Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #44

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

Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is it could happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world,
and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today
and joined by James Stout and Sophie Lichterman. This episode,
we are covering the week of November twenty fourth to
December fourth, an extra long week. Somehow they squeezed a
few more days in there to open us up. James,

(00:31):
what are some what are some important small stories we
don't want to overlook?

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Okay, yeah, yeah, a lot because of our extra long week, right, Yeah.
The United States is flying manned ISR flights over Nigeria
and possibly parts of the Sahel as well. It's not
entirely clear because the flights kind of go dark once
they take off. Sources familiar with the matter have suggested
that you AV strikes might begin soon. It seems that

(00:57):
the ISR flights are targeting ISWAP and j and I.
I'm gonna write about this on my Patreon, probably because
I think it requires visuals and I think it's it's
too much to go into in depth here, But if
you want to check that out, you can.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Can you explain some of those acronyms.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
No, I just love to fight. It's great when you
report on military ship because it's just a wall of acronyms. Okay,
IR flights, These are intelligence flights, right, intelligence surveillance reconnaissance.
I believe it's an acronym. They're looking for stuff for
ua V. On manned aerial vehicle, there's a gender neutral
term and I can't remember unpiloted aerial vehicle walk is

(01:36):
back hard. That's the bid nearer thing, right when you
get killed by an n agatable drone. But it's gender neutral.
The it's what that's the Islamic State willie in that
part of the world, so like Province, West Africa Province.
I think it stands for.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
These are the targets of these flights and.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Strikes and Jay and I am being another jahardest group
that is not associated with the so called Islamic State.
Got it?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Got it? Wow?

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah? Okay, hit you with another acronym, A foyer.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
I think I think we know that.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
One fire by the Cato Institute has revealed that the
FBI under Biden was investigating the SRA that's a socialist
rifle association. It didn't bring charges against any of the members,
but it did apparently investigate him for some time. Finally,
the National Park Service has announced a new fee schedule

(02:25):
and quote unquote modernized graphics for passes.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Is this the horrific image you sent us?

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yes, it's a picture of Donald Trump. Yeah, that's how
they've modernized it. It's it's not very nice. I I
know there are better things in the parks. I feel like, like,
you know, half Dome is nice. The Yosemite Valley, Yeah,
pretty cool. Shit in wrangle sint Elias that you could
do instead.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
That's like him trying to rename that East Institute after himself.
He just keeps trying to put his face and name
on everything.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah. Well, when you're a dying man, legacy becomes very important.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, But that's exactly it. The US Institute
of Peace is being renamed for Trump.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Really Yeah, oh I know, I miss that. Great cool.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
It's feeling very similar to that, whether he's just putting
his face and name on everything.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah. So two things, right, electronic passes for parks its
phoby a good thing, and a hundred dollars up charge
for non United States I think it's residents as opposed
to citizens in the eleven most popular parks.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
How can they even check that?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I might just ask like this, this sounds like a
tourism thing, right, like they just wanted people to that
are like visiting the States to pay more.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
To be clear, other countries do this. I still think
it's bad. Like some of the Grand Canyon is part
of a cultural patrimony of all of humanity. Yeah, the
National Park Service itself is an exercise in set colonialism.
But we can talk about that forever. Yeah, I've seen
some stuff with gate ranges, be like, I'm absolutely not
asking for your green cord. Yeah, no, that's silly fear ranges.
But yeah, I think they were just kind of assuming

(04:08):
good faith. A lot of other countries do do this,
It's not unusual. I still think it sucks. There's also
an interagency pass. It's two fifty for non residents and
eighty dollars for residents. So those are they're the big
changes there.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Speaking of big changes, a pretty big update in a
case that has lasted nearly five years. This morning, Thursday,
December fourth, a suspect was arrested in connection to the
pipe bombs placed around the Capital the night before January sixth,
specifically at the DNC and RNC headquarters in Washington, d C.

(04:42):
This suspect has been identified as thirty year old Brian
Cole Junior, from a Woodbridge, Virginia. Federal law enforcement sources
have told The New York Posts that the suspect may
have had quote unquote anarchist leanings unquote. This could mean anything, right,
This could be anything from like anti government, violent extremism

(05:03):
like militia movement type extremism, boogaloo boys, accelerationist, as well
as possible left wing anarchist leanings. Sure, it could be
any number of things. There's still very limited information about this.
Even in the like boj press conference that just wrapped
up a few minutes before we started recording. They're being
pretty tight left about details. And I think about his gait, well, yes,

(05:25):
people are asking about his gait. And allegedly he had
begun building explosive devices in twenty nineteen. Okay, okay, So
like some some background, This arrest does partially discredit a
report from The Blaze, which Robert has talked about on
this show before, which falsely identified a former Capitol police

(05:46):
officer as the bomber based on gate analysis.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, if they prosecute someone else, the Blaze is going
to get sued out of existence.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
So I would imagine the critical support to former Capital
police officer puts the Blaze out of business. Wow, pour
one out for Glenn Beck. But this suspect that lives
at a home associated with both their parents. It's unclear
if their parents are still married. Suspect's dad runs a
bail bond business which the Sun is supposed to have

(06:17):
worked for, and the mom is a real estate agent.
Not much online presence can be found yet on Brian
Cole Junior. I've spent hours looking and so far not
much there. But we'll see if that changes over time.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
A developing story.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, yeah, we'll do a whole episode if it marriage
it later, I guess sure. Talking of terrible indictment, Garrison,
would you like to hear about a terrible indictment out
of Texas?

Speaker 2 (06:46):
I'm going to say yes, but no, I don't know
if i'd like to for what reasons. I feel like
you're going to do it anyway, so I'll play along.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Two Texas men have been indicted for a plan to
invade a small island off Haiti, kill all the men
and sexually enslave all the women and children.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
What I'm sorry? What?

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, this is this is a wild one. The indictment
says they we hope to quote lead an unlawful expeditionary
force to the island of Gonave, which is part of
the Republic of at for the purpose of carrying out
their rape fantasies. Weisinberg and Thomas plan to purchase a sailboat,
firearms and ammunition, then recruit members of the District of
Columbia area homeless population to serve as a mercenary force

(07:30):
as say invader Gnave Island and stage Acudaita. Weisenberg and
Thomas intended to murder all of the men on the
island so they could turn all of the women and
children into their sex slaves. That is what is alleged
in the indictment. Right be an interesting case. One of
them had joined the Air Force in twenty twenty five
to get some military experience, or was in the Air

(07:52):
Force this year to get some military experience and has
successfully been transferred to nearer to d C from where
they hope to recruit unhoused people to service merceries.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
This is absolutely insane. Who are who are these two
Texas men? Why do they think this is like a
thing that can be Like, all.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Right, it's borderline something I considered not including because like
the people are probably pretty unwell. It seems like are they.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Just obsessed with like Eric Prince, Like I don't, I
don't understand. I don't.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, Like if the guy hadn't passed all the background
checks to get into the air Force, I feel like
this would be less remarkable. Right, but while planning to
invade a small island and enslave everybody he got into
the air Force, that that in itself like like should
be a story. And of course it is all alleged, right,

(08:47):
it's all in an indictment. We don't know what the
evidential basis for a lot of this is.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Well, that was disturbing.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, it's wild one. I guess we'll keep you informed.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
What Garson Garrison I like, I like can't even compute,
Like that's one of the most insane things I've heard
in a really long time.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Well, first of economic news, let's has thrown to tariffs.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Let's glow to tariff. Talk with me A.

Speaker 5 (09:23):
Rocky jazz rocking jazz boar Lock, rocky jazz, rocky jazz bock.

Speaker 6 (09:37):
This is me a wong with tariff talk. So obviously,
the biggest tariff news right now is the impending Supreme
Court ruling on the legality of a broad swath of
the terroriffts that Trump has imposed using unbelievably dubious legal
and economic authority. And by unbelievably dubious, I mean it

(09:57):
is so patently illegal. It is an astounding demonstration of
the complete advocation of the Supreme Court's pretensions at being
one of the branches of government that this hasn't already
been overturned, But this is ruling has not dropped yet.
Everyone's waiting. So in the meantime, what we have is

(10:19):
a bunch of Trump administration officials have been going on
TV and talking about trade policy, and they're saying something
that we've been hearing for a while now, which is
that they believe that they can use different set of
legal authority to impose the same tariffs. Whether they can
do this or not, is I mean, they shouldn't be
able to do this, like all of that, All of

(10:41):
the authority they're using is pretty ridiculous, But this has
been This has been their strategy. They've been reiterating their strategy.
On the other side, we've seen some interesting movement in
terms of the opposition, which is that Costco has become
sort of the biggest company to join in this trend
of company he's like going to court with lawsuits to

(11:02):
try to recoup the money that they've spent on these tariffs,
because if the Supreme Court ruling like overturns the legality
of these terriffs, these companies can get their money back retroactively.
Costco is the biggest company we've seen so far short
of moved to attempt to do this remedy to the courts.
So we will, we will, we will keep an eye
on this. And this is you know, I think I think,

(11:24):
especially if this comes overturned, we're going to see a
lot of companies trying to make moves for this. This
is something that is going to piss off the Trump
administration because they've been talking a giant game about how
oh these are going to fund the like two thousand
dollars tariff checks you're never getting Trump is literally talking
about And this is the you know, this is an
old sort of right wing thing. But he's talking about
how oh, terriff's revenue is going to replace income tax,

(11:47):
which no, it's not like I just nonsense, gibberish numbers
don't work. Orders the magnitude off just nonsense can't work.
But you know this is there. These are things that
they're saying, and there's probably going to be increasing conflict
between the sectors of capital that just want their money
back from these tariffs and the Trump administration, which you know,
wants there's money for its you know, nebulas political purposes.

(12:09):
There's been some sort of interesting political developments in terms
of Trump and Lula. So people will probably remember from
listening to the show that there have been very very
high turiffs on Brazil that are effectively political tariffs for
actually putting one gi Air Bolscenaro in prison for you know,
the mere crime of attempting to overthrow the government to

(12:32):
install himself as the ruler of Brazil. Now there has
been over the past few weeks there's been some sort
of ratcheting down of a lot of the tariffs. There's
been a bunch of goods that have been exempt from
the teriffs as part of Trump's sort of widespread efforts
to like lower food prices because there's a bunch of
food goods that are being exempt from this stuff. And

(12:53):
there was also very recently we got an actual call
between Trump and Lula which seems to have gone fairly well.
You know, at least this seems to have been cordial.
The two seem to both be coming out of it
saying like, oh, we agree on things. It's gonna go great.
And this is to a large extent, an attempt to
do a replay of Lula's positive relationship with the Bush
administration the last time he was in power where and

(13:14):
this is you know, this has been a trend in
the in the sort of the original pink tide and
in this government where you have a kind of mix
of the sort of pink tie center left governments in
Latin America, where you know, Lula has traditionally been the
one who's been sort of playing with the US more.
And you know, as we're saying, right now, you have

(13:37):
the US gearing up for, you know, like potentially a
war in Venezuela, and there's been a whole bunch of
conflict with Columbia. But Lula seems to be trying to
sort of play the role that he played in the
two thousands. We'll see how that goes. Trump is astonishingly
significantly more unstable than George W. Bush, which is just

(14:00):
good lord, oh god, Okay, with enough, Oh my god.
They finally found a president who is less coherent and
more unhinged than George W.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Bush.

Speaker 6 (14:11):
The final piece of news that we need to touch
on is the US's chief trade negotiator gave an interview
with Politico. And this is Perya who news basically talked
to Politico and told them that Trump is considering, you know,
is talking about leaving or renegotiating the USMCA, which is
the trade agreements that he negotiated to replace NAFTA in

(14:34):
twenty twenty. Roll this back again.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
This is his deal. He's talking about leaving or renegotiating
his deal.

Speaker 6 (14:41):
This was his big thing in twenty twenty, is big.
One of his big things was oh I abolished NAFTA.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Oh I created this deal.

Speaker 6 (14:47):
And you know, i'veyone at the time was like, well,
this is just like NAFTA with like the edges filed off,
you know, but like this is sort of the point
that we're at in Trumpian trade policy. Where it's like, ah,
we're getting ripped off by Mexico and Canada in the
trade deal that I signed. And as Garrison is fond
of saying the defining political question of our time as
he was president in twenty twenty, brother, you you did this.

(15:07):
This this, this was your trade deal. And somehow, somehow
now you know into interests of real terms, right, this
is actually a massive deal. So this deal has a
six year term. It was negotiated in twenty twenty, which
means just coming up next year. And this is a
big enough deal that there's already sort of a full
court press and the press. You can see the New

(15:29):
York Times running it where every single faction of capital
ni vesicle fashion, but a whole bunch of factions of
the capital are getting every single think tank and lobbying
group and you know, like Policy Research Institute or whatever
together to be like, please don't get rid of this.
Because the thing about the us MCA, and this something
we've talked about to some extent in terms of Canada
and Mexico tariffs. But one of the really important things

(15:53):
about the teriffs that have been imposed on Mexico and
Canada on the terrorifraces are extremely high, is that those
tariffs haven't been applied to goods that are covered by
the USMCA, And this has been a crucial lifeline to
allow trade to not be annihilated by those American tariffs.
And if Trump pulls out of it and suddenly those
goods are covered by these tariffs, it's going to be

(16:15):
a really, really significant economic hit for everyone in the
world eventually, but for the US and Mexico and Canada,
this is going to be a massive deal. And I
want to kind of close on a kind of broader
point about this for a second, which is that like
we're not pro NAFTA, Like no NAFTA was bad. Part

(16:37):
of the reason their administration was able to do this
was because of the ways that NAFTA sort of hauled
out and destroyed fast sections of the American working class
and also the Mexican working classes has not been good
for anyone really involved in this. One of the things
that happens if you if you go into the economic literature.
One of the episodes I did a while back talking
about US and Mexico in history of like trade policy,

(17:01):
they're sort of talks about this, which is that if
you go back into the economic literature, all of the
economics people have had to admit that the leftists from
the nineties or whatever were right that this was not
going to benefit the Mexican working class. It hasn't, you know.
But on the other hand, Trump's sort of this is
also not benefiting the Mexican or American working classes. Nothing

(17:22):
that these people do on either side really do. If
you want to look at what actual sort of resistance
in NAFTA looks like, and what effective resistance NAFTA looks like,
look at the Zapatistas whose rebellion was sparked by NAFTA
and who went into revolt on the day that NAFTA
went into effect. But Trump has been able to very
effectively kind of be the person who comes in as

(17:43):
I'm the champion of the workers, etc. Etc. Because I'm
renegotiating the evil trade deals and now like our good
American workers would no longer be exploited by like evil
Mexican or Chinese workers, which you know, has been an
extremely effective political strategy for him, and is you know,
also this sort of this sort of like national fascist

(18:04):
program that he's running is sort of based on you know,
on this kind of trade policy and on manipulating the
sentiments of people who got like actually screwed over by
by NAFTA. So yeah, that's where we're gonna kind of
close on this as Trump is thinking about pulling out.
That is a huge deal. And yeah, this has been
teriff talk.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Let's let's go to an ad break real quick. We'll
be right back, and we're back, Harrison, tell me, tell
me something less horrific than what James just told us

(18:47):
before me as tariff textion.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
I missed a pot. I missed a pot. Okay, do
you do? You want to guess how they were making
money for part of this and coding to the indictment.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
This is the Texas many why's been made the island?
How are they making money?

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Crypto?

Speaker 3 (19:01):
No, it's worse than that.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
That's a good guest, Sophie. Mm, but you've said it's
worse than that.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Oh no, manipulating camgirls.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
In a sense it appears they were producing child sexual
abuse material.

Speaker 7 (19:14):
Oh yeah, wow, this is I mean, obviously it's still allegedly,
but like, this is one of the worst things I've
ever heard, and I don't even know how to react.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Huh. Yeah, he was he received. He was prosecuted under
U C MJUH for that previously this year. Yeah, I
was prosecuted in UH. I'm just reading a Task and
Purpose article which builds on the indictment. But they says,
so he's arrested in July and has since been court martialed.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
So good times, good times in the air the Air Force.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, well, I can't. I can't believe the Air Force
has done something wrong.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah, finally, the.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
First blaze on our proud and Laurie is Air Force.
Maybe the biggest national news story kicked off the day
before Thanksgiving, not just because of what happened, but then
all of the fallout that has resulted from this incident,
which James will report on afterwards. But let's go back

(20:19):
to the day before Thanksgiving or Two National Guard troops
from West Virginia on assignment in Washington, d C. It's
a part of Trump's crime crackdown were shot on patrol
a few blocks away from the White House. Other Guard
members fired back and tackled the shooter. One of the
National Guard members, a twenty year old named Sarah Beckstrom,
died from gunshot injuries on Thanksgiving. The other twenty four

(20:43):
year old Andrew Wolfe has so far survived remains hospitalized.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Wow Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
A twenty nine year old man, Romanula Locknwall is charged
with first degree murder and assault with intent to kill.
The criminal complaint alleges he shouted a la Akbar as
he fired. Lockawall came to the United States as a
part of Operation Allies Welcome in twenty twenty one, which
moved US assets out of Afghanistan as the Taliban gain

(21:11):
control of the region. Lockinwall was later granted formal asylum
under Trump. This past April, friend of the alleged shooter
told The New York Times that Lockerwall joined the CIA
backed paramilitary squad Unit zero three to earn money for
his family and get medical training, rather than for ideological reasons,

(21:32):
and when he returned from stints with the zero unit,
his personality changed and he was less socially outgoing. To
quote from the Times quote, Blockenwall told others in his
village that he had been shaken by seeing so many
bodies and bloodshed in his role with the zero three unit.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
According to a volunteer who worked with his family, Blockenwall's
mental health started rapidly declining. In early twenty twenty three,
he began self isolating, withdrawing from work and family, stopped
paying rent, and face deviction. In twenty twenty four, this
volunteer wrote in an email to an immigrant nonprofit group,
which was obtained by the AP in the New York Times,

(22:11):
which reads that lock Andwell quote has not been functional
as a person, father, and provider since March of last year,
twenty three. His behavior has changed greatly unquote. When lock
Andwell emerged from quote unquote dark isolation, it was to
engage in quote unquote reckless travel, according to this volunteer,

(22:31):
long seemingly pointless road trips across the country.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, and he seems to be behaving in a way that,
like you said, suggest he has some PTSD or like.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
No PTSD from engaging in combat. This is very common
among veterans and mental health support for specifically these people
in this in this paramilitary unit probably doesn't exist, right,
does not exist the same way it does for veterans
of the United States military, which already is a lacking service.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Yeah, yeah, that, yeah, I mean these the ship that
these guys did was dark. I've included in the in
the show notes a linked to Human Rights Watch report.
But like, there's a reason that they weren't specifically under
In theory, they were under the Afghan like Ministry of
Defense Command, but in practice they operated outside either chain
of control. They did kill or capture missions. There are

(23:22):
multiple reports of them killing everybody in a house and
then it being the wrong house, Like really, stuff that
is going to stay with someone, right and let unless
they're like, you know, pretty nuts, No, extremely horrifying, Yeah,
terrifying stuff. Pretty much immediately after, the Trump administration began

(23:46):
calling for various immigration restrictions based on this. Right Now,
it's worth noting that luck Andwell entered the United States
as part of Operation Allied Welcome, right, but then he
received US asylum under the Trump administration, so that would
have been this year, right, Like, I'm not entirely sure

(24:07):
why he went asylum rather than a special immigrant visa,
but both the pathways that are opened to Afghan people, right,
SIV has some benefits, but also it had some different
things so that they'd have to jump through, Like one
of them would be a believe to get an officer
to write a recommendation and maybe CIA folks on into
doing that. So following this, the US immediately began to

(24:29):
call for a crackdown on Afghan migrants, and as we'll
see more broadly on migrants. I think it's important to
contextualize this globally because it's part of a crackdown on
a nation which has seen nearly half a century of war. Right.
Ninety percent of the ten million people who fled Afghanistan
reside in Pakistan or Iran. I've reported on this before

(24:50):
on this show, but Iran has deported more than a
million Afghan people since twenty twenty three, right, and they
have very few pathways to permanent residency anywhere. Among refugees,
Afghan people have it particularly difficult. On Tuesday, the us
CIS Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a memo ordering its

(25:13):
employees to place on hold all asylum, green card and
citizenship form applications from quote unquote high risk countries and
to investigate all arrivals from them since twenty twenty one.
They are also placing a hold on all forms I
five eight nine, which is the application for asylum and

(25:34):
for withholding of removal, regardless of where the person is from.
So we have this specific halt on asylum for Afghan nationals.
That comes first, and then following that we have these
nineteen high risk countries. The high risk countries are listed
in Presidential Proclamation one oh nine four nine, which was

(25:55):
issue back in June. I'll just read out the name,
so people who are aware, Aganistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of
the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Barundi, Cuba, Laos,
Sierra Leone, Togo, Tookmenistan, and Venezuela. If you recall us
covering this back then you will remember that the reason

(26:18):
cited in that proclamation is percentage of visa overstays. This
doesn't have anything to do with risk, right, other than
risk of overstaying one's visa. They do not justify the
inclusion of these countries based on the potential for people
there to do terrorism, right, at least not all of them. Yeah,

(26:41):
it's worth pointing out. I guess that percentages visa overstates
isn't that useful of a figure, because if you have
ten people and one over stays, then that's only one person.
But it's also a ten percent overstay rate, right, So
it doesn't look at like raw numbers. Nonetheless, this would
mean from the way I'm reading it, that any application

(27:02):
with these people on it might be paused. So that
could include like if someone had applied to have a
spouse or family member come over and obtain legal status,
right or if someone was sponsoring someone, or they were
a duel national they're like a Borndian American for example.
We will see how long this lasts. Trump has previously

(27:23):
failed to get a total asylent ban, but for the meantime,
like this is catastrophic for people attempting to seek asylum
or permanent residency in the US. The only sort of
upside that I can see on upside, but like you know,
not terrible thing is that I don't think this would
pause the work permit clock. So people have been listening
to my series this week, they will have learned about

(27:43):
the work permit clock. Right, Because this is a government action,
non action from individuals, I don't think it would pause
that clock. I guess to just wrap up the migrant
crackdown stuff, Trump announced via a truth that quote, I am,
as President of the United States here by terminating, effective immediately,
the Temporary Protected Status program for Somalis in Minnesota. In

(28:07):
the Thanksgiving message, he also repeated a number of claims
about migrants and used a slurt to described him Walls. Yeah,
he called him R word, and I think it is
worth saying. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
He has reiterated this multiple times on camera when Aspire reporters.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
Yeah, great stuff.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
And this is specifically in reference to reporting which has
come out of Minnesota about a series of like fraudulent
claims based on like COVID nineteen food and housing assistance
programs this state was running, and people who were abusing
those programs for their own financial benefit, and some of
these specific instances are now being used to attack the

(28:45):
entire Somali community in Minnesota.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Yeah, it's worth noting that the percentage of the Somali
community which is on TPS is very small. It's probably
a few hundred people. I don't know how those COVID
assistance programs like overlap with once immigration status, right, but
it's worth noting that. It's also worth noting, like I've
linked to the statue in the show notes, the Somali
TPS extends until March of twenty twenty six. It probably

(29:09):
won't be renewed then, right, that's what the Trump administration
has been doing, is sunsetting TPS is for all kinds
of people. The statute does not give the president power
to end the TPS, certainly not on a state by
state basis. Right, Yeah, that's a good point. The notice
of revocation would appear in the Federal Register, and the
TPS would then have sixty days if it was being revoked,

(29:32):
that people would have sixty days to act on that information. Right,
you can't just post it. That's not how this works.
As of today, when I check the Federal Register, the
last entry for the Somali TPS with its renewal last year.
So there appears to have been no actual legal action
taken on this. But nonetheless there has been ICE enforcement. Right.
There are videos of ICE officers specifically asking people if

(29:54):
they are Somali in Minnesota, which is troubling. I think
that's about all the ICE crackdown stuff. I have guess
Greg Bavino's in Louisiana. No, So, there's been a lot
of discussion this week and House hearings about the drone
strike that began the United States campaign of drone strikes

(30:15):
against small boats in both the Caribbean and the Pacific, right,
so called narco terrorists jam, yeah, so yeah, I think
so called is doing a lot of work there. There
seems to be a lot of debate about whether Pete
Hegscess directly ordered a second strike on survivors from the
first strike. Excess had denied this, saying, quote, the thing

(30:38):
was on fire and it exploded. You can't see anything.
This is called the fog of war.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
That's not the fog before yet. It's nobody means you're
not at war.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
You're in a suit in a room watching a TV screen.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Also, it doesn't revert to like literal smoke edge fog.
I'm sorry, this is like absurd.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, it's a ludicrous claim, right. Yeah. There have been
times where I have been in places like for instance,
I was in Java a couple of years ago and
we were being bombed. Right the way for me to
get information it was better for me to like go
online and find stuff because the access to information on
the ground in conflict times can be difficult. That's not
the case when you're in DC watching a screen readout right.

(31:18):
That is why we have people who are not in
combat making these decisions. The White House has claimed that
Admiral Bradley, who was JSOCK commander at the time, ordered
the strike. Cotton today claimed that two people in the
video were trying to roll the boat to get back
in the fight. What that's not a thing that one
can do. Like they're not in Just to be clear,

(31:39):
they're not in like a kayak here, Like this is
in what I would call a cigarette boat, like a
fast speedboat. You can't roll those like that.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
I don't understand they were not engaged in combat.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
No, Like I don't see any evidence that these people
were equipped to like certainly not to fight against a drone. Right.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
No, why does this matter? Right? Because these people are
dead regardless. Yeah, Why does the emphasis on this second
strike matter more than simply attacking them the first time?
Why is could this result in haig Seth being in
a degree of trouble? Why are there so defensive about
the second strike?

Speaker 3 (32:20):
Fair question. It is a very clear violation of the
US military's own Law of War manual, which I have
linked and the Geneva Conventions to kill someone who's demonstrably
or to combat right out of combat i e. A
shipwrecked sailor, i e. A wounded soldier who's thrown away
their weapon. These people were very clearly not fighting. From
every report that we've seen, this has been part of

(32:43):
the way that war is conducted for centuries, like picking
up shipwrecked sailors after sinking about, etc. I'm not saying
this has always happened. The US has done double tap
strikes for a long time. Yeah, there has been I
should just clarify. I guess there has been some debate
about the Semana takes of the word double tap. First
of all, that's not important. What is important is that

(33:06):
they killed people who were not fighting, who are out
of combat, and who are clinging to a burning shipwrecked boat.
A double tap does generally refer to a strike and
then a subsequent strike which is focused on killing the
people who came to rescue the people hitting the first strike.
There was no one to rescue these people. But I

(33:28):
don't think that, like, that's not what's at stake here, right,
That is, it doesn't matter what term we use to
describe this other than war crime. There were double tap
strikes at the time that I spoke about when I
was in ri Java, where they did bomb ambulance crews
and yeah, that shit is absolutely reprehensible. But what happened
here is also reprehensible as it's being recounted to us.

(33:49):
Eventually this video will come out, I'm sure. More broadly,
the United States seems to be signaling intent to continue
its campaign against my daughter, saying it will begin land
strikes uote unquote soon. What Yeah, like this is extremely worrying,
right like, Yeah, tramp becourse a great peace president who
has ended what is it like nine wars? Trump the Dove,

(34:11):
I think is what you personally called perfect. It's a
hell of a visual. The people of Venezuela are the
ones who are going to suffer, right Like, It's not
going to be the regime officials for the most part. Yeah,
Venezuela's a vast, mountainous jungle country. It's an easy place
for us to do land war, not a particularly easy

(34:33):
place for US to do drone warfare either. You know,
I've written a lot about the the United States Duran
campaign in Syria and the disaster that was, right in
the amount of what they considered to be acceptable civilian casualties.
We don't have any indications from this DoD or like
from hexth that like he will seek to minimize those,

(34:54):
right like this, This could be shaping up to be
a disaster for the people of Venezuela.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
I mean, yeah, I find it unlike that haig Seth
will actually fall into trouble international law. Because of this,
people always get away. And I mean you can see
how Trump already pardoned number of work criminals earlier this
year and in his first administration, right, and in his
first administration. Yeah, as much fun as it is to
be like haha, I like this. I like to see

(35:20):
old pet hag Seth wiggles way out of this jam.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yes he will. I think he's expected to do so
quite easily. I mean, international doesn't exist for people in
the global North. It's a thing that they do to
prosecute African people for the most part. But yes, very
unlikely that we will see hag Seth in the Hague
for this. Still bad though.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
We'll go on another ad break and be right back.
All right, we are back. We would like to now
expand and clarify some of our previous previous discussion of

(36:07):
Zoron's White House meeting with Donald Trump and some statements
around ice raids and ice detainers. Let's start by clarifying
this one hundred and seventy serious crimes number.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
While answering a question, Zoran said, quote, we discussed Ice
and New York City, and I spoke about how the
laws we have in New York City allowed the city
government to speak to the federal administration about roughly one
hundred and seventy serious crimes.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
Unquote.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
This one hundred and seventy number is in reference to
Local Law fifty eight Administrative Code nine Dash one three
to one, which was passed in twenty fourteen and strengthened
New York sanctuary laws and required that they only honor
ICE detainers when presented with the judicial warrant issued by

(36:59):
an Article three federal judge or Federal magistrate judge based
on probable cause, and when the subject of the detainer
and warrant is either listed in a terrorist database or
has been convicted of a violent or serious crime. Now,
the term violent or serious crime refers to a list

(37:19):
of approximately one hundred and seventy crimes, which is listed
in Local Law fifty four.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
I think there's a five year limit as well, right,
Like it has to be within five years.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
So there's a number of like they like stack on
each other. Yeah, Like there's This is just a one
of many like amendments strengthening their sanctuary laws. And I'm
mentioning it specifically to clarify where one hundred and seventy
number comes from and where people can find all of
the criminal codes that are listed, which is again approximately

(37:52):
one hundred and seventy crimes.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, and the.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Change this local law did is that this person doesn't
have to just be accused of one of these crimes,
but actually be convince or listed in a terrible stateabase. Yeah,
and these are mostly like violent felons.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
Yeah. The law that Garrison refers to lists them by
penal code number. So I'm working on expanding those into
a list of words that human beings can understand. Yeah, sure,
just because I think people generally don't understand sanctuary protections.
Sanctuary laws are not like a They're not the same
in every state, They're not the same in every city

(38:27):
in every state, and I think a lot of people
have an understanding of them which could do with being improved.
So I'm going to probably do a whole episode on that.
I think with regard to the list of crimes in
New York, I would prefer to do that as a
print piece, because it's just better if someone could find
it on the internet, and that doesn't work as well
with podcasts other stuff regarding this if just so people

(38:47):
are aware, right, like, federally, one could be deported for
a huge range of crimes, from violent crime to thefto
over ten thousand dollars to a vast range of quote
unquote crimes involving moral turpitude. The problem, of course, is
that we have fifty different states with fifty different sets
of laws, and we have to map federal regulations onto them.
There is some Supreme Court case law about how we

(39:10):
do that. Crimes involving moral turpitude can be things that
you might consider extraordinarily minor, like turnstile hopping.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
I'm going to do a whole episode on these because
again I think you could see in that press conference,
so when Zoran spoke about immigration, Trump tried to move
the topic to deporting criminals. Yeah, and the people who
are being deported as criminals, whilst the DHS twitter feed
wants to highlight people who've been convicted of murder and things,
and that's by far look at an EDU case.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, and I think that's why he mentioned the one
hundred and seventy like serious urvolent crimes, and like specifically
that those are the ones that the New York Sentuary
laws you do have this quote unquote cooperation on, and
like in a meeting, Zorn said that he and Trump
talked about how current ICE operations in New York City
I quote unquote very little to do with serious crime

(40:05):
with these built crimes listed on these detainers.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
Yeah, and that's a broad thing across the United States, right,
Like even we spoke about this a couple of weeks ago.
But like, if you look at Charlotte right where they
have they are legally bound to honor all ICE detainers
by HB ten, you've still got Ice out and about
raiding people, and you have sheriffs complaining about Ice not
picking people up right. The detainer, I guess I should

(40:30):
explain what a detainer is as well. A detainer is
an extra forty eight hour hold. It doesn't mean that
you just like lock them up forever. It means that
you hold them for forty eight hours such that ICE
can come in and collect the person. Because ICE is
so focused on I don't know what you want to
call it, grabbing people off the street. Yeah, it seems
that they're not collecting these people. There's been some pushback,

(40:53):
like on straight up economic grounds in some states because
like detaining people is quite expensive, right, so detaining people
for long periods of time and it's just not showing up.
I can see how not to give support to sheriff's
departments or whatever, but like rural sheriff's departments, which are
on limited budgets, would start to get pissed off after

(41:14):
a time about holding people. But that is what a
detainer is, got it. Ice doesn't necessarily have to abide
by local sanctuary laws. And what we have seen is that,
like cops are cops, and they will make mistakes, and
if someone gets handed over, you can't take them back
if the cops fuck that up.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah, I mean, And this is part of the other
things that Zaron campaigned on to like strength and sanctuary protections,
And specifically in the section of his policies on quote
unquote trump proofing New York City, he talks about like
ending illegal ICE cooperation on Riker's Island or ICE is
currently stationed, which does go against sanctuary laws, and you've
talked about ending that as well as providing one hundred

(41:57):
and sixty five million dollars in funding for immigration legal
defend services in the cities, which would be a massive
increase and what is currently provided. Yeah, as well as
just like limiting interactions with police, right is, the more
you interact with the police, the more likely is that
you might accidentally or quote unquote accidentally get put into trouble,
even though you know, police in New York are not
supposed to ever ask someone that what their immigration status

(42:19):
is or or cooperate with ice requests that do not
you know, fall under this specific container law. But I
mean in terms of like ways to limit interactions with police,
this goes back to some very basic ideas on like,
you know, addressing the economic conditions that create crime in
the first place, as well as the Department of Community Safety,
which Souron intends to create, which will provide new mental

(42:42):
health services, crisis response, and homeless outreach outside of the NYPD.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, like, not criminalizing homelessness and not criminalizing parking are
probably two of the most meaningful things that you can
do to limit police interaction and specifically police interactions from
documented people.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Yeah, and I mean in terms of like turnstile hopping
or like fair evation. It's it's complicated in New York. Mean,
this isn't gonna be something that they honor a detainer for.
But in terms of like you know, just talking about
like the Yeah, how weird and specific each state's laws are.
Like turnstile hopping can be a misdemeanor crime in New
York due to like theft of services. It can also

(43:20):
just be a civil in fracture. It can, but it's
up to the officer to decide whether they want this
to turn into a criminal misdemeanor or a civil infraction
and just pay one hundred dollars fine. Even this is
like cause confusion among like immigrants and immigrant rights attorneys
over like dealing with like old old fair ofvation cases
and being like does this now like disqualify me from

(43:42):
certain things or does this like you know, present a
threat of being deported if I if I declare this
and like whatever like citizenship or a green card meeting,
they may they may have scheduled. Yeah, and yeah, not
not criminalizing fair ovation would be huge. And if someone's
able to make you know, free buses that all, do
you know a considerable dent in preventing cases where ferivation

(44:04):
could be used as a pretext federally reports someone.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, yeah, because that person or that person could leave
New York and be somewhere else, right, or they could
just get swept up in ice workplace raid, and that
could be used as a pretext, like there are many
reasons why even if it's sanctuary protected, that person could
still be vulnerable because of that prosecution.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Like you said, yeah, I mean, and then those sorts
of raids are still happening in New York. An attempted
rate happened in Connell Street. Yeah, last week. It was
prevented from being carried out by people who literally blocked
Ice from leaving the parking garage that they were in,
and that NYPD then arrested a few protesters. It remains
to be seen how Zoron will handle incidents like this

(44:43):
going forward. He still does not become the mayor for
but thirty days, right, but a spokesperson for the mayor
elect has said that zoren Quote has made it clear,
including to the President, that these raids are cruel and
inhumane and failed to advanced genuine public safety. New York
City's more than three million immigrants are central to our
city strength. Vitality and access the mayor Electromaine Steadfast and
his emumitment to protecting the rights and dignity of every

(45:05):
single New Yorker of holding our sanctuary laws. And de
escalation rather than use of unnecessary force unquote. I believe
that last sentence could be read as in reference to
the police conduct while handling antiites protests. Yeah, quote unquote,
de escalation rather than use of unnecessary force. But this
is not something that they have talked about much.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Curious to see when he's actually the mayor, what will
happen here?

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, and that's that's that's a part
of like what governing is going to look like in
this case, which is kind of sure, it's hard to say.
We've never really had a high profile like you know,
dsa person who previously advocated like defunded or abolishing the
police become the mayor of a city.

Speaker 6 (45:44):
Yeah, And I.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Think this kind of relates to like so much of
what the project in New York is around New York
City DSA and zoron to rather than just like you know,
be like chasing electoral cars and then crashing once you
have control. Igxort's orange like actually running the city and
providing a legitimate example the democratic socialst policies can deliver
on promises for workers and improve life in New York.

(46:08):
And if this project succeeds, it can be pointed to
and replicated by others. And there's a very strict focus
on like making sure that he's able to succeed on
a section of like economic policies. He's not in a
federal position, right, He's not running on abolishing ice, as
you can't as the mayor of New York. And like,
I think it's very unclear right now, like what a
politics of abolishing ice really looks like outside of like

(46:30):
this like contemplative, like reflective and like judgmental politics, which
falls further and further away from like taking steps to
do action.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
Right, Yeah, I mean a politics abolishing guys looks like
the United States up until two thousand and one, right,
we didn't have ice.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Well, but like from now, like what would it mean
to actually stop de quotations completely? Like what will that look? Like?
What can be done politically to do that?

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Right?

Speaker 2 (46:55):
And Zorin's not doing this because Son's the mayor of
New York City. He cannot run for president. People in
his orbit could run for the House and set it
and push forward bills to do this, and they might
over time. But like, there is a difference between being
the mayor of a local municipality and like, what are
legitimate politics of actually stopping for our current process of deportations,

(47:19):
what that really looks like and how to actually achieve that,
which a very little thought is being put towards among
the American left right now, And it kind of it
falls back on these like reflective or like contemplative statements.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Yeah, there have been proposals put forward for a long
time on what it would look like to create better
legal pathways and fewer deportations, right, like those who existed. Sure,
like you can look specifically at what people were trying
to get Biden to do in twenty twenty, right, which
he obviously completely failed to do and in effect made
things much worse. But like, those policy proposals exist, and

(47:54):
they're well thought out and well planned from people who've
been working into space for decades. Right, Dannie can do
is like what they call in political science, like the
coattails effect totally right, as a very popular candidate, people
can ride on his coattails I think it's important in
that sense that he continues rhetorically to oppose what Ice

(48:16):
is doing, which like that statement you read did right,
But it's very important that he if he's able to
successfully have his administration in New York, and we will
see how shit goes in that regard, but if he
is and there is an electoral project that can arise
based on that, then like it is very important that
they remain in lockstep that like, we are not going back.

(48:37):
We're not going to have a Democrat come president in
twenty eight and just do a Joe Biden again right
where things get worse. So in that sense, I think
it like it needs to be something that everyone in
that movement retains. I guess, like not uniformity is the
wrong word, you know, but you know what I mean
literally that it continues to be something of a norse
staff for whatever is emerging to the left of the DNC.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Yeah, And like I also, like I guess clarify some
things I would have said last week and not claiming
that sheerly the the process of honoring these detainers will
like vaguely in a causal sense, results in less ice
raids in the city. I mean these detainers are they
are legally required, even unders sanctuary laws, to be to

(49:23):
be followed. And I think part of what Zora was
doing was trying to redirect the president's thought away from
these larger raids to these specific serious crimes. And I
think in some of this is based on Trump kind
of has like the last person in the room syndrome
off He kind of just likes or or follows or

(49:44):
parrots whoever the last person in the room was. And
like what they've told him, I'm not saying that like
honoring these these legally required detainers is like is simply
harmon direction in that sense. This is more so in
reference to the ongoing negotiations between Momdani and Trump to
limit ICE action in the city outside of these detainer requests,
which do address serious crime. Which Trump and Mom Donnie

(50:07):
saw as a point of commonality on is they want
New York to be a safe place for people, focusing
on that as opposed to these general ICE raids. And
there's been like some slight movement on this. Raids have continued,
but there's been slight movement in terms of Trump, at
least for now, pulling out of his plans to deploy
National Guard to assist ICE, and like that is the

(50:27):
single point where we see some movement on and this
will be something that in terms of raids like on
Conall Street. Well, we'll see if this actually makes a
larger impact once he takes office and continues these negotiations.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
If National Guard or assisting ICE, is that like because
they can't directly do the immigration enforcement right, Well, I.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Mean assisting ICE in the way that they have washed
in DC.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
Yeah, like in terms of like quot unquote protecting officers
or quote yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
And you know the proposals to do so in Chicago
and Portland, which are cotton like legal limbo. But I
mean that the Portland was more specifically for the ICE facility.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
Yeah, protecting federal building this kind of deal, versus in Washington,
d C. They were like on patrol with ICE, Like
they were like roving around and doing roadblocks and shit.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
Yeah, and like much of this quote unquote crime crackdown,
as bridgets reported on our show, really is actually a
way to do like enhanced immigration enforcement. Yeah, there's a
lot of fear in New York and discussions with people
in New York and like how are we going to
handle this happening here. Yeah, and this is like the
one point of movement that we've seen is Trump pulling
out of these plans which previously were quite certain. He

(51:34):
wants to like go one by one and like invade
these cities.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Yeah, New York. You also have the like the added
factor that like New York is technically in that border
enforcement zone, right, so I mean as is Chicago. Yeah,
I guess most of these places have been Chicago, Portland
is Los Angeles is because of the Licton and Los
Angeles they deployed border patrol. Right Now, that's another thing
that it could happen in New York, but like thus

(52:00):
far hasn't on a massive scale. But yeah, it remains
to be seen. Right, Like, Trump has this like operation
at Large that Boveno controls that he could deploy to
New York and it'll be yeah, provided to Boston, where
Michelle Bouch has like taken a different approach, right Like,
and yeah, I guess we'll we'll have to continue waiting

(52:21):
and seeing. It's really heartening to me that people showed
up in New York as well, you know, like, oh yeah,
that people in New York showed up on Canal Street
like that is uh.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
Yeah, and prevented ICE from doing any detentions or arrests.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
Yeah. And I think like they, like the ICE eventually
had to leave to New Jersey, Is that right, Like
they had to go through the tunnel or whatever, like
the tunnel, yeah, the Tunnel of Shame. Yeah yeah, but
like that that is like that is what kept those
people safe, rightly. They didn't have to wait for Eric
Adams or Mandanni or anyone else, like it was members

(52:55):
of their community.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Yeah, which is cool talking of commune ease to want
to talk about the campus campus community and have freedom
of speech. He's under threat on our campuses.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Well, freedom of religion is under threat, James, Okay, religion to.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Freedom to so tired, fed to tire, to cite a
vibe space interpretation of the religion.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
I mean yeah, this unfortunately, this story did infringe upon
my freedom to not read horrible college essays Garrison.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
That is a freedom that I have not had for
many years.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
No, no, and this is why I interested in your
thoughts on this. A transgraduate instructor has been suspended from
the University of Oklahoma after issuing a failing grade to
a students assignment right a six hundred and fifty word
response to a study on if gender conformity is linked
to popularity or bullying in middle school. This twenty year
old psychology major a junior, wrote in her response that

(53:53):
she does not consider bullying a problem because quote God
made male and female and made us different from each
other on purpose and for a purpose unquote. The response
was entirely personal opinion. It does not even properly cite
specific like scriptures in the Bible. If, like, if I

(54:14):
was to write like an unhinged like like a Christian response,
least the least you could do is site specific things.
Should that be valid?

Speaker 6 (54:21):
No?

Speaker 2 (54:21):
But even this was not done.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
It's like Bible fanfic.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
These are the vibes I get from Genus.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Well, yeah, she just gestured her own interpretation of biblical gender.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
Roles, right sure, sure.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
Quote women naturally want to do womanly things because God
created us with those womanly desires in our heart unquote.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
So she's women and like like females. I guess maybe
maybe she was going for a It's.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
It's all circular reasoning like this all based on based
on these like biblical gender roles and later, the essay
goes on to self contradict itself ideas of gender norms
versus gender stereotypes, and it's all just very poorly written. Names.
Did you read the whole essay? No, okay, it's not
it's not long. We are not going to read it

(55:12):
all on air. I'll read it right now. I want
you to read the whole thing and just just give
me your immediate thoughts. I dropped it in the zoom chat.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
You have to understand that I might experience like what's
called a trauma reaction.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
It's only two pages.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
So it's based on a review of an article, based
on a review of an academic study. Yeah, on if
gender conformity impacts bullying or popularity in middle school. Okay,
Jesus Christ, that's what she said, but not yet she
has excited him specifically. No, she never said Jesus yeah God,

(55:49):
mm hm ah hell yeah. I love it when they
get into like Hebrew. Oh yeah, yeah, yes, I'm just
getting a penulta paragraph. Yeah, what class is this in psychology?
A psychology course? I'm would assign this for a psychology close.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
Uh wow yeah, can I just read like the last
part out loud?

Speaker 2 (56:15):
Okay, Sophia, you can you can read the last part.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Yeah. My prayer for the world and specifically for American
society and youth is that they would not believe the
lies being spread from Satan that make them believe they're
better off as another gender than what God made them.
I pray that they feel God's love and acceptance as
who He originally created them to be.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
So if you ready inhabited that role beautifully.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Like thank you, thank you previously and like the paragraph
of four, do you want me to do it?

Speaker 8 (56:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (56:51):
I unfortunately feel like I could really embody this horrific person.
Society pushing the live that there are multiple genders and
everyone should be whatever they want to be is demonic
It severely harms American youth. I do not want kids
to be teased bullying stuff.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Yet, So, James, as a college college professor, what is
your thoughts on this?

Speaker 3 (57:17):
It's just a bad response to the question right that
there is not a single citation the person has not
done what they were instructed to do. They have just
it's a classic example of that you have answered the
question you wanted me to ask, not the question I
have asked. Genre Sure, and in this case, Like, I'm
presuming there was some kind of rubric for grading, Like

(57:39):
it seems like a like a the sort of assignment
that you would set once a week, right. I don't
know if it's an online course or they're just using
an online LMS, but the comment is clearly from an
online LMS.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Yeah, they do have the rubrick and that TPUSA published.
The rubrick was that you must write this six hundred
and fifty word reaction demonstrating that you have read the
assigned article and includes a thoughtful reaction to the material
presented in the article. Please remember that your reaction paper
should not be a summary, but rather a thoughtful discussion
of some aspect of the article. Possible approaches to reaction

(58:14):
papers include a discussion of why you feel the topic
is important and worthy of study or not, or an
application of the study or results to your own experiences.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
That's a broader prompt than I had otherwise imagined.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
Other section is Reaction papers are graded on a twenty
five point scale and are evaluated based on the following
Does the paper show a clear tie to the assigned
article ten points? Does paper present a thoughtful reaction or
response to the article rather than a summary ten points
and is the paper clearly written five points? The best
reaction papers illustrate the students have read the assigned materials

(58:49):
and engaged in critical thinking about some aspect of the article.

Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yeah, I mean the way you would do that is
to reference the article more than in the first line
of your paper and then never again, right sure, which
is what this person has done here. Look, at no
point do they quote from the article mention anything specifically
the article says, other than that it was very thought provoking,
and then like they've seen the word gender and just
gone off like a dog after a squirrel, right like, yes,

(59:15):
and then completely gone off on one about god. Yeah,
that's a pretty broad prompt. It's broader than I would
generally write a prompt, but that's okay with different approaches.
They haven't specifically said in the prompt that they want
people to cite their sources, which I normally do. But yeah,
they haven't really shown any engagement with the article.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Right like, this isn't a freshman, this isn't a software
this is this is a junior well well into this semester.
The response from the instructor was quote, please note I'm
not deducting points because you have certain beliefs, but instead
I'm deducting points where you're posting a reaction paper that
does not answer the questions for the assignment to contradicts itself,
heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class,

(59:58):
and is at time offensive. While you are entitled to
your own personal beliefs, there is an appropriate time or
place to implement them in your reflections. I encourage all
students to question or challenge the course material with other
empirical findings or testable hypotheses, but using your own personal
beliefs to argue against the findings of not only this article,

(01:00:20):
but the findings of countless articles across the echology, biology, sociology,
et cetera is not best practice. Unquote yeah, so again
this is a science class. I guess right late, Like,
this is not a scientific response. It is, Yeah, no,
entirely vibes based before becoming a national news story. This
grade was reviewed and approved by another instructor. This isn't

(01:00:41):
just one instructor who happens to be trans This isn't
just their personal grade. This was reviewed by another instructor.
But on Thanksgiving TPUSA used this story to start a
media blitz targeting this quote unquote mentally ill professor, this
graduate student instructor, which is resulted in her being placed

(01:01:02):
on leave as the university reviews this incident concerning illegal
discrimination based on religious beliefs.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
That's not what that is, right, Like, like, I have
watched the short form video about discrimination many times of
my years instructing students, and like, this person wasn't discriminated
against because of their beliefs. They were discriminated. They weren't
discriminated against. So they were graded for their response which
was poor.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
For failing to follow the rules of these and again
not not even as like a freshman who needs more
clear like you know, first year uniche, Like no, yeah,
this is this is this is a psychology major in
her junior year. Yeah, writing this response as a part
of it as a part of a pscientic as a

(01:01:48):
scientific psychology course where it's not about science at all.
You're just talking about your own impression of what God
wants out of gender roles and citing not not even citing,
but like pointing towards the Holy Spirit and the Heavenly Father.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
Yeah, and some Hebrew shit that you've translated. I know
that most instructors who teach at universities now are very
concerned about exactly this, right, about a student writing a
paper which is just bad and then them going to
the pretty much tp USA SpeI right and being like, yes,

(01:02:23):
it came against me because they hate Jesus. And I
can imagine that that is worse for trans in genderal
conforming and otherwise absolutely instructors from conversations right, like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
No, absolutely, and like TPUSA first gained popularity for its
like professor watch lists where people could report their like
woke liberal professors. And this is this is the core
part of the TPUSA model, is attacking academics and people
who work in university in this instants like cause speculation

(01:02:54):
of like how much of this essay was genuine versus
was this intentionally bad essay to provoke this response, which
we can't we can't wonder that. But the student has
like risen to the ranks of like a minor conservative
celebrity in these in these past two weeks, Yeah, because
of this incident and is doing like TPUSA like speaking

(01:03:17):
speaking appearances, news appearances. There's been dozens of articles across
right wing outlets on this. It's it's turned into a
legitimate story for them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
Yeah, I do want to say, well, like it appears Garrison,
I discussed this before, but it appears that this person
is a grad student and not like a ten year
professor adjunct, Yes, certainly not tenured right, Sure, therefore they
are much more vulnerable and they have many fewer protections
than a tenured professor would have. I don't know if

(01:03:48):
they unionize. It depends on where they're teaching, right, but.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Like University of Oklahoma, that is questionable.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Yeah, I mean possibilities points to know, But like, this
is area is fucking problem for anybody teaching in these fields, right,
especially graduate students. Like I say especially, I mean imagine
you're a graduate student on a student visa, right, Like,
how do you approach teaching this when you know that

(01:04:15):
you could end up on the TPUSA instagram.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
It's trying to chill speech, right, This is this is
part of what they're doing. They're turning this into a
free speech crusade for religious discrimination. But what this is
actually doing is chilling speech at universities by making it
so you can't teach certain topics, especially if you happen
to be trans to yourself. Otherwise, tepa USA in the
right wing media system is going to turn your life
into a living nightmare.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
Yeah. I've repeatedly seen a First Amendment cited ref to this.
This has not got anything to do with the First Amendment. Like,
the First Amendment doesn't give you the right to get
a good grade for saying what the fuck you want?
That's that's not in the First Amendment. But yeah, like
Garrison said, it is chilling speech. Good news. Oklahoma University
Workers United is a union sick okay, cool, and it

(01:05:00):
includes grad student instructors unclear okay? Hit us up oh
uwu and let us know before we close.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
I do want to mention another story that's happened this
week which is gonna prompt of a future episode probably
next week. The online gambling platform cals I've never said
it before. I'm saying Calshi has that a serial partnered
with c Kashi. I you don't even know what you're
talking about anymore, But the online gambling platform cal she

(01:05:32):
is partnered with CNN and CNBC this past week to
allow the news companies to use quote unquote real time
prediction data for TV news segments and online content. This
is not entirely surprising if people have been watching CNN
like I have, like a complete maniac. Because specifically this

(01:05:54):
this past November and like this whole election season, news
pundits on CNN have been using betting odds in place
of polling data to weigh the likelihood of candidate's winning elections.
This has become an increasingly common practice, specifically at CNN,
and now it appears spreading to other news platforms like CNBC.
How she announcement of the CNN partnership reads quote. CNN

(01:06:18):
chief data analyst Harry Enton is an expert in translating
what data and polling are saying on any given issue,
and through this integration, he can tap into real time
prediction markets data to better inform and fact check his reporting.
Unquote what fact checking his reporting with gambling data? Gambling

(01:06:40):
odds from people who are betting on like if people
are going to starve in Gaza?

Speaker 6 (01:06:46):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
This is this is the sort of stuff that they
bet on on. Caliche, not just who wins elections. Absurd Jesus,
I like.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
That you've pronounced the day of this company several.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
Different see I used to call it Kelly, this is
the problem.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
I think it's I think it's Calshi. I think I
think Calshi is correct. There's one possible benefit to this.
Will it stop Nate Silva being so fucking annoying? No,
It'll cause them to be more annoying games. How can
you not see that?

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
This is this is a part of the nay cerverification
of everything God and this this is what I want
to talk about in the full piece. But but no,
there was there was a Sena news segment in October
twenty twenty five where this data analyst talked about how
the odds of Democrats winning the midterms are going down
via citing the Calshi odds, and then he did like

(01:07:37):
three minutes of analysis using selective midterm voting data from
twenty seventeen to twenty eighteen to support the movement in
the gambling odds. Like that was the core piece of data.
He was trying to explain, what the fuck?

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
How big is this marketplace?

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Pretty big?

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):
Pretty big? Okay? So I couldn't just come in with
like five hundred bucks and tip it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
No, no, no, I mean it depends on what you're doing
for Like these sorts of big these like big races. Know,
but part of the real problem is is if you're
just tuning in to CNN and reading the graphics, it's
really hard to tell that this that these are gambling ods.
You're just seeing big percentages and they're only gonna mention
that it's from quote unquote betting markets or prediction markets
like once at the beginning of the segment. After that

(01:08:19):
they treat the numbers like actual polling data. So it's
really really manipulative. And unless you're like super paying attention
to this whole segment, it'd be very easy to interpret
these gambling numbers as genuine as genuine poll information. Wow,
it's incredibly dangerous to democracy and uh overall kind of

(01:08:41):
bad and fucked up, and it's gonna be spreading.

Speaker 6 (01:08:43):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
The Calshi competitor poly Market partnered with X the Everything
app and Yahoo Financed earlier this year to integrate their
quote unquote prediction data into content on X and Yahoo Finance.
It's only going to become more and more common.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Well, you're gonna do a long form episode on this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
I will.

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
Yeah, this sucks. I'm just looking at this website now.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
It sucks. I don't like this at all.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
If you would like to email us, you can do
so by reaching out to cool Zone Tips at proton
dot me.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
That does for us that it could happen here. We
reported the news, and now you can bet on the news.

Speaker 3 (01:09:26):
We reported the news.

Speaker 8 (01:09:35):
It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources where it could happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
Thanks for listening.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #44