It Could Happen Here Weekly 244

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 here, a podcast about things
falling apart and putting them back together again and occasionally
discovering that there is in fact a second union. I
am your host of Meal Long Now. A little while back,
I did an interview with a group of electrolysis workers
who are working for a company called Real Electrolysis, and
we talked about, you know, their unionization efforts and the

(00:50):
kind of horror show that was going on there. Now,
what I didn't mention at the time was that in
the process of talking to those work and that union,
I learned that there was in fact a second union
that had been organized kind of unrelated to the first
union at the other location. And that is who we

(01:13):
are talking to today. To get an update on what
has been going on in general with the entire situation,
and also talk about their union and a thing that
you will kind of commonly experience randomly unionizing places, which
is that sometimes there is another organizing effort at another
one of the locations at the same place that you

(01:34):
were organizing, and you don't know about it because everyone's.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Keeping it secret.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
So yeah, to talk about this, I'm joined by Lake
and Andy from Gender Affirming Care Workers Alliance. Yeah, both
of you two, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Hi, thank you for having us. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yeah, I'm very excited to talk to you both.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
And I guess before we get into the initial organizing,
just what was it like finding out that the other
shop was also unionizing?

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Oh my god, it was terrifying. So, like our number
one priority during our Lakewood campaign was secrecy. We absolutely
knew how hostile management was towards any kind of improvement
of workplace conditions. So going from almost five versus spy

(02:26):
level of off sec to figuring out that Vancouver was
also unionizing and was doing a walkout, like, I think
that was when we learned. Oh god, was when the
day that they kind of imploded and we were terrified,
Like we did not think there would be any way
out of that for Lakewood.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, that's a rough way to find out when Yeah,
the other union is like, oh God, okay, we have
to do we have to do a walkout, we have
to go on strike because they're firing us.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, I mean it was certainly understandable. I wouldn't say
we knew why the walkout was happening. When we found
out that the walkout happened and that a strike was starting,
our campaign kind of came to a halt. Like realizing
there was another campaign happening made us had to reconsider

(03:23):
what we were doing. Like we had our own a
grievances and we were really just in the process of
getting people on board. We had maybe a core group
of five, but we had thirteen or up to thirteen
in the end, but we had like ten to twelve electrologist.
Because that number was constantly changing, we had to stop
and reassess.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
And obviously we wanted solidarity with Vancouver. We wanted to
do whatever we could to support them, but we also
didn't want to lose our jobs.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
One of the first things we decided that Lakewood is
that we weren't going to ask anyone to lose their
job in order to unionize. We weren't going to put
anyone in a position where they would then become unstable.
Almost every single worker at Lakewood like desperately needed this job.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Without it, we would risk calmlessness or other things. Yeah,
so we kind of got stuck. I mean, it was
it was a tough situation to be in. Knowing that
we would have been on their side, and with more
information and more planning, we would have probably joined them,
but we weren't there yet.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, And this is I guess partially also, Like you know,
one of the things is difficult about doing campaigns is
that sometimes like sometimes campaigns move at the speed that
the workers are organizing at, and then sometimes they move
at the speed of like, oh my god, the boss
is firing everyone.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
We just have to go now.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, And that's yeah, that's always one of the issues
is like as much as you want to be setting
the tempos, sometimes you're responding to like what management is doing,
and that can get very rough, very quickly.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Absolutely, I think Vancouver did great with their circumstances. Like
you said it, management set the pace and they had
to respond. At Lakewood, we were really trying to do
the opposite. We wanted to put us put ourselves in
a position where we were taking an action and management
was responding, and in the end we did. We paused

(05:22):
when Vancouver went on strike, we tried to assess how
best we could help them without just also imploding Lakewood.
Part of what we realized is that management had not
realized any campaign was happening at Lakewood because they were
going to use us as no votes in the election.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
They wanted us to be considered one bargaining unit because
they thought that we would say no and that union
would lose the election.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
So our Sky versus SPIC shit was successful.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, we're doing well. Management deceived, yeah perfectly.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah, So do you want to re wind the clock
a bit and talk about sort of how organizing efforts started.
It was not connected to the other campaign at all.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
It wasn't, but I think we were dealing with a
lot of similar issues. Yeah, in our first year, as
we got onboarded and saw how things were versus the
position that was promised to us and sold to us, Yeah,
everyone kind of started catching on to things and started
like building a list of grievances. There were concerns about

(06:30):
the lack of training and patient safety. There were concerns
about the lack of time to do our job, you know,
working during breaks, working during our lunches. There was really
unclear and inconsistent disciplinary actions being taken left and right. Yeah,
Like one person would be told they could do something,

(06:51):
another person would do that and get written up for it. Yeah,
it felt targeted. At some point, Lake would realize that
there was no position you could be in where your
where your job was safe. You could be management, you
could be the owner's absolute favorite electrologist, you could be
the best at your job. You could keep your head

(07:12):
down and do absolutely nothing, and one day you would
be disappeared for whatever reason if you got one. Yeah,
it was like a span of like two or three
months where we lost maybe five employees and everyone heard
a different reason if one was given.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Hmm, which is a pretty clear sign that something is
going wrong.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Exactly.

Speaker 6 (07:37):
Yeah, And I think I was the second employee to
be disappeared.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
At the location.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, there were two employees where we were told they resigned,
and everyone very very much knew that These are employees
that wouldn't have resigned. These were employees that were ready
to start careers and build their life around real you
we all believed in real use mission. But yeah, eventually
we just realized it didn't matter. Yeah, there was no

(08:05):
job stability for anyone, and that was a really big
issue because that's what all of us came to this
job for. We were hoping for long term careers that
paid us livable wages and also were safe for us
to be ourselves in. There's not a lot of jobs
where trans women get to be trans women, and like
this was a job that almost celebrated it.

Speaker 6 (08:25):
And I know, for me personally, I was really excited
for the opportunity to be able to help the community.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, I come from Florida, I'm born and raised unfortunately,
where transitioning for a long time was kind of a
pipe dream, Like it was not a realistic goal of
mine until moving to Washington. And now I get to
take or I used to get to take part in
people's transition every day for my job.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yeah, I don't know, And that's I think like one
of the kind of cruelest parts of all of this,
And like what management has done it's just like ripping
that away from both you and from the community.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Absolutely, And it didn't have to be that way.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
No, it really didn't. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
And I guess speaking of the cruelty of management, Yeah, Andy,
I guess do you want to talk about when you
said getting disappeared? What was going on with that?

Speaker 6 (09:23):
So I had brought a lot of the grievances that
I was seeing and had towards the owners of the
company on on Lea, alongside the manager of the clinic
at the time. And any time anything wrong with the

(09:44):
business was brought up, hostilities just grew and they kept
growing the more and more that we said, hey, you know,
there's issues with the training. There these issues with the
amount of time that people have to do your jobs.
And it was honestly a really hostile environment created by Anna.

(10:12):
And before I had gotten disappeared, I was in my
educational program for electrolysis. I was in the process of
completing that before my termination, and I had brought up
some of my concerns because as I was learning more

(10:37):
and more about electrolysis, I realized that so many of
the things we had been taught were just wrong. Yeah,
And because Ana and Leah didn't want to address it
and didn't want that information being out there. I was

(11:03):
put in the position where I either had to sign
a non disclosure to forgive my student low debt, or
I could choose to just be fired.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
And then assume the debt.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Jesus, I mean they did. They just literally forced you
out of the company.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Correct, it was an involuntary resignation.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, that is only voluntary, and like the strict Hobbesy
in sense where like Hobbes considers that if someone has
a gun at your head and tells you to do
something and you do it, you still voluntarily made the decision.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
And I don't know.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
About you, I don't hold to the strict hobsy an
interpretation of voluntary. I don't think I agree, but I
think that if you were coerced into a decision, it's
not voluntary.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
Oh God, obviously.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
I think the other part of this that's just really
grotesque is what you were talking about in terms of
just the education being wrong, because this is something that's
really common in trans healthcare, where like there should Yeah,
there is just a bunch of stuff the medical professionals
are being taught that was developed from something someone figured
out kind of in the eighties and has never been
updated in the course of like the last twenty five

(12:16):
years of the development of science and then just also
the development of there being more and more trans people
who have been, you know, just like experiencing treatment. And
it's frustrating, I think, because you really rarely ever get
a scenario where there are trans people who actually are

(12:36):
in a position sufficient enough in any kind of medical
institution to even like get to talk about it. And
the fact that their response was to just like disappear
you and like force you out of the company is
really bleak.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (12:55):
And on that note, I would say most of the
whole poes received about two weeks training before working on patients.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
Oh boy.

Speaker 6 (13:08):
That and the educational program that I went through was
four months. So if you kind of compare the timelines
there of how we were trained in the job versus
the education that I got, it just wasn't enough.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, not only was it not enough, but anyone who
voiced that it wasn't enough put their job at risk.
I mean there's more than one Lakewood worker that went
to management saying, hey, I don't feel well trained enough,
I don't feel informed enough, and they were met with
well more than one situation in which they were like
directly asked like do you feel comfortable working on patients?

(13:51):
Do you think you're capable of this job? With the
implication or the direct verbal statement being if you don't,
maybe you should find somewhere else to work. Yeah, But
all of us signed up for this job with the agreement,
like we signed these loan agreements with the idea that
we'd be going to this in depth training. Like the

(14:12):
owners themselves during my interview process at least talked up
sat Master's constantly like this is the place to go
to learn about how to provide electrolysis for transgender clients specifically.

Speaker 7 (14:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
And then I worked there for sixteen months and never
saw any training after my first few weeks, Like, yeah,
I think the entire sixteen months there after my first month,
my sessions were only observed three times. Jesus only three times.
And I was not an electrolysist provider before this. This

(14:47):
was my entry into it. Their training was the only
training I got. Yeah, And the only reason my sessions
started being shadowed at all is because providers themselves started
asking for like auditing sessions.

Speaker 6 (15:02):
There is an instance that I would like to bring up.
I was overseeing the training of new hire and during
this training period, I had a patient on my books
who had requested to never be on my books again,
which no, totally fine, totally valid, But the fact that

(15:25):
they were put on my books after requesting not to
see me again was an issue.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
It's not totally fine or totally valid to do that.

Speaker 6 (15:34):
That's not fine on management's part. And so as I
am training this new hire and we're going into this session,
the patient wasn't comfortable with me being there in the
room to provide training to the new hire. So I
had to leave the new hire alone.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
With that patient Jesus.

Speaker 6 (15:59):
Because they weren't come with me being there.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Yeah, that is a just absolutely unacceptable way for any
of this to be running, especially with a delicate healthcare
thing that can cause.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
Inturgue to people.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Exactly, if we can back up for a second, can
you explain a little bit for people who didn't listen
to the first episode or people who don't remember about
the absolutely wild I guess nominally student loan like in
danger program thing that was. That's the key component of
this whole of this whole story.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
So just about every worker until like some of the
most recent workers, got a job at real U Electrolysis
with the understanding that we would be hired and trained
and receive pay well being trained by real you, but

(16:50):
that at some point they would send us to zap
Masters in Centralia for an electrolysis training program and to
get us licensed via Oregon State. Washington doesn't have electrolysis
licensure requirements. You could buy a machine and start providing.
You shouldn't, but you could, yea. So the idea was

(17:12):
that they would pay for our zap Master's training, they
would pay for our machine, they would pay us while
we were learning this job and starting with them, and
they totally all of that at around nineteen thousand, five
hundred dollars plus interest, So nineteen to twenty one thousand
is the number that gets thrown around. They would pay
for that and forgive it if we agreed to work

(17:34):
for them for four years after they license us. So
this four year timer doesn't even start until we're finished
with school and get our license in Oregon. It included
a clause where not only do we have to work
for them for four years, but we can't work for
other electrolysis.

Speaker 6 (17:53):
Clinics, which these kinds of employment agreements are literally called
trap agreements. Yeah, if that kind of cluesy in anything.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah, Yeah, it's like it's since an indigered servitud agreements.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Like and that's like, God, hindsight is twenty twenty Jesus crushed. Yeah,
a lot of us had the foresight to know it
wasn't a good situation, but we were coming from worse situation.

Speaker 4 (18:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
I think a way to think about this also is
just that, like, you know, there's two parts of us
that are predatory. One is the recruitments that is designed
is you know, based on i mean just lying to
people about how this is going to go. And then
there's the secondary parts that's the exploitiveness of the agreement itself.
And I don't know, I think we have this very

(18:46):
very annoying tendency to look at being an inherently exploitive
situation to something as you know, something that like through
anioliberal personal choice, you could just avoid being in these
situations entirely, and that's just like not true.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
No, Unfortunately, if you have a regular job, you are
being exploited.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, yeah, and you know the fact that like going
back to the sort of like hobbsy and consent thing,
it's like, well, okay, like, is anyone actually like you know,
operating freely in a set of conditions where yeah, like
if you don't take the job, your alternative is that
you don't have food, and you you know, you can't
pay your rent and you and you don't have a
home anymore exactly.

Speaker 6 (19:23):
I mean when I came to real you, I was homeless. Yeah,
before being employed with them.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
You're not the only one. I think many of us were.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yeah, And that's something that I think is also really
bleak about the way that this was structured, which was
like one of the things that we talked about the
last episode was at Annealantry like very specifically said that
she was targeting trans people because you could just like
treat them a little bit nicely and they would do
anything for you. And yeah, it's like, you know, this

(19:56):
is a deliberate targeting of a population that has an
unemployment rate that is what like four and a half
times the un the general unemployment rate in the US,
that is, at all times and at all places, operating
in like great depression levels of unemployment and that's yeah,
you know who's like homelessness rates and like rate of
having been homelesses like orders of magnitude higher for the

(20:18):
general population. And I don't know, it's extremely bleak that,
you know, the opportunity to both like help your community
and also make a just absolutely seismic like class increase
from like being homeless and struggling to feed yourself to
like having stable employment is ultimately kind of this like

(20:43):
debt peon ship trap.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, I mean you put it pretty clearly.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Capitalism sucks like christ bad economic exist.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Of good Lord Ough agreed.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
So speaking of capital we should probably throw to ads,
and then when we come back, we could talk more
about resisting capitalism, which is to say, how the organizing
dot going and what's been happening.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Since Yeah sounds good.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
Sounds good, and we are back. Yeah, so let's get
into a little bit more of like how the organizing
process started and how it sort of went.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
I think Andy might be a good one to start
with this, because, unbeknownst to everyone, there were three different
starts through our union efforts. Andy, before you got.

Speaker 6 (21:43):
Got yeah, I was looking into the possibility of trying
to start a union at the shop. I was reaching
out to different union organizations, and I was also looking
at what government agencies that I could be reaching out
to about some of the things that we were experiencing

(22:04):
at our workplace.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, so that would have been around November of last year.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Around November.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
And then Andy disappeared that there was a string of firings,
and I would say our efforts started again around January
of this year. Kind of just started with one of
our workers chatting with their patients. The trans community is
also pretty involved in organizing mutual aid unions. So like

(22:40):
when you're shooting the ship with your patient and they
hear like a workplace ripe for organizing, they tell.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
You, wait, that is the that is that is maybe
the sweetest thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Like it was pretty good. This wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
Trans people, truly, truly amazing.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh so, yeah, we had a patient who was an
IWW member who told us that was, look, you gotta start,
you gotta get in contact with the GNB and then
start learning how to organize. So we did.

Speaker 8 (23:21):
That's amaze.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Okay, it's not quite salting because he was someone who
was a patient and not like an employee, but it's
like it's kind of like an accidental saulting.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Oh my god, none of this would have happened without
our patients. They've been supportive of the entire way. When
things in Vancouver started happening, we all started having patients
ask or tell us that, look, I don't want to
put you in an AFERA position, but if y'all started unionizing,
that'd be dope. Yeah, it was really nice getting a support.

(24:00):
Sucked that we couldn't talk to them about it because,
like we said, we were kind of doing spy versus
s by level of yeah, yeah, we didn't want management
to know, so our patients didn't know until kind of
the last month, which sucked. I mean these people that
we've been seeing weekly or more often for months, weeks,

(24:20):
up to a year, it sucked not getting to tell
them what was going on, knowing that they cared.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, And it just really starts example of like what
community actually is versus what it's sold to us as
we're like, yeah, you have this thing where you know,
you have genuine community with the patients that you're treating
in a way that's staggeringly, unbelievably rare in any kind
of trans healthcare field, and you know, and from that community,

(24:50):
you get hey, you get hey, you should organize, and like,
you know, people trying to help do the organizing, and
then you know, you have the sort of like the
corporate version of community, which is the boss is running
a terror campaign and like disappearing your trans coworkers.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, it's pretty stark contrast. Yeah, Honestly, part of why
it went on for so long is every red flag
that management had, there were at least one, if not
two green flags between your coworkers and your clientele. That
made up for it. Yeah, But going back to organizing. January,
we got in contact with the Tacoma GMB for the

(25:28):
IWW GMB is General Membership branch, so it's essentially just
the local IWW to us, and we had a organizing
rep who would do kind of like monthly calls with
us at first, just telling us how to organize, what
conversations to have, and how to get people interested the
AIOU conversation, Agitate, educate, inoculate, organized, push one of those.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
Yeah, yeah, you got it.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Because none of us had any organizing experience, So we
had all of this energy to write our conditions, but
we didn't know how to do it, So we started
having conversations with the IWW and just slowly started building
up our group of trustworthy workers that we knew wanted this.

(26:16):
It wasn't hard. Most of us lean left, if not radical,
so binding union sympathies was not difficult. Binding the grievances
was even easier. I mean, these things are pretty clear
in the workplace.

Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yeah to bosses once again, the best organizer.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, exactly. What really did it for us is when
paychecks started bouncing.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, I just I just still saw I a hole
on this for a second to flight, Yeah, what do
you mean the paychecks are bouncing?

Speaker 2 (26:49):
What the fuck? Jesus Christ?

Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, that's about how we felt like. At the end
of March, they swapped us from direct posit over to
paper paychecks. Our first one was in April and there
was at Lakewood only one person who had it balance.
I think Vancouver also had some issues, but like we said,
there was no communication between the branches, so we didn't
know what they were dealing with. Yeah, and the management

(27:13):
kind of did their best to keep the locations separate.
Like Lakewood was told things about Vancouver to kind of
view them negatively, and the same with Vancouver.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah, which again is this real sort of image of
like what the world's ruled by bosses is, which is like, yeah,
they're deliberately trying to isolate people from their community and
liberally trying to separate people and instill sort of like
fear and hatred against each other. And then you get
put in this position where it's like it becomes difficult

(27:47):
to actually like do the kind of like community building
and the kind of like solidarity and organizing that you
want to because everyone also has to like hide from
this boss surveillance state.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
I feel pretty bad. Like all the way up until
we heard about Vancouver's walk out, I kind of referenced
Vancouver as like the Vancouver colt, because it sounded like
everyone was really happy and fine with how things were going,
and Anna and Leo were just doing what they wanted Vancouver,

(28:17):
and everyone's fine with it, and everyone's happy with it,
and it was okay over there. So I mean that
was part of why we didn't contact them Initially. We
didn't know who it was safe to. Lakewood had our
own experiences of like talking to a worker we thought
was on our side and they immediately turned around and
go talk to management. Yeah yeah, so yeah, communication just

(28:42):
wasn't there between us and Vancouver. So when checks started bouncing,
the total number was always unclear. The first paycheck it
was just one. That second paycheck in April, it was
already a few more people, Chris. So when they told
the first worker they had no idea why that check bounced,
and then the next paycheck, more checks bounced, it was

(29:05):
like immediately obvious they were being Yeah, untruthful, I'm dishonest, Like.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
Like what one paycheck bouncing is already unacceptable, like the
correct the paycheck second bounce is zero, but it's like
the woman there's more than one. Suddenly it's like that
it becomes a lot less likely that it's like they
fucked up, and more likely that like like something deliberately
like malicious and messed up is happening.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Here exactly each paycheck. The frequency kind of just went up,
like how many people had their paychecks bounce, and the
way that it was handled was just rewriting them, like
it was your responsibility to figure out it had bounced,
go to management and ask them to fix it. Them
fixing it was either reissuing you a check or asking

(29:53):
you to try cashing it again.

Speaker 4 (29:55):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
There was one paycheck where after it bounced for me
and my partner, they did just tell us to try
every day because they couldn't tell us when they would
have the funds to pay us because some money comes
in and out every single day. It was a pretty
wild situation to be put in.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah, like Jesus Christ, like just like absolute nightmare.

Speaker 4 (30:20):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
So when checks started bouncing, it it kind of clarified
what we could organize around.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
First.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, I mean, if you're not getting paid, you don't
have a job to unionize.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Yeah, that's that's like the most like nothing to lose
in a world to win situation you could possibly abagine
exactly like we're getting paid, we're doing real work for
fake money, like.

Speaker 5 (30:45):
Right.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
So we kind of settled on that as like our
first grievance and demand to organize around is we're demanding
guaranteed pay, which isn't even like it shouldn't be a demand.
It's their legal so much.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
It's like, yes, you must form a union in order
to have the right to be paid. Which I've been
saying this kind of joke about what it's like being
trans for a while where it's like to be a
trans person in America is to like aspire to the
status of a meer proletarian. We only get regular exploitation

(31:23):
instead of like the even honestly you get here, it's like, yeah,
we had to form a union so they would like
pay us, and it's like.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
God, like.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
We just wanted real job.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Yeah, Like, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Going back to when we started talking to the IWW
in those first like initial union ish meetings, it was
still just very few of us and we hadn't put
words to it yet, but we kind of realized that
we weren't super interested in going the route of the
an RB with a election for a union and then

(32:03):
collective bargaining for a contract. We had contracts. We know
how real you write its contracts. We weren't interested in
another one. We wanted the ability to react to changes
in the workplace with flexibility, which is what the IWW
was offering. They focused on solidarity unionism that doesn't use

(32:25):
the NLRB but instead uses worker power via direct action
to get management to the table and to meet your demands.
Because a lot of this was rushed, we didn't get
a chance to really get the terminology and our options.
But one of the terms they used was involuntary recognition.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
That's fun.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
We were running underground until we were ready to go public,
but we were fine with being a public union. We
just didn't need the NLRB's backing. We had the worker
power in the workplace and we were going to do
direct action to get what we wanted. So, yeah, I
think the word we were using was involuntary recognition.

Speaker 4 (33:03):
Yeah, like I love that. That's great, right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
So going back to March and April, knowing that we
weren't interested in contracts and that we were going to
go the round of direct action, we just had to
choose a demand to start with. The bouncing paychecks was
a pretty easy one. So we started having meetings and
talking about what kind of direct action we could do
and what kind of escalations we could have if we

(33:29):
were organizing around the demand for guaranteed pay and that
demand essentially we were asking them to resume direct deposit
or deliver our next check in the form of guaranteed
funds like cash, money orders, cashier's check, something that won't balance. Yeah,
we wanted our money on the day it was due.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
And also, like I want to say, this too.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
That like there's like a theory version of this in
Capital where March talks about how like labor is the
only commodity that you pay for at the end and
not at the beginning when you purchase it, where like
every other commodity you have to like pay for it
before you get it, whereas with labor you pay for
it after. But like, if you tried this with any

(34:13):
other commodity other than labor, this is a crime, right.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
I mean it's a crime for labor too.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, it is a grid for labor.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
But it's like but it's also like like if you
do this at a grocery store, like you will be arrested, yes,
And when a corporation does it, it's like, okay, if
you want the law to help you for doing again
the same thing that will get men with guns to
take you away at a grocery store, right, you have
to form a fucking union and organize. I don't know,

(34:41):
I hate this fucking system.

Speaker 9 (34:43):
It's so unbelievably exploitative, and it's so clear in these
sort of moments like who is designed to protect and
who's not designed to protect, where like the punishment for
the same literally the same crime is like one of
them guess you arrested, and the other one gets you
like a union campaign.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, there's also something that I'd like to mention.

Speaker 6 (35:07):
Yeah, for those who managed to go through this app
master program, one of the things that was supposed to
happen was that those employees during their education were supposed
to receive stipends to cover their living expenses during our schooling,

(35:30):
many of whom which were either not working at the
time or working at reduced hours, and some of them
saw stipends or partial stipends, and some of them, from
what I understand, received nothing at all. Jesus, but we're
still working at those reduced hours trying to support themselves

(35:54):
while also going to school.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah, which is again also a I guess like it's
a form of wage stuft. And also b it's a
thing where like, like the difference between the bosses making
slightly less money that year and a bunch of workers
who are like mostly trans and in really horrifying like

(36:16):
economic conditions not having that money. Is the difference between
someone like maybe buying I don't even want to say
buying a slightly less like fancy car because it's not
even that much money for them, It's like, I don't know,
like they have one day where they don't go to
like an unbelievably expensive restaurant, versus like can I feed
myself at night?

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, they get one less personal massage. Yeah, we might
end up homeless.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (36:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
That was part of the situation that was starting to
really weigh on me near the end. Is because part
of what I had signed up for was agreeing to
work part time and do schooling part time, and it
was supposed to be like anywhere from five to six
days a week with the two, which was going to
be a bit much for me. But at some point
they decided they wanted all their workers doing school full

(37:05):
time so that they could get through it quicker. But
they didn't adjust the stipend they were offering, so you
were expected to stretch the shame amount of money over
time where you weren't getting any income at all, and
that money was four thousand, five hundred dollars, which is
not enough for that like three months of rent and

(37:25):
food and gas gas because it's in Centralia.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
So yeah, Like I had had multiple conversations with them
about it, and they would not give me a clear
answer on whether we would be able to continue working
or if we wouldn't get to work, or what we
would do about our income situation.

Speaker 6 (37:43):
And that's the situation that I ended up in was
for the last two months of my schooling, I had
to float myself on very little income because I had
only received enough to really cover the first two months
of the.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
School And it's going took like six to nine months
if you were part time.

Speaker 6 (38:07):
If you were a part time it took six to
nine months, yeah, yeah, and four months if you were
full time, which I was going full time.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
And then also like the second thing with that too
is just like it's not only are you like spending
time doing training for this job unpaid, Like that's also
taking in time where you can't work another job to
get more income.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Well, if you wanted to work at another job, you had
to get their approval jeess chrust. Yeah, they made it
pretty clear they wanted you committed to reel you and
nothing else.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, it's it's cult tactics. And then also the classic
like wonderful capitalist double freedom where you have freedom from
the ability to eat and then the freedom to sell yourself.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
Yeah, I mean I could always choose to go homeless
and hungry.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah, so that the law and is magnificent equality bans
both the rich and the poor from sleeping under a bridge.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah. So we chose our demand and we came up
with our plan. We had our actions settled, and we
had a plan for if management responded, if they didn't,
if they escalated, we had our options and we felt
secure going in at that point. Like when we first

(39:21):
started our actions, we only actually had five workers participating,
more that were sympathetic, but all that felt that they
weren't in a position to do direct action and lose
their job. We saw Vancouver lose their jobs when they
took action. We knew it was a very real possibility,
but we started, I believe. On June twenty ninth, we

(39:45):
delivered our demand for guaranteed pay to our manager. The
IWW calls it a march on the boss.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
It was like less than five minutes total. The five
workers presented our demand. We gave two testimonials for like
how it's been impacting us directly, and then we left.
We sent a follow up email to the owners of
the company because we had handed it to the manager
and we're waiting for their response, we put it out

(40:13):
there and we just had to wait. Yeah, the next day,
the manager caught one of our workers on her own
to respond, essentially telling us they could not afford to
pay us any other way that they were paying us.
They could cut us paper checks on each payday and
that was it. That wasn't one of the options we

(40:34):
gave them.

Speaker 11 (40:34):
Yeah, I just.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
Can't get over the like, yeah, sorry, the only way
i could afford to keep running my business is if
I'm allowed to not pay you, and that that's the
next thing you have to accept is if.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
I'm allowed to hand out checks that can't be cashed.

Speaker 10 (40:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
So when they told us no, we looked at our
plan and we took our next action. We submitted a
bunch of l and I claims for our checks that
had been NSF or insufficient funds. An LANI claim Labor
in Industries is kind of like the Protective body body

(41:12):
for workers in Washington. For each check that we had
received that bounced, we had a right to file a
worker's rights complaint. The problem with those complaints is that
they're not anonymous. Your employer gets told when one is filed.
Hoogled it and why they filed it. Unfortunately, that wasn't
an option, and so we were all doing it together

(41:34):
unless we wanted to lose our job as one by one. Yeah,
So when they told us no, we started by submitting
our LNI claims. It all happened so quick and it
was one action after another that it kind of blurs together.
So I think we submitted our l and I claims
when we gave them our demand on the twenty ninth,
we gave them a deadline for our next payday, So

(41:55):
July third is when we were due to get paid again,
and we said, by then, you have to agree that
you're going to give us guaranteed pay or deliver guaranteed funds.

Speaker 4 (42:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
The next day they had told us no, and on
Friday they delivered paychecks like any other pay day. Yeah,
they didn't really acknowledge what we had asked. They didn't
acknowledge that they weren't meeting our demand. They did not
tell us there were any issues with these checks, or
that they might bounce, or that there weren't the funds.
They at no point asked anyone to delay cashing their

(42:27):
checks because they didn't have the funds like that was
part of the issue is like, sometimes businesses run into
financial issues and you have to deal with it. The
way to deal with it is not by giving out
bad checks and not telling your workers.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
For people who haven't like thought of this before, there
are like actual consequences for attempting to to cash a
check that doesn't cash, absolutely, like that gets taken out
on you the person choose attempting to cash the check,
like as well as the people upstream who are doing
the bad checks.

Speaker 5 (43:10):
Like.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
We actually managed to avoid that at Lakewood for the
most part because once checks started bouncing, we were scared
of that happening. Yeah, so we started cashing them at Chase,
which is who real you banks with. You don't have
to have an account with Chase to go get your
check cash with them. You just have to pay a
ten dollars fee and have forms of identification. So the

(43:32):
people who went to Chase and had their checks bounce there,
it never hit their account.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
There were never any fees or any negative marks on
our accounts. For the people who couldn't do that, there were, Yeah,
there were NSF fees. At least one lakequoiod employee now
has had their account completely shut down for ninety days
while it's investigated for fraud.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
Yeah, which is because it's like, Okay, the people who
were committing the fraud are the bosses, but now you
don't have a fucking bank account for ninety days, which
is just a nightmare.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Part of our hope had been that by cashing them
at Chase, Chase would flag the account because like their
account was with Chase, and they were consistently issuing these
checks that they couldn't afford to cash, and we were
consistently cashing them at Chase, who had to acknowledge them.
Weren't the funds there?

Speaker 4 (44:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Unfortunately, they told us a couple of times that there
was just nothing they could do on their end.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
Love, capitalist, class solidarity, great stuff.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
So we did our demand, we did our L and
I claims, and then they delivered our paychecks as if
nothing had happened.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
So, over that weekend we finalized our plan to stage
walkouts starting on Monday from to one. Workers would leave,
really you to go to the local Chase and attempt
to cash their checks, and we did that until each
worker got paid. It normally took like fifteen to twenty minutes,

(45:11):
and then we spent the rest of the hour, you know,
doing our direct action, not returning to work. Yeah, but
when it was one o'clock we returned to work. We
were ready to see our patients. We all messaged our
clients the night before if they were affected, and if
we had the time, we offered them replacement sessions. We
did our best to follow the rules as much as

(45:32):
we could while breaking them. We were trying to send
a message management we weren't trying to disrupt patient care
every step of the way. We were doing our best
to disrupt actual patient care to the least amount possible.

Speaker 7 (45:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
So that went on for three days. On Monday, none
of the checks cleared. On Tuesday we got six of them,
and on Wednesday we got the last one. I did,
forget to say that was when we picked up two
more workers. There were a couple of workers who weren't
comfortable prior to them taking part in direct action, that

(46:10):
were ready and did join the walkout with us. Management
ignored the walkouts. We got absolutely no response.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
Oh boy.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
We sent email updates each day, you know, like this
mini checks cleared, this many didn't. We're going to keep
going at any point if they had just told us, yes,
we'll give you guaranteed pay next payday, we would have stopped. Yeah,
they didn't. Yeah, so we got paid on Wednesday. A
few days went by when we still weren't hearing from them,

(46:43):
so we escalated again. I think after that we did
a stick out, So there was a day where everyone
called in sick and most of the workers weren't in
the office. Yeah, yeah, which is pretty noticeable, especially when
management doesn't come into the office and all that's left
is your newbies. We did that again, still no response.

(47:07):
We sent another follow up email being like, you continue
to not meet our demands, We're going to continue to
take action. At any point. We will call a ceasefire
if you come to the table and either meet our
demand or tell us why you can't tell us what
your plan is to do to meet it in the future.
And they still didn't, so we moved on to what's

(47:29):
called the good Work strike. Every provider that was taking
part we showed up. We did our jobs, we treated
our patients, we cleaned our rooms. We just didn't sign
our notes because that meant that management wasn't able to
bill for them. Because if we weren't getting paid, neither
should they.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Yeah, it's a version of the bus strikes, where like
you just run the buses but then don't charge anyone.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, exactly. That was exactly the line of thinking. There
was another group of nurses in a hospital that would
stopped charting so that patients would be billed, but they
kept performing the work. And that's exactly where I got
the idea from. Yeah, we had patients that we wanted
to take care of, but we didn't want to give
real ne money when they weren't meeting their obligations.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
Thats that went.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
On for a few days, and then on our day off,
we got a bunch of information. On that Thursday, it
was revealed that management had been told really you was
going bankrupt and would be closing probably the twenty fourth.

Speaker 4 (48:37):
Oh boy.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
So they learned that Thursday, and we didn't know what
they would tell us if anything, and payday was Friday,
so they were either going to meet or demand or
not meet it again yea. And so that plus the
information we got on Thursday, we decided to do another
stick out so that we could reassess. We wanted to

(49:00):
see what they were actually gonna do. We wanted to
see if the business was going to be open.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Yeah, because there's just.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
Red flag after red flag. Some of us are expecting
them to close up and run away at any point. Yeah,
I mean they opened on Friday, checks were delivered. Two
of us received fake ones.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, let's talk about the fake checks for
a second. What the fuck?

Speaker 2 (49:26):
I can't get over this?

Speaker 1 (49:27):
What listed We like to joke that whatever you think
the worst option is, really you will choose a worst one.

Speaker 12 (49:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
So at least two employees, We're certain more. We're just
not sure who exactly and how many. But we were
given checks that were kind of handwritten, Like the only
things printed on them were like the color that check
paper is and one of the lines on the back
where you endorse it. Everything else was hand drawn from

(50:03):
like who was made out to how much it was
the lines those were written on. Yeah, like it sent
alarm bells ringing pretty quickly.

Speaker 3 (50:15):
That's not even monopoly money, because monopoly money is printed.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
This is like yeah, no, it was like a crafts project.

Speaker 13 (50:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
It was like they've invented a form of payment like
fakers and company store money.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Like it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Yeah, we got those, and we were pretty suspicious but
we took them to Chase anyways, and the teller was like, look,
I can't I can't even cash this to tell you
that it's bounced, because there's no way for me to
verify it's real. The security markets that are supposed to
be on the back are not there.

Speaker 13 (50:52):
It's like, sorry, I have a poor frake tell and
it's just like, yeah, sorry, I like can't cash, Like
like just like child's draw money, this is not an
extensible form of payment.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, she's right.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Oh no, They unfortunately couldn't really tell us what to
do about it. Yeah, So we had to reach out
to our management and ownership to be like, hey, we
could not cash our checks. We need real ones issued.
Uh huh, let us know how you're doing that. Also,

(51:29):
on Friday, we were out of work. We were waiting
for news, and I think that's when they sent out
the email about the business closing. At like one point
fifty six workers got an email to their company email,
which meant most of us could not access it because
we don't access work emails from home. That's when they
sent it out, and like thirty minutes later they sent

(51:51):
out a patient announcement, and that's how most of us learned.
We learned as patients first that really was closing in
one week.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
Yeah, which is just horrifying stuff.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
That was when it really hit me. When I opened
my patient portal and read the announcement, I felt like
I was seeing it, like all my patients were reading it,
and like I was losing access to needed care out
of nowhere. It was heartbreaking. It was devastating, Like there's

(52:26):
no words to describe how I felt for all of
my patients. Some of them knew it was coming, most
of them didn't. A lot of them didn't get last sessions.
I mean when we got the notice, we as a
union realized that if we worked that last week, whether
or not we'd get paid was up in the air.

(52:47):
I mean, if they chose not to pay us, we
would have to go through bankruptcy court and get in
line to get paid. So instead we decided to strike.
We spent the last week that really was open on
the pick line telling patients what was actually happening. We
weren't boycotting, We weren't asking anyone not to go in
and have their last sessions. We were encouraging that any

(53:09):
of the providers that were left, anyone who had sessions,
we wanted them to get them before they couldn't. Yeah,
but we also didn't want to provide free labor.

Speaker 4 (53:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (53:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
And it wasn't an easy decision. I mean it's one
that the group had to talk about and go back
and forth on. I mean, none of us thought that
our last sessions were going to be our last sessions.
We all wanted to see our patients one more time.
We didn't want our patients' last session to be their
last session. Yeah, but we also didn't want to be
exploited even further.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
I mean we made it clear what we were willing
to do, and we followed through.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
I mean, I think it's really like the most pure
example of just the dilemma that healthcare work, and also
like nonprofit work and anything where you're taking care of people,
it's you're put in this dilemma. Were like the way
that exploitation by the bosses were like, they're going to
exploit you and pay you less because of your care
for the work that you're doing and the people that

(54:06):
you're helping. And this is like the most pure like, yeah,
the choice you've been given by your bosses is to
probably work for free. To help your community and make
these people a little bit more money before they fuck
off or go on strike and have to deal with
you know, like have to try to get your patient's
treatment somehow.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Exactly.

Speaker 4 (54:27):
It's horrifying.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
It's an impossible choice. Yeah, it sucked. None of us
wanted it to go that way. It didn't have to
be that way.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
It didn't.

Speaker 6 (54:38):
And I think it's really unfortunate because multiple steps along
the way, they could have scaled back operations to focus
on fixing the internal issues with the business.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Yeah, it's not like they didn't have people telling them
what was happening. Mm hmm. It's just they chose to
stick their head in the sand like an ostrich and
keep going.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
And you know, and ultimately, like you're the people who
are paying the price for their mistakes and you know,
their greed and arrogance and malice.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Yeah, but we survived, and I know that a lot
of my fellow workers agree with me that this was
an experience we would rather have than not have. Yeah,
we found a lot of solidarity and community, and I mean,
we've built relationships that are going to last past this.

(55:39):
We're hoping to move on and work together again. In
something better.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
Yeah, yeah, And my understanding is that the long term
goal is to try to set up a co op
to be able to do this without sort of the
exploitation of the bosses.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
I mean, yeah, that is the ideal. I think every
union number's dream would be a worker cooperative or somewhere
where they have some form of either ownership or say
in the process. We would love to create something where
our patients and our workers are working in tandem together

(56:16):
to create the care that they deserve. Like you mentioned earlier,
there's just such a lack of standards of care for
trans like gender firm and care. We don't talk to
each other enough. We don't value the patient experience enough.
We figured out a lot of things in the eighties
and didn't bother doing more research. We want to do that.

(56:37):
We want to fill that hole, and we have a
lot of workers that are very committed to that, that
are very excited by that opportunity. It's a long term
goal and the short term we're hoping to get more
people educated like we were promised, and back to providing.
We're hoping to find new placements for our patients that

(56:58):
have urgent care needs, like people who have surgeries that
are coming up. Yeah, we're working on a database of
like local electrolysis clinics, who has availability, who treats what areas,
and who takes what insurance is. So if we have
patients that are looking for new places, they can reach
out and we can point them somewhere. But we're always

(57:20):
looking for more resources too. We're in our information gathering phase.
We're trying to resource compile, just get everything we can
for our workers so that we can take those next steps.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 6 (57:34):
And what's devastating about this all is really was one
of the few places that actually took insurances. Not many
electrolysis clinics do, so it can be very difficult for
people to find and afford care.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
Yeah, absolutely, And that's I don't know, like, yeah, that's
like another one of the heart wrenching things about this
is like all of the patients whose medical care is
ripped away by this, and the fact that it's y'all
trying to figure out how.

Speaker 4 (58:04):
To help them and not the bosses is.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Like such an indication of which side people are fundamentally on.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
I mean, how they handled the closure is a pretty
clear sign of that too. Yeah, if you cared about
your patients finding new places before their services were disrupted,
you would have given them more than one week notice. Yeah,
I mean you require two weeks notice from workers before
they owe you.

Speaker 4 (58:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
I think our patients deserve better.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
Yeah, they absolutely do, and you also deserve better.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yeah. Yeah, we have better, We've made better, we're going
to create better. But it would have been nice to
have what we thought we were getting.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Speaking of that is, are there ways for listeners to
reach out and help?

Speaker 1 (58:51):
So right now we have a link tree. It's a
little bit bare bones because this happens so much sooner
than it was supposed to. Yeah, a gofund me that
is for worker stability. Not all of us are going
to qualify for unemployment, and it's going to be a
while before we can find new jobs because ecolsis clinics

(59:11):
and being transgendered. Just it's a tough combination, yep. But
we also have an email for anyone to reach out
to if they have questions for like if our patients
are trying to contact us, or if they need somewhere
new to go. If we have any electrologists in the
community that have openings, we would love to know. So

(59:33):
we can send people to you.

Speaker 4 (59:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Absolutely, if anyone who has knowledge starting cooperatives, that's also
a resource we're really interested in. We want to do
this right and we want to talk to the people
that have experience doing it.

Speaker 14 (59:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
Do you have anything else that you want to make
sure people know?

Speaker 1 (59:53):
So?

Speaker 3 (59:54):
There are a.

Speaker 6 (59:54):
Couple of different electrology associations that clinics can align themselves with.
One of the ones that I'm thinking of is called
the American Electrology Association or Electrolysis, and they have a
code of ethics and standards that they require the businesses

(01:00:18):
that are partnered with them to adhere to. It's an
association that you have to pay a subscription fee to,
but in turn, you get resources for your business and
are able to have somewhere to reach out to when
you have questions about the ethics in your business or

(01:00:39):
how things are being run. I think something really important
to note is that really you was not partnered with
any of them, And there are electrology conventions that will
happen that a whole bunch of different electrologists, surgeons, you know,

(01:01:01):
from different places, we'll get together to discuss the health
care that they're providing and It's from my understanding that
really you did not have the best reputation in these circles.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
I mean, the truth is near the end. Really you
was having to form their own education program. They were
forming their own school because their connection with Zapmaster and
with the rest of the electrologist community was just so poor,
like they couldn't maintain it.

Speaker 15 (01:01:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:01:40):
But for the patients, finding a clinic that is associated
with one of those associations provides them an extra level
of protection, especially since Washington State is not licensed for electrolysis.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Is a really really good point. If you are a
patient and you've heard what was going on behind the scenes,
it real you and you're concerned about continuing your care,
one of the ways to protect yourself against the practices
that you want to avoid is by finding a clinic
that's associated with one of these professional institutions correct somewhere

(01:02:22):
that has standards you have to meet. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
Yeah, and I think I think that's a good place
to end with. You know, the twin promises of workers
being able to do their jobs and care for the communities,
and communities being able to get the care that they need.
How Yeah, this system simply delivers neither of them, and
the only way out of it is to fight for
a better one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
We're swinging well I can say that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Our group is full of fighters.

Speaker 6 (01:02:54):
I'm hopeful I am too, and every step of the way,
every action I have taken has been from a love
for my patients and the work that I do and
intend to continue doing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Hell yeah, Absolutely, I'm pretty excited to close this chapter
and start the new one where we can only go up.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
Yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah. Thank you to both so
much for coming on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
Thank you for having us. Hopefully this was exciting as
part one.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
Yeah yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, I'm happy to
and hopefully we get to talk to you all again when,
like the co Op starts should be lovely.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Absolutely. Part three will be about our successful co Op beginnings.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
Hell yeah, hell yeah, looking forward to it.

Speaker 14 (01:03:46):
Hello yeah, hello everyone, unwelcome to it could happened here.

Speaker 8 (01:04:06):
My name is Dana al Kurd, and I'm a researcher
and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today I wanted
to talk about Western Sahara and the Moroccan occupation of
Western Sahara. I'm taking this opportunity because Morocco is in
the news, specifically for the World Cup, but it's always
a good opportunity when Morocco is in the news to
bring up this issue and to talk about the ongoing

(01:04:27):
occupation of this territory. Now Western s he Hera, for
those who are unfamiliar, is often called Africa's last colony.
It's been contested between the Saharawi indigenous people and the
Moroccan government since Spain withdrew from the territory in nineteen
seventy five. Now, Morocco took over most of the territory
and fought a war with the Polisaria Front, which is
a liberation movement that represents the Saharawi people backed by

(01:04:50):
other neighbors of Morocco, including Algeria, and it fought a
sixteen year war for independence before there was a nineteen
ninety one seasfire. Now the ceasefire collapsed in twenty twenty
and there was a un promised referendum on self determination
that never happened. So today Morocco controls roughly eighty percent
of the territory and there's still hundreds of thousands of
Saharawi refugees that remain in refugee camps in Algeria. The

(01:05:13):
United States accepted and recognized Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara
in exchange for Morocco signing a peace agreement with Israel.
So that happened with the Abraham Courts. Now recently, through
US led diplomacy, there was a twenty twenty five UN
Security Council resolution that pushed for Moroccan autonomy rather than
Saharawe independence as the basis for resolving this conflict. So

(01:05:36):
to talk more about this issue, I thought it would
be a good opportunity to get the perspective of a
Saharawi person and someone who is very embedded in the
issue and has lived experience. So I spoke today with
Mahmad Saem Murad, who is the co founder of Saharawi Voice.
This is a collective of citizen journalists and filmmakers based

(01:05:57):
in the Western Sahara refugee camps in southwest Algeria. And
this collective basically is a way to provide a platform
for Saharawis to share their challenges, experiences and hopes with
an international audience, while equipping Sahawi youth with the knowledge
and tools to advocate effectively for their cause. So I
spoke some Hama Sadams today to get a Saharawi perspective

(01:06:18):
on things. Now, there might be some listeners that don't
agree with everything that was mentioned, and that's fine. The
point of this kind of interview is a type of data.
How do people see this issue from this perspective? So,
without further ado, here is my interview with them. Hama
Setum Hamma Sanam, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 5 (01:06:41):
Thank you for the invitation.

Speaker 8 (01:06:43):
So I'm going to ask a few questions about recent
Saharawi politics and events, starting with the UN resolution that
happened in October Resolution twenty seven ninety seven, which basically
for the first time made Morocco's autonomy the explicit basis
for negotiations while kind of ignoring self determination for the

(01:07:03):
Saharawi people. A lot of our listeners have never heard
of this resolution, but people have called it the biggest
shift in the conflict in decades. So can you tell
us from a Saharawi perspective what it means that the
UN and international body that once promised Saharawi self determination
and referendum starts treating the occupier's plan as the starting point.

Speaker 5 (01:07:26):
So the resolution itself is after they exhausted all the
other pressure means the US, the European Union and through
their own individual country pressure and inconditional support to the Morocco,
the Yuan was the last resort and they want to

(01:07:48):
have a stamp of legality on it. And that's why
the instrument usually the Yuan and their reality in the
talk now because we don't have a negotiation yet, we
have talks that have been sponsored and actually administrated and
by the US. There now is a sideline. And the

(01:08:13):
reason is because the international law is clear and the
repeated resolution before this, all of them they have called
and demanded that the final status of the territory should
be decided through a referendum, and sometimes the referendum was mused,

(01:08:33):
but always there has to provide for the self determination
for the Sahara people. And even like playing with self
determination for listeners and the referendum itself, it's a huge
concession from the Sahara side. What a in a just world,

(01:08:55):
In ideal world, maroc would be called to withdraw from
western sahar paying the reparation for the Saharai. And those
are the steps for a just solution for the Saharai. Past,
but the Saharai, we're willing to go to the extra mile,
and they made the concessions. They accepted the referendum, which

(01:09:17):
is by the way, we will intel a huge number
of the settlers will be taken a part in that
referendum and would not be just the Saharau. But even
with that is still not sure that they will even
win the support of their own settlers that they brought
with them, So they had to ask the US for

(01:09:41):
the help. And of course the US is doing this
as a reward for local for being a sub servant
stage and the watching dog of the European Union, for
being willing also to go public with their relationship with
the Zions State of Israel, because for us, we I've
been saying this for a long time. Morocco always had

(01:10:03):
those relationships. It was the price of recognizing the moroccanity
of Western Sahara was the price to go public with
those relationships, and that's what they did. Eventually, Morocco is
selling themselves to the Doubles to get support and recognization
for their occupation of Ustern Sahara. They are accepting the

(01:10:25):
Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. They are sending their
money to finals the Peace Board committee that Trunt made.
They are sending their troops. They are willing to send
them even to fight resistance as they are doing everything.
They are building chemicals, drunk chemicals factories, Israeli chemicals factories

(01:10:50):
in Morocco. Everything that people couldn't even in nation. Now
it's a reality. And the prices to win a pac
and Israel support and they're back in turning the occupation
into a fatal company. And not just that, but to
even use you. And in the international law and all

(01:11:11):
the international body sompose the occupation of But for us,
we know that slavery and many other stuff were legal.
So even if they were to outlaw the self determination,
outlaw our demand for free and independent state, still will

(01:11:35):
not make any difference to us. We are determined to
fight for what's ours. And as a Sahara ex Saharawi
leader who passed away told the Bush, because this is
not the first time. Maybe this is public, but this
is not the first time US try to do this.
During George W. Bush's first term, when the Twin Tower

(01:12:00):
head and US wanted to just like rush to solve
or to just finish all other conflicts, everywhere. They wanted
to resolve the occupation of rust in Saharas and asking
the Sahara to accept the autonomy lane of Moroccan people.
And that's it. And they said, like when when the

(01:12:21):
Sahara leader was pressed to accept that said will not accepted.
You know, we are so powerful that you can dictate
to people how to live, but you are not powerful
enough to dictate to people how to die. So it's
the same for us. Nothing changed. Morocco has enjoyed the
supports for a long time from the majority of the

(01:12:42):
country and especially those like called the first world country
and feel world all that bs. They have always the supports,
but not on theerground. Nothing changed. Of course, made our independen.
It's difficulty, but will never make it impossible.

Speaker 8 (01:12:59):
Yeah, the rights of indigenous people are not determined by
international law.

Speaker 5 (01:13:05):
Yeah. Yeah. And Morocco is asking for support and I
want to legalize their occupation first from Western sat They
are asking the wrong people and they are waiting the
support from that. And yeah, the teacher and their biggest
sponsors are friends with all its colonism atrocity in all

(01:13:27):
Africa and other places. And the US, who was a
country that was built on the genocide of indigenous people.
So they are there, they are.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
In the right company.

Speaker 5 (01:13:40):
Yes, yes, yes, exactly, that's what we Yeah, Saha will
say like if someone gives you advice, you have to
look at their house and if they are abiding by
the advice, they are giving you a nuts. So yeah,
the market choose the the right mass and the right

(01:14:02):
sponsors to continue its occupation and yeah, graduates from the
occupation in the university.

Speaker 8 (01:14:19):
So for our listeners, I want to also kind of
specify that this February, after the UN resolution, the US
can be in secret talks in Madrid between Morocco, Algeria,
Mauritania and the Pulsario overseen by Trump's African advisor.

Speaker 5 (01:14:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:14:32):
Now it's being negotiated behind closed doors. How are ordinary
is always especially in the camps. What is their relationship
right now to these negotiations and to the Pulsaria leadership.

Speaker 5 (01:14:43):
Yeah, so that's the talk I refer because negotiation has
to start after you established a framework for what to negotiate,
and until now that hasn't happened, so that more accurately
should be described as tall or you know, early stages
of talk and meetings instead of negotiation, because negotiation then

(01:15:06):
when you have a framework for the things that you
want to achieve and the demands of two parties and
uh and this case that we haven't even seen one
photo of the tool negotiating parties, and that's very obvious
because it shows just how different and how how far

(01:15:27):
from each other. And the US came with the misconception
that they think they just like, can't rush this into
solutions and be done with it. And when they saw
a resistance from the from the Sahara negotiation team and
also for the record, also Algeria hesitance to accept them

(01:15:49):
posing of all those solutions, they started to reconsider. And
we have many statements from Mostart Bulls, advisor for North
Africa and Middle East or in North Africa, where he's
saying this seems to be more difficult than what we
early imagine, and you know, starts to reconsider his positions.

(01:16:12):
As to your question, the Saharah in general, the vast
majority of the Saharawi consider the policario to be a
liberation movement and their representative. And even if they don't
have opposed or work in a certain they consider themselves
to be a policerio member. That doesn't mean we agree
with all policario or we don't have a different opinion

(01:16:36):
about how things should be managed and how the saharawikas
should be administrated and how to deal with many things.
That there is a huge and age gap between the
first generation of police. Are that the vast majority of
those are the members now and are at the top

(01:16:58):
of the leadership. Are people who started the police? Are it? So?
I was talking about people who have been in the
leadership position for fifty years, So of course there is
an obvious need for them to step down and be
replaced by younger generations, by people who have the ability
both the physical and the mental and right judgment of

(01:17:21):
the time and of the means that should be employed
to accelerate the liberation. First, Sahara, we see them. But
the negotiation, as you said, it's happening behind the closed door.
There are no press conferences. We are dependent on the
statement from there and there to try to build a

(01:17:42):
bigger picture of what's happening. But the biggest takeaway and
the conclusion from the three rounds that took a place
so far, two in Washington and one in Madrid, there's
nothing measure is happening, except the fact that the US
is starting to think that it's it's it's more difficult
and it's going to take more time than what they

(01:18:05):
initially imagine. So that's the biggest time I think that
and the Morocco the autonomy plan they had it in
a three paces paper that was their proposal for a solution,
and France and you asked them for a more extended
version where they have to outline details, and they haven't

(01:18:27):
showed or produced anything yet. So that's I think they
are closest ally and supporter and formal colonizer as Francis
is working closely with them to develop that that proposal
I see for that doesn't change a lot because you know,
if we wanted autonomy would have been better up with

(01:18:48):
with Spain. And why would we like say, say not
to to Spain all to accepted fifty years later to
a craft monarch and the paper to the Zion the
standard France. Yeah, our occupied is enjoying their support or

(01:19:09):
nothing new in Dada San.

Speaker 8 (01:19:11):
I mean, it's it's funny that you you mentioned that
the United States and the African Advisors is starting to
recognize it's not as easy. I mean, you know, very
surprising that the Trump imgstoration advisors thought it was going
to be easier than it is, but obviously not. Yeah,

(01:19:37):
I wanted to ask a question also about kind of
daily life right now for Saharawi's You know, it's been
fifty years after the Madrid Accords, you still have Harawis
under Moroccan control in the territory. And then there's of
course the refugee camps in Algeria.

Speaker 2 (01:19:51):
Now that the diplomatic.

Speaker 8 (01:19:52):
Horizon seems to be narrowing, what's life like for people
who are fighting for Saharawi in dependence? So like human
rights defenders, the women, the students, you know, I know
they face a lot of repression in Moroccan territory, but
maybe you can describe to the listeners, Yeah, what the
conditions are like.

Speaker 5 (01:20:11):
Yeah, I know, it's probably not something intended to do,
but it's not Moroccan territory. It's Western Saharay occupied by
moroccle my mistake.

Speaker 3 (01:20:19):
Yes, yes, So the.

Speaker 5 (01:20:22):
Situation there is difficulty the territory. There is a media
black black heide that's in posing the territory, So non
international observer or a journalistill allowed to access the territory
and to see the situation on the ground. The people
there are morocco Is using both the stick and the carts,

(01:20:43):
so trying to buy their allusions to the occupation, try
to reward those who are willing to give up their
political rights and so giving them out, putting them on
social welfare projects and those it's not a lot, but
enough to survive. And on the other hand has jail

(01:21:06):
and depression and the job cutting people from their job
and making their life as miserable as possible, to the
to the point either they are announced their activism or
leave the territory, and in some cases there are sentenced
to life in prison, which has happened to many Saharawi

(01:21:28):
activists who have a group called their Music Group have
been in jail since two thousand and ten. And yeah
there are some of them are are serving thirty years,
some of them twenty, some of them life sentence, and
a few of them were released recently. So the situation
is very difficult, and we're very deplorable, and what is

(01:21:53):
next to even difficult. That's how they're in the occupied
territory are out numbered, so there are three morecanslers to each.
Those are very conservative estimates, it could be more so,
anything that's civil disobedience strategy or tactics will be would
be dimity unsuccessful and would not produce any results. So

(01:22:17):
it's very difficult situation. But none the less, there are
still or are standing. Background are or still despite all
the oppression and all the economic warfare that Mark is
waging against them, and the even social astralization to try
to even threaten people around you. So if you are

(01:22:40):
an activist, even your father, your people around you, they
will be laid from their job just as the percussions
for your activism, So they can punish you if you
don't care about or own self like they punish you
through the people or inner circle, and your pop are
close to you. So it's very difficult. And on the

(01:23:03):
other hand, also the infrastructure there are are not are
not as fancy as Morocco try to claim. There aren't
a single university, and Morocco is building more of jails.
And even the presenter Sahara, they sentenced them and they
when they're serving their senses, they put them far away

(01:23:23):
to punish their family, to make them pay a lot
of money and travel inside Morocco to be able to
visit their loved ones instead of having them close by
artists and occupied Western Sahara. So the situation is very difficult.
But those who are choosing to stand their ground are
a reader of history and they are aware of the

(01:23:45):
price that has to be paid an order to obtain
our freedom and our independence. And the darker it gets,
we know that closer that there will be another morning
that's coming behind that. So we have been here way
longer before Trump administration and his advisor, and we will

(01:24:07):
be here. So it's the Morocca. I think that they
think this is their golden opportunities and that they can
use everything including the international law and international institution and
body like the johan to impose their accupation and Western Saharabad. Again,

(01:24:27):
they are misguided. At the end of the day, they
would have to put out the table and.

Speaker 8 (01:24:32):
Try to find I think from a pasting in perspective,
like the genocide in Gaza has clarified that the international
system is not functioning, So you know, they're trying to
use the international system. Countries like Morocco are trying to
use the international system for legitimizing control. But the international
system itself needs to be restructured, and I do also

(01:24:54):
want to apologize. I meant Moroccan control of the territory,
so I sincerely apologize for that. Yes, I also wanted
to ask because we, I mean, we have listeners everywhere,
but especially for listeners in the United States. You know,
our government here is driving this process. What would you
want listeners in the United States to take away from

(01:25:15):
this conversation or to do?

Speaker 5 (01:25:17):
To be honest, I have been to the States one time,
and I have met many Americans, and I am a
lead the reader of their media, and I follow their
their famous podcasts and TV channels and Twitter, you know, discussion.
And it's very obvious that American they don't care about

(01:25:39):
what's going on outside America. They care about the prices
of oil, all of house prices, and their rents and
the college is And it's okay. I think it's okay
to a degree when your country is not involved in
maintaining and supporting and that's your own taxes are used

(01:26:00):
to maintain and support and finance genocide and other military occupation. Otherwise,
then you have the luxury of ignoring what's outside. But
when it's not, you can just like put your head
in the ground and imagine and just going to care
about what's happening here domestically and foreign policy. What's happening

(01:26:25):
there is far away there, I don't so I would
like them to inform themselves about Western Sahara, understand that
they have to push their government and functionally to the
Western Sahara. At least, we don't have a politician in
the United States who thinks that the occupation of Western

(01:26:47):
Sahara will accelerate the arrival of the Messiah and that
it's far away, it has nothing to do with the ideology,
with the religion, believe with anything like that, and would
be easier, supposedly and will be less hesitant politician to
take the right stand and the right position if enough

(01:27:09):
people know there and they have a responsibility to learn
and to understand and that their money and their politicians
and their foreign policy are taking tools on people past,
present and the future in a very practical way. And
they don't have the luxury to be ignorant or to

(01:27:32):
be to have the apathy they have to just not
care about what's going on. They should care because their
money and their political support and their country resources are
used against many other people and then anything happens. We
have the Americans acting like we don't know what's happened.
Why the rest of the world hates you. People hate

(01:27:55):
you for the million of the things that your government
and your silence has done and has caused everywhere else.
So they have to learn they have a responsibility. They
have to speak to their local politician and their their
representative in Congress and Senate and ask them just to
do the basic thing, to follow the international law and

(01:28:19):
start supporting my local militarily and politically and involved in
them to continue their occupations and prolonging the suffering of
the Sahai. That's the very bare minimum.

Speaker 3 (01:28:34):
Well, thank you so much.

Speaker 8 (01:28:35):
On that note, I will link Sharawi Voice in the
show notes. Yeah, I think that people can can learn
more about the work that your collective does. And thank
you for making the time.

Speaker 5 (01:28:46):
Thank you for the invitation as an honor. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):
Take care, Take care.

Speaker 12 (01:29:03):
Picture going to the grocery store a few years from now.
You push your car, grab your staples, scan and head
out the door. Not much to it, but unlocking your car,
you hear a faint buzzing sound. Looking around, you don't
see anything yet it gets louder. Then you look up.
A drone shoots out toward the street, where you spot
a man running down the sidewalk with a full backpack.

(01:29:23):
They both slip out a view behind some overgrown hedges.
Then come the sirens. As you drive away, you see
multiple cops on top of a man, one pulling objects
out of his backpack. Tags still dangling off a shoplifter.
Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Kevin Foster, an
independent journalist and your host for this two part series
on retail crime, ice, and some deeply concerning policy making

(01:29:45):
its way through Congress. In this image of a shoplifter,
it isn't really from the future. In late June of
this year, police in Redmond, Washington used the drone to
track down an alleged shoplifter who had left a store.
If you live in a major city, you've probably are
you witness the bolstering of security in retail stores. The
ungodly number of items locked up behind glass, security guards

(01:30:07):
block cameras in the parking lot. This is an industry
in its own right, commonly referred to as loss prevention,
and it's surged after the pandemic the national retail Federation
or NRF for short, who I'll be talking a lot
about today puts on a yearly conference known as NRF
Protect where they bring together all the loss prevention slash
asset protection bigwigs to show off new tech and security strategies.

(01:30:31):
Here's the clip of a senior product manager for Amazon
at the twenty twenty six event, part in the awful
corporate background music.

Speaker 11 (01:30:38):
Gotta say, the most unique thing that I saw in
the expo hall was the robot.

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
Seen it on TV, and this was the first time
I saw it in person. I was like, oh, these
exactly real. To paint you a picture.

Speaker 12 (01:30:49):
The video features retail lobbyists, tech giants, and police investigators.
They show off drones, cameras, people aiming guns, others shooting
some type of paintballs at hanging targets, and of course
multiple robots, including one that looks like a mini tank
called Romeo but spelled like roaming around. Don't worry though
this quote physical AI on patrol can only go ten

(01:31:11):
miles per hour and it has a big led smile
across the front. If you haven't got the drift. NRF
Protect is like a National rightfle Association convention, but for
people obsessed with supply chains and storefront scanners. While our
little tank Romeo likely invokes the strongest image of a
sci fi dystopia, it's probably the least of our worries.
An October twenty twenty four article in Loss Prevention Magazine

(01:31:34):
states that multiple top ten retailers rely on facial recognition
for loss prevention, many working with Face First, a company
that provides AI facial recognition tech with the goal of
preventing retail crime. In July of this year, Mission Local
reported on grocery outlets in the Bay Area using facial
recognition tech from the AI company Safer. Worried about your

(01:31:55):
privacy well, Safer's president says that your photo is immediately
deleted if it doesn't match a watch list of shoplifters. However,
stores can manually create their own watch list and pool
data with other retailers. Surely nothing could go wrong there.
Even excluding AI, retail stores have become a massive surveillance
black box. Your photo is taken as you go in

(01:32:17):
and out. Video cameras are at checkout. They know the
time you come in, they know what days you shop,
what you're buying, They know who you are retailers will
justify this invasion of our privacy through AI robots and
large scale data collection as necessary for marketing and to
protect their capital and employees. Still, I wouldn't blame you
for worrying about where that data is going. After all,

(01:32:39):
if police investigators are already attending NRF conventions, and the
retailers are happy to work with them, why not other
law enforcement? Why not ICE? As it turns out, Congress
is having similar thoughts. The House of Representatives just pushed
a bill forward that could give ICE access to this
massive surveillance drag net, and there's a bipartisan effort in

(01:32:59):
the Senate to include it any National Defense Authorization Act.
Why would they do this? To answer that question, we
need to look at a recently hyped phenomenon known as
organized retail crime. You may have heard the term organized
retail crime in the past few years, probably on the
news or from a politician hinting at a hidden crisis
in our stores. A basic Google Trends report shows use

(01:33:21):
of the term is up two hundred percent in the
past five years versus the five years before. Organized retail crime,
sometimes referred to as just ORC, is defined by the
FBI as the large scale theft of retail merchandise with
the intent to resell the stolen items for financial gain.
If you've seen the movie I Love Boosters, that's a
good satirical example, although the definition is actually quite vague,

(01:33:44):
which can cause a lot of problems. The outlet Retail
Dive says the definition is quote neither legal nor precise,
contributing to uneven reporting on the part of store workers,
loss prevention staff, and police, which results in it often
being lumped in with morban aal form of theft such
as shoplifting, and this begs the question is organized retail

(01:34:04):
crime actually a thing? It is, but the threat to businesses, prices,
and even national security have largely been blown out of proportion.
To get a sense of those proportions, here's Iowa Senator
Chuck Grassley at a Senate hearing on organized retail theft.
He's the chief sponsor of the bill I mentioned earlier,
known as the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act or CORKA

(01:34:26):
for short.

Speaker 10 (01:34:28):
The reality is some of the worst criminal organizations, including cartels, terrorists,
and human traffickers, use this type of crime, funding their
misdeeds or launder ill gotten proceeds.

Speaker 12 (01:34:47):
Side note, after hearing how this guy talks, I had
to look up how old he is. He's ninety two
fucking years old. This old bat that was born in
the Great Depression is probably being lobbied till his heart fails.
We're going to get into the issues with painting this
all as a national security crisis later. But speaking of lobbying,
the notoriety of organized retail crime is due in no

(01:35:09):
small part to the National Retail Federation, the host of
the aforementioned Loss Prevention Conference and the largest retail lobbying
group in the nation. The NRF has spent about fifty
million dollars on lobbying since just twenty twenty, according to
Open Secrets, and they've been the driving force behind the
Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which passed the House of

(01:35:29):
Representatives on May twelfth with bipartisan support, including one hundred
and forty four Democrats, and it may well get lumped
in with our defense spending this year. CORCA has a
slew of problems, but the general picture is a prosecution
and police cracked down around this idea of organized crime
in the retail theft world. Despite what the NRF would

(01:35:50):
like you to believe there doesn't appear to be an
organized retail theft crisis in the US, or really even
a shoplifting crisis in general. With the exception of some
large cities, particularly New York City, shoplifting in twenty twenty
three was actually lower than pre pandemic levels, according to
the Council on Criminal Justice. In twenty twenty two, the
Council found retail shrink, the term for lost merchandise from

(01:36:14):
theft or operational errors, was about one point six percent,
the same as in twenty nineteen according to the nrf's
own data. Before we get too deep, I think it's
worth noting measures of shrink are also somewhat imprecise, and
a lot of the accessible data surrounding all of this
comes directly from the retail lobby, who have an incentive

(01:36:34):
to make problems look worse to justify security policing, price increases,
and cutting corners in inventory management. As you'll see, they
have some credibility issues as well. You know who else
may or may not have credibility issues the products and
services that support this podcast, and we're back. In October

(01:37:04):
of twenty twenty three, the NRF claimed to Congress that
organized retail crime accounted for nearly half of the ninety
four point five billion dollars in SHRINK in twenty twenty one.
In reality, Retail Dive found that organized theft accounted for
about five percent of SHRINK, meaning the NRF was off
by a literal order of magnitude. How did they arrive

(01:37:25):
at such a conclusion. Well, they essentially just took some
guy's word for it, specifically Ben Dugan, the former president
of the Coalition of Law Enforcement in Retail, a nonprofit
whose website currently features a giant, low resolution banner saying
Vegas Baby, the nation's largest ARC investigative conference. An NRF

(01:37:45):
spokesperson specifically said their fifty percent claim was an inference
made by an analyst based on Dugan's congressional testimony, not
actual statistics or data. The NRF retracted the claim about
two months later, but the damage was already done. According
to the Vera Institute, a nonprofit advocacy group and think
tank focused on criminal justice reform, The NRF leveraged its

(01:38:08):
inaccurate data point in a press release, testified to it
in congressional hearings, and even spoke about it at a
press conference with Senator Grassley. The figure, of course, stirred
panic across the country, fueled by viral social media videos
showing high profile thefts and retail companies pushing the narrative
that they are under attack. In some cases, retailers either

(01:38:30):
closed or threatened to close stores. For example, in San
Francisco in twenty twenty one, Walgreens blamed organized retail crime
for the anticipated closure of five locations. The closures made
it into the national spotlight, but in reality, the locations
faced less than two reported shoplifting incidents per month on
average over the previous five years. Target had a similar

(01:38:52):
story in New York, Seattle, and San Francisco, blaming retail
theft for store closures when nearby locations actually had higher
incidences of shoplifting. What actually happened to these stores, My
best guess is the shift to online shopping during the
pandemic drove down the sales of many brick and mortar locations,
but rather than project something that could lower their stock valuation,

(01:39:14):
retailers blamed it on organized theft. Many took up controversial
practices such as locking up merchandise, which decreased sales and
customers satisfaction. Even Walgreen's chief financial officer, James Cahoe, would
later say they quote cried too much unquote about shoplifting
when the issue was really overblown. But even with a
lack of evidence, the NRF and Senator Grassley refused to

(01:39:38):
back down from their messaging and legislation, and in a
lot of ways it worked. Let me play you a
clip of Gavin Newsom at a press conference in twenty
twenty four signing legislation intended to combat organize retail crime.
Here he's surrounded by a number of elected officials, law
enforcement leaders, and representatives of retail associations.

Speaker 16 (01:39:58):
The issue organized retail theft, the issue of serial theft,
the issue that is front and center in the consciousness
of so many Californians. You see it online social media,
you see it on the nightly news. This is the
real deal. Grocers and the retailers understand.

Speaker 12 (01:40:17):
That after the NRF retracted its inflated claim nearly a
year prior, organized retail crime was still making headlines and
considered a very serious issue, serious enough that Newsome included
three hundred and seventy four million dollars in his twenty
twenty four budget proposal. To combat retail theft. In that bill,
which he happened to sign atop a table covered in

(01:40:39):
orange home depot buckets, it stiffened both enforcement and penalties
for retail crime.

Speaker 4 (01:40:44):
It allowed for.

Speaker 12 (01:40:45):
The aggregation of theft value from different shoplifting incidents, meaning
the value of items can be added up to turn
what would be minor charges into grand theft. It also
allows police to arrest shoplifters solely based on a witness's
sworn state or video footage of a crime. Again, surely
nothing could go wrong with that, but the crackdown didn't

(01:41:06):
stop there. In the twenty twenty four general election, California
voters overwhelmingly approved Prop thirty six, which made key changes
to how thefts are prosecuted. To Newsom's credit, he did
not support the proposition. Prior to Prop thirty six, thefts
of items worth less than nine hundred and fifty dollars
were considered misdemeanors, but now if the individual has two

(01:41:27):
or more past convictions for certain theft crimes such as shoplifting,
it could be considered a felony, with a sentence of
up to three years in jail or prison. San Diego's
District Attorney Summer Stephen really hyped up Prop thirty six
as an advancement in fighting organized retail crime. She actually
went on the nrf's podcast talk about this. Yes, they

(01:41:48):
have a podcast. It's called Retail Gets Real. It's bad,
don't check it out. But here she is with the
host having a little laugh about locking people up.

Speaker 17 (01:41:57):
So we used to have people with like twenty four
theft cases. They're all misdemeanors. Some thieves bring a calculator
and they're just under nine hundred and fifty dollars. Literally,
it's madness.

Speaker 2 (01:42:11):
Right, got a gun or a calculator? I'm not sure what.

Speaker 12 (01:42:15):
Yeah, let's joke about mistaking someone for being armed in
a store. It's not like that's ever gone poorly before anyways.
What's missing from the analysis here is how these laws
harm people who aren't necessarily the intended target. A particularly
striking example of how this could really fuck someone's life
up comes from Pennsylvania. In twenty twenty one, Joseph Sobeluski

(01:42:37):
reportedly misunderstood a discount at an Exxon gas station and
accidentally underpaid forty three cents for a bottle of mountain
dew Sobuluski had two theft charges in the past ten years,
one for a tank of gas and another for a
pair of shoes. After the Mountain dew incident, state police
arrested him on a felony charge because of a three

(01:42:57):
strikes law in Pennsylvania similar what could happen with Prop
thirty six. A judge ordered Sobeluski beheld on a fifty
thousand dollars cash only bond, and he faced up to
seven years in prison. Fortunately, his public defender successfully argued
for his release after seven days, and prosecutors ultimately dismissed
the charge. But it's easy to see how this could

(01:43:19):
go wrong for another individual, particularly minorities, who faced disproportionate
punishment in our legal system. This style of legislation, intended
to target retail crimes, spread like wildfire across the country.
According to the text of the twenty twenty five Combating
Organized Retail Crime Act, more than thirty state laws have
been enacted since twenty twenty two to address organized theft.

(01:43:42):
Common theme stricter penalties and policing. Here's how New York
Governor Kathy Hokel put it in her twenty twenty four
State of the state address.

Speaker 18 (01:43:51):
Let's back our businesses, back our businesses and the workers
with the full force of the law, and punish those
who think they can break the rules with impunity.

Speaker 12 (01:44:02):
After all, policing and aggressive enforcement are the American way
to deal with crime rather than I don't know addressing
the root causes, notably poverty and inequality. The pervasive tough
on crime mentality doesn't have much evidence backing it up,
but of course there is a wealth of research indicating flaws.
For one, enforcement is heavily racialized, with black and brown

(01:44:23):
people facing retail theft charges at significantly higher rates than whites.
The Very Institute also highlights how increasing sentences as a
deterrent doesn't actually work. A twenty eighteen article from Pew
Research says states can safely raise their value threshold for
what counts as a felony theft without risking more crime.
The thirty states that did so between twenty and twenty

(01:44:46):
twelve saw no meaningful increase in property crime or larceny rates.
In South Carolina, Pew found that when they doubled the
felony threshold from one thousand dollars to two thousand dollars
in twenty ten, property crime continued to fall by fifteen
in the next three years. Pew also found that the
value of stolen goods remained steady, and when adjusted for inflation,

(01:45:07):
the median value actually decreased. In essence, the state level
push for these three strikes shoplifting laws and the aggregation
of theft value won't meaningfully decrease crime. Rather, it will
result in more people, particularly minorities, being locked up for
longer sentences than being saddled with felony convictions that hurt
their ability to get a job and obtain housing, ultimately

(01:45:30):
increasing the likelihood of committing crimes in the future. The
nonprofit think tank Prison Policy Initiative estimates twenty seven point
seven billion dollars in annual direct costs of incarceration on
individuals and families across the US. Families pay in on bail,
legal fees, civil asset forfeiture, commissary for loved ones, and

(01:45:51):
more often going straight to private prison operators. This also
doesn't begin to factor in the impacts on children and
local communities. The cost of incarceration on the state also
needs to be factored in. The California Legislative Analyst Office
estimates the annual cost of incarcerating one person in state
prison at one hundred twenty seven thousand, seven hundred eighty

(01:46:12):
eight dollars. With massive spending to bolster retail theft enforcement,
this could create a compounding problem, costing hundreds of millions.
In July of twenty twenty five, Di Stefan wrote in
congressional testimonies supporting Korka that her office had prosecuted over
two hundred eighteen cases of organized retail crime in just
two years. She says these cases involved theft losses of

(01:46:36):
more than two point six million dollars. Putting this into perspective,
if even half of those prosecutions resulted in one year
sentences in California state prisons, you're looking at an estimate
of nearly fourteen million dollars in incarceration costs, over five
times the reported theft value. But these thoughts don't really
seem to cross the mind of people like Da Stefan

(01:46:58):
or our pals at the NRF.

Speaker 2 (01:47:00):
This is an argument that drives me crazy, the idea
that they're stealing because they can't afford the food to
put on the table to feed their children.

Speaker 17 (01:47:08):
This is their sole job is to rip off your business.
That's their blob, that's how they wake up in the morning,
and so we didn't want them to wake up as
comfortably as.

Speaker 2 (01:47:18):
The before with their calculator.

Speaker 12 (01:47:21):
Yes, they paint this image of people almost getting off
on doing crime rather than any number of more charitable explanations.
At face value, it may just sound like typical high
minded bs from an aggressive DA and lobbyist. But obviously,
when you think about the position of power someone like
Stephan is in, it's pretty sickening. In another section of
the NRF podcast episode, they discuss people switching from drug

(01:47:45):
dealing to selling stolen merchandise because of lower penalties, generally
glossing over the circumstances that might lead an individual into crime.
Stefan even mentions the need to go after quote frontline boosters,
the people who are being hired to go into stores
and steel, who she admits are often homeless or poor.
It's honestly maddening the listening to this. So that's the

(01:48:06):
last quote I'm going to bring from that. Anyways, here's
some mats. So in the next episode we're going to
dive into the specifics of the corka bill and how
Ice has become a key player. But for now I

(01:48:27):
want to end on a note that ties together some
of the broader consequences of all this retail theft propaganda.
Lobbyists for the bill have a common refrain, quote, organized
retail crime is not a victimless crime.

Speaker 2 (01:48:38):
Unquote.

Speaker 12 (01:48:40):
I think the same goes for their lobbying. Corka hasn't
even passed the Senate yet there may already be some
downstream tragedies because of the intensified rhetoric around retail crime.
In recent years and months, there have been a number
of high profile killings of individuals accused of shoplifting by
both shop owners and police. In June of this year,

(01:49:00):
police shot and killed Cohen Wiley, a one year old boy,
while responding to a shoplifting call in Senatobia, Mississippi, over
allegedly stolen diapers. Police also shot his mother while her
friend was driving their car. Authorities claim they tried to
stop the vehicle, but the driver nearly hit an officer,
a story we've unfortunately become far too familiar with at

(01:49:23):
this point. Wiley's mother disputes that the diapers were even
stolen in the first place, and denies that her friend
drove towards the officers. Obviously, it didn't matter to the
trigger happy cops on the scene, who never should have
pointed firearms at the vehicle in the first place. Other
similar cases include the killing of Banco Brown, a black
twenty four year old trance organizer in San Francisco, by

(01:49:46):
a Walgreen security guard, and the killing of black fourteen
year old Cyrus Carmack Belton by a shop owner in
South Carolina. In Brown's case, San Francisco, Dia Brooke Jenkins,
who ran on a tough on crime agenda, not pursue
charges against security guard Michael Arlwaine Anthony, saying he acted
in self defense based on video footage. The video shows

(01:50:08):
Brown and Anthony fighting as Brown apparently tried to leave
the Walgreens without paying. They grapple on the ground for
a minute, then Anthony releases Brown but follows him to
the door. Brown stops just outside the store, possibly talking
back to the guard. Then the guard pulls his gun
and shoots Brown as he turns to run. Brown was unarmed,

(01:50:28):
and in interviews following the shooting, Anthony repeatedly misgendered him
for Carmack Belton, his killers. Shop owner cheek. Rick Chow
face trial for murder but was found not guilty. The
thing is Carmack Belton, ever actually stole anything, not even
the water bottles Chow wrongly accused him of. Prosecutors say

(01:50:49):
Chow chase the teenager one hundred and thirty yards outside
the store before shooting him in the back. Prosecutors acknowledged
that Carmack Belton had a pistol, but said that it
fell on the ground in the chase. It seems, based
on the reporting, that the only person who claims to
have seen the pistol or had it pointed at him
was Chow's son. I think all this just goes to

(01:51:11):
show where we place property, even just a few water bottles, snacks,
or diapers, relative to human life, especially those in black communities.
There's a very clear irony that may reflect the types
of enforcement we could see from CORCA, tough on crime
for the marginalized, not for those pulling the trigger. There's
no easy way to determine whether political statements about retail

(01:51:33):
crime have an effect on police or shop owners, but
it's not hard to imagine how a constant bombardment of
propaganda could embolden someone to take matters into their own hands.
The retail companies are complicit in this. Somehow they've managed
to turn a manufacturer's story into a national security crisis
where states grant hundreds of millions of dollars to protect corporations.

(01:51:55):
Retailers blame consumers when they failed to hit desired profits,
then they raise prices. When that fails, they demonize the
poor and rattle on about crime. Then they pilfer our
general funds and team up with the police to crack down.

Speaker 2 (01:52:09):
It's never enough.

Speaker 12 (01:52:11):
Now they've sucked in the federal government and we could
be on the verge of the next upgrade to ice terror,
but that'll have to wait for the next episode. We'll
see you tomorrow. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here

(01:52:35):
and our Retail Thunderdome. I'm Kevin Foster, and today we're
continuing our dive into organized retail crime. In the last episode,
I went over the multi year propaganda campaign waged by
the retail lobby to make organized retail crime into a
national crisis, requiring stricter policing and penalties and investment from
all levels of government. I recommend listening to that episode

(01:52:58):
before this one. But in short, huge swaths of politicians
bought right in spending hundreds of millions at the behest
of retail giants despite a serious lack of evidence. I
also touched on the advancements in surveillance at retail stores.
Whether we see a rollout of AI powered robots in
the coming years may not matter so much as many
industry leaders are already implementing facial recognition technology and creating

(01:53:22):
watch lists under the guise of loss prevention. And this
surveillance dragnet is a key element in the rising concern
around the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act or CORKA, which
passed the House of Representatives in May with resounding bipartisan support.
In all likelihood, CORCO will be signed into law. In
today's episode is about why that is very bad and

(01:53:45):
how it's going to impact the American public, notably immigrants.
Let's get right into it. The Combating Organized Retail Crime
Act has remained in circulation for years, but to get
it over the finish line, the retail lobby and supporters
of the legislation and ultimately found a new boogeyman, cargo theft.
And this is how they've managed to turn a manufactured

(01:54:06):
retail theft story into a national security problem that demands
intervention by the Department of Homeland Security. In a nutshell,
the cargo theft narrative has striking similarities to organized retail crime.
The American Transportation Research Institute says there's between one point
eight billion and six point five billion dollars in yearly

(01:54:27):
losses because of cargo theft, but this includes indirect costs
a measure of costs across the entire supply chain in
terms of the actual value of goods. Cargo net, a
nationally coordinated database placed total cargo theft losses at seven
hundred twenty five million across the US and Canada in
twenty twenty five, despite total physical losses being under a

(01:54:50):
billion dollars. There have been more attempts to dramatically inflate
the numbers. Phil Brink, the quote head of fraud Media
and Education unquote at freight Waves, a trucking logistics and
news company, estimated the total losses could actually be closer
to sixty billion dollars because of under reporting of theft.
No clear evidence is provided to back up this assertion

(01:55:13):
other than unnamed experts. If this sounds familiar, it's almost
the exact same story as the National Retail Federation's fraudulent
organized retail crime numbers, where they inflated their stats by
an order of magnitude, mostly based on vibes. And while
cargo theft did spike in twenty twenty three, a funny
little side note is that AI integration into logistics might

(01:55:35):
be a big part of the problem. Reporting in the
news outlet the Lever indicates that instead of modern day
highway robberies, cargo theft is beginning to look more like
people simply impersonating trucking companies than fooling faulty new AI
logistics systems. And once they're cleared by the AI, they
can essentially just pick up the cargo and roll off.
So between retail crime and cargo theft were essentially operating

(01:55:58):
under two manufactures crises. And yet here's the language any
Combating Organized Retail Crime Act quote. Organized theft groups impact
the national security of the United States through financing trans
national criminal activity and providing profit and proceeds supporting larger
criminal goals of the criminal organizations. In other words, retail

(01:56:20):
crime is now a national security threat and it demands
the influence of Homeland Security and ICE, specifically Corka, calls
for the establishment of a coordination center to combat organized
retail and supply chain crime. The DHS Secretary will establish
the center, and it will be run by an individual
chosen by the Director of ICE. Fantastic in essence, this

(01:56:44):
coordination center will be the hub for federal law enforcement
activity and connections between the national and local level and
the public and private sector. Obviously, ICE deepening its involvement
in our day to day lives is something to be
concerned about. But here's where it gets really crazy. The
bill states, quote in general, subject to the approval of

(01:57:04):
the director of the center, information that would otherwise be
subject to the limitation on the disclosure of confidential information
set forth in Section nineteen oh five of Title eighteen
United States Code may be shared if such disclosure is
operationally necessary unquote. Putting the legalese aside. What this means
in practice is that ICE can access confidential and proprietary

(01:57:28):
data from retailers, and because operationally necessary is an extremely broad,
undefined term, ICE is essentially given full discretion over what
data they can collect. If anyone questions them, they'll likely
just say we need to play it safe because organized
retail crime is a matter of national security that could
finance drug and weapons trafficking, harming Americans. So that retail

(01:57:52):
surveillance dragnet I mentioned in Part one, the AI facial recognition,
the robots, the customer profiles, they say can be leveraged
to boot customer loyalty. ICE could potentially leverage that data
in its immigration crackdown. Imagine a world where ICE knows
who is going to witch stores and when. No need
for scanning license plates on the streets anymore. Now they

(01:58:13):
can just look up your customer profile and head over
to Walmart when you're doing your biweekly grocery run. Given
what we've seen in the past year and a half,
ICE will likely try to leverage this heavily. They already
have facial recognition technology like the mobile Fortify app, which,
according to Vanderbilt University's School of Law, is connected to
a database of over two hundred million images. The ACLU

(01:58:37):
of Wisconsin states that you may already be in this database,
as it's connected to other databases containing federal biometric systems,
passport and visa records, and state driver's license photos. A
depressing little side note some of this may have been preventable.
For example, in Oregon, the state police are being sued
for sharing data with ICE, even though they and our

(01:58:58):
governor were worn by Congress members to close certain loopholes
that gave ICE access to DMV records. Now, obviously, grocery
stores present a significant vulnerability to maintaining our privacy due
to basic human needs. Nothing is clearly stopping ICE from
running face scans out of retail stores and creating a

(01:59:19):
new front for their anti immigrant crackdown. And there's already
a blueprint for this. The ACLU published an article in
January this year about Wegmans using facial recognition and sharing
data on quote persons of interest with law enforcement on
a quote, case by case basis. It's unclear how or
if retail stores will challenge ICE's access in any way.

(01:59:41):
As of now, many have been fully on board with
the organized retail theft hype train. On the other hand,
on May eleventh this year, a coalition of forty civil
rights organizations, including the Immigrant Defender's Law Center in the
National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, sent a letter to
Congress urging the House not to pass corka highlighting how

(02:00:02):
it would massively expand DHS's role in authority in domestic
law enforcement, and the issues don't end there. They also
pointed out how CORCA gives DHS influence over local and
state law enforcement through the ability to expand certain grant requirements.
In effect, this coalition sees a pathway for DHS to
push jurisdictions toward more intrusive data collection and surveillance, especially

(02:00:26):
if that jurisdiction is receiving federal grants. Additionally, the coalition
noted how the sunset provision for the CORCA Coordination Center
quote includes no requirement to dismantle data sharing systems, delete
collected information, or reverse any entrenched surveillance practices quote, So
these practices could very well be here to stay without

(02:00:48):
some sort of intervention down the line. Good luck to
us trying to get that. I think, as James put
it in a conversation we had, it's like trying to
convince a bunch of the HOA moms that we need
to be softer on real detail crime. It just doesn't
really seem like it's going to happen. And unfortunately, this
coalition letter largely fell on deaf ears, with only fifty

(02:01:09):
nine Democrats and one Republican voting against Corka in the House.
I've spoken with many people about this, and there's often
this question of like do they know? And I'd argue,
it's their job to know, and this pill is pretty
cut and dried power expansion for Ice. It's kind of
hard to tell how they wouldn't have seen this coming,
especially with progressive groups warning them about it. And by

(02:01:32):
now this coalition has grown to over one hundred and
twenty organizations urging the Senate not to pass Corka. In
spite of this, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Senator
Chuck Grassley and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin have teamed up
to add Corka as an amendment to the National Defense
Authorization Act for fiscal year twenty twenty seven. This would

(02:01:52):
essentially just mean entrenching this into our defense policy. And
if that happens, which seems somewhat likely, I suspect it's
Kurt and Corca is going through. I highly doubt that
the Democrats are going to hold the line on the
NDAA for something they clearly either don't care about or
don't seem to understand. But what they might care about
are the products and services that support this podcast, And

(02:02:25):
we're back, and I'm imagining this is starting to sound
pretty frightening, and it is to cool the temperature a bit.
It's important to consider ICE's capacity for enforcement. They've had
ways of accessing various surveillance tools for quite some time now.
To some extent, they likely could have done some of
this stuff with flock cameras or other automated license plate readers.

(02:02:46):
But I think the threat in retail comes more from
the pre existing infrastructure and the fact that this bill
seems to give ICE sweeping access to confidential and proprietary information. Still,
there are strategies for resisting this, I won't lie. Many
of them are time intensive and require consistent community effort,
but that's the world we're in. For example, in Hillsboro, Oregon,

(02:03:09):
just west of Portland, local mutual aid groups began delivering
groceries to immigrant families who are afraid to go outside
in the middle of Operation Black Rows, which was the
massive ice surge last fall in winter. In Los Angeles
last summer, similar groups set up community defense corners outside
home depot parking lots in an attempt to protect day
laborers from ice raids. These usually manifested as just pop

(02:03:33):
up tents with community members water and snacks. Certainly didn't
stop everything, but I know one group in Pasadena that
was allegedly the last home depot in LA to be raided,
and they had a consistent community effort for months. In
terms of shopping, avoiding loyalty programs may end up being necessary,
as this is one of the ways that we hand
over a lot of our data to stores. But shopping

(02:03:55):
locally or at stores that collect less data will probably
be the best bet. So CORKA clearly has a number
of ways that it could be abused by ice. But
to get the full extent of what we're dealing with,
I got in contact with Laura Conover, who is the
district attorney in Pima County, Arizona, which contains Tucson and
borders the Mexican state of Sonora. Contrary to Da Stephen

(02:04:16):
featured in the first episode, Conover has actually been an
outspoken opponent of CORKA. In particular, she has tied CORKA
to the Lake and Riley Act, saying Congress is just
compounding mistakes it already made. The Lake and Riley Act
became law on January twenty ninth, twenty twenty five, passing
Congress again with a substantial amount of bipartisan support greater

(02:04:38):
than sixty percent in both chambers. It's a particularly abhorrent
piece of legislation, as a quote requires DHS to detain
certain non US nationals who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting,
assault of a law enforcement officer, or any crime that
results in death or serious bodily injury to another person.

(02:05:01):
Notice how it says arrested, not charged, not convicted, but
simply detained for one of the crimes listed, even if
the individual didn't actually do anything wrong. The law also
allows states to sue the federal government for alleged failures
and immigration enforcement, meaning the federal government can effectively be
held liable for a number of things, such as if

(02:05:23):
an undocumented immigrant causes harm to state residents, including financial
harm greater than one hundred dollars. It's tough to say
the extent to which this could be applied, but the
through line between this and CORKA is pretty clear. ICE
could monitor retail locations for thefts and shoplifting through CORCA
then they're essentially liable if they don't seek to detain

(02:05:45):
someone who has stolen more than one hundred dollars worth
of merchandise. Conover has specific examples of the ways in
which the Lake and Riley Act is burdening local jurisdictions,
destroying due process protections, and ultimately how CORKA will very
likely make this worse. For example, it was Conover's job
to prosecute the case of Jessica Corles Duarte, who entered

(02:06:07):
the US when she was two years old with her mother,
who had fled domestic abuse in Mexico and obtained legal
status through the Violence Against Women Act. Corrales Duarte became
a DOCA recipient, and she's now thirty two or thirty
three based on the articles that I read, and she
has two children. But in the past years she was
arrested and charged with shoplifting and theft, and her DOCA

(02:06:29):
status has been terminated. She allegedly stole up to fifty
seven hundred dollars in perfume from an Alta beauty location
over three days, which put her over the felony theft threshold,
though this number is disputed by her defense. She had
no prior criminal record, and Conover said based on a
tape confession, she likely would have qualified for a program
where she could pay restitution and get back on her feet.

(02:06:52):
Then ICE came in. They detained Corles Duarte as she
was leaving her home for her waitressing job. The ensuing
months where it is at ICE held her at the
Elloyd Detention Center, about an hour from Tucson, and blocked
her from attending many of the court dates for her
shoplifting case. According to an article in the Tucson Spotlight,
here's da Conover on the situation.

Speaker 19 (02:07:14):
So, for example, in our case, the result was just
defendants disappearing into federal custody and before any normal process.
So you've got a victim who's now totally out of
luck for any kind of restoration, be that through probation

(02:07:37):
or through restitution, which is important.

Speaker 4 (02:07:40):
You know.

Speaker 19 (02:07:40):
So victim's rights are violated. The defendant obviously gets no
due process. You know, in our experience, they hardly had
any contact with their attorney, and their attorney was just
rendered totally ineffective in the local court. So it confounds
the entire normal criminal justice to this process. It's like

(02:08:02):
the opposite of collaboration.

Speaker 12 (02:08:06):
So not only are Kerles Duarte's rights violated on multiple levels,
but it also actually hurts the property owner because they
won't receive restitution if someone is deported. It's not clear
whether Korles Duarte was involved in some sort of organized
retail theft operation, but I want to stress again that
the people in such a situation who actually do this dealing,
commonly referred to as boosters, are often poor, homeless, or

(02:08:29):
struggling in some way themselves. Many of you probably already
know this, but undocumented people commit less crime overall than
American citizens. An analysis by the National Institute of Justice
using data from Texas between twenty twelve and twenty eighteen
found that undocumented immigrants had offending rates less than half
of that of US born citizens. This is in spite

(02:08:51):
of the fact that the US fakes it much harder
for undocumented people to obtain good paying jobs, which can
drive people into poverty and therefore crime. And for all
of this conover inform me that corle S Duarte appears
to be in process for deportation away from her children.
There are just more effective and humane ways to deal
with this, like the diversion programs mentioned which don't need

(02:09:14):
to involve the federal government, but instead we're just giving
more power ties With.

Speaker 19 (02:09:19):
Lake and Riley and with Corka, you're talking about such
a street level, local issue where we have local police
and prosecutors whose entire purpose is to prosecute local crime,
and to just give some random federal agency authority over

(02:09:39):
that sweeping new authority of that just doesn't make any
sense operationally. Not to mention the particular agency is one
in which there's bipartisan concern about how recklessly they're being managed.

Speaker 12 (02:09:54):
On the note of recklessness, with the expansion of ISIS
surveillance network comes greater concern over warrantless enforcement, constitutional violations,
and technological mistakes. The podcast Reveal reported a case of
ICE scanning the face of a twenty three year old
US citizen purely on suspicion, and according to Innovation Law Lab,
the same seems to have happened to a woman in Oregon,

(02:10:17):
where Ice used a Palanteer developed platform called Elite, which,
without a warrant, essentially geofence is an area and creates
targets with a quote immigration nexus. In this case, the
mobile Fortify app returned two different incorrect names and images
for the same woman. Still ICE has told lawmakers it's
a definitive measure of immigration status that effectively supersedes other

(02:10:41):
evidence of citizenship, such as a birth certificate. The National
Institute of Standards and Technology has also reported that facial
recognition tech is less accurate on women than men, black people,
and other individuals with darker skin. This hull gets much
worse when you're not in a controlled environment where you
can get a well lit, straight on shot of someone's

(02:11:03):
face with no obstruction. Certainly something that isn't going to
happen under the floodlights of a grocery store entryway. So again,
I can't really say to what extent ICE will actually
integrate all of these technologies or what capacity they'll have
for enforcement, but it seems like the worst case scenario
could be a warrantless surveillance frenzy where they couldn't care

(02:11:23):
less if they're detaining the right people. I say the
right people as in the individuals that they're actually targeting,
and I don't actually believe there is a right person
to be detained.

Speaker 4 (02:11:33):
It's all bullshit.

Speaker 3 (02:11:35):
But as Corka also calls for local and federal collaboration,
cops could very easily worsen this problem, and ICE can
leverage the Lake and rileyac to ramp up deportations. It's
not good, but anyways, here's some ads. We're back to

(02:12:01):
round out this two parter and like to connect some
of the dots from the first episode to Corca. To
do so, I've chatted with James about a concept known
as moral turpitude. Moral turpitude is a vaguely defined concept
and there's lots of nebulous legal language surrounding it, but
in essence, it's a crime that is considered morally offensive

(02:12:21):
and it's important to immigration law. Notably included in this
definition is larceny or theft, and a conviction for one
of these crimes can render an immigrant either inadmissible or deportable.
Here's some of the conversation that James and I had.

Speaker 20 (02:12:36):
In admissibility could be important for someone who is inside
the United States. Let's say they call it ewe entered
without inspection. That means coming into the United States, not
through a port of entry.

Speaker 5 (02:12:47):
Right.

Speaker 20 (02:12:47):
Let's say they went over the wall, under the wall,
around the wall, through the river, through the desert, through
the mountains. Right, the many ways that people can enter
with that inspection, they could then be found inadmissible long
after entering the United States because they hadn't been admitted, right,
they just came in. Just imagine, like you want to
go Disneyland. It's prohibitively expensive, so you climb over defence.

(02:13:11):
You were not admitted to Disneyland. Yeah, right, So if
Disneyland found you, they would kick you out. The issue here,
Let's say if someone has been in the United States
for a number of years but they are undocumented. If
they are found guilty of a crime including moral turpitude,
or convicted of a crime moral turpitude, and the offense

(02:13:34):
carries a maximum sentence of one year or more and
the person committed the offense within five years after the
date of admission, they are then deportable. Now if the eweed,
if they ended with that inspection, there aout other reasons
they could be deportable. Right, But I did say somebody
has a visa. The same is true with inadmissibility.

Speaker 12 (02:13:56):
Right.

Speaker 20 (02:13:56):
So we recently had a Supreme Court ruling about admissibility
with regard to permanent residents, which kind of brings them
closer in line to visa holders. But admissibility doesn't just
mean them giving you the visa. It could also, for example,
impact you if you went somewhere else and return to
the United States. Right, So a crime evolving moral TERMSUD

(02:14:17):
could then render you in admissible, so you could be
detained or not admitted to the United States when you
came back. It's also important, I guess, to note that
some diversion programs State diversion programs don't count as a
conviction in terms of federal immigration law if a guilty
plea is not entered. So if somebody who could previously

(02:14:41):
have got into a diversion program ends up not in
a diversion program. In addition to Corker, right, we have
all these state sentencing enhancements. Yeah, we see in California. Right,
If that person ends up with a conviction instead of
being putting a diversion program without entering a plea, that
is a night and day different in immigration terms.

Speaker 2 (02:15:03):
Right, It's black and white.

Speaker 20 (02:15:04):
One is a conviction for what it's probably a crime
evolving moral turpitude, because lars andy is a crime evolving
moral turpitude, and I think that's what this generally falls under.
Rent again, not a lawyer. But if that is the case,
one of these sentencing enhanced and at a state level
results in somebody now having, for federal immigration terms, a

(02:15:26):
conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude. They are now
inadmissible and in a single conviction, as I said before,
can make a non citizen deportable if it has a
possible sentence for a year or more, which these sentencing
enhancement to make a lot more likely. Right, and good luck,
I guess trying to find some way of getting that
conviction overturned or like you now you're fighting against all

(02:15:49):
this lobbying that retailers are doing, right, and all this
propaganda that has been put out there that is going
to make it harder and harder for people to avoid
those convictions in the first place, and then to get
them overturned.

Speaker 4 (02:16:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (02:16:03):
I don't want to get like to doom and gloom
about it, but like, do you worry that there's just
a combination of factors here that could massively worsen things
with at the level?

Speaker 10 (02:16:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 20 (02:16:12):
Yeah, Like every time we make a new law, we're
giving a new powers to the state, right, and every
single law is backed up by violence a matter of
if it's a parking ticket or murder. Right, the state
can lock you up, beat you up, or shoot you up.
That is the basis on which all laws rest. Right. Yeah,
so you don't pick a parking ticket that you don't

(02:16:32):
go to court. Eventually someone's going to turn up, but
your Dora is going to be a person with a gun, right, Like,
that is the structure on which the state exists to
use like the crass Faburian definition of the state. I
guess this is a big one, right. We are handing
a bunch of tools here to an entity which is
tearing families apart, which is ripping children from parents, which

(02:16:55):
is taking grandmothers away from their grandchildren.

Speaker 12 (02:16:58):
Right, yeah, I mean what do you Maybe this isn't
for the episode, but like, what do you think people
should do?

Speaker 2 (02:17:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 20 (02:17:08):
Like, the answer to this is the same as an
answer to everything. It's stronger. Community is Like, people steal
things because they need to meet their material needs. Sure,
some people also enjoy stealing stuff, Right, that's the thing
that exists, But the vast majority of FAFT is happening
because people are not meeting their material needs. We need
to work out a way to meet each other's material needs.
And like I was in Minneapolis in January, right, yeah,

(02:17:31):
very hard for me to be hungry in Minneapolis in January.
Like I'm vegan, I'm annoying to feed, right, but people
would constantly bring me fucking food and hot tea. And
like that's not the be all end all, but gets
us a long way there. Like if your neighbors aren't hungry,
and I guess to know if your neighbors are hungry,

(02:17:52):
you have to know who your neighbors are, right, So like,
start by knocking on someone's door, you know, start by
your truck's not working. Let's work it out. I bet
I can find a YouTube video. We can watch you.
You have a bunch of sockets. Let's see how we
can fix it.

Speaker 12 (02:18:09):
So I know the ending of this is sort of bleak,
but I just want to be honest with you about
the possibilities. If I used this to take Korka as
far as they can, as Da Conover told me, you
give them an inch and they take a mile, then
this will get very bad. Surveillance capitalism isn't going to
draw a line at immigrants, but that doesn't really matter
either way. Clearly, the Democratic Party, given their votes support

(02:18:33):
is not going to stop this. As James said, It's
going to come down to community. So go find your
co op grocery store. Get to know your neighbors' faces
before Ice gets to know your face at.

Speaker 5 (02:18:43):
The grocery store.

Speaker 1 (02:18:45):
Thanks for listening.

Speaker 11 (02:18:58):
There were some strange looking at people at RNC. This
is it could happen here at Executive Disorder Hour, with
the newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the
crumbling world, and what this means for you. I'm Garrison
Davis to They am joined by Robert Evans and Mia Wong,
with a special segment later on by James Stout, who
is on the ground in Spokane. This episode recovering the

(02:19:19):
week of July twenty ninth to August fifth, And let's
actually start with James reporting from the wildfires in Spokane.

Speaker 20 (02:19:31):
Hi, everyone, it's James. I'm in Washington State this week
covering the fires here. I will cover more in depth
on my new show Natural Courses, which you will soon
be able to download wherever quality podcasts given away for free,
but I want to catch everyone up on the fires here.
As an a little folk prefer to consume then news
this way and might otherwise not be aware of what's

(02:19:51):
going on. So on the first of August, the National
Weather Service in each Washington and in Idaho issued a PDS,
a Particular Dangerous Situation Notice. Fires were already burning across
much of the state and across much of the Pacific Northwest,
including on the land of the Colville Tribes and the
Spokane Tribe. On Saturday, three fires struck near the north

(02:20:13):
part of the city of Spokane. The PDS doubtless helped
some folks prepare other folks, I'm sure will have missed
it entirely. Very quickly, people went from nothing to level
three go now warnings. This was somewhat compounded by things
like a large travel volleyball tournament happening in an area
which got a level three go now warning. What that

(02:20:35):
means if you're not familiar. There are three levels of
warnings when you are evacuated for a fire, and their
level three is the most severe one, that being like
you have to leave your home right now. Several people
have related to me, and I want to caveat here
that I'm not being critical of the response, which has
actually been very good. I'm giving information because more people
are going to find themselves in this situation in the future.

(02:20:56):
And I think is important that people understand that the
level three warning that buzzed on people's phones of the
emergency alert came not very long before they saw fires
and even structures on fire in the neighborhood.

Speaker 10 (02:21:07):
Right.

Speaker 20 (02:21:07):
I think people sometimes think that someone will come and
tell you when it is your time to leave, and
that's not always going to be possible, right, And again,
I'm not conveying that to say that, like the response
here was poor.

Speaker 2 (02:21:19):
I'm conveying that to say that.

Speaker 20 (02:21:22):
People need to understand this because we're all going to
have to live with fire in the West because there
has always been fire here. The climate is changing and
we are pushing our homes further and further into the
wildland urban interface, and that is where this fire began.
Right on Saturday. This state was a tinderbox, and it
was these neighborhoods along the wildland urban interface that caught

(02:21:44):
the brnt of these fast moving fires that had a
plentiful source of fuel and were pushed along.

Speaker 2 (02:21:48):
By the wind.

Speaker 20 (02:21:49):
Currently, about a third of the two hundred thousand people
who live here in Spokane have been placed under evacuations
orders and the community is obviously feeling the way of that,
along with the hundreds of people who lost their homes
and all their possessions. Here notable points of the evacuations
included buses evacuating people from Old Folks homes and a
VA hospital was also evacuated by buses. And of course

(02:22:11):
many people left their homes in their cars with their possessions,
their pets, their families, etc. And of course that resulted
in very slow moving traffic. Nonetheless, from what I heard
this morning, seems everyone evacuated in time at least to
save themselves. I know many people will be dealing with
tragedies right They've lost their homes, people will have lost pets,
people will have lost things that are incredibly important to them.

Speaker 4 (02:22:35):
I spoke to.

Speaker 20 (02:22:37):
People out on the Covial Tribes reservation who were saying
they had lost homes that their father, mother, grandparents built
with their hands, right these intergenerational homes that had gone.
That is absolutely tragic. I want to give an update
that I got this morning from a public information officer
of the IMT that's managing this fire, so we'll drop
that in right now.

Speaker 5 (02:22:58):
My name's Tom Stokesbury.

Speaker 15 (02:23:00):
I'm the lead public information officer for California Interagency Incident
Management Team seven. So right now, there's three fires that
make up the Spokane area fires. That's going to be
the Fairview Fire, the Old Trails Fire, and the Autumn
Lane Fire. Currently all totaled in the acres is ten
five hundred and forty But over the last twenty four hours,

(02:23:20):
our firefighters have made tremendous progress in putting control lines
in around the entire perimeter of all three fires. Now
that doesn't mean the fires contained or controlled. We just
have those management and control lines. There still have an
active firefight. Sty'll have active flames in the interior. To
the point, on the Old Trails and Fairview fire, we
actually had a spot outside the line on each one

(02:23:41):
of those that went to about an acre acre and
a half, but we had the resources in the right
place and they were able to pick those up at
about one acre each. So that just kind of proves
that there's still active heat hot spots in this interior
and that's why we have engines and all three of
these fires still protecting the structures that have not been
impacted yet because any kind of wind can throw embers,

(02:24:05):
and right now, the receptive fuels in this area. In
by fuels, I mean the vegetation that is so dry,
right your grass, your brush, it's very receptive to those embers.
Proof being is the two spot fires. But we have
thirteen hundred firefighters here. We're expected to be over two
thousand by the end of the week.

Speaker 20 (02:24:22):
I also asked about the number of structures impacted and
when people here can expect to return home. And here's
what Tom said.

Speaker 15 (02:24:28):
Right now, we're well over seven hundred structures that have
been impacted. We do have damage assessment personnel ordered and
en route. It's my understanding they'll be showing up today
and we'll have them on the ground tomorrow. So we're
going to start to get a more accurate number of
what those impacted structures look like versus a total loss
to just an impacted structure. And those structures include not
only people's personal homes, but garages, outbuildings, sheds. But we're

(02:24:52):
going to get a better accurate number on those over
these next few days, trying to get these communities back
to where we can get them repopulated. But in addition
to that, there there's a tremendous amount of hasmat in there.
We're talking burned solar panels, we're talking LPG, possible gas leaks,
the building materials from homes that have been burnt, the
stuff that's inside those homes. There is a lot of hazmat.

(02:25:13):
So we have to ensure the public is going to
be safe before we repopulate and let them back in there,
because our ultimate goal is life first, then property, and
that life is not just firefighters, it's the public safety.

Speaker 7 (02:25:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 20 (02:25:25):
Well, I was at the fire based camp also ran
into local community members and businesses who are helping out.
People were constantly dropping off food and snacks and supplies.
His One local business owner who explained his efforts to.

Speaker 7 (02:25:39):
Me, So, my name is Tim Codzy. I'm with JK. Boots.
I'm one of the owners with my brother, and.

Speaker 20 (02:25:46):
I asked him what him and his company we're doing
to support the community.

Speaker 7 (02:25:49):
On Wednesday, August fifth, we're doing something home Front Day.
We're going to donate one hundred percent of all the
profits of that day to the Spokane residents who lost
their homes so they could do that, they could participate
just on our website and just do something, just get
something and that'll go to those people. The other things
you can do is you can come here and you
can offer to drop off you know again, drinks, wipes, essentials.

(02:26:09):
You can look on Facebook, they've posted those things. The
other big thing is just there's other funds that are
set up that have like meal trains, and because there's
about sixty thousand people that are still not a bit
not able to go back to their homes.

Speaker 20 (02:26:21):
Yeah, yeah, what's happening in Spokene is tragic and it
is going to impact this community for years to come.
It will take a very long time for rebuilding to happen,
and probably even longer for people to heal emotionally. I
want to make sure that we do not overlook the
several large ongoing fires are impacting the indigenous communities around

(02:26:43):
the city though, because as resources shift to the fires
that then the city, these communities will see fewer resources,
and indeed they already have seen fewer resources. I spent
the last couple of days visiting the Colville Tribes Reservations
Spokane Tribe Reservations.

Speaker 2 (02:26:57):
Today.

Speaker 20 (02:26:57):
I spoke to folks who would cut their own file
around their homes and communities who were prepared to fight
the fire. And indigenous people here have lived with fire
for thousands of years, right, They have a deep understanding
of fire, and people there had decided to stay and
to defend their communities, even in areas that were impacted
by Level three evacuations. Not everybody, right, Some people who

(02:27:20):
were more vulnerable, Some people who were not able to
pass this bit in that response or didn't feel safe
doing so, left, and the folks stayed. As resources continue
to be diverted to fight these fires and spokene, and
as news coverage will continue to center on the city,
folks who lost their homes out in these tribal communities
will also need help, and it might be harder for
them to find it. Some of these people are still

(02:27:42):
in their homes. Just today, I spoke to several people
who determined to do the hardest to save their homes
and hoping that the wind doesn't pick up. They're cutting
their own fire lines. In several cases, forestry and mining
workers as well as tribal community members who were on
contract fire crews, have been using their machinery and their
skills to clear space and create better firebreaks around their communities.
It's a really tragic and difficult situation, especially when combined

(02:28:06):
with this reporting that I will link to of Red
Cross volunteers making racist remarks shelters that made Indigenous folks
feel unwelcome there. I don't think I need to repeat those,
but I will link to the story if you'd like
to read it. It is also, of course amazing to
see the strengths and resilience of communities coming together to
take care of one another in these tragic situations. I
particularly want to highlight the work of the River Warriors Society.

(02:28:30):
I spend today with them moving supplies from one reservation
to another. I will include a link to the Spokane
Tribal Network, which people can use if they'd like to
donate to support that mutual laid work. They're really doing
excellent work. They're getting people what they need, They're filling
those gaps. They're moving more quickly than big organizations of
big government things can even tribal governments where it will

(02:28:53):
require paperwork, whereas what they're doing is literally standing at
gas stations using cards to pay for people's gas so
they can get where they need to go right, getting
people hotel rooms, getting people food, getting people the things
they need to get through this and to begin healing. Today,
I help load hundreds of pounds of pet food and
animal food into a trailer, for instance, so that people

(02:29:15):
who need to feed their animals don't have to drive
for hours away from their homes right when the risk
of fire is high and they want to stay home
and do what they can to protect their homes. They're
really doing excellent work, and I would encourage you to
support them movie you have the resources. I will have
more of this when I get home. Currently, really tired,
smell like a campfire, and I am in the bathroom

(02:29:36):
of a motel because it is the only quiet place
I could find. If you'd like to donate, I would
suggest the Spokane Trible Network and I'll include their web address.
It's Spokantrible Network dot org, not hard to find. I
will also include the Innovia Foundation web page for donation
to folks in Spokane and their ongoing recovery. And yeah,

(02:29:57):
I'll have more on this soon.

Speaker 21 (02:29:59):
Everyone.

Speaker 20 (02:30:00):
Again, just a little pick up here that I wanted
to add. Someone has been arrested for arson in connection
with the Autumn Trails fire. I want to remind everyone
that an arrest is not a conviction. There were three
fires and impacted spoken and that fire needs more than ignition,
right to spread in the way that they did here.

(02:30:22):
It needs fuel crucially in this example, and that fuel
was already there.

Speaker 4 (02:30:26):
Right.

Speaker 20 (02:30:26):
That's why I wanted to highlight the PDS that was
issued on the first of August. Now, I also want
to address these conspiracy theories.

Speaker 1 (02:30:35):
Right.

Speaker 20 (02:30:36):
The most common conspiracy theory seems to be that this
was an attempt by big data center companies to clear
a block of land in order to have a place
where they could put a data center. I can tell
you that I've spent the last two days driving hundreds
of miles around eastern Washington. There is plenty of land

(02:30:58):
where you could put a data center here without burning
down the neighborhood. Data centers aren't that they are destroying
so many beautiful places and so many wonderful things. It
doesn't mean that they are comic book evil all the time.
I think we need to inject a little rational thought here.

(02:31:18):
We don't have any evidence that it was a data center.
We did, then people would be presenting it. But the
data center hypothesis seems to rest on people want to
build the data center near here, therefore burn down neighborhoods,
or the relatively common and frequently recurrent fifteen minute cities
conspiracy theory, which suggests that rather than fifteen minute cities

(02:31:42):
being an aspirational goal for urban planning and a framework
around which you consider permitting, building and potentially growing our cities,
they are some kind of George Sorrows mandated dictat that
is now being enforced by burning people's neighborhoods down in
suburban areas. Again to support that other than this wasn't

(02:32:03):
a city that, you know, the fifteen minute city people
consider to be a fifteen minute city. I want to
address these things because they come up every single time
there's a fire, and I think we need and we're
going to talk about this more in my show Natural Causes,
which you can hear from seventeenth of August wherever Good
Podcast giving away for free. There are going to be
fires in this ecosystem forever. There have been fires, since

(02:32:26):
there have been plants to burn. Lightning started fires before
people ever did. But the people who have been here
for tens of thousands of years have lived along side
fire for all that time. We can't entirely suppress fire
and remove it from our landscape. This landscape needs fire,
and it evolved co evolved with fire. But there are

(02:32:47):
ways that we can prevent fire from doing what happened today,
but they require a lot of effort, they require a
lot of resources, and they require some rethinking of how
we live along. That's something I'd like to approach later
and in more detail. But I guess I just wanted
to address these conspiracy theories because I see more and
more of them. Also want to point out that there

(02:33:09):
is no meaningful restitution that be astracted from one person
if that person did start the fire. Healing doesn't come
from punishing someone, comes from helping someone. And in this situation,
there are hundreds of families who lost their homes, both
on the Coval Tribes reservation, the Spokane Tribe Reservation, and
here in Spokane the city, and I think the focus

(02:33:30):
should be on how to help those people and how
to help them heal, rather than blaming one person who
may have started this fire, who may not write. We
haven't got a conviction yet, but either way, I want
people to remember that this is about a lot more
than one person.

Speaker 11 (02:33:48):
Thank you, James. In other news, on Monday, A federal
judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking New York's ban on
ice agents wearing manks. New York State is suing to
shut down Calshie for operating as an unregulated sports betting
platform that offers illegal underage gambling. The state is also

(02:34:11):
seeking thirty six billion dollars in penalties, and this lawsuit
comes after a district court ruled against Calshi in their
bid to protect itself from the enforcement of New York's
gambling laws. Prior to this lawsuit from the state, Calshe
attempted to bribe Governor Kathy Hokel by offering ten billion

(02:34:31):
in tax revenue over five years. The governor responded on
the everything app quote, Calshi can promise one hundred percent
of its revenue. You can't buy yourself an exemption from
New York law. If an i legal bookie offers this
state a share of their profits, will still shut them
down unquote. In response to a lawsuit from Trump accusing

(02:34:51):
Capital One of unlawfully closing his bank accounts for political reasons,
a Capital One is revealed in court filings that the
Trump or organization bank accounts were closed in twenty twenty
one for quote unquote anti money laundering reasons, following quote
months of analysis and careful review by the bank's money
laundering team. A few wants prior to the closure of

(02:35:15):
Trump's accounts, Capital One had to pay a three hundred
and ninety million dollar penalty to the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network for not enforcing an effective anti money laundering program.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's Senate confirmation hearing is coming up,
but last week President Trump said he would keep Blanche
on as acting Attorney General if Blanche doesn't get confirmed,

(02:35:38):
and just try to nominate him again after the midterms.
The US Attorney has dropped charges against three people who
were accused of damaging the Lincoln Memorial reflecting Pool. The
motion to dismiss the felony charge against the former Olympic
athlete claims that it wasn't until after he was indicted

(02:35:59):
that the Department of Interior gave evidence over to prosecutors
that quote damaged to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in
July twenty twenty six was the result of flawed installation
by the contractor and the rush to complete the project
prior to events associated with America two fifty celebration in
the weeks surrounding Independence Day twenty twenty six. The motion

(02:36:20):
also states, quote is difficult to attribute the widespread damage
to the reflecting pool to vandalism unquote. Of course, Trump
was not too happy about this, turning to truth social
to say, I disagree one hundred percent with the Chennin Piro,
the US attorney for the District of Columbia on the
reflecting Pool. I don't know what she was thinking. To me,

(02:36:43):
it was a pure case of vandalism in all caps.
That includes the grass which had a big eighty six
forty seven emblazoned in giant letters on it, Oh my god,
and many other elements of the surrounding area.

Speaker 2 (02:36:57):
Ah god, ah god, oh God.

Speaker 11 (02:37:00):
There may have been some contract or difficulty, but the
major damage was caused by vandals. President dj T. The
President later said that Piro quote unquote folded like an
umbrella end quote. Frankly, I think she choked because the
judge was really vicious unquote. There was some speculation that

(02:37:21):
he might fire the US attorney. That has not happened
as of yet, but who knows.

Speaker 2 (02:37:27):
You know, it's it's the Trump administration. Things could have
changed by the time we finished recording this. Yeah, there's
I got thirty percent chance things will have changed by
the time we finished recording this.

Speaker 11 (02:37:38):
Obviously, it's good that these charges were dropped. It was
very clear that the damage to the reflecting pool was
not done by vandals.

Speaker 2 (02:37:44):
No, and that fucking late, middle aged former olympian bending
briefly down to touch the water did not cause one
hundred and fifty foot cut in the fucking in this
central Absolutely not.

Speaker 4 (02:37:58):
Oh god.

Speaker 11 (02:38:00):
Ohio House Rep. Max Miller, who's accused of abuse and
breaking his two year old daughter's collarbone, which we covered
last week, posted a video this week addressing the allegations
made by his ex wife, saying, quote if I had
assaulted her, would she have offered to cook me dinner
six days later? Un quote. The next day, Trump was

(02:38:21):
questioned about Miller and said this.

Speaker 22 (02:38:23):
It's a very sad thing. I know Max, he said,
it's a good person. I mean, I always thought he
was a very good person. And I'm gonna let the
families figure that out. Those families, I know they're working
on it. It's a very sad thing, especially when you
know somebody so well could be going through that when
it's accusations, and I'm gonna let them figure that out.

Speaker 11 (02:38:46):
On Tuesday, it was announced the House Ethics Committee would
open investigation after Miller himself requested a probe into the allegations.
Let's go to an ad break and then return to
talk about the primary elections in Michigan and Missouri.

Speaker 21 (02:39:02):
Yeah, okay, we are back.

Speaker 11 (02:39:18):
This past Tuesday, left wing populist candidate Abdul el Said
beat corporate backed and APAC backed candidate Hailey Stevens in
the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan. In the week prior
to the election, pulling and showed el Said pulling way
ahead by double digits, but from election night he won

(02:39:38):
by just one point forty eight point five percent to
Stephen's forty seven point five percent. Very close race. Great
The more traditional progressive candidate Mallorie McMorrow, who suspended her
campaign months ago, got four percent of the vote over
sixty thousand votes. El Sayid ended up winning by j

(02:40:00):
fifteen thousand votes. But the fact that Tuesday wasn't a
total blowout for el Sayid should not take away from
the magnitude of this victory. Hailey Stevens had nearly seventy
million dollars of outside spending helping her in this race,
about half of which came from APAC. Elseayid was outspent
eleven to one. For the past month, Pro Stevens ads

(02:40:23):
have completely dominated the airwaves.

Speaker 2 (02:40:25):
Jesus, I didn't know it was that big a discrepancy
in funding. That's crazy.

Speaker 11 (02:40:29):
It's a brutal This is the most expensive Democratic Senate
primary and history. A pack and dark money really rallied
for Stevens, especially in this past month.

Speaker 2 (02:40:40):
Whoops.

Speaker 11 (02:40:41):
Some of those ads and mailers just completely blanketing Michigan
falsely implied that Stevens was endorsed by Barack Obama, which
some voters cited as their reason for supporting Stevens. Other
ads tried to smear Abdul as a sexist podcast bro
for comments critical of Michelle Obama and Gretchen Whitmer's politics.

(02:41:02):
Stevens received the endorsement of Michigan's sitting governor, Gretchen Whitmer,
as well as multiple Democratic Establishment figures Pelosi, Jim Cliburn,
as well as the Michigan Democratic Party Black and Jewish caucuses.
Israel and Palestine became a central issue in this race.
In the last two debates, Abdul hit Stevens again and

(02:41:22):
again over APAC and corporate funding. In the final debate,
even the moderator questioned Stevens on whether her APAC funding
would influence how she votes in Congress. Also in that
last debate, Stevens lied on stage about taking money from
utility companies. In an interview just a week before the election,
Stevens addressed the attacks over dark money funding. Quote, it

(02:41:46):
seems like we got the campaign finance zoomis Jesus Christ.
We've got to be really honest here. Who's benefiting from
this level of infighting. It's the republic kids who've already
have all their dark money all lined up and ready
to go. Unquote. Let's take a listen to what those
campaign of finance zuomies can buy you in the Senate.

Speaker 1 (02:42:08):
Israel comes to me in my dreams. I see Israel's future,
and I know that Israel.

Speaker 2 (02:42:14):
Will continue to exist for.

Speaker 11 (02:42:15):
The Jewish people, just the Zuomies.

Speaker 12 (02:42:18):
It's fine everyone, It's the Zuomies God, and she's Christ.

Speaker 11 (02:42:25):
I will not stop playing that clip because it's one
of the craziest things to have A then sit in
Congress person say.

Speaker 2 (02:42:31):
Yeah, now, Hailey.

Speaker 11 (02:42:34):
Stevens tried to attack Abduel for having a super pack
off his own, primarily funded by his father in law,
who did donate three hundred thousand dollars to the pack,
which was the highest individual contribution. You know, three hundred
thousand dollars from his father in law versus seventy million
dollars of outside sped. Dick is christ not a very

(02:42:55):
compelling argument, but that was that was one of the
main things that Stevens tried to hit Abdul law during
the last two debates when he brought up the massive
amount of eight pack spending backing her campaign. Abdul has
worked in public health since twenty fifteen, and for Senate
he ran on Medicare for All and abolishing medical debt,
which he did for three hundred thousand residents of Wayne
County in twenty twenty four as director of the county

(02:43:17):
Health Department. His platform also includes repealing Medicaid cuts from
Trump's quote unquote beautiful bill, codifying reproductive rights, and protecting
gender affirming care. His quote unquote money out of Politics
plank includes getting rid of Citizens United to stop dark
money packs, ending partisan gerrymandering, supporting Supreme Court reform, getting
rid of the filibuster, abolishing ICE and at quote ICE

(02:43:40):
funds should be repurposed to build out the legal infrastructure
of courts to create a clear pathway to citizenship for
those who are stuck in limbo in our current system.
Abduel supports Ukraine and opposes quote the illegal and unjustifiable
war in Iran. He also opposes quote direct blank check
funding to foreign militaries including Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE,

(02:44:04):
and others. And he supports an immediate arms embargo on
Israel and rejects quote the false differentiation between offensive and
defensive weapons, which is a reference to the Iron Dome.
His Money in Your Pocket platform includes an anti monopoly
FTC trade agreements negotiated with unions, restoring funding to the NIH,

(02:44:27):
opposing private school vouchers, tying increases in the defense budget
to an equal increase in education funding, Taxing capital gains
over a million dollars at the same rate as ordinary income,
closing loopholes used by the ultrawealthy, raising the marginal tax
rate on earnings over one million, and a billionaire tax.
He also supports a cost of living exemption on federal

(02:44:49):
taxes up to fifty thousand dollars and closing the Social
Security payroll tax cap. For housing, his platform aims to
streamline local regulations to make it easier to build, while
banning large corporations that speculate on housing stock from owning
homes and supporting legislation to ban algorithmic rental price fixing software.

(02:45:10):
El Said supports regulating AI companies, creating an independent technical
agency with real enforcement power for AI, which he cites
the FDA as an example, but having basically an FDA
type organization to regulate and handle AI. He also is
in support of federal zoning guidelines and legislation to protect
communities from the consequences of data centers. In a primary debate,

(02:45:33):
el Said said that data center projects must meet the
following terms quote all union labor, no raising our utility rates,
increasing our utility reliability, not touching our water. And there's
got to be a community benefits agreement that's negotiated in
good faith with all the money put into escrowow el
Said is not a DSA candidate. He does not call

(02:45:55):
himself a socialist, but he was endorsed by Bernie Sanders
AOC and can paint with Hassan Piker. He's also been
backed by the UAW, National Nurses United, the Working Families Party,
Jewish Voice for Peace, and If Not Now. A few
days before the primary, but after polling indicated that Abdul
would likely be the nominee, incumbent Republican Senator Mike Rodgers

(02:46:19):
released an AI generated ad depicting Abduel as a communist
trojan horse. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 4 (02:46:27):
They'll never see us coming.

Speaker 21 (02:46:31):
They really think we're just democrats.

Speaker 2 (02:46:35):
God Jesus Christ. Every AI ad, I hear Jeff Goldblum's
fucking voice say, you were so obsessed with whether or
not you could you didn't stop to think, you know,
should we? Is this a good idea? Is this ad
going to work?

Speaker 11 (02:46:50):
So basically, this ad has a trojan horse rolling into
Michigan with a large banner reading definitely not Communism. Inside
the horse of Duel is dressed as Odysseus from the
Nolan movie, along with Bernie Sanders IOC and so on,
Mom Donnie. Text at the end reads don't let communism
into Michigan. Mike Rogers for US said it, I think

(02:47:13):
Mike Rogers should keep releasing ads just like this, nothing else.
I wanted him just to keep releasing these ads. I
think that'll be great.

Speaker 2 (02:47:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (02:47:23):
Rogers did release the statement after Abdul's victory. Quote, I
spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bid Laden to justice.
Never in a million years did I think that I
would be running against someone who believes America deserved nine
to eleven unquote. Abdul has never said that, obviously.

Speaker 3 (02:47:42):
And I also think that this is a example of
just the sheer level of racism that has defined this campaign.
And we also saw versions of this with Mom Donnie.
But like, just the the unhinged amount of Islamophobia that
has been leveled against Ae just really really disturbing.

Speaker 2 (02:48:00):
And it's gonna get worse. Yeah, it's gonna get so
much worse.

Speaker 15 (02:48:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:48:03):
But it's also like this is an example of his
almophobia from the Republicans, for the Democrats have been doing
it too, and it's extremely bleak the extent to which
this is just a thing you can do running a
political campaign.

Speaker 2 (02:48:15):
Yeah, it's interesting because it isn't entirely, at least lately
to their benefit either, Like it it recently really screwed
them over in another Michigan race, right like Michigan's eighth district,
the Republican primary between Thomas J. Smith, Amir Hassan and
Al Limo. Thomas Smith took ahead even though he had
like suspended his campaign this campaign, like more than a

(02:48:37):
month ago. Amir Hassan had been endorsed by Trump and
is not a Muslim, but has a name that kind
of sounds like he would be like two a racist
and so like it beasts. That's the suspicion as to
why Hassan did not do better against someone who was
not actively running.

Speaker 11 (02:48:53):
Yeah, was not campaign.

Speaker 2 (02:48:55):
A lot of anger on truth social by MAGA people
who thought that Trump had endorsed a Muslim. Yeah, yeah,
it's just I mean, like the level of bigotry is
off the chart. It's interesting that it doesn't seem to
or at least in this case, it torpedoed a Republican
but not a Democrat, which I do think is kind
of fun. But yeah, the overall trend is very much
not fun.

Speaker 11 (02:49:15):
On a similar sort of note, last week, the Michigan
State AGDNA Nessl announced at an ADL quote unquote anti
Semitism roundtable great that she would not be attending the
Michigan nominating convention for their Democratic nominee over fears of
being booed for working with Trump and cash Hotel's FBI

(02:49:38):
to indict the pro Palestine student protesters in June.

Speaker 23 (02:49:43):
I'm not going to be attending the nominating invention for
the Michigan Democratic Party in August, and that is because
of both state going.

Speaker 24 (02:49:53):
I feel like my presence is not even involved.

Speaker 23 (02:49:56):
I don't want to get it chased around. I don't
want to get a prass.

Speaker 3 (02:49:59):
I don't want to in screedia.

Speaker 17 (02:50:01):
I don't want to get booed off.

Speaker 23 (02:50:03):
The stage, irrespective of what I'm saying. And I believe
that if I go, that is both It's been happening
to me.

Speaker 11 (02:50:13):
Gad fucked fuck yeah, which good like you are?

Speaker 3 (02:50:17):
You are by definition a collaborator for having participated in this.
That is like the the absolute bare minimum of accountability
that you should be facing is that you should be
booed every single place you go to.

Speaker 11 (02:50:30):
Her office has tried for years to go after propels
and protesters, and has been forced to drop charges because
her office was specifically discriminatory, and she only got her
way via teaming up with the Trump admin and cash
hotels FBI to go after student protesters. This is something
she's been trying to do for literal years and has
been unable to because her her office is too racist.

Speaker 3 (02:50:54):
Yeah, and again also like student protesters were horribly brutalized
by the police repeatedly. Is I think most people who
listen to this remember to some extents.

Speaker 4 (02:51:03):
But Yeah.

Speaker 11 (02:51:05):
Also in Michigan, DSA endorsed Rashida Telib handily won her
reelection in the District twelve primary with seventy four percent
of the vote. Also in Michigan, left wing populist and
co founder of the Sunrise Movement, William Lawrence won the
Democratic primary for House District seven with about fifty six
thousand votes. Two more kind of moderate candidates each got

(02:51:30):
thirty five thousand votes, so there is a sort of
moderates split here. Lawrence will now be facing the Republican
incumbent Tom Barrett, who won by just four points in
twenty twenty four. There's two hundred and twenty six thousand
votes to two hundred and nine thousand votes, so this
could end up being a close race. Really depends on

(02:51:52):
voter turnout.

Speaker 4 (02:51:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (02:51:53):
Now, Lawrence is a member of DSA but is not
DSA endorsed, though he does have the endorsement of Sanders
El said Rashida talib Rocana, the Nurses Union, Working Families Party,
and track a PAK.

Speaker 2 (02:52:05):
Quick update here.

Speaker 11 (02:52:07):
Lawrence went on CNN a Wednesday night to clarify that
while he used to be a member of DSA, he
let his membership lapse last month. In the weeks before
the election, Lawrence was attacked by the Democratic Establishment and
the Congressional Black Caucus for being quote unquote racist because
of a quote from a podcast conversation on black liberation

(02:52:29):
and black anti war activism with an activist named Hui
Peterson Smith. I'll read the full quote here that was
clipped and spread around mainly by huff Post. Quote the
extent to which the older generation of black political leadership
are such a pillar, frankly for establishment, capitalist, imperialist American
power through their role as this kind of traditionalist establishment

(02:52:51):
is pillar of the Democratic Party. It's a big problem.
It's a big problem for left politics in this country,
and it gets us every single time. It really the
white left and puts us in impossible positions. Really, quote
Willly Lawrence told huff Post quote, I've tremendous respect for
black community leaders who have been at the forefront of

(02:53:13):
the fight for freedom for centuries. This was in the
context of a wide ranging conversation with a guest on
the show about racial dynamics in progressive politics. I regret
how this specific point was expressed unquote, and yes, absolutely
there is no reason to say the white left there specifically,
this harms the entire left. There's really no reason to

(02:53:34):
say that. This is part of a larger conversation in
this podcast he was having about racial dynamics in like
left wing spaces. But I think that is a bad
thing to say. Lawrence added to his statement online, quote,
the way I made this point was clumsy, and I
regret my choice of words. I understand the potential impact
when received out of context. The way the story is

(02:53:55):
being reported does not reflect my beliefs. National elected leaders
across race, ethnicity, age, and gender had been supporters of
unnecessary US wars. This poses a challenge to the anti
war movement. Americans of all races and ages must work
together to advance peace. Until we do our resources, we'll
go to funding war and genocide abroad rather than investing
in infordable housing and healthcare, or closing the racial wealth gap.

(02:54:20):
DSA candidate Donovan McKinney beat Democratic incumbent Shri Tanadar by
almost four percent about four thousand votes in House District thirteen,
another close race. It was looking like Shri might pull
ahead earlier in the night, but Donovan did end up
winning and will now likely become another DSA congressman. Tanadar

(02:54:43):
was backed by Apak Hakeem Jeffries, the Congressional Progressive Caucus,
and the center left New Democrat Coalition. But it's not
all wins in Michigan. Kyle Blomquist, another DSA candidate for
Congress in Michigan House District one, lost to Moderate Hayley Barr,
who will now face the Republican incumbent in the general.

(02:55:06):
And DSA endorsed Asha Farruki lost to pro Israel Democrat
Jeffrey Moss for Hailey Stephens House seat. So those are
the two main losses for DSA last Tuesday, both US
House seats in Michigan, though I think it is interesting
to note that Detroit is now the only major city

(02:55:27):
in the country to be fully represented in the US
House by DSA candidates and two Day Say candidates for
the Michigan State House also won their primaries. In Missouri,
Corey Bush lost her comeback bid to incumbent Wesley Bell,
who was backed by a pack and was also really

(02:55:48):
really outspent, and the Kansas City DSA endorsed candidate Harzel
Gray lost his primary for House District four by just
under two thousand vo very close race, so lots of wins,
some losses, but even just l said winning is probably
the biggest blow to a pack that we've seen yet.

(02:56:11):
Like like I said, this is the most expensive Democratic
Senate primary in history in a state with open primaries,
where tens of millions of dollars in ad spending can
go really far in rural areas and with older, low
info voters, a left wing Muslim candidate overcoming both a
PAC and the Democratic establishment in a swing state is
a massive victory. I have one final little election update

(02:56:36):
for the gobnatorial race in Ohio. Oh God, because in
late July, Republican nominee for governor, the veck Ramaswami, spoke
or tried to speak at the Young Americans for Liberty
National Convention, an annual ron Paul Esque convention for young
libertarian conservatives at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ramaswami Is

(02:57:00):
speaking block was for thirty minutes. He lasted fourteen before
being booed off stage. Let's take a lesson.

Speaker 16 (02:57:07):
Truth of the matter is, you know, no matter what
happens in whichever direction goes people, my.

Speaker 2 (02:57:11):
Generational party made it. We're gonna be fun.

Speaker 1 (02:57:14):
It's gonna be your generation.

Speaker 21 (02:57:20):
You're a political green and you need to do.

Speaker 2 (02:57:27):
Seems like it's going great.

Speaker 11 (02:57:30):
So there are two cuts in that club. But all
that audio is from the last like two minutes of
his speech. Ramaswami was also booed as he first went
onto stage.

Speaker 2 (02:57:39):
Great sign, Great sign, And.

Speaker 11 (02:57:41):
Throughout the fourteen minutes he was heckled over Israel, H one, B, visas,
data centers, energy prices, and his comments about how the
socialist government sees your home as a wealth asset, to
which people in the crowd responded, we can't afford a home.

Speaker 2 (02:57:57):
Great, isn't the whole premise of our economy that your
home is like a wealth asset? Right?

Speaker 10 (02:58:04):
Like?

Speaker 11 (02:58:04):
Yeah, no, that's socialism, Robert.

Speaker 2 (02:58:06):
Doesn't everyone who owns a home seat their home that way.
Isn't that like the how all of the US economy
is predicated on. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Speaker 3 (02:58:13):
Literally, this distinction between between your house as a wealth
asset and your house.

Speaker 2 (02:58:18):
And you living in it. This is Chapter one of Capital. Yeah,
that's a wild state.

Speaker 11 (02:58:23):
Well exactly that is communist, That is kind I think
I think that that is exactly Ramaswami's point Throughout this
fourteen minute speech. He tried to say that, like, the
true divide in this country isn't isn't democrats as Republicans,
but winners versus whiners. So why would you be a
whiner and complain about all these things when you could

(02:58:45):
just win? And this actually mirrors one of Hailey Stephens
kind of late campaign tactics to refer to people to
her left as being part of the quote unquote complaining class.
Any like DSA, any kind of socialist person is part
of the complaining class. Anyone talking about you know, a
pak Israel, They're just complaining. Did not work out for Stevens,

(02:59:06):
as we know, and this might not work out for
Ramaswami either. Last month, the Cook Political Report switched the
Ohio gobnatoil race from Lean's Republican to toss up and
the latest New York Times Siena pol from late July
has the race in a tie.

Speaker 1 (02:59:25):
All I have to add is that it's funny.

Speaker 11 (02:59:27):
Yeah, it is funny.

Speaker 1 (02:59:29):
And I picture him walking around the RNC like once
a month. He looked like a sad little.

Speaker 11 (02:59:36):
Guy, not that little. His hair was very tall.

Speaker 1 (02:59:39):
His hair was very tall.

Speaker 17 (02:59:41):
His veneers, we were very right, were veneering.

Speaker 11 (02:59:46):
In the presidential race. You know, me and Robert were
talking about how much, you know, Ramasamm was trying to
go after this sort of like like groiper type of young,
young conservative, right, that that was kind of what his
like affect. That's a lot of stuff he was talking about,
seemed seemed to be rooted in and at this you know,
young Conservative convention, he was like loudly rejected. Right, this

(03:00:06):
is the type of person that he's like trying the
most to appeal to in some ways, or at least
used to. This was also the case when he was
doing campaign events with Charlie Kirk, one of which I
went to in Georgia before the presidential election. But he
was he was definitely trying to go after this sort
of like young male Republican and like get make sure
you mobilize them to the polls. Like that could be

(03:00:27):
the thing that tips over the race, is like getting
like young Republican males, and at least for the governatorial race,
his strategy of like, you know, it's up to you
to fix everything, Actually, millennials are going to be fine,
don't complain too much might not actually help mobilize young
voters in support of his campaign. So we will see

(03:00:47):
how that goes come November. Let's pivot to ads and
then return for some prediction market and tariff news, two
great tastes that go great together.

Speaker 2 (03:01:11):
And we're back. So I wanted to talk a little
bit more about the munition's crisis. I've reported several times
on the growing munitions crisis that the US military faces,
not just but largely as a result of our war
of choice with AROD advanced munitions. Though like one hundred
and fifty five milimeters artillery rounds have been stretched past
the point of sustainability for years now, since the expansion

(03:01:33):
of Russia's war with Ukraine, and so defense officials have
spent much of the last four years scrambling to increase
production of a number of different rounds, and there were
a bunch of articles in like the spring early summer
of twenty twenty five at the Trump Industry crowed over
about how they'd finally met their goal of quadrupling production
of one hundred and fifty five millimeters rounds, and a
major part of this was the construction and opening in

(03:01:54):
midcoat twenty twenty five of a fully operated one hundred
and fifty five millimeters artillery shell factory in miss Texas.
The factory is named Union Technologies. So that's all what
the administration reported last year, right. I want to quote
now from an article the Global Tactical Analysis Center put
out in February of twenty twenty six. The US military
is facing a significant crisis as production of one hundred

(03:02:15):
and fifty five millimeters artillery rounds at the Mesquite factory
has severely lagged. This shortfall raises alarms not only for
domestic military readiness, but also for ongoing foreign military sales
that depend on timely delivery of munitions. Army acquisitions are
Bryn Ingraham expressed explicit dissatisfaction with the facility's performance during
her recent congressional hearings, indicating that immediate investments are necessary
to correct course and avoid further delays. The logistical and

(03:02:38):
technical challenges at the Mesquite factory may involve outdated machinery
or insufficient workforce levels to meet production quotas. Current estimates
suggesting twenty five percent lag and output compared to contractual obligations,
and that sounds bad in and of itself. That's not accurate.
The lag is a lot more than twenty five percent.
Oh boy, yeah, yeah. The DoD Office of the Inspector

(03:03:00):
General went out to look into what's going on with
this plant and why isn't shell production up to where
the administration said it would be. They spent several months
investigating and put together a report that was published in
mid July of twenty twenty six. Here's a summary from
TWZ dot com. Despite receiving close to five hundred million
dollars from the US Army funded through supplemental spending bills
from fiscal years twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,

(03:03:21):
General Dynamics, Ordnance and Tactical Systems failed to make a
single subcomponent needed to produce the badly needed shells as
of last March without the thirty thousand additional projectile metal
parts anticipated from this skit facility, the Army will be
unable to reach its monthly capacity goal of one hundred thousand,
one hundred and fifty five millimeters artillery rounds. The report concluded,
as of March twenty twenty six, officials have not developed

(03:03:42):
a plan to produce the additional rounds that are supposed
to be produced at the Mesquite factory. So this means
that the US is produced and somewhere between like third
and a half of the goal the Trump administration claimed
they'd already reached. That's a little hard for me to tell.
I've heard as low as like thirty six thousand and
as high as like seventy thousand shells a month that
we're making, both of which are shorter than were supposed
to be. In for an idea of how much of

(03:04:02):
a problem this is, Ukraine, when things are at a
fever pitch, can fire up to eight thousand shells per day,
which means they're shooting enough over there to account for
a year of USHL production in two weeks. And as
a result of this discrepancy, the US has seen at
stockpile of one hundred and fifty five millimeters shells reduced
by three point six million rounds over the last several years.
Jesus so I was curious as to what had gone

(03:04:24):
so wrong that these fuckers haven't been able to make
a single solitary component, not fucking one. And it turns
out this happened because the whole plot to have this
Mesquite factory, you know, close the gap and production, was
based on a hope and a prayer, specifically a hope
that the very old machines in the factory would be
able to produce modern quality weapons. The IG's report called

(03:04:47):
this a high risk production line, which is not the
kind of production line you want for artillery shells. Per
an article and tasked purpose. Rather than build new machines
for the Mesquite plant, the IG said, the Army allowed
General Dynamics to convert machines U for M one oh
seven shells, an older one hundred and fifty five millimeters
round that the M seven ninety five, which we use
now replaced the M seven ninety five can fire about

(03:05:07):
six kilometers further than the M one oh seven, carrying
a far more powerful explosive charge, But the decision to
try it the untested production program, the IG said proved
fateful Army officials believed the Mesquite facility was a high risk,
high reward opportunity. The IG said the service accepted risk
associated with the contractor's plan to purchase and adapt M
one oh seven metal part production equipment, but the new

(03:05:28):
production lines were never able to produce acceptable M seven
ninety five parts using the reworked equipment, and the Army
ordered the plant to stop work completely and stop spending
money in August twenty twenty five, just months after the
Trump administration claimed we were up two hundred thousand shells
a month and that orders held through at least April
of twenty twenty six. So we have no idea what's
going to happen ultimately to this Mesquite factory. But I

(03:05:51):
should note here that our munitions woes go even deeper
than a lack of howitzer fuel. Earlier this year, Reuter's
reporters Aaron Bonco, Mike Stone, and Nathan Lanley published an
exclusive article titled US has used virtually all off its
long range precision missiles during Iran Wars, sources say, citing
three people familiar with the data, the article claims that
the US has used virtually all of our army tactical

(03:06:13):
missile systems and precision strike missiles. The army tactical missile
systems are like the older missiles we were using. The
precision strike missiles are the new ones. These are our
main surface to surface weapons. And it gets worse to
continue with another quote from that Reuter's piece. Military leaders
have for weeks warned the president the stockpiles of defensive weapons,
including Patriot interceptors, which are effective against ballistic missiles, we're dwindling,

(03:06:34):
said two of the sources. Last week, several media outlets
reported Trump had decided not to launch another massive offensive
inside a Rod in part because his military advisors had
warned about the US stockpile. A US official dispeeded those accounts,
saying Trump's chose not to move forward with another attack
because of pressure from Gulf states. Now, based on the
most up to data info, we have at least sixty

(03:06:54):
five percent of our Patriot interceptors have been used since February,
and THAD stock piles are down by at least thirty
eight percent. We've also used about half, if not more
than half of our Tomahawk stockpile. None of these weapons
can be replaced at rates that are even close to
the rate we are burning them. And these are also
the weapons systems that we would rely on most in
the event of a conflict with Russia, China, or any

(03:07:16):
other major power, which is why so many people in
the defense industry are freaking out to the degree that
Trump has had to pull back on some of his
plans because they are telling him, hey, man, if we
get into some serious shit and not this fuckery you're
doing in the Gulf, we're screwed. We can't make more
of these. So anyway, the reason I keep beating the
drum onlike the AMMO shortage, is because I'm certain that

(03:07:39):
in history books in the future there are going to
be pages written about this before whatever fucking disaster comes
our way next. So that's cool. Keep your eye on that.
The other thing you should keep your eye on is
that we have now added a new kind of gambling
market to our gambling on things that are not traditional
gambling industry, which is I guess, the only growth industry
in the country aside from data centers. There's now a

(03:08:02):
bunch of different services that are letting people gamble, specifically
on wildfires and where they hit and how much damage
they do. Oh Jesus, yeah, yeah, And I want to
quote from an article in Oregon Live as Oregon surpassed
its wildfire acreage record over the weekend, with more than
two million acres burnt. Oregon lawmakers also raised a new
wildfire concern Monday, as prediction markets continue to allow people

(03:08:23):
to place bets on wildfires, saying it could lead to
more human caused fires. In a letter to the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission, which regulates prediction markets, Senator Jeff Merkley
led lawmakers from other wildfire stricken states and Senator Ron
Wyden in urging the agency to crack down on wildfire
related contracts. The group warned that the markets could create
financial incentives for arson. And that's the big deal, is that, Like,

(03:08:44):
if you're letting people gamble on this shit, Yeah, firefighters
might be incentivized to fuck with stuff. Regular people could
be incentivized to fuck with stuff. We've seen this happen already.
Like I reported a couple months ago about that Israeli
journalists who like posted a video of a missile failing
to get intercepted and like hitting into some trees and
he started getting death threats because people were gambling on

(03:09:05):
like how whether or not it would be intercepted, and
his reporting was inconvenient to them. Shit's going to be
happening like that with fires in addition to people trying
to start them, if this is allowed to go right.
Polymarket lets people bet on not just wildfires, but a
variety of natural disasters. People can choose yes or no
on as to whether or not they think a Category
five hurricane is going to hit the United States, or

(03:09:26):
like a volcano is going to erupt. It's just a
really bleak thing. And there's one of the things that
I read recently is there's even a new markets focused
specifically on gambling on California wildfires called Wildfire wyldfyr. The
company tagline is you can't predict wildfire, but you can

(03:09:47):
trade on it, and I want to quote from High
Country News and an investigation of this company. Currently, wildfire
users can only simulate trading, but according to the site,
the ability to bet with real money is coming soon.
Go platform purports to be the first prediction market of
its kind, price in county and city wildfire risk in
real time. California burns every year and it's getting worse.

(03:10:07):
The question is an if, it's when and where the
site reads wildfire frames. Its platform is providing a public good.
Wildfire turns collective intelligence into better wildfire forecasting, one trade
at a time. The site reads, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh
my god. But entities with the real need for wildfire forecasting,
including federal and state firefighting agencies, say they aren't interested
in prediction market data. The Forest Service does not use

(03:10:29):
information from prediction markets for wildfire forecasts. It why they
don't even need to go. It's useless, it's useless. And
everyone's saying this is an idiot and a liar.

Speaker 11 (03:10:37):
It's insane. This this whole thing. It's like, we can
chart like the world's collective knowledge.

Speaker 2 (03:10:42):
Because money, fucking morons.

Speaker 11 (03:10:44):
Money you know, speaks, speaks more truthfully than just words.
Is just complete, complete nonsense.

Speaker 2 (03:10:49):
No, people are gonna burn down their own neighborhoods to
get rich.

Speaker 12 (03:10:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (03:10:53):
I mean, if you look at how much prediction markets
have been wrong about a sequence of like high profile
elections just in the past year, yeah, shows that this
is not useful or reliable data. There's no you know,
hidden truth that prediction markets can can can find through
the the quote unquote wisdom of crowds and like this
this specific thing on these wildfires is like a two
pronged issue. One kind of evil right to just you know,

(03:11:16):
win money based on the deaths of however many people
in natural disasters.

Speaker 2 (03:11:21):
The destruction of other lives everything they've built, the fear.

Speaker 11 (03:11:25):
And so like, you know, like death markets is like
one one aspect. The other you know aspect is if
if someone has a lot of money riding on a
certain wildfire hitting a certain location, then yeah, there is
financial incentive to maybe cause a fire to hit a
certain location.

Speaker 2 (03:11:42):
Or try to pay someone else to.

Speaker 11 (03:11:43):
Yeah, there's like that aspect as well.

Speaker 2 (03:11:45):
It's evil for so many reasons.

Speaker 11 (03:11:47):
Obviously should be illegal, Like it's insane.

Speaker 2 (03:11:50):
We should be hanging these people.

Speaker 3 (03:11:53):
I mean, uh I remember when arguing over whether the
market is an information process that like like as you're saying,
like haws, like all of this collective intelligence from market
signals that it's like the most division information processor versus
arguing that it's a gambling den Like that used to
be an academic debate and now it's just like, oh no,
we're doing this on fires and it's just God every

(03:12:16):
every everything that was once metaphor is now literal, and
all of the metaphors suck.

Speaker 11 (03:12:21):
Yeah, this is pretty fucked up. I I know that
this was a this was a concern that was talked
about with like the La fires yep last year or
two years ago, because I know there was polymarket or
caw she betting on those, and that created like a
little mini news cycle of like talking about this maybe
being a problem. But like the scale which this is
like accelerated is crazy.

Speaker 2 (03:12:40):
Again. I used to do like sports gambling ads because
I don't have a problem with gambling like ethically, the
same way I don't have a problem with liquor and whatnot.
And then it just became very clear before too much,
Oh wait, no, this isn't your father's gambling. This isn't
going to fucking like things are well beyond hit heading
to Vegas for like a weekend or playing cards online
with you your friends. This is turned into like everything

(03:13:03):
like this is the omni culture. It's almost the only
recreational activity a lot of Americans have anymore. Yeah, I'm
gonna be honest, I didn't see that happening. That took
me by surprise.

Speaker 11 (03:13:15):
No, I used to have a lot more kind of
libertarian views on gambling, sure, and now I am firmly
in favor of of like harsh state intervention. Yeah, into
basically all forms of digital gambling.

Speaker 2 (03:13:25):
Yeah, I think you should be able to go to
a casino and gamble, but I don't think you should
be able to do it on your phone. Like I've
turned around on that.

Speaker 4 (03:13:34):
No.

Speaker 3 (03:13:35):
Yeah, and you know, and you can you can look
at those there's a whole bunch of data on like
when when sports gambling is legalized in a state, like
the bankruptcy rate increases, it's a catastrophe.

Speaker 2 (03:13:44):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (03:13:44):
I mean it's it's already devoured sports, and it's now
just devouring everything that's left of our society until something changes.

Speaker 11 (03:13:50):
Literally everything else. Yeah, it's like what if you copy
that model for literally any event happening in the world. Anyway, Well,
at least the economy are just doing fine, right me?

Speaker 3 (03:14:02):
Oh oh boy. Yeah, So let's let's let's check in
with our dear friend. And by dear friend, I mean
I don't know if he's an enemy of the show yet,
but recurring character on the show. Yeah, we're recurring character
on the show. Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Walsh, who had
a press conference to address the fact that in the

(03:14:25):
face of you know, rising inflation, everyone was expecting there
to be some kind of interest rate increase and he
didn't do one. And well, I mean that the Federal
Reserve Board didn't vote for one, and he had a
press conference that was so disastrous it triggered a giant
sell off of US bonds, which.

Speaker 2 (03:14:44):
Is not good.

Speaker 3 (03:14:46):
I'm gonna read this piece from John Cassidy, who wrote
an article in The New Yorker about it, because I
think it captures the reactions to this quote. The selloff
quote looks very much like a loss of confidence trade,
one market at List told The Financial Times. Another commentor,
Dario Perkins and economists at the Research from ts Lombard

(03:15:06):
compared Worsh's press conference to Donald Trump's announcement last year
of his Liberation Day tariffs and to the disastrous UK
mini budget that costs Trust her job as Prime Minister
in twenty twenty two, describing them all as occasions quote
where you suddenly realize global policymakers are totally out of
their depth and don't know what they're doing. Even some

(03:15:29):
ex Fed officials, who tend to be more guarded in
their public comments, voice concerns. In an interview with Bloomberg,
James Bullard, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank
of Saint Louis, described Warsh's press conference as quote a
little bit rocky, and the bond market's reaction as quote
nerve racking.

Speaker 2 (03:15:47):
For a central painter, I don't know, it sounds fine
to me.

Speaker 15 (03:15:50):
Now.

Speaker 11 (03:15:51):
A little bit rocky might seem a little timid to you,
but for these people, that's like an insane thing to say.

Speaker 3 (03:15:58):
Yeah, for for a Federal Reserve banker, that is the
equivalent of just nine alarm fire.

Speaker 21 (03:16:05):
Oh, I'm gonna.

Speaker 3 (03:16:06):
Read this one last fart of it. Loretta Mester, who
headed the Cleveland FED from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty four,
told the Wall Street Journal quote, I want to feel comfortable,
but the FED knows what it is doing. I don't
think it's sustainable what he's doing in terms of not
saying anything. So that this press conference went so badly

(03:16:27):
that the current analysis from basically the day has happened
until now, the analysis has been that actually know the
FED is going to be forced to raise interest rates.
Just to make the markets take like Walsh as a
guy running the central bank. Seriously, oh god, Economistic Bank
of America labeled this a quote central bank inflation credibility shock,

(03:16:50):
the term I have never seen before. So okay, what
did Walsh actually say in this press conference that was
this bad? Well, here here's Jackson baw at Fortune quote.
He has vowed quote regime change and quote at the
FED by rolling back so called forward guidance on where

(03:17:13):
rates are headed and offered no such clues on Wednesday,
even talking around no brain air questions on how to
bring down inflation. So what does that actually mean? The
Fed usually gives markets some indication of what they're going
to do with interest rates at our next meeting the
said interest rates, And you do this because you want
to give people in the market an opportunity to plan

(03:17:35):
around what the FED is probably going to be doing.
Worsh thinks this is a bad idea, that is very weird.
I don't think anyone has agreed with him that not
talking to the markets about what you're about what the
FED is going to do. I don't think anyone has
agreed with him since at least like the eighties that
the FED should just make his decisions in secret and
not tell anyone. But that's not even the weirdest part

(03:17:58):
of this. The weirdest part is a he's not just
refusing to explain what the FED is going to do
in the future. He is refusing to explain what the
FED is doing right now, and that is really really weird.
People just asked him point blank, like, hey, why did
you not raise interest rates? And she just would not
give an answer, and that is the thing that has

(03:18:19):
been making it seem like she has no idea what's
going on.

Speaker 2 (03:18:22):
Now.

Speaker 3 (03:18:23):
It's possible that this is pure incompetence. I think that's
probably part of it. Like it being in competence is
kind of bolstered by the fed's next move, which was
to do basically a I don't know if bailout's quite
the right term, but basically to pump a bunch of
money into the end to maintain the value of or

(03:18:43):
to increase and maintain the value of Japan's currency. Now,
this is also a kind of cataclysmic thing. The US
hasn't done this for Japan since I think literally it
was the Reverse Plaza Accords in the late nineteen eighties,
as a way to like stave off the just complete
ruin of the Asian markets during the Asian market collapse.
So this in and of itself is remarkable. The ZUS

(03:19:06):
hasn't done this since almost every economy in Southeast Asia
was imploding during the end of the nineties. But the
weirdest part is that instead of doing this by just
selling dollars, right, he did it by selling euros, which
is baffling. I have no idea why he did it.
No one I've read seems to have any idea why
he did this with the euros instead of dollars. Everyone

(03:19:28):
is just extremely confused. So it's actually very funny because
the thing I'm about to talk about next was brought
up as the most important thing the FED had done
during his tenure, and then this happened a few days later.
So everyone is just completely baffled by what he's doing.
None of it makes any sense. And it's not only
doesn't make any sense, it's actively undermining itself because a

(03:19:50):
lot of the things that he's doing. You know, this
yen purchase is supposed to be about restoring confidence in
the Japanese markets, but then the US is doing some
weird stuff, and now everyone's what on earth is going on?
The last thing I want to talk about with the
FED specifically is because I think I kind of understand
what he's doing, at least with the interest rates and

(03:20:10):
why he's not talking about it. In order to get
to this, we need to turn to some reporting from
the New York Times, which reports that Warsh is trying
to reduce the number of meetings that the FED has
to decide interest rates. This is also really weird. The
number of meetings to decide indust rates hasn't changed since
the eighties, So okay, why is he trying to eliminate?

(03:20:32):
But as he's trying to eliminate these meetings, and when
you put it all together, the reason why he doesn't
want to say what the FED is going to do
in the future and he wants to have less meetings
is that there is a FED meeting in September, right
before the midterms, and if he raises interest rates, which
is exactly the opposite of what Donald Trump wants right

(03:20:52):
before the midterms. And this is one of John Cassiy's interpretations.
If he does this, he could get fired by Trump.
So he doesn't want to raise interest ry before the midterms,
so he's taking a stance of not saying anything to
the media and then potentially even canceling this September meeting
in order to not have to do this. So that's great.

(03:21:12):
I think it's an argument as to whether the US
Federal Reserve is the single most important institution for all
of global capitalism. I don't know if you can win
the argument that it's the single most important one, but
it's one of the most important institutions, and it is
apparently being run by a guy who is making economic
decisions with the entire global economy based on him trying
not to get fired, So.

Speaker 2 (03:21:33):
This can only go great.

Speaker 11 (03:21:34):
One of the silliest things about that that purchase of
yen was the photos leaked from the meeting with the
notepad they like, oh God, to do call in buy
ten billion US dollars worth.

Speaker 2 (03:21:46):
Of yet remarkably similar to my shopping list the other
day when I went to Alberton.

Speaker 11 (03:21:50):
That's what concerns me is I feel like you shouldn't
be able to remember to buy ten billion yen ten
billion US dollars worth of yen?

Speaker 2 (03:22:00):
Is there not a better method to make sure that happens?
In the US government.

Speaker 3 (03:22:04):
I cannot emphasize this enough. The last time we did
something like this with Japanese currency, it has an actual name.
It's called the Reverse Plaza Accords. It was a transformational
milestone moment in what the American economy was going to be,
because that was the moment the US abandoned having a
manufacturing economy. Like that's the kind of decision that is
being made here, and it's being written on a notepad,

(03:22:27):
Like it's just.

Speaker 11 (03:22:28):
Just just throw that thing on a notepad. I'll do
that later this afternoon.

Speaker 3 (03:22:32):
I admit I thought worsh because Worsh had been like
with with a Federal Reserve bank before, I thought he
was going to be like slightly more confident than this.
But this, this entire week, Hassed has raised what I
think the odds are of the Federal Reserve completely screwing
things up and blowing up the entire global economy significantly.
Because if this is the kind of shit that you're doing,

(03:22:54):
like a couple of months into being in office, we
are in for a long eight years. Assuming I guess
he doesn't like purge by.

Speaker 11 (03:23:01):
Trump posting a picture of Jerome Powell hurts like shit,
just want him back.

Speaker 4 (03:23:07):
God.

Speaker 10 (03:23:10):
Uh uh.

Speaker 3 (03:23:12):
Finally, I want to conclude on some tariff talk song.

Speaker 2 (03:23:20):
Rocky jazz rockety jazz bot Sorry locking.

Speaker 19 (03:23:28):
Rocking jazz bo Rocky jazz Bob.

Speaker 11 (03:23:32):
Sorry, we forgot to put this song in that last episode.

Speaker 2 (03:23:34):
They won't forget bad.

Speaker 4 (03:23:36):
Yeah, We're we're fixing it. We're fixing it.

Speaker 3 (03:23:38):
On Monday, half of the states in the Union, that
is twenty five total states sued the Trump administration over
the regime's tariff policies. What is bleak here is that
because of the speed that the courts move at and
because of the speed that these attorney generals are moving at,
these lawsuits are coming in an entire terror cycle behind.

Speaker 11 (03:23:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:23:57):
So these lawsuits are over the administry Section three zero
one teriffs, which were the forced labor ten to twelve
percent tariffs on basically all US imports that are supposed
to be about forced labor. And as as I mentioned before,
this is an entire cycle of tariffs behind where the
Trump administration actually is now, which is his even more

(03:24:17):
illegal usage of smoot Holly tariffs against Canada. We are
still awaiting the lawsuit about that one because they just
haven't gotten there yet. So it's fun in real time
to get to see the stuff. I said last time
I was talking about tariffs, about how Trump is just
going to be able to keep using the tariff justification
because it just takes time for stuff to get to

(03:24:37):
the court. Where we're seeing that here. I mean, I
guess the Section three oh one tariffs don't have a deadline,
but who knows how long it's going to take to
get rid of those ones, or if you could see
a scenario where those tariffs are irrelevant, as we saw
with the tariffs that he imposed earlier this year that
were nominally about like the US having a balance of
payments crisis, where there were lawsuits about it, but the

(03:24:59):
lawsuits don't matter because the authorization expired. Were probably we're
gonna see a similar thing like that where these terrorists
are kind of irrelevant by the time. This way, so
the courts so amazing political system we've set up.

Speaker 11 (03:25:10):
Here, Well, that does it for us today at it
could happen here. James sent over two donation links for
the Spokane wildfires. Both should be at the top of
the episode sources in the description. The first one is
Spokanetribalnetwork dot org. The second link is too long to
fully read, but it's for the Spokane Complex Wildfire Response Fund.

(03:25:35):
I can't read out the whole URL, but it should
be at the top of the sources in the description.

Speaker 2 (03:25:40):
We the news reported, we.

Speaker 11 (03:25:42):
Reported the news.

Speaker 2 (03:25:45):
We reported the news. Hey, We'll be back Monday with
more episodes every week from now until the heat death
of the universe.

Speaker 24 (03:25:57):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources where it could Happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions.

Speaker 1 (03:26:14):
Thanks for listening.

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