It Could Happen Here Weekly 227

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

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

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome to it could happen hear a podcast about unions
falling apart and in this case, how they're not being
put back together again. I am your host, Bio Wong,
and today we are telling a somewhat unusual story for
this show. It's usual in the sense that it's a
story about, you know, the replacement of democracy with bureaucracy.
If like the death spiral of business union, of unionism,

(00:49):
it's a story it's also as much about the defeat
of the worker's movement as it is like LaVar Jackson's
counting stats, a thing that it also bizarrely is about.
And this is this is the story of the crisis
of the NFL Players Association, which is the NFL's union,
and it is so unhinged that the only way that
this could actually be talked about reasonably is to bring

(01:12):
in someone who knows ball, and that is Charles McDonald
of Yahoo Sports and the Wonderful Football three o one podcast.
Welcome to the show. This is going to be a trip.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
Yeah, thanks for having me. I've listened to a few episodes,
so I was excited, and you asked me to come on.
Love your work, and yeah, this is this is gonna
be a good rant because and not even really a
rant because because honestly, like when you like when you
start the Puel is Back, it is really like a
textbook case study from what we know on like just

(01:46):
straight up organizational decay. Yeah, like you get such a
clear picture on how just really a few people, in
this case, thirty two NFL owners can just completely dictate
the life of you know, thousands of people who are
literally really sacrificing their bodies to try and you know,
escape whatever poverty they come from in their in their

(02:06):
earlier life. So it's, uh, it's fascinating, it's sad. I mean,
this is one of those areas that I have obviously
because it's my it's my job. But you just like
extreme cognitive dissonance sometimes. Like I love football, you know,
I played from the time ill seven through college. Obviously,
like I do this work. It's kind of giving me

(02:27):
like everything, and then you have to deal with just
so much bad stuff that comes with me.

Speaker 5 (02:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
Yeah, Like I remember like covering the Colin Kaepernick season,
which was ten years ago as of this god right,
ten years ago, yeah, and just like seeing how alienating
that was. Just like just writing like a column saying, hey,
you know, Washington, like they should work Colin Kaepernick out
because they don't have a quarterback and this guy is
just a startable quarterback. And you would get like hate

(02:56):
mail over that stuff. But I'm still tuned every Sunday,
you know, Lamar Jackson stuff. I was on the front
lines for that, but still tuning in to get my
racest slop every Sunday.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
It's a fundamental issue here is people will still do
it immediately. I am mildly proud that I wasn't watching
that era, but I wasn't watching that era specifically because
the Seahawks loss Super Bolts to the Patriots, and then
I was like I'm fucking out after like eight years.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
Well I've been watching this stuff my whole life. Like
I remember watching like college football with like my dad
and his friends when I was like five and six
years Old's like, I like, legit just don't know anything
else to a degree, like I had to use this
sport as like my vehicle to kind of explore the
rest of the world, like once I got out of college,
just trying to figure my shit out.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, And I think we have a good combination here
to talk about this because you come at this from
the football angle and then exploring out of the like, oh,
by god, this is so unhinged. Everything is broken. And
then I come at this kind of from the opposite direction,
which is one of the things that's been really frustrating
about the coverage of this is that like, like there's
lots of very good coverage. Pubble Tory done a lot
of very good work about this, and it's like the

(04:02):
guy who kind of instigated the whole.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
Like instigators kind of put in it is put in
it lightly.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
I mean he got the union president fired basically.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah, he got the union president fired after it was
revealed that he was using union money to go to
strip clubs.

Speaker 6 (04:20):
It's like.

Speaker 5 (04:24):
That's like the tail end of this story.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
Yeah, that's like the end of it. That's where it's going, right.
But like, the thing that's been frustrating to me about
this is like the people covering this, and people have
done a lot of good work. Is there not people
who cover unions at all? Yeah, And like that's like
what I do, right, And like I don't know, like
I think as much as this episode is going to
be us screaming about this union doing unhinged shit, like

(04:50):
we're obviously like pro union. Like I had my union
that I organized on by show to talk about our
god dract against you.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
It's like, yeah, I was member of the first box
union that yeah, god damn that was almost ten years.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Ago now is christ so old?

Speaker 4 (05:08):
And look like I believe in this stuff, like I like,
with the stroke of a pen, not to put it
that simplically because obviously a lot of fight went to it,
but with a struggle with pen, like I was able
to live in DC after being there he broke, you know,
and it's crazy like my salary went up to Liverpool
age and nothing.

Speaker 5 (05:26):
Died yep, right, you know, no one died.

Speaker 4 (05:30):
It was it was it was business as usual, honestly,
Like nothing was weird. So obviously people who listen to
the show, like, you know that these people with the
money like they're out to get us obviously for their
own game. And it's so just brazenly clear through like
this union story, especially through the past twenty years, which
is where I think you kind of have to start it.

(05:51):
I mean, just systematically stripped down. And the one thing
that even Pablo on his most recent episode, because he
talked about it last week because J. C.

Speaker 5 (06:00):
Tretter was elected director.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
One of the villains of this story power right.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
And and you know, one thing about like Poplo and
Mike Florio, who have really been on this more than
like any other national journalist, is like, yeah, we still
don't know a big component of like the why and
the how this is happening, because you know, well, we
gotta get into because basically it feels like there's two
two or three guys kind of acting as liaisons to

(06:29):
the owner while also trying to respect and you know,
run the union, which are obviously just two completely incompatible
ideologies when you're trying to work that out.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah, I guess that's actually a way to start talking
about this kind of going back to there there used
to be a time when the NFL union would go
on strike, like they did pickets, like they fought scabs
outside of the gates of football stadium.

Speaker 7 (06:54):
This was a thing that happened like regularly.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Like there's there's a whole bunch of stories of like
umw A guys and like guys from like the auto unions,
like on these picket lights with the NFL players and
you know, like one of one of the sort of
upshots of this God, Okay, that's a terrible punt, I'm
realizing now because this guy, Okay.

Speaker 5 (07:14):
We gotta talk about Gene, you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, yeah, one of one of the guys who led
this union was Gene Upshaw, who was a player for
a long time and then was like ran the union
for most of its history. And he's you know, he's
running an actual union, Like they go on strike, they organize,
they like do ship and you know, Jane like over

(07:36):
the course of this runs into like they start losing stripes,
which is just like a nightmare, and then he just
like dies in two thousand and eight, like this is
really horrible cancer. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
So so like not only like like Jane, Jane was
a hall of fame off intive Lineman. Yeah, Like like
when you think of the Raiders in the in the past,
like he was kind of like this start of that era.
The only basically the only area where we still think
of the Raiders is like, you know, an entity that
should be respected, right, right, not a joke because because

(08:13):
you know, it was.

Speaker 5 (08:13):
A different time in the league.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
Like especially when we see what the Seahawks sale ends
up looking like, and we've seen like the Broncos and
the Commanders get sold within the past decade.

Speaker 5 (08:24):
These teams are now being run by people who don't
have football backgrounds.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
Like when you think of you know, even even even
someone as despicable as Jerry Jones, like you can't you
can't doubt at his heart that you know, he loves
this sport and will be an advocate to the sport,
even in ways that that could be harmful to the
sport at times. But now we we kind of have
like this influx of people who don't have football backgrounds,

(08:50):
but they have the capital to kind of get in
and that that has also been a shift, I think
just from an ownership perspective over the last few years.
But when you look at Gene was coming out as
a player after he retired, and think in the early
eighties he kind of set the standard for you know,
he wasted He was elected executive director of the union

(09:14):
I think in the eighties and he held that position
until he died in two thousand and eight.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
So yeah, he died in office.

Speaker 4 (09:22):
That's a long time and and it's a lot of trust.
And also I think Gene kind of solidified the idea,
which is important now that players should run this union,
which I agree with. You know, yeah, that's what the
union is, right, That's that's what the union is. And
I would say even just like someone who played football byself,

(09:42):
like it's kind of a cult when you're in there
and you don't really really trust the outsiders to understand
like what is going on here on a day to
day basis. And also when you look at like the
start of this union back in the fifties, training camp
used to be free for the owners. They didn't get
for training camp or preseason games they played. They played

(10:04):
six free preseason games. Yeah, and didn't get paid for
training camp.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
Unreal, unreal, And like you can like you can get serious,
like people every single year, get really really seriously injured
like it trading camp and in preseason games.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
And there was no free agency, right, so like the
team that drafted you, like they own you until you
know you're ready to call it quit till they trade
you somewhere else where they cut you and you kind
of got to figure it out. But like the idea
that you could just like have this agency and leave
and your contract expires you can go side with someone else,
that was not a thing. So obviously, when when you
think about where football is now, like what I tell

(10:40):
people is like watch when they ask, like why should
I care about this union? Okay, think about how bad
it is now? It can get worse. It was worse, Yeah,
it was worse. It was significantly worse. But you know
you have like this idea that and it's a correct
idea because the players are the basis of it that
this person in charge of the union needs to.

Speaker 5 (10:59):
Be a player.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
And Gene, like coming from his background with the Raiders,
we were talking about proud football organization, Like the very
like material basis of being an NFL player was extremely
important to Gene. So you know, up until he passed
away in two thousand and eight, I mean he is
you know, he's, like you said, he's leading strikes. He's

(11:22):
fighting for more revenue, he's fighting for you know, more
benefits on the back end after guys retire, and it
kind of culminates in the two thousand and six CBA.
I would say, this is kind of like the Empire
strikes back moment for the owners because in two thousand
and six, the players in the owners, they signed a
CBA that on the surface granted the players a sixty

(11:45):
percent sixty percent revenue share against the owners forty percent.
When you start actually digging through the numbers.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
And yeah, that's not fuck like, it was fake.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
It was fake, right, So I'll say this, it was
fake in the sense that there was something called like
a revenue credit or a revenue a tax or something
that the owners took off of the pie before it
went down to like the sixty forty split, right, So
you know, and it's it started, you know in two
thousand and six, like I think the first time they

(12:17):
cut it it was like, you know, eight hundred billion
dollars and then you know, within two years they were
taking well over a billion dollars before it got passed
down onto the player. So you know, the players, they
got sixty percent of the total revenue. But by the
time you know that, they the owners took a second
look at that CBA and they used their opt out
clause in two thousand and eight. It was functionally like

(12:38):
a fifty one to fifty two percent split in favor
of the players, which the owners deemed completely unacceptable. Right, yeah,
Like and it's so funny because like this is this
is like the first part like where you start to see, like,
at least in this era of football, you get to
see how greedy these people are, right where you're already
taking a top off of like this quote unquote total
revenue and then you're you're pulling the clause in two

(13:01):
years to get out of this. So in two thousand
and eight, the owners say, we are going to get
out of this, and now the CBA instead of like
the ten year clause is going to expire at the
end of the twenty ten season, so they had two
seasons to kind of figure out what was going to
happen next. But unfortunately, in two thousand and eight, Gene
Upshaw gets pancreatic cancer and I honestly just like just

(13:23):
deteriors pretty quickly and passes away right before the season. So, hey,
listeners of this podcast probably know what do billionaires do
when they see a power vacuum at the top of
their labor force that there are actively fighting against. They
pounced and you have this vacuum of leadership. And then
Damor Smith gets voted the executive director of the NFLPA

(13:46):
and the owners. At the end of the twenty ten season,
they locked out the players, and that's where things really
starting to hear. You're dealing with that amount of agreed
where they're already taken off the top, and then they

(14:08):
say that's not enough, so we're gonna rip up the CBA.
And the funny part was the twenty ten season like
the last year of like the ripped up CBA, since
they didn't have an agreement on the next year. There
was no salary cap toward the twenty ten season, and
Jerry Jones, owner of the Taboys, and Dan Snyder, owner
of the Washington football team.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Oh god, what are the worst people ever?

Speaker 7 (14:30):
By the way, this is it, We don't time to
do this right up for like.

Speaker 5 (14:34):
One of the worst people ever.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
So you're like, if you play Madden before, you know
sometimes you might turn off the salary cap and what
do you do you spend And because Jerry has always
been like, it's my money. Yeah, I'm gonna spend as
much of it as i want to if I please,
like within the rule as the salary cap, no salary cap,
Jerry's gonna spend. And the other owners punish those two
with fines after the season, yeah, for spending recklessly. That's

(14:58):
how committed they are to like this consolidation of power.
They will publish each other over it.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
Which which by the way, is unhinged because like so
one of the fundamental like issues of the NFL is
that it is a monopoly. Yes, Now, the way they
get around this is a they have the union and
be the teams are supposed to be quote unquote competing
with each other and they are not supposed to quote
unquote collude against the players. And it's like, okay, you
you find guys for paying people.

Speaker 5 (15:26):
Like right, like you find each other.

Speaker 7 (15:30):
Yeah, which is like just unreal.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
It's just like the boss offs collusion if.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
You look across like to the NBA, where like the
Kawhi Leonard and Steve Balmer stuff is oh my god,
another party, another politic exclusive but hey, there's a reason
why they are aggressively going after this, you know, because
the other billionaires don't want people rummaging through their shit either,
so you know, and ultimately they like the Microsoft guy

(15:56):
being part of the gang, so they're not going to
do anything. And that's when you see like, oh, there
is so much power here that these guys have. And
but going back to the NFL, like the twenty eleven
CBA is by.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
The way, CBA is collective bargaining agreement, is.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
The collect collective bargaining agreement right between the union and
the league, right, so if there's no agreement, then like
they can't play football games, yeah, because you know, like
you said, like the NFLPA functory just exist so the
NFL doesn't get sued for like anti trust stuff, which
takes us right back to the next point. So going
back to twenty eleven, the players are trying to figure out,

(16:31):
like what are we gonna do about like this lockout
situation because they need to work. Honestly, you know, this
is a career that you can only do for most
guys like two or three years, and the idea of
missing a season is not really feasible, which the owners.
You know, they take advantage of all the time, like
they know that these guys are on short like short clocks.

(16:54):
If you if you get to like year five of
an NFL career, you are in a very very small
group of players that like, honestly like just represent the
elite of the elite of people who have ever played
football like in this country.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
And I think the everything about this too is like
that's really important.

Speaker 8 (17:12):
This is an.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Unbelievably, unbelievably skilled labor force. Yes, And in order to
develop these skills, you have to devote your entire life
to it. Yes, And then what you get from devoting
your entire life to this thing that is killing you
because you're getting injured constantly and you're getting head trauma
from all of this every single time. Like, so we
start from like high school, you're starting to get brain

(17:33):
damage from concussions, and from like you're starting to get CTE. Yeah,
and then you have a couple of years to like
make money from having devoted your life to this thing.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
Right, So think about like it's March of twenty eleven. Now,
Gene upshaws and pass away. For a couple of years,
they were in the fully in the demor Smith in
the more Smith's reign of union leadership, and the first
move that the owners make, like now that the CBA
is officially over twenty ten season, they lock out the players, which,

(18:03):
as we just said, if your career is two years,
the idea that you would miss one of those years
is kind of unfathombed. You're earning power is just like demolished.
And let's say you're you're twenty four years old, you
got to play two years in the NFL. You're walking
out with let's say a million in your bank account.
You still got to get a job, bro, you know,
like you like, you still got to find something else

(18:24):
to do. So like, this isn't money that's going to
set you up for the rest of your life for
most of these guys, even though it does give you
like a nice cushion to fall off to, even if
you're someone who struggled a little bit. And shoot, I
know when I was twenty four, I would have loved
to have like seven hundred thousand dollars in.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
My main account.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
Things would have things could have turned out, you know,
maybe a little bit different. Probably still would have found
something some way, Like where I'm right here. But but honestly,
it's a good start. So what the union did was
a decertified as a union in twenty eleven, led by
Tom Brady and Drew Brees Falcons fan. And I will

(19:02):
say this part has given me so much justification on
my hatred. It's like it went past the football into
like the like the material realm of like real life.
You you, you guys messed up here. They tried to,
you know, challenge the league by decert finance union and arguing,

(19:24):
you know that now this is an anti trust situation.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
Blah blah blah, blah, bah blah.

Speaker 4 (19:27):
Get down to August the time of twenty eleven CBA
in August of twenty eleven, so like this is a month,
a month before the season, and the concessions that were
made after like after getting locked out for what six.

Speaker 5 (19:43):
Like five months?

Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, and you decertified that you go through all this
work to try and get a deal done, and they
gave up so much. So we said before you have
the total revenue split at you know, sixty forty, but
functionally it was closer to you know, fifty one fifty
two percent in favor of the players that dropped to
like forty seven percent in the twenty eleven CBAS So

(20:07):
now the owners are back in charge, you know, like
fifty percent split in favor of the owners. So like
you're you just gave them back like billions of dollars,
like over the course of really really just like a
couple of years, but over the lifetime of a ten
year CBA. I mean that that's that's egregious and also.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
The believable amount of money.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
Another thing that changed was Roger Goodell has now like
full autonomy over player punishments.

Speaker 5 (20:35):
I don't know why you gave that up either. That's unhinged, right, right.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
That's like that that's the kind of thing that like
the like the only kind of unions that would sign
something like that are like, like I don't even think
the organized crime unions would signe out. I think that's
just like literally the fascist unions and the unions that
are directly controlled, like the yellow unions that are directly
controlled by corporation or like, the only ones that would
sign that, even those ones probably would want to still

(21:03):
have like some involvement in that. That's like unbelievable for
a union contract, just like right, nonsense.

Speaker 4 (21:11):
Right, And and what's changed here is like these players
are not willing to go on strike, like to not
play these games, to not have a situation like in
the eighties where you know, Donald Trump has built up
the USFL and saying, hey, why don't you strikeing players
that come play over here, and you you have some
some guys who were like NFL Hall of famers who
have briefly played in the USFL during you know, during

(21:34):
the strike stuff that that doesn't happen here. And I
think about the timing, Yeah, August was it August fourth,
twenty eleven, one hundred and thirty two day lockout they
signed this deal, so so I can imagine, And I
was like, I'll give them this. It's hard out here, man,
like you're about to You're looking at yea, like the
consequence of, you know, I'm about to not have checks

(21:56):
and I maybe have a lifestyle where I am still
should be getting you know, these weeks to be paychecks.
That's kind of a tough, tough draw. So I will
give them like the small grace of saying at that point, man, okay,
fuck it, just let's just go just get something signed.
But what they gave up, I'm not sure like they

(22:17):
were fully aware of what they gave up here, and
the part of the biggest thing that where they gave
up was part of the biggest thing. After they after
I say they gave the money back to the owners,
they gave Roger Goodell, they made them dictator in terms
of like the punishment workforce, but the rookie wage scale,
my god, a massive, holy massive concession to ownership because

(22:42):
they they as in like Tom Brady and Drew Brees
more so Drew Brees from what I've gathered, kind of
framed this as, hey, why are these rookies getting all
this damn money? Like this is something that should be
going towards the veterans, and ownership was like, oh, you
see it. You think like you think that's a good idea,
Like we can agree, we can agree to that. And

(23:03):
what they got back was like less practice time, so
you know, you know, you don't have to have as
many two a days.

Speaker 5 (23:10):
That's worth billions of dollars.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
Really like in terms of like what you what you
guys can set yourself up with and what the what
the veteran players who were on board with this, what
they thought was, oh okay, well if the rookie wages.
If the rookie wages deal like that, if that gets
capped at a certain amount, then that's more money for us.
So like the like a prime example is in twenty ten,

(23:32):
Sam Bradford was a number one overall pick to Saint
Louis Rams. He signed a six year, eighty four million
dollar contract. So the next year, Cam Newton is the
first overall pick to the Caroline Panthers, and after this
lockout ends, his contract was four years, twenty two million
dollars fully guaranteed.

Speaker 7 (23:48):
She's christ.

Speaker 4 (23:49):
You lost sixty million dollars in terms of value from
the year before. So what what the players, what the
veteran players thought was, oh, okay, well now there'll be
this influx of cap space to sign veteran players. What
do billionaires do when they suddenly have access to a
cheap workforce. They just loaded up on rookies, right, So

(24:11):
these veteran players they sold themselves on like the fallacy
of trickle down economics and got themselves replaced out of
the league. So the only people at this benefit really
was people like Drew Brees, people like Tom Brady who
don't need it, right and but also are so indispensable
to their organizations that they can eat up the cap
space that was left over from the rookies game signed.

(24:34):
So that's like that's when you start to see like
the quarterback contracts balloon up. Where you know, you go
from like in twenty fifteen, eleven years ago or twenty sixty,
I think Cam Newton signed a contract that made him
the highest paid quarterback in NFL history at five years,
one hundred million dollars. Oh my god, you know, and
now that number is what like, I think, man, who's

(24:57):
the high paid?

Speaker 5 (24:58):
Is Joe Burrow the highest paid right now? At I
feel like it's Burrow?

Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah that sounds right.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
But now like that deal is worth you know, closer
to eighty million, you know, seventy million dollars a year
than it is to anything like closer to twenty Yeah,
so you gave up so much and you got this
whole middle class of the league just decimated, and and yeah,
like that that's still tangible today. You can just go
on over the CAAP dot com or a stock track

(25:24):
dot com and just look at like like average money
like per year, and there's a top and then the
middle class is literally like a couple players, and for
quarterback it's like two or three guys like you have
like announce like a Molik Willis or a Daniel Jones,
like forty like as crazy as to say, like forty
four million dollars, Like that's outside the top half of

(25:44):
what guys are getting paid. And then it's all rookies yep,
like all rookies and guys on rookie contracts. There's no
middle class like that that's gone from the NFL. And
with that, like you lose some of like like personally
this is vide like you lose some of them, like
the wisdom that comes with that of guys who have
played in the league because now now they're getting turned

(26:05):
out so fast because the contract is so cheap. Yeah,
I'm not going to extend you because honestly, this game
beats your body up so bad that it's better just
to get a fresh body in there. And these people,
they have no attachment to the sacrifices that have been
built over a long time. So you kind of build
this player force that doesn't know what's going on.

Speaker 5 (26:25):
And I say that with.

Speaker 4 (26:26):
A grain of salt now because I used to be
one of these guys like, oh you know, they don't
care what's going on, and there is a good chunk
that don't care what's going on. But I think now
it's more clear there's like an obvious force stopping them
from getting like information about what's going on with this
union stuff, which is the meat of this. Like the

(26:48):
recent stuff is just like the ultimate just fucket. I
guess we're ponds of the ownership stuff.

Speaker 5 (26:53):
You know.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
I think the arc of this is like it's it's
the arc of sort of unionism in America. You know,
you go back to like your early nineteen hundreds unions, right,
and those unions, you know, they're unbelievably powerful. They're extremely dangerous.
You know, you get to a point where like the
IWW will show up to a town and like the
bosses in the town will show up with guns and
shoot them because they're that well organized, they're that dangerous,

(27:27):
they're that capable of striking, they're that committed, and they're
that able to tap into all of their members and
have everyone in the union be a part of the
union and do things with the union. And that's you know,
how you can actually do collective action. And then and
you can watch this with sort of like with the
ability of NFLPA, like obviously like that's a much weaker union.

(27:48):
Then you're like, yeah, I don't know, you're like nineteen
thirty CIO or whatever. Yeah, but you can watch it
like sort of decay into this sort of you know,
what you call like a service union, where in instead
of it being run by the players, there's like, okay,
we're we have some people. They're going to go they're
going to do everything for you. They're going to sometimes
talk to you about it, but you know, like they're

(28:09):
going to be the runs, like managing all of the
contracts and all of the negotiations and like right, and
as it like information circle gets tighter and tighter, you know,
that makes it way easier for things to just get
completely fucked. And then then you know, and this is
one of the things that you see in the nineties
is the complete dominance of business unionism where it's like, nah,
fuck it, we're a union, yeah, right, the us on

(28:29):
the employers actually have the same interest and we're going
to work with them to make money. And it's like
how is that going for you? Guys like I E.
And then that's what this sort of turns into and
one of the issues here, and you're talking about this
with like the information control is what once you get
into this situation where you know a really really small
number of people, like we're talking maybe thirty people, and

(28:51):
then the executive committees even smaller than that, are the
ones who are you know. One of the things that
happens in the later part of this is so JC Shredder,
who's like the guy behind the scenes for like the
executive just the search for like the executive director, the
guy who like completely truly was like the most hideous
guy I've ever had running this union. He changed the

(29:14):
process so that it was completely confidential, to the point
where the three two guys on the board who were
supposed to be voting for the executive director didn't know
the names of the candidates until they walked into the meeting, Right,
what the fuck?

Speaker 4 (29:29):
And to me, like that point is like so crucial
because that's where I ship from. Oh, it's not that
the guys don't care about this, like they don't know
what's going on.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
Yeah, it's being hidden from them.

Speaker 5 (29:40):
They can't know, they can't know.

Speaker 4 (29:42):
And and I will say, like part of what makes
this difficult if you are someone in there who does
care and wants to wants to fix things. Is they're
just the truth that like even the bottom rung players
are comfortably living like off of their salaries. So when
you start to get to guys who are veterans, like
and even if you don't take the best deal shit,

(30:02):
like what I'm still making fifteen million dollars a year, Like,
ultimately I'm still good. And that's what it's hard to
like get people galvanized about this sometimes. But I think
that that part about like players not caring has kind
of been overrepresented a little bit because I think if
you're paying attention now, there's so much murkiness. And I

(30:25):
think when when you get to like the recent CBA
is like in twenty twenty, the COVID year one, So
now that's like the more Smith and J. C. Tredder
who was playing for the Browns and then he was
the president of the NFLPA as they enter like this
this twenty twenty CBA at the end after the end
of the twenty eleven ten year run where for ten
years they locked themselves into owners Chasepion to extract like

(30:47):
as much value, yeah as as it seemed like they
possibly could at the time, and then twenty twenty comes
and the owners are basically just like, hey, there's gonna
be another lockout unless you guys agree to a seventeenth game,
which you should say that okay, cool, because there's no
circumstance where you you can walk the football and know

(31:08):
how horrible this game is for your body and say
we are going to play more football without like major concessions. Yeah,
because I remember when that was going on, you know,
I was talking to some older guys who weren't in
the unit anymore, but they were looking at it like,
man like if they're if they're gonna say seventeenth game,
like we need something massive like giving back to us

(31:28):
on the other hand, because that's just straight up a
revenue play to get more games on TV and make
these TV contracts a.

Speaker 5 (31:34):
Little bit more lucrative.

Speaker 4 (31:35):
And that didn't really happen, you know, like no, like
they just gave up the seventeenth game and they got
I think one percent more in terms of like the
rev share, so it got to like forty eight or
forty nine percent.

Speaker 5 (31:47):
It's like, yeah, like that's it you.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
Share for adding Like what what what's the percent game added?
To the season like right.

Speaker 4 (31:57):
And and like there were some concessions made to like
players made at the bottom rung of the ladder, so
like like the veteran minimum salaries, like they got boosted,
the practice squads got a little bit longer, and now
you got into the space where you see, like veterans
can be on a practice squad instead of guys who
are within like three years of you know, accrued years

(32:19):
in the NFL. But the seventeenth game while still having
inequity in terms of the revenue share, I mean, the owners,
they'll sign up for that every single time. Oh we
got to throw your crumbs, yep, and we still get
to keep our billions. And they timed it up right,
so that seventeenth game being inserted into the schedule was

(32:40):
lining up with new TV contracts with ESPN and NBC
and Amazon everyone. You see, like throwing cash is so understated,
Like if not throwing cash, like billions of dollars is
going to the NFL. Yeah, through these TV deals. Like
it's funny. I had a friend, you know, one of
these Shador Sanders stands. He was arguing like, oh you know,

(33:00):
he was like, oh, you know, like the Browns like
they took Shador because they need the jersey sales. I'm like, dude,
Chador could have the number one selling jersey in the NFL,
and Jimmy hasn't didn't care about that. That's a drop
of a drop of a drop in the market for
like where the money's actually coming from, and that's the
TV deal. So to get that seventeenth game is huge,

(33:21):
And this term is for ten years again, so in
twenty thirty they can look at, you know, renegotiation trying
to figure it out. But in the meantime, like to
even call this a union is so far away from
like how it's actually functioning.

Speaker 5 (33:37):
Now.

Speaker 4 (33:37):
It's getting to the part like where it's kind of
murky on what's happening. Because obviously, like if you're in
a union and you know, like my coworkers, like they've.

Speaker 5 (33:46):
Dealt with J. C.

Speaker 4 (33:46):
Tradder, like I've seen him speak before, if you're in
a union, obviously, like you don't want too many people
outside of the union to know what's going on. Like
it's just not good from a standpoint of like leverage
and power. But JC Tredder like he plays off of
that by keeping everything a secret.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
You know, Yeah, which is a terrible idea, which is
a terrible idea, Like yeah, well it's good for him,
right right, right, Like maybe you.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
Don't want to tell me a reporter like what's going on,
but you should tell like the other people within your
union what's going on. Like when you see like a
lack of information about or any information about, like what's
going on with these with these elections, it's because no
one's being told what's going on these elections.

Speaker 5 (34:28):
And that's how you end up with Lloyd Howe, which
is just dude.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
Oh god, okay, okay, let let's let's talk about Lloyd Howell,
who is oh my god, yeah, one of the worst
people to run a union I have ever seen.

Speaker 4 (34:45):
Yes, but it's purposefullly bad, you know, Like, yeah, the
Lloyd Howell like a secret election, Like it's not not
even to say, like I was, you know, somewhat somewhat
of a secret now a secret of election basically to
get Lloyd Howell hired what he somewhere for Booze Allen Man.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
Yeah he was. He was the CFO of booz Allen Hamilton, right,
Like his background was in busting unions.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Uh huh, right, that's his background. Yeah, and this, but
this is where you get like such a look at
the ideology of someone like J. C. Tratterer, who also
studied labor unions in college. That's what you guys, degree
in labor labor relations and labor rangement from Harvard.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
Yep, yeah, you're not. You're not doing the the labor
relations degree to like being a union. Like like the
people the people who like organize for unions are like
fucking grad students who you know, have like a I
don't know like they have they have some random degree
and then they were like, fucking I organized my graduat
you know, I'm gonna go organize the field. This is

(35:46):
not what you go into that for. You go into
this union busting.

Speaker 5 (35:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:49):
So, but so J. C. Trader and you know, the
people around him they viewed that experience from Wood Howell
and busting unions as a positive. Yeah, because you know,
there's this train of thought like oh, well, you know, well,
if we know someone who knows how to destroy us,
if we hire them, surely they will change their ways
and they will start to help us. Like we're going

(36:12):
to get inside knowledge on how to bust a unit.
So maybe we could weaponize that and turn it back
the other way. Man, that's dumb as hell, Like that's
oh my god. Right, and not only that, but but
but how who who? Who is elected the executive director
of the union is also a part of a hedge
fund that is investing in NFL teams in minorities.

Speaker 5 (36:35):
Yeah, the Carlisle Group.

Speaker 9 (36:36):
Like you, you're an executive director of the union works
for hedge funds that are extracting value from these teams,
like like true players.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
Yeah, that's that's disqualifying, Like it should be disqualifying.

Speaker 7 (36:52):
She's on camera.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
The union posted a video of him on camera talking
about how he was talking to the owners about letting
about letting the investment group.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yes, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
It's as close as I've ever seen outside of again,
a union that is literally run by the bosses to
like my union guy works for managements. Like it's like baffling.
I don't know, It's like it's like State integrated CCP shit, right,
Like it's like, dude, yes, you have.

Speaker 5 (37:18):
A corporate consultant?

Speaker 4 (37:20):
Is your union liaison to thirty two billionaires and Roger Goodell?
Like yeah, it's it's completely incompatible on like a basic
like ideological level, and then you start getting to like, well, okay,
well now he has like direct control over people's lives
and the funds of the union, which, as ESPN and
Paulo Tooria found out, he was using to go to

(37:42):
the goddamn strip club in Miami, Yeah, and to spend
on other stuff. And also he was sued for sexual
harassment while he was at Booz Allen. So he's hidden
like the check marks for everything you see like corporate sociopathy,
right yeah, and they're like, that's our guy, that's our guy.
Once all this stuff comes out about how he spends
his money and you know, how he's misappropriating funds, that

(38:05):
was what got him out, more so than like the
material practices that he accept the five while he was
running the union, which involved, yeah, hiding the fact that
the owners were colluding against them.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
It is completely unhinged. And unfortunately, the other thing that's
unhinged is that's going to be all for today. However,
come there is more to this story tomorrow, as we
finished part two of this interview, and oh my god,
holy shit, somehow the worst is yet to come. So

(38:40):
join us for part two tomorrow, in which question Mark
there seems to be good evidence of the NFL paying
a guy specifically to be able to keep control of
the union. Oh dear, So if you if you want
to find more of Charles McDonald's work, you can do
so at the Football three h one podcast and at
Yeahoo Sports, where he writes to call them for verts.

(39:02):
It's quite good. You should listen to it. And yeah,
dear god, I don't know foreign unions. If you're in
unions that suck, make better ones, welcome to it could

(39:27):
happen here podcast about the most unhinged union story I
have ever covered. I am your host, Mio Wong, and
in a moment we will return to my interview with
Yahoo Sports journalist Charles McDonald. So if you have not
listened to the last episode, you should listen to the
last episodes. We can get you up to the twenty

(39:49):
twenties in terms of the horrifying and depressing story of
the NFL Players Association's leadership graduate selling out more and
more of their players. And in this episode we're going
to really sort of get down to the brass tax
of what's been happening in the twenty twenties and answering

(40:13):
the question to what extent has the NFL paid in
order to have a pro management regime installed at the
head of the union, a question that is really distressingly.
We have good evidence of this, but before we can
get to that, we need to talk about one of
the other absolutely horrifying things that this union regime has done,

(40:37):
and that is the union covering up as reported by Publictoria. Originally,
it reports by an arbitration judge about whether or not
the independent teams in the NFL, which are supposed to
be businesses competing against each other. And I kind of
emphasize this enough because this is a major portion of
how the NFL's anti trust is I'm just supposed to work,

(41:01):
is that these teams are normally competing against each other,
so there is supposed to be a labor market with competition.
But this document that the union covered up from an
arbitration process they were in is about it has very
good evidence of the league actively colluding in order to
pay players less, and the union covered it up. So

(41:24):
here we go back to our interview. Let's talk about
this collusion thing, because I've been losing my fucking mind
about this for a really long time, and I cannot
imagine just literally having evidence in your hand that the
owners are colluding against your members, like these are literally

(41:47):
you like this is supposed to be you and you're
just sing hiding the report h even.

Speaker 4 (41:53):
Like okay, so even if you lose the arbitration. Yeah,
the fact that a judge wrote, yeah, legal document that
it was like beyond the benstit of a doubt that
Roger Goodell and the thirty two owners were colluding. We've
seen text messages between the Cardinals owner and the Chargers
owner talking about how much to pay Justin Herbert.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
Yeah. Lamar Jackson, Yeah, okay, can we can we explain
to Lamar Jackson situation and like explain it who Lamar
Jackson is for people who don't watch football, so they
can understand how unhinged this is.

Speaker 4 (42:28):
Lamar Jackson is a wizard, is the best way that
I could put it. Lamar Jackson. He is the franchise
quarterback for the Baltimore Rayments, And I just think that
anyone with the brain could have seen what was going on. Yeah, right,
like with this situation, so so and even before Deshaun,
even before Lamar Jackson. You have to take it back
to Deshaun Watson trade out of Houston.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Oh god, the one trade we've ever covered on this show,
because holy shit, dude, Oh but this, this is.

Speaker 4 (42:56):
What got the Dominoes rolling on this stuff. Where As
terrible as Deshaun Watson is as a football player now
and obviously as a human being, yeah, like right when
he was in Houston, it feels like a different world,
but he was the man, Like he was incredible, like
to the point where the Texans I think his last

(43:17):
year starting there, they went four and twelve and it
was like so obviously not his fault, like in terms
of efficiency, like he was right behind Patrick Mahomes to
the top of the league. Like he got an apology
from JJ Watt that year saying, like, dude, we wasted
an absolutely incredible year from you. And then you know
the thirty accusations of at best sexual mixed conduct, at

(43:37):
worst sexual assault, and in some of those cases.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Yeah, it's really hideous shit.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
Right, So then it gets to a point where he
the texts they don't want them there, He doesn't want
to be there anymore. But you have what looks to
be a franchise quarterback in his mid twenties available for
any team to have, you know, with the trade. So
my team, Sally d Lash Falcons, they thought that they
had a deal done for Deshaun Watson, and then the

(44:05):
Cleveland Browns came in. And this is where the where
the ownership you know feedback kind of gets broken, where
Jimmy has Them breaks the rings and says, I want
this guy on my team so bad. You know, this
is why like nobody ever hits free agency in the NFL,
because this is what it would look like in terms
of like when owners actually have to bid against each

(44:25):
other for elite talent. Yeah, Jimmy has Them comes in
and says, here's five years, two hundred and thirty million dollars.
Every single penny will be guaranteed, no stipulations and nothing.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
Like that, which is like not how this works normally, Like,
no one gets guarantee contracts, right, And because.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
The previously the actual first player to get a fully
guaranteed the contract from another team was actually Kirk Cousins
with the Vikings when he left Washington. They gave him
like a three year I think it was three years
eighty eight million dollars fully guaranteed. But still that ain't
five years two hundred and thirty yeah, you know. Yeah,
And what the owners were mad about was not that
you would seek out someone with the personal background Deshaun

(45:03):
Watson to represent your franchise. It's that you would pay
any NFL player two hundred and thirty million dollars guaranteed.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
Because now that sense precedent.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
Because if you're Lamar Jackson, whose contract was coming to
an end at the season after Deshaun Watson signed this deal,
I didn't touch those women. Yeah, I'm an MVP quarterback
and I'm in my twenties. Why shouldn't I get a
fully guaranteed contract? Yep, right, which is what he was doing.
And the Ravens they said, okay, fine, go out into

(45:36):
the market. And I felt like I was going insane
during this because, oh my god, there were so many
arguments from talking heads about why teams shouldn't sign Lamar Jackson.
So he was hit with what's called a non exclusive
franchise tag, which means the Ravens. I don't even know
how how the idea of the franchise tag existing is

(45:57):
another week like labor.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
L hittyous anti labor practice.

Speaker 4 (46:01):
Right, So his contract with the Ravens is over. And
they can hit him with an exclusive franchise tag, which
means you will be playing for US next year. You
basically have no say in it unless we remove this
or you know, we work out a trade with somebody else,
but you cannot go negotiate with anyone else even though your.

Speaker 5 (46:18):
Contract has expired.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
And yeah, to be quote unquote fair, like, the payment
is a average of the top five you know, yearly
salaries of the position you play, so you will get
paid like, you know, a top five player for one
year at your position. It really only goes to mostly
valuable players that they're trying to extend. But they hit

(46:39):
him with a non exclusive franchise tag, which means they
have right a first refusal on if another team offers
Lamar Jackson a contract, and that team would owe the
Ravens two first round picks in order to sign Lamar Jackson.
So Deshaun Watson is one for three. Yeah, and this
rule is legally mandate. That is two first round picks.

(47:02):
And I'm sure you know the Raves have probably asked
for a little stuff beyond that, but I only have
to give you two first round picks and I can
just sign Lamar Jackson it's like a generational quarterback, like right, right, right,
at this point, we're talking about a quarterback who is
like twenty five years old. He's the first unanimous MVP,
which he wonted his first season as a starter. Yeah,
since Tom Brady. He's one of two players in like

(47:24):
or you know, I don't know if it's two, but
it's less than five players in the history of the
league that have been unanimous MVPs. Every single person voted
for Lamar Jackson be an MVP, and the Ravens said
go ahead and negotiate with another team, and no one,
no one even brought him in to talk to him, right, Like,
it's unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
I grew up in Chicago, so like I grew up
with the Bears, and my family are like a like
a family is like Seahawks fans. Right, Neither of those
two teams have ever had a quarterback who's in the
same stratosphere as this guy. Like this is right. These
guys never like ever ever.

Speaker 4 (48:03):
Ever hit free agency, never ever, and people like they'll
bend the rules to things that aren't written were let's say, oh,
you know, the.

Speaker 5 (48:11):
Ravens will just match, make them match. Then you have them.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
That's a competitive advantage for you.

Speaker 4 (48:16):
Right right. I hate that my favorite team he's popped
up in this Atlanta. But but Arthur Blank, he put
his name on it, saying, you know, the Falcons, like
they were trying to out, you know, backup quarterback quality guys,
because after Matt Ryan left.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
Has been rider like Jesus Christ.

Speaker 5 (48:32):
Marcus Mariota, dude.

Speaker 4 (48:34):
And and I'm sitting there like you're telling me that
I can sign Lamar Jackson and I got to give
up two first round picks for him, Like, dude, pay
him sixty million guaranteed every year.

Speaker 5 (48:44):
He's worth that much.

Speaker 4 (48:45):
Yeah, And Arthur Blank says, well, you know, Lamar Jackson,
he's gonna get hurt too much for us to sign him.

Speaker 5 (48:52):
So so nope, no team signs him. No team even
talks to him.

Speaker 4 (48:55):
So obviously he goes back to the Ravens, doesn't get
the full guaranteed contract that the Shaun Watson got and
that kind of put an end to it for a
little bit until the power of journalism popped up. Poullotory
does his investigation here's about arbitration, hearing about collusion in
the NFL, and he gets his hands, like on the
documents that say that while Lamar Jackson was going through

(49:18):
his free agency basically rejection by thirty one teams, when
he would have been upgrade for like.

Speaker 5 (49:23):
Twenty eight of them, twenty nine of them.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
Yeah, at the time, I would throw a number one
overall rookie quarterback that I just drafted with the first
ro overall pick out the fucking window thrown away to
get Lamar Jackson.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
Right, you can be a part of this. Two first
round picks were giving you two first round picks plus. Yeah,
you know if like at that time, like it may
have been like Kyler Murray or something like that.

Speaker 5 (49:43):
Yeah, take them like it's taken.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
It's unbelievable, Like I cannot he he literally like the
game of football is a fundamentally a different game now.
It was when when Lamar Jackson like started playing because
of him, and it's just like he didn't take.

Speaker 4 (49:58):
Him his influence on the NFL so strong that we
don't really do the black quarterback talking points anymore. Yeah,
because the league was like, oh, we can't let that
happen again. Like when Lamar Jackson fell to thirty two
and everyone's talk about does he needs to play a
different position, and in year two he wins an MVP.

Speaker 5 (50:14):
Yeah, and the.

Speaker 4 (50:15):
Year after he signs his deal with the Ravens, he
wins his second MVP. Like that kind of cooled the fans.
Like when you get to see guys like Kim Warre
going first overall or even Kyler Murray going first of
all and there's no talk about like how smart they
are as players. Yeah, Like that's his influence directly, his
success contribute to that, Like he is a Hall of Fame.
It kind of gives me chills, like think about like

(50:36):
what he's accomplished concerning like what has this fact against him? Yeah,
Like he is such an important figure for this era
of football and really just the whole league, like on
the field and off the field, like what he means
like culturally in society, for like for the chances that
black man can get to play a position that deemed
like they were deemed not the place part enough because

(50:56):
he was so good that they said, we can't look
that stupid again. This player was available. This player was
available in his athletic times. Every team could have drafted him.
Every single team in the league could have drafted him,
and they fucking didn't the Ravens passed on him.

Speaker 5 (51:10):
It's like he was not even the first Ravens draft
pick that year.

Speaker 4 (51:13):
No, they drafted hidden Hurst twenty five overall before they
drafted Lamar Jackson. Every single team passed on him, and
he's one. He's one of eleven players in the HISTORIL
and NFL to win two MVPs. Every other player that
has won two or more MVPs is either a Hall
of Famer or actively playing Aaron Rodgers and Pat Mahomes.
That's it, Like this guy is a Hall of Famer already.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
And he should have won a third by the way,
like right, he should have won the third, but either
way near identical, like like statistical tie for like a
third one.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
So yeah, he's first. He's the three time first team
up pro. He's going to be a Hall of Famer.
And the fact that nobody nobody called him in to
say what what would it take? What contract are you
looking for? That that's why I was like something, something,
something is so obviously not right here. The Colts traded
to first rowd picks for a quarterback, Like yes, right,

(52:04):
precisely precisely, and.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
Like they're starting a guy who broke his leg and
then also news Achilles like letters like.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
I just do like Jalen Ramsey went for two first
round picks and he's a great play, but he's a cornerback.

Speaker 5 (52:17):
You know, it's not even the same thing.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
So this is the most important position in sports.

Speaker 4 (52:21):
Right A first ballot Hall of Famer was on the
market in his prime and nobody talked him about a
contract except the team that owned that, you know, owned
like the rights of first refusal. And it was so
frustrating to see, like my colleagues in the media say, oh,
you know, the Rams were just gonna match. That's so disingenuous.
That's so disingenuous because you're you're stripping Lamar like of

(52:43):
his agency as a player one like he's better than
every other quarterback that just about any team has. It
will be such a severe upgrade. And you're also just
like holding the line for what you're not getting cut
of that money? Why are you lying for these people
like that? But but Pablo took back, like in his
reporting he found out that a job agreed with the
union that the players were being colluded against, like actively,

(53:06):
like there's there's text messages and J C.

Speaker 5 (53:08):
Trader and Lloyd Howe they hit this from the unit.

Speaker 10 (53:12):
Bro.

Speaker 5 (53:12):
If if you're a union and you have even if
you lose.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
Arbitration, you have physical note from a judge that says
you were ccluded against, take your megaphone to the top
of the talls mount in the world and talk about this.
Apply some pressure now, Like this is where I started
to get curious, like why why did this happen? Because
that part we still don't have enough information all like
like I need to like how much like if there's

(53:35):
a kickback going back to like JA C. Trader, how
much is it? And we do know that Lloyd how
part of the reason also parbat of reason why he
was fired or had to resign with because he along
with he along with a former former MLBPA union leader,
Tony White, who was recently fired for banging his brother's

(53:56):
wife who he hired to work at the mL LBU.

Speaker 11 (53:59):
Oh my fucking god.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Yeah, the NFLPA is so lucky that the MLBPA had
a shadow that's almost as embarrassing to the strung club
that maybe.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
But Lloyd Howell and Tony White, they were working together
as part of an eight man group of like union
parasites like at the top of the corporate ladder in
America to siphon money away from the union into their
own personal pockets.

Speaker 5 (54:25):
Like this is what's running it.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
We know for a fact Lloyd an Tony White, who's
the you know baseball union had what it was because
he no longer has his job or family.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Yeah, that did for him, but fucking you, you you
brought this upon yourself, right.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
He can't go home for Christy like that, Like he's done.
They were part of a small group that was sifeing
money away from you union funds to line their own pockets.
Like that is verified. They've been sued for that. So
what else is going on here?

Speaker 5 (55:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (55:07):
What is the incentivization for J. C. Tredder to push
someone like that through? And then the backside is jc's
reign as the union president expires while Lloyd How's the
executive director and Lloyd makes a new cushy role for
JC as like you know, I don't remember what the

(55:27):
role was called, but like.

Speaker 7 (55:28):
It's like if a strategy or something.

Speaker 4 (55:30):
Yes, chief strategy officer, so something that paid him like
three million dollars a year, very handsomely, punctually Lloyd was off,
you know, blowing money at the Strip club, and JC
was kind of running like the actual data day things
because he's the one that has a connection.

Speaker 5 (55:43):
To the players, right. And now we've gone through a
point where.

Speaker 4 (55:48):
After Gene Upshaw dies, the two executive directors who followed him,
as you know, the head of union, Jamar Smith and
Lloyd Howe. Neither of those guys were NFL players, So
you can understand how players might feel we've gotten a
little bit too far from our roots, like we don't
have guys who are from our background interested in you know,

(56:10):
players and what we go through.

Speaker 5 (56:12):
Which leads back to J. C.

Speaker 4 (56:14):
Tredder, who played for the Packers, played for the Browns,
was at his peak.

Speaker 5 (56:19):
Man, he was a good player.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
Like I'm not going to take that away from Like
he was a good starting center on a lot of
good offensive lines in Cleveland that didn't win any games, no,
but they they blocked the hell out of people, man Like,
Like like when you go back you look at some
of those lines, like they had Joe Thomas and Alex
Snack and Mitchell Schwartz, Joe Platonio, like they have some
stars that are out there winning four or five games

(56:40):
a year. So Lloyd Halliver resigns in a mess. JC
is still the chief Strategy offers of the NFLPA.

Speaker 7 (56:47):
I think he resigns eventually from there.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
Yes, yes, yes, after whatd HALLI resigns. J C resigns too.
So now we're up to last summer summer twenty twenty five. Yeah,
eight months ago, right, it's March twenty seven. Eight months ago.
J C tried to resigns from the chief strategy officer
role that was cut out before him and says he
said in an interview to my friend Jonathan Jones, I

(57:12):
have no interest in any leadership roles in the moving forward.
He said. I have given this my all. I've given
this everything I had. I'm gonna go home and be
a family man. I have no interest in this at all.
And it seemed like it until this month when j C.
Pouse back up as one of the finalists for the

(57:33):
new executive director role that's was previously left by Lloyd Howe.

Speaker 5 (57:38):
Now this is where it's murky.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
I don't know like all the processes that go on
with like how they decide like who's gonna, you know,
do what, like they apparently they have three hundred candidates.
It will have down the three. I don't ask some
players what was going on in the past couple of weeks.
They don't know, like how like all this was selected.
But they are presented with three finalists for the executive
director role to vote on Rider, who has popped up

(58:01):
out of nowhere. Then the commissioner of the American Athletic
Conference so like Temple and you know those East Coast schools,
like like James Madison or whatever, like he's overseeing that.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
It's like a college football commissioner.

Speaker 4 (58:16):
Well yeah, like like yeah, college football, college football commission
Like he's talking to like the president of Rice University
about like scheduling games against Toledo or some shit.

Speaker 11 (58:25):
Christ.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
But see you have Jay C. Tradder the American Conference commissioner,
not even like the ACC, the A A C. Right
think ass conference. It used to be the Big East,
Like they're stolen Big East valor this this guy was
running against JAYC.

Speaker 5 (58:40):
Trader.

Speaker 4 (58:41):
And also the third was a former Hollywood Union exect
who didn't really seem to be that interested in the
role in the first place. So we get down to
the election day and we find out the American Conference
commissioner drops out on.

Speaker 5 (58:57):
Election day. He dropped right. Okay, So now so now.

Speaker 4 (59:02):
We're dealing with We've had two executive directors back to back,
Morse Smith, Lords Howe not football players didn't go well.
Ja C. Tratder was a part of that, but he
played football, right, So you see the Jac Tradder or
this Hollywood guy who doesn't give a crap. I forget
his name, but his background wasn't like always the cleanest
in terms of, you know, actually getting things done, in
terms of you know, being pro labor all the time,

(59:25):
ultimately as fucked up as it is. That's an easy
choice if you're a player. These are my two options.
I'm gonna take the guy who at least has played football.

Speaker 5 (59:33):
So you had Ja C.

Speaker 4 (59:35):
Tradder, who is now back as the executive director eight
months after he said he had no interest in being
any type of union leadership.

Speaker 7 (59:42):
And like somehow this whole process has like stage manage.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
He's like back again.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
Right, But to me, this lynchpin right here is actually
the most fascinating part of what's happened. And this is
where like, if you listen to this podcast probably won't
sound like the conspiracy If you're not thinking about labor
relations in America. It might sound like conspiracy to you,
but j C. Tretder when he was the president, like
his right hand man, I think it was like the
vice president was Jalen Reeves Mayban or was very important.

(01:00:10):
He was especially seen was the linebacker for the lines
for a long time. He became the union president after
j C. Tretder left and you know, became like the
chief strategy officer. So he basically followed in j C.
Treader's footsteps as the union president. So you know, while
all this shapey stuff's going on, Reeves Mayban is an
underrated part as you know, the new union president because

(01:00:32):
Lloyd was executive director.

Speaker 5 (01:00:33):
J C had this new role as the chief strategy officer.

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
But Jalen Reeves Mayban is sitting there as the president
of the union, so obviously he is involved in this somehow, right,
Like he is involved with like the cover up for
the players not being as aggressive as you should be
towards ownership in terms of gave up a seventeenth game,
dog like that's insane and you got nothing back for it. Yeah,

(01:00:58):
So there's a clock though, in terms of how long
you can like be removed from being a player and
still be the NFLPA president. And last year Jalen labeling
he had been out of the league, so his clock
was almost up.

Speaker 5 (01:01:12):
I think it's within yes, two years. Two years.

Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
So if you flaw the league, you're not signing a contract,
like no one's pursuing you, like you kind of just
get filed as retired, even if you're not, even if
you have to come out and say like I'm retired,
Like there's a bunch of players that never said I'm retired,
but nobody's signed them, like t Y Hilton. T Y
Hilton just functually retired, like yeah, two weeks ago. He
hasn't played like five years, okay, but he has been
placed in a retired file in the NFL. As far

(01:01:37):
as just like labeling things go, and if you are retired,
if you were labels retired, you can't be the NFLPA president.

Speaker 5 (01:01:43):
Makes good, perfect sense.

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
So okay, this does not sound crazy, probably the people
who listen to this podcast. Right, If you are one
of thirty two owners, right, and you have this power
structure of an organization that you negotiate against the NFLPA,
this power structure is very friendly towards you. You know,
they've given you a lot over the past fifteen years

(01:02:07):
since he ripped up the two thousand and six Cbah.
How much would you pay to keep that in place?

Speaker 5 (01:02:14):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:02:14):
Yep?

Speaker 5 (01:02:15):
How much would you pay to keep it in place?

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
And I haven't seen many people talking about this part
of it, But the Chicago Bears signed Jalen Reeves Maybin
this fall.

Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
Oh my god, right to a betterment deal. I looked
it up.

Speaker 4 (01:02:29):
I think he played like forty special team snaps for
them this season. But that resets his clock. That resets
his clock to be president of the Union. So now
we get to the end of the season. Yep, Jailerry
Vaven runs again to be president. I'm not sure anybody

(01:02:50):
ran against him. No one's told us who the other
Cannions were, yep, if there were other candidates, And now
he's the president of the Union again after he was
almost barred from it. Does any Bears remember like any
play the Jaylen Breeze may made?

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
No right? Like I would. I watched every game of
that team, y'all. I guess they're like two that I
missed for those on planes.

Speaker 4 (01:03:14):
But like no, but okay, but but somethink about it
from disrespect. If you are an owner and you have
this power structure that is generating billions capital b billions
of dollars back in your direction away from the people
that they represent, would it be worth five hundred thousand

(01:03:35):
dollars keep that dolling and a little roster spot at
the bottom. Absolutely. Now that's the part that I haven't
seen people you know bring up as much because it
get stuck on Trader. But Treader's right hand man was
almost ineligible to be the president of the NFLPA. Yeah,
and he pops up in this little role when it
looks like his career is over, like they signed him
late in the season to play special teams. You should

(01:03:58):
bumple some of them in practice squad to go do that,
because because you want guys that you've already you know,
developed a relationship, guys you've started you started training working with.

Speaker 5 (01:04:06):
To get those reps.

Speaker 4 (01:04:07):
Some outside guy like coming into play special teams that
you know that's it's.

Speaker 5 (01:04:12):
Unnecessary, it's unnecessary.

Speaker 12 (01:04:14):
It's been out of the lead too, Like, yeah, there's
no reason to do it unless you, as a power structure,
are interested in him having eligibility to keep funneling you money, yep,
at expense of the players.

Speaker 4 (01:04:28):
Yeah, and I've really changed my tune like on players
not carrying over the past month, just from talking to guys,
like because I used to cover the Jets and the
Giants like for a newspaper here in New York City, Like
this is what I've done for the past ten years.

Speaker 5 (01:04:40):
I've met a lot of guys.

Speaker 4 (01:04:41):
They are like curious because You're like, what is this mechanism? Yeah,
that is allowing you guys to operate with so much
secrecy where you have J. C. Tredder, I mean shout
out to like the people who ran against him or
were there for a minute, but functionally, like practically he
ran unopposed for the executive director role, and so you

(01:05:05):
whittled it out from three hundred candidates to three and
one of them is J. C. Tratder and the other
is the commissioner of like the sixth mostly important college
football conference in the country. And then a Hollywood movie
like union exec guy. I mean, that's that's functionally unopposed.
And then with Jalen reason Laban, we don't even know

(01:05:26):
if anyone ran against him. So these guys are just
walking back into power yep, and the question that I
and players and other drills have what is that mechanism
that is operating in the shadows that is allowing us
to happen and how much is it worth?

Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
Because now we're coming up.

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
On a new CBA negotiation, they're probably going to get
an eighteen inch game in eighteenth. Like you you have
gone from in twenty years. You've gone from a spot
where you had revenue majority, even if it wasn't the
sixty percent fifty two fifty three, that's better than forty seven.
And like the literal death of Gene Upshaw, Yeah, it

(01:06:08):
like killed this union in a way that I don't
know if it's recoverable from because you've said precedent over
two cbas likely to be three, that you will give
up anything for what though, yeah, for nothing, but for
what like like Roger Goodell should never be coming out
and saying I'm glad that j. C. Tretder was named
the executive, Like j C. Tredder should be a pain

(01:06:30):
in his past. No, And it just it's sad to
me like as someone like who like I love the
sport so much and to see like what's happening to
the Union. It's horrible because ultimately, like we're so short
sighted that you know what what's happening from me, like
right right now or today, it's the only thing that matters.

(01:06:51):
But like there's gonna be real consequences for these guys
for decades and man, like I remember my first year
covering the Jets and the Giants for the Alien News
up here in New York was twenty nineteen, and the
Jets had a Legends day like where a bunch of
guys that came back and they were on during halftime.
It's for crappy teams do when you have nothing to
talk about then, like you talk about talk about the

(01:07:12):
good old this, right, but you know these guys that
come up and they were hanging out with us in
the press box before they went down on the field
of the halftime. These are like fifty year old men
like on canes and stuff like that, Like like my
dad's sixty and he still shoots hoops sometimes like at
the gym, and these are like forty five fifty year
old men that they can't walk with that assistance that
are like like they walk around like and they're forgetting like, oh,

(01:07:32):
what I just turned this corner to do like all
the time, like you're talking to them and you have
to keep reminding like refresh, like refreshing them on what
we were talking about, as if it's like chat GBT,
you know, like and it's sad. But when you see
like like the material restrictions that these guys have in
their own lives post playing, and these guys like they're
not all rich, like they're just normal people, it's it's

(01:07:52):
sad that this union has capitulated to the owners for
such a violent job. And sure, like you can say,
like you know, no one's telling you to be a
football player, but that's the only option a lot of
these guys have, like to go be football players and
to go put their body on the line just so
their family can live in.

Speaker 5 (01:08:12):
Comfort for a few years. Oh it's sad.

Speaker 3 (01:08:15):
Yeah, it's like it's the actual poverty draft. It hits
way way way more people than the military does, like
significantly more. And I think it's something that's really really
really badly understood on the left because it's like people
on the left head not to care about sports stuff,
but it's like football is a structural part, but the
entire American economy. It's a structural part of our the
entire American educational system, like half of the educational system

(01:08:38):
is designed to funnel people into this sport specifically so
these people could make fucking money off of it. Yes,
and that stuff shapes everything.

Speaker 4 (01:08:46):
And I understand, like why left these like they don't
care about spor us, Like I get it. But if
the NFL were to cease existing tomorrow, that would be
like a major collapse within the US economy. Yeah, Like
I'm not I'm joking. Basically everything you watch, especially now,
is subsidized by some NFL game, right, Like yeah, that's

(01:09:08):
that's why these companies exist. If you if you go
back every single year and you look at the top
one hundred most watched TV shows of the year, ninety
seven of them will be NFL games, yep. And you'll
have like the two coag football games and like the
Macy's things giving pretty.

Speaker 7 (01:09:23):
Yeah, maybe like maybe the World Series, right, maybe the
World Series.

Speaker 4 (01:09:26):
Like right, maybe the Oscars can like maybe the Oscars
versus like Jets Bills like Week twelve, that's.

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
Not flow like throw on a Thursday night like right,
But that's.

Speaker 5 (01:09:37):
How big this is.

Speaker 4 (01:09:39):
And I would implore people to not say, hey, who
cares about this? It's important And also like there's there's
there's also just like clear like you look at a game,
there's clear racial divides. Yeah, and who has to play
this game and who doesn't have to play this game?
There are studies that show that like upwards of eighty
percent of black boys who play sports want to be

(01:10:01):
professional athletes.

Speaker 5 (01:10:02):
I mean, because that's that's it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:04):
Really like it's that or I'm gonna go do I
don't fucking know, and and those are really your options.
And that's why I say, like I've used I've used
the NFL to kind of figure out my way like
through you know, how I feel about things, because there's
such real like desperation for these people to get out.
And the problem, like also with the union is like

(01:10:25):
let's say, like some of these guys come from nothing,
Like the fact that they could figure out a way
to get to a bus that would take them to
school where they could play.

Speaker 5 (01:10:31):
Football is like a major accomplishment in the rown.

Speaker 4 (01:10:34):
And the fact that you can go from that to
making three hundred thousand dollars in a year at twenty one,
that will distort you as well, because now you've made
such an extreme jump so fast, probably gonna be a
little bit complacent. You might not be thinking about what's
next because, and I say this for like a twenty
one year old person, you spent the last twenty years

(01:10:54):
of your life fucking fighting, like just to get to
the next day. I remember one of the crazy thing
back in the day, like when Laramie Tumpsill was at
Ole Miss, Like back when they got busted before the
nil stuff going out, there's this text thread between Laramie
Tumpson's OH line coach and his mom saying like, hey,
can you send money for the light.

Speaker 5 (01:11:12):
Bill this month?

Speaker 4 (01:11:14):
Yeah, he's a five star starter on your team that
is generating millions of dollars, and you could get in
trouble for sending his mom like two hundred bucks to
keep the lights one. You know, there's a real like systemic,
like obvious extraction of value from these black men, and
once it's over, they say good luck, get fucked until

(01:11:36):
you know, we had like the CTE lawsuit where they
had to payout billions of dollars, but ultimately you just
kind of come in and get discarded, which is why
this union is so important, And the fact that you
can be JC Tretdery use the trust that you have
earned through your own blood, sweat and tears of being
an NFL player and good enough to stand on your
own as like almost a decade long NFL starter. The

(01:11:58):
fact that you would use that and turn around and
like just capitulate the owners like that's scum.

Speaker 5 (01:12:03):
Ideos it's scum, and it's it's.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
Sad and just everyone here deserves better except for the
people at top. Yeah, and there needs to be some
answers on why are you guys doing this? They're not
doing for no reason. There has to be something there.
That's the part that we don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
One thing I want to kind of go back to
you for seconds, like how they're able to do this.
I don't know the exact mechanisms of how they specifically
have been able to do this, because every union is
structured like kind of differently. But there's something that's actually,
unfortunately like pretty common in even sort of like progressive
unions where you know, like we've had people on this

(01:12:53):
show a few times who were trying to dislodge this
clique that used to run Actually I'm not sure if
they're still running it, but they used to run the
big nurses union, like a huge portion of the country's nurses,
and so okay. One of the problems here is that,
like you need elections, even if they're well publicized, even
if you are trying to get everyone to vote, have
really really low turnout. Members unless they're really engaged, do

(01:13:16):
not pay attention to it. Yeah, and that's not even
really engaged in the sense of engage in union activities,
because even most of the people who like are really
engaged in like I want to go on strike or
like I want to I'm gonna show up to this
like contract session are voting in the union elections because
no one knows what's happening. No one knows who any
of the candidates are. It's no one cares. It's like
it's it's an even more extreme version of the problem
with like no one voting in regular elections, and so

(01:13:39):
with a really small amount of votes, you can just
get you and your faction installed for generations. Right, Like
there are admin caucuses in a whole bunch of unions,
like and we're talking about like like the Teamsters and
like the union's on that scale. We're like, yeah, there was.
It was a huge deal when the teamsters like finally
ran out their admin caucus. But like, these people are

(01:14:00):
in power for half a century, super empowered for like
generations of these guys are able to stay in these unions,
and they're able to do it because it's really really
easy to control union elections, especially once you're empowered. And
this is something I'm like I've talked about on this
fucking show. Like I've seen union staffers whose job it
is to do organizing get fired for telling their own
members to read a contract there but they were being

(01:14:21):
asked to vote on because that was considered a threat
to the power base, right, And the problem is is
that once you're running the union, you con troll the
jobs of all of the staff in these you and
one of the things that actually came out in public
tourist reporting is that they offered anyone who'd been at
the union for more than seven years a buyout. And
so you know, you can watch them do like they're

(01:14:42):
doing a systemic purge of all of this stuff, and
then like the moment, Shredder is like leading the search, right,
he's able to use his position, like his very specific
position in this bureaucracy, like as a president of the
union to like go change the terms of the search
so that it's no secret and you can just keep
using whatever. Every position take over gives you a little
bit more sort of bureaucratic power that you can use

(01:15:04):
to rap fuck people. And once they're in, it's like
it is possible to dislodge them. Mm hmm, Like, I mean,
this is something that happened with the UAW in the
last like that was twenty twenty twenty twenty three. They
got in and they dis lodged an admin caucus that
had been in power and like doing similar shit to
this for like decades and decades and decades. And so

(01:15:25):
it is possible for you know, reform caucuses inside the
Union to organize and drive the leadership out, but it's
really hard. And the moment you start doing that, like
every single person who's any way affiliated with you will
get targeted for retaliation by the union.

Speaker 5 (01:15:40):
And yes, that that's what has happened.

Speaker 3 (01:15:43):
Yeah with J. C.

Speaker 5 (01:15:43):
Tradder yep again, Pabla Tori.

Speaker 4 (01:15:45):
He released an interview two weeks ago with you know,
longtime security officer who was basically one of the people
who was like Hey, Yeah, what's going on here with
DoD j C try to Alloyd house stuff?

Speaker 5 (01:15:56):
And they fired him for that.

Speaker 4 (01:15:58):
Like the union five the security guy who've been working
like keep been working there since Like Dean I'm show
I was working there. So he he's part of the
old guard that is there for like the material like
improvement of players' lives, like as far as they can
take it without you know, dealing with the real bounds
of like we got to kind of get this number
for the season or our worker base is gonna be

(01:16:19):
harm Like those guys don't really work there anymore. Yeah,
someone like Dominicq fox Worth, he's like he's on TV now,
you know, and I know he cares a lot about this,
but he's off doing different things. And I think another
thing that that's tough when you look back at like okay,
who is playing football. These are ultimately young men who
like they enter this union without any knowledge of like

(01:16:42):
how unions work, Like what are the finances behind any
of this? You're geared to take like your high school
free time and your college free time, especially now that
these colleges are throwing out cash, like you are honed
to care about football and get football done, and you know,
once we get to college, like we'll see what it is.

(01:17:02):
Hopefully you can get your degree and keep it moving.
But most of the time, like these guys, they don't
know what any of this stuff is. So you have
like this very uninformed, you know, labor force that's getting
turned out two three years at a time. It would
probably be pretty easy, honestly, to create a blockade of
knowledge when the people who could be asking you about
this are going to be irrelevant if you just hold

(01:17:23):
the lines for a year, you know, it's sad.

Speaker 3 (01:17:26):
The other thing about this, right is that these guys
don't have even the basic concentive that even like the
UAW and their moost In Trench had, which is like,
if you fuck this up enough, there won't be a union.
It was like these guys, there's always going to be
something called the NFL Players Association, right because the NFL
needs it for cover, which means they don't even have

(01:17:46):
to do the minimal organizing worker like even the minimal
like pretending to actually fight for the people who are
supposed to be the union because it doesn't matter to them,
Like why the fuck would they why the fuck would
they try to onboard new people, like into the union,
get them involved with the Like why do they care?
They can just fucking go home and like pash their
checks and get whatever the fuck benefits are getting from
the league for doing this shit.

Speaker 4 (01:18:08):
Yeah, yeah, I want to know those benefits are. I
just want to know.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
Yep, me too. I would love like really.

Speaker 5 (01:18:14):
Because when it gets down to like how much is
your soul worth? Man?

Speaker 4 (01:18:17):
Yeah, like j C is one of those guys ultimately
who has made enough money playing in football where he.

Speaker 5 (01:18:22):
Doesn't have to do this. Yeah, you know, he doesn't
have to go around like this.

Speaker 4 (01:18:26):
Like it's it's a little baffling in that sense, Like
and I know that, like I guess something that I
guess I struggle sometimes.

Speaker 5 (01:18:33):
Like why are y'all doing this fuck up shit? Like why?

Speaker 4 (01:18:36):
Like it's really like that, like a couple more bucks
really means that much to you, Like you're really willing
to sell out all these people? But the answer is yes,
The answer is yes. Personally, I can't reconcile that it's abhorrent.
It's terrible, but it's just the truth of the matter
is so hopefully they can figure out a way to
kind of dismantle this, but like man, even the fact

(01:18:57):
that like man, you got like the Bears, they signed
you and made all of a sudden like his clocks back,
and now you have the same power structure as you
hit another landmark where you're gonna be negotiating for eighteen games.
That's a tough thing topple open man, that's a tough
thing get past. It's really difficult. Yeah, eat at Arby's. Actually,

(01:19:18):
don't do that.

Speaker 5 (01:19:18):
Army is not good.

Speaker 3 (01:19:19):
No, it's just well, I think that's a decent point
to sort of end. Don unless you have a Yeah,
do you have anything else? Do you want to make
sure people know about this whole thing?

Speaker 4 (01:19:32):
I would say, like, if you're not watching football, you should.
It's a great game. I look, I say this as
somewhere football has like materially harmed me. Like my back
is messed up. I've had two hernie a dis my
back son seventeen, I turned thirty two this year. It's
like half my life, you know, would I do it again?

Speaker 5 (01:19:51):
Fuck?

Speaker 3 (01:19:51):
Yeah, I don't know, don't I don't know?

Speaker 4 (01:19:56):
And like this this is where like my my like
the people who know me, they like, man, you're wired
a little differently, But I think that standard for football players.
Like it's a really complicated relationship, but like all my
best friends are still like football related in some way,
whether it's college or journalism now or you know.

Speaker 5 (01:20:15):
Going back to high school back in the day.

Speaker 4 (01:20:16):
Like I still talk to so many people that I
played football with, Like I'm watching like I'm the guy
watching these like crappy like Division two games like on
a on a Friday night. It's it's awesome. So like
you know, yeah, you should check out Lamar Jackson, Like
just go on YouTube, just look up a highlight and then.

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):
This is it's just wild. Like you know when you when.

Speaker 4 (01:20:38):
You've watched football or really any of these sports, like
they are just inescapable. I hate to even say micro
consins of like American society because like this is obviously
this is this is American society. Like when you just
look on the influence that football has, like the economy
as a whole, and the way that people who are

(01:21:00):
less fortunate are able to be extracted and run into
the ground, yeah, and forgotten even by the people who
are supposed to protect them. I think that's something that
we see here just about every arena of American life.

Speaker 5 (01:21:12):
So I would just.

Speaker 4 (01:21:13):
Implore some of our our fellow leftisium don't be the
who cares about sports, because whether you know about it,
sports is interacting and directly impacting your life in this
country every single day. And I think it's important to
kind of care about some of the labor practices that
are going on. Even if you know the labor practices
are around Lamar Jackson getting paid you know, sixty million

(01:21:35):
dollars a year over fifty million dollars a year, but
it's still it's still important.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
Yeah, you know, And I think there's I think there's
two there's two points I can make there. One is
that like, yeah, I don't know, like it was it was.
It was the fucking like transwomanted college sports thing was
like one of the two avenues through which like, oh wait,
hold on, a bunch of us just don't have fucking
rights now. Yeah, And you know, and like and that
that kind of like cultural stuff that comes out of

(01:22:01):
places that we're just not usually.

Speaker 4 (01:22:04):
Right right, and just to tack onto that, as we've
seen over the past few months and as many dangered
and misrepresented and punched down communities have said to y'all
forever and I say this as a black person. If
they do it to us, yep, we'll do it to you.
At some points, it's just sad that like we've gotten

(01:22:28):
to the point where, you know, you've been fighting and
screaming for so long, like, bro, could you just turn
your head this way and just look you see, Like.

Speaker 5 (01:22:37):
Bro, we're the same man. We're all just humans out
here trying to make it.

Speaker 4 (01:22:41):
That thought process is just so violently opposed by the
powers it be, and it's just so ingrained in our society,
like certain people have to get stepped on that you
will let yourself get stepped on. And now, shit, we
got videos of you know, people getting executed in the
street in Minneapolis, and what's happened.

Speaker 5 (01:22:58):
Nothing, just like.

Speaker 4 (01:23:00):
Every other police shooting, you know, of a black person
or or a transperson getting killed, Like, yeah, nothing happened,
and nothing keeps happening, and ultimately we get to a
point where that's just the norm. So shit, there's a
lot of stuff to fight. But you can even see
like how the NFL union has followed that stame like deterioration.

Speaker 1 (01:23:18):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (01:23:19):
Shit, you know, you go back to the twenty eleventh CBA,
you threw the rookies under the bus, and then what
the omners do? They came and took your money too, right,
And then when it came down to you know, the
twenty twenty CBA, you guys have set such a precedent
of us running your pockets that we will set the hard,
non negotiable stance of an extra football game and you

(01:23:40):
will capitulate. That's everywhere, man, that that is everywhere in
the corporate structure and lafe of America. So yeah, yeah,
sports in is capable. Check out Lamar Jackson. On some days,
it's good stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:23:50):
Yeah, I think, I think.

Speaker 10 (01:23:52):
I think.

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):
The one last thing I want to say is that,
you know, the reform calock is taking over the UAW
with something that was seen as impossible. Like it was
like literally, I mean like every union has a reform caucus,
they normally lose every single time, and then one day
they won and it like completely changed what the labor
movement in America is. And you know, the thing, the

(01:24:13):
thing about organizing reform caucuses is that I know that
people who organize these things like they're just random people. Yeah,
like anyone can do this. This is this is not
something that requires like you know, an incredibly specialized skill set,
you can just do it. And as much like actual
teenagers do this shit watching people and how tenaciously they

(01:24:34):
can fight and watching them win. That that's how I
get out of bed in the morning, is I have
I have seen the hope in how how people can
fight fights that are just unwinnable, that are so unfathomable
that most people don't even think there's a point in
fighting it, and then one day they win. Yeah, and

(01:24:54):
yeah maybe one day well.

Speaker 4 (01:24:57):
Two, I mean, I mean yeah, and if you just
think about the basis of the NFL PA, because now
it's an anti trust blocker, right, that's what it is now,
But the roots of it, yeah, there were guys trying
to get rights for they trying to get paid for
the amount of time that they put into this job.
One of the base complaints is when the league was

(01:25:17):
smaller and you had like kind of other leagues you
know that are defunked now or were absorbed by the
AFC or the NFC before it all merged the NFL.
One of the basises was the NFL owners would ban
you if you played in another league, like if you
spent any time playing another league.

Speaker 5 (01:25:33):
They would ban you for five years. Man, that's your
whole career, right. Yeah, And I don't know if this
made the show, if we're talking about before the show, but.

Speaker 4 (01:25:40):
One of the things that got the NFLP like organized
in the fifties was guys were doing training camp in
preseason games for free. They weren't getting paid for it.
But these are just regular men who are just like,
fuck it, I'm tired of this. Yeah, And sadly it
has been co opted into something that does not represent
what it was before. But you know, this stuff is
started by reckless people who are saying, fuck it, I'm

(01:26:02):
tired of this. We got to make a change.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
Yeah, And I think on that note, where can people
find your work?

Speaker 5 (01:26:09):
Yeah, you can find me on blue Sky or verts.

Speaker 4 (01:26:13):
You can find me on Yahoo Sports Football three oh
one podcast. I'm trying to be found a little bit
less these days.

Speaker 3 (01:26:19):
That's so reasonable blue Sky can find for.

Speaker 5 (01:26:23):
The most part. Yeah, you know, it's a little less.

Speaker 3 (01:26:27):
I get there's a read. There's a reason I'm not
putting by handling.

Speaker 4 (01:26:32):
Yeah, but I will say this is not necessarily a
friendly blue Sky count. I'm not one of those guys
who's just gonna let you pop off. We do clap
back around here, right.

Speaker 13 (01:26:45):
We do, in fact love to see Yeah.

Speaker 14 (01:27:02):
Hello everyone, and welcome to it could happen here. My
name is Daniel Kurd. I'm a researcher of Arab in
Palestinian politics. Today I'm joined by Molli Krabapple, an award
winning writer and artist.

Speaker 6 (01:27:12):
She's written three books.

Speaker 14 (01:27:14):
Is co author of the book Brothers of the Gun
and Illustrated Collaboration with Syrian war journalist Montjuan Hisham, which
was a New York Times Notable Book and longlisted for
the twenty eighteen National Book Award, and her memoir Drawing
Bud also received global praise. Her most recent book is
Here Where We Live Is Our Country, The Story of
the Jewish Bund, and it'll be out on April seventh.

Speaker 6 (01:27:36):
I've already pre ordered. I'm very excited.

Speaker 14 (01:27:38):
So I wanted to talk to Mollie today given how
relevant the history she outlines in her book is to
this current moment, especially for the American Jewish community.

Speaker 6 (01:27:46):
So thank you Mollie for joining us.

Speaker 1 (01:27:49):
Thank you so much, Donna for having me. It's my
total honor to be here.

Speaker 14 (01:27:52):
So you describe in the book The Bunns Philosophy of
doy k or hearness as a rejection of the idea
that Jews need to seek a homeland elsewhere to find safety.

Speaker 6 (01:28:05):
How did you come to understand this concept personally?

Speaker 14 (01:28:08):
And why do you think it was, at least from
my perspective, so thoroughly erased from mainstream Jewish historical memory
after the Holocaust.

Speaker 15 (01:28:17):
I mean I came across dokit through studying the Booned,
which I came across through the watercolors of my great
grandfather Samuel Brothboord, who was a post Impressionist painter who
was a member of the boond as a young man.

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
Back in Russia.

Speaker 15 (01:28:30):
And the concept of dokite or heereness means is it's
a defiant assertion of rootedness in a place that wanted
Jews dead. Jews had lived in Eastern Europe for over
a thousand years, but in the eighteenth, nineteenth and at
the dawn of the twentieth century, these countries were some

(01:28:52):
of the roughest places to be a Jew in the world.
In the Tsarist Empire, Jews were racialized minority. It set
it on their papers. They could only like live in
a certain area. There was military conscription for twenty five years.
It sucked, shall we say. And in inter war Poland
as well, the government was trying to use racism as
a glue to hold this diverse and quite impoverished country together.

(01:29:16):
So what here this meant is it meant that Jews
had the right to live and not just live, not
just survive, not just cling to life, but to flourish
and have beautiful lives in their homes that they had
lived in for the last thousand years. And that even
if European Christians thought that Jews were, you know, Sath,

(01:29:37):
the Oriental aliens who needed to be forcibly deported to Palestine,
which is exactly what the Polish interwar government thought, even
if that's what the was in power thought, Jews had
a right to live and flourish in freedom and dignity
in their homes, because that's the right that every single
human on this earth has. And in many ways it
almost reminds me of this like precursor echo of the

(01:29:59):
Palestinian concept of some mood, of the steadfastness to stay
in your home despite the genocidal predations of the Israeli state.
And I think that the concept of heareness was crushed
by a variety of things. I mean, first of all,
as we all know, you know, there was a genocide
in Europe that wiped out two thirds of European Jews

(01:30:19):
and wiped out ninety percent of the Jews in Poland.

Speaker 1 (01:30:22):
But it wasn't just that.

Speaker 15 (01:30:23):
It was also that after the genocide, countries like Poland
were so psychopathically violent to Jewish survivors that it convinced
the overwhelming majority of Polish Jewish survivors that they had
to go somewhere else. There are about a thousand Jews
that were murdered by nationalists in the aftermath of the Holocaust,

(01:30:43):
including you know, dozens who were burned alive in this
like famous town called Kiltze. Now, whether that somewhere else
meant Palestine or whether that meant New York City, that
was something that was very much up to the visa
regimes of the era. The vast majority of Jews who
survived the Holocaust did not necessarily want to go to Palestine,

(01:31:05):
let alone to you know, sign up to join the
Haganah and throw themselves as cannon fodder into another war.

Speaker 1 (01:31:12):
After surviving Auschwitz. The majority of Jewish survivors probably.

Speaker 15 (01:31:16):
Wanted to go live with their families in America and
in other countries that had large Jewish communities, But the
Western democracies, And tell me if this sounds familiar in
the current moment. While the Western democracies preached a language
of human rights and universalism, in practice they were quite
content to let impoverished refugees wrought in camps. Does that

(01:31:40):
I could see no other echoes? Of course not No,
it has only happened once ever, Yeah, yeah, definitely we've
learned our lesson, and yeah, exactly, the world has definitely
learned this lesson about the corrosive effects of hypocrisy. And
so Zionist groups were able to take over camp administrations
and use them as recruiting grounds and to convince and

(01:32:00):
in fact sometimes violently coerce survivors to go to Palestine
and in many cases to do the Nakba. And I
think that these are the concrete reasons, right that the
concept of Dokhite was so crushed, so erased, right like
it was physically erased, you know, violence. But there's something

(01:32:21):
more than that, even because you know, there are many,
many movements that are physically crushed with violence, whose memories
are vivid and alive and resonant to think about, like
the Black Panther Party in America, you know, who were
subject to the most brutal violence by the state, but
who you know, remain as legends. And I think the
reason that the Boones wasn't just physically crushed by the

(01:32:43):
twentieth century, but the reason that it was so ideologically
marginalized was because they always opposed Zionism.

Speaker 1 (01:32:50):
From the very first days of their founding. They opposed
Zionism as.

Speaker 15 (01:32:54):
A capitulation to the same European racists that wanted to
kick Jews out of their home. And not only did
they oppose Zionism because many Jewish groups opposed Zionism. The
Satmar Pasidic community where I live also opposed Zionism. It
wasn't just the Boon's opposition to Zionism that made Zionis
so angry. It's that Zionism is built on this very

(01:33:18):
self hating dichotomy. And that dichotomy is that there are
diaspora Jews who were weak and that's why they were murdered,
and then there are you know, the brave, big Dick
Israeli Sabras who are strong and bravely oppressing and murdering themselves,
and that's why they live. And what the booned did
was it shows the lie of that because the boones

(01:33:39):
were strong. They didn't just fight for their right to
stay in Europe with graduate school seminars.

Speaker 1 (01:33:45):
They fought for it with brass knuckles and with guns.

Speaker 15 (01:33:48):
The statement here where we live is our country isn't
something that has the same meaning as it would mean
if I said it in New York City, like, of
course New York is my city.

Speaker 1 (01:33:57):
It's fucking awesome.

Speaker 15 (01:33:59):
When they said it, I always felt like there was
an implied motherfucker at the end. Here where we live
as our country, motherfucker. Whether you like it or not,
we're born here and it's ours right.

Speaker 6 (01:34:08):
It's so powerful.

Speaker 14 (01:34:09):
And I'm glad that you mentioned other kind of ideological
like resonances, like the Black Panthers. They don't really exist
in the same way anymore, but they're still resonant in
like black lives matter. It brings me to this next question,
which is that especially younger Jewish Americans, they increasingly are questioning,

(01:34:30):
you know, Zionist narratives and they describe their solidarity with
Palestinians not as a rejection of Jewish identity, but as
a expression of their commitment to universal justice, and as
a rejection maybe I'm Zionism, but not their Judaism. Do
you think that this is a boon dist inheritance even
if I'm conscious, or is it something new?

Speaker 15 (01:34:50):
I think that decent people of all stripes are seeing
what Palestinian journalists and Lebanese journalists have risked their lives exposing.
They're seeing a genus live streamed on their smartphones, and
you know, live streamed by these amazing journalists, you know,
who are living in killing cages. And anyone who's a
decent person, whether you're Jewish or not, will turn away

(01:35:10):
from the ideology that is responsible for that genocide. So
I wouldn't say it's a bondust resonance that's making people
turn against you know, Zionist institutions. I think it's just
their basic humanity, the same as so many other groups
of people are. And I credited a lot to the
amazing work of Palestinians who have done so much work
with so much grace at you know, such huge risks

(01:35:31):
of their lives to be able to tell.

Speaker 1 (01:35:33):
These stories for the world to know at least see.

Speaker 15 (01:35:36):
However, I think that there's something a little bit different
going on, which is that, you know, young Jews are
seeing the Israeli mass murder machine for what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:35:46):
But if they've gone.

Speaker 15 (01:35:47):
Through like the standard issue you know, like Hebrew school education,
they don't really learn a lot about Jewish history. Like
the way you would learn about it would be ancient kingdoms,
the par Kocopa revolt maybe if you're lucky, and then
like a big, long, you know, two thousand year gap
of horror and murder where nothing interesting or go what
ever happened, and where you were just a victim of

(01:36:08):
all of history, and then you know, glorious creation of
the state of Israel redemption.

Speaker 1 (01:36:13):
Like that's the sort of bullshit narrative you'd get.

Speaker 15 (01:36:16):
And when young Jews reject that narrative, as they should,
you know, when they learn about the reality of what
Zionism means, a lot of them are left with a
real hole in them because they haven't like learned anything
positive about their own heritage. They've just been fed fairy
tales that are meant to you know, legitimize this state,

(01:36:37):
and so you know, there's like a lot of a
lot of shame, rite a lot of pain over that.

Speaker 1 (01:36:41):
And I think what a lot of.

Speaker 15 (01:36:44):
Young Jewish people are trying to do is they're trying
to look back to like their own grandparents and their
own great grandparents. And for Jews in America, like most
Jews in America come from Eastern European backgrounds, you know,
it's a different, different sort of demographic breakdown than in Israel.
And that sort of Jewish socialism is something that's very,
very very present in so many people's family history. Not

(01:37:07):
necessarily that you know, your grandfather was like the greatest
socialist revolutionary in the world, but just that he belonged
to a socialist garment union and was part of like
a socialist mutual aid thing, because that was just the
culture that so many American Jews swam in one hundred
years ago. And so I think there's this huge rediscovery
of the boond and of Jewish socialism that's inspired by

(01:37:29):
the rejection of the Chinesst genocide.

Speaker 14 (01:37:42):
On the one hand, I'm witnessing what you're saying, you know,
like we're all kind of witnessing, like I said, it's
not specifically to the Jewish community, but because the Jewish
community has been fed, you know, this idea that is
really so integral to their Jewishness and to their safety
and to this, to these kinds of things, there is
a very maybe specific way that they are metabolizing that

(01:38:05):
or acting out against it. But at the same time,
you know, we've seen a number of different polls, including
most recently the Jewish Federations of North America.

Speaker 6 (01:38:14):
They put out.

Speaker 14 (01:38:15):
Polling results where thirty seven percent identified as non Zionists
and seven percent of their polling identified as anti Zionists.

Speaker 6 (01:38:25):
But it was an interesting.

Speaker 14 (01:38:27):
Poll because it's like both people who were like critical
of Israel and those who were supportive of Israel took
it to mean that it, you know, confirmed their biases
because despite the fact that the genocide has happened and
is happening, that anti Zionism component hasn't really risen very much.
And then still a lot of polls show that, like

(01:38:50):
people presume Israel is vital to Jewish continuity.

Speaker 6 (01:38:54):
So how do you make sense of that contradiction? Well,
that's one question is how do you make sense of
that contradiction?

Speaker 14 (01:38:59):
But the second question is like, do you think rediscovering
bundestaught like offers a way through it?

Speaker 15 (01:39:04):
I do, actually, I mean I think that you know,
people have not just like been fed this idea that
Israel is you know, like essential for their safety for continuity,
but also that it's like an essential part of themselves.
And I do think that it's very life affirming and
important to know that you have something better that you
can reject this shitty ideology.

Speaker 1 (01:39:26):
I mean, in terms of polls, I often feel like, I.

Speaker 15 (01:39:29):
Mean, maybe I'm maybe I'm just wrong about Americans, but
I sometimes feel like people don't even know what the
hell they're signing on to with poles, like I will
see something where people be like, we want strong borders
and to like you know, deport all the illegals, but
also we fucking hate Ice, And I'm like, you just
you just want like wildly contradictory things.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
And I wonder like how.

Speaker 15 (01:39:49):
I don't know, like how educated people even are, and
how much like the framing of questions affects what people think.

Speaker 1 (01:39:55):
I mean, I'm trying to think of what to make
of it.

Speaker 15 (01:39:58):
I mean, I do think, you know, very sadly, like
there are a large number of you know, American Jewish people.
And in some way I'm talking like outside of my
own experience because my own family's not Zionist, so this
is more like my speculation type thing.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
But you know, they're they're very progressive. They believe in
you know, like ETI kid for all.

Speaker 15 (01:40:19):
They believe in you know, they believe the cops shouldn't
be constantly murdering black people as they do in America
all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:40:25):
They believe even ice should be abolished.

Speaker 15 (01:40:28):
But they also have this like unthinking emotional attachment to Israel,
even if they literally hate everything that Israel's doing. And
I feel like a lot of those people, what they'll
do is they'll try to blame it on net Yahoo
and not on the entire system, Like like I would
see people who supported the protests, you know, over the
judicial reform, but they weren't willing to like fully confront

(01:40:52):
the absolute fucking horrors not just of the occupation but
of Israel itself.

Speaker 6 (01:40:58):
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 14 (01:40:59):
I've also, you know, obviously experienced that kind of block,
you know, where it's easier to blame a particular government
than to maybe think about, i mean the specificities of
Israel's founding and Israel's ideology, but also like the violent
nature of nation states, and like just kind of thinking
through that I think can be a little bit difficult

(01:41:21):
for people. And as someone who works on polling, like, yes,
there are so many contradictions. We take polling to understand
the starting points, but that doesn't restrict our political imagination.
Like that's how I think of it. It's obviously also
difficult for people to start to kind of maybe disentangle

(01:41:44):
their emotional commitments to the state of Israel, especially in
this moment where there are like white supremacists and Nazis
and neo Nazis and all sorts of evil people regaining
control of all sorts of you know, state institutions and
finding you know, a great deal of legitimacy and a

(01:42:05):
great deal of traction amongst the American public.

Speaker 6 (01:42:07):
It's difficult to tell. I think some parts of the
American Jewish.

Speaker 14 (01:42:10):
Community like, hey, Israel's not a safety valve for you,
when in fact there's so much anti Semitism now in
the United States.

Speaker 15 (01:42:20):
I mean, I feel like it's a self reinforcing loop.

Speaker 16 (01:42:23):
Though.

Speaker 15 (01:42:24):
I mean, on one hand, you have Jewish institutions who
are literally sticking up this fucking flag of a state
that is conducted by the ICC of doing genocide and
you know, waving that flag around and having soldiers from
an army that's doing a genocide speaking there like honored
guests and saying like, this is what it means to

(01:42:45):
be Jewish.

Speaker 1 (01:42:46):
It's that we back Israel.

Speaker 15 (01:42:48):
And on the other hand, you have these wormy little
neo Nazis like Nick Fuentes who have always hated Jews,
and not because of Israel. Nick Fuentes also thinks all
women should be put in reading camps and all black
people should be locked behind bars.

Speaker 1 (01:43:03):
Keats Jews because he's a neo Nazi.

Speaker 15 (01:43:06):
Who are seeing the rightful anger that people have with
the ongoing genocide, and they're seeing people's disillusionment with both
political parties who are continuing to provide weapons and QN
cover to Israel, and they're exploiting that. And that's something
that fascism has always done, right, Like fascism has always

(01:43:27):
exploited issues that are popular. It will try to exploit
the desire that people have for peace, for instance, it
will try to exploit the desire people have for economic justice.
But instead of you know, actually giving people economic justice.
They'll just say, oh, it's the Jews, Oh it's the
leftist billionaires, or it's George Soros, and yeah, like you

(01:43:48):
absolutely see some of the worst scumbags on earth who
are exploiting the anger that people feel over the genocide
in order to worm their way into power and to
worm their way into legitimacy.

Speaker 1 (01:44:02):
And I always think about this with Tucker Carlson.

Speaker 15 (01:44:04):
I mean, for me, like, okay, like he's like, you know,
standard issue he has anti Jewish shit, that's like standard
issue Christian shit. But like, for me, the thing that's
so I hate so much about seeing smart people boost
Tucker Carlson is that Tucker Carlson advocates the ethnic cleansing
of the United States of immigrants. Ten months ago, he

(01:44:24):
was on Megan Kelly praying about how he wanted one
million people deported in Trump's hundred days.

Speaker 1 (01:44:31):
He was even saying, we don't have to put them
into tention centers.

Speaker 15 (01:44:34):
We can just force a million people, a million people
over the border into Tijuana and quote, let the Mexicans
deal with them. This is hardcore white supremacist ethnic cleansing,
and it's not just a speculative thing. There are tens
of thousands of immigrants right now in concentration camps in
the US. And the fact that anyone, because he gives
good clip on Palestine, thinks that he's their ally when

(01:44:56):
he would happily support the same eye system that is
locking up Palestinians right now, is insane.

Speaker 1 (01:45:02):
It's madness. And I just I mean, I know that.

Speaker 15 (01:45:06):
People are so traumatized and so heartbroken and you know,
even being like driven crazy by the ongoing genocide and
by the American enthusiastic collusion with the genocide. But there
has to be a certain basic level of solidarity with
other groups who are also under threat, like all the
other immigrant communities that are getting round and I've been

(01:45:27):
putting in concentration camps right now.

Speaker 14 (01:45:29):
No, absolutely, I mean there has to be a basic
minimum level of solidarity and like a basic minimum level
of like analysis, like yeah, yeah, exactly. The animating force
behind Tucker Carlson is not love for Palestinians or like
some you know, desire for justice or anything, you know,
So it's like the natural conclusion of attacker Carls and

(01:45:51):
is something like the ethnic cleansing that he's asking for
it has been disturbing to seek and continue to see
how people have really convince themselves that this is something
to try to capitalize on. I mean, Tucker Carlson went
to the Middle East and people were taking photos with him,
and I'm like, this man hates you. This man doesn't

(01:46:13):
care about any of these things that you care about.
But like you said, it's just the situation is so
bad that people are willing to forego solidarity and basic
political truths to engage with someone like him. I mean,

(01:46:36):
you've kind of mentioned it and alluded to it, and
your answers already about Jewish institutions like finding Israeli flag
and things like that.

Speaker 6 (01:46:43):
Who are the forces today?

Speaker 14 (01:46:45):
What are the institutions today that benefit from something like
the boond and like its philosophy not being revisited, and
what did they stand to lose if these Buddhist ideas
become widely known again.

Speaker 15 (01:46:59):
I feel like the vast majority of mainstream Jewish institutions,
I mean, there's obviously like the ADL, right, you know,
a ridiculous group that I almost feel like primarily exists
to try to like terrify elderly people, so that Jonathan
Green Blat keeps getting his ridiculously inflated salary and keeps

(01:47:21):
getting to like prants around like he's important. There's you know,
like the campus Hillales right, who claim that they're just
you know, a neutral thing for Jewish identity, but make
it a prerequisite that you're Zionist. There's just like a
vast amount of institutional Jewish groups that are not democratic.
They're not things that we vote for. I did not
fucking vote for Jonathan Greenblat to be appointed my spokesman,

(01:47:43):
you know, I didn't vote for these things like these
are institutions led by very wealthy people that are.

Speaker 1 (01:47:50):
In no way responsive to young Jews. They're not responsive to.

Speaker 15 (01:47:54):
Like ordinary people, and they want to keep having their
sort of stranglehold on getting to be the like spokesman for.

Speaker 1 (01:48:04):
These very very very diverse communities.

Speaker 15 (01:48:07):
And I think that, you know, as the boond and
as other anti Zionist forms of Jewishness are discovered and rediscovered,
that these spokespeople are terrified because I mean, the biggest
thing that they want that they're so terrified about is
they're terrified.

Speaker 1 (01:48:24):
About losing the young people. The whole project.

Speaker 15 (01:48:27):
It's about, you know, like this Jewish continuity, they call it.
And you know Jewish people like getting married to each other,
you know, having kids, like contributing money to their institutions,
you know, maybe making Aliyah to Israel.

Speaker 1 (01:48:39):
And if people are like.

Speaker 15 (01:48:41):
No, I reject this, I reject this state that's committing
a genocide, and I reject this ideology built on supremacy.
And actually it's like fine to live in New York
City and to you know, live and love and struggle
alongside my neighbors. That's directly antithetical to their project. And
I think that's why the Boon has not just been

(01:49:02):
a race, but it's mirror mentioned provokes such anger. Like
sometimes I just look through my comments and it's just
these endless fucking comments from people being like, boond all
died in the Holocaust.

Speaker 1 (01:49:14):
Lol, Like what do you say to this, right, that's
so disstic. Yeah, the boons was all gassed. Lol, you
want you used to be gassed? You know, Zionists are thriving.

Speaker 15 (01:49:24):
And I'm like, this is the most psychopathic to talk
about self hating, right, mocking people for being murdered in
the Holocaust. You know, it's because the Boone's ideology of
solidarity cross difference of heereness and of socialism is profoundly threatening.

Speaker 14 (01:49:40):
And honestly like what Thriving was happening, Like people in
Israel are terrified. There are missiles raining down like a garrison.
State cannot keep people safe. No such Ethno state can
keep people safe. But and I'm reminded also from your
answer about Maril Angel's article, I think last year and

(01:50:00):
Jewish currents, we need new Jewish institutions. I think it's
like they see the writing on the wall that this
is something that's going to happen.

Speaker 6 (01:50:07):
And with books like.

Speaker 14 (01:50:08):
Yours, with kind of a revisiting of this history, it
only hastens, you know, this kind of political project coming
to fruition. My last question that I have for you
is more about the memory project nature of it all.
You write in your book about your great grandfather. You've
already mentioned Samuel Rothbert about how he painted these memory

(01:50:30):
paintings to kind of resurrect the vanished world of Eastern Europe,
and you've also kind of written this book in the
same way.

Speaker 6 (01:50:39):
What do you think the relationship is between this.

Speaker 14 (01:50:42):
Kind of recovery of erased history and building a politics
for the present.

Speaker 15 (01:50:47):
Thank you, I mean, I spent seven years on this book.
I learned Yiddish.

Speaker 6 (01:50:51):
That's wild, by the way, that's amazing.

Speaker 15 (01:50:53):
I know, right, You know, I resented because I studied
Arabic for so long and I like had finally gotten
like I don't want to say good, but mediocre at it.
And then I feel like Yiddish pushed it out of
my brain and I'm just like, no, I want my
Arabic back.

Speaker 1 (01:51:05):
But yeah, I studied, I learned Yiddish.

Speaker 15 (01:51:07):
I went to, you know, all the countries that I
could that the boond was active in. I wasn't able
to go to Belarus or Russia, but I went to
like Poland, Latvia, Lithuania. I went to Ukraine during the
Russian invasion. I translated so many books. I think I'm
probably the only person who has read all five volumes
of the terrifically boring geshichtefon Bound Official for History. And

(01:51:32):
I felt like I was doing ncromancy, you know, I
felt like I was in love with these rebel ancestors,
these gun toting seamstresses, these lovers on the barricades, these
stubborn people who constructed whole worlds out of love. And grit,
even when siety wanted to crush them, I just like
fell in love, and I didn't just want to resurrect

(01:51:54):
them from erasure because their philosophy was apposed to Zionism,
though that was also that was part of it. Of course,
I wanted to resurrect them because the boond were amazing,
because they fought back against every single bastard of their age.
They fought for an ethos that was rooted in human
dignity and in human flourishing and freedom, but also in

(01:52:14):
economic justice and leftism. I just fell in love and
I wanted them to live again. And you know, one
of the things that the powers that be do is
that they try to impose themselves onto the past. They
try to say, because we won, now, it was inevitable
that we would win.

Speaker 1 (01:52:31):
It was always going to be like this.

Speaker 15 (01:52:33):
There is no alternative, as Margaret Etcher said, And what
you do when you preserve these repable histories is you
show that that's not the case. It expands our capacity
for fight, it expands our capacity for imagination. Things could
have been differently and people still can change the world.

Speaker 14 (01:52:53):
Yeah, there's nothing inevitable, and you always have agency. I
think that that's like the thing that like, I gang
goose bumps thinking about when I think about these kinds
of people, because they give you so much hope in
the present that things could be different. Thank you so much, Molly.
This has been such an interesting and provocative conversation.

Speaker 6 (01:53:12):
And thank you so much for learning.

Speaker 17 (01:53:14):
Yiddish and for tessetting all those books so that we
can read your book.

Speaker 6 (01:53:17):
And we don't have to do all of that.

Speaker 15 (01:53:19):
Exactly, so you don't eat it out, have to suffer
through the world's dullist socialist pro stylings.

Speaker 17 (01:53:24):
Yeah, no, You've done it for us. And I'm so
excited for the book. I'll put it in the show notes.
Everybody should read it. Thank you so much, Molly.

Speaker 8 (01:53:31):
Thank you so much, Danna.

Speaker 18 (01:53:46):
For decades, people in northern Nigeria have been suffering the
violence of Jihadis. Groups in the region, more recently fall
in the lobby in of some questionable interest groups and figures.
In the United States, President Donald Trump has dropped American
bos on Nigeria and soil. What exactly is happening in Nigeria? Hello,
and welcomed it could happen here. I'm Andre's age Andrews

(01:54:09):
on YouTube and I'm joined again by James.

Speaker 7 (01:54:12):
I'm glad we're doing this one.

Speaker 18 (01:54:14):
Yes to talk about what's been happening in Nigeria since
it has captured Trump's attention and thus Western media interest
as of late. So, first of all, what away is Nigeria?
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Nigeria's West African country with
a diverse geography and an even more diverse population, hundreds
of languages, one hundreds of ethnic groups, several religions in

(01:54:37):
the most populous country in Africa and one of the
most populous countries in the world. Over two hundred and
thirty nine million people called Nigeria home, and the Nigerian
aspora is well over ten million strong. Like much of Africa,
Nigeria is rich in natural resources, particularly petroleum natural gas,
but heavily exploited by international and local capital, thus much

(01:55:01):
of its population. By some estimates, over half of its
population is considered multi dimensionally poor. Modern Nigeria will stitched
together from the British protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria
and agains its political independence only recently in nineteen sixty
and became a Republic in nineteen sixty three. That North

(01:55:21):
South divide is particularly relevant because it continues to define
Nigerian politics today. Nigeria split almost evenly between its Christian population,
which dominates the South, and its Muslim population, which dominates
the North. Alongside ethnic, linguistic and other political divisions, corruption
and all the other baggage of a typical Neo colony
has made Nigerian politics quite the powder keg of some time.

(01:55:45):
They have been tragic and deadly episodes of political and
religious violence throughout Nigeria's history, going in both directions, including
the nineteen eighty seven crisis in Kaduna State and the
early two thousands. Add several notorious riots and massacres as well,
including the Yellow Massacre and the Josh Riots, linking the
show notes for the details on those. Since those nine, however,

(01:56:06):
militant Islamist group Bokoharam has engaged in a protracted insudency
against Nigerian government and terrorized the Christian and Muslim population
through bombings, assassinations, and abductions with the overall intent of
establishing an Islamic breakaway state in North Nigeria. For the
past few months, there has been a considered effort to
paint a narrative of Christian genocide in Nigeria, a narrative

(01:56:30):
that has long been co signed by the likes of
Donald Trump. So back in twenty eighteen, Trump had actually
called out the killing of Christians in Nigeria, yet stopped
short of calling into genocide. But according to an article
by Ayula Babolola on the myth of Christian Genocide, it
was not long after Nigerian and Vice President Kashim Shatima's
September twenty twenty five remarks at the eightieth Session of

(01:56:53):
the UN General Assembly, where he reasserted Nigeria's long standing
saw directy with Palestine, that the Western, largely pro Israel
far right began the campaign of claiming Christian genocide in Nigeria.
In his address, Shatima did mention the problem with Angeria
has happened with extremism, but these commentators are run with
a much more specific narrative. The same people who deny

(01:57:16):
the Pastdinian genocide and prop up the mythical white genocide
in South Africa have gone on to push this Christian
genocide story. Bill Meyer, the guy who still can't prove
the claims he made about October seventh, has gone on
to tell people that what's happening in Nigeria is, to paraphrase,
so much more of a genocide than what's happening in

(01:57:36):
Khaza Endot. In late October and early November twenty five,
Trump tweeted that Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria,
name Nigeria as a country of particular concern and announced
to the United States was ready, willing and able to
save our great Christian population around the world. And for

(01:57:57):
some reason, Nicki Minaj is out there back in Trump's
Christian persecution narrative as well. Perfect why are you in it?

Speaker 7 (01:58:06):
Yeah, just to be clear for Anyone's not the way.
Nicki Minij not a person from Nigeria or with any
particular insight into the situation there.

Speaker 18 (01:58:14):
She's also not Trinardi and I just want to clear
that up. Yes, her certificate is from the Republic a
Trinianto vehicle, but we do not claim her since her
statements about how COVID and the vaccine and her cousin's
balls like, from that moment onward, people who have been
like distancing themselves from her enterdiddo.

Speaker 7 (01:58:34):
Anyway, I can see why.

Speaker 18 (01:58:36):
So in November twenty five, according to a BBC report,
Trump also said that he would send troops into Nigeria
guns are blazing if its government continues to allow the
killing of Christians. Then in December twenty twenty five, according
to another BBC report, the US has launched strikes on
the twenty fifth of December as a Christmas present against

(01:58:57):
militans in the Islamic State Group in northwestern Nigeria.

Speaker 5 (01:59:01):
What should be noted.

Speaker 18 (01:59:02):
Though, is they did not strike Bokoharam, which is based
in northeast Nigeria.

Speaker 7 (01:59:07):
Yeah, it was really interesting to look at the bill
that I wrote about this bit for my newsletter. But
the US was flying intelligence gathering flights essentially for some
time of a Nigeria right. Clearly like they must have
been some kind of agreement with the Nigerian government to
allow this right, but they were clearly trying to identify
like where it's what and Baccaharam were and like you

(01:59:30):
could see them winding up to this strike. I guess
they waited to Christmas day to go for it.

Speaker 18 (01:59:36):
Yeah, yeah, so there was the Christmas present of the
US bodman there. Yeah, and this happened less than a
week by the way, after the Alliance of Sahel States
that'd being Bikina, Faso, Niza and Mali commissioned a joint
military force of five thousand comment terrorists. And that move
was following the Economic Community of West African States or

(01:59:58):
equa's plan to launch a two hundred and six one
thousand member conter terrorism for US. So there's a lot
of military action happened in West Africa right now, coming
from the inside and the outside. In a January twenty
twenty sixth report, Trump claimed quote, I'd love to make
it a one time strike, but if they continue to
kill Christians, it will be a many times strike end Coote.

(02:00:20):
Trump has also accused the Nigerian government, as I said,
of repeatedly failing to protect Christians. So Trump is a
known liar to take everything he says with a grain
of salt, as is the rest of his administration generally
really capturist politicians and pundits. So let me break down

(02:00:47):
what is actually happening in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has
said that Muslims, Christians, and those of no faith alike
are targeted. According to a Yula Aabalula. The government of
Nigeria is indeed feeling to adequately address the devastation being
rought against communities in Nigeria. But critically, it is not
religious nature, or rather religion is only a part of

(02:01:10):
the picture. It can't be used to explain the whole
story on the ground. So there are several groups where
you can have In northern Nigeria, they have a few
different Islamic state affiliated groups, yeah, fokah Aram which is
the main one. And you also have the conflict between
the Fulani hoods men who are mostly Muslim and various
farming groups who may be Christian or Muslim. So where

(02:01:31):
the hoodsmen are considered, that kind of conflict has actually
been taking place between the hooders and the settled people
for literal centuries. The only difference is that now you
have them carrying ak forty sevens in served as sticks
and machetes. Yea, how they got those Ak forty sevens
is really thanks to the history of the West's intervention

(02:01:51):
in Africa, but we'll get to that in a moment. Critically, though,
if you step outside as the religious freemen, you would
see a criminal, economic and political motivation behind these actions.
They may be going after land, or want to extract ransom,
or pursue a particular political goal. The Muslims in North
Nigeria are not safe just because they're Muslim. Bokoharam's victims

(02:02:15):
are mostly Muslim because Bokharam's target is anyone who stands
between them and their political aims. Everyone who isn't Pokoharam
or aligned with Islamic state West African Province is considered
an enemy. One article on Trump's beef with Nigeria by
Yusuf Bangura talks about six types of violence in the country.
We have the Bokharam Islamist inspired violence in the Northeast,

(02:02:38):
whose main victims are Muslims who reject the group's is
Limist ideology. They have the banditary in the Northwest, which
affects Muslims and Christians in equal measure. You have the
herd of farmer conflict in the Middle Belt, which affects
Christians and Muslims, or the reports indicated Christians are the
main victims of that violence. You have the herd of
farmer violence in the Northwest, which is distinct from the

(02:03:01):
hood of farmer violence in the Middle Belt. So the
one in the northwest has full Lani hooders reportedly pitched
against Hauser farmers, and both groups are Muslim. You have
the violence inflicted by the indigenous people of Biafra and
bandits in the east against their own people, Ebos, who
are Christian. And you also have general panditry in large

(02:03:21):
parts of the country which has rendered traveling by roads
between cities very risky. So there's been a lot of
Western attention drawing suggest some of the victims the churches,
the church leaders, and the Christian communities, even though mosques
and imams and Muslim communities and animists have also been devastated,
and has turned a multifaceted violence into a narrative of

(02:03:42):
targeted anti Christian violence, seemingly at least from the Trump
and Zionist camp, for the purpose of demonizing Muslims, and
I guess, in some convoluted way weakening global support for
Palestinians because Parthians are also Muslims, so they're all the
same man. That's just speculation in my cart. Even Christian

(02:04:03):
leaders in Nigeria have been calling out this framement, though
Archbishop Matthew man OsO Ndagoso was quoted extensively in an
article for Aid to the Chase and Need, which is
an international Catholic organization. Rather than pinning the blame on Islam,
he said, in the Northwest, the farmers are mostly Muslims
and they also have conflicts with the Fulani. As moved

(02:04:24):
the Middle Belt. It is enhancing most by Christians, so
there will most likely be a Christian farm. Religion and
ethnicity have very sensitive problems in Nigeria. They're always used
for convenience, but primarily this conflict is not religious. I
am absolutely sure. If you apply for a job and
you don't get it, you might say you were rejected
because you are a Christian, and the same for Muslims.
Opportunists such as politicians use these factors to their own advantage.

(02:04:46):
But if you go to the route, you discover is
little or nothing to his religion.

Speaker 7 (02:04:50):
End quote Sex and analysis from the Church. I'm surprised
going from that source that I'm glad it, did you know?

Speaker 18 (02:04:57):
Yeah, Catholic change of all places. So he even claims
that the kidnappings of priests have little to do with religion.
And I'll quote him again. In the last three years,
seven of my priests have been kidnapped, two have been killed,
and one has been in captivity for three years and
two months. Four released in fifty of my parishes. Priests

(02:05:17):
cannot stay in directories because they are targets. They are
seen as an easy source of money for a ranser.
So he's emphasizing there that it's really about the money
that the churches perceived to be able to provide to
these canappers, more so than any religious targeting in particular.
Of course, that is only one archbishop's perspective on the situation.

(02:05:38):
I think Babelola makes an important point in his article
on the myth that I would like to quote as well. Crucially,
Christians at times become the chosen targets. In particular assaults
churches have been attacked during worship, pre subducted an entire
Christian villages raised in Plateau Venue and Southern Karduna. These
episodes are not separate from the general crisis, but a

(02:06:00):
rather moments when Christian identity is weaponized to mark a
community for terror. In this sense, Christians bear both the
general weight of insecurity shared by all Nigerians and the
sharper trauma of faith based targeting in sydnem attacks, but
Bablua doesn't forget that these groups terror as a severe
impact on the Muslims as well. In fact, he makes
an important comparison I wanted to highlight, which is that

(02:06:24):
in areas ravaged by armed groups, the first victims tend
to be those who have religious or ethnic groups in
common with the militants, killed because they are seen as
infidels or not noble enough or not committed enough to
the ideals of that movement. If you look at the
history of Zionism, it's released. For example, before they found

(02:06:49):
in of the state of Israel, there were bombings of
several Jewish heritage sites across the Middle East, and records
have later showed that they were carried out by terroristic
Jewish gangs who sort to instill a fair in Jewish
communities across the region, to so discord between the Jewish
communities and their neighbors for the purpose of forcing them

(02:07:09):
to abandon these Middle Eastern states and relocate to Israel
to further Israel's economic and geopolitical courts.

Speaker 5 (02:07:16):
Yeah, so it's not.

Speaker 18 (02:07:18):
Unheard of for a group to target its own core
religionists for its geopolitical economic combusures.

Speaker 7 (02:07:26):
If we talk about specifically the Islamic state in Iraq
and Syria. Right, isis as opposed to the Islamic State
in West Africa, like get killed more Muslims than anyone else, Right, exactly,
those were the bulk of the people it murdered.

Speaker 18 (02:07:38):
We could even look at a very old historical example,
the Latin Crusade. You had all these Christians from Europe,
Goyana Crusade, and because they didn't get paid, they decided
to ransack their core religionists in Greece and you know,
in the wider Byzantine Empire, and eventually, you know, deconstruct

(02:08:01):
business the empire entirely and establish their own Latin Empire.

Speaker 10 (02:08:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 18 (02:08:05):
So I didn't want to gloss over the real challenges
that Christians specifically are facing in North Nigeria. Though, since
nineteen ninety nine, serial law has been introduced and enforced
in twelve northern states, and according to the same archbishops
that I quoted earlier, this has ensured that religious persecution
in the North is systemic. He said, and I quote,

(02:08:26):
I cannot build a church. Even if you buy a land,
you can't get a permission of occupancy, and therefore you
cannot build In many of these states, they don't allow
the teaching of Christianity get the government's employees and pays
emams to teach in schools every year. They have money
to build mosques in the budget, but they will not
let you build churches. If m I state, there's a
university and across the street there are five mosques, no church.

(02:08:47):
Who wanted to build one, they didn't allow it. If
you build the church with a permission and the government
can tear it down. And this is what we are
going through. It is serious. We want our government to
be held accountable for people to be treated equally end quote.
So again, religious is still part of the picture, but
not in the way that the Western governments are painted. What's
happening is these issues of being amplified by opportunists and

(02:09:09):
far right lobbyists. And as I established earlier, we should
be addressed in where these terror groups have even come from,
because the West hands are not clean in that picture either.
Groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State have known
connections in their history to Western Midland. An American policy
in Africa has at least indirectly on these groups. Thanks

(02:09:30):
to the fall of Gadaffi in Libya and the American
Ladie stabilization of other Muslim countries in Southwest Asia and
North Africa. The death squads are as Akys that is
spersed across the Sahel region, victimizing Africans of World faith
or at least some of their firepower to that Western
intervenure to the flow of arms coming out of Libya.

(02:09:50):
The West has repeatedly shown that it's not kay of
people's lives. So what is the real beef that Trump
and co? Have with Nigeria? While according to Bangoura's article,

(02:10:11):
Trump is not feeling the fact that the US is
dependent on China for what it is and Nigeria is very
resource rich when it comes to earths like lithium, cobalt,
nickel and all that other stuff. Chinese companies have invested
more than one point three billion US dollars in Nigeria's
lithium processing industry, and Russia has growing leverage in the

(02:10:31):
region thanks to their involvement with Nizia, Bikina, Faso and Mali.
So in an effort to wean America or of China,
Tran has been trying to after the deal, the situation
so he signed agreements in Southeast Asia to increase the
production and processing of rats and exports the US. He
stepped into a broker peace deals code and code between

(02:10:53):
the DRC and Rwanda's the US can invest more in
the DRC's minerals. And what Trump radio like in Nigeria's
case is that Nigeria's President Tunubu is not playing ball
with him, at least in this case in Trump's eyes,
to will you not do enough to reverse Naja's military
coup and to wo do not let the US relocate

(02:11:15):
the Nigerian military base to Nigeria. Tunu Wu also didn't
let Trump relocate to poorties to Nigeria even when Ghana, Rwanda, Esportini,
Seladan and Uganda all accepted them. Furthermore, as established before,
Nigeria continues to condemn Israel's genocide in Gaza now when

(02:11:35):
it wants to, the US can intervene in other countries
without the talk about humanitarian itself. Because look at Guatemala
nineteen fifty four when they tried to implement some land
reforms and that went against the United Food companies interests,
So the US invaded, and you also had the US
willing to simply support whatever opposition exists in the country,

(02:11:56):
like in the Congo in nineteen sixty one against Patricial Mumba,
in Chile in nineteen seventy three against savadoy Inde, and
in Iran in nineteen fifty three against Muhammad Mosdeg So
they will use humanitarian talk. Whether they use that talk
or not, the results tend to be disastrous for the
people in those countries. US intervention sucks pretty much everywhere Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan,

(02:12:20):
Somalia and more. Besides, so we can count on whatever
Trump attempts in Nigeria being an abject failure. More recently,
the United States announced it will be sending a military
team to Nigeria after a string of recent attacks. That'd
be in two hundred troops. So we'll see what happens next.

(02:12:41):
But it's clear that US intervention is not the solution.
Its intentions are definitely malicious. So what can the future
be for the people of Nigeria? How can its people
be free? Obviously, the battle against these reactionary forces rages on,
but military solutions and militarization will not be In fact,

(02:13:01):
it carries some serious risk in the region as a
whole in terms of escalation. An article by Ayodele o'
labi in Altera zero recognize that with Nigeria's entanglement with
the US and the two hundred and sixty thousand strong
Equa's force, the AES is going to feel threatened, you know,
as it's trying to keep Western influence out of the region.

Speaker 3 (02:13:20):
So there's a.

Speaker 18 (02:13:20):
Danger of future EQUAS deployments overlapping with AS operations and
potentially lead into clashes. And if there isn't the escalation
of tensions between EQUAS and AS, we can end up
seeing interstate wars that would devastate communities in the region
and give the insurgents opportunities to expand. It could very
well set up another proxy battleground for global powers and

(02:13:41):
some kind of new Cold War.

Speaker 5 (02:13:43):
So they have to.

Speaker 18 (02:13:43):
Find some way of avoiding this clash and see if
they can build a cooperative security framework despite their vastly
different interests.

Speaker 7 (02:13:55):
Yeah, and to a degree, we already see like global
powers right like Russia has been honing its most horrific
war crimes in parts of West Africa for a long time,
right with its like private military contractors exactly Ukraine has
sent special forces to assist the people fighting against the

(02:14:15):
Russian private military contractors, like we've seen Nigeria's own government
kill its own civilians and its counter terrorism operation like
all of this just makes life less livable for people
who are already like on the thick end of climate
change for one thing, and have suffered under centuries to
colonialism for another.

Speaker 18 (02:14:36):
So that's a geopolitic analysis, and I suppose been the
long term. I think there's much to be done to
rebuild the revolutionary front within Nigeria, led by Nigerians themselves,
to chart another path for the future of the country.
Are we from the status of Vassalich?

Speaker 7 (02:14:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 18 (02:14:53):
You know, Left and Left of Jason Wovemans were very
diminished in relevance and credibility after the end of military
rule in Ingerior in nineteen ninety nine due to several
reasons that we could get into at another time. But
by the time we got to the Ensar's movement in
twenty twenty, Left forces were present but didn't have the
level of organization and strategy necessary to rise the occasion.

(02:15:16):
But according to an article in Progressive International by A.
Euler Babbalola, there's potential for a resurgence. The End Bad
Governance movement had demonstrations in August October twenty twenty four
which saw leftist groups like Take It Back and the
Socialist Workers League play a central role in organizing and
mobilizing protests. Unlike earlier moments, these groups articulated clearer demands,

(02:15:41):
coordinated protest strategies, had attempted to provide ideological direction. This
is in spite of facing crackdowns and arrests of key
figures and left and progressives faces. Of course, not everyone
mobilizing against the Nigeria's struggle in economic and political conditions
are committed to left or left adjacent ideas. Still, the
question remains unresolved. Can this renewed street level influence be

(02:16:05):
transformed into lasting organizational power or will repeat the cycle
of hobialization followed by fragmentation that has littered movements before it.
This violence taking place in Nigeria is bound up with
the violence taking place across the world. Is bound up
in imperialist interests and capless interest, in status interests, and
in petty tyrant's interests, from Nigeria to Congo to Sedan

(02:16:30):
to Palestine, violence and suppression tactics wee lied in one
place often brought to another. Biblelula says in his article
that could a genuine pursuit of justice must confront proximate
perpetrators as well as the transnational systems of power that
sustain them. What we must not allow is for the
global perpetrators of criminality and terror to tell the world

(02:16:51):
where to focus its attention end code. In other words,
to all that the perpetrators of these violences tell you
where to focus. We must look every where, look holistically
at what's happening, and put the power and soliarity in
the hands of the people affected to resist that violence.
That's all I happened to as usual, all power, it's

(02:17:12):
old people peace.

Speaker 11 (02:17:28):
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. I'm Garrison
Davis to name, joined by James Stout, Mia Wong, and
Robert Evans. This episode, we are covering the week of
April first to April eighth. The DHS shutdown has surpassed
fifty days. Last week, House Republicans tentatively agreed to the

(02:17:52):
Senate deal to fund DHS without ICE and CBP, though
this agreement is stalled while Congress is out of session
till April fourteenth. Fox News has partnered with Calshi to
incorporate its political betting data into news coverage. Fox joints CNNC, NBC,
and the AP in entering into deals with the so

(02:18:12):
called prediction market Calshi. Calshe announced quote, prediction markets at
accountability by rewarding accuracy. That's why the three leading networks
have chosen Calshi. No spin, no partisan lens, just incentives
to be right unquote.

Speaker 2 (02:18:28):
It's just gambling.

Speaker 3 (02:18:30):
It's so cool that the whole world, all media is now.

Speaker 2 (02:18:32):
Just ESPN incentives to be right again, like people are.
There's like one of the sub markets within Calshi is
people like bringing in lawyers to make threats over like
tiny differences in grammar that invalidate them either losing money
or mean that they should have won the art like
like none of this is about what actually happened. It's

(02:18:52):
it's becoming as much about what you can game or
like threaten the news into not reporting. As we talked
about the week before last with that case in Israel
and insider trading and insider trading.

Speaker 11 (02:19:01):
Yeah, no, it's it's just turning politics into like a
corrupt casino.

Speaker 3 (02:19:06):
Yeah, it's just mob sports betting.

Speaker 11 (02:19:08):
It's worse than sports betting because sports betting is actually
based on like real odds. Right, These odds are completely
created by users with their money. Like it's it's it's
completely manufactured. There's no actual basis for a lot of
these bets, right, Like like the betting on the papal conclave.
There's no basis for an American pope getting elected, right,
there's no actual odds that were like mathematically certain.

Speaker 3 (02:19:29):
It's just created through through money. Well, to be fair,
the sports odds are also just kind of made up.
Yeah guys too, but like yeah, you no, real's just
a tidy fit.

Speaker 7 (02:19:40):
Vibes based like it's people looking at horses. It's a
lot of what's happening in sports betting, yes, making approving. Yeah,
I think I saw that something close to a billion
dollars was bet on oil prices as we approach Trump's deadline.

Speaker 3 (02:19:57):
We already had that just play the oil futures market too.

Speaker 11 (02:20:01):
Complicands for people. I guess God, damn it, No, it's
really bad. According to a March poll from the Institute
for a Middle East Understanding Policy Project sampling almost six
hundred Texas Democratic primary voters, seventy six percent say Israel's
committing Jena, Siden and Gaza, and eighty percent support ending

(02:20:22):
weapons funding to Israel. Forty four percent of Tallarika voters
said his criticism of Israel was important to them and
swayed their vote over one in five voters. Twenty two
percent said reducing support for Israel was one of their
top three factors impacting their vote, while only two percent
said the same about increasing or maintaining support for Israel,

(02:20:44):
and eighty eight percent of voters said they agreed with
the statement to Tallarico made during a primary debate about
cutting off weapons to Israel. On Sunday night, thirteen gunshots
were fired into the front door of Indianapolis City County
council Ron Gibson, who just voted to approve a half
a billion dollar data center. A note was left under

(02:21:06):
the doormat that read no data centers quote unquote. Gibson
and his son were home at the time of the shooting.

Speaker 3 (02:21:13):
Yeah, these data centers are really staggeringly unpopular. There's been
a bunch of reporting on even the ones that are
attempted to be built, something like fifty percent of them
are just not able to do it because of massive
public local backlash.

Speaker 2 (02:21:28):
Because it makes life worse around them. Nakey power bells
go up there loud.

Speaker 3 (02:21:32):
Yeah, it's like it's like old school. It's like old
school environmental nimbiism, sort of like I don't want these
assholes in my small town stuff. There's just like the
Antai sentiment in general, They're hideously unpopular and this kind
of stuff is just going to continue as these data
centers continue to be built.

Speaker 7 (02:21:49):
Okay, time for me.

Speaker 8 (02:21:51):
So.

Speaker 7 (02:21:51):
Donald Trump has said that he will discuss the United
States withdrawal from NATO for those who work in the
New York Times as a North Atlanta Take Treaty Organization
with Mark Rutter, who is the NATO Secretary General, during
their meeting, which will happen today which is Wednesday, April eighth.

Speaker 3 (02:22:08):
If question Mark this happens, it would be utterly aparcal,
Like it would be one of the two things they're
going to point out as like the dawning of the New.

Speaker 7 (02:22:17):
Era of Yes, seismic shift.

Speaker 3 (02:22:19):
Yeah, like what geopolitics is, this is like the fundamental
basis of this in this week, or like ceasing to exist. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:22:28):
Shelly Kittelsen has been released by Katipos Bula after they
made her read a video confession in which she confessed
and to be very clear, this is very clearly extracted fashion. Yes,
the thing in this is it is true. But in
the video they made her confess to passing information to
US consulate in Baghdad. In one point in the video

(02:22:50):
she said she had been collecting information on leaders but
forgotten their names, which is very credible and true.

Speaker 3 (02:22:57):
Most real con fashion, Yeah to Ludigris.

Speaker 7 (02:23:01):
Her release came after IRAQ released several catigue Has Boller members,
so seems like a straight swap, which is what this
was about in the first place. Right, it's not about
her or her work per se, It's about her being
a trading chip that they can create. Finally, Republican Brandon
gil has sharply criticized the dignities like Dignity dald Act recently,

(02:23:24):
and this has become like something of an online discourse
topic on the right. I'm not exactly sure why it's
happening now.

Speaker 3 (02:23:31):
Rep.

Speaker 7 (02:23:31):
Salazar from Florida has tried to introduce this act several
times in the last few years. We've actually covered it
when it was introduced in twenty twenty five on this show.
It's a bipartisan act to reform the immigration system.

Speaker 3 (02:23:45):
That is bad.

Speaker 7 (02:23:47):
It creates what's called a dignity status, which is essentially
like an underclass of people who there is no pathway citizenship,
there is no pathway to voting, but it comes with
the right to renew it and the right to residency right,
so it creates it's like a sub citizen class. It's
bad that it's not a progressive immigration reform.

Speaker 11 (02:24:05):
But is Brandon Gill criticizing it from the right?

Speaker 7 (02:24:09):
Gil is coming from another perspective, then, I am. They
think it gives incentives for illegal immigration and it's an amnesty.

Speaker 11 (02:24:15):
Okay, Yeah, so he's criticizing from the right.

Speaker 7 (02:24:18):
It's interesting to see the split among Republicans on this,
and that's why I wanted to bring it in. Right
that we spoke last time about the Florida sheriffs breaking
with Trump on mass deportations. There are a number of
things which indicate that there is clearly a faction of
the Republican Party, which is realized massive deportation of people
who have not been accused or convicted of any crime.

(02:24:41):
It's not a popular stance, especially when you keep killing people.
On that note, actually, ice have shot somebody else that
this broke relatively late on Tuesday night. They shot someone
in Patterson, California. The person has been identified Carlos Iva
Mendoso Hernandez. He's wanted in El Salvador for questioning a

(02:25:05):
connection to a murder. It is another of those incidents
in which they accused a person of weaponizing their vehicle,
and there is a dash cam video which has been
released which shows a person attempting to leave in a vehicle.
It's a little hard to tell if the person who's
attempting to weaponize their vehicle, but it doesn't look that
way to me, so that person is trying to make

(02:25:26):
an exit. We have seen a number of these right
where federal immigration agents have shot people behind the wheel
of their car. Yeah. I should add that his attorney
claims that he is not wanted in connection with that
murder and has provided a document from the government of
El Salbador which seems to confirm that. So we have
once again the DHS said versus what we seem to

(02:25:48):
be seeing proved out by documents.

Speaker 11 (02:25:49):
Right before we get to Iran, which there's a lot
to discuss, there is another news story a little bit
closer to us that we think deserves some fair coverage.
Statements made on a podcast last year by a top
FEMA official resurfaced this last week. Greg Phillips, who is
in charge of disaster response, claims that he once teleported

(02:26:12):
to a waffle house in Rome, Georgia. Phillips also says
he experienced a separate instant in which he teleported in
front of a church. The fact that this was a
waffle house does lend a story a bit of credibility.
I have suspected for years there's some sort of paranormal
field around waffle houses. Personally, I believe that when you
walk into one, there is a small chance you could

(02:26:35):
walk out of another in a separate location. The craft
store Michaels has a similar has a similar energy to it.

Speaker 2 (02:26:43):
Look, anyone who's gone drunk to enough waffle houses knows
that that's true.

Speaker 11 (02:26:47):
Right, So there is an aspect of the story which
is very believable, but there's some details that Phillips has
included that makes me a bit more skeptical of his
characterization of this incident. Let's listen to his claim on
this podcast right now.

Speaker 16 (02:27:02):
We had a teleport at incident, two of them, which
transported me about forty miles from from where I was
and near Albany, Georgia, to the ditch of a to
the ditch of a of a church chained up at

(02:27:22):
a waffle house like fifty miles away from where I.

Speaker 11 (02:27:25):
Was to that. So to defend these statements, Phillips has
taken to truth Social to share biblical accounts of teleportation
as supporting evidence of teleportation.

Speaker 2 (02:27:37):
Great.

Speaker 11 (02:27:39):
Employees at the three waffle houses in Rome, Georgia were
interviewed by The New York Times, and they say they
do not recall anyone being transported there by means of teleportation,
nor did they recognize pictures of Greg Phillips. But in
a follow up statement by Phillips on truth Social, he
said he was going through cancer treatment at the time

(02:28:00):
of this alleged teleportation incident. Quote, I was healed of
cancer and it was a miracle. The podcast at the
center of this controversy was part of chronicling that journey,
and during that journey things happened that I can't explain.
I was in the opening days of intensive treatment, heavily medicated,
not thinking about future headlines. That context was nowhere in

(02:28:23):
the reporting. Unquote. I think it is important here that
he says he was heavily medicated during the time around.

Speaker 4 (02:28:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:28:33):
I love how he uses cop voice like a teleportation incident.

Speaker 3 (02:28:38):
Yeah, but however, I'm gonna point out that Garrison the
next thing you're about to read, he was not heavily
medicated when he said this, So.

Speaker 11 (02:28:47):
Phillips added to this truth quote, the word teleportation was
not mine. It was used by someone else in the conversation,
reaching for a language describe something with no easy name, which.

Speaker 3 (02:28:59):
Is not true. He said teleport.

Speaker 7 (02:29:01):
He said teleport.

Speaker 11 (02:29:02):
I think what he means is he didn't wasn't his
like initial term, then started using it.

Speaker 3 (02:29:06):
Yes, he keeps using it, he continues.

Speaker 11 (02:29:10):
Quote.

Speaker 19 (02:29:11):
The more accurate biblical terms are translated or transported, not
new ideas for people of faith. If you believe that
God moves in ways we cannot fully explain, as I do,
then having faith is not a SoundBite.

Speaker 11 (02:29:24):
It is the whole point. I believe in miracles. All caps,
God bless America. He has risen unquote. Now, one detail
from the podcast that has not been mentioned as much,
I think offers to help some idea of what's what's
really going on here.

Speaker 16 (02:29:40):
It was an incredibly frightening moment to experience yourself in
your car flying through the air.

Speaker 5 (02:29:50):
It was possible, it was real.

Speaker 7 (02:29:52):
He was teleposted in his car.

Speaker 11 (02:29:54):
He was in his car, which for me changes this
entire thing, because these headlines were kind of kind of
imagine as if his body like dematerialized somewhere, remateialized in
a waffle house something that's you know, you know, certainly he.

Speaker 2 (02:30:09):
Just blacked out while driving, which is very different, which
is very different.

Speaker 7 (02:30:17):
When we were driving around Texas.

Speaker 2 (02:30:19):
Yeah, I tell I teleported on Xanax one about thirty
hours into the future.

Speaker 11 (02:30:24):
So the fact that he was owned doubt while driving
and ended up at a waffle house much more, much
more explainable. Because many many people in slightly and slightly
all downright downright outside of waffle houses in their car.
This is a very common occurred. This is probably about
maybe ten to ten to thirty percent of the waffle

(02:30:46):
house clientele shows up in this sort of environment where
they are they are not operating on their full faculties,
either through some sort of drugs, alcohol, medication, what have you.

Speaker 2 (02:30:58):
I've seen UFOs at a waffle house before.

Speaker 11 (02:31:01):
No, right, the wabble houses are you know, are have
some kind of poll that I think attracts people like
a magnet who are in US in an altered state,
towards them as like a beacon.

Speaker 2 (02:31:11):
Yeah, that that poll is smothered and covered hash browns.

Speaker 7 (02:31:14):
Yes so. And the fact that I'm right open at
four am.

Speaker 2 (02:31:18):
Oh, and bathrooms you can do heroin in don't forget
that says it on the sign.

Speaker 3 (02:31:24):
I also want to make sure that we mentioned that.
In the same week in which The New York Times,
the guy who was writing the headline didn't know what
NATO stood for. They also titled the initial title of
the article they wrote about this was anti quote. FEMA
official says he teleported to waffle house. Experts are dubious.

(02:31:44):
This is this might be the worst. Experts disagree Headlight. Ever,
I think this is good.

Speaker 11 (02:31:53):
I actually, out of out of the two poles of
New York New York Times headlines this week, the data
one is this one. Fully I fully agree with I
fully agree with their their choice to say that experts
are due because about teleportation.

Speaker 7 (02:32:07):
This does make me sad because in New York Times
is also the outlet that ran what is, in my opinion,
the best headline ever written. It was about the fact
that moray good Okay. It was other subject of a
scientific study which looked at moray eels and their ability
to climb a ramp out of a pool to eat
some food, which proved in theory that moray eels could

(02:32:28):
hunt on land, and the headline was when an eel
climbs a ramp to eat a squid from a clamp.

Speaker 3 (02:32:34):
That's a more ray title from a better time.

Speaker 7 (02:32:38):
Yeah yeah, what a different Yeah yeah whoever wrote that.
I hope you're doing well.

Speaker 11 (02:32:47):
We will now teleport to an ad break and remterialize
to discuss the back and forth ceasefire not ceasefire with Ron.

Speaker 2 (02:33:11):
We're back and depending on when you listen to this,
we may either read back to War with Iran the
straight up four moves could be closed or open. We're
in like uh just this this beautiful? Like uh uh roadingers.
No one knows where it's gonna.

Speaker 7 (02:33:31):
Go after this. Yeah, if you don't open your phone
then and you never know how many wars since cease
fires have started since the last time you opened your phone.

Speaker 2 (02:33:38):
That's right. They can't make you believe that a war
is going on if you choose to not be informed. Yeah,
other than by looking at gas prices.

Speaker 7 (02:33:46):
Yeah, yeah, that that is a thing.

Speaker 5 (02:33:49):
God.

Speaker 7 (02:33:49):
All right, let's let's try and do this in chronological order,
because this week has been bonkers. So let's start with
last Friday when you last listen to ed listening to
Baby released a good Friday, And that is kind of
important because a United States Air Force fifteen eighth Strike
Eagle belonging to the forty eighth Fighter Wing, crashed in

(02:34:11):
southwestern Iran last Friday after being hit by a manpad
that the manpads is a shoulder fired surface to air missile.
The plane carries a pilot and a WIZZO WSOS an ancronym.
It means weapons systems officer or weapons systems operator. I'm
just going to call them a weapons officer just to
make it easier for everyone going forward. And both crew

(02:34:34):
members safely self ejected from the plane. The United States
very quickly launched a massive CISAR that's combat search and
rescue operation involving helicopters, low flying aircraft and close air
support from both MQ nine Reaper drones and eight ten aircraft.
During this operation, in which the aircraft flew within small

(02:34:54):
arms range of the ground in Kuzustan Province, several aircraft
were damaged. One of the Jolly Green to rescue helicopters
was hit with small arms fire, an eight ten thunderbolt
crashed in the strait of horn Moves and the pilot
was recovered. Another was hit and the pilot ejected over

(02:35:14):
Q eight, but this effort did result in the safe
recovery of the F fifteens pilot, but not the weapons officer.
The following day, that happened during the day, right in
daylight hours, which is remarkable. It is extremely rare to
see this happening right like low flying helicopters over what

(02:35:35):
is notion the enemy territory in the middle of the daytime.
On Easter Sunday, the United States launched a huge operation
which resulted in the recovery of the weapons officer. This
was preceded by a disinformation campaign which hoped to make
the Iranian state believe that they had extracted the weapons
officer by land, which they hadn't. The operation involved a

(02:35:58):
ton of Special Operations Forces as sets who flew to
an agricultural airstrip outside Isfahan. This seems to have gone
largely unremarked upon in the reporting. There is some crackpot
theory that this was all cover for an operation that
extracted enriched geranium from Isfahan because there is a nuclear
research acility Isfahan. I have not seen any evidence to

(02:36:19):
support that, but I think it is likely that they
knew of this agricultural airstrip because of plans which were
made for a potential raid on the Isfahan nuclear research
facility during the operation m Q nine and ripa drone's
bombed quote military age males who were close to the airmen.

(02:36:41):
Iran had offered a reward of sixty thousand dollars for
capturing this person before the United States got to them.
And it is common for people in this area who like,
if you're like herding animals, right to carry a gun,
like to protect their animals or to protect themselves. There
were some kind of propaganday videos of like local people

(02:37:04):
looking for the m and right, they were carrying like
Iranian flags and they're like antiquated bolt action rifles. But
it's also very possible that some of these drone strikes
may have occurred against people who were just going about
their business in the region, right, Like if they didn't
they said military age males that it's a broad remit.
Any anyone who would out there being a shepherd would

(02:37:25):
be a military age.

Speaker 11 (02:37:26):
Male, right, would be a military aged Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:37:28):
Yeah, this is like one of the most sickening terms
US warfare is invented.

Speaker 7 (02:37:34):
Yeah, military age mail is like anyone anytime people are
using that, like you got a doesn't pass the SNIF test.

Speaker 11 (02:37:39):
No, it could be anyone from to like fourteen years
old to like sixty nine exactly.

Speaker 4 (02:37:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:37:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:37:46):
You'll be surprised who looks like an adult when you're
a scared man with a gun.

Speaker 7 (02:37:50):
Yeah yeah, or looking from thousands of feet up on
its own camera.

Speaker 5 (02:37:55):
Right.

Speaker 4 (02:37:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:37:55):
It's a term invented for we are just going to
start shooting at the people. We have no idea who
they are, were just going to kill them. Yeah, and
it's hideous.

Speaker 7 (02:38:04):
I was recently rereading I think it's called a Theory
of the Drone. It's a philosophy book about drones and
drone warfare, and there's a scene in the opening of
that which I think is which you can probably get
the free preview of the book if you have a
kindle and read that scene. But it's very illustrative of
how vague this term can be. The rescue operation saw
the planes land at an airstrip. Then a little bit

(02:38:28):
helicopter took off collected the airmen who had been evading,
capturing a mountainous area. He was then carried back by
the helicopter to the airstrip where the two larger aircrafts
that had bought the helicopter and all the personnel had
become stuck.

Speaker 3 (02:38:41):
Incredible.

Speaker 7 (02:38:43):
Yeah, I mean, I guess normally they would do some
kind of soil sampling, but I think there probably just
wasn't time. Yeah, So the United States elected to destroy
those aircraft in place and send three more aircraft to
recover their personnel. And we can see that Iran has
published footage to that. Right, it seems that they also

(02:39:03):
destroyed the Little Bird helicopters. I've seen some reporting that
the Little Bird helicopters were just like on a one
way flight, that they flew into Iran knowing that their
range wasn't long enough for them to fly back, and
that they always plan to destroy them. I don't think
that's the case. I think they got them out the
back of the sea one thirties and assembled them quickly.
That that is a thing they have the capacity to do,

(02:39:25):
and that is what makes the most sense. So on
that same day, Easter Sunday, kind of a big deal
for the Christian folks, Donald Trump truth the following quote,
Tuesday will be power plant Day and bridge Day all
wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing
like it. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or

(02:39:46):
you will be living in hell.

Speaker 3 (02:39:48):
Just watch.

Speaker 7 (02:39:49):
Praise be to Allah.

Speaker 2 (02:39:52):
I love the president.

Speaker 7 (02:39:54):
Yeah, yeah, that is a that is the leader of
the free world. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:39:58):
My extremely low staged conspiracy that this was not Trump.
This was written by Trump's staff because it's slightly off,
it could have been.

Speaker 2 (02:40:05):
It doesn't sound like him, really.

Speaker 7 (02:40:08):
Yeah, he's not normally a like he gets.

Speaker 2 (02:40:11):
Yeah, a lot of stuff isn't really him. No, that's
a weird thing for him to throw it.

Speaker 11 (02:40:17):
I can very easily believe that this is that this
is him like going nuts on something.

Speaker 3 (02:40:23):
Yeah, like he could have done possible. I think there's
a low chance that this was what this was like
a staff written thing.

Speaker 2 (02:40:30):
It's just it's it's it's weird wording from him, like
it's a strange message, although the last couple from him
have all seemed kind of strange.

Speaker 3 (02:40:38):
Yeah, he is just out of it.

Speaker 2 (02:40:39):
The one he put up after the ceasefire announcement where
he's like where he puts in quotations that the navy
will be hanging round. Yeah, yeah, that's that's not doesn't
sound like him much either, But also like who else
would he let write that? It's He's it's just but
it is weird, right, that does not sound like any
previous Trump post hanging round to say fuck.

Speaker 7 (02:41:01):
In a Trump in a presidential tweet, Like, I don't
know why a stuffer would do that.

Speaker 3 (02:41:04):
No, and I.

Speaker 2 (02:41:05):
Agree with you, Jays.

Speaker 11 (02:41:06):
These things are usually transcribed like usually he reads these
out loud and someone writes them down and then he
looks at them and and then and then and then
they hit post like that. That's that's how all of
his truths were structured in that documentary.

Speaker 7 (02:41:19):
Yes, does he dictate the capitalization.

Speaker 11 (02:41:22):
When he looks them over like he may.

Speaker 7 (02:41:25):
Okay, because he has a fascinating and quite unique approach
to capitalization.

Speaker 11 (02:41:29):
Like specifically like there will be nothing like. It is
definitely like a Trump a Trump verbal text.

Speaker 2 (02:41:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a super Trump line.

Speaker 3 (02:41:37):
Yeah. But then like the next part, I is weird.

Speaker 2 (02:41:41):
But hanging round that's that's not really a Trump sounding line.

Speaker 3 (02:41:45):
Okay, sorry, it's weird. We we've all been distracted.

Speaker 7 (02:41:48):
So to talk about what he said on Tuesday, Power
Bridge Day. Yeah, he said, quote A whole civilization will
die tonight, never to be bought back again.

Speaker 2 (02:41:58):
That's a Trump line.

Speaker 7 (02:41:59):
Yeah. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However,
now that we have complete and total regime change where different,
smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something maybe something way. Yeah,
I don't know. I'm not so sure. Maybe something revolutionarily
wonderful can happen. Who knows. We will find out tonight

(02:42:20):
one of the most important moments in the long and
complex history of the world. Forty seven years of extortion,
corruption and death will finally end. God bless the great
people of Iran. Real journey that you go on, Yeah,
from a civilization will die tonight to God bless the
great people of Iran nightmarish. I don't know what to

(02:42:44):
make of that, Like it seems like he's just they
obviously striking civilian target. It is a war crime. It
is a war crime Israel does all the time. We
covered that last time we spoke a whole civilization will
die tonight. Seems borderlin like genocidal as a threat. Yeah,
that's that's not borderline.

Speaker 3 (02:43:05):
I think that is. I think that's a threat of genocide. Yeah,
like this has been which by the way, is also
like if you say this and then kill one person,
like you are guilty of the crime of genocide. Yeah, yeah,
like the genocide.

Speaker 7 (02:43:18):
Like it's not good. It is not good. Let's talk
about what actually happened. Right since then, just before the deadline,
a huge number of strikes hit a run, including the
Ministry of Intelligence building at Chiraz. There's some evidence that
may have had some tunnels underneath it, Aerospace Research Institute,
bridges and aluminium factory. Brigadier General Majid Hademi, who is

(02:43:42):
the head of IOGC Intelligence was also killed in the
targeted strike, and we hit carg Island again. Good, finally,
yeah yeah. Let a lot of people think that this
might have been a precursor to some kind of US
land operation however.

Speaker 11 (02:43:56):
Or nuclear weapons a lot, right.

Speaker 2 (02:43:58):
Yeah, right, we've seen this right again. When the president's
saying you're gonna wipe out it doesn't make me feel calm.
You should you should assume that the president might actually
try to wipe out a culture. I mean, I like
that is my strong stance on this, is that based
on what he's saying, it is not unreasonable for people
to flip out over this statement. It's absolutely not People

(02:44:18):
should be outraged that a president said he they're pretty
strong enough. It's really bad, like like it's very bad.

Speaker 3 (02:44:26):
Yeah, Like he should be hauled up in front of
a tribunal like Meloshovic, Like I am not on team.

Speaker 2 (02:44:31):
We should just move past.

Speaker 7 (02:44:32):
This, like it's easy because everything's so insane to be
like another insane thing everything. This is a guy who
has the trigger for all the nukes saying he's going
to wipe out a civilization, like I would love.

Speaker 2 (02:44:45):
To be the nothing ever happens. Nothing happened here, it's fine, Like,
don't don't yield to Trump? Derangement syndrome. Guy, because it's
a lot easier, but like this is not something anyone
should move past. He should go on trial for like this,
like outside of the other stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:45:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:45:03):
Yeah, Each of these tweets would constitute a reason for
a trial in any previous presidency. Since then, Pakistan offered
to mediate a ceasefire and these are negotiated Toro on
going as Donald Trump was true thing. Iran reportedly made
a list of its own demands. This is a translation

(02:45:23):
from Persians, so not a word for word quotation, right.
It listed these in its telegram channels as control passage
through the Strait Offorn Muse in coordination with Iran's arm forces,
the necessity of ending the war against all components of
the Axis of Resistance, that withdrawal of US combat forces
from all bases and deployments in the region, establishing a

(02:45:43):
secure transit protocol and the straight ofform Mouse that guarantees
Iranian control, full payment of damages to Iran, removal of
all primary and secondary sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian
assets and property abroad, and the ratification of all these
items in a UN Security Council resolution. The parties that

(02:46:04):
agreed to a two week ceasefire. Trump again shared the
news of this on Truth's social kind of done reading
out trees. I'm going to skip that one. That was
a hanging around one. Very Shortly thereafter, Israel began a
massive bombing campaign in Lebanon, and Iran continued to launch
missiles at the occupied territories. Carolin Leavitt has said that

(02:46:25):
Trump refused the Iranian plan.

Speaker 20 (02:46:27):
The Iranians originally put forward a ten point plan that
was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and completely discarded. It was literally
thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team.
Many outlets in this room have falsely reported on that
plan as being acceptable to the United States, and that
is false.

Speaker 7 (02:46:48):
So she was pretty emphatic about that. Trump attacks CNN
for publishing the plan this morning. Trump has said that
the Israeli attacks on Lebanon were quote a separate skirmish.
Striket Lebanon a hundred times in just over ten minutes
today they dropped whole tower blocks in Beirut.

Speaker 3 (02:47:08):
That that is not a skirmish.

Speaker 7 (02:47:10):
Now he said they're not part of the deal because
as Buller's not part of the deal. Of course, in it.
Ran state media are pushing that they've they have somehow
achieved all of their ten points, which I think were
their sort of goals for negotiation or a basis for negotiation.
Trump has said to one reporter that the tolls on

(02:47:30):
the street could be a joint venture between the United
States and Iran.

Speaker 11 (02:47:34):
Which suggest there are some parts of this of this
deal that that are that are true, that he has
kind of agreed.

Speaker 7 (02:47:40):
On, that are at least on the table. Right, Like
these are the bases, which was how they were initially
reported by CNN and others, that these have been accepted
as a basis for negotiation. They had not been accepted
whole cloth. Some people of some whom I think are
acting in bad faith, have said since this more warning.

(02:48:00):
The Wall Street Journal has reported that the tolls will
be paid in cryptocurrency or Chinese one yeah, and that
around it is broadcasting VHF messages. It's very high frequency.
It's radio frequency warning non paying ships crossing the straight
of home moods that they will be targeted. Trumpet provitly
said the straight offor moves is open. This doesn't seem
like that.

Speaker 11 (02:48:21):
The tolls about like two million, right.

Speaker 7 (02:48:23):
Well, there have been various proposals. Some I said two
million dollars. I've seen different dollar sums per barrel of
oil transiting the straight. I guess it would depend if
it's if it's if the US Iranian partnership. You know
how we're going to account for the exchange rate. Everyone
has to get their peace right. Yeah, but yes, the
two million dollars number was thrown around a lot.

Speaker 3 (02:48:44):
Yeah, and it's worth noting that the strait is not
open now. It is simply not.

Speaker 2 (02:48:49):
The number isn't a lesson stopp launching strikes.

Speaker 7 (02:48:53):
Well, even if they wanted to open it right now,
they would have to remove the mines that they've put
in it.

Speaker 2 (02:48:59):
Right, We don't know how many minds there are.

Speaker 3 (02:49:01):
If there are, so there are still ships going through,
there's not many of them, like there's I think it was.
The number I saw for today was four. Yeah, yeah,
like so like like it is technic, it is possible
to go through. But four is like one of the
lowest numbers that has happened since the Strait was first closed.
So it has has simply not been reopened. Trump says

(02:49:23):
this constantly.

Speaker 7 (02:49:24):
It's down to one channel, would be my guess, right, Like,
it's because and then that they're advising those ships. I'm
guessing we're sending a pilot craft perhaps to go between
the mines.

Speaker 8 (02:49:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:49:33):
I haven't seen any reporting on how they're getting them through.

Speaker 7 (02:49:37):
Yeah, I haven't.

Speaker 2 (02:49:39):
The extent to which they've laid minds is really unclear. Yeah,
Like all we know is that they have the capacity
to do so, in that the US has been striking
craft that are set to lay minds. But like, I
haven't heard of any evidence of a ship getting hit
with the mine yet.

Speaker 7 (02:49:54):
Right, Yeah, neither of I s Perhaps they haven't.

Speaker 2 (02:49:57):
Laid any or we don't know what they've done. They
may have decided that that was more of than they
needed to do at this point.

Speaker 5 (02:50:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:50:03):
Yeah, And so far, all of the attacks on ships
have been with other more conventional weapons.

Speaker 7 (02:50:07):
Yeah, either sea drones or missiles of various kinds.

Speaker 3 (02:50:12):
Yeah, shooting them with guns in a couple of cases.

Speaker 7 (02:50:16):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Garrison, let's start with this clip of JD.
Vance talking about the inclusion of Lebanon in this ceasefire.

Speaker 21 (02:50:23):
First of all, I actually think and there's a lot
of bad faith negotiation and a lot.

Speaker 3 (02:50:29):
Of bad faith.

Speaker 21 (02:50:30):
You know, propaganda going on. I think this comes from
a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the
ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't. We never made
that promise, We never indicated that was going to be
the case. What we said is that the ceasefire would
be focused on Iran, and the ceasefire would be focused
on America's allies. Both Israel and the Golf are of states.

Speaker 7 (02:50:51):
So yeah, let's talk about Israel, right, a country which
famously loves to respect a ceasefire. Israel has continued to
strike inside Iran. It has not stopped since the announcement
of this ceasefire, right, it has shown no indication of
wanting to stop. It is also continued, as I said,

(02:51:14):
it's massive bombing campaign side Lebanon. It seems to be
the case that whatever was negotiated, the Israelis do not
perceive the ceasefire as applying to them, or at least
the IDF does not, I should say, rather than the
ralis right, and therefore Iran does not perceive it as

(02:51:35):
being obliged to no longer strike Israel.

Speaker 11 (02:51:38):
Yeah, I mean, the whole situation right now is very
unclear and is literally changing by the hour.

Speaker 7 (02:51:43):
Yeah, like by the time we're done recording this.

Speaker 11 (02:51:45):
Right, Yeah, so we're recording this Wednesday afternoon. By the
time this comes out Thursday night slash Friday morning, there
could be a whole different situation.

Speaker 4 (02:51:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:51:54):
Yeah, I'll try and record a pickup if we have to.

Speaker 11 (02:51:57):
But yeah, as of as of Wednesday afternoon, this is
what the sort of ambiguity around around the deal looks
like and the level of compliance regarding Israel and the
United States.

Speaker 7 (02:52:08):
Yeah, there are two more things I want to talk
about that have been reported on the list. Obviously, this
has been reported on widely because it is a threat
to all of our lives if we're going to start
a nuclear war. The pak is Curtis Down Freedom Party,
says it's leaders headquarters. This was interally reported as home.
They did send me a text to use the word
home WhatsApp, but I think, judging by what I have

(02:52:31):
heard from other reports in a region, it's better described
as headquarters. Were struck with several Iranian missiles. This came after,
according to Fox News, the President claimed that the United
States sent weapons to protesters in Iran in January, but
that quote the Kurds kept them. Now, a video of
Trump addressing the issue does not explicitly name the Kurds,

(02:52:54):
it does imply that they.

Speaker 22 (02:52:56):
Don't have guns. You know, we send some guns the
group that was supposed to give which I said, what
happened to my people? I said it.

Speaker 5 (02:53:04):
I called it exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:53:06):
We sent guns, a lot of guns.

Speaker 22 (02:53:08):
They were supposed to go to the people said they
could fight back against these ducks. You know what happened.
The people that they sent them to kept them because
they said, what a beautiful gun.

Speaker 8 (02:53:17):
I think I'll keep it.

Speaker 22 (02:53:18):
So I'm very upset with a certain group of people,
and they're going to pay a big price for that.
But the Iranian people who will fight back as soon
as they know they're not going to be shot and
as soon as they can get weapons.

Speaker 7 (02:53:33):
This is one of the most seed It's up there
with him threatening to new Karam the Easter Bunny, and it's.

Speaker 11 (02:53:42):
I hesitate to use the word Lynchian because that work
gets misapplied a lot.

Speaker 7 (02:53:46):
And Tufa asks him, and this is not a perfect.

Speaker 11 (02:53:50):
Invocation of Lynchian either, but it's getting closer with the
sort of one of the.

Speaker 7 (02:53:56):
More Lynchian things to have pay real life.

Speaker 11 (02:53:59):
It's incredible up with like the Easter jazz in the
back crash of vibes. Yeah, as there's like flowers over
the archway. Yeah, I think half co No, there's sort
of the sort of juxtaposition, right, which I think is
that is the key part of leedge is like is
this surreal with the mundane and you have parts of
this here where you have this sort of intensity of

(02:54:20):
the stuff Trump's talking about with the Eastern jazz and
his like purple tie and the easter like decorations in
the background. This is this is a stunning piece of media.

Speaker 2 (02:54:31):
Stunning piece of history.

Speaker 7 (02:54:32):
God yeah, I saw this yesterday and I thought I
need to expose my colleagues to this, like one of
the most incredible thirty seconds of video. To come back
to topic at hand, various Rogulati groups have denied this,
and it would be an extreme logistical challenge to provide
weapons to Curdish arm groups, most of whom have most
of their personnel in Iraq, and for them to transit

(02:54:56):
those weapons to Tehran. I don't belie believe that that
would have been something that any US administration would entertain.

Speaker 2 (02:55:05):
What guns would they give them that they don't because
if these groups tend to be pretty well supplied with
small personal arms we're talking about like your battle rifles
and you know, long range precision rifles and the like,
what they lack is man portable anti aircraft and man
portable anti armor. Those are kind of some of the
most precious pieces of gear to them, and I doubt

(02:55:28):
Trump was offering to send that into Iran, among other things.
We probably don't want to be sending a bunch of
man portable anti aircraft into Iran.

Speaker 7 (02:55:36):
Right now, Like that s babfire.

Speaker 2 (02:55:40):
But that's the only shit I could see these different
groups wanting to take for themselves.

Speaker 7 (02:55:44):
Yeah, it's especially strange because, like I watched a lot
of videos of armed attacks on uh, like Iranian police
in January of this year, and they were using very
basic weapons, to include quite a few of the pak
using pumpacked shotguns.

Speaker 2 (02:55:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:55:59):
I don't think the US sent them pump action shotguns.

Speaker 2 (02:56:02):
No, that would be a weird We don't. The US
military doesn't have a lot of pump action shot is
just laying around. Yeah, that's not like the first gun
they'd have a bunch of to hand over to somebody.
They've probably got more ak's than that.

Speaker 7 (02:56:13):
Yeah, and like there were ak's used as well, but
like these are very basic episodes, as you say, like
this doesn't seem like anything that would come from the US.
Also in Kurdistan and Iranian drones struck Zagazawi village, killing
Musa anwar Rasul, aged thirty nine, and his wife Musta
Asad Hassan. Their children both survived. This is really heartbreaking,

(02:56:34):
and like there were really horrible videos of their children,
like like confronting the fact that they are now orphans, right,
and because of stories like this one, which I do
not see any basis for. In fact, Kurdistan is being
absolutely hammered by Iranian bonds, right, the little children are

(02:56:56):
losing their parents, and like I'm really dist but just
I say, every week by the campus tendency to ignore
this or to say that it has to happen because
the Kurds don't have a state, or even the sort
of blue wave tendency to sort of handwave this and say, well,
Donald Trump started the war, so Ryan gets to murder
Curtis Villians. Like I just find it so heartbreaking. And

(02:57:20):
Robert and I have both spent time in Kurtis down
and a kind of funness sort of people there, but
makes me mad.

Speaker 2 (02:57:25):
It's all pretty bleak and disappointing.

Speaker 7 (02:57:28):
Well, you know what else disappointing. Every week we have
to do this. It's an ad break.

Speaker 11 (02:57:44):
All right, we're back. We still have three or four
important stories that we're gonna do here before we close. James,
want to start with your section on the threat to
press freedom.

Speaker 7 (02:57:58):
Yeah, so I think this is import President Trump has
said that his DOJ will seek to prosecute the person
who quote leaked the information that the fifteen's weapons safety
officer was missing an evading caption in Iran. Quote we're
going to go to the media company that released it,
or we're going to say national security, give it up,
or go to jail, Trump said, quote The entire country

(02:58:20):
of Iran knew that there was a pilot that was
somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life.
Wasn't pilots, it was a weapons officer, but airmen.

Speaker 5 (02:58:29):
Right.

Speaker 7 (02:58:30):
I can't quite find who broke the story because it's
not really a story that broke. It didn't require anyone
to leak anything to know that someone was missing, because
the wreckage and without seeing the wreckage. People weren't really
willing to publish the story rights they had no confirmation
In Iran says wild shit all the time. Yeah, the

(02:58:51):
wreckage was photographed and published by presumably Iranian sources, and
it very clearly showed the livery of a US Air
Force fifteen based out of late and Heath, which is
near Cambridge in the United Kingdom. There were some very
early reports before we foll photos that the plane should
shut down was an F thirty five and that would
have been a single seater, right, But as soon as

(02:59:12):
the images came out, everyone knew that wasn't the case.

Speaker 2 (02:59:15):
Was an F fifth Strike Eagle.

Speaker 7 (02:59:17):
Yeah, and there are single seat to F fifteen variants,
but I don't believe any of them are active. Dut
US Air Force Strike Eagles will always have two people.
It's not a single seater, right, So nobody had to
leak that information for it to be obvious that if
they had collected one person, then there was still one person.

(02:59:37):
This does represent quite a serious attack on the First Amendment.
People are killing and dying over Irun, and our tax
dollars are supporting that have a right to know. Journalism
has played a role in the way Americans perceive conflict
for a very long time. Right, we can think about
the Napalm Girl photo. Understand that photo now has disputed authorship.
We can think about well to cronkite Vietnam War, think

(03:00:00):
about I have a great hib There is no federal
press shield law, though, and journalists have been held in
contempt for refusing to reveal sources on that security issues before.
This is a serious threat and it's one that I
think everyone should take very seriously.

Speaker 3 (03:00:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (03:00:16):
Well, and it's a very important part of the of
the last little section of the Newsroom TV show. There's
a whole plot line about death and at shows. Yes, yes, yes, Gareth,
they're sure is so I just thought that's worth mentioning.

Speaker 7 (03:00:28):
You guys have told me not to watch Size. It'll
make me angry, and I've respected that that.

Speaker 2 (03:00:32):
You should not James Will, you will lose your mind.
It's not good for you.

Speaker 7 (03:00:37):
There's a lot of stuffs making me angry right now.
So I'm going to give that one.

Speaker 2 (03:00:40):
Too much sork In at the moment is very quickly
becomes toxic.

Speaker 7 (03:00:44):
Too much. Sorkin has really fucked up a lot of
people in this country.

Speaker 2 (03:00:47):
Yeah, speaking of things that will really fuck you up,
are beautiful tariff music, right.

Speaker 8 (03:01:01):
Locking, locking.

Speaker 2 (03:01:06):
Lockingspot Ah, So glad that we're back to talking about tariffs.

Speaker 3 (03:01:12):
So okay, if we have a couple of a wrong
related tariff things, Garrett, are we playing the nightmare clip?

Speaker 11 (03:01:20):
We have to play the nightmare clip.

Speaker 3 (03:01:22):
We're playing the nightmare clip? Okay, this is okay. When
when inevitably, in the course of humanity they have to
make a museum to explain to people what capitalism was,
this is what they are going to show.

Speaker 11 (03:01:37):
This is a clip from the quote unquote news agency CNBC.

Speaker 14 (03:01:43):
Deadline that President Trump has sat a PM has threatened
to destroy a civilization.

Speaker 7 (03:01:50):
How how does how does an investor process that?

Speaker 3 (03:01:52):
Is it?

Speaker 6 (03:01:53):
Is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk?

Speaker 2 (03:01:58):
Big upside risk, onside risk to genocide?

Speaker 7 (03:02:02):
She kind of looks up and then just goes right in.

Speaker 3 (03:02:06):
Like when when they have to like explain to people, right,
like how how eight billion people were like consumed into
these like roles that they were forced to inhabit by
the machinations of capital. This is gonna be the one.

Speaker 11 (03:02:24):
Oh god, it turns out, uh, the markets responded very
positively to Trump's threats to destroy a civilization.

Speaker 3 (03:02:32):
It's I, you know, what if what if we didn't
have market? What if what if there wasn't a line?
I oh god, okay, so speaking of bad things, I
guess so. On Wednesday, Trump posted on truth Social quote

(03:02:52):
a country capital CE country supplying capital M military weapons
to Iran will be in immediately tarriffed on any and
all goods sold to the United States of America fifty
percent effective immediately. There will be no exclusions or exemptions.
So can he do this? Yes? Key nined Listeners may

(03:03:14):
remember that the legal authority he was claiming to have
to do this the Supreme Court made go away, So
can you do this? Look okay. The way he's describing
this right sounds like he's using trade authority. It may
be that buried somewhere deep in the annals of like

(03:03:35):
sanction policy or some shit. Maybe there's something I went
through all of the trade authority that I know of
to try to find any legal authority for this. The
short version is there isn't. The long version is okay,
So I guess in theory, maybe if you squint right,
you could use Session three oh one of the nineteen

(03:03:56):
seventy four Trade Act, but that's supposed to be a
national security risk from unfair trade practices. So it could
technically work. But the thing is you also have to
that specific one. We've talked about this on the show before.
You have to like set up a commission and do
a trade study, and there's like all the stuff, so
it can't work immediately.

Speaker 11 (03:04:16):
No, and Trump doesn't seem like a big set up
a commission guy.

Speaker 3 (03:04:20):
I mean, well, thing is that they actually have done
this for China already. But I don't know if you
squint like really hard, like like if you like really
really squint at like section two thirty two, like maybe
in theory, like but like no, like if you're really

(03:04:41):
willing to believe that, like the president has the ability
to be like this is what the law says, then
maybe the only way I can see this working is
if he invokes section three thirty eight, which is the
this is like the remaining part of the Smoot Holly tariffs.

Speaker 7 (03:04:57):
Now fantasy good sme.

Speaker 3 (03:05:00):
Yeah, So, like, okay, there is a small chance that,
like you, the listeners may have heard of the Smoot
Holly tariffs, and that's because it's the one that made
the Great Depression worse. Yep, and no one's ever used
them since it's not even clear if they're on the
books anymore, because like this is a legitimate thing of
academic discussions like whether these are even still in effect

(03:05:20):
because they haven't been used, they're technically still there, but
also no one has like ever used them. And also
there's been like subsequent laws regulating trade. So I don't know,
there's no way he can do this legally that wouldn't
immediately fall apart. It wouldn't fall apart eventually to a

(03:05:40):
court challenge except maybe the like Smoot Holly like nuclear
bomb desperation thing. I don't know. It's very unclear to
me whether any of this is ever even going to
be attempted to be implemented. He shouldn't be able to
do this. It's just calvin ball bullshit. But who knows?

Speaker 7 (03:06:01):
It would be China era pajamas what he's going for there?
Right in China's so weapons to Ryan.

Speaker 3 (03:06:05):
Yeah, And like there's also a lot of speculation, like
I think Reuters reported this that this might be a
thing because there's going to be a trade summit with Beijing,
but if you're a trade person in Beijing, you also
know that he can't do this, so it's not real leverage.
I don't know, nightmare. Let's talk about some relatively fun

(03:06:30):
I guess news back at home.

Speaker 11 (03:06:33):
Interesting certainly.

Speaker 3 (03:06:34):
Yeah. So one of the things that happened this week
was there was a series of elections and the result
of those elections was the Republicans got absolutely hammered, like
all up and down the ballot in Wisconsin. They did.
They performed terribly in Georgia. So the big Democratic win
was in Wisconsin. So polls had Chris Taylor, who was
the Democratic candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, up by

(03:06:56):
about seven or eight percent. Chris Taylor won this election
by twenty oh wow. Yeah. There was also a full
sweep of the whole like Moms for Liberty school board
slates in a bunch of elections in very conservative Wakeisha County.
The specific one where every single one of them lost

(03:07:17):
and they've fully cleared out all of the monster liberty
people was a very specifical one that was famous for
doing a whole bunch of these right wing book bands
and stuff like that, and they're they're all gone. And
this is this is, you know, a continuation of a
trend that we've seen over the past couple of years
really were like year year and a half where all
of these weird monster liberty widers just get clobbered. Now,

(03:07:40):
also in that same county, in the actual like mayoral
election of Wakisha, like the city of Waksha, the Democrats
won that election, which they haven't done in ages.

Speaker 11 (03:07:51):
Yeah, this is like one of their biggest Republican like
stronghold victories, and like they will always win this seat.

Speaker 3 (03:07:57):
Yeah, you know, and this is something that like everyone
from wast also we're talking about, which is if they
can't win here, they can't win Wisconsin at all. Yeah,
there's there's no way, right. And again, like you know,
I'm gonna get into this more in a second, but
like the Democrats were projected to win this seat and
this is obviously a by election, and this this is
this the Supreme Court seat that they won is like

(03:08:18):
them getting to five two. So it wasn't like the
majority seat in the way that the last one of
these elections were. But they were projected to win by
like seven and they won by twenty. Yeah. Yeah, that's
that's big.

Speaker 11 (03:08:32):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (03:08:32):
Which is astonishing part.

Speaker 2 (03:08:34):
Of Again you mentioned the a bunch of these, like
school board elections in Wisconsin. It's not just Wisconsin, I
mean in a lot of the most conservative tarot to
the most conservative counties in Texas. Over the last like year,
basically every school district that was taken by the Moms
for Liberty types has been completely like they have been
completely thrown out. And that has been happening around the country.

(03:08:56):
There's a lot that people are focusing on when looking
at like why are numbers so fucking dogshit for Republicans
White night right now? Why are they getting beaten by
such wide margins? And it's certainly way more than one
thing is responsible. But I think something that has not
gotten enough attention that has been dooming them Republicans electorally
is that they got what they wanted in the branch

(03:09:17):
of the chunk of our government. That is hardest to
ignore for the average American, which is like what's happening
to their kids in schools, And a bunch of regular
people who were not all that political saw that, like
my kid can't like check books out any the fuck
is happening here?

Speaker 3 (03:09:32):
And they went crazy.

Speaker 2 (03:09:34):
They not crazy, They got really pissed off, rightfully, so,
and I think this is going My hope is that
this turns out to be one of their worst strategic
missteps in this period of time, is their belief that
we can just go fucking ape shit on schools and
no one will care.

Speaker 3 (03:09:50):
Yeah. Well, and this brings me back to something I've
been talking about for a while, which is that, so, like,
what of the other results that we're sort of looking
at here. So, there was an election in Georgia in
this like as a Stev's special election for the seat
that was Mergory Taylor Green's old district. This is like
one of the most unhinged Republican districts in the entire country.

(03:10:11):
Trump won it by forty and the Republican Clay Fuller,
did win, but he only he won by twelve points
in a county that Trump carried by forty. Yeah. Yeah,
that's like it's like it's like a twenty eight point shit.
Yeah right, it's it's unbelievable. Now, obviously they didn't win here,
but there's been a lot of stuff about how, okay,
well this is just because democrats. Democrats do better among

(03:10:33):
high information voters. Those are the people who vote in
these off cycle elections that aren't during the normal election cycle.
Blah blah blah. There's a lot of this kind of stuff.
That's a kind of stuff that puts you ahead, as
as the polls were showing in Wisconsin, that puts you
ahead by like seven That does not explain a thirteen
percent over performance. Yeah, yeah, right. And I think what
is happening here is something I've said consistently, and this

(03:10:55):
is something that I think Robert is sort of explaining
why this is happening, is that polars are still using
they're still using as as their basis for what they
assume the electure is going to be. They're using the
data from the electorate from the twenty twenty four election,
because that's that's the standard practice, right, you use as
a sample, you know, and you make some like adjustments

(03:11:15):
because it's a by election and stuff like that. But
like they're using as as a sample base of voters
the people from twenty twenty four, and that electorate does
not exist anymore because it's been completely destroyed. Right, all
of these people have suddenly been mobilized, Like the whole
city of Minneapolis has been like turned into this like weird.
I don't know. I mean that's not negative. It's like
there's like Minneapolis has had a level of mobilization that

(03:11:36):
is like possibly has never been seen before in US history.
All of these like people who had been you know,
just like not political at all. And this is the
other thing with like the school board election, is that
these are mostly people who were not political people at all,
who just swept in because they like their school's got
fucked with. The entire electorate has changed.

Speaker 11 (03:11:56):
It's just there's like a deep fluidity here. Right, There's
a lot of people who supported Trump because of economic
conditions which were blamed on the Democrats, and they moved
for Trump, and there was a lot of these same
people are not like Trump or Republican loyalists. They're they're
reacting to the economic conditions and the messaging from each party.
And this is reflected in you know, the number of

(03:12:17):
Trump's Zorn voters, even the number of people who vote
Trump and AOC in New York.

Speaker 4 (03:12:21):
Right.

Speaker 11 (03:12:22):
Yeah, they're not like mega loyalists, right, But but it's
showing how there is a big fluidity among among the
types of people that do decide elections.

Speaker 3 (03:12:31):
Yeah, but then there's all. There's also and this is
I think the the other side of this too, right,
is that there's once people who haven't voted, just didn't
give a shit at all, and those people are suddenly
being mobilized, and this is turning into like the Democrats
are like winning a whole bunch of like rural counties
in these elections. Right, yeah, yeah, And now I think
the last thing I want to talk about in sort

(03:12:52):
of this kind of section of everybody hates the Republicans
is that the issues in Insights CPP survey for April
shows Trump with a thirty nine percent approval rating. This poll,
which is done a bunch of times every year, they
give they give like a bunch of topics where they
give a through F rankings from like immigration, to the
economy to like the wars in Iran Ukraine and like

(03:13:15):
a plarality of the votes were an F on every single.

Speaker 11 (03:13:17):
One, even immigration.

Speaker 3 (03:13:19):
Immigration was the one that was kind of close, okay,
between that and like a every single other one was
down double digits. Okay. If you look at like CDF
versus like AB or if you like ignore c right,
it's so much more in the category of like d's
and f's.

Speaker 11 (03:13:37):
On the negative side in general.

Speaker 7 (03:13:38):
Yeah, yeah, like this is for every single issue. I'm
guessing it's kind of a binary distribution, right, like a
lot of a's or a lot of f's and not much.

Speaker 3 (03:13:47):
There's actually a surprising number of b's, but that's interesting. Yeah,
and like a decent number of d's. But yeah, it
was like mostly f's and then everything else is kind
of spread up between other ones. I mean, all of
this is before the like I'm a civil stationable die tonight.

Speaker 11 (03:14:00):
Stuff, which which did cause negative reactions from people in
the in the conservative base. Yeah, and people voting in
Georgia and and Wisconsin. I want to play this clip here.
This was a clip from from from Georgia of a
Georgia voter who was interviewed on election day.

Speaker 10 (03:14:25):
It's giving war crime. You can't do that. We don't
just annihilate people because we can and you know, make
a grab for the money and the old and that's
what we've done in Venezuela, and that's what we're doing
in Orion.

Speaker 2 (03:14:42):
It's giving war crime.

Speaker 11 (03:14:44):
It's giving war crime.

Speaker 2 (03:14:45):
I need to take it.

Speaker 11 (03:14:46):
This is this is it's beautiful positive.

Speaker 7 (03:14:49):
Yes, that's message and the Democrats to come up with
on this.

Speaker 11 (03:14:54):
This is this is like a well then in her
thirties or forties holding holding a kid at nine. This
broadcast was at nine thirty three am in Rome, Georgia,
on election day. Yep, it is it's giving war crime.

Speaker 3 (03:15:08):
Yeah. And you know, if you look at that, like
the yug of Economist poll, which is from like April first,
but like even at April first, he had just an
atrocious thirty five percent approval rating, which is that's like
that's like end of the Bush administration shit. All of this.
The important part of this is that like the Democrats
are still really historically unpopular right now because everyone's piss

(03:15:30):
at them for not doing anything, but the actual mass
of people in this country fucking hate all of this.
They're pissed off at everything that is happening. Everything you
ask about that Trump is doing they are fucking angry about.
And you know, this is this is this is the
kind of anger and the kind of just generalized rays
that I think there's no really good way to measure

(03:15:53):
outside of the tools that we've developed for elections, or
in terms of just like you know, sometimes you get
treatments like this anger like is the defining thing of
the United States right now. So everybody's hissed the fuck
off about this, and yeah, and every opportunity they get
to express that this shit fucking sucks, they do. This

(03:16:15):
is what American politics is, even as everything is unbelievably
hideously bleak from all of the shit that people are doing.

Speaker 11 (03:16:22):
Speaking of people who are pissed off, there's one final
story that I'll go through pretty quick before we close
this episode. Last Wednesday, to celebrate April Fool's Day, Trump
fired Pam Bondi as Attorney General. Trump told Bondi about
his plan to fire her while in the car together
to watch the Supreme Court oral arguments on birthright citizenship.

Speaker 2 (03:16:42):
Why Jesus, there's video of it. There's video of it.
It's amazing, like credit to Fox, but they got a
shot of them in the limo and Trump is clearly
telling her, and it's when we know he was telling her.
It's an amazing little artifact. All you can make out
is their faces kind of and their body language. But
it rips it's so funny.

Speaker 11 (03:17:03):
Bondi tried to convince Trump to let her stay on
till at least summer, but to no avail. Trump appointed
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to serve as acting Attorney
General until the President nominates a full replacement. On Tuesday,
Blanche said, quote nobody has any idea unquote why Bondi
was fired except for President Trump. Those sources close to

(03:17:25):
the White House have told multiple outlets that Trump had
a growing frustration with Bondi for a while, especially related
to her failure to successfully prosecute certain political enemies and
the fallout from her handling of the Epstein files. Environmental
Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zelden has been floated as a
prospective replacement for Attorney General. At the EPA, Zelden has

(03:17:47):
led efforts to roll back environmental regulations and climate protections
related to in endangered species, wetlands, and emissions before working
in the second Trump administration. Zelden lost the race for
New York governor to Kathy Hochel by seven percentage points,
a relatively close race for New York. Zelden is a
Trump loyalist, fought against the presidents to impeachments while in

(03:18:10):
Congress and refused to certify the twenty twenty election results.
Great Zelden's a retired US Army lieutenant colonel who served
four years in active duty as a military intelligence officer,
federal prosecutor, and military magistrate, and twousand and six was
deployed with the eighty second Airborne Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Speaker 3 (03:18:29):
Wait, so he's a troop cop, military magistrate, troop judge.

Speaker 11 (03:18:33):
He's he's served in a few roles.

Speaker 3 (03:18:35):
Yeah, that's troop cop. Shit.

Speaker 11 (03:18:37):
He served as a prosecutor and a judge.

Speaker 7 (03:18:40):
They hated and reviled troop cop. He looks like maybe
he at some point went to law school there, right.

Speaker 11 (03:18:46):
He went to law school in New York, either during
that time or beforehand. It all kind of takes place
around because I think he got out of law school
around thousand and four. At at the time he was
the youngest person to finish law school in New York.
Oh wow, he was in his early twenty After he
got out of the military or out of active duty,
he briefly served as an attorney for the Port Authority

(03:19:08):
of New York and New Jersey and also private practice
for a little bit before he went into the State
Senate and then eventually US Congress. Now before Bondie's firing,
Pambondi was scheduled to testify in front of the House
Oversight Committee about the Epstein files on April fourteenth. Now,
Democrats on the committee still want her to testify, as
she holds relevant knowledge, but on Wednesday morning, the Justice

(03:19:29):
Department released a statement saying Bondi would not appear at
the hearing on the fourteenth quote since she is no
longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as
attorney general unquote. This is a little bit untrue. She
was not subpoenaed by her title as Attorney General. She
was subpoenaed by name as Pam Bondi. Now Oversite Commitee
Democrats have responded by saying if Bonnie does not comply

(03:19:50):
with the bipartisan subpoena addressed to her by name, they
will quote begin contempt charges unquote. Republican Nancy Mace has said,
quote Pambondi cannot ass gape accountability simply because she no
longer holds the office of Attorney General. Our motion to
subpoena pan Bondy, which was passed by the overst Committee,
was for a Bondi by name, not by title. She

(03:20:10):
will still have to appear before the Oversight Committee for
a sworn deposition. The American people deserve answers, and we
expect her to appear as soon as a new date
is set unquote. So it appears they will try to
reschedule her for a new date. Bondie's firing is interesting
in the context of Christy Nomes firing, as for the

(03:20:30):
first year or so of Trump's second term, he really
resisted making changes to his cabinet.

Speaker 4 (03:20:35):
Right.

Speaker 11 (03:20:35):
These these sorts of frequent changes were a hallmark of
first of his first term. Yeah, and for the start
of his second he seemed to not want to do
that and instead got like his ranks of loyalists that
he was going to work with. But since Christi Nomes firing,
that has clearly changed, and this is prompted speculation about
who could be next, from people like Tulci Gabbard to

(03:20:57):
Cash Bettel or Pete Haig Seth. Think Gabbard is is
certainly certainly one of one of the people. If I
was one of these three, I would I would be
most nervous if I was Gabbard. Hotel's an odd is
an odd character. I'm really am not sure what's in
the future for him a podcast, and I think that
what happens eventually in Iran will determine what goes on

(03:21:18):
with HeiG Seth.

Speaker 7 (03:21:19):
There have been rumors that some of the reason that
heg Seth has been sort of purging high command in
the military is that he has concerned that those people
would be his replacements, like alternates for him sec death. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ptel was under more heat. I feel like during following
the shooting of Charlie kirk Great the assassination and that

(03:21:40):
their failure to find the assassin for some time.

Speaker 11 (03:21:43):
Yeah, and his and his UH plane tickets and his
trips with his girlfriends.

Speaker 2 (03:21:47):
Yeah, the failure with Savannah Guthrie too.

Speaker 3 (03:21:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (03:21:50):
Trump Trump did not like that clip of him in
the hockey locker room.

Speaker 7 (03:21:54):
H yeah, yeah. There have been quite a few. Now
you mentioned them.

Speaker 11 (03:21:57):
Before we go, we should mention there's bill about a
week left of Webby voting. It could happen here is
nominated for a Webby as Is James series Migrating to America,
which aaredon It could happen here and of course behind
the Bastards links to vote for our shows in the
Webby Awards will be in the episode description vot it

(03:22:18):
goes till April sixteenth, most important election of our lives.
Stay in line, vote early and often, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 7 (03:22:26):
If you'd like to email us with tips that are
relevant to a news coverage, you can do so cool
Zone Tips at proton dot me. If you have a
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Speaker 11 (03:22:42):
All right, that doesn't for us here at it could
Happen here.

Speaker 3 (03:22:45):
Put a transgirl on your couch.

Speaker 11 (03:22:47):
We reported the news.

Speaker 3 (03:22:50):
We reported the news.

Speaker 2 (03:22:57):
Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes. Everyone week
from now until the heat death of the universe.

Speaker 23 (03:23:02):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
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