Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media, Oh Lord, that the Coming has begun.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The Coming has begun. 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. I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout,
and Robert Evans.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yes, and as James Stout just noted, the Coming has begun,
so we're going to also begin.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
This episode we are covering the week of March twelve
to March nineteen. Obviously, the most important piece of news
right now is that Minnesota Republican state Senator Justin aich Lord,
who just last week sponsored or co sponsored a bill
that that legally recognizes Trump Derangement syndrome as a mental
illness which disqualifies you from possessing firearms, was literally that
(00:54):
same day rested in a sting operation for trying to
meet up with and have sex with.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
A like like literally he was like, had to have
been texting this. He thought what he thought was a kid,
but what was really a federal agent. While he was
finalizing the language.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
It's it's it's truly phenomenal. Pedal Club theory never fails. Anyway,
let's move on to the actual important stress, which is
mostly bad. This has been a pretty rough week.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, it's been a pretty rough week.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It sucked.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yes, So I guess I'll turn to James Stout.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Mehi, everyone, Well the day you're listening, it's it's Neuro's
Nero's piros babe. Yeah, yeah, British listeners. So I want
to talk today about rendition. This has been reported his deportation. Like,
I guess it technically falls within deportation. But what's happening
here is that the Trump administration has begun renditioning people
who it accuses of being members of trender Ragua, which
(01:53):
is a Venezuelan gang, and the La Mara Saba, the
MS thirteen as they known here right. It has done
this based on something called the Alien Enemies Act. The
way it's able to use the Alien Enemies Act is
that it has designated these gangs as foreign terrorist organizations
rather than as like international crime organizations, and it's usually
(02:16):
Alien Enemies Act to expedite their removal. We spoke about
the Alien Enemies Act in a podcast that I made
last November with Robin Sophe about parts of the lord
that Trump administration might use for its mass deportation agenda.
They're now using this one, and very briefly, it's a
two hundred and twenty six year old piece of legislation
that hasn't been used since World War Two, when it
(02:37):
was used to justifying tournament camps, which were a bad thing.
These people aren't being deported back to Venezuela, right, The
US doesn't have relations with the Moduro regime, although it
has to port people back to Venezuela on an airline
that was previously sanctioned, which could now land in the
US for the express purpose of deportations, which is great. Instead,
(02:57):
they're being sent to Al Salvador, sent there with no
trial or hearing or seemingly right to appeal. When they
get to El Salvador, they've been parade in front of
video cameras. Very degrading treatment. Right. Their hair is being shaved,
sort of being walked with their heads forced down. They're
being filmed on their knees while all their hair and
(03:17):
facial hair is removed, and then they're being sent to
second If you're not familiar with this, it was the
subject of State Department Human Rights reports very recently and
now we are sending people there. It's a mega prison
in El Salvador. It roughly translates terrorism confinement or terrorism
detention center. I guess it's been very recently built by Bukel,
(03:39):
who's the president of El Salvador, and it's part of
his Supermanodoro like Iron Fist. Super Iron Fist would be
the way you were translated. I guess. It is routinely
criticized by human rights organizations for the disgusting conditions of
people are kept in right, the United States government intended
to send three hundred people there and in return it
(04:00):
paid six million dollars to El Salvador for the cost
of their detention. At the time that I wrote this,
two hundred and thirty eight people who were accused of
being part of trend our Work was sent there, and
then twenty three who accused of being part of MS thirty.
They were removed on flights the Trump administrations, claiming they
were removed before a district court judge in DC blocked
(04:23):
the removals. But there are a series of timelines that
you can see online, some of which will be linked
in the source of this episode would suggest that they
were in the air when he blocked their removals. Nonetheless,
the judge very explicitly said, I'm quoting here. Any plane
containing these folks that is going to take off or
is in the air needs to be returned to the
United States. This is something that you need to make
(04:43):
sure is complied with immediately. This did not happen. The
planes continued traveling to Olsalvadoid, stopped in Honduras, and then
these people were paraded before the cameras, right, and they're
now presumably being detained in this prison, which doesn't mean
basic sender of human rights. The government has given various
reasons for ignoring this ruling from the judge. Press Sexuary
(05:05):
Caroline leave It claimed that there was quote no lawful
basis for it. Obviously, that the process here is, if
you don't believe then judicial ruling is correct, you stop
doing the thing and appeal it. You don't just keep
doing the thing and say like, oh, well, I don't
believe you. It's not true. Obviously, this only matters in
so far as the judge can enforce his decision. They
also claimed in court that the verbal order that the judge
(05:26):
gave is not the same as a written one, and
they claim that because the flights were ever international waters,
this was a foreign policy matter, and that the judge
could intervene in a foreign policy matter. That's a power
of this reserve to the executive.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I mean, like all of these justifications are really like
freaky in terms of constitutional power and stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, this is there are fringes on the flag, so
admiralty court apply is kind of done.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, But specifically that last one being like it doesn't
count because we're over international waters is like, yeah, super
frightening in terms of like human rights abuses.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
That's not the way anything works, especially since it was
like a US airline.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Yeah. Yeah, and in terms of yeah, you basically don't
have human rights because really, look, it's they're forcing a
loophole that doesn't exist in the same way that George W.
Bush did in the in the early two thousands with
Guantanamo Bay. He was never stopped from doing it.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Yeah yeah, well, I I honestly, I think I think
the thing that this is closer to is the other things.
So I think Guantanamo Bay is the one that gets remembered.
But the other part of the CIA torture program was
the US would just ship people off to places like Syria.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Yeah, yeah, Syria, Egypt, Syria and the Egypt biggest.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Yeah maybe yeah yeah, we did ANASA.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
To Syria's torture program had largely been cobbled together by
a former SS guy. It's all. It's very good.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I also want to read a line from the legal
argument that Trump's lawyers made before this judge, because it
is fucking horrifying. Quote, enemy Allians are not entitled to
seek any relief or protection in the country that has
designated them enemies, absent dispensation by the President c Citizens
Protection League. And then in parentheses noting common law ruling
(07:11):
that alien enemies have no rights, no privileges, unless by
the King's special favor. So every single part that is horrifying.
Also horrifying is the fact that if you actually look
up the common lawal citation, the next words after King's
special favor is in a time of war.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So yeah, that's the idea here, right, that we're a
war with these foreign terrorist organizations and these people are
like essentially like spies.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah, and this is this is this thing We're like, well, no,
obviously we're not like that. We don't have there's no
state of war, Like, no state of wars have ever
been declared. But because of the way the War on
Terror sort of functioned, they're they're they're trying to claim
these things. And then again like the fact that they're
saying that anyone they declare an alien has literally no
protections at all in the country, no rights at all
can be anything can be done to them. It's unless
(07:55):
specifically the president decides that they have rights. Is unbelievably hideous.
It is pure, pure state of exception, total fascism. Shit,
it's fucking horrifying.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, and it's entirely unconstitutional, right, Like you have to
be a radically left person to believe that humans have rights. Yeah,
I want to really briefly, like one of the criteria
that was used here so so ice criteria. So they
have to have two identifying signs to be classified as
a gang member. One of them that has been used
very heavily here is tattoos. We know from court filings
(08:29):
that one man, Barrios, he has a football tattoo, right,
like a tattoo of a football with a crown on
it is this diocelic god underneath. It was supposed to
be I guess similar like a play on the logo
of Al Madrid. But they've used this to claim that
its evidence he's a member of a gang. Gangs like
tender Agua don't have like gang signed tattoos, right, Yeah,
(08:50):
they're smarter than that, Like they've seen what's happened to
gangs like MS thirteen, because who do Like Madras, Central
American gangs have have had these things like as part
of their tradition for a while, and they've been used
heavily by law enforcement. I remember Christmas Eve twenty twenty three.
I was in the desert with my friends and a
large number of my joints Across that day, I remember
(09:10):
meeting a Venezuela man who was like covered in tattoos.
They head to toe, very heavy tattooed. And that dude
spent the entire day building a shelter for someone else's
sick kid and then slept by himself in the freezing
cold outside. And like, I don't know, I've been thinking
about that guy a lot because under this ruling, right,
like just his appearance of having tattoos would have him
(09:31):
classified as a terrorist. And like when thousands of Americans
living within an hour of that place did nothing, and
that little girl who was sick had nowhere to sleep,
Like this guy took it upon himself to help, even
when he himself was in a difficult place. And it
just really makes me kind of sick. I think that
this is where we're at now.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, no, I mean it's it's it's a damning indictment
of the character of people who are the voter base
in this country. And it's a damning indictment of like
what particularly liberals in the left failed to stop because
this was this was a train that we could see
coming for a while, like the propaganda campaign against these folks, yeah,
(10:15):
and a necessary ingredient, and the Republicans getting their way
on this was democratic politicians and you know, to be
entirely fair, quite a few prominent thought leaders on the
left absolutely folding and not just not just failing to
like counterpoint this stuff, but like diving in on it
(10:36):
because they they either had prejudice of their own or
they saw it as like an opportunity. But like, you know,
the whole nativist deal is is just disgusting. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know what else to say. I can't just
keep yelling about it.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, it's not all a slippery slope. And I'm not
saying that they're both as bad as each other, because
what's happening now is much worse than anything that happened previously.
But like, yes, when we could detain people, including little
chill outside and we could leave them there in the snow,
and like little babies could be shivering, and I could
be giving away my own coat almost every day I
was out there because I was worried someone's baby was
(11:10):
going to die of hypothermia, we kind of conceded that
these people didn't have rights, right and the Democratic Party
let that happen, and people on the left let that happen.
And that is a stepping stone on the pathway to
where we're at now.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yep, just as like with all the shit that's that's
happening right now, like in terms of like the disappearing
of political opponents and whatnot, Like you can draw a
line from that from like the Patriot Act, you know,
from Obama targeting a US citizen in think Afghanistan, Like
there's all of these are Like obviously things were not
(11:46):
nearly as bad as they are right now in those administrations,
but like they're not unrelated. You know, this kind of
unitary executive theory is a through line through the last
several administrations, and if anyone had pushed back prior to
this point, Trump wouldn't be able to do a lot
of what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yep. Now what we are doing is pivoting to ads. Yeah,
right now.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
We're back and we're talking Ukraine Ukraine. I'm sorry that
I shouldn't Ukraine if you want to, Yeah, I don't
know why I did anyway. So, if you've been kind
of paying attention over the last month or so, we've
had a little odyssey in terms of US Russia Ukraine relations,
(12:43):
and the gist of it is that everybody claims to
want an end to the fighting. You know, at least
off and On. Putin has kind of like made some
motions to that has absolutely not acted as if this
is something he particularly cares about. Trump clearly does want
a ceasefire because he wants to be able to take
credit for it, and Zelensky also clearly once a ceasefire.
(13:05):
But there's been some kind of some pretty significant like
hold ups. One of them has been around Ukrainian minerals,
and you know, in February, you had the administration talking
a lot about how the US was going to gain
control of Ukraine's minerals in order to pay us back
for our support of their war effort, and Zelensky drew
(13:28):
a very firm line, as he often does, like no,
I'm not going to You're not just going to get
all of this, all of our country's minerals. And I
should note here that like this is a fairly significant
issue in global terms. It's estimated that Ukraine has about
five percent of the planet's critical raw materials, including massive
reserves of graphite. They're somewhere in like the top five
(13:50):
countries in terms of proven graphite reserves, which among other things,
is a critical ingredient for batteries in electric vehicles. They
supply about seven percent of Europe's titanium. They're home to
a third of European lithium deposits. This is not an
exhaustive list, that's just kind of, you know, to start
things off. And initially, when there was this kind of
(14:13):
pushback from Zelenski saying like no, you're not just going
to get all that, putin came in and was like, well, hey,
you know, we've occupied a bunch of Ukrainian land that
has raw minerals on it, will give those to you, right,
And so this went back and forth, and eventually Zolensky
and Trump's people put together like a deal that they
were supposed to sign earlier this month that was like
(14:34):
at actual like bilateral agreement on the use of Ukrainian minerals.
And essentially what it would have done is the deal
did call for Ukraine to use its mineral resources to
repay the United States to the tune of about half
a trillion dollars, but not in a manner like where
they were just handing us their minerals. Essentially, Ukraine would
(14:56):
contribute fifty percent of revenues earned from the future monetizationation
of government owned mineral resources and other natural resources. But
these were critically revenues earned from those resources like future modernization, right,
So new mines, new oil and gas plants not included
in this were like current reserves like actively being exploited
(15:19):
for profit. So kind of the key to this is that,
like mining is not something that you can turn around
on a dime. Generally, once you have actually proven you
know that you have sort of the reserves in an
area it takes about twenty years to actually get like
mines up and running, and you know, this is an
(15:40):
extremely expensive process. So one of the reasons why Ukraine
considered this a good deal for them is that we're
essentially putting a lot of those revenues in the hands
of the US. But it was revenues from minerals that
Ukraine was not currently exploiting and that the US would
help and provide funding to exploit. It was not just
(16:00):
paying back the US. It was something that would allow
the rebuilding of the Ukrainian economy post war. There were
some issues with this, including the fact that mining is
an extremely energy intensive task in Ukraine is in the
middle of an energy crisis at the minute. But among
other things, it would have brought the US in and
(16:20):
given them a financial stake and continued peace in the region,
which was seen as positive. That all blew up at
a White House meeting a couple of weeks ago, where,
if you remember, JD. Vance and Trump basically had a
little wwees SmackDown with Zelensky. It was a pretty ugly meeting,
(16:41):
and after that kind of talk of the bilateral mineral
deal faded significantly. Now, what's interesting is that just today
it's come out that Zelensky and Trump have had further
conversations and there's a new deal apparently on the table,
or at least the White House claimed that there was
a new deal on the table. Both the White House
(17:02):
and Zelensky's office said that it was a very positive,
productive meeting. There's some evidence that Zelensky, after that big
blow up, has been kind of doing the thing you've
got to do with Trump, which is like massage him
and say nice things to him so that he'll like
you more, and that Trump has gotten kind of frustrated
with the fact that Russia clearly has not been overly
(17:23):
motivated to move towards the ceasefire. But then, in the
middle of this meeting that everyone seems to agree went
really well, the White House comes out and says, and
we're working on an agreement where the US will control
all of Ukraine's nuclear reactors, and Ukraine came out and said, no,
we're not. Absolutely we did not say that that was
a deal. So I don't know what's actually going to
(17:44):
happen here. Ukraine is a massive like nuclear energy state,
in fact, the only European country that competes with them
or that is like on the same level as they
are in Europe in terms of nuclear industry is France,
they've got four nuclear power plants with fifteen reactors in total.
Now obviously like the Zapharizia plant is still under Russian control,
(18:09):
which is a significant chunk. It's like six of the
fifteen reactors in the country, and Ukraine is in the
process of building more. They've actively added capacity since the
end of the Soviet Union, and so one of the
promises for sort of future Ukrainian economic stability is that
they will be able to export nuclear energy to the
rest of Europe, which is also going through an energy crisis.
(18:32):
So it's unclear what's going to happen. There's definitely evidence
again that Zelensky has kind of figured out how to
massage Trump a little bit. There's a quote from an
article in The Conversation that I found very interesting here.
While Trump still leans towards putin, his relationship with Zelensky
seems to have improved. Ukrainian president appears to have learned
that Trump doesn't have a long memory and that flattery
(18:54):
goes a long way with the US president. Trump meanwhile,
is no longer calling Zelenski a dictator, and yet there
is no mention of halting US military aid or intelligence
to Ukraine. There's the opposite, in fact, as the US
has said it will assist in finding more patriot missile
defense systems after Zelenski mentioned they were sorely needed. By
giving Trump credit for the ceasefire initiative, Zelensky is putting
the ball in Russia's court, and his apparent receptiveness to
(19:15):
Trump's idea about the US taking over Ukraine's nuclear power
plants will appeal to Trump's transactional instincts in addition to
offering Trump business deals. And I don't fully know what
the conversation is saying here because Ukraine or Zelenski's office
has stated like we're not considering handing the US control.
I think this may be something like what happened with
the energy deal, where essentially what they talked about was
(19:39):
the US having a financial interest in the rebuilding an
expansion of the Ukrainian nuclear power grid, which would be
an extension of existing programs because Ukraine's nuclear power grid
is already very reliant on a US nuclear energy company, Westinghouse,
that provides both the raw fuel for nuclear reactors to
(19:59):
Ukraine and also provides a lot of like actual technology
for different kind of systems in the reactors. So I
kind of think that what's happening here is that basically
it was floated like, well, we can extend and expand
this deal, so the US will have a financial interest
in this potentially very large Ukrainian industry, and then Trump
(20:21):
and his people kind of took that and said to
everyone else, Yeah, the US is going to be in
charge of Ukraine's nuclear power. That's my best guess for
what happened here.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
It really seems like we're relearning one of the last
lessons in the administration, which is if you can be
the last person in the room with Trump, you can
put what he does.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Hey, yeah, I Mia, do you want to do a
tariff talk?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Wait? Wait, did you say tariffs, Garrison or did you
say rocking, rocking jaspot Sorry, locking jas locking jaspot Ah.
(21:05):
God feels good every time. Okay, miya, sorry, you can
talk about the actual news. Now, let's do this.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
So the news we have today is that effectively every
single thing I have talked about on tariff talk before
this is just the fucking prelude you know, and though
those have been very very extreme tariffs, but these are
effectively going to be looked back on as the opening
series of skirmishes and sort of probing defenses. On April seconds,
Trump is going to crash the entire world economy. He
(21:33):
is calling this Liberation Day. On April second, he is
planning to impose reciprocal tariffs on every single country on Earth.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Finally, you know what, I'm completely on board. As long
as we're finally sticking it to those snotty fucks in Oman,
you know, then everything's good. It's about goddamn time.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Now I'm gonna take a fucking victory lap here because
I have been talking about this for a very very
long time. I talked about this last year. I talked
about this the beginning of last year, talked about this
the end of last year. The entire media seems to
have short of forgotten about this until they all suddenly
remembered this week that Trump had promised to do reciprocal tariffs.
So what reciprocal tariffs are in theory is, if there's
a tariff on something and I from another country, the
US matches it. So the way the Trump administration thinks
(22:16):
about tariffs is deeply weird. So they're including things like
value added taxes on goods in countries.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Wow, which is like a sales yeah, packs in the US.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yeah yeah, But also like subsidies and also and this
is the part that has gotten less things, but quote
unquote currency manipulation. Now, how the fuck do you do
you calculate that for literally every single country on Earth?
Who knows Business Insider has some reporting on this where
where they talked to some insiders and okay, so literally
there are not enough people working on tariffs to like
(22:48):
calculate out individual teriffras for every single country on Earth.
It looks like the plan right now when this is
also just to change because again this is Trump administration,
and who the fuck knows what they're gonna be saying
or doing in two weeks. But what we know right
now is it looks like they're going to separate every
country on Earth into three tiers of tariffs. So it's
going to be like a low tier, a mid tier,
and a high tier, and it's unclear exactly what levels
(23:11):
they're going to be. These are going to be on
top of all of the additional tariffs that they've already imposed.
So say, for example, trying gets put into high tier one,
they put like a fifty percent tariff on it. That
means a terifra it is going to be seventy percent
because there's already twenty percent tariffs on their business. Insider
seem to think twenty percent is like the low one.
I don't know about that. I think they're going to
(23:32):
be pretty high. We have no idea. And again, so
what's happening here is Trump is declaring this Liberation Day
because he has convinced himself. I think I finally understand
what's going on in his brain, which is that he
has convinced himself that like, if you have a trade
deficit with a country, that means the country's robbing you.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Right, yes, yes, again. Trump's firm, lifelong belief is that
if you are selling something, you've won, and if you're
buying something, you have lost.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Now, this is not how international trade works at all
for the US. Like the entire US Empire, absolutely, the
entire US Empire is based on outsourcing a bunch of
political violence to other countries so you can buy goods
at cheap rates, right, Like, that's that's that's that's what
the empire is.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Yeah, we love buying things. It's the entire basis of
our civilization.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah. Yeah, The reason Jeffrey Bezos was that the inaugration
is because we like to be buying.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Yes, yeah, and so is something I mentioned, you know,
back back when I was talking about this in the
Terriff episode right after the election, is that the thing
about reciprocal tariffs, right, is that it means that if
if anyone attempts to to fight a trade war with
the US, so another country imposes twenty percent tariffs, the
US will also impost twenty percent terriffs, and this just
spirals out of control into a version of a trade
war so unhinged, like none of us have ever seen
(24:44):
anything like in our lifetimes.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Oh yeah, brother, yeah, that's coming.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
We have We now have April second as the day
everything explodes. I also want to want to put like
another note here. The hope has always been from a
lot of countries and a lot of the financial markets
and bunch companies that these tariffs are going to have
more exemptions, because there were some exemptions on stuff in
the initial tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Well, and he kept going back and forth right.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Yeah, but now we're getting into terroifts with which you
have no exceptions. The steel and aluminum tariffs have had
no exemptions at all. What we've been hearing, so one
of the things I've been noting is that Canada and
EU have been basically mobilizing in the trade war and
imposing reciprocal terroists in the US. China has two, Mexico
has not. Apparently Mexico still thinks that they can negotiate
(25:30):
to be in like the lowest tier of tariffs. This
won't completely destroy their economy. Fuck if I know why
they think that, but who knows. Yeah, but that's the fact.
That's effectively the tariff news we have Right now, we
have again April second, quote unquote Liberation Day, the day
that this all goes into effect. I bet they wanted
to do April first and realize that they couldn't.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
No, Yeah, I didn't think that.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
No.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Trump.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Trump announced this during his Joint Congressional address, and he
openly said that he originally wanted to do it on
April first, at the start of the month, but decided
not to because he is too superstitious as a person. So, yes,
originally they were going to be on April first, and
then they pushed him back to April second because they
(26:13):
didn't want it to be on April Fool's Day.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That's good. That's a good way.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So that's a great, great extra insight into the mind
of the US God King.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Anyway, let's go on ad break and then come back
to discuss all of the other bad things that are
happening in the country.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Okay, we're back.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
The first thing I want to kind of open to
a group discussion on is that On Tuesday, March eighteenth,
the federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking Trump's ban
on trans people serving in the military, ruling that the
blanket ban likely violates constitutional right of Steven Miller responded
to the ruling by writing, District court judges have now
decided that they are in command of the armed forces?
(27:08):
Is there no end to this madness?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
God?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Fuck?
Speaker 4 (27:12):
So.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
I know this is a topic that we've discussed a lot.
As you know, we're not all big US military defenders.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
No, but it's mostly done bad stuff in my lifetime.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
But we still take like almost like an ontological issue
with this band because it essentially creates just a secondary
class of citizen with fundamentally different rights from the rest
of everyone else, and that is never a good thing.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
It's like, so right now, one of the semi positive
news stories is that Trump's ATF is going to be
for the first time restoring people's Second Amendment rights who
had them taken away because they were involuntarily institutionalized. And
I've seen a lot of liberals being like, oh, they're
just gonna let more crazy people have guns. This is bad,
and like, I have to disagree whether or not you
(28:01):
like it. The Second Amendment is a fundamental right under
the Constitution, and it's bad to say that this class
of people forever lose a fundamental right because they're involuntarily institutionalized.
That's bad. And likewise, even if you hate the US
military's role in US imperialism, which fine enough, the right
(28:24):
to serve in an integrated military has been a major
underpinning of most of the civil rights movements, like a
foundational depending of most civil rights movements in this country's history,
going back to the Civil War, you know, Black civil rights,
including LGBTQ rights, and including women's rights. Right, It's like
(28:44):
it is significant, and so the fact that the GOP
is attempting to peel this back and essentially reverse integration
of the military is bad for two reasons. One, it represents,
as you've said, creating separate classes of people and peeling
fundamental what are considered under the law in this country,
(29:04):
fundamental rights away from groups of people. And it's also
just dangerous for them to remake the military into an
all white organization, right, like all white male organization. There's
a reason why that's also dangerous to you. So, yeah,
I think people should care about this, even if they're
you know, leftists.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, And like, especially in this country, the military represents
one of the few social mobility tools that exist. Right.
People don't just join the military because they, country, to
what you might have seen on Twitter dot com, want
to go to Middle East and kill people. Sometimes they
do it because they want to get a chance to
go to education. Sometimes they want to do it so
they get a chance to have healthcare. Yep. And like
(29:43):
trans people serve at a higher rate. Then it says
people that may not be the case for very much longer.
By it like that has been the case, and they
have rights to use however they want. They don't just
have rights to use how you will II or anyone
else would like them to use well.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
And that's also a broad truth. For the US military,
members of my marginalized groups have always served at a
higher rate than basically anyone else. This includes like Native
Americans serve at a higher proportion of like their population
within the country than most other groups, in part because traditionally,
serving in the military was a way in which to
(30:18):
gain acceptance and entrance into American society.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
It's also just like another world, like you can field
in some ways, like insulated from like yes, the hoarders
you might experience in like regular suburban life oddly enough, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
To weigh out of the isolation that so many people
experience in the world.
Speaker 5 (30:37):
And like, is it extremely bad that the way that
you enter your into American society is by being a
part of the imperial war machine? Yes?
Speaker 4 (30:44):
Yes, But also the war machine is going to be
there whether you are in it or not.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
And the actual fundamental important thing here is again what
we've been saying is that like the fundamental basis of
liberal democracy, going back to the American Revolution, going back
to the French Revolution, going back to like the original
liberal revolutions, the fundamental principle of is that everyone is
equal before the law, and the moment that ceases to
be true, and it has not been true in this
country ever, but you know, we're seeing increasing numbers of
(31:14):
people who are not considered equal before the law. We
just spent this entire fucking like first part of this
episode talking about what happens when people are considered to
have no protections under the law, which at the state
can just fucking black bag you and send you to
a gulag.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Yeah, like that is bad.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Now, that's what's that fundamentally at stake here, not like
whether you think the army is good.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, and imagine for those people, Like when they people
could have served nineteen years, right, they could have been
just about to get their twenty years and get their
retirement and will now not get that. Like they they
signed up expecting a thing, right, Like there was a
quid pro quote there that they would give twenty years
of their life and possibly a lot of their health
to the United States government and in return they will get
health care and a pentrum for the rest of their lives.
(31:56):
And people are now going to lose that.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah. In some related news, the VA just announced that
quote effective immediately. The VA will not offer cross sex
hormone therapy to veterans who have a current diagnosis or
history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria unless
such veterans are already receiving such care from the VA,
or such veterans we're receiving such care from the military
(32:20):
as a part of and upon their separation from the
military service, and are eligible for VA healthcare. So basically
they will not be emitting like new patients to receive
gender affirming healthcare.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Well, unless there's sist gender it seems like oh yes, correct, yes,
if it's just basically assists, men can still receive gender
affirming hormones.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Sure, be Like I kind of get annoyed when people
do that, like comparisons, like that's never like we're falling
into this artro trap off, like we're actually using words
to mean what they mean and like they're not using
words like that, you know, like whenever people like laugh
about haha, they banned pronouns at school. Now now you
can't say the word and you're like no, like come out,
(33:01):
like what like that's not what they mean? Like you
have to understand, like the dog whistles that they're using.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah. It. I find it interesting though that they seemingly
like you've tried to even get around like that like
linguistic thing in the statement.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Sure me like it if it's what you mean by
gender dysphoria, right, Like you could theoretically you could have
gender ysphoria because your assists male and you want to
become more masculine, right, Like all all of these diagnoses
have like a very fuzzy ontological underpinning. Right, these are
just categories that we're projecting. Yes, but this is you know,
probably not great. It's probably isn't a good thing. Like,
(33:35):
for instance, if you already have VIA healthcare, you're not
in the military anymore, and now you decide that you
would like to receive gender affirming healthcare, now you can't
at least through the VA.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
So as a as a related thing, let's see, I
think we should kind of close with or like bookend
our discussion on like like the immigration stuff and the
black baggings and deportations which have been happening. A German
immigrant named Fabian Schmidt, who has lived in the States.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
With the green card the German name Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Since two thousand and eight, so like he's lived here
quite a while. He immigrated with his mom. He was
detained and tortured at the Boston Logan Airport upon returning
from a visit to Europe. The man's mother says that
he was quote unquote violently interrogated at the Logan airport
for hours and was stripped naked, put in a cold
shower by two officials, and pushed back into an interrogation chair.
(34:26):
I'm going to quote from w GBH quote. She said.
Schmid told her immigration agents pressured him to give up
his green card. She said he was placed on a
mat in a bright room with other people at the
airport with little food or water, suffered sleep deprivation, and
was denied access to his medication for anxiety and depression.
He hardly got anything to drink, and then he wasn't
(34:46):
feeling very well and he collapsed, said a senior, which
is his mom. He was transported by ambulance to mass
General Hospital. He didn't know it at the time, but
he also had the flu unquote. Now, Schmid has since
been transferred to multiple ice facilities. He had a misdemeanor
charge for marijuana possession in California back in twenty fifteen,
(35:07):
but that charge was dismissed the following year due to
changes in state law. But I think that this incident
may have flagged Schmidt on the customs and border protections
like database and Hillary Beckham, CBP's Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs,
gave a short statement reading, quote, when an individual is
found with drug related charges and tries to re enter
(35:27):
the country, officers will take proper action unquote. But essentially
they like tortured, black bagged this person who's had a
green card for like almost two decades for a dismissed
marijuana charge like ten years ago. This is like you know,
like a very white man like Fabian Schmidt. Yeah, like
this is this is super freaky stuff.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, we should say that a lot of that stuff
is not particularly unusual and nice attention lights being all
the time not being given bettying, but like being shaved
into a that.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Was at the airport, they say, like like being being
interrogated at like.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
At the airport this is a new one.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
And like being forced to like forcibly like give up
your green card during this like interrogation session at that
very same airport, Like I think just maybe like a
day or so later. A Lebanese doctor and professor at
Brown University, Russia, Alweya, was deported this weekend after traveling
to Beirut to visit family and attend the public funeral
(36:29):
of Hassan Nashraala. Upon a return to the United States,
she was detained at the Boston Airport, had her H
one B visa revoked, and was deported on a plane
to France on Friday, March fourteenth, before she could attend
her in person hearing that following Monday. According to court documents,
her deportation was prompted by deleted pictures on her phone
(36:51):
of like Shia Muslim figures like Neshraala and the Ayatola,
another very very frightening incident. In those documents, it's unclear
how Customs and Border Protection was viewing deleted photos on
her phone or like like like like open of her
phone right because like if you recently deleted a photo,
it is still contained in your recently deleted folder, assuming
(37:11):
you have like an iPhone or equivalent. But it's unknown
how they got into her phone, if she like let
them look through it, or if they used one of
like a many like.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Phone breakaway, see or whatever. Yeah, but I.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Think it is interesting that this is at the same
airport to you know, slightly related incidents.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
But yeah, we've seen that a lot with like in
the similar cases people crossing the land border's Santy seedro both.
I think a Canadian and German citizen were both detained,
which is a San Diego county. It's not familiar. It
seems like there's some kind of policy at certain border
crossings or maybe, like the person in chides, Yeah, I
was saying, do this, you know, detain people of this
(37:54):
anything on their record at all.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Well so so, and there's another case of this that's similar,
where a French researcher who to best of mine is
unnamed so far, was randomly pulled aside for a stop
at George Bush International Airport in Houston, which is sort
of fitting for all of this. George Bush has gotta
be fucking creaming his pants thinking about all this black
bag and shit. But yeah, I was randomly pulled over
(38:16):
and they found anti Trump text on his phone and
immediately deported him. This is a guy who was visiting
the US, like I think they go to a conference
and the border patrol is arguing that anti Trump texts
are considered terrorism, which is great, or the text that
they found are like could be like the anti Trump
ness of it can be considered terroristic, so that's bad.
(38:36):
There was yet another case, which is a slightly different one,
which is Buttercon Surrey, who is a postoc at Georgetown
who was detained and sent to an immigration facility, who's
here teaching. He's a postdoc at Georgetown on a student
visa who has been sent to an immigration facility based
on basically a right wing panic about his wife, his
(38:57):
wife's father being Hamas. And because of this, he's been
black bagged in a way very similar to Mak mckhalil. Yeah,
now Georgetown is backing him on this, but this is
you know this, this this is another one of these
fucking blackpaggings that they're just doing now with someone who
is here on a student visa who has committed no crime,
who Georgetown was like, has committed no crime. And again
(39:19):
also even if he've committed a crime, this is fucking horseship.
But yeah, all of these things are just continuing to
ramp up, and they're getting Boulder and Boulder.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Thanks Robert, do you wanna Do you want to read
a select paragraph or two from a from Khalil's first
like public statement.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Yeah, so he he put out a letter a couple
of days before we recorded this, and you should really
read the whole thing if you just google Mahmood Khalil letter.
I mean, I think the exact title is my name
is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner, which
is the first sentence of the letter. But I want
to read this little bit of him talking about his arrest.
(40:00):
On March eighth, I was taken by DHS agents who
refused to provide a warrant and accosted my wife and
me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage
of that night has been made public. Before I knew
it was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an
unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for
Newer's safety. I had no idea if she would be
taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her
(40:21):
for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me
anything for hours. I did not know the cause of
my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At
twenty six Federal Plaza. I slept on the cold floor
in the early morning hours. Agents transported me to another
facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the
ground and was refused a blanket despite my request. My
(40:41):
arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to
free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and
an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in
full force Monday night. With January ceasefire now broken, parents
in Gaza are once again cradling two small shrouds, and
families are forced to waste starvation and displacement against bombs.
Is moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their
(41:02):
complete freedom. And again I really recommend reading the whole thing.
It's it's very good.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
But yeah, I get so particularly upset that Trump's admin
uses like this, like vague anti semitism justification for for
for some of these actions, at least because the head
of Trump's Anti Semitism task Force just last week retweeted
Patrick Casey, who is from the American Identity Movement, a
(41:34):
leading alt right figure who was at Charlottesville, to quote
Shane Burley. This tweet that was reposted by the head
of this anti semitism task force claimed that quote Trump
has the ability to revoke someone's Jew card.
Speaker 5 (41:47):
It's absolutely horrible.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Are are we serious here?
Speaker 2 (41:50):
It's like unbelievable, unbelievable amounts of anti semitism spread by
the person who leads the federal task force to calm
back to anti semitism.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
Great, yeah, And going back to Columbia for a second.
One of the other things that's been happening is that
Trump threatened Columbia with the loss of four hundred million
dollars in government contracts unless they give in to a
bunch of Trump's demands. So Trump wants them to ban
masks on campuses, allow campus cops to do more violence
against student protesters, and expel like protesters who occupy buildings.
The president is supposed to get control of all discipline
(42:23):
and can expel and suspend students, and they want to
crack down student groups they want and this is also
a tie into the other thing. They want the IHR
definition of anti semitism and like specifically, the Trump's like
letter to them specifically says like classifying anti Zionism as
anti Semitism, And they want to put the Middle East,
South Asian, and African studies departments in academic receivership, which
(42:45):
means stripping away power from the faculty and giving it
to someone outside these Yeah, Columbia is about to give
into these demands. It seems like they want to try
to find another word other than academic receivership, but they're
just going to fucking do it. So and Trump have
legal authority to do this, No, obviously not, But you know,
does he have the moral authority? There's no, obviously not
like this guy is.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
But none of those are important. He has guys with guns. No,
That's what it always comes down to. And then any
one who forgets that is only hurting themselves.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
Like yeah, and so he's also doing this thing of
like attempting basically to dismantle a bunch of the higher
education institutions in this country unless they become just pure
right wing sort of laboratories. And another example of this
is as the news stories about Columbia, we're coming out
like Columbia trying to take the deal. We're coming out
The University of Pennsylvania is good about to lose one
hundred and seventy five million dollars of funding for allowing
(43:31):
Leah Thomas, a trans swimmer, to swim for their college.
So this is just going to be a giant sort
of battering ram that Trump is going to use to
just basically obliterate the education system and like impose whatever
unhinged right wing thing that he wants to impose.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
And we will talk more about his efforts to destroy
the education system next week on our next episode of
ED As says he is continuing to prep an executive
order to abolish the Department of Education. And there's plenty
of other news, including the federal judge confrontations, that we
will also report on next week. But before we leave today,
(44:12):
Mia has a brief note on the bird flu. With Flitch,
I'm sure will be fine. Frankly, I'm still eating eggs,
but Mia.
Speaker 5 (44:20):
Yes, so as as people there with the boyd flu.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
So the thing.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
The thing about chickens is that they're dying from bird
flu right now. This has killed an enormous number of chickens.
This is part of why egg prices are so high.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Now.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
This is a problem that a lot of countries have
dealt with. China has dealt with this by just fucking
vaccinating their chickens. The Biden administration refused to vaccinate chickens
because it would cost money and because it might make
it harder for us to export their.
Speaker 5 (44:43):
Chickens, So that was bad.
Speaker 4 (44:45):
RFK Junior literally just wants to let the bird flu
rip and kill all the birds and thinks that the
healthy birds will survive. And those healthy birds.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yeah, yeah, he's immunity.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
He has a heard immediity guy for COVID because he's
a human eugenics. He's also a chicken eye genesist. Now
I'm specifically doing this because I read multiple virologists reading
about this or writing about this. I talked to virologists,
and the virologists all basically said, if you were trying
to design a way to make the bird flu like
move like a mutate in such a way that it
(45:18):
moves from birds to humans, this is what you would do.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Yeah, great, so and again cool. The death rate of
this thing is in a completely different category from fucking COVID.
It makes COVID look like having a mild case of allergies,
like staggeringly lethal and like it cannot overstate how disastrous
(45:41):
this would be.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Yeah, and COVID code more than a million Americans, like
fifteen case people have memory.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Hold that yeah right now, current rates when it has
reached humans as about a fifty percent fatality rate. They
thought initially that they were missing a lot of cases
and that it was much lower, but like the current
research points to suggests that that is not the case,
that it is actually somewhere in that range of lethality.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yes, I'm still eating my chicken, tartar. I don't know
why everyone's so worried about it.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
And again we don't know that like the version that
actually is able to jump from human to human after
jumping from bird to human would be that lethal because
that doesn't exist quite yet.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Probably, Yeah, but this is how we find out, but.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
We really don't want to find out.
Speaker 4 (46:31):
Yeah, I look, if you don't want to find out,
we have to find a way to get our k
junior out of that fucking office.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Like again, I think if we we really need to
have a lot of different farmers set up photo ops
with him where he is just covered in birds. We
need to have that man in constant physical contact with chicken.
It would do it and the problem will eventually solve it.
Speaker 5 (46:51):
We could convince him to eat raw chicken. We could
definitely do it.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
Sure, yes, absolutely raw, eat them, cuddle them, sleep with
them at night eight just kind of stand on a
pile of their corpses.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
All right, all right, if you are a chicken, or
you know a chicken, or you have anything else you
would like to share with us, you can do so well,
not anything else. You should be related to the news
and things that we can report on. You can send
it to cool Zone tips at proton dot me.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
And that's only encrypted if you also use encryption to
send the message end to end.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, it's a proton manaddress. That means, yeah, you have
to send from encrypted to encrypted. It still doesn't mean
it's perfectly safe. It just means it's encrypted. So send
what do you think you can send over an email?
That is that way we reported the news. We reported
the news.
Speaker 6 (47:50):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
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Speaker 5 (48:01):
Listen to podcasts.
Speaker 6 (48:03):
You can now find sources for it Could Happen here
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