Okay, are you a bitch ass nigga? You
know what I'm saying, Like, and I'm like, there are

(01:51:28):
ways for me to be able to know if you are?
You presented yourself like you a real one, And I'm like, okay,
well there's qualifying entry points for me to do that,
you know what I'm saying, Like we learn I'll respect
in our culture, you respect your elders for their position

(01:51:49):
as elders, But do I respect that person as a person.

Speaker 11 (01:51:53):
No, you gotta earn that.

Speaker 14 (01:51:54):
But authority figures are different. You're in a corrupt system,
this system already don't like me, and you're applying for
a job, and the job you applying for is governance.
So I'm like, I don't give fuck about you. Like yo,
I'm saying, like no, but there is something unique. I

(01:52:15):
think about your particular intersections as ethnically ambiguous, from the South,
highly educated, you know, and unfortunately in a patriarchal, misogynistic
world of female right which I already know greats at

(01:52:35):
so much, which I think I appreciate probably the most
when you have time to like drag a comments or oh,
like obviously men are not okay, Like we know.

Speaker 11 (01:52:49):
That ship is sailed, we're not okay. You know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 14 (01:52:52):
Part of me feels like now this is like as
much as I've evolved in my feminism, and you know,
I'm the father of two daughters, and you know, I've
learned to like really not understand how I was the
problem to become to understand that I'm the problem, you know,
even in just my ways of communicating, my advocacy stuff
like that, my blind spots and all that. And I'm with,

(01:53:12):
you know what I'm saying, I have nephews. I don't
have like I said, I don't have sons, but I
have I have nephews who I've like realized that I
carried a lot of ways for which I thought I
was supposed to talk to my daughter versus talking to
a son, you know I'm saying. And I'm like, and
I said, well, I'm but talk to my daughter the
way I would talk to my son, you know, and
just stupid, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 11 (01:53:33):
And then but even just being like man.

Speaker 14 (01:53:35):
Like sometimes my nephew could use like a gentle voice,
like you know, a man just like him that could
just be real gentle you know what I'm saying, like bro,
like man, I'm sorry you sick man. It sucks when
you get your feelings hurt, Like I get it, you
know what I'm saying, Like being able to be gentle
with him too. That said, I feel like I come
from an era where words have consequences. You know, you

(01:53:57):
say something to somebody might slap the shit out of you. Yes,
you know what I'm saying, so like you watch your mouth.
You know what I'm saying. Be cause like now, granted, I've,
like I said, I've grown to where that like I
don't know what the fuck you think you're talking to,
Like I don't say that no more, you know what
I'm saying, Where it's just like, okay, I have learned
that that's not the person I need to be. However,

(01:54:17):
I feel like a lot of these young men, especially
in your comments sections, like they didn't have no big
homies like I did. That would be like, m boy,
if you don't shut you know what I'm saying, Like
you know and just being like son, like, yes, so
you can't just be talking. And I come from a
city where she might slap the shit at you. Will
you know what I'm saying. She wills, not just like

(01:54:39):
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 11 (01:54:40):
I'm saying.

Speaker 14 (01:54:40):
So I'm like, bro, you can't just be talking. So anyway,
that's a long preamble to say. I appreciate when you
take the time to drag a comment, So please tell me,
Please tell me the origins of that.

Speaker 7 (01:54:52):
Yeah. So I have two sons. Okay, they are twins,
they'll be fifteen in a few weeks. And I care
a lot. Actually, I get a lot of shit for
this from people on the left, from liberals as well,
especially from women that I care a lot about men,
and yeah, them not being okay, you know.

Speaker 11 (01:55:10):
I care, Yeah they're not ok Yeah, because I have two.

Speaker 7 (01:55:12):
Boys, and I don't want that to be them. I
see the traps, yeah, that are waiting for them out there,
that are being placed on purpose for sure by bad actors.
So I want policy and conversations and acceptance and help
for the men and the boys.

Speaker 4 (01:55:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:55:26):
And also when it's almost always, you know, like some
Republican mouth breather who follows a bunch of AI pornbots
gets into my comments to talk to me some kind
of way. I decided that I was going to make
an example of them, because these are people who have
never experienced a consequence.

Speaker 5 (01:55:42):
Yes, ever, that's what I like.

Speaker 7 (01:55:44):
If you're a fifty year old white man, you have
never experienced a consequence for running your mouth. That's what
I'm saying, and I'm going to be that consequence for you.

Speaker 11 (01:55:51):
You're welcome, yes, thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:55:54):
And it just disgusts me because again they're almost always
following like a bunch of teenage AI bots, you know,
all of these just yeah, it's completely inappropriate behavior. They
do not understand the concept of matching energy. They're completely
shocked when they comment to my comments and give me
shit and then I match their energy. They're always just
a gast that like, how dare I? Well you Darren? First?

Speaker 14 (01:56:18):
What I'm just like, yeah, like for somebody who swear
they so like you, so tough and hard, I'm like, man,
little cupcake.

Speaker 11 (01:56:24):
Ass like one of the earliest.

Speaker 14 (01:56:27):
I mean, I'm telling you the earliest lesson I got
as a child, and I still say it to my kids.
You don't dish out what you can't take, like you don't,
don't put it out there if you can't handle it.
You know, So if you go get jokes and that
person roast you back. I come from. That's our culture.
It's like even even around family, it's just like bro,

(01:56:48):
I was having a conversation with one of the parents, like,
because I have the type of job I have, I
do a lot of the pickups, the after school pickups.

Speaker 11 (01:56:56):
Yeah you know, so I was talking to one of them.

Speaker 14 (01:56:59):
Yes, yes, so I was talking to one of the
moms just about like nicknames, growing up whatever, right, And
my mother biting sarcasm is super funny, brilliant, but like
fire baptized, speaking in tongues, praying the house down, she
is a biting sarcasm.

Speaker 11 (01:57:15):
And I was like, she used to call me the
before picture she just just cold his ice and I
was just like dang.

Speaker 14 (01:57:25):
But again it's like she could she could always give
it back, you know what I'm saying, So like we
you just so you just knew, like if you was
gonna get your feelings hurt, I don't know if you
can handle that, you know, And even like specifically with
the young ladies, it's just like, bro, like, I'm like,
you follow with porn bots. Like part of me like
again in the most misogynistic possible it's like, nigga, you
ain't got no flavor cuz like right, you're weirdo, like

(01:57:49):
that's why you're doing this.

Speaker 7 (01:57:50):
Yeah, and they claim like this is a group of people,
you know whatever, I'm conservative Jena x men, Yeah, who
claim a level of cultural dominance that that's what they're
expressing when they come into the my comments section to
yell at me. This like cultural dominance they think they
have and it's completely manufactured. Yeah, you dominate no one.
No one look at you like, and that's kind of
the point that and I yeah, part of me is like, well,

(01:58:14):
maybe I'm being too mean, but also I feel like
I'm doing them a favor, like you really are you
have no actual self esteem? You have no self esteem
is built by doing estimable things. And when you spend
all of your time online just yelling at women, of course, yeah,
there's nothing esteemable there.

Speaker 14 (01:58:28):
It's so silly man, Like, I mean, we're totally off
the rails here. But I love this because it's very
important to me because I'm just like when my oldest
was in like junior high. Like I was trying to
tell my wife, Like I was like, the thing is,
we have been experiencing rejection since fifth grade, and it's
because I'm planning this all week to go actually approach Natasha,

(01:58:49):
like you're thinking about it all week when I'm gonna
wear the right outfit, I'm gonna do this. You go
over there, you say something to her. She giggles to
all her friends and runs away and says you it's
just like, okay, that's the first time you got your
heartbroken as a little boy, right, So fast forward to
middle school. Oh my god, will you dance with me?
You know, okay, you did it again. By time, these
dudes are in the club and it's like, hey, hey,

(01:59:11):
red jeans, red jeans, red jeans.

Speaker 11 (01:59:13):
You want to dance? No or whatever? Fuck you?

Speaker 14 (01:59:16):
You know what I'm saying. It's just like, you know,
you go through this. But all that to say, hopefully,
if you have a healthy sense, you start learning, like
hey man, you catch more.

Speaker 11 (01:59:26):
Bees with honey bro like or you know what I'm saying, Like,
maybe there's a better.

Speaker 14 (01:59:29):
Way to communicate with people, and you just got to
understand that, Like I just think you don't know how
to talk to people, like you don't know, like she
got the right to be like no, thank you, and
you gotta be like okay, word, you know what I'm saying.
You shot your shot, like I'm trying to be like
as bland as passable. Look, you shoot your shot, you
don't you don't make every shot.

Speaker 11 (01:59:47):
Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Like, you don't make
every shot, You're gonna hit one of them. You know
what I'm saying.

Speaker 14 (01:59:51):
Somebody gonna want to dance with you, and you're just like, okay, great,
you know it was a good time. You know, hey,
can we No, Okay, you know what I'm saying. It's
just it is what it is. Your point, I think
either I don't. It's so weird to be explained because
I just I don't relate to it. I don't relate
to somebody who doesn't understand that, like Broll, you're a
total stranger, Like I don't care about your opinion number one,

(02:00:13):
And why do you feel like you have the right.

Speaker 11 (02:00:16):
To like what is you doing?

Speaker 14 (02:00:18):
Like it's just it's embarrassing roh, Like yeah, like so anyway,
I enjoy it, but I think you brought up something
that I would love to hear you talk more about,
like all this to say, like this is the note
I wrote. It's like, I feel like this type of
dragging is not only needed, but I think it's holy right,
and I think it's a divine, sacred work to like

(02:00:41):
truly roast a person. And I think when it comes
to you in politics, it's because you know what you're
talking about.

Speaker 11 (02:00:49):
It makes it even more important.

Speaker 14 (02:00:51):
But I guess my question is, like, do you think
that there is something greater than just this is funny
going on there?

Speaker 5 (02:00:57):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (02:00:57):
Yeah, for sure. I know it seems like it's for
the lulls or whatever, or the views of the clicker
of your engagement or whatever. But there's very little that
I do in my content that's not strategic. And again
it goes back to permission. Like you said, these men
don't know me. Yeah, I don't care what they think
about about me. I'm doing great. You know, you know

(02:01:19):
you're free to hate me. I don't care. But I
want to again provide a permission structure, especially for other
women who exist online and who in this moment especially
want to start raising their voices, to learn how to
clap back, like, you have got to learn if you're
going to be out there, especially right now in the
world as a woman, you have got to learn how
to tell somebody to fuck off in a way that

(02:01:41):
that matter, that they will hear. Yeah, you know, because
a lot of times men won't hear no. You know
that the president doesn't know what the word not means.
But if you can say it artfully and mean it
with your whole chest, oftentimes it will work. So it's
almost like providing an example, especially for women who are
a little younger than me because I'm in my four now,
how to detach themselves from the value assigned to them

(02:02:04):
by random men who gives a fuck for show.

Speaker 14 (02:02:09):
And like the seasoning on top of that is just
corny ass man, Like just yes, you are a cornball.
Like that's where it's like, it's not the problem, but
it's the part that just like gets under my fingernails,
is like you're so fucking corny.

Speaker 11 (02:02:24):
Like you know what I'm saying. Yeah, So I'm like,
why are you doing this? Like you're the same guy, bro, Like.

Speaker 7 (02:02:30):
It's the same guy every time.

Speaker 4 (02:02:32):
Why are y'all?

Speaker 11 (02:02:33):
Who where is this aesthetic?

Speaker 14 (02:02:35):
And then I'm just like speaking your language, like I
don't know a single female that likes this, Like who anyway,
let's go back to the to the profession, even though
I do love that that's a part of the thing,
like you mentioned before, formerly trained in history, you know
your whiteboard stuff, like you're obviously very well researched, and

(02:02:56):
I have my cynical answer to this, but like it's
just so bizarre to me how specifically if we're gonna
use these binaries of like right wing and left wing,
like especially like content creation, to where I'm just like, Okay,
we know that that's a grift, we know that's a hustle,
we know you're doing that, but like but even with that,
I'm just like they just be factually wrong to where

(02:03:18):
I'm just like I'm not even like I'm not even
worried about your position. I can't even get to your
positions yet. I'm just saying, like you ain't doing no homework.
I can't square that circle to me. But like what
you do and I know what I do too, is
because I guess, because I guess we care about reality.

Speaker 11 (02:03:34):
Is like I mean, do a lot of homework. You
know what I'm saying so.

Speaker 14 (02:03:37):
Like I would love to know a little bit about
your process as far as like your homework, your research,
maybe what.

Speaker 11 (02:03:42):
Some tools you use before you even put it on.

Speaker 14 (02:03:44):
Like I mean, I've there's been times I've had to
be like, hey, guys, hey, I fucked up. I thought
it was you know what I'm saying, Like I'll come
back and fact check myself, but I'll just be like,
I don't understand fact check it all. Like I feel
like I don't even That's why I won't do like
jubileese or any to I'll be like.

Speaker 7 (02:04:00):
Oh I've refused. No, absolutely not. I'm like, yeah that ye, No,
that's not my actual nightmare a stress stream of being
in a jubilee. Yeah, I think that the way that
like you were saying, the way that it's approached makes
a difference. So like, I'm not here for a media career.
I'm not here to make a bajillion dollars and become
an influencer and go work on Chuck Schumer's reelection campaign.

(02:04:23):
I don't give a shit about any of that.

Speaker 9 (02:04:25):
No, thank you.

Speaker 7 (02:04:25):
I am here. I don't falk what Chuck.

Speaker 11 (02:04:27):
Suber Yeah, no, thank you.

Speaker 7 (02:04:29):
I am here with a mission, and my mission is
to help people who are probably just getting plugged in,
or even people have been plugged in for a while
and are getting tired, understand how power operates in America politically,
historically and now. And that takes a lot of digging
and a lot of research and a lot of fact checking,
as you were saying, So I need people to trust me,

(02:04:50):
because if they don't trust me, they're not going to
take my advice. They're not going to get involved in
the places I tell them to get involved. There's not
going to be any strategy to the ways that people
are formulating their resistance with their opposition to rising authoritarianism.
So it matters a great deal that I am right
in the things that I'm saying, yeah, and that it's
accurate at least. I mean, I'm not saying my takes

(02:05:11):
are always right. And of course, like you said, I
make mistakes sometimes and I will go back and correct myself.
But I mean, you know, I've been an American history
person for twenty years now, so I do have a
pretty big base of knowledge. Yeah, but I am going
to go back before I say a word and like
double check my dates, double check like was this person

(02:05:31):
in the House of the Senate, you know, what was
the bill number? Like, I am going to do all
of that, and that takes a lot of digging. Like
I don't I don't think it's on purpose necessarily, but
going through congressional records is everything is very scattered. Nothing
is in one place. You're checking fourteen different you know, resources, Congress,
dot Gov and all these other things. And I have
to collalate all of that and put it together and
it takes hours, you know, hours. Yeah, but it's my

(02:05:53):
full time job now, so yeah, that's fine. But when
I was working full time, when I had like a
corporate job, I was in big tech up until June
of last year.

Speaker 1 (02:06:02):
Wow, So it was it was.

Speaker 7 (02:06:04):
Just a lot of hours. It was eighteen nineteen hour days.
I slept almost sees zero. I mean it's better now,
but yeah, I mean, I am very dedicated to making
sure that the thing that I'm putting out there is trustworthy,
is not emotionally reactive like I'm I think that is
something that separates me from other creators, especially on the left,
is I'm not trying to get a rise out of you.
I'm not trying to make you that's so dopanic. I'm

(02:06:26):
not doing that, Like that should terrify every American. I'm
not doing that. Shit. You're an adult. If you want
to be terrified, be terrified. I don't care. Like your
feelings are your own problem. Yeah, I'm telling you what's happening,
how it's rooted in American history, and what you can
do about it, and like what people have done about
it in the past. When similar things have happened, something
similar is probably happened, and so like, yeah, that's my strategy.

Speaker 14 (02:06:47):
Yeah again, very much so like a kinsman like spirit
in that. Yeah, Like I'm not I'm ultimately an educator,
you know what I'm saying, And I'm like, I'm really
just trying to onboard you to be like hey, bro,
like these people aren't smarter than you.

Speaker 9 (02:06:59):
You know.

Speaker 14 (02:07:00):
Yes, lastly, like I would ask because you kind of
just brought it up like some sort of like historical
parallels as far as like lessons from the past, like

(02:07:20):
do you have any that like come to mind, like
off the head?

Speaker 7 (02:07:23):
Oh yes, how much time do you have?

Speaker 5 (02:07:25):
No?

Speaker 7 (02:07:26):
I know people always always always want to talk about
Nazi Germany right now, and like I get it, Okay,
I'm not saying that there are no commonalities. Of course
there are. It's so important to me that we focus
on the commonalities that we have in American history because
we are so different from Germany. Yeah, Germany was like
very ethnically homogeneous. It's a tactic, a small country compared

(02:07:48):
to ours. Yes, they don't have the same issues that
we had. They had they you know, Nazi Germany came
out of a very particular time place and people. We
are a different time place and people. So there's that
like studying not to German if you want, I'm not
saying don't, but if you're going to study Nazi Germany,
but you're not going to look at the Black Panthers,
and you're not going to look at the Civil rights movement,
and you're not going to look at reconstruction, and you're
not going to look at Jim Crow.

Speaker 4 (02:08:09):
Yes.

Speaker 7 (02:08:09):
Yes, you're not going to come up with any viable solutions. Yes,
because resistance in Germany came from the Soviet Union coming
into right and you know, but resistance in America comes
from black and indigenous and Latino people, yes, and like
we did it y yes, and labor movements and all
and so you have got to become more familiar with

(02:08:32):
your own people, with your own people. And that's a
little difficult in America, right because we're like, you know,
we're not really a melting pot. We're more of like
a weird mixed chopped salad. Yes, but we tend to
be in our little on purpose are separated, segregated neighborhoods
and our segregated schools, and we don't associate with and
we do like Black History Month, and then we forget
to read about any other point of Black history outside

(02:08:54):
of that. Yeah, and we'll do like Indigenous People's Day
on Columbus Day and never read another piece of Hitt.
And all that is is a disservice because those are
the effect of resistance methods that we can take and
carry forward as we move through this administration.

Speaker 11 (02:09:08):
And we will, we.

Speaker 7 (02:09:08):
Will come out on the other side.

Speaker 11 (02:09:10):
But like love it.

Speaker 7 (02:09:11):
Even something like the guilded Age, right, like that I
think is one of the most important historical analogs the
late nineteenth century because in the guilded Age, we had
an oligarchy, there was no income tax like the Rockefellers.
There was so much corruption at every level of government,
Jim Crow was on the rise, was being born out
of that era. Labor unions were coming online and all

(02:09:32):
of that, Like, there are so many parallels, but we
made so many mistakes. Then we made so many We
let the clan come back, Our labor unions were segregated,
purposefully segregated. We got lots of things like the FDA
and government regulations and things like that that were born
out of all this corruption. But then we went way
too far into scoldy moralizing and got prohibition, which was

(02:09:54):
a terrible idea. So we need to avoid that. We
need to avoid leaving behind people like we did during
the Gilded Age, because that's what Americans tend to do.
We have we like momentum, we like forward, we like progress,
and we leave behind all these people who've been oppressed
and marginalized and we just ignore them. So we need
to we need to look at our own history and
learn not just from the effective resistance of the past,

(02:10:16):
but the mistakes we made in the past. And we
can't really do that looking at Nazi Germany because that
ended with.

Speaker 11 (02:10:21):
Those yeah exactly, I don't like.

Speaker 7 (02:10:24):
He killed himself and then we you know, set up
NATO and left yeah, yeah, and that's not what we
need to do here.

Speaker 14 (02:10:33):
My biggest gripe was like yeah, like especially with like
the leftover Nazis, was like we didn't go hard enough
on you. You know what I'm saying, Like we should
have like really stamped that out, but you really cook
him in, Like I mean you already nailed it. I see, Yeah,
Gilded Age slave catchers, Like to me, this is like
this some dread Scot shit to me, yes, you know
what I'm saying, And yeah, all that like because that

(02:10:53):
was like we're saying, okay, who's a citizen.

Speaker 11 (02:10:56):
Yeah, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 14 (02:10:57):
That was the dread Scott question, right or just like
you know, States rights versus Federal rights, Marlboi versus Madison,
like all this stuff like you said, like we've already
fleshed out that in my mind is playing. But the
Gilded Age thing is like nah, dude, like you cooking,
because man, you got me all excited in my history.

Speaker 11 (02:11:13):
I'm excited now. I wish you could see my toes tapping.

Speaker 14 (02:11:15):
But like yeah, cause I'm like, okay, you think of
like the Pinkertons, you think about like the ways for
which a collective movement being broke in the sense that
like you had these you know, steel workers in Pittsburgh
that would strike and then they would just go get
freed slaves to be like well, y'all could go do this,
And it's like, man, what the hell you want me
to do?

Speaker 11 (02:11:36):
You know what I'm saying, Like.

Speaker 7 (02:11:37):
Like exactly, yes, I mean any choice.

Speaker 11 (02:11:40):
I don't have no choice. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 14 (02:11:41):
It's like to the regime, like touche, it was a
really good move, you know what I'm saying as somebody
trying to hold on to a regime, But like what
like to your point, like it's it's always like and
this is the hard part for me, even talking about
Black history, which is something I want to come back
to with Like the cost of this is different for
like African American communities. This this costs us more. You

(02:12:03):
know what I'm saying, it's going to in the long
run cost us all. Don't get me wrong, but what
you're asking, especially at that moment, going back to the
guilded dage, what you're asking me to step into. We're
not ponying up the same amount of money here, you
know what I'm saying, so I just wonder, like you said,
like what are those lessons me living in Los Angeles,

(02:12:24):
like you know, with the ice rage being a part
of like deeply student in the Latino community, Like what's
the strategic cause, you know, black people get out there,
police open fire. You know what I'm saying, Like they
gonna kill us, you know what I mean? So like
is this strategic by us? Like kind of like, well,
we'll be in the back row, Like what's happening here?

(02:12:44):
You know what I'm saying? Like, so what are those lessons?
What are ways for which we can like, like you said,
like look at how America has responded to its you
know hydra, that's that's rearing itself.

Speaker 11 (02:13:01):
Is an interesting thing.

Speaker 14 (02:13:02):
But I think the last thing before I ask you
about predictions is this thing about about black history, this
being Black History Month. So the hard part for me
is like especially with like like I taught high school
for six years, you know, when when discussing blackness or
like you said, Indigenous Day or whatever, like it's this

(02:13:24):
carve out, right, that is, you know, a corrective force, right,
but the carve out a lot of times tends to
just be like trivia, like vocabulary like, oh.

Speaker 11 (02:13:34):
Did you know that this person?

Speaker 5 (02:13:35):
Did you do?

Speaker 11 (02:13:35):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 14 (02:13:36):
And it's like, of course, cause you're trying to like
I get it, you're trying to wet the appetite, you
know what I'm saying. But it's a carve out to me,
that's not in the context. It's not context inbedded, it's
not a part of history. It's this carveout that's taught
as trivia, you know what I'm saying, and.

Speaker 7 (02:13:51):
Like an afterthought, yeah, or an adult it's like an afterthought.

Speaker 14 (02:13:54):
But then like you said, but then never talked about
again as if like what it's like, well, we were
there whole time, We're in every chapter, we're we're in
all the semesters you're about to talk through like we.

Speaker 11 (02:14:06):
Was at all of them, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 14 (02:14:08):
And it's just like, so we're just gonna not point
at the black people for the rest of the year
when you talk about this while there needs to be
and of course I'm a product of it, like the
specificity of a moment to say, I just want to
stop right here and say that this person was this
you know what I'm saying, But like, what are ways
for which we can reimbed the female voices, the indigenous voices,

(02:14:32):
the black voices, back into just the curriculum period, which
is bastardized by what Maggot's trying to say. You know
what I'm saying, like the bastardized version of that that
is clearly obviously racist, you know what I'm saying. It
was like which so like a lot of times we
start talking about this, they'd be like, you know what,
that's our point, and I'm like, hold up, cuz that's
not your point, Joe'm saying, that's not the point you

(02:14:53):
make it, right. The point I'm making is saying we
were there the whole time. Yeah, and I wouldn't love
to have the dignity of being there the whole time,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 11 (02:15:05):
So so I say that to echo.

Speaker 14 (02:15:06):
Your point about like we're just gonna stop talking about
natives after indigited like they was there.

Speaker 11 (02:15:13):
You'll say it like.

Speaker 7 (02:15:14):
Yeah, and it matters today, Like I just got into
it on threads or Instagram or whatever some platform with
some leftist which is I'm not it's not a criticism
of leftism, but he was saying like he was criticizing
Kamala Harris's campaign. Fine, I don't care Kamala Harris, but

(02:15:34):
he was a white guy and he was saying she
kept making pitches about what she could do for the
black community, but she never said what she could do
for white people. And I was like, my good bitch,
you made that up, Like she went on all black
podcasts once and you gek that to mean that she
didn't care about white people. Yeah, and like, second of all,

(02:15:56):
what part of like first time home buyer tax credits
to you? I only care about black people. Like the
idea that policies or history books or whatever that have
black people in them, or that would benefit black people
only benefit black people is one of the reasons why
we're in this stupid situation that we're in nout because, Yeah,

(02:16:18):
it's bizarre the recognition of how black and Indigenous and
Latino people have been in this country since the beginning.
The Spanish have been here longer, the English Spanish has
been spoken in this country longer than English. Yeah, to
put open in that that raises everyone's boats, Like policies
that benefit our marginalized communities benefit everyone else, Like the

(02:16:41):
rising tide truly does raise all of the ships. And
we can't get to an understanding of that without understanding
the history because like take for example, what we're dealing
with right now, mostly direct attacks on the fourteenth Amendment,
which is a Reconstruction era amendment.

Speaker 11 (02:16:55):
Guys, yes, and we'll attack that, yeh.

Speaker 7 (02:16:58):
And attacks on the Voting Rights Ade of nineteen sixty five,
which was which was passed to make to ensure that
all black citizens could vote for us. So the things
that are fucking up white people right now are because
you don't understand what we got them in the first place.

Speaker 5 (02:17:11):
Yes, that's my rant.

Speaker 14 (02:17:13):
You couldn't now you know that that was my exact point.
You're making my exact point. Or I'm just like no,
this is like we were here, We're part of the country.
So last thing is like, besides the prediction of not counting,
Trump going to try to cancel the midterms, which is
like I was like, I don't know why we talking
about midtimers, he gonna try to cancel. But besides that,

(02:17:36):
like who should we have our eye on?

Speaker 7 (02:17:38):
What do you think, oh, for the midterms over twenty
eight midterms? Okay, I think we're going to win the midterms.

Speaker 11 (02:17:45):
Okay, I think.

Speaker 7 (02:17:46):
That the decentralization, the federalization of elections, the way that
every state runs their own elections, I don't see a
logistical way for him to prevent that from happening. Period,
he could tell yeah state not to have elections. I
suppose the only ones that would obey him would be
red states, in which case we would have a congressional

(02:18:07):
election of only Democrats that go to the hill.

Speaker 4 (02:18:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (02:18:10):
Fine, Yeah, that's good to me.

Speaker 7 (02:18:12):
That's how we got the Reconstruction era amendment, was the
conservatives in the South state home and didn't go to Congress.
So fine, But I don't think that's going to happen
because there are too many Republicans in red states who
want to run for governors and who want to be senators,
and they're already having fund raisers. So I do think
we're going to have the midterms, and I think we're
going to win. And I'm basing that on the special
elections that we've been having, sure since January of last year.

(02:18:33):
And it's not just you know, I mean, special elections
are different. We were like plus thirteen on average overperformance
and special elections. That's not going to replicate itself in
the midterms because special elections tend to be like very partisan.
People are very dedicated to coming out. But in the
last couple of special elections that we've had in Texas,
New Jersey, Louisiana, Republicans have flipped. Yeah, and that is

(02:18:54):
where I'm like, oh, it's in the back, Like maybe
the majority won't be huge. I don't know that it's
going to be a landslide because they're going to fuck
with it whatever. Voter suppression is real, But I do
think that at least the House we're gonna we're gonna win,
and the Senate I'm looking at. I think Alaska is
super interesting. Ohio, North Carolina for sure. Everybody loves word
Cooper in North Carolina. Yeah, Texas, whether you like Jasmine,
crocod or Tallerico, either one of them are interesting. You know, Yeah,

(02:19:17):
Texas could be interesting.

Speaker 11 (02:19:18):
So yeah, I think it's love it.

Speaker 7 (02:19:20):
If I were a Republican, I would be very nervous.

Speaker 14 (02:19:22):
You better be, because like you can't pretzel yourself any worse.
Like I think people forget that, like ambition didn't die
when Trump became president. People still are ambitious and at
some point you won't realize like shit ain't working, Homie.

Speaker 11 (02:19:37):
Which rings the last way? If we got time. Yeah,
let me ask you about twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 9 (02:19:40):
What do you think.

Speaker 7 (02:19:43):
It's too it's too No, God, No, he's not gonna.

Speaker 5 (02:19:46):
Make it that long.

Speaker 14 (02:19:48):
I was like, he's gonna I keep telling all my friends.
I was like, I think you have to accept that
he's gonna die in office anyway.

Speaker 7 (02:19:54):
But yeah, yeah, he's not gonna make it. It's gonna be.
It's gonna be Vance. Although I think he'll have some
competition maybe from Marjorie Tiller Green. I think she's going
to try to run.

Speaker 11 (02:20:03):
I think Marjorie's running well. About Tuck.

Speaker 7 (02:20:06):
Tucker, I think he might go for like a cabinet position.
You think so he's just like a stupid little bow tie.
I don't think anybody would go for him. I don't know.

Speaker 11 (02:20:14):
Okay, stand at me. I really don't, like you can't.

Speaker 7 (02:20:18):
But yeah, he's so unlikable. Yeah, but so is jd.

Speaker 9 (02:20:21):
Vance.

Speaker 7 (02:20:21):
To be honest anyway, on our side, you know, it's
so early, Yeah, and I think that there are people
who are starting to poke their heads up now, Like
I think Osof in Georgia is starting to be a
little and he's the best fundraiser in seven So the
two best fundraisers are actually a ticket. I would really
be interested in, which is OSOF and AOC. They're the
two best fund raiders in the party, and that's a ticket.

(02:20:44):
I would not be upset.

Speaker 11 (02:20:44):
About, you know, AO, AOC ticket would be crazy.

Speaker 7 (02:20:48):
I'm not necessarily on the Newsome train. I'm not gonna lie,
I'm not really on the Newsom train.

Speaker 14 (02:20:52):
Sister Taylor secret about California feels about I know, I know,
which is not so much of a secret.

Speaker 7 (02:21:00):
Yeah, not so hot.

Speaker 14 (02:21:01):
We we'd definitely be looking at our like our like
red our Orange counties are our red stations, and they'd
be like Gavin newsowhere like yeah no.

Speaker 11 (02:21:10):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 7 (02:21:11):
Sure, hard degree.

Speaker 11 (02:21:12):
Yeah no for real, same heart degree. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:21:16):
Anyway, I appreciate that he was one of the first
high profile Democrats to stand up to Trump in this administration.
I appreciate that That's not good enough reason for me
to make a president.

Speaker 14 (02:21:26):
Not the president. Yeah, I'm like, you're not. Yeah, you're
not a flaming bag of shit.

Speaker 11 (02:21:30):
I got it. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like,
you're a DC.

Speaker 7 (02:21:32):
Hell, you're not a fascist.

Speaker 14 (02:21:33):
Yeah you're not a fascist, Like okay, but you're willing
to get on a podcast because for some reason you
want like I don't understand.

Speaker 11 (02:21:40):
Where your where's your code?

Speaker 4 (02:21:41):
You know?

Speaker 14 (02:21:42):
And also I'm like, I don't know, man, you know,
a grown man like that still slicking his hair back
is it's just odd to me.

Speaker 7 (02:21:50):
That's going to do it for some like sixty year
old ladies in the suffer. He's going to have like
a Kennedy thing, you know, like, oh he's so handsome,
but that's but so.

Speaker 11 (02:21:59):
Is awesome Hoodsop's handsome.

Speaker 14 (02:22:01):
Yeah maybe I don't know, bro, Yeah, you just I
feel like you like I feel like, here's the thing.

Speaker 11 (02:22:06):
Here's the thing about about we need to end this.

Speaker 14 (02:22:08):
But the thing about Gavin to me is I'm like,
there's this just like sheen to where it's just like, oh,
you need to be liked, and like, you know, it's
this whole like la transplant thing, like you know where
everybody's like, oh it's so Hollywood and we're like natives
are like those are all transplants. We're not like that,
you know what I'm saying. So, but to me, he

(02:22:29):
just has that to where I'm just like, oh, you
need to be the prom king. You need to like, Oh,
you need this too much? You feel me like, and
to me, I'm like, oh I don't. I can't. I
can't ride like this. You need to you, you need
you need to be popular too much. I don't.

Speaker 7 (02:22:44):
Yeah, I prefer president.

Speaker 11 (02:22:46):
I can't trust you.

Speaker 9 (02:22:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:22:47):
They need to resent being there a little bit. I
feel like it needs to feel like you.

Speaker 11 (02:22:50):
Gotta like you gotta kind of be like, I'll be
all right if it don't work out.

Speaker 7 (02:22:54):
Yeah, you know, there needs to be a sense of
service entitlement.

Speaker 11 (02:22:58):
Man, my camera turns off every half hour. I don't
know why.

Speaker 14 (02:23:01):
I stuff to figure that out anyway, but that's a
good sign for us to wrap this up. Please, can
you drop all the at mentions for your stuff so
that these people can enjoy what I enjoy.

Speaker 7 (02:23:12):
It's Amanda's mild takes everywhere except not Blue Sky. I
can deal with that, but.

Speaker 14 (02:23:16):
Everywhere else, Yeah, Amanda's mile takes with the Pettysburg addressed.
It's brilliant. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you,
we appreciate it. Y'all go please, you know she'd be
alway air dropping gyms.

Speaker 11 (02:23:29):
It's just a good time.

Speaker 3 (02:23:45):
This is it could happen here in Executive Disorder, our
weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the
crumbling world, and what it means for you.

Speaker 11 (02:23:53):
I'm Garrison Davis today.

Speaker 3 (02:23:54):
I'm joined by Sophie Lichtermann, James Stout, and Robert Evans.
This episode, we're covering the week of February fourth to
February eleventh. It was the Super Bowl. Wasn't that fun?
I heard it was streaming on Peacock this year, so
I built it up my Peacock account, went to the
sports section and was surprised at how few Americans there

(02:24:18):
were and how many other flags there were. And I
do not remember this much skating typically at previous the
previous Super Bowl shows or the ski jumping, But I
mean I was it was still fun to watch people compete.

Speaker 1 (02:24:32):
Uh huh.

Speaker 11 (02:24:32):
Yeah, this is because I was watching the Winter Olympics.

Speaker 1 (02:24:35):
Get it it's I did, I did, I did get it.

Speaker 2 (02:24:38):
Good work gear, no fun stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:24:40):
What's your favorite Winter Olympics? And Lane Garrison as a.

Speaker 3 (02:24:42):
Canadian, Honestly, the ski jumping is pretty exciting.

Speaker 11 (02:24:45):
They really fly, Yeah, they do.

Speaker 6 (02:24:48):
That video of that guy that went viral that did
like a under six minute mile on skis uphill.

Speaker 3 (02:24:54):
Yeah, going uphill.

Speaker 1 (02:24:56):
It's crazy to me.

Speaker 5 (02:24:56):
Clear he's not going for a mile, like, he just
goes uphill, like the whole course is like a mile. Ash.
Well yeah, still cross country skis having insane v O
two maxes cross country ski when I get the chance.
It's fun. But they don't go that fast.

Speaker 11 (02:25:12):
But no, we do.

Speaker 3 (02:25:13):
We do need to discuss this. The actual super Bowl
halftime show actually, well no, not the actual one, the
other one. Yeah, the All American halftime show.

Speaker 5 (02:25:24):
Maybe I'll just say the kid who Bad Bunny gave
his Grammy too was not the same child who you
saw being abducted by Ice in a little blue bunny hat.

Speaker 6 (02:25:33):
It was supposed to symbolize a young beneath him.

Speaker 1 (02:25:37):
Yes, yeah, yeah, not anything else.

Speaker 5 (02:25:40):
It really was not.

Speaker 6 (02:25:41):
There was a lot of underlying messages in that show
that were very important.

Speaker 1 (02:25:46):
But it would be weird.

Speaker 2 (02:25:47):
It would be weird if he put in a kid
that looked like the five year old that was abducted
in prison by Ice to give him a grammy.

Speaker 5 (02:25:55):
That would have been really would not have been a
cool move. Yeah, that would that would have been bad.

Speaker 1 (02:26:02):
Just to say it was a great halftime show. I
enjoyed it thoroughly.

Speaker 3 (02:26:06):
And now here's a clip of the All American halftime show,
the real halftime show, our favorite Kid Rock. Ready, whoa,
somebody makes some motherfucking.

Speaker 4 (02:26:23):
Noise in here. There's nobody there.

Speaker 3 (02:26:31):
This is not This is not from the show. This
is from Silicon Valley. This was This was a joke
that they did on the TV show Silicon Valley, which
looks almost exactly like hilarious the Turning Point halftime show.

Speaker 5 (02:26:43):
I'm about to say, I didn't hear that aside from
the Jewels the I thought that was a new angle.

Speaker 2 (02:26:49):
They did have more people in the crowd, but they
were hired actors, But they did have more people in
the crowd.

Speaker 3 (02:26:53):
Shockingly lines up.

Speaker 6 (02:26:55):
Our colleague Molly Hunger described his outfit as needed to
run out the home deep bo to pick up us
part for something.

Speaker 2 (02:27:04):
He's in like shorts and has a wristbracer.

Speaker 3 (02:27:11):
It's great, We'll get to Kid Rock in a sec.
But let's start at the beginning. While watching the Turning
Point stream, there was no indication where the show is
being broadcast from or whether it was live but four
performers saying back to back to back, indicating the show
was cut together from previously taped performances. Yes, the venue
was this dark, narrow, rectangular room with high ceilings and

(02:27:35):
studio lights. In the middle was a long stage with
a small audience on either side, maybe torch people tops.
But the show was introduced by none other than Jack Pisobek,
which I will show now.

Speaker 16 (02:27:48):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Turning Point USA All
American Halftime Show.

Speaker 3 (02:27:55):
And this one's for you, Charlie.

Speaker 2 (02:28:01):
Great stuff. So they stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:28:04):
Four hundred and forty six down votes on rumble h
that's rough.

Speaker 2 (02:28:08):
Yeah, yeah, and I watched this. I will admit I
watched it after the actual halftime show because it was
on YouTube and there was no reason to actually catch
it during the Super Bowl. And by the way, the
viewership number suggests that most people who did catch it
watched it after the Super Bowl.

Speaker 5 (02:28:25):
Yes, because it's weird.

Speaker 2 (02:28:26):
To pause or turn off the sound in the middle
of the Super Bowl and pull up like a laptop
or something to go watch the fucking Turning Point USA show.

Speaker 3 (02:28:35):
Yeah, it's really cumbersome, really really anti social behavior at
the super Bowl party. To turn off the stream, plug
in your laptop, go to rumble dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:28:45):
If you are doing that, your kids have not talked
to you longer than they've been alive, Like they abandoned
you before they were born.

Speaker 6 (02:28:53):
Well, parsident Trump watched the actual Super Bowl halftime show.

Speaker 1 (02:28:57):
Sure he did, there's photos of him watch it.

Speaker 2 (02:29:00):
He knows that this is loser shit. It's it's just
about the loserst loser ship that I have ever seen.
And right after Jack Besovic introduced it, it cuts to this.
You've got this black stage and there's like an amp
on the stage and a guy walks up to it
with a guitar.

Speaker 17 (02:29:17):
Not a guy Brandley Gilbert. Okay, that's Bentley. Okay, that's
that's Brentley. I was going to introduce his name afterwards.
But Garrison, you miss something important because Brandley Gilbert's band
is where this guy is from. But the all electric
guitar performance of the Star Spangled Banner is led by

(02:29:37):
the great guitarist Spencer wohsdor.

Speaker 5 (02:29:41):
Wow, who.

Speaker 17 (02:29:44):
Where are they finding these guys in Brandley Gilbert's band, Garrison,
This all sounds like and I think.

Speaker 5 (02:29:52):
You should leave sketch.

Speaker 11 (02:29:55):
I'm making up these names.

Speaker 3 (02:29:57):
The whole performance was that. I think you should leave sketch.
But no, it's beautiful electric guitar riff of the Star
Spangled Banner.

Speaker 2 (02:30:06):
No, I got a clip to play because there's a
moment here. They had pyrotechnics during the show, like the
real show had, but they're not good. They were better
for the kid rock performance. For the electric guitars, they're
just kind of sad and they make a sad, little
popping sound. Well, again, a single man is playing guitar.

Speaker 5 (02:30:27):
Stay Jimmy Hendricks played the Star Spangled Banner on guitar,
but he was good at playing guitars. But he was
one of the best guitar players. Yeah, yeah, different. It
does seem like a high yardstick. They've chosen to measure themselves.

Speaker 2 (02:30:39):
We'll talk about that in a second, but I gotta
show you guys. You just need to see the pop
of these pyro technics just for a second, and you,
the listener needs to hear it.

Speaker 5 (02:31:00):
It's giving village fyworks shit.

Speaker 12 (02:31:05):
It.

Speaker 3 (02:31:06):
Yeah, Oh that's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (02:31:08):
It's great. I don't know what you're talking about. I
loved it.

Speaker 2 (02:31:11):
Per what you were saying earlier. There's a New York
Times article for Fox's sake that the original title it
was published under was the All American Halftime featured an
electric anthem, unlike Kendricks. Now they changed that title in
the reporter's notebook article to what does a whaling electric

(02:31:31):
take on the Star Spangled Banner mean?

Speaker 5 (02:31:36):
I'm glad that they are getting to the core of
the issues the publication that ignored all my pitches about
me and math for several years.

Speaker 2 (02:31:43):
Yeah, no, it's good. This is much more important. Let's
listen to a quote from this article that I think
we can all agree it matters much more than a
war in musical terms. Wasdorp's version of the Star Spangled
Banner was conservative too. Despite the bent notes and feedback,
it largely stuck to the melody and conveyed it reference
to stubborn form of patriotism.

Speaker 1 (02:32:05):
I don't know, I kind of loved it. What do
you mean, you know it's terrible.

Speaker 11 (02:32:08):
It's terrible.

Speaker 1 (02:32:10):
Hard watch hard ball.

Speaker 2 (02:32:11):
That was the best part of it. I hate to
say it, but unfortunately the pyrotechnics were basically competent for
the Kid Rock Show, which might have been the only
competent part of the kid rock Show.

Speaker 5 (02:32:22):
Yeah, I want to hate the kid rock Show.

Speaker 2 (02:32:23):
I haven't.

Speaker 3 (02:32:25):
I think there's some other hits from this from this show, though,
including including Brandley Gilbert's second song, which starts as a
slow acoustic ballad and then abruptly changes into whatever this is.

Speaker 11 (02:32:39):
Jay, maybe we.

Speaker 1 (02:32:40):
Can learn how to kids and watch include now as
false and he.

Speaker 7 (02:32:45):
Says, saying, what you have Rover spread like that?

Speaker 4 (02:32:48):
Who saw the yallow nose?

Speaker 5 (02:32:52):
He's trying to rock.

Speaker 11 (02:32:53):
He's trying to rock.

Speaker 3 (02:32:55):
He is, he is trying, he is, he is trying
faults he said. She said, I'm not going to read
into what those lyrics are trying to express.

Speaker 1 (02:33:04):
Slow.

Speaker 3 (02:33:05):
But that was the second song I do. I want
to skip to the third act, which is Lee Brice.
He started his second song by saying, quote, Charlie gave
people microphone so that they could say what was on
their mind. This is what's on mine. And this next
song starts like a parody of a conservative country song.

(02:33:26):
Here's here's the beginning.

Speaker 4 (02:33:28):
I just want to catch my fish, drive my true, drink.

Speaker 9 (02:33:33):
My beer, not wake up all this stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:33:41):
I just want to catch my fish.

Speaker 3 (02:33:43):
I'm just a little teary eyed. Honestly, just listen to that.
The next part is cons the next line.

Speaker 5 (02:33:53):
Okay, I'm coming at this rule.

Speaker 3 (02:33:56):
This is the next line of the song. The same
kind of gun I hunt with just killed another man.
The only thing mine ever shot?

Speaker 5 (02:34:05):
Was it?

Speaker 3 (02:34:05):
Dear from a deer stand? That's the next Sloty.

Speaker 5 (02:34:09):
Are you including that man?

Speaker 7 (02:34:11):
Miracle?

Speaker 3 (02:34:12):
Why would you do that in a song? And the
way he sings it is so bizarre, it's.

Speaker 11 (02:34:18):
It's it's about Charlie Cook.

Speaker 1 (02:34:20):
I would like to hear it.

Speaker 2 (02:34:22):
Oh, I'm just realizing.

Speaker 11 (02:34:23):
What the same kind of gone a hunt will just
cute the only thing I shot? What is he doing?

Speaker 16 (02:34:35):
Why?

Speaker 2 (02:34:37):
The gun violence problem is bad enough that he has
to like make a comment about it existing and being depressing.
He has to do that, but then immediately because the
next bit after this, the most of the song is
basically about I don't want to listen to the news, correct.

Speaker 5 (02:34:53):
Like I don't want to I don't want to watch.

Speaker 3 (02:34:55):
Things that remind me very The very next verse, yeah,
I just want to to cut my grass, feed my dog,
wear my boots, not turn the TV on and sit
and watch the news.

Speaker 5 (02:35:06):
That's an option for you, Like you can do that.

Speaker 1 (02:35:08):
I was gonna say, that's very doable, friend.

Speaker 2 (02:35:10):
That's entirely doable for you folks.

Speaker 1 (02:35:13):
You could do that.

Speaker 3 (02:35:14):
And I'm sure he is. But this is what he's
scared of hearing on the news.

Speaker 4 (02:35:18):
Told Fatal the little boys a little girl.

Speaker 5 (02:35:24):
Yeah, there it is.

Speaker 18 (02:35:28):
This yours.

Speaker 3 (02:35:34):
Of the creek, and discancel your ass world.

Speaker 11 (02:35:37):
But then he said it.

Speaker 1 (02:35:38):
He put it in a sum Oh my god, I
almost choke.

Speaker 19 (02:35:41):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:35:42):
Yeah again, man, you're you're being paid to sing about this.

Speaker 11 (02:35:46):
It's amazing.

Speaker 5 (02:35:47):
In fact, it's your job because it's it's you know
that a few musical abilities. It's your it's your presumably
well paid job.

Speaker 3 (02:35:55):
The whole repeated refrain of the song is it's not
so easy being cut in this country nowadays that you guys.

Speaker 5 (02:36:02):
Are in charge.

Speaker 11 (02:36:03):
Entire song.

Speaker 1 (02:36:05):
Question, question, who is at this event? How many people?

Speaker 11 (02:36:09):
Where is it?

Speaker 3 (02:36:10):
About two hundred paid attendees in Atlanta, Georgia at a
sound stage.

Speaker 6 (02:36:14):
Paid attendees, paid attendees cucial Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:36:17):
Okay, a lot of like fresh stetsons and like unbroken
in boots in the audience.

Speaker 11 (02:36:22):
Maybe so many cowboy hats in the audience. You don't understand.

Speaker 5 (02:36:26):
It's like a bar in Jackson, Wyoming.

Speaker 3 (02:36:28):
I get the vibe, so many of them, and you're like,
you're in Atlanta. Not many people wear cowboy hats in Atlanta.

Speaker 11 (02:36:34):
I'm sorry. That's it's not like Texas or Oklahoma.

Speaker 5 (02:36:38):
Yeah, no, I love. I love to see someone in
a freshly purchased setting.

Speaker 3 (02:36:42):
The next song, after this, after this country one, well,
they're all country songs, but like the next song is
what I think is a love song that that goes
quote sometimes I drink too much. Sometimes I test your trust.
Sometimes I don't know why you stay with me. I'm
hard to love, which, yeah, that's related to the last

(02:37:04):
song you were singing. Maybe a little bit about about
bullying your children. Wow, sick oh man. But finally, finally
the main act, right, Well, what we've all been waiting for,
kid kid rock. I'm gonna play a little over a
minute for us. We're not gonna include all of this
in the episode. We're just gonna we're just gonna include

(02:37:26):
the I Am a kid section. But I do need
to show show this all to James.

Speaker 5 (02:37:30):
Yeah, because this is fun. I think a lot about
Like there's that Steve Goodman parody country song that you
couldn't write today because it's better musically and less ridiculous
than the actual country songs that we're hearing.

Speaker 11 (02:37:45):
All right, James, are you ready?

Speaker 5 (02:37:46):
Always I've never seen it before.

Speaker 2 (02:38:01):
Now that's enough. That's more than enough.

Speaker 11 (02:38:04):
There's a lot to talk about.

Speaker 5 (02:38:05):
Yeah, we got to unpack some of this.

Speaker 1 (02:38:07):
He was better at the rn C.

Speaker 3 (02:38:09):
He's flipping that. He's flipping that mic NonStop. He loves
that move.

Speaker 5 (02:38:14):
But his name is But that's how we got the
wrist injury.

Speaker 2 (02:38:17):
I will say the first guys to play had a
mic with a pair of brass knuckles built into it,
which I did like, I think we do need a
version of that. That's a full knuckle duster from World
War One, so it's got the trench knife on the
other side.

Speaker 5 (02:38:31):
Perfect. Yeah we can. Yeah, at least take a risk.
Don't be a coward every time you.

Speaker 4 (02:38:37):
Fit them on.

Speaker 5 (02:38:37):
Take a risk, be a man.

Speaker 3 (02:38:41):
As the kid rock lights turn on, he explosively jumps
onto the stage. White fur coat, acid washed jeans, black
for Dora. Yeah, I used to be a piece of shit.

Speaker 5 (02:38:51):
It's jeans Garrison. These are jewelts that cut they are
cut off a bunch of me jeorts and.

Speaker 6 (02:38:57):
Second correction, it was a white furute code vest.

Speaker 2 (02:39:01):
Yeah, it's a vest. And I should note also that
his fedora did not have the safari flaps. I repeat,
it did not have the safari flaps.

Speaker 5 (02:39:11):
But it's leather, like a shiny black leather, not a
breatheable hat.

Speaker 3 (02:39:17):
It's it's beautiful. It's beautiful to see. It is, really,
it really is, And I think you should leave sketch
come to life.

Speaker 5 (02:39:22):
It's ok.

Speaker 11 (02:39:24):
He just she just jumps around. It's flipping that mic.

Speaker 1 (02:39:26):
How long does he perform? How many songs do we get?

Speaker 11 (02:39:30):
He gets like two or three songs?

Speaker 13 (02:39:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:39:33):
None.

Speaker 3 (02:39:33):
None of the audio for this song matches what we're
seeing on the sinking is totally off, leading a lot
of people to suspect that that it was it was
lip SYNCD on stage poorly. We'll get to that in
a sec. But the next song began with a two
minute prelude featuring the cello and violin.

Speaker 5 (02:39:53):
Which is it one of those like it's just the
frame of a cello. Oh, James, you'll see I'm going
to see it can offense to god, that's a real cello. Wow.
Oh yeah, that's an interesting outfits. Dressed kind of like
dressed like that. Yeah, one of the three Musketeers is

(02:40:13):
playing cello. For those of you listening, get home, wait.

Speaker 9 (02:40:16):
Please welcome our brother Robert.

Speaker 3 (02:40:19):
Richie Robert Richard Ritchie is kid Rock his real government name.
They reintroduced him under his legal name for the second song.

Speaker 5 (02:40:32):
Kid Rocks Are Not Born. There may those people who
introduced him. What was there?

Speaker 2 (02:40:37):
That was it for them?

Speaker 11 (02:40:38):
Unclear?

Speaker 3 (02:40:39):
Okay, they only existed on screen to introduce kid Rock
as kid Rock the first time, and then as rich Russell,
Richie Russell whatever is Robert Richie, Robert Richie, whatever his
real name is. That's the only time they appeared was
to introduce kid Rock both times. Now, after the show,
it was revealed this whole thing was pre taped on
a sound stage Atlanta, and a few days later Kid

(02:41:02):
Rock released a video addressing the rumors that his performance
was lip SYNCD, which he denies.

Speaker 20 (02:41:08):
You know, we taped it and then they sent me
a first cut, and my comment was, the sink is
off they were trying to line up. First off, if
we would have done it, if we would have recorded
it and then and then played like we were singing it,
lip synced it.

Speaker 21 (02:41:22):
It would have been Pie. It would have been Pie.

Speaker 20 (02:41:24):
The line up it was very difficult for them because
somebody clearly wasn't super familiar with the song. Also, when
I asked him, I go, you know, Freddy raps that
song with me my DJ, And they're like he does what?
And I'm like, oh no, I'm like, yeah, do we
have any cutaways of Freddy?

Speaker 9 (02:41:40):
And and they know they didn't know.

Speaker 5 (02:41:44):
He wasn't.

Speaker 21 (02:41:45):
No, he didn't even line up any TV time. No, sorry,
So they don't have that.

Speaker 20 (02:41:56):
Now it's extremely difficult for them to line up the
sink could have been done if we.

Speaker 21 (02:42:00):
Had more time.

Speaker 6 (02:42:02):
Let's pour one out for Freddy DJ no screen time.

Speaker 3 (02:42:08):
So mister Rock said that Turning Play was having trouble
lining up the audio with the visuals, in part because
the song is actually performed vocally by two people going
back and forth. Wow and Turning Point did not have
a camera on the other vocalist. So that's why it
looks weird when there's obviously vocals being heard, but mister
Rock isn't singing.

Speaker 11 (02:42:28):
And again, the.

Speaker 2 (02:42:30):
Reason why no one at Turning Point is familiar with
Kid Rocks music. Is that even they don't like Kid Rocks.

Speaker 3 (02:42:36):
Music, and mister Rock demonstrated how this is supposed to
go in this video with with his DJ which we
do need to see thirty seconds up.

Speaker 2 (02:42:48):
Thank you, Oh oh thanks scare care I love you
so much. No, I'm sorry, Sophie. We need to have
a conversation about this. This is in violation of several
rules the company has that I just want to call
out the fact that there is a pike behind them.
Do you mean the fish that has been to Dermid Yeah,

(02:43:08):
not what you normally expect. I would have expected the
other kind of pike behind Garrett.

Speaker 3 (02:43:12):
No, that seems like mister Rock's abode. Actually, this feels
very on brand for him.

Speaker 4 (02:43:17):
Is that a drone?

Speaker 3 (02:43:18):
No, that's that's a It's a deer antler turned into
a candlestick.

Speaker 2 (02:43:22):
Yeah, it looks like a turned into a candlestick.

Speaker 5 (02:43:25):
Classy Okay maybe, although.

Speaker 2 (02:43:27):
From a distance it does kind of look like a
bad three D printing of Deep Space nine.

Speaker 20 (02:43:31):
Yeah, it's Hookers, all Tricken, Mountain, holly Wood, It's one
hoods of the world, miss understood.

Speaker 21 (02:43:37):
It's all good, it's all in fun.

Speaker 5 (02:43:47):
Oh damn, I'm not having a physical reaction. I've cringed
with every muscle in my body.

Speaker 3 (02:43:55):
Here's how he explained how it's supposed to go.

Speaker 20 (02:43:58):
So he's stilling, you know those words for me? Why
I can boom bang my head keep going and carrying on.
Now when I'm doing that, you see me. I'm on
over the stage. Who I'm flipping the mic?

Speaker 21 (02:44:07):
I'm down here, I'm over here, back boom. I know
these guys at a difficult time getting that scene together.

Speaker 20 (02:44:14):
So I have nothing but good things to say, not
only about Turning Point, but the production team that they
work with on this and other events.

Speaker 6 (02:44:22):
My favorite part about live music is when you post
a over four minute flip video explaining.

Speaker 7 (02:44:28):
How fifty second video about how it.

Speaker 6 (02:44:31):
Was supposed to go and explaining to people things that
don't actually exist.

Speaker 3 (02:44:36):
No, his whole delivery sounds like good Tim Robinson bit.
It's it's it's so beautiful, incredible. The Bad Bunny Hat
Times show averaged one hundred and thirty five point four
million viewers during the show's time slot, and Half Music
claims it's now the most watched show in Super Bowl history.
Me andwhile tpusa's show attracted upwards of six point one
million concurrent live viewers on Turning Point USA's YouTube channel,

(02:45:00):
Dude to licensing restrictions, Turning Point was unable to stream
the show on x Everything app as they originally planned.

Speaker 1 (02:45:05):
Which got announced like an hour before.

Speaker 11 (02:45:07):
Right before.

Speaker 5 (02:45:08):
But that's probably why they didn't hit one hundred and
thirty five million, because one hundred and twenty nine of
them were waiting.

Speaker 11 (02:45:13):
Otherwise they would have got it.

Speaker 9 (02:45:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:45:15):
The All American Halftime Show now boasts twenty three million
views on their YouTube and Rumble pages combined. The Bad
Bunny Show is seventy million. A lot of these views
are also people like me and other other researchers. Yeah
for sure, and it gives me curious Americans who are
who are interested in what they had to throw together.
But a footage from inside Trump's Super Bowl party shows

(02:45:36):
that even he did not turn into the All American
halftime shown me Mimo comfio. Now it's time for you
to tune into these ads. Shall we do the real

(02:46:02):
news now?

Speaker 5 (02:46:05):
Sure? So.

Speaker 2 (02:46:07):
On a Monday, February ninth, twenty twenty six, about three
days before we recorded this, there was a student led
walkout protesting federal immigration arrests and protesting in large part
last year's massive ice actions in Chicago, and students from
a number of different high schools walked out. This included
students from East Aurora High School, where there was a

(02:46:30):
notable clash. Is the word or skirmish is the word?

Speaker 5 (02:46:34):
Like?

Speaker 2 (02:46:34):
Skirmish is what Shaw Local News described it as between
protesters and police. There's video, and at least from the
limited clip of video we have, I wouldn't call it
a skirmish. I would call it police getting pissed and
assaulting some kids. But we don't see the rest of
the interaction. This is apparently something that went on for
a couple of hours, so I don't know what led
up to this. I can tell you the video shows

(02:46:55):
what looks like some high school kids walking in kind
of a line outside of their high school. There's some
police by. The police are clearly talking to or maybe
yelling at, one of the kids, and then as the
video comes in, an officer just charges in and tackles
hard like a running tackle, a teenage boy, like a
child smaller than him, which leads to several other police

(02:47:17):
officers grabbing kids. At least one student punches a police
officer in the head while the officer is on top
of his friend beating his friend. The police only responded
by saying, like, look, you know, we had to act.
A student punched a police officer. From the Shaw Local article,
the police department said the officer who was punched was
transported to a local hospital for medical attention for his injuries.
They don't show he and his colleagues like literally tackling

(02:47:40):
kids first, yeh, before they get hit. If somebody tackles
my friend next to me, I might start punching. That's
just life.

Speaker 5 (02:47:47):
Yeah, And.

Speaker 2 (02:47:49):
This is kind of an ongoing story at the moment.
I don't know like what's going to wind up being
the result of this, but it inspired, at least initially
a lot of anger and there have been further protests
as a result of the police violence. Students in the
area are now demanding the resignation of the police chief
in East Aurora. The police have not really like acknowledged

(02:48:14):
those demands yet. I don't know if this is going
to turn into like a larger protest movement. There's some
signs that maybe it will, that there may be further walkouts,
specifically as a result of the police violence. But this
is a situation we will be watching obviously seeing police
violently beating kids for you know, speaking for doing the
thing they should be doing at high school, which is

(02:48:35):
experimenting with believing things and taking stands. Yeah, so we'll
be watching this to see kind of what results next.
But that's that's sort of where we are at the moment.

Speaker 5 (02:48:44):
Yeah, that video, it's pretty brutal. Let's talk a little
bit more about some immigration stuff. Let's start with uh,
let's start with police in shall we? I have reviewed
the police report for the ice officer who in late
January negligently discharged he's issued handgun in a hotel room.
Bradley's shaver was attempting to fix a backstrap from his glock.

(02:49:08):
I'll quote the report here quote with his back facing
Room three twenty, and the firearm pointed in the area
of Bradley's torso he attempted to remove the backstrap that
was currently on the firearm while it was still loaded.
At some point, the firearm discharged. Luckily, the occupant of
that room had just checked into the hotel and was
walking to their room when the shot was fired, so

(02:49:30):
there was no one injured. I will quote again from
the report. Initially, the agent thought the gunshot came from
somewhere else, and he yelled shots fired, and then told
his wife he had to go and hang up. Shaper
then felt heat on the left side of his body,
looked down and saw the damage to his shirt and
realized the shot had come from his own weapon. He

(02:49:50):
said the round went through his sweatshirt and the shirt underneath,
but did not penetrate his under armed compression layer or
injure him. It seems like this person was attending to
repair or remove apart from his gun that was still loaded,
and he didn't think to unload the gun.

Speaker 2 (02:50:08):
All of this is stuff you shouldn't do, right. Yeah,
you have to check before you do stuff to a
gun to make sure it's unloaded. And even when you've
checked to make sure it's unloaded, you should still act
like it's loaded and do stuff like not have your
finger on the trigger and make sure it's clear of
a holster so that there's nothing that like, especially like

(02:50:29):
a leather holster, or maybe stuff could get bowed in
and pull the trigger. You just don't do any of
the things he was doing with a gun, especially if
you're a cop. But also you do all the things
he did with a gun if you're a cop, because
this happens regularly.

Speaker 5 (02:50:43):
Yeah, this case a thirty year veteran who had just
returned after two years of retirement. I want to talk
a little bit now about Liam Conejo Ramos. This is
the five year old who was detained in Minneapolis last month.
People will remember seeing images of him in like a
blue bunny hat. Liam and his father were detained on

(02:51:03):
the twentieth of January in his driveway after returning from school.
They were order released by Judge Fred Berry, who wrote
in his order quote, observing human behavior confirms that for
some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and
the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds
and are bereft of human decency, and the rule of

(02:51:24):
law be damned. You could tell the judge was incredibly
pissed off at the government. Now put it that way.
DHS then attempted to expedite the removal of Conejo Ramos
and his family that the family were granted a continuance
by his judge. Liam and his father His father is
Adlian and Cornehio Adias or adiyas I've seen like various

(02:51:46):
permutations of his father's name. I think perhaps because some
people doing reporting are not familiar with how last names
are generally configured in the Spanish speaking world, so I'm
not quite sure how his last name is pronounced. But
Liam and his father entered in December of twenty twenty
four when they were detained, they were detained at Dilly.

(02:52:08):
Dilly is a detention center for families, right. It is
a place that I have reported on before. In my
Dardian follow up series, I spoke about Primrose and Kimberly,
who were both detained at Dilly, and they went into
some detail about the conditions there. I'm glad to see
that Dilly is getting more attention in sort of bigger,

(02:52:31):
more legacy media outlets.

Speaker 10 (02:52:32):
Now.

Speaker 5 (02:52:33):
I also saw that there was a protest at Dilly,
seemingly while Liam was there. And we can see this
because of drone footage of people walking out of the
buildings and assembling in sort of spaces in between the buildings,
and they can be heard chanting in some of that footage. Now,
when to move on to something I've seen DHS doing recently,
which is they're trying to push back against the evidence

(02:52:56):
that they are using schools and children a bait to
detain non citizens.

Speaker 18 (02:53:01):
Right.

Speaker 5 (02:53:02):
I just spoke about how Liam was detained. Right. It
was the fact that he was at school that allowed
those agents to target his father. Right. I believe they
got Liam to knock on the door and his dad
came out, which obviously was part of the reason that
this particular intens was so controversial. DHS, in a post

(02:53:22):
on x said, quote, Ice is not going to schools
to arrest children. A dangerous illegal alien, felon fleeing into
a school, or a child sex offender working as an
employee may create a situation where an arrest is made.
To protect public safety, criminals are no longer able to
hide in America's schools to avoid arrest. Potus Trump and

(02:53:44):
Secretary Known trust a brave law enforcement to use common sense.
We will not tie the hands of law enforcement officers.
They must be allowed to protect children from public safety threats. Obviously,
if someone is a sex offender, they can't work at
a school. Right. That's that's the top background checks work.
The DHS tweet includes a screenshot of a Houston Chronicle

(02:54:07):
article which details how HISD has lost four thousand students
due to the ICE crackdown. Right, this is students who
are for the most part, afraid to come to school,
and they've seen a twenty two percent decline in migrant
student enrollment. Obviously, I just want to note that ICE
has detained parents outside schools and a notal inncedent. Last year,

(02:54:28):
they dessained a fifteen year old disabled boy in Los Angeles. Finally,
from me, I want to talk about legislation that is
being proposed in the state of Washington. To the State
of Washington's House Builds two three two one proposes legislation
that focuses on what it calls blocking features that must

(02:54:49):
be integrated into three D printers to prevent their use
in creating firearms. Blocking features are quoting here a software
controls process that deploys a firearms blueprint detection algorithm such
that those features identify and reject print requests for firearms
or at legal firearm path with a high degree of

(02:55:10):
reliability and cannot be overridden or otherwise defeated by a
user with significant technical skill. What this would effectively do
is either prevent the sale of three D printers in
Washington state or install state level spyware onto three D printers,
which would obviously be able to be used for things

(02:55:31):
far beyond firearms. And people have notably been three D
printing whistles a great deal in Minneapolis right there. So
there's been lots of coverage of this. I think it
would be very naive for people to think that this
would start and end with the creation of unregistered firearms.

Speaker 2 (02:55:48):
Yeah, now they'll they'll go, I mean, they'll doff like
tread to enforce games workshops, copy rights and stop it
for rent models or whatever, exactly right, Like, it opens
a whole world of IP enforcement in three D print
it more or less ends.

Speaker 5 (02:56:02):
The thing that I find beautiful about three D printing
is not that like I can make little plastic things
in my office. It's that it shows me that people
will choose to create beautiful and innovative things even when
there is not a profit incentive for doing so. Yes,
And here's the thing, it would be a different discussion
if this were a country, We're the only way to
get a gun was to three D print it.

Speaker 2 (02:56:23):
But it's not.

Speaker 5 (02:56:26):
Yes, in Washington State, right, you do not have to
drive that far from Washington State, to a state where
it'ld be perfectly legal to do a private party transfer
in the Walmart parking lot.

Speaker 4 (02:56:35):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (02:56:36):
And also it's there's just a lot of guns in Washington, Yeah,
like there are in Oregon, like there is everywhere in
the country. And to the extent that three D printed
firearms are used for crime, they tend to be used
like specifically in gang crime, where if the three D
printed gun isn't available, the professional criminals will access a

(02:56:58):
separate gun. Americans are not overwhelmingly using three D printed
firearms to shoot up schools. They're using perfectly normally purchased
firearms to shoot up schools.

Speaker 5 (02:57:10):
Yeah, that's what we do because this country is full
of guns. The state of California is also pursuing a
case against three D printed firearms code hosting websites. California
passing extremely broad law last year that prohibits the hosting, distribution,
and promotion of the quote unlawful manufacturer of firearms. This

(02:57:30):
has significant repercussions for the First Amendment right, Like, the
code itself is not a tangible thing, it's not a gun.
It is speech. But in this case, it is the
instruction to allow the machine to create gun right. It
appears that there are over one hundred other people indicted
in this case, and guessing that those are probably the
designers who posted their STLs for firearms on the gatalogue.

Speaker 2 (02:57:54):
I think that the evidence also suggests that's unlikely to
hold up in court because, like, right now, there's a
case over the Kansas laws that are mandating, like you
have age, basically restrictions on websites and the like, and
there were laws. There was a lawsuit from like a
mom who alleged that despite this, her kid was able

(02:58:14):
to access a website that was located out of the
state because it didn't have any of these restrictions, and
the judge in Kansas ruled, like, well, our law doesn't
restrict people in other states. They don't have to have
like this, Like that's just you can't actually enforce this. Yeah,
so we'll see how it goes in California. But yeah,
California is suing for damages in this case. It's a

(02:58:35):
civil case on a criminal one, sure, but still, I mean,
there have been a lot of cases about three D
printed guns and how they are covered under the under
the First Amendment. So yeah, I'm going to keep an
eye on this because I guess like there are attacks
on the First Amendment from just about every angle right now,
and I think we should pay attention to that.

Speaker 5 (02:58:56):
That is all I have. Shall we take a little
break and then talk about pedophiles? Sure?

Speaker 2 (02:59:02):
I love talking talking about pedophiles.

Speaker 5 (02:59:04):
That's what we do.

Speaker 9 (02:59:06):
I don't.

Speaker 11 (02:59:19):
We're back.

Speaker 2 (02:59:20):
This is another yet another episode of the Pedo Files.

Speaker 1 (02:59:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I volunteered to do this section.

Speaker 6 (02:59:29):
These are Epsteine updates as a two day which is Wednesday, Yeah,
February eleventh.

Speaker 1 (02:59:34):
There were quite a few things.

Speaker 2 (02:59:36):
We just finished recording a four part around him for Bastards,
and there's more new shit.

Speaker 10 (02:59:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:59:41):
It just keeps kevin.

Speaker 1 (02:59:44):
It is endless, it really is.

Speaker 6 (02:59:47):
I want to start off which at the top of
the week, Glene Maxwell was supposed to speak to the
House Oversight Committee, and she was called in for questioning
and during a video call. Just so folks know, she
is serving a twenty year sentence for sex trafficking and
a federal prison camp in Texas, but she invoked her

(03:00:08):
Fifth Amendment right to avoid answering questions that would be
self incriminating.

Speaker 1 (03:00:13):
This was expected, but her lawyer's statement was interesting.

Speaker 6 (03:00:18):
So I'm going to read it to the audience now,
Members of the Committee, on my advice, Glendne Maxwell respectfully
invoke her Fifth Amendment right to silence and decline to
answer your questions day. Even though she would very much
like to answer your questions, she must remain silent because
Miss Maxwell has a habeas petition clearly pending that demonstrates
that her conviction rests on a fundamentally unfair trial. For example,

(03:00:40):
jurors lie during void Yer to secure seats on the jury,
and the government promised immunity and then broke that promise.
Lily Disco's documents now demonstrate these facts conclusively. If this
committee in the American public truly want to hear the
unfiltered truth about what happened, there is a straightforward path.
Ms Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if

(03:01:00):
granted clemency by President Trump. Sure only she can provide
the complete account. Some may not like what they hear,
but the truth matters. For example, both President Trump and
President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Ms Maxwell alone
and explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation.

(03:01:24):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (03:01:25):
Look, I'll talk to Donald Trump if I can get
immunity for some thanks.

Speaker 1 (03:01:33):
It's like, by the way, I would love to speak.

Speaker 5 (03:01:36):
Got I need immunity.

Speaker 1 (03:01:37):
Yeah, the guy that could grant me clemency. I can
vouch for that.

Speaker 2 (03:01:41):
Guy that's the most doesn't commit crimes thing a person
could possibly say.

Speaker 11 (03:01:47):
Wild.

Speaker 6 (03:01:48):
Yeah, I'm moving on to another guy that was all
over the Epstein files, Casey Wasserman.

Speaker 5 (03:01:54):
Casey wass Robert just said that like he knew. The guy.

Speaker 2 (03:01:57):
Oh yeah, I know. That's what I always call them.

Speaker 6 (03:01:59):
Was founder and CEO of Wasserman, which is a talent
agency slash sports marketing agency. And the reason I'm bringing
this up is for two reasons. There's two things I
want to discuss here. The first one is that since
this got announced, he's had major clients, major stars as
well as athletes, say that's gross and I'm not going
to work with you anymore.

Speaker 1 (03:02:20):
And I've left the agency, which is fucking cool, which
is good.

Speaker 2 (03:02:23):
It's what you should do if you find out that
you are working for someone in the Epstein files.

Speaker 3 (03:02:27):
Yeah, somebody was specifically communicating consistently with Epstein after his conviction. Right,
There's a lot of people who are named in the files.

Speaker 2 (03:02:37):
A lot of random journalists whose articles got shared in
the files or something that yes, yes, yeah, big.

Speaker 6 (03:02:42):
Name stars here, we're talking like Chapel Rowelron, you're so annoyed.
So like Chapel Rone was probably the first big name
to be like ew, I'm out.

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

Speaker 6 (03:02:54):
And another big part of this is CAC Wasserman is
leading the preparations for the twenty twenty eight Summer Olympic
Games that are going to be located in Los Angeles
and per Fox LA, the LA twenty twenty eight board
officially supported chair Casey Wasserman and Wednesday, rejecting calls for
his recognation following an independent misconduct review. While multiple LA

(03:03:17):
elected officials demandity step down, the board sited his strong
leadership and cooperations as reasons for his retention.

Speaker 3 (03:03:25):
Ew I can't believe the good name of the Olympics
finally has a stain on its right now?

Speaker 5 (03:03:30):
Right? Who would have thought?

Speaker 2 (03:03:31):
Can you imagine the Olympics being associated with a bad man?

Speaker 11 (03:03:35):
I love the Olympics? This sucks?

Speaker 3 (03:03:37):
How will I watch trampoline?

Speaker 19 (03:03:40):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (03:03:40):
Huh? What about Louge?

Speaker 4 (03:03:42):
Wait?

Speaker 5 (03:03:42):
No, that's only in the thing right now, that's already happening. Yeah,
you can watch Louge.

Speaker 2 (03:03:46):
Yeah, you're right, you're right. The one good sport, the Olympics,
is already happening. So we're fine.

Speaker 5 (03:03:50):
We have to be clear on this. Luge has us
no links to the Jeffrey Epstein files that we.

Speaker 3 (03:03:55):
Know of the Italian Louge Olympics, completely clean, no problems.

Speaker 5 (03:03:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (03:04:01):
Now I want to move on to probably the biggest
story of the week, which is Attorney General Pambondi took
heated questions from lawmakers and a compatitive congressional hearing over
the Justice Department's handling and the files related to Jeffrey
Epstein that exposed sensitive private information about victims despite redaction efforts.

Speaker 7 (03:04:21):
Her the a P.

Speaker 11 (03:04:23):
She she frame mogged everyone at this hearing.

Speaker 6 (03:04:26):
In my opinion, this was the most outrageously unprofessional, shameful, centurable,
and sickening congressional.

Speaker 1 (03:04:32):
Hearing in history.

Speaker 6 (03:04:33):
And she is a disgrace and disgusting And yeah, I
want to get into a little bit of it. I
want to start by playing a clip from Representative Raskin.
He's the Democratic congressman from Maryland and he is the
Democratic ranking House member of the Committee on the judiciary.

Speaker 22 (03:04:52):
You're running a massive Epstein cover up right out of
the Department of Justice. You've been ordered by subpoena and
by Congress to turn over six million documents, photographs, and
videos in Epstein files.

Speaker 4 (03:05:04):
But you've turned over only three million.

Speaker 22 (03:05:07):
You say you're not turning over the other three million
because they're somehow duplicative. But we know that there are
actual memos of victim statements in the air. And you
also took down the Department of Justice's prosecution memo from
twenty nineteen, so it's clearly not all duplicative. But even
if it were, why not release it? Just release all

(03:05:28):
the duplicative stuff. In the half you did produce, you
redacted the names of abusers, enablers, accomplices, and co conspirators,
apparently to spare them embarrassment and disgrace, which is the
exact opposite of.

Speaker 4 (03:05:43):
What the law ordered you to do.

Speaker 22 (03:05:46):
Even worse, you shockingly failed to redact many of the
victim's names, which is what you were ordered to do
by Congress.

Speaker 4 (03:05:54):
Some of the victims had come forward publicly, but many
had not.

Speaker 22 (03:05:58):
Many had kept their torm private, even from family and friends,
but you published their names, their identities, their images on
thousands of pages for.

Speaker 4 (03:06:12):
The world to see.

Speaker 18 (03:06:14):
So you ignored the law, and even with over one
hundred thousand employees at your disposal, you acted with some
mixture of staggering incompetence, cold indifference, and jaded cruelty towards
more than one.

Speaker 22 (03:06:29):
Thousand victims raped, abused, and trafficked.

Speaker 4 (03:06:33):
This performance screams cover up.

Speaker 6 (03:06:36):
I can't even begin to describe how vile and disgusting
it is that they have doxed these survivors of Epstein
without their consent. Yeah, it is traumatizing enough that they
had to endure this. Now they've had what happened to

(03:06:58):
them put on display, and now they are going to
be targeted, and they have not had the ability to
speak up if they wanted to on what happened. But
the government, despite being told to not out these survivors,
did it, but covered the names of the people that

(03:07:23):
committed these crimes. It is unspeakably disgusting.

Speaker 2 (03:07:29):
Sorry, well I feel great.

Speaker 1 (03:07:31):
It's really upsetting. Yeah, it's really deeply disgusting and upsetting.

Speaker 2 (03:07:36):
Sure.

Speaker 6 (03:07:37):
I thought Ranking Member Raskin spoke very clearly here and
I appreciated his statement. Yeah, moving on, Bondi's tactics during
this were to deflect, deflect, deflect.

Speaker 1 (03:07:52):
There's a couple instances that I want to play play
for everyone.

Speaker 5 (03:07:57):
Now, yeah, you could assign this to a class, and
like if you're talking about every way that like the
modern Republican Party tries to deflect culpability for anything negative.
Like they all got deployed one after the.

Speaker 2 (03:08:15):
Other in this.

Speaker 6 (03:08:16):
So there were Epstein survivors in person, and Bondi wouldn't
even look at them. I want to play a clip
from when she's asked to address them here to.

Speaker 19 (03:08:30):
The survivors in the room, if you are willing, please stand,
and if you are willing, please raise your hands. If
you have still not been able to meet with this
Department of Justice, please know for the record that every

(03:08:53):
single survivor has raised their hand. Attorney General Bondi, you
apologize to the survivors and your opening statement for what
they went through at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 7 (03:09:07):
Will you turn to them now and apologize for what.

Speaker 19 (03:09:11):
Your Department of Justice has put them through with the
un absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information.

Speaker 7 (03:09:30):
Congresswoman, you set before Merrick Garland set in.

Speaker 23 (03:09:36):
This chair twice, Attorney General von I'm going to finish
my answer.

Speaker 19 (03:09:40):
No, I'm going to reclaim my time because I asked
you to generalific question that I would like question to answer,
which is, will you turn to the survivors? This is
not about anybody that came before you. It is about
you taking responsibility for your Department of Justice and the
arm that it has done to the survivors who are

(03:10:03):
standing right behind you and are waiting for you to
turn to them and apologize for what your Department of Justices.

Speaker 4 (03:10:11):
Members.

Speaker 24 (03:10:12):
Members get to ask the questions, the witness get to
answer in the way they want to answer.

Speaker 19 (03:10:15):
That that's not accurate, mister chairman, because she doesn't like
the answer. So, mister Chairman, I have asked, She Astmaric Garland.

Speaker 4 (03:10:25):
This I am reclaiming.

Speaker 1 (03:10:29):
I will claim my time. Get in the gutter for her.

Speaker 7 (03:10:34):
Theatrics.

Speaker 24 (03:10:34):
The time belongs to the time belongs to the general lady.
The general Lady has seventeen seconds.

Speaker 19 (03:10:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:10:40):
You're not going to answer this question.

Speaker 19 (03:10:42):
So let me just chair, what a massive question?

Speaker 4 (03:10:46):
Will you restore her time?

Speaker 7 (03:10:47):
The witnesses, the rector the gout her with this woman,
She's let me have.

Speaker 24 (03:10:52):
My General lady, the general lady from Washington controls the time.
The General Lady has seventeen seconds, you can you can
proceed with your final seventeen seconds.

Speaker 19 (03:10:59):
What a mass of cover up this has been and
continues to be. Donald Trump may the release of the
Epstein files the center of his political campaign because he
thought it would benefit him. Then you got into office,
Attorney general, claim to have a client list on order,
say that there was no list. Your deputy Todd met

(03:11:19):
alone has expired to a minimum security prison.

Speaker 11 (03:11:25):
And now you continue.

Speaker 19 (03:11:30):
She would turn around to the survivors who are standing
right behind you, and on a human level, chairman.

Speaker 24 (03:11:36):
Now recognizes the man, the gen You have no time
to go back to appreciate the thought.

Speaker 1 (03:11:45):
Despicable, disgusting.

Speaker 6 (03:11:50):
She did not ever turn around and look at these
survivors that are in the room. Later, she loses it
again when asked why she hasn't indicated any of the
Epstein clients in de flex by saying this.

Speaker 23 (03:12:05):
The dow, the dow right now is over. The dow
is over fifty thousand dollars. I don't know why you're laughing.
You're a great stock trader. As I hear raskin. The
Dow is over fifty thousand right now, the S and
P at almost seven thousand, and the Nasdaq smashing records.

(03:12:26):
Americans four oh one k's and retirement savings are booming.
That's what we should be talking about. We should be
talking about making Americans safe. We should be talking about
what does a Dow have to do with anything? That's
what they just ask, Are you kidding, mister Jordan?

Speaker 1 (03:12:43):
Am I mister Jordan, No, it's not. You are here
for You are here talking. You are here for hearing
on the Epstein files.

Speaker 6 (03:12:53):
You are the Attorney General of the United States, and
you are a fucking piece of shit, fucking nightmare.

Speaker 3 (03:13:00):
That's in response to a question about indicting Epstein clients. Yeah,
she just starts talking with the stock market.

Speaker 5 (03:13:06):
Yeah, and only did you just start talking about it?
She clearly came with her stats ready to talk about it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:13:12):
Right, because the message is it's fine that all this
happened and the Trump was involved as long as the
economy's good, right, people shouldn't be a complaint.

Speaker 11 (03:13:19):
It's it's cartoon. It's cartoon behavior.

Speaker 5 (03:13:22):
Yeah, Like it's not a it's not even some kind
of sophisticated route. So just going to look over there.

Speaker 3 (03:13:27):
This would be like in like a British like sketch
comedy about the government in like the eighties, Like this
is like, yeah, this is wild.

Speaker 1 (03:13:35):
It's truly horrific.

Speaker 6 (03:13:36):
And guess what I still have more to share. Here
is an exchange and another attempt for her to deflect.
She tries to bring up Merek Garland again. This is
with the congresswoman from Vermont.

Speaker 23 (03:13:48):
Didn't ask Merrit Garland anything about Epstein, not once when
he was exhaust And also I want the record to
reflect that, you know, with this anti Semitic culture right now,
she voted against a resolution contempt condemning.

Speaker 1 (03:14:03):
Oh do you want to go there?

Speaker 11 (03:14:06):
Attorney?

Speaker 1 (03:14:08):
Do you want to go there?

Speaker 24 (03:14:10):
Are you gentlemen talking.

Speaker 6 (03:14:13):
To a woman who lost her grandfather in the whole.

Speaker 1 (03:14:18):
It's pretty disgusting.

Speaker 11 (03:14:20):
Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (03:14:21):
She's like, ah, yes, how can I work in being
pro Israel?

Speaker 5 (03:14:26):
Also again right, she clearly had like if this person speaks,
this is what I will say.

Speaker 6 (03:14:31):
It's very clear she had a material list of like
cheat sheet of this is how when this person speaks,
this is my dirt on this person. When this person speaks,
this is my dirt on this person. There are even
photos of the dirt she has piled up on each person.
She had a sheet of like people's search histories. Just
unbelievable deflection, to say the least. I have one more

(03:14:55):
clip I want to I want to display it, and
then I'd like to talk about it a little bit more.

Speaker 16 (03:14:58):
Yeah, I want to discuss another man, Donald Trump, who
was all over the Epstein files, like former Prince.

Speaker 6 (03:15:05):
Here's the video and for reference, this is the very
very popular video of Epstein and Trump.

Speaker 1 (03:15:11):
Worth Epstein wearing that then, I'm sure, and Trump in
the pink tie.

Speaker 2 (03:15:14):
They're kind of like elbowing each other and talking about ladies.

Speaker 1 (03:15:18):
Yeah, laughing, laughing at a party.

Speaker 2 (03:15:20):
Yeah, you've seen it.

Speaker 16 (03:15:21):
Former Prince Andrew. Donald Trump attended various parties with Jeffrey Epstein.
I want to know whether any underage girls at that
party or at any party that Trump attended with Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 23 (03:15:42):
This is so ridiculous and that they are trying to
deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done.
There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.
Everyone knows that this has been the most transparent presidency.

Speaker 3 (03:15:58):
He's the one I.

Speaker 4 (03:16:02):
Got your answer you said no evidence.

Speaker 3 (03:16:08):
This time belongs to the gentleman from California.

Speaker 16 (03:16:11):
Okay, I'm gonna put up another document from a witness
who called the FBI's National Threat Operation Center because I
believe you just lied under oath. There is ample evidence
into Epstein.

Speaker 7 (03:16:25):
Don't you ever accuse me of believe you just.

Speaker 16 (03:16:28):
Lied under oath. And this is all on videotape. You
said there's no events crime. I'm showing you. Here is
a witness statement who called into the FBI's Threat Operation Center.
He drove Donald Trump around in limo. He overheard what
Donald Trump said to Jeffrey on his cell phone. He
was so angry he was gonna stop a limo and
hurt Donald Trump. And he met a girl who said

(03:16:50):
she was raped by Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. She
later had her head blown off, and the officers at
the scene said that could not have been suicide. No one,
no one at the point of justice interviewed this witness.
You need to interview this witness immediately. Epstein should rot

(03:17:12):
in hell. So should the men who patronize this operation.
And as we say here today, they are over one
thousand sex trafficking victims, and you have not held a
single man accountable.

Speaker 4 (03:17:25):
Shame on you. If you had any decency, you would
resign right after this.

Speaker 11 (03:17:28):
Here we conclusive, gentlemen, has expired.

Speaker 6 (03:17:32):
She did not answer a single question, honestly, she did
not give a yes or no answer. The Republicans spent
the time trying to deflect by she had like this
sheet of like, well, in your state, this person committed
a crime in your district. This person committed a crime
and tried to deflect every which way.

Speaker 2 (03:17:53):
Congress people aren't law enforcement, like no, and.

Speaker 6 (03:17:59):
The republic and spent the time praising her and praising
Trump and touting their own agenda.

Speaker 1 (03:18:05):
And this is not justice. This is sickening.

Speaker 6 (03:18:10):
I I what precedent this sends to people who are
survivors of horrific sex crimes.

Speaker 2 (03:18:24):
I mean the president that they want to send is
don't say shit, right.

Speaker 6 (03:18:28):
That's what I'm saying. That's what it sends. And we
can't allow this to go on. We have to keep
talking about it.

Speaker 1 (03:18:36):
Sorry, I'm just very upset. Pam BONDI. She is one
of the most despicable people in the world.

Speaker 6 (03:18:44):
Oh yeah, to get up there with survivors in the room,
and to not look at them, to not answer a
single question, and to continuously deflect and lie. It's impossibly
disgusting and very very very sad, very very sad.

Speaker 2 (03:19:05):
Mm hmm okay, yeah, well, I don't know what else
to say about it.

Speaker 1 (03:19:11):
It's impossibly disgusting and very very sad.

Speaker 9 (03:19:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (03:19:14):
Yeah, I hope that these survivors get some kind of
justice someday. We are not going to forget about them.
We're not going to stop talking about it. Something has
to give here. This is This is not justice, This
is despicable.

Speaker 5 (03:19:31):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:19:32):
I don't know what's going to happen or if anything's
going to give in the near future, but people are pissed,
and hopefully we'll continue to be, which is I guess
all we can hope for is that before much longer,
the time comes around where we could make sure that
these people, including the folks protecting them now pay. So
you know, yeah, we've got any other news or is

(03:19:54):
this no? We it's a real bummer of an ending. Yeah,
well yeah, it's appropriate right now.

Speaker 1 (03:20:00):
Yeah, we reported the news, gear, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:20:03):
I love the news.

Speaker 11 (03:20:05):
We reported the news.

Speaker 6 (03:20:06):
Yep, James, anything you want to plug at the end here.

Speaker 5 (03:20:11):
Yeah, if you want to email us with news tips,
you can email cool Zone Tips at proton dot me.
If you want to email us with episode ideas, I
will make another email for that, but it makes it
significantly harder for all of us going through the news
tips email. If you just email us with things that

(03:20:32):
you think we should talk about, so we will try
and partition those two things off so that we can
deal with both of them separately.

Speaker 2 (03:20:39):
Okay, bye, 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 6 (03:20:54):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website,
pools on media dot com, or check us out on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

Speaker 7 (03:21:05):
You listen to podcasts.

Speaker 6 (03:21:06):
You can now find sources for It Could Happen here,
listed directly in episode descriptions.

Speaker 1 (03:21:11):
Thanks for listening.

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