Racist Receipts From ‘War On Terror,’ 9/11 Merchandising Bonanza! 9.10.21

In episode 986, Jack and Miles are joined by Salted Logic's Hina Wilkerson to discuss Terry Albury's experience in the FBI after 9/11, Trump continuing to make stuff up, America's merchandising obsession, and more!

FOOTNOTES:

1. ‘I Helped Destroy People’
2. Trump Appears to Be Making Stuff Up About 9/11. Again.
3. DONALD TRUMP I'M GETTING 'OBSCENE' AMOUNT OF MONEY ... For Calling Holyfield/Belfort Fight
4. The bid bombers of eBay
5. 'Ghoulish Souvenirs' From 9-11 Attack
6. Spitzer halts saleof 9/11 coins he calls fraud
7. Return of the Fake WTC Coin
8. 9/11 Commemorative Coin Formerly "New Low," Now $56.95
9. The 'disgusting' 9/11 memorial coloring book
10. FEMA's 9/11 Coloring Book Aims to Teach Kids About Tragedy
11. 9/11: 11 Tasteless Sales, Costumes and Events Inspired by the Terror Attacks
12. The tacky practice of using 9/11 to market consumer goods backfires yet again
13. Families infuriated by ‘crass commercialism’ of 9/11 Museum gift shop
14. 9/11 Families Blast ‘Greedy,’ ‘Disrespectful’ Decision To Store Unidentified Remains Underground In Museum
15. Families infuriated by ‘crass commercialism’ of 9/11 Museum gift shop
16. New York's 9/11 Museum pulls controversial item from gift shop
17. This 9/11 Cheese Plate May Be The 9/11 Museum's Most Tasteless Souvenir
18. 20 YEARS LATER
19. LISTEN: BADBADNOTGOOD - Beside April

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to season two oh one,
episode four of Days I Got the production of My
Heart Radio. This is a podcast where we take a
deep to dive into America's share consciousness. And it's Friday,
September one, a day before the twentieth anniversary of September eleven.

(00:22):
My name is Jack O'Brien, a k from the back
to the middle and around again. I'm gonna be there
till the trend one hundred percent do love. That is
courtesy of Radio and Georgio, who pointed out that the
late Michael kay Williams choreographed and dances in that video
with Crystal Waters. Oh I knew he's a dancer. Yeah,

(00:45):
I didn't know that. That's a that's the catalog. Yeah yeah. Well,
I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my co host,
Mr Miles Grass. Oh well, you know how I do
on a Friday night. I'm just probably driving and I'm smoking.

(01:07):
Means I'm fading. Got these cravings, but just fading. Nothing's open.
Need that mord Meal, So I'm going he said, who
getting Taco Bell tonight? Who getting Taco Bell tonight? Ain't

(01:30):
as much as a well tonight who giving my toilet
hell tonight. Okay, it's hey K, Miles, great, thank you
so much to Christie. Was Gucci made for that part?
I had to kind of give that first verse just
to kind of set up the scene. But at that
inspired take, Yeah, we gotta bring that in. We gotta

(01:53):
bring in the background. That was that was beautiful. Well
he was getting Taco belltn. We I would have and
and what one of the few times where the A
K is a a drastic improvement on the lyrical content
of the actual song. Yeah, I feel like I could
sing that with a lot more passion than yeah tonight. Yeah,

(02:18):
because like his version is I think it's like about
how Marilyn Manson shouldn't be canceled. Maybe, like is Marilyn
Manson's like on the jack come on, it's getting tackle
bell tonight. Thank you, thank you. That's asked the questions
that are on the Zeitgeist's mind. Yes, exactly, Miles. We

(02:40):
are thrilled, fortunate, blessed to be joined in our third
seat by a brilliant storyteller who is the lead creative
strategist for Assalted Logic. She's worked in everything from fine
art to technology to academia too. Conservation has worked with
everyone from small business reas in Hawaii to global PR

(03:02):
firm in New York City. She is the co host
of the podcast The up Vote and created the three
part audio experience they called me Hapa, Please Welcome the Talented,
the Brilliant. He Wilkerson. I didn't know that you're supposed
to bring our favorite Drake bars from his latest album.
If I knew that, I would have prepared. I have

(03:25):
no song. But you guys, it's wonderful to have you
gotten through either of those long winded albums. No, and
I planned to. Here's the thing, like, I think, like
anybody that's maybe under the age of thirty, at one
point in my life I did like Drake. You know,

(03:47):
he's he's the backdrop to my middle school angst. He
gave me a channel to, you know, kind of express
all the pain I was going through at a certain age,
even though my life was so simple. But that guy
in third grade, he broke my heart, and Drake just
gave me the anthem for it. And so, you know,
in a way, he he gives me something. But at

(04:09):
this point, it's like all the pedophilia, I just you know,
hot take, don't. Yeah, I think there's a lot of
not much of a hot take when there's a lot
of receipts. Were like you're trying to how are they
just like yeah, but like just to let him know,
like how this business is. Well. Also, any any woman

(04:29):
that has been seventeen has had an older guy in
their life that's like, you know what, you're so mature,
Like there's just something about you, and I don't know,
you're just not like the other girls. And you're like,
oh my god, wait me, I've always thought I was mature.
That's absolutely correct. Yes, well you can date me. Yeah,
and then you turn twenty five and you're like, oh

(04:50):
my god, oh my god, would have fucking creepy. Is
this still the Millie Bobby Brown ship or are there
more receipts, more ship coming out? Actually I'm not. I
think I think there's people that like he's dated that
are now like nineteen and twenty, but he's been in

(05:10):
photos with since they were like sixteen, So there's questions
of like kind of a grooming and then he comes
out when they're legal and he's like, oh no, it
was chill before now, like we weren't doing anything weird.
It was mentorship and then all of a sudden we
fell in love to pick You're Poison with those two albums.

(05:34):
Album is great. Yeah, there you go. I heard AD
was dropping something new though maybe Yeah, I can't wait
for that. I mean I can, but yeah, I don't
think they've dated any kids, so they're they're safe. Where
are you coming to us from? I am coming to
you from Nashville. I just moved here a couple of
months ago from New York City, and it's been good

(05:56):
so far. The South is the South has been good
to me. Oh, it's been nice. Yeah, a lot of
people making their you know that. We've had other guests
not resist the allure of Tennessee. Yeah. I mean it's
kind of like the less weird version of Portland's just
as white, but a little less weird. Mm hmm. That's interesting.

(06:19):
I'm gonna look at it to that. What what made
you move? Was there like a general like New York
is over? But I don't think it's New York it's over.
It's just that like every apartment in New York is
the size of a shoe box unless you're a multi millionaire.
So something about being in like a heightened version of quarantine,

(06:41):
where we were all just kind of like test lab
rats in this box and you order your groceries so
you truly never leave your house. And then once it
got winter, you extra don't leave your house. So it
was just kind of like staring out of the window
like dogs waiting for their owners to them back. But
no one ever came for us, and so the anxiety

(07:05):
was just too much and the cost was way too much,
and like, who knows if something is going to happen
again and we're going to be quarantine, I'd rather be
in a house, right, Yeah, So it was. It was
just such a bummer, And I moved there to get
my masters, and so the whole time I was in
school and I was working full time, so I never
got to like, I never fell in love with the city.

(07:28):
I think if I got the chance to just like
have one job and be able to go out in
the weekends, I would have a totally different picture. But
New York was just like a place that I lived. Yeah, yeah,
I think that's for a lot of people to like
the hustle it is, which is a certain kind of

(07:48):
a certain kind of fantasy. Yeah, you know, they just
never live up to it. I lived there for like
seven years, and then I just went back for like
two days of vacation and I was with kids, So
that also like changed the lens I was viewing it with.
But it was it was like totally different. Yeah, it

(08:09):
was kind of cool, but that did make me realize
how much I was just like head down working my
ass off the whole time that I lived there. It's
one of those cities that's almost not really a place
that it's like Vegas, like people live in Vegas, but
it's like should you like it's like living at Disneyland.
It sounds like a good idea in your ten, but

(08:29):
it's like in practice, you're thinking about whether you could. Yeah,
you have two options going out with You're gonna go
strip club or are you going to get drunk? And
you can only do that for so many weekends in
a round or shoot a machine gun? Oh too, shoot
a machine gun, race a race car, you know, take
a very expensive, shitty roller coaster ride, and then that's

(08:53):
about it. You have a construction truck, you can you
can like rent Giant, but you know what can parks
out there? Because all that fucking gambling that revenue that
it generates out there. I'm when I see the public
parks and like, Jesus Christ, what they're night means they
were really really nice. Such a specific compliment. I lived

(09:16):
there for a few months back when I was in
my political op days, and I just remember like we had,
you know, we very quickly burned through all the same ship.
Like in the first week, we're like, well, I can't
go to fucking rain again, Like this is not gonna
work from my body or my wallet. And then so
but because we're doing a lot of like organizing and

(09:37):
stuff in the area, we would go to certain like
parks and community centers and everyone's like, what the fuck
is this like, and they said this is the bad
part of town. Like they got a better parks that
we do. It l A, oh yeah, a lot of
people have better parks. Yeah, I mean we have the
we have terrible, Like to the point that I almost

(09:58):
complimented New York City's parks when I was talking earlier,
like that's that's well. It's the giant wraps that really
kind of add to the feeling. It's almost like you're
in an outdoor zoo. You're like that Is that a
sheep or is it's like a petting kind of thing. Yeah,
but they're off leash, so they get to like, you know,
just explore the explore the space. You're on the Sahara

(10:18):
without having to travel. Yeah, it's like, oh look, those
raccoons are hurting that those dogs, It's like, those are rats.
Nature is beautiful, Nature is healing. L A just needs
to turn every single golf course within the city limits
into a giant park. And yeah, that's anybody who knows
how to do that. Reach out to me. We need
to we need to seize that ship a reach out

(10:40):
to me, reach out to me. Hit me, let's board
these parks like fucking pirates and scratchers. I haven't quite
scratched off. You might build a fund this thing. Yeah yeah, uh,
all right, you know, we're gonna get to know you
a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going
to tell our listeners a few of the things we're
talking about. We gonna talk about the war on Terror.

(11:02):
We're gonna take a look back at that bullshit through
the eyes of Terry Albury, who was an FBI agent
who is currently in jail as uh, the first person
convicted under the espn Age Act since two thousand one,
because he was basically like, oh, the FBI is basically

(11:23):
sending people to prison and ruining people's lives for being Muslim,
and this is fucked up. And he leaked it to
the intercept and the details are wild and fucked up.
So I just want to take a look at that.
As we're nearing the twenty year anniversary of September eleven,
we're going to talk about Trump's campaign to stay front

(11:45):
and center of our minds, how that's going. We're gonna
talk about America's a weird history of a you know,
commercializing nine eleven memorabilia, all of that, plenty more. But
first he knew we like to ask our guests, what
is something from your search ustry? Okay, I have to
there's a caveat here. Sure, So my last search is

(12:06):
cheating dating sites. Now, I want to be clear that
I was not searching these out for my own use,
but I'm launching it. Of no, I would never but
I'm in the middle of launching a podcast and we're
doing an episode about cheating, and like films and TV
shows to talk about cheating, and I was thinking, what
is that website that people can go to, And it

(12:28):
was like a big conversation maybe five years ago, and
there was some leak and it couldn't figure it out.
It's Ashley Madison. I mean, I was looking for research
for the show. I mean, first of all, it's hard
to it doesn't really stick in your brain because it

(12:48):
sounds like a fucking furniture brand. Yeah, and then it
was it didn't turn out to be just all it
was like men and bought like men. Read a recent
review of people doing like are you thinking about using
a dating site? Here's your options, and it reviewed Ashley Madison,
and it actually is almost all real women because it's

(13:11):
pretty much free to use the site if you're a woman,
and then the men have to pay for credits, like
almost like, h what's the where the guys are trying
to like get a girl from like another country and
they pay credits to mail. It's like that but domestic exactly.
It's exactly like that, but domestic. And all of the people,
i mean, based on this review, who knows how how

(13:33):
real it is, but all of the people they said,
we're completely legitimate and people are using their real faces
on this profile. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Like
on Grinder, it's it's a lot of torso down you
know what I mean, Like it makes a lot of sense.
That's really all you care about. What's what's the what's

(13:54):
happened exactly. I don't need to see your face and
whether or not you like long walks in the beach.
I just want to know, does you're willing enable and local?
Are you carbon based? You want some dick? Okay? Is
there consent your carbon based life form? And you have wheels? Right?

(14:15):
I got a question their tradecraft there on just putting
their picture on it, because I'm sure there's also like
location based stuff right there, like matching you with people. Yeah,
I mean it's just it's it's pretty much location based
and people give their height, weight and whatever profiled name
they want to use, and then you just get it going.

(14:38):
Because I guess the divorce is too expensive, but a
lot of people on the site, I'm like, would your
divorce be all that expensive? You know, like do you
what are you protecting? It's like the dog, you know,
I can't I can't lose Sparky. Yeah, he's my only friend. Yeah, yeah,
I was going to say that that is like sloppy

(14:59):
because then like you could easily see your significant others
like best friend on there, But then why you were there?
Why they're there? Because he's doing a podcast episode about
the website? Why are we asking these questions? And I
met up with this woman to ask her about her

(15:19):
experience on there for the podcast. Is it a crime
to be a journalist? Is it a crime to be inquisitive? No?
For like Upton Sinclair here just getting attacks for for
trying to bring things out into the light. I mean,
if you're messy enough like that, that would actually be
a fun thing for a couple to do, to just
be like, all right, look like we just want to
see who who around us, like are in trouble, and

(15:45):
then we are like signing on that we're both doing
this for purely for research purposes, and then just like
going there and be like, oh, you know what it is,
it's you make You've basically created your own d I
y version of Jeter Is with Joey Greco. Yeah, you
know what I mean. But you just do the legworking
like trying to find the local people and then just

(16:06):
setting them up and then tell them there's like hey,
just recording your iPhone. Yeah, that'd be a big TikTok show.
That's the stuff that gets viral on TikTok. It's just
like people doing weird ship exactly. Also, the kind of
show gets you stabbed probably by the fourth time, Like
Joey Greco, how about that? What does something you think

(16:26):
is overreaded? Disney Adults fathers giving their daughters away during
the ceremony and wine related Home to Core. I told
my boyfriend the list before we started recording. It's like,
are you adding my mom on this podcast? He said,
absolutely not nine. If you're listening, I don't mean you're

(16:50):
Home to Core. Well, she's a big Wine Core fans. Okay, that'
side of it, right, Yeah, But the Disney adults, there's
nothing wrong with Like I still watched Disney movies when
I'm no nostalgic and drunk, But it's the when you
start drunk feeling Yeah, the conditions must be met for
me to regret. Well, when you're sad and depressed and

(17:11):
you're just feeling like the world is on your shoulders,
like Little Mermaid kind of brings you back to a
to like a happier time. You know, you can like
go back to where you were at that at that
moment in your life. But it's the problem is when
you start to incorporate it, like into your wedding and
into your personality or like I have a lot of
friends from high school that I see going on these

(17:32):
like yearly Mecca type trips to Disney when I know
that like you're trying to be you're like an aspiring
YouTube like influencer and you have ten followers, and I
don't know where you're getting any of this money. You know,
like I know you're going into debt to take this
little mouth selfie and say hashtag magic like and you

(17:54):
say for wine based decre this can be anything from
like a lot of like a wall made of corks.
Don't talk about it, wine about it? Um like a
decal that says like I like wine glasses exactly, or
that like fermented grapes are of fruits. That's like getting

(18:17):
your daily fiber intake from wine. Blah blah blah, right
right right. And it's usually on a white background. It's
and it's in script that's almost illegible, and there's like
little stars in the corner. It's a it's a way
of life. I think right right, Yeah, it's yeah, I
know that. Look, I know it's the culture of Karen's

(18:39):
and I don't want to shoot on any culture, right yeah,
but that is their culture and the wine puns ship.
Just don't stop, like because we're still in peak rose
pun world. I feel like, no way Rose, Yeah, no
way Rose. When I was at Target a while back,
if we're still doing this ship, you're still doing this

(19:01):
ship really okay, stop and smell the rose think, Okay,
thank you, thank you so much. I mean, I don't know,
I guess that's there. Like I said that, that's like
their weed, you know, like if they're like for their religion,
that's their weeds, the one you know. I mean yeah, yeah,
I don't think there's nothing bad about it. You don't

(19:22):
have a bunch of decor around your house. That's like
I'm looking at wine glasses that say hit me baby,
one more wine. Oh you don't have the equivalent of
that COONa moscato. That's that's pretty good. Yeah, like I would. Yeah,

(19:42):
that's a real fucking thing on the spot. You know,
these people are criminal. They've exhausted the fucking entire like
pun vocabulary for one, Like I'm telling you because it's
a it's the wine and pun world. I feel like
it would truly go is hand in hand with people
who feel like very red like literate and you know,

(20:04):
well you reach the ven diagram of Disney adult and
wine related to core with Hokuna Moscado, that's there. What
is something you think is underrated Costco Kirkland signature. I
think it's underrated. Which thing though, which goes like late
focus in well, focus on focus in? Is buying booze

(20:26):
at Costco? Like that's something that if you're not doing
at home, do it now, Like you're you're wasting your money,
You're wasting your life away if you're not buying booze
at Costco having a party, you don't get booze at Costco.
Costco it's half the price, and it's twice the size,

(20:46):
and they have all of their mixers, like their their
gallon drinks. Those are also cheaper, and you just like
stock up, go and go every quarter. You don't even
need to wait for a party. Don't be shame, like
go on your own on the first of every month,
stock up and like just make it a part of
your your ritual, your routine, right yeah, do they have wine.

(21:09):
While we're on the subject, do they have they have
the giant wines. There's the regular wine bottle, but then
there's the magnum. They have magnum. I think a Jared
Bones the biggest, and there's a Nevid Kadnezzar is like
an even bigger bottle. This is I had a religion
teacher tell us this when we were sixteen. Is that true? Yeah,

(21:31):
it's like the biggest wine bottle that And you're like what,
Like you were just talking about the passion, so it's
hard to imagine how it can get bigger than those
big Like how do you even carry that? It's like
the side because it's just like a stupid I guess
I don't know. I just tuned out because he would

(21:52):
show like a man for all seasons rather than like
pitching like and that was like his whole curriculum and
talking about gigantic wine bottles. So anyway, shout out to you.
I also have kitchen shears on this list. M I
think people bust out a car cutting board and a
knife for any old thing. You can just cut it,

(22:12):
just stand above the pan. Snip snip snip. Sausages carrots.
And then I also have the TV show Veronica Mars.
It's called Classic. I love it. I think it's Kristen
Bell's best work. Yeah, I bought a yellow nissanics Erica.
Is that show? Did you really know? But I thought
that was a cool car then and I and every

(22:33):
time I said, I'm like, yeah, right, stand by it.
You could you could be like, hey, who's that? Who's that?
That completely missed me? Is that a it's like detective Yeah,
it's like a it's like a grimier Nancy drew in

(22:54):
what looks like Van Nuys, California. No like magic element
to it, no magic element. But it was only three seasons.
It got canceled, and then the fan base was so
committed that ten years later they completely crowdfunded a movie
and then Hulu picked it up for the last season. Nice. Yeah,

(23:17):
all right, Well, let's take a quick break and we
will be right back. And we're back. And so I
wanted to talk about this New York Times profile of

(23:39):
this former FBI agent Terry Albury, who is he's currently
in jail because he dared be a whistleblower on what
the FBI was doing during like the end of the
Bush actually like throughout the Bush administration into the Obama administration,

(24:00):
and then he was arrested during the Trump administration. But
he basically revealed just wild shit about like the profiling
of Muslim people and entrapment, destroying innocent people's lives simply
because of the color of their skin. And it's it's
it's a wild profile because it's like you're just everything

(24:24):
he's doing is like heroic, Like the way he's thinking
about it, Like he's basically spends almost a decade of
his life like trying to like dismantle it from within.
He originally got into it like right before eleven because
he weren't to like to pursue and like protect children
from child predators, and like his family are like liberal

(24:50):
people from Berkeley, and his goal was a black panther,
and he was like, I don't know, like just not
your typical FBI agent and because you're not white, and
because he's because he's liberal, but also because it's not
like I'm like I'm that meme of that black woman

(25:13):
on her knee, Squinton, Like I included some pictures of
of his like graduating class from the FBI, and like
if the FBI had been profiling balding guys with goatees,
they would have been in a better position to recognize
and address that problem because he is the only personal

(25:34):
color in his graduating class, and there at least three
balding guys with there's no there's there's a there's an
Asian guy too, okay, and then one woman with a
tan who you know, maybe we can put that in
the column. I don't know, but yeah, this this story
is wild. And the things that he says right are

(25:56):
things that are not surprising or things that we have
not heard of you, but you can tell because of
just sort of the clarity of which he's describing this,
Like they're like, oh, this is like that, this is
so offensive because we've known about the pattern of like
entrapment that the FBI has been using and even used
as they say, there's like even reporting around how the

(26:17):
people who are attempting to kidnap Governor Whitmer in Michigan
very similar playbook, where it was the informants in the
meeting saying, hey, what if we kidnapped him? Huh? And
then they go along like yeah, I got them. They're
they're gonna do some wild ship. So it's yeah, this
it's it's it's it's really I think it really just
hardening thing is Like again, we're seeing another example of

(26:38):
somebody who is trying to I guess, you know, not
like not that he can write the ship, but at
least try and course correct in the small way he
felt he could, and then now he's in jail. Yeah.
I have complicated feelings about just the concept of changing
a structure from within, Like I'm always a little I

(27:01):
don't know, like I sometimes I doubt like at some point,
especially because he was in for so long, like did
it take that long to realize that this angle is
not gonna work? Like let me transform the organization from
within as the one guy trying to do it, And
I'm just always suspicious of like how real is that

(27:23):
in practice? Like what are you doing on a day
to day basis to try to transform something that is
so systemic? Yeah, Like what does that even look like?
I think it probably looks like first trying to adhere
to the systems that are in place to raise grievances
within the structurally fucked organization in and then when those

(27:44):
are rendered inert, then you are like, fuck, how do
I do so I guess I'll just laugh along, because
he says then he had to just sort of like
play along with all the like islamophobic nonsense that the
other agents were talking about, like yeah, and I don't.
And I guess maybe his reek, you know, his only
recourse is to just be like I guess the only
thing to do just come out very publicly and say

(28:04):
what's happening, because there's not there's like three moves you
set up and it's like, got you FBI, Now we're
going to be, you know, advocating for like workers rights, right, No, yeah,
there there is. There isn't a playbook, and I think
it always surprises me. I mean, obviously I'm not white,
but I'm always I'm working to be not desensitized to

(28:25):
the shock. But it's really fucking hard, you know what
I mean. Like every day there's a new thing of like, well,
did you know that we're racist? You know? And it's like, no,
I I've been knowing so well, hold on, hold on
how stories might be a new story? Actually, ah, how

(28:49):
do I know that they're racist? Right? Just just in
basic data gathering? But yeah, I guess. Yeah, the the
amount of things that he was experiencing and having to
witness it sort of makes like all this ship that
you see, especially like the War on Terror propaganda ship

(29:09):
that you see, where it's like these people who were like, man,
we got to defend the countryman from evil doers, when
really it was just a bunch of racists who said
any person who came out of a mosque was a suspect.
Like that's not of writing. Like the details of how
it was conducted was straight up like they would just

(29:29):
pick somebody. First of all, they would pay somebody to inform,
so that person was incentivized to just come up with information.
And I mean, there's this quote from a former agent
who's not the person in jail Aubrey, but the agent says,
I'd say most of our investigations were based on very

(29:50):
thin leads from questionable sources. But what was the alternative.
The government was convinced that there were sleeper cells all
over the country and we had to find them, so
it's just create what the government thinks is there. I mean,
it all started with that, with the search for like
w M d S and Iraq like that like that,
but that turned out to be just like kind of

(30:12):
written into the you know, cellular makeup of every aspect
of the War on Terror, just like make up a
problem so that you had something to spend money on
and like could get your angst out and your racist
anger out. Well, and that's the fantasy of the FBI too,
Like it's so it's so self indulgent, you know. I

(30:34):
think that they have this image of themselves kind of
like like running through the streets and like very captain America,
saving the world, and then they catch a baby that's
falling from the from a tower, and I think like
they have to work really hard to almost maintain that
image of themselves. And then their solution is, well, then
let's create problems so that we can solve problems, Like

(30:57):
let's just find ship to be doing so that we
don't need to address all of the other structural problems
that we've that we've created. Make a other, make a
bad guy, and then it becomes very simple, so then
we don't need to be the bad guy. Yeah, it's
like almost like it's not even necessarily a policy of it,
but this is just how American society is like manifested

(31:19):
in this organization which is like this sort of secret
police force which is you know there too uphold these
narratives that we need to keep saying, like everyone's in
immense danger from the outside from people from other countries. Also,
these stereotypes that we have in our society, those are
all true because we also look for cases where that's

(31:40):
you know, we can reinforce those and let's also you know,
very clearly ignore all of like the discriminatory and racist
behavior of the people within the agency. Have you listened
to the podcast Cops? M hm? So interesting? He also
so the guy that does it is Dan to Birsky.

(32:00):
He also has a new show that just launched called
nine twelve that's about the impact of nine eleven. That's
really interesting. But Cops is all about the reality TV
show Cops and how that reality show, spanning over decades,
like has had this huge hand in shaping like a
quote unquote officers self perception, like what he thinks it

(32:24):
looks like to be a detective and to be a cop.
And so it's these like grown man children almost replaying
those like fight scenes that they saw in Cops and
then like wanting to get the to get the bad guy,
and so they're like chasing the feeling of I don't know,

(32:46):
like like catching people red handed or like needing it
to be movie like and so then they create the
bad guys so they can have that moment for themselves.
It's really interesting. Yeah, we had Dan on before. I
think the show is called Running from Cops. Oh yes,
and it's yeah, it's really mind blowing and I mean
but yeah, it's just it's like so written into the

(33:08):
d n A that, like the shore that TV show
down to like every aspect of what this officer saw
behind the scenes of like they would abuse the No
fly list to coerce Muslims and de spying on their communities,
basically saying like we're going to put you on the

(33:30):
No fly list unless you give us names. And then
like just every everybody was under constant suspicion if they
were Muslim, like everyone everywhere. It was basically FBI agents
were sent into these communities to instill fear, he says,
and then generate this paranoid within these people so that

(33:52):
they know that they're under suspicion perpetually, and there's no
justification for the suspicion other than the he says, suspicion
as a state of being. But basically just you know,
that is a pervasive and corrosive like force that's just
like they're always It's not something that like you can

(34:13):
like point to, but you know, you have the constant
veil of suspicion and the possibility that somebody's just gonna
sucking break into your house and make you give them
names of your fucking best friends to like implicate them
in a in a crime that's just like so poisonous.
Oh and the and the thought of even the concept

(34:34):
of informants, right, I think is is framed as this
like sneaky strategy to get the bad guy, but in
reality it only creates extreme mistrust, extreme divisiveness, and a
feeling of oppression within the community. And then that even
further is the decay of the community structure, which disproportionately

(34:55):
targets black and brown communities. Yeah, all right, well we
will link off to the article and the footnotes. It
is definitely a worthy read and puts into context some
stories that have been under representative in the mainstream media
over the past twenty years. For certain, Let's talk about
real quickly what Donald Trump and his campaign are doing

(35:18):
to trend stay front and center without holding office, and
without having access to an active social media account, all
he can he you know, he has very few tools
at his disposal because he's not like at the G
seven with a mic and where he could just be
like says some wild ship and then it consumes that
fucking headlines for you know, weeks on end. So he's

(35:41):
got to be very efficient and like right now, his
tool kid includes rallies saying vile racist ship just straight
up lies or I guess doing commentary at boxing matches
on the twenty anniversary of nine eleven, So we'll talk
about the the last couple of points, you know. For example,

(36:03):
his latest attempt at just creating a bunch of waves
was him lamenting the removal of Robert E. Lee's statue
in Virginia. He had this whole, you know, because now
all he does is put out like press releases in
the form of like tweets, but they're just so long.
People just check out after the first sentence, one of
the last ones of this sentences, if only we had

(36:23):
Robert E. Lee to command our troops in Afghanistan, What
an embarrassment we are suffering because we don't have the
genius of a Robert e Lee, the guy who wanted
to destroy the Union to keep slavery around. That's so
that you know that that got that chummed the waters
a little bit, but it didn't quite I don't think
did maybe did the numbers that he was used to,

(36:44):
you know, getting for saying things like that. Then he
said something about nine eleven that I didn't realize. He's
been saying like a few different lies about nine eleven.
The most prominent ones were that he went down there
with a crew and like helped do shit. That's people
are like, I don't know, we we saw you down there.
Not many people have heard of you bringing any kind

(37:05):
of resources to help, aside from a camera to document
you being there. And then he also said like he
was giving money to charities and never did so he
apparently say he's telling a new lie, and I just
want to play his new lie for everybody to hear,
because this is just again part of his self myth
building that he does and he's normally used to. Well,
I was down there right after the event, and I

(37:27):
brought a big crew of people down and I helped
a lot of other people helped. Those first responders are
very brave and I'm telling you we used we were
hearing creeks. I've never forgotten it. Uh, there was I
think the United States Steel Building it was called at
the time, and it's fifty stories tall and we heard creeks.
I said that building's gonna come down, and two big

(37:48):
fire me and grabbed me and grabbed other people and
they just moved out of that area. Never came down,
But I never heard a noise like that, and it
was it was a scary situation, but the job they Okay,
So he's lying like someone's elderly parent four five year
old like either one. Yeah, there's an entire spectrum of liars,

(38:12):
but yeah, I like how he goes, oh my god,
in the fire right, get out and you know it
never came down, But I forget. That's like, that's his
The art of the lie is to be like and
you know it never did come down, to make it
like sound a little bit truer that like it's not
like they're exploded in the back. You can't prove it, like, right,

(38:34):
did y'all hear the creeks with Donald Trump after nine eleven?
Like what are you what? The creeks? Well, And he
also tries to tell lies that can like, he purposely
tells lies that can be verified because as a normal
human being, you're like, no one would lie about something
that would be so easily display in. But he's not

(38:54):
a normal human being. And this particular lie reminds me
of if you've watched the documentary The Woman who Wasn't There,
it's just a documentary about a woman who like inserted
herself into nine eleven survivor support groups and people that
lost families and husbands and told this big story about
how her fiance died and blah blah blah blah blah.

(39:16):
It's fascinating, but it's it's literally just him, you know,
and thing fell apart when someone just bothered to like
look into it right well. And the shame too. It
was another survivor that was like, this is not making
any sense, and like but you're never like you would
never do that, you know, Like I wonder if this

(39:36):
person is lying about losing their arm and their husband
died and then was saved by this firefighter and you
just never think to yeah, and then and then you
look into it, and then it's just for this, it's
just an insult to people who actually went through it,
like my friend Steve ran is easy who Sorry, yeah,

(40:00):
comedy fake nine eleven joke for the comedy fans that
he ran a CC nine. One of the guys from
the what is It the League claimed that he was.
They're also did the same thing. Well. And one last
thing though about the boxing match yesterday we're talking about.

(40:23):
I bet I said, look, they probably gotta fucking pay
day for that. And there's sources out there saying that
they put an obscene amount of money in front of
the two Trumps to get them to do color commentary
at this boxing event with Evander Holyfield, even though a
lot of people who are like working on it, like dude,
I don't want anything to do with like some Trump production.

(40:45):
And the promotion comes like, sorry, look where maybe this
will sell tickets because I don't know, maybe you will,
I don't. I mean, if anyone can comment on physical
prowess and sport, yeah yeah right, if anybody. That's how
he was known young in his athletic career as the

(41:06):
boy Don. He's like like at his biceps, they're bigger
than Christmas hands hell, you love to see it? Wow,
I bet they're so juicy. How much how how do
you think they taste? Take a big old bite out
of that? What do you mean boxing? Stop looking at
it with like food. That he hasn't started a podcast

(41:27):
like that feels like the obvious, like an Alex Jones e,
just like Arrant Stream of Consciousness. I'm just surprised that
it hasn't happened. I wonder if someone's just done the thing,
like you know, like if you've ever been in a
podcast session and you're monitoring your own mike, so you're
hearing your own voice come through your headphones, if they
just put that on him, if that's like an Oculus

(41:48):
headset for him when he's like, WHOA, what's happening? Hello? Yes,
who's that you? Hillary? Like, and he never presses the record, Yeah,
record three episodes, but none of them are available to
THEE five thousand of the Sundowning with Trump Show. I

(42:09):
don't know where that goes, but yeah, I think it's
just because there's no audience. I think that's probably why,
like you can't Retwitter podcast, Yeah exactly. He needs a stimulation. Yeah,
all right, let's take another quick break and we'll be
right back. And we're back and we're just talking to

(42:38):
break them that out the creek. I've never heard a
sound like that. His lies always contain big guys, like
these generals. They're big and handsome. And they told me,
they said, you're the greatest president since Washington maybe, And
this one contained like big firefighters coming to sweep him
off his feet. Huge huge, These firefighters were huge, and

(43:01):
they whisked me out of there, took me to their place.
And there's even a super cut of him talking about
big strong guys. L the size of that guy, powerful guy.
You know, I have a friend, big guy, one of
the biggest in the world. That's some big people behind me. Guy,
big strong, big strong guy, big strong guy. I mean,

(43:24):
you know, so he's definitely like, yeah, I'm sure he
loves a friend, big guy, one of the biggest in
the world, the biggest size of Christmas Hams. He did
he say that Christmas Hams thing? Old. You know he's

(43:46):
going to see his biceps. They were like they were
like the kinds of chains they used to put on
the side of navy battleships. So strong, so strong. Anyways,
you think he I would love I wonder if, like Loki,
he's paid an art us to do like a like
a romance novel cover with him being swept away by
one of these like these big guys he's always talking about,

(44:06):
you know, like a fabio esque, just big chiseled guy.
You should have seen him. He swept me away from
the rebel. Really, it felt so safe in his arms.
And that's how I want the country to feel with
my new military plan. You just feel you're just in
the tender and you're in the arms of a guy
with biceps the side of Christmas Hams just as sticky

(44:31):
and like how did you get the clothes in there?
And the hatch work on the cut on the fat.
He's really impressive. Al Right, well, I guess it shouldn't
be surprising, given who was elected president of twice sixteen,
that America hasn't been like super respectful, classy when it

(44:53):
comes to never forgetting nine eleven. So our writer j
M kind of look back at you know, nine eleven,
the national tragedy and merchandizing bonanza, and yeah, there's some
wild ship in here. So there was a big run
of coins that came out very early on. There's a

(45:17):
medallion allegedly made from recycled steel from the World Trade
center that costs a mere thirty dollars, and they this
is you know, noble. They set aside five thousand to
ten thousand medallions for the victims families at no charge.
So like this kind yeah, so we we turned this

(45:39):
murder scene into a neck chain for other people to buy,
but here's for free one for you because it's such
a terrible loss. So sorry. In two thousand four, there
were coins supposedly minted from silver recovery ground zero, which
I don't know, from the pocket change of the victims,
Like we wasn't there that like rumor that there was
this like vault or something in the fucking basement. Oh

(46:03):
some I just remember some weird folksy bullshit thing of
like you know, there was like a lot of precious
medal in there too, But I don't know. I mean
it could be true, but maybe it was recovered. But
I remember that was like a big like a ground
zero three kings where they're going going in depending Yeah,
what part of the internet you were on at the time, right,

(46:24):
So these they actually claimed were legally authorized silver dollars,
which they weren't. They were actually made by a novelty
company that also produced Harry Potter coins, which also not
acceptable as legal tender as far as I know. And
then in in twenty eleven, the federal government started selling

(46:44):
their own nine eleven commemorative coin. Fort you gotta market
up so that you know, you can take advantage of
the fact that it's the real deal from the people
who brought you nine eleven nine eleven coin. Sorry about
our foreign policy, y'all. Here's a coin directed by m

(47:08):
Night Shamalan, sponsored by m Night Shamalan, who could say, no,
what a specific number? Two? Why did you have to
be fifty seven dollars? Like what is you know? Is
that the market number to make you feel like, oh,
they were thinking about how value all that is. Probably
they could have just had a hundred, but I think
it's really probably worth close to fifty seven. The government

(47:30):
is honest. There was a non coin related merchandise, the
nine eleven coloring book for children, which you know there
was for the ladies, I'm sure. Yeah. There was an
image of Osama bin Laden being executed while cowering behind
a woman in a Muslim his job, which is the

(47:51):
text from the page. Yea, yeah, so this is so funny, man,
Like they just basically turned never forget and to be like,
never forget, we're now painting all people from the Middle
East as evildoers. Never forget that the script were sticking
to now like it was never about the United States

(48:12):
because that's just this malleable concept that people bandy around
so disingenuously to bolster whatever fucked up ideology they have.
It's never about the actual country, just sort of saying, well,
this is the thing you can't attack, so I'll put
the country in front of me and then that will
protect whatever nonsense I'm advocating for. Because it was like
the other thing with the merchandise is I remember every

(48:34):
TV show they were like doing stuff and people fucking
wrapped up in the flag and ship and crying and
they're like, I just feel so special to be part
of this country. And it truly was put us in
this era where you could not criticize the United States,
like people who were on the news saying like, well,
the reason people wanted to attack the United States is
because of all the destabilizing activity that we do in

(48:55):
the region that creates the hottest movements and things like that,
and they're like they're van because you know, a fucking
fighter jet is gonna like nut red, white and blue
over like a football game or some ship. I think
a huge part of that is, like not that Americans
aren't or some Americans aren't racist already, but I think

(49:15):
to keep people obsessed with America, they have to convince
everyone that the rest of the world isn't free and
you're the only one that's free, and that's why you
should be so proud as opposed to like the reality,
which is there's lots of places that you know, free
healthcare and like when you have a baby, you can
stay home with your baby, and what's that place sounds scary? Yeah?

(49:40):
Do they have challenge coins to commemorate their They don't
have merch though. That's I mean, it's where they lose me,
you know. It was also like one of the most
lucrative kind of storylines that America has ever because like
after the Cold War, the nolitary industrial complex didn't really

(50:01):
know what to do with themselves, and then this gave
them a new purpose, so they successfully cashed in. But
it was generally like seen as not a great look
when like Walmart recreated the towers out of cases of soda, Yeah,
which is there. I think a lot of people have

(50:23):
seen that picture. But he got the red, white and
blue with the pepsi diet coke and coke cans, and
then the towers are made of coke zero. And the
thing is that people were mad that they were mixing
pepsi and coke products. It should have done all pepsi
because pepsi solves all of the world's injustices. Right, Yes,
we've long said that. Yeah. Can you imagine if they

(50:45):
had that same ad agency around nine eleven, if they
were like with the Kendall Jenner ad if they do
something it's like Mohammed ata here, I think you just
want to pepsi, sir. Yeah, yeah, he's a flight attended.
Yeah yeah, oh my god. Yeah. It would have been
United ninety three or whatever the funck, and it would

(51:06):
have been a pepsi at this That's what this, again,
is so weird about everything, is that there's not there's nothing,
there's no sanctity to anything every because and I think
that's really what all this reveals is there's nothing sacred
in this country, absolutely fucking nothing, not even human life,
because it'll just be a fucking merch display or a

(51:29):
commemorative blanket or coin because someone else doesn't give a fuck.
They just know that they can use these events to
make more money or more furious. So never forget. Nothing
is sacred here. The nine eleven Museum is still open.
The gift shop is still like putting out products like

(51:49):
a cheese cutting board, a nine eleven commemorative cheese tray
where it's in the shape of the United States and
their little hearts where the hijacked airplanes went down. So
you know, there's something like meta about taking a knife
to a board that the something about that this is

(52:15):
I'm not sure who made it, but it was an
official selection they like the person who runs the museum's
gift shop, which again the n I Love Museum maybe
maybe shouldn't have a gift shop, but the person who
run like, we're carefully selecting products to make sure they're tasteful,
and yeah they and apparently this fell under that category.

(52:40):
And it's also just kind of extra fucked up because
then I Love Museum also has unidentified remains on the
premises of so like many relatives of victims have actively
protested just the idea of having fucking people selling mugs
and t shirts and scarves. Well have they tried the

(53:00):
cutting boards yet, because maybe that's they are pretty They
do look pretty nice. Yeah, yeah, what do you what
kind of fucking again, Like there's so many things wrong
with this cutting tray, cheeseboard, fucking sharkou terrorism board that
they've got, but like the only thing that this has
it's a ceramic outline of the United States with just

(53:23):
three fucking stars painted on like parts of the northeast.
That's really so they've I'm sure they reappropriated some ceramic
moments said all right, put stars there. It's nine eleven.
My next thing is, if you are putting this platter together,
are you like really treating that section of the cheese
board is sacred? You're not just gonna lay a shipload

(53:43):
of crackers and shipped on top of it and like
honeycomb and further disrespect. I just don't everything about it,
Like I don't even know how you present it in
a way that someone goes, oh my god, is this
a nine eleven commemorati? That's so thoughtful of you, Like
this is You're such an ace with the decor, you know,

(54:04):
and I love it, Thank you so much, and like yeah,
and and and these wine eleven glasses that you made.
I love it. I love it. I mean does have
to exist, right, there has to be wine eleven at
this point, I mean, haven't we reached eleven? Can't help
but forget or something like that, where it's like, oh

(54:25):
my god, whine eleven, never forget your corkscrew. There you go.
The gift shop is still going today, selling everything from
toy cars for sixty dollars that look like just twenty
dollar toy cars, but they have never forget written on
the hood. And then there's also like a bunch of
t shirts twenty years later, limited edition collection of just garbage.

(54:51):
I just looked on a and there's some nine eleven
like twenty years later, never forget face masks, and I
just don't think that the audience like, where's never forget
memorabilia and wears a mask ever overlap. Yeah, it's kind
of a wasteful product. Really. That's an interesting person though.
I'd like, where's that New York Times profile? They're multifaceted,

(55:13):
for sure, Yeah, but yeah, it's just I don't know. Yeah,
it's so it's been twenty years. I mean, Jesus, like
it's it's been so long, and you think of how
things have changed so drastically just in the last few years,
but how we're still like really having a problem having
a real again because America hates a reckoning, having a

(55:36):
reckoning with this supposed war on terror and the amount
of money that was just hissed away while everything just
went by the wayside here in the country. Yea, yeah,
I mean, it's just I don't know, I'm just thinking
back of like how that fucking I remember the city
in l A. People were so hopped up on that

(55:57):
patriotism ship. It was fucking why like every street turned
into some like fucking jingle with It's just like everything
was a parade suddenly, except for specific parts of the city.
But yeah, like I just felt like everything else was
this just this like weird fever dream that people went
through those first couple of years and like completely ignored

(56:17):
what was actually at steak Yeah, hey, but that's it's
like the government knows what they're doing when like that, Hina,
it has been such a pleasure having you on the
daily zeitgeist. Where can people find you and follow you
and hear you and all that, Yes, you can follow
me personally at Hina Rising on all socials and you

(56:41):
can check out some of the stuff that salted logic
is doing at assalted logic dot com. Yeah. Yeah, And
is there a tweet or some of the work of
social media you've been enjoying. Yeah, this is uh my
favorite tweet of this week, and it is serial killers
in the seventies had no idea that they were going
around creating content. Yeah, that's good. You you wrote your

(57:05):
thesis about, like, yeah, my my thesis was about how
podcasting is like transforming true crime to like have an
impact on the justice system because the people that basically,
like we write stories about like really pretty white, well

(57:26):
off women, and then that stops the public from being
able to recognize someone that isn't that archetype as a victim,
and then it stops their cases from being solved because
we have no the diversity of what we see as
a victim is so small that like it impacts our empathy, right,
and then podcasting has yeah, yeah, the women in podcasting

(57:51):
that like, you know, women experience most women have experienced
some kind of sexual harassment in their life, and they
just have more empathy with victims. So instead of talking
about like Ted Bundy and how he's so hot, which
is kind of what true crime was for a while.
They're talking about the victims and their pain, and it's
transforming the way that we see crime because it's being

(58:13):
told in this like empathetic, kind of female driven away. Yeah,
really cool, Miles, Where can people find You? And what's
ther tweet you've been enjoying? Do boy? Twitter? Instagram at
Miles of Gray. Also the other show if you like
ninety Fiance, check out four Day Fiance with Sophia Alexandra
and I Where we do you know? Just look through

(58:34):
the matrix of that show and some tweets that I like. Okay,
So the first one is from from Tony Newsom at
Trondy Newman. She tweeted, last night, my friend was trying
to list all the fixings on a Chicago dog, and
when she couldn't remember anymore, she lifted up her Jeane
short leg and on her thigh was a huge Chicago
dog tattoo and she looked at it and goes, oh, yeah,

(58:56):
pickle spears, This city takes my breath away. Another one
from Trash Jones at Jay's Zucks, tweeting when glock when
God closes a door, he opens a window. Unfortunately we
are on a plane. That's pretty good, uh tweet I've

(59:17):
been enjoying. Roywood Jr. Tweeted iPhone cameras are too good
for them to still be charging us for school day pictures.
I respect the hustle though that is still still happening
and we're still paying for it. I'm not proud of it.
But and the pictures are so bad. The pictures are
because anyways, I think my dad tried to take He

(59:40):
tried to show up and take a picture of me
to try and save money. Once there you go. It's
more they were like, what are you doing here? Pol
Like you can't show up with like now with a
camera to a school for the small children. You can
find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien. You can
find us on Twitter at daily Zeitgeist. Where at the
Daily Zeitgeist on you Instagram. We have a Facebook fan

(01:00:01):
page and a website Daily's like guys dot com, where
we post our episodes and our foot note where we
link off to the information that we talked about in
today's episode, as well as a song that we think
you'll enjoy. Miles with something are we suggesting people this
is uh, it's not gonna be Kanye West going to
Taco Bell Tonight remix that might happen. This is gonna

(01:00:24):
be from Bad, Bad, Not Good. They have a new
track out with Kareem Reagans, one of my favorite drummers
and one of my favorite musicians, like just a regular
collaborator with Jay Dilla. And this track is called Beside April.
And you know, Bad, Bad, Not Good. They're all musicians,
so this is just a band playing their thing. But
the track is this very smooth sounding and it feels

(01:00:46):
like a like a psychedelic like Italian spy movie like
score something like that. But it gets funk too. So yeah,
that's that's what I'm telling you. I'm trying to give
people a mood so they understand what that's like. Maybe yeah,
draw you into to listening to it. So this is
Beside April with Bad, Bad, Not Good featuring Kareem Riakings.

(01:01:08):
Damn all right, I am intrigued and I'm gonna go
check that shut out well. The Daily Zeitgeist is a
production of I Heart Radio from our podcast from my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app Apple podcast or
wherever you listening to your favorites shows that is going
to do it for us this morning. But we're back
this afternoon to tell you what's trending, and we will
talk to y'all that Bye bye,