August 8, 2025 • 58 mins
The gang talk about Texas Dems fleeing to Illinois to stop gerrymandering, RFK Jr. canceling mRNA contracts, and how ICE is spending its new big budget. Plus, the return of Tariff Talk.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/01/economy/tariff-more-expensive
https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/us-tariffs-take-effect-08-07-25
https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/us-tariffs-take-effect-08-07-25#cme17o5l400003b6ns7mwdwnv
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/06/tech/apple-investment-us-trump
https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/us-tariffs-take-effect-08-07-25
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/06/tech/apple-investment-us-trump
https://bsky.app/profile/yougov.co.uk/post/3lvnr5fixc22l
https://www.facebook.com/EpiscopalNY/
https://apnews.com/article/florida-immigration-alligator-alcatraz-27fbae217427be730f589323df7cf656
https://sam.gov/opp/53dc2fa997954c1d8acf8888fd8f0b56/view
https://bi2technologies.com/service/iris/
https://www.secureidnews.com/news-item/el-paso-sheriff-to-use-iris-scanners/?ref=404media.co
https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70CMSW25P00000040_7012_-NONE-_-NONE-
https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70CTD025FR0000036_7012_NNG15SC82B_8000
https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70CMSD25P00000047_7012_-NONE-_-NONE-
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is it could happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
newscast covering what is happening in the White House, the
crumbling world what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis.
This episode, I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Tout, and
Robert Evans. We're covering the week of July thirtieth August seventh. Robert,
what is Texas?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
So the original root word of the state's name is Tejas,
which means friendship, a thing that no one in Texas
has ever known, because it's the angriest meana state in
the country. That's that's Texas.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Garrison up for some stiff competition these days, up for
some stiff competition, but it's still it's still holding out,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Everything's bigger in Texas, Garrison's It's famed as being the
second or third worst state that borders New Mexico, so
you know, rarefied company. Really it can compete with all
of the states bordering New Mexico except for Colorado. The
state's bordering New Mexico except for Colorado are Oklahoma and
Arizona and Texas, so not high bars.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Texas has some of the finest abt and breakfasts that
I've ever stayed in, that's right, including one with a
deeply disturbing basement.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Okay, just because they had one torture basement, James. So
we're talking about Texas right now because a bunch of
the Democratic state legislators just fled the state for Illinois,
I believe, is how the name of the state has pronounced.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, it's French.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
It's French.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
It's French fact check for real Illinoian wrong.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Disposed fact checks by real Illinoyance.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
So when you've got a legislature of pretty much any type,
at least in the US, I'm sure there's other countries
that don't do it this way, but you need what's
called a quorum in order to actually do anything, which
means of the total number of elected members of the legislature,
you need a certain number of them. Otherwise you can't
like do anything because there's not enough people there in
(01:59):
order to to actually have it be a valid vote.
And I probably don't have to explain the reasonings why.
There's some pretty obvious reasons why you'd want it to
work this way. But there are, however, some downsides to it.
You know, potentially you can be depending on whether or
not your side is doing it. It's a downside or
an upside, right, which is that if you have a
side that is the minority in the government and they
(02:22):
don't want a vote to go through, they can just bounce.
And if they bounce at the right time, before the
legislature has been called and like no one's there, then
you can't get a quorum and nothing can get done.
And this is big news right now because in order
to stop a redistricting vote, a bunch of Democratic legislators
(02:42):
have fled. But this is a thing that has been
going on for well over a century, and it is
a thing that both sides of the aisle have engaged
in with substantial regularity. I'm not an expert on any
of this. The earliest example I can find of anyone
doing this is in Texas, and I'm not saying that
means it's the earliest example of anyone in the US
(03:03):
doing this, But the earliest example I found in my
research was from eighteen seventy. So there's an article on
this in that by the Texas State Historical Association called
Understanding the Rump Senate of the twelfth Texas Legislature and
the rump Senate is a term applied to the fifteen
radical Republican members of the twelfth Texas Legislature who fled
(03:24):
in eighteen seventy to stop a vote on a militia bill.
And this bill gave the governor power to declare martial law.
It gave him the power to establish a state police force.
It increased the appointed power of the governor, a bunch
of stuff that's not all that interesting to us today
because governors, like every state does this today, right, Like
there's state police everywhere. Every state governor has the power
(03:47):
to call a militia, you know, a national guard or whatever.
Like this is not controversial today, but it was back then.
And it's important that I note that while it was
fifteen radical Republicans who fled in eighteen seventy, those were conservatives, right,
Like the radical Republicans were conservatives in eighteen seventy, right,
So this is kind of a reverse if you're just
(04:07):
sort of looking at things from a liberal or conservative
point of view, This is kind of a reversal of
what's happening right now in Texas, although it's happened a
lot of other times since right, So this is eighteen seventy,
and I should note it didn't succeed right. This is, however,
one of the fairly rare times when this kind of
thing happens. If it goes on long enough, every time,
(04:27):
the governor basically will declare an arrest warrant for the
legislators who have left. And as a general rule, this
does nothing, right, Like, the governor has the ability to
find them a certain amount per day, and it has
the ability to call out an arrest warrant, but it's
not like a real arrest warrant. Like if you murder
a guy and then lead to another state, an arrest
warrant will be issued that law enforcement in that state
(04:50):
has to abide by. Right, because you murdered somebody, this
is not a real crime. Basically, if you flee back,
if you wind up back in the state that you left,
you can be taken into custody by law enforcement in
the state, but they can't leave the state to get you.
And almost I would say, like ninety percent of the
time when something like this happens, nobody actually gets arrested. However,
(05:11):
in eighteen seventy, several Conservative members were held under arrest
for like three weeks until the Senate could.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Pass the legislation.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
So, as is usually the case whenever stuff like this happens,
it only succeeded in kind of delaying the inevitable. It
didn't succeed in actually stopping things. And this has happened
a number of times in Texas. Most recently Texas Democratic
lawmakers broke quorum in twenty twenty one. And I want
to quote here from an article in ABC News, quote
(05:40):
Texas state lawmakers left Brookquarman twenty twenty one when Democratic
House representatives fled Texas to prevent measures restricting voting options.
The measures eventually passed after internal democratic fissures led to
enough representatives returning to form a quorum. And this is
the kind of thing where Governor Abbott allowed the sergeant
of Arms, or commanded this target of arms to arrest
(06:01):
the members within Texas. Weirdly enough, a couple of them
did return. The first was Philip Cortes, who like briefly
came back to Austin to handle personal business and there
was a civil arrest warrant signed, but then he fled
the state again before he could be arrested. There were
warrants signed for the fifty two remaining absent legislators, but
(06:21):
law enforcement didn't arrest or detain anybody. Eventually, enough Democratic
legislators came back into the state for like personal reasons.
Some of them had like shit to handle, like in
their own life. Some of them had other things they
wanted to push through in terms of like legislature, and
so they were like, I guess I'll come back and
let this happen. And eventually the House reached quorum and
(06:43):
this past Democrats did not face the five hundred dollars
a day fine that they'd been threatened by the governor,
and nobody was arrested. Now, I've been talking about Texas here,
but this happens all over the place. In fact, when
this story first broke, the immediate thing I thought back
on was what happened very recently in the state of Oregon,
and has happened a couple of times in the state
of Oregon.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
You know mine too. They do this all the time,
they do this a lot.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
But yes, this is a common thing in Oregon. It
has started, and this is both parties have done this.
I should note, right, both Democrats and Republicans in Oregon,
as in Texas have done walkouts.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
They don't even have to leave the state. They don't
even have.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
To leave the state, although they have recently. This seems
to have started an Oregon I think in the nineteen seventies.
There's actually a really good article that's hit like an
overview of a bunch of different states history of doing
this in Oregon Central Oregon Daily News. Although it's an
ap press article, so I guess Central Oregon Daily just
is licensing this thing. But anyway, in Oregon, the most
(07:46):
recent case of this happening was in twenty twenty three,
after Republican staged a six week boycott, which is the
longest so far in Oregon legislature history, over a rule
a law of the Democratic Party was pushing to protect
abortion rights the right to gender firming care for transgender people.
This again did not succeed. This was passed in the
legislature and there were actually some consequences, although it hasn't
(08:10):
been enough time to see how serious there will be.
Because there was a different GOP walkout over climate change
legislation which also failed in twenty twenty two, and as
a result of that twenty twenty two walkout, voters approved
an amendment to the state constitution in Oregon which barred
lawmakers from getting re elected if they had more than
ten unexcused absences in a single annual legislative session, and
(08:33):
as a result of the walkout the next year over
abortion rights in gender firming care, ten Oregon Republican lawmakers
were barred from seeking re election again. As I stated,
this is something that very rarely actually does anything. There's
a twenty twenty one case in New Hampshire where Democrats
walked out in protest of an anti abortion bill. The
(08:53):
Republican House speaker locked the doors to maintain a quorum.
I'm going to quote from the Central Ark and Daily article,
sucking the doors right now so that everybody in the
chamber will stay in the chamber. Shout at House Speaker
Sherman Packard, who later refused to let Democrats back in
to vote on the bill. It's just fucking like representative
politics is just snol children shouting at each other. I
(09:14):
want them to fight with canes. They should be fighting
with King.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Agreed, give them nerfs, give them give them all enough,
let them fight it out.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I would say ninety percent of the time nothing is,
at least from the reading I've done, nothing is achieved
except for a delay, which is not to say that
that's nothing. And also I do believe, like in the
case of the Democratic Party, I don't think what the
Texas Democrats are doing will stop the redistricting. Like the
Republicans are going to win this fight. It's worth fighting. Yeah,
I'm glad they're fighting it. However, very rarely is the
(09:44):
actual law stopped or is anything but a delay achieved.
One of the rare cases in which something more was
achieved is in twenty eleven, in Wisconsin, Democratic state senators
fled to Illinois as a protest against Governor Scott Walker.
He was attempting stript public workers of their union rights. Yeah,
and this, you know, this walkout was staged at the
(10:05):
same time as a mass pro union demonstration at the capitol,
and after several weeks they won a partial victory. Republicans
weakened the legislation, which is like significant, right, like the
fact that they actually got concessions over this, and sometimes
the delay can be significant. The same year that that
all went down in Wisconsin, Indiana Democrats also left for.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
For whatever reason ILLINOI is where you go if you're
doing this, No on wants to come get you know,
wants to go. No one's coming to Illinois.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It's I'd been to fuck Illinois and sorry, Illinois is
the hero of this story.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
We love you Illinois.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, Chicago's five, Chicago's fied for whatever reason. This is
the state you go to if you're a Democrat doing
this in the modern era.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
If you're in Wisconsin, it's not a far away I guess.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Well, this is Indiana too, and also not very far away.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Yeah, it's also not far Yeah, they couldn't make it
to California.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
You know, it's further now that Texans are doing it. Yeah,
but Indiana Democrats left in two that an eleven to
prevent Republican law that would have stopped unions from levying
mandatory fees on union members, which would kind of make
could potentially make it impossible to do a union because
nobody wants to pay for a union. But everyone wants
won right, Yeah, every worker does.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
You want the union protecting you.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
You don't want to have to give up your money,
So it's the kind of thing you could I think
the Republican plan was use the natural greed that people
have in order to hamstring unionizing efforts.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Many such cases, and.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
The Democrats left, which left the House short of its quorum,
and threatened to stay in the other states until they
were promised that the bills would not be called. Republicans
successfully passed the bill, but they had to wait until
the next year. So again, every now and then you
ECO win out here or the site doing this eeks
out a win, and everyone does it, and everyone has
(11:54):
been doing it for more than one hundred and fifty years.
Nothing about this is new, with the exception of the
fact that they actually look to be pushing some serious
legal consequences. The most I've been able to find in
the history of this is what happened in eighteen seventy
where a number of people were arrested and held in
custody for a few weeks. Usually no one is arrested,
and usually the fines aren't even actually levy. Right now,
(12:16):
this does cost money. The last Texas walkout, Texas Democrats
were spending like ten grand a day on food and board,
you know, paying for their hotels or whatever, which was
I think Beato Ol'roor raised most of the money through
his pack, which is what.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Covered it a few hundred grand, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Like six hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
So you know this does cost money to do because
you've got to put these people up. But generally you're
not really hiding them. And generally the legal consequences are
more of a threat than a reality.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Right, and that might not be true in this most
recent year.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yes case, yes, and we're going to throw to you, Garrison,
but first, you know who does force serious life changing
legal consequences on people.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Jay Pritzk.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Yes, and the products and services that support this podcast,
which are entirely we're actually backed entirely by JB.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Pritzker from your mouth to God's ears, Robert not like
knowingly I stole his debit card, and boy, that guy
has a high daily spending let me tell you.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, but he has a lot of shadow companies.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Anyway, Thanks JB. Please don't change your password to your
online bank. Garrison, Hi, we're back.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
So, as Roberts said, Republicans in the Texas legislature are
trying to jerrymander Texas to increase their total power over
the state, proposing a redistricting map that would add five
more Republican seats and in an effort to prevent or
delay this. This past Sunday, sixty two Texas Democrats have
fled to Illinois to deny quorum in the Texas House,
(14:00):
and only twelve need to return in order for the
redistricting to go through, with the main goal right now
being trying to stay out of the state until November.
In terms of consequences, new House rules adopted back in
twenty twenty three after the twenty twenty one quorum, I
can impose a five hundred dollars fine per day for
(14:22):
missing lawmakers, not just from the governor.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
On Monday, the Texas House Republicans voted to issue civil
arrestaurants for the lawmakers, empowering the Sergeant of Arms and
the Texas State Troopers to locate, apprehend, and transport the
rogue legislators back to the capitol. Governor Greg Abot announced
he had mobilized the Texas Department of Public Safety to
return the Democrats to the chamber. Now, these warrants really
(14:45):
only apply within state lines. These are civil warrants. They're
not facing criminal charges though. Back in twenty and three,
during a similar quorum break due to gerrymandering efforts, federal
resources were used to track planes with suspect did rogue
Democrat lawmakers, and Abbott has already proposed trying to declare
their House seats vacant if they do not return, a
(15:08):
tactic which would probably prompt some lengthy legal battles and
require new special elections to take place to fill the seats.
So that still would like delay this process. That's not
a quick solution. But there has been some breaking news
as of this morning recording Thursday. On Thursday morning, Texas
(15:29):
Senator John Corbin announced that the FBI would now be
investigating and working to locate the Texas House Democrats, saying
in a press release, quote, I thank President Trump and
Director Patel for supporting and swiftly acting on my call
for the federal government to hold these supposed lawmakers accountable
for fleeing Texas. We cannot allow these rogue legislators to
(15:51):
avoid their constitutional responsibilities unquote. So the extent of the
FBI's involvement in tracking, down, locating, or apper the Democrats
is currently unknown. The FBI has declined to comment, but
this is something that's going to develop in the next week, which.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
They always do when ongoing case is.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Like sure if you email or whatever the FBI about
any ongoing case.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
This is what they do, period. It's been their policy
for forever.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, so it doesn't tell you anything, just saying that
in terms of, like, we do not know what the
extent of their involvement is going to be at this point, right, yeah, right,
and they might not even know either. Yeah. This could
just be a tech cashpitel TikTok.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah, there's a good chance they're internally scrambling to like,
what are we gonna do?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Like, this would be unprecedented sending a federal law enforcement
arm to physically apprehend and return lawmakers. That is certainly
an escalation from using like federal resources to track planes
like they did in twos and three. This would be
a whole new ballgame.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
As I noted, it's uncommon for them to be arrested
inside the state by the sergeant at arms.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah sure, I mean, like arrest just means you know,
you'd like accompany them back to the capital or force
them to return to the capital.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You're staying here, You're not going to leave to the state.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Yeah, you've got a guy called Sogant Arms involved. It's
not serious, but even that's purely uncommon.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
No, I like most corm breaks fail because legislators just
choose to return, whether to do personal business, whether to
do political business. It takes a lot of discipline to
not return to your home for a period of like
three to six months.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, you get stuff to do.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Most people, a lot of people have what are called
familize famali's something like.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
That for media.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
I think it's a new concept. Yeah, we're still working
at kool Zone to get a handle on it. We'll
have a report on whatever that is.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So don't worry.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Yeah, they've got to get back to the policule or whatever.
But they haven't violated a federal law right lately.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
No, so federal, they'ven't violated a Texas law.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it's not a law.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
It is literally the governor saying I'm sending guys for you.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Yeah, this is some old timey parliamentarian shit.
Speaker 6 (18:07):
Yeah, and like you know, as I was saying, it's
like again, it is on. This could just be a
cash hotel TikTok op.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
But also I hate the way that sounds.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I what a fucking way to describe our federal law enforcement.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Oh it's a hinge.
Speaker 6 (18:20):
This is genuinely okay, I'm gonna take a very very
slight detour, which I said this before. But also, like,
the thing that gives me the most hope about all
of this is that, like, look, they found the right
winger to put in charge of the American secret police,
and he doesn't want to do his job because he
just wants to be a podcaster.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Hey, understand, you make me director the FBI, and I
promise to be more or less the same.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:44):
But you know, but if this is actually a thing
right and federal agents is only grabbing lawmakers out of Illinois.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
That is that's a big deal. Yeah, it's a massive escalation.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And that's why, as people fully supported by pritz Chris
private militia, we will be on the frontline defending the
Texas lav makers. That's right, saluting the Chicago flag.
Speaker 7 (19:05):
M hm.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yes, As as Governor, Pritzker recently stated blood for the
blood gods, skulls for the skull throne.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Classic Pritzker.
Speaker 6 (19:13):
And did you need to do some Pritzker not even
slander here, So just fuck you, tiny bit of fuck
you Pritzker news, which I was gonna talk about a
little bit anyways later, but U Pritzker has basically allowed
a bunch of hospitals in Chicago to stop covering gender
firmacare for minors, even though it's like illegal under Illinois
state law.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So fuck him for that, eat shit.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
Yeah we we we will unfortunately oppose the Kannie of
the Great Plains.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And what's the reasoning there? Has he given any.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
He was just like, oh, well they're gonna lose funding.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Ah, oh no, it is over yeah, okay, yeah, it's so,
it is over the threats.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
But like, yeah, a number.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Of states have been have been something similar is brewing
in Oregon right now.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
Yeah, we've we've yeah, this has been happening Oregon. We
we just had an episode about people resisting this in Pennsylvania.
This will be a continuing and ongoing struggle. But I
fuck you Pritzker, eat shit.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Like I do have two science stories for this middle
segment here. First one, I'm gonna call on everyone's I
don't know, probably my least favorite Kennedy RFRF Wow controversial. Yeah,
there's a lot of bad Kennedy's.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH
and FDA, HHS has the termine that mRNA technology poses
more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses. That's why,
after a extensive review, BARTA has begun the process of
terminating these twenty two contracts totaling just under five hundred
(20:52):
million dollars to replace the troubled mRNA programs, we're prioritizing
the development of the Sayer broader VACS strategies.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Sure, sure thing, sure thing, mister Kennedy. Oh Jesus fucking Christ.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah that sounds true, and not like we're throwing away
a holy grail of medical miracles.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Literally won the Nobel Price. Yeah yeah, yeah, So this
is this is some devastating news where he is is
removing twenty two contracts researchers and universities that are developing
new mRNA vaccine technology. And earlier in that video, so
I'm not going to play because it's just him basically lying,
but he was lying about how mRNA technology has been
(21:35):
ineffective against upper respiratory infections because it only targets a
single protein which not only becomes obsolete due to mutations,
but actually accelerates the mutation process and prolongs pandemics. This
is not true. You can know no, it's not true.
This is not true. And one of the most unique
aspects of m RNA technology is that the vaccines can
be developed at a much faster pace to be deployed
(21:58):
against mutations. And if a vaccine is not does not
one hundred percent prevent an infection, that doesn't mean they
still won't, like decrease the severity of symptoms. He is
trying to cote his his decades decades long like anti
vaccine advocacy in this like scientific language while actually just
(22:19):
like stripping away all of the funding and removing access
to two vaccines. And this is stuff that he promised
not to do. In his confirmation hearings. He said that
he would not take away vaccines yep. And he would
not change who's on the vaccine advisory panels. He has
done both of those things so far. Two months ago,
he fired all seventy members of the advisory panel. I
talked with Cave about this, and he replaced them with
(22:40):
eight anti vaxxers. And not only did he remove a
multi billion dollar contract from Deurna to continue mRNA vaccine research,
he now canceled these twenty two other contracts totally five
hundred million dollars of technology. People are going to die
and get sick because of these changes, yes, yeah, which
doesn't just affect like COVID and the flu, so it
also affects all of the other ways that mRNA technology
(23:04):
can be utilized. A lot of these research projects are
about expanding the possible use of this technology beyond upper
respiratory infections. So this sucks.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
Yeah, this is real bad ITV.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I am very nervous about the development of the HIV
vaccine and cancer vaccines, things that we were getting so
close to now being put into jeopardy because this fucking
clown is in charge of Health and Human Services.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
A ton of this is wor I've done at the
salkans Gean San Diego, Achile.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
It was reported earlier this week that some Republicans and
Trump himself might actually not be happy about this. And
Trump has a meeting scheduled with RFK Junior today to
discuss these cancelations, so we'll see where that goes. In
some other science news, Sean Duffy, interm NASA administrator who
(23:55):
also is the Secretary of Transportation, who directed his employees
to prioritize funding in grants towards towards demographics with high
marriage rates. He announced that he was expediating plans to
launch and operate a one hundred kilowatt nuclear reactor for
the Moon.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Great.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Look, there's a lot of people living on the Moon
and power outages have been a constant problem there, Garrison,
if this science fiction novel from the nineteen sixties is accurate.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I talk with a friend of mine who is an
anonymous NASA contractor. She gave a quote, quote I need
a cigarette unquote.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Great, because he just got fucked.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
It's also worth noting that all of this is coming
in the context of the largest really like the largest
cuts in the history of American science across the board
to anything that's actually like I'm gonna get's remotely doing science,
Like yeah, sorry, I just I just want to go on.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Especially space science, like Duffy's trying to manufacture this new
space race and prioritize like manned Moon, all while cutting
at least fifty percent all NASA science missions and just
like absolutely crippling NASA's capacity to actually develop technology. Now,
Duffy said at a press conference, and seeing this new
directive on Tuesday, quote we are in a race to
(25:15):
the moon, a race with China to the moon, and
to have a base on the moon, we need energy. Unquote.
Is that fucking nineteen fifty talk? What are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (25:27):
And that's the time when the greatness happened to Garrison.
They want to get back to that.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
The NASA contractor I spoke with said quote, NASA is
already down at least twenty percent of its workforce and
behind on its previously announced to lunar missions and objectives
see the Lunar Gateway and Artemis three. I just don't
immediately see a world where NASA does this successfully, even
if they go the route of contracting it out. If
the success, specifically the lack thereof of the commercial Lunar
(25:55):
Payload Services Program and the commercial LEEO Destinations program, has
any indication for how this will go, it will be
mirrored in failure and many years behind schedule at best. Unquote.
This new NASA directive from Shan Duffy calls for a
fission Surface Power Program executive to be named by the
end of August, whoill then implement yes, yes, who will
(26:18):
then impleant and oversee the project while reporting directly to
the NASA Administrator. The directive reads, quote, since March twenty
twenty four, China and Russia have announced, on at least
three occasions a joint effort to place a reactor on
the Moon by the mid twenty thirties. The first country
to do so could potentially declare a keepout zone, which
would significantly inhibit the United States from establishing a planned
(26:40):
Artemis presence if not their first unquote. And this is
I think a big part of why Duffy is wanting
to do this, and the contractor I spoke to said quote,
If they're able to extend some quote unquote exclusion zone
around a reactor on the surface where other countries aren't
allowed to land, it's not difficult to imagine that they
(27:01):
may try to use this to de facto claim areas
of the Moon for the United States unquote.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Hell yeah, we have colonized the Moon.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And there is even more troubling use cases. Part of
the directive reads that this would quote encourage dual use
civil and defense operational architectures, Yes, for deployed fission surface
power systems in coordination with interagency partners.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Moon base unquote. Space force finally getting its moment in
the sun on the Moon.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
I guess this really is just like the pure unspeakable
tragedy is unspeakable first version of colonialism, because it's like
the moon is the one place that is actually Tyrannullis
and there's nothing there and there's nothing to gain from
being there.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
There's just nothing. But you know, we got to colonize it.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
Yeah, but the sun ever sets on the American Empire
if you've got the moon on it as well, so
you got that going for you.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
It's just just it's just a pure drive of colonialism
detached from its actual like material motives.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Having failed to gain Greenland, we will pivot and take
the Moon instead.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I mean, you know, the Moon and Greenland are both
similarly habitable territories, so.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
It's true, but you can't do backflips in Greenland.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
So like, this is the plot of despicable meat.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Like that's what we're doing here, We're doing the plant
of despicable meat.
Speaker 9 (28:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Many science fiction movies have predicted this, Please send them
all to us.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yes, as was noted by Robert Heinland, the moon is
indeed a harsh mistress.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Wait, what is that I hear? Is that the tariff songs.
Speaker 10 (28:51):
Jazz, rock jazz po sorry, rocking.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Jazz, ah god, every time, every time, it's good.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Let's talk tariff tariffs. There are so many of them.
Speaker 6 (29:09):
The tariffs have gone into effect, So all right, we're
gonna do a full episode about this on Monday, because
there is so much tariff bullshit that it quite frankly
needs its own actual episode in which we're gonna be
talking about shit like, for example, the US has maybe
on accident, maybe on purpose, recognized the junta me and
(29:29):
mar is a legitimate government.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Do the tariffs stuff.
Speaker 6 (29:31):
We'reking about that on Monday because we don't have time
for that, Shita.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
What we instead have time for is.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
The just massive array of tariffs on a list of
countries so long that we just genuinely can't read them.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
All.
Speaker 6 (29:45):
Okay, this is a very very confusing raft of tariffs.
In a lot of ways, it's simpler than the other ones.
But okay, so so Persian And if the US runs
a trade deficit with you and you're not also in
one of the other special categories where we have imposed
a really high tariff on you, it's like fifteen percent.
If we have a trade surplus with the country we
imposed a ten percent tariff.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
This doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
Sure, Okay, So it's like in terms of the state
of motives of the tariffs, it doesn't make any sense
except in terms of like raising money, which these raised
very little actual money relative to like the amount of money.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
The US spends.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Right wing commentators have stated that the end goal of
this massive tariff program is to abolish income tax because
we can fund the government through tariffs. Actually great, yeah,
I just know that. No, you can't like this, No, this.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Is just yeah. At the same time, it said driving
the deficit into the fucking sky, like yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
And we've talked about the sort of riffs that this
has caused, with like the sort of true believer deficit
hawks versus these just completely unhinged fund the government with
tariff weirdos. But Comma, there have been a huge number
of countries. Then now we have fifteen percent tariffs on
we've also gotten a formal like announcement of the one
hundred percent tariffs on semiconductors unless you invest do some
(31:07):
kind of certificant investment in the US. It's deeply unclear
what the fuck that means. Uh, Apple hasn't pledged to
invest one hundred billion dollars in the US. There's this
very very weird thing on the right where like they
just they think that you can make iPhones here. You can't.
You just simply cannot. We you don't have the labor force,
(31:28):
you do not have the technology.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, but Tim Cook did just bribe Trump with a.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Nice plate of gold in the iPhone, a big old
ingot of gold.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So I thought it was a gold iPhone.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
There was some glass involved as well, No, it was
it was it was a plate that was on like
a gold like brick base. I love that.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Yeah, that's the way we do it. Now, we're exactly
decided under the radar.
Speaker 6 (31:53):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
You have to bribe the supreme ruler by giving gifts
of gold to grand good favor.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Oh god, it's like fucking smoke whatever. Like it has
this pile of gold that he's going to be sitting on.
It's going to be Scrooge mcducking in that ship by
the end of four years.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Oh, don't get us started on ducktails. Oh no, no, no,
no cure.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Yeah, that'll really inflate the length of this episode.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
That's what they call a layup in in sports ball.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, what's the tear us up to?
Speaker 6 (32:25):
They're calling me the fucking Wembin y'all, fucking a fucking
inflation shop blocking Fuck this we're talking about. We're talking
about ship infrastructure. People have been trying to develop like
the infrastructure developed ships for a long time now. The
Biden administration did this. The Chinese government isn't boring a
bunch of money into it. And it's basically impossible to
actually develop domestic ship infrastructure other than the kinds of
(32:45):
infrastructure that he US already has. Because the really short
version of it is that it's not just a technological problem,
and it is it's really hard to actually develop the technology.
This is why almost all of the direct production stuff
there trying to replicate basically just happens in Taiwan. It's
not just a problem of the technology is really hard.
It's a problem of the machines to make. The machines
(33:09):
that you need to make these things exist in like
one place in the world, in Switzerland, right. So in
order to actually scale up production of this, which is woild,
is in theory what these one hundred percent imported semi
conductor tariffs are supposed to do. Right, You have to
go up three layers of the supply chain, you have
to make the machines that make the machines that make
the machines that make the semi conductors.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Right, that's like the simplest way to explain it. We don't.
We can't fucking do that. Like Apple could throw a
fucking hundred billion dollars that what that would do?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Shit?
Speaker 6 (33:38):
Right, So they're chasing just a ghost. But you know,
our entire sort of like trade policy is just being
run by the just weird, fascist, miasmic phantoms of all
of these trade policy people. Now, it's also worth noting
that there's been you know, another I guess kind of
(34:00):
that's been enacted. Other than hilariously, the countries that tried
to negotiate what Trump got worse rates than the ones
who just waited until he imposed fifteen percent rate.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Generally, that's kod it's funny.
Speaker 6 (34:11):
But also so Trump has been threatening anyone who buys
oil from Russia and also I think Venezuela, though it
has been less for US on that with fifty percent tariffs.
Right now he's threatening India with fifty percent tariffs because
India has been buying oil from Russia that India's tariffs
are currently a twenty five percent. He is also just
straight up imposed to fifty percent tariff on Brazil for
(34:34):
refusing to release Bolsonaro. There's been some updates on that
front where Lula is just straight up refusing to do
direct talks at the US. Lula had an exclusive interview
with Reuters where he said, quote, we had already pardoned
the US interventions in the nineteen sixty four coup, said Lula,
who got his political striders. Listen, listen to the Lula
episodes we did, They're very good. More more Lula quote,
(34:56):
but this is now not a small intervention. It's the
president of the United States thinking he can dictate rules
for a sovereign country like Brazil. It's unacceptable. It's worth
noting that this is actually a pretty massive change for
like Lula specifically relations with the US. Lula actually had
very good relations with George Bush. But he is writing
a massive tide of of Brazilian anti American nationalism, and
(35:19):
he's attempting to spread this tide elsewhere.
Speaker 10 (35:22):
Right.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
He's been specifically saying that he's calling on organized resistance
from particularly India and China, but the rest of bricks,
which is a well, okay, bricks was originally a category
of assets that's now kind of a vaguely a political
alliance who's made members are Brazil, Russia, India, China, and
South Africa. It's unclear if this will happen, I kind
(35:43):
of I don't know, but Lula's the first person really
really seriously trying to organize resistance to this outside of
the EU. The EU's also under a thread of thirty
percent tariffs if they don't just sort of like see
the Trump's demands. But like you know, again, India also
negotiated ill with the US and then immediately got their tariffs,
like is now being threatened with fifty percent tariffs, so
(36:04):
you can't negotiate with him to escape this. So I
don't know, Lula, maybe this is the beginning of sort
of organized, like large scale organized terraff resistance to the
US being framed in this sort of like collective struggle
versus the US thing. That's an interesting political trend that
will be following as all of us continues. Okay, and
the rest of the unhinged amount of tariff news we're
(36:27):
going to be covering Monday, I will make a brief
note that the Yale Budget Lab is estimating like like
a twenty four hundred dollars increase for the average family
just in terms of like inflation prices for this especially
on things like clothing. They are specifically I think there's
a sane article puls so they're specifically talking about running
shorts and shoes and anything any goods from South Asia
(36:50):
massively increasing in price. You're talking thirty percent increases very quickly.
So yeah, Now, obviously all of this news is I
don't know, the stock market has kind of like accustomed
itself to tariff news. Yeah, but Comma, we've got a
really really bad job support last month.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
And well actually, well well I don't know if that's true.
I think the jobs report could be completely faked. Yeah,
who can say, Jesus, if the president says it, it
has to be true.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
A Biden did you have a Biden appointee?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
All crazy crazy The auto pen is issued to this
job's report.
Speaker 6 (37:30):
So yeah, Trump, Trump has fired the Commission of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics for releasing this report. We are
just we are just truly fully into the deep end
of shit.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Now, Like the report just showed that we didn't have
very positive job growths, and like anyone who's trying to
get a job right now can confirm that it's like
a nightmare.
Speaker 6 (37:51):
Yeah, and we're just like we're just like fully going
to be in Like, you know, it's unclear exactly how
fast American data collection capacity is going to degrade. It
is worth noting this is the thing that kind of
happens at the end of dictatorships when they really start
going to shit, is that they lose the ability to
trust their own cistical apparatus.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
I mean, like anything that happens that Trump just doesn't like,
you can claim it's fake and rigged, whether that's losing
an election, whether that's his good close personal friend Jeffrey Epstein,
or if that's a Bureau of Labor Statistics job report,
it's all rigged. It's all a hope.
Speaker 10 (38:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:25):
But to tie this back to Lula for a second,
I think it's actually really a really interesting historical parallel
that's worth noting that Lula's rise to political prominence came
off of a series of strikes that was held because
because a bunch of economists that were working with the
inside the Brazilian labor unions figured out the military dictatorship
of Brazil had been faking their inflation numbers, and like,
(38:47):
this is one of the things that caused the end
of the dictatorship. So you know, you can only lie
about the inflation rate for so long before like someone
goes like, hey, you've been lying about this the whole time,
and I don't know this.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
This, this has brought down military kidder just before. And
that's why we have to hold archive of our own
accountable for faking those inflation numbers.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I agree with you entirely, Garrison.
Speaker 11 (39:09):
I don't get paid enough for this. You've lost me
not following and yeah, that has been terriff talk. You
know what will continue to be available to our listeners
at an excellent price despite tariffs.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
The products and services that support this podcast.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
That's absolutely correct, Garrison, Well done. All right, we're back,
so bad And also back is the United Kingdom, where
(39:48):
a poll shows that more than half of Britain's think
there are more migrants in the UK illegally than legally.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
This isn't true, No, but feelings matter way more than facts.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
Je failings matter. They yes, they do. The actual data
even at the highest estimate of undocumented people shows that
this around ten times more foreign people who are in
the UK with documents. This is indicative of a broader issue,
right that the discussions having around immigration are nearly all
based on massive amounts of misinformation. Misinformation by a mission
(40:21):
was extremely common in legacy media until very recently, right like,
there was simply not people covering immigration in a serious fashion,
Like even in the Biden administration, the reporting that was
done was atrocious. This comes as the Labor government's disapproval
(40:41):
rating in the UK hit sixty seven percent in a
Yugo of pol which I think is very indicative like
what Labor did, right was try to adopt right wing
culture war positions to get people to vote for them,
and it does not work and it is not working
for them. You can look at their policies towards trans
people right there, and it's not buying them to favor
(41:02):
they wanted to moving back to the United States. Yon
sou Go, she's called Sue by her friends. It has
been released by Ice after being detained at a routine hearing.
A twenty year old young woman as a Korean national
South Korean evidently right and the daughter of a priest
so she's here on a visa as a dependent of
(41:24):
a religious worker. There are religious worker visas, and she's
here as a dependent. She is I believe in the
process of transitioning to a student visa. She had the
hearing her case wasn't like dismissed or evoked. She had
another hearing set for October. I claim that she overstayed
her visa, Her lawyer says, I claim, it's not true.
(41:46):
I'm particularly interested in this case because of the intervention
of the diocese, the Episcopalian Diocese of New York, and
so it was the Episcopalian Diocese of New York's legal
team who fought for her release. She was very quickly
moved to Louisiana. We know that is likes so do
this right. It likes to move people to places where
it feels like it has a favorable circuit court. The
(42:08):
Dioceit offical team was able to secure her release, but
they are still working on the release of a fifty
nine year old ProView and asylum seeker who has been
detained after having her court date moved up. So in
her CASEY said, hey, we've got a hearing that's opened up.
When don't you come in on Thursday and then detained her,
which is just reprehensible. It is really good. I think
that these big religious organizations are getting involved directly in
(42:32):
these cases, that they are taking on responsibility, that they're
using their pulpits as a place to oppose this. I
think that's good. I think, regardless of your stance, aren't
organized religion, you should be happy about that. These are
institutions that have power in this country. Talking of institutions
that have power, detainees in Florida's Alligator Alcatraz are being
(42:54):
denied their right to file court documents because federal courts
are claiming they're not under federal jurisdiction. State courts are
claiming they're not under state jurisdiction, which is fairly reasonable
given that they have not been charged with or accused of,
in many cases, any crimes in the state of Florida.
Right then, they're not being held. They were not detained
by well, sometimes they were detained the Florida law enforcement,
(43:16):
I guess, but only in their capacity to enforce federal
immigration law.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yes, with the special deputized NAT.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
Yes, it's yeah, it's deputies, which we're about to talk
about there have been some very funny outcomes of that.
This isn't it like I've seen it report as a loophole.
It's not a loophole. It's extremely fucking clear that they
were detained by the federal government for immigration reasons, and
they have every right to representation in immigration court right
that this is not a loophole. They're just denying people
(43:46):
their rights, and I think reporting it as a loophole
is entirely ridiculous. A judge has ordered a document showing
who is contracted by whom at the facility be produced
as part of a civil rights lawsuit. So what that
will do woul obviously document them. The fatal government it's
paying some of this. I know rich DeSantis had wanted
to use FEMA money for some of this breaking news.
(44:09):
So federal Judge Kathleen Williams has ordered that construction new
construction halt. They won't be allowed to do any new filling, paving,
or infrastructure building for the next fourteen days temporary pause.
They can still continue to hold people right, this is
not going to stop those people being denied their rights,
which is what sort of stake here. So we talked
(44:31):
a little bit about those Florida deputies right who have
been I guess secondid to ICE orgs. They've been crossworn
to do ICE work. ICE is recruiting very heavily right now.
I'm offering fifty thousand dollars sign on bonuses. It has
reduced a minimum age and it seems to have no
maximum age cap. From what I can tell, this Border
(44:53):
Patrol has been issuing all kinds of waivers for years, right,
for all kinds of things that it's supposed to have
as like standard for its recruiting. This isn't particularly new.
ICE has been known for a while. It's kind of
if you want to be a FED and go around
and carry a gun, and you can't get hired to
do gun stuff for the Fed to other agencies, ICE
is probably the place you're going to end up, right,
(45:14):
Like their standards are lower than other agencies.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
And now they're like specifically selecting for the most like
online unhinged right wing free to join their agency as
like a national police force. Yes, and that's like what
they're doing in their messaging online. And also some news
this week Dean Kane has has joined ICE. Yeah, yeah,
it's most likely in like a promotional capacity. But still
(45:42):
worth noting.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Yeah, you might get chased by middle aged superman. So
let's talk about what ICE is doing to recruit a festival.
It is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on big trucks.
We know Donald Trump himself, it's found a big truck,
so many pictures of him enjoying big trucks. Over the years,
Ice has spent one hundred and ninety six thousand dollars
on Ford raptors for recruiting purposes. The raptor, for those
(46:06):
not familiar, is like a tricked out F one fifty.
They were issuing raptors to field agents for a while.
They're not the best vehicles, like I've heard plenty of
agents complain about the raptism. Yeah, yeah know, And the
BP had a special like lowest possible trim of the
raptor that like they're popular now because people will buy
them used as government surplus and make them good. But
(46:28):
they yeah, the raptors they had didn't work too well.
They also bought a GMC Yukon for one hundred and
one thousand dollars, which is a very expensive GMC yukon.
I have also noted that ICE is recruiting from the
police who have been cross sworn into doing ICE enforcement.
This has resulted in some very funny beefs between agencies
(46:51):
including can I share this video? Can I screenshare?
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (46:56):
Yeah, let's that's what it's the video.
Speaker 12 (46:58):
And then what has happened is ICE has sent emails
to I don't know how many agencies, by no, several agencies.
I've talked to several sheriffs that their deputies have received
these this request and basically it's a recruiting tactic. It's hey,
we got your email, Now you got certified, and it's
something like, dear colleague, you showed an interest in this
(47:19):
and that, and we will let you know that we
are offering a fifty thousand dollars bonus paid ten thousand
dollars at a time, and it's for five years. Obviously, man,
is that not you know Biden handed feeds you. We
we went through all of that, took our time, utilizing
our local resoort, not ours yet, but local resources.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
And then they try to recruit you right out from.
Speaker 12 (47:40):
Undery using the very emails that we give you.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Finally they've found something bad. ICE is done. Yeah, this
is a new low. Even for uce.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Yeah, Sheriff Chip simmons that calling Ice out for that
poor form.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Sheriff Chip finally found something that shows this true depress
a compromised heart of Ice.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Where will they stop? Well, let's talk
about where they will stop or at least start spending.
Ice has been spending some money this week. Some of
this I think, like some of the sort of reporting
on ITFC isn't hugely responsible. So like I used to
signed a sole source contract with B two Technologies for example,
(48:23):
for quote licenses for the Inmate Identification of Recognition System
and the Mobile Offender Recognition Information System. They call these
IRIS and Morris based on their initials. Right, these are
for ers, so that's their enforcement and removal operations brands
BO two pitches. IRIS is being able to identify people
with no physical contact based on the tears in their IRIS.
(48:45):
This technology has been used by police for a while,
so you'll notice it was called the inmate identification So
the way they would obtain these Irish scans would be
scanning people who were detained. Right. CBP will also have
IRIS scans, so well, uscis right. This is one of
the pieces of biometric data that's sometimes collected from migrants
(49:07):
as part of their process and moving into the United
States and then getting their documents, et cetera. What Morris
will do is allow them to search a registry of
previous offenders. In twenty twenty four, Niagara County Sheriff's Office
were the first sheriff's office to add IRIS to their vehicles.
But I feel it reported as this is as a
(49:27):
CBP officer or ice officers are going to be scanning
people's irises with their phones. I don't see any evidence
of that technology existing either in the contract that the
government has or on the website for the company that
makes it. And guessing what this will do is if
they have somebody who, for instance, has previously been detained,
somebody who has done time and come out, then they
(49:50):
will use this to like as aware of identifying them
right when after they've detained them before they take them
to wherever. The big issue here, right, is that B
two owns this database of scans. So this database includes
Morris right, which is previous people who have previous offenders.
They have a sex offender registry within it. They also
have databases of seniors who are at risk for going
(50:13):
missing so that I think that's people with dementia that
people can voluntarily sign up to. And they have a
database of missing children as well. The A two interesting company.
They also they offer a bunch of services for detention companies.
They previously partnered with the support Our Sheriff's Foundation to
provide lower cost prescriptions to sheriffs and deputies. They're pretty
(50:33):
embedded in this law enforcement world. Other contracts they saw
for ice new tech solutions for fingerprint scanners. Again, fingerprint
information is routinely taken from migrants and many one people.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Getting green cards, people getting visas, people getting citizenship.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
Yes, yeah, anyone who has in any capacity and really
engaged with uscis like all those categories you mentioned, Garrison
will have already done this. They did also purchase gray Key,
which is more concerning, which is for breaking into cell
phones locked cell phones. Yes, it's for trying to get
around the lock on your cell phone. I've written about
GrayKey before for Input magazine Germany. The way they do
(51:11):
this is that they try and make a copy of
the cell phone and work on a copy so you
don't get locked to have of your cell phone. But
grey Key is an extremely nefarious piece of technology for
breaking into people's phones which you otherwise wouldn't be able
to access. So yeah, that is what I have for
ices spending spree this week.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
For our last story, I would like to also talk
about technology, but technology in the news some AI incidents
that have broken into people's news news gathering process. Former
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has shared a fake AI video
of AOC giving a speech in Congress calling out the
(51:52):
Sydney Sweety American Eagle ad as racist.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Damn it, I got to see this. Why does it
have to all be so stupid?
Speaker 9 (52:00):
I was tweeting today and saw a clip of AOC
saying that Sydney sweeneyad was racist, and so I replied
to it, and I said, why do you care about
this and ignore what matters most? Why in all the
times that you've called on Israel to stop, why have
you never told Hamas to stop, told Hamas to surrender?
(52:20):
Why would you ignore the Saint Louis attack on that
Jewish guy who had his car bomb. AOC tweeted back
and said, dude, that's a deep fake that Sidney sweetya ad.
You suck in so many words, and she was right.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
They got me.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
She was right, I suck.
Speaker 4 (52:42):
He has been owned.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
That's not bad, that's pretty good. That's funny.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, I just I just to cut off the clip there.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's the right place for it to go.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
On this AI video of AOC, it is clearly like
like in Boston into the video himself. This isn't AI
video from from chat gpt memes plus AI art on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
This is this guy is being elevated as a fucking journalist.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Jesus wept.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
He later said on on Newstation on his show They
Got Me Ai. It was really good and it did
seem like something she would say. I'm gonna now play
video in question to see if you think this is
something that AOC would say.
Speaker 13 (53:30):
Sidney Sweeney looks like an Aryan goddess and the American
Eagle jeans campaign is nazipaganda. I mean fuck watching that
sultry little temptress squeeze into a Canadian text small with
her bouncy little fun bags.
Speaker 5 (53:50):
Okay, it's oh my god, I don't know, no more,
no more episode.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
Oh man, what a one of our greatest journalists. You know,
AI really has to be you know, we've hit AGI
if it can if it can crack a mind as
keen as Chris Woma.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
It was really good and it did seem like something
she would say.
Speaker 10 (54:26):
Good.
Speaker 6 (54:29):
Don't even know her voice sounds unbelievable, unbelievable, some one
of the most union things I've ever seen.
Speaker 4 (54:39):
I didn't watch that, and then wonder why she hasn't
commented on hermas in the same breath treating indication of
where our country's at.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
That AI video is eighty seconds long. It gets so
much crazier, but we don't need to say anymore. The
other incident of AI in the news, former CNN Chief
Whiteous correspondent Jim Acosta interviewed in AI avatar impersonating a
school shooting victim.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
Oh, no, goodness.
Speaker 4 (55:04):
It's one of those things that like every town or
someone was doing.
Speaker 1 (55:08):
Yeah, yeah, yes, I caught this when it happened.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Here's a video.
Speaker 9 (55:12):
I would like to know what your solution would be
for gun violence.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Great question. I believe in a mix of stronger gun
control laws, mental health support, and community engagement.
Speaker 12 (55:24):
We need to create safe spaces for conversations and connections,
making sure everyone feels seen and heard.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
It's about building a culture of kindness.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
And understanding.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
What do you think about that. I think that's a
great idea, Joaquin.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
That's not even an answer. That's not an answer.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
This is one of the goodest things I've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (55:42):
Create a culture of kindness and understanding.
Speaker 1 (55:44):
Yeah, that'll fix it.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
Thanks, incredible humanity.
Speaker 4 (55:47):
Not a person that's someone's child.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
That's not someone's child, all right, Jim Acosta.
Speaker 4 (55:52):
Rome is just a generic well now.
Speaker 2 (55:54):
It's like it's it's it's not a person.
Speaker 10 (55:56):
This is yeah.
Speaker 4 (55:57):
Yeah, but they've attempted to reanimate through cringe ji someone's
kid and they look like a character in It's a small.
Speaker 2 (56:04):
World ycause the parents are involved in this process. Jim
Acosta wrote on Blue Sky at four pm, I'll have
a one of a kind interview with Hakeem Oliver. He
died in the Parkland school shooting, but his parents have
created an AI version of their son for a powerful
message on gun violence. Unquote. You did not interview Jakim Oliver.
That's that's that's not him. You did not interview that person.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
No, you did not. You didn't interview anybody.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
You have helped to spread a fake puppet of someone
without their knowledge and consent, just as just as gross
is doing it for like movie actors right who who
have died. This is and you know, more more gross
actually actually like significantly more gross.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
Yeah, it didn't even suggest like it it wasn't even
like willing to be like ban AR fifteen's or whatever. Yeah,
like there was no nothing suggested here, Like I can't
believe how milk toast for a dead person who was
killed by an AR fifteen. It wasn't even willing this.
It was just like vaguely new gun control and also
(57:05):
a culture of kindness. But like can't even be specific
this ghoul that you've made.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
You're putting fake words in someone else's like death mask
mouth y'. Yes, it's so it's so unethical, Like I
don't even know what to say. It doesn't work at
CNN anymore, but my god, like this is not journalism
in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 4 (57:26):
No, I don't want to like punch down on the
and I don't understand, like I have no parents who
have lost children right through my work, I've talked to
lots of them, well, and i'd like to and I
understand the desire to get your kid back in some
form and if sure, whoever the fuck came to them
and said, we're going to make an AI of your
child so it can argue with journalists about gun control.
Is a fucking ghoul perival.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
No, the the fault here is on the people promoting technology,
and in effect, that's what Jim Acosta is doing here
as well.
Speaker 4 (57:54):
Yeah, totally no, because a journalist is totally irresponsible.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
And profiting off of it. It's so gross. So anyway,
that was our AI news to close the episode. Sorry,
we couldn't end on the aoc ad instead had to
end on a bit of a more more sour note.
Speaker 4 (58:10):
Yeah, I genuinely want to know where that aoc ad goes.
I'm gonna watch it.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
Oh, I'll send it to you, James. Yeah, okay, we
reported the news.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
We reported the news.
Speaker 7 (58:31):
It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources where it could happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is it could happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
newscast covering what is happening in the White House, the
crumbling world what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis.
This episode, I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Tout, and
Robert Evans. We're covering the week of July thirtieth August seventh. Robert,
what is Texas?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
So the original root word of the state's name is Tejas,
which means friendship, a thing that no one in Texas
has ever known, because it's the angriest meana state in
the country. That's that's Texas.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Garrison up for some stiff competition these days, up for
some stiff competition, but it's still it's still holding out,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Everything's bigger in Texas, Garrison's It's famed as being the
second or third worst state that borders New Mexico, so
you know, rarefied company. Really it can compete with all
of the states bordering New Mexico except for Colorado. The
state's bordering New Mexico except for Colorado are Oklahoma and
Arizona and Texas, so not high bars.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Texas has some of the finest abt and breakfasts that
I've ever stayed in, that's right, including one with a
deeply disturbing basement.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Okay, just because they had one torture basement, James. So
we're talking about Texas right now because a bunch of
the Democratic state legislators just fled the state for Illinois,
I believe, is how the name of the state has pronounced.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, it's French.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
It's French.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
It's French fact check for real Illinoian wrong.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Disposed fact checks by real Illinoyance.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
So when you've got a legislature of pretty much any type,
at least in the US, I'm sure there's other countries
that don't do it this way, but you need what's
called a quorum in order to actually do anything, which
means of the total number of elected members of the legislature,
you need a certain number of them. Otherwise you can't
like do anything because there's not enough people there in
(01:59):
order to to actually have it be a valid vote.
And I probably don't have to explain the reasonings why.
There's some pretty obvious reasons why you'd want it to
work this way. But there are, however, some downsides to it.
You know, potentially you can be depending on whether or
not your side is doing it. It's a downside or
an upside, right, which is that if you have a
side that is the minority in the government and they
(02:22):
don't want a vote to go through, they can just bounce.
And if they bounce at the right time, before the
legislature has been called and like no one's there, then
you can't get a quorum and nothing can get done.
And this is big news right now because in order
to stop a redistricting vote, a bunch of Democratic legislators
(02:42):
have fled. But this is a thing that has been
going on for well over a century, and it is
a thing that both sides of the aisle have engaged
in with substantial regularity. I'm not an expert on any
of this. The earliest example I can find of anyone
doing this is in Texas, and I'm not saying that
means it's the earliest example of anyone in the US
(03:03):
doing this, But the earliest example I found in my
research was from eighteen seventy. So there's an article on
this in that by the Texas State Historical Association called
Understanding the Rump Senate of the twelfth Texas Legislature and
the rump Senate is a term applied to the fifteen
radical Republican members of the twelfth Texas Legislature who fled
(03:24):
in eighteen seventy to stop a vote on a militia bill.
And this bill gave the governor power to declare martial law.
It gave him the power to establish a state police force.
It increased the appointed power of the governor, a bunch
of stuff that's not all that interesting to us today
because governors, like every state does this today, right, Like
there's state police everywhere. Every state governor has the power
(03:47):
to call a militia, you know, a national guard or whatever.
Like this is not controversial today, but it was back then.
And it's important that I note that while it was
fifteen radical Republicans who fled in eighteen seventy, those were conservatives, right,
Like the radical Republicans were conservatives in eighteen seventy, right,
So this is kind of a reverse if you're just
(04:07):
sort of looking at things from a liberal or conservative
point of view, This is kind of a reversal of
what's happening right now in Texas, although it's happened a
lot of other times since right, So this is eighteen seventy,
and I should note it didn't succeed right. This is, however,
one of the fairly rare times when this kind of
thing happens. If it goes on long enough, every time,
(04:27):
the governor basically will declare an arrest warrant for the
legislators who have left. And as a general rule, this
does nothing, right, Like, the governor has the ability to
find them a certain amount per day, and it has
the ability to call out an arrest warrant, but it's
not like a real arrest warrant. Like if you murder
a guy and then lead to another state, an arrest
warrant will be issued that law enforcement in that state
(04:50):
has to abide by. Right, because you murdered somebody, this
is not a real crime. Basically, if you flee back,
if you wind up back in the state that you left,
you can be taken into custody by law enforcement in
the state, but they can't leave the state to get you.
And almost I would say, like ninety percent of the
time when something like this happens, nobody actually gets arrested. However,
(05:11):
in eighteen seventy, several Conservative members were held under arrest
for like three weeks until the Senate could.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Pass the legislation.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
So, as is usually the case whenever stuff like this happens,
it only succeeded in kind of delaying the inevitable. It
didn't succeed in actually stopping things. And this has happened
a number of times in Texas. Most recently Texas Democratic
lawmakers broke quorum in twenty twenty one. And I want
to quote here from an article in ABC News, quote
(05:40):
Texas state lawmakers left Brookquarman twenty twenty one when Democratic
House representatives fled Texas to prevent measures restricting voting options.
The measures eventually passed after internal democratic fissures led to
enough representatives returning to form a quorum. And this is
the kind of thing where Governor Abbott allowed the sergeant
of Arms, or commanded this target of arms to arrest
(06:01):
the members within Texas. Weirdly enough, a couple of them
did return. The first was Philip Cortes, who like briefly
came back to Austin to handle personal business and there
was a civil arrest warrant signed, but then he fled
the state again before he could be arrested. There were
warrants signed for the fifty two remaining absent legislators, but
(06:21):
law enforcement didn't arrest or detain anybody. Eventually, enough Democratic
legislators came back into the state for like personal reasons.
Some of them had like shit to handle, like in
their own life. Some of them had other things they
wanted to push through in terms of like legislature, and
so they were like, I guess I'll come back and
let this happen. And eventually the House reached quorum and
(06:43):
this past Democrats did not face the five hundred dollars
a day fine that they'd been threatened by the governor,
and nobody was arrested. Now, I've been talking about Texas here,
but this happens all over the place. In fact, when
this story first broke, the immediate thing I thought back
on was what happened very recently in the state of Oregon,
and has happened a couple of times in the state
of Oregon.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
You know mine too. They do this all the time,
they do this a lot.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
But yes, this is a common thing in Oregon. It
has started, and this is both parties have done this.
I should note, right, both Democrats and Republicans in Oregon,
as in Texas have done walkouts.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
They don't even have to leave the state. They don't
even have.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
To leave the state, although they have recently. This seems
to have started an Oregon I think in the nineteen seventies.
There's actually a really good article that's hit like an
overview of a bunch of different states history of doing
this in Oregon Central Oregon Daily News. Although it's an
ap press article, so I guess Central Oregon Daily just
is licensing this thing. But anyway, in Oregon, the most
(07:46):
recent case of this happening was in twenty twenty three,
after Republican staged a six week boycott, which is the
longest so far in Oregon legislature history, over a rule
a law of the Democratic Party was pushing to protect
abortion rights the right to gender firming care for transgender people.
This again did not succeed. This was passed in the
legislature and there were actually some consequences, although it hasn't
(08:10):
been enough time to see how serious there will be.
Because there was a different GOP walkout over climate change
legislation which also failed in twenty twenty two, and as
a result of that twenty twenty two walkout, voters approved
an amendment to the state constitution in Oregon which barred
lawmakers from getting re elected if they had more than
ten unexcused absences in a single annual legislative session, and
(08:33):
as a result of the walkout the next year over
abortion rights in gender firming care, ten Oregon Republican lawmakers
were barred from seeking re election again. As I stated,
this is something that very rarely actually does anything. There's
a twenty twenty one case in New Hampshire where Democrats
walked out in protest of an anti abortion bill. The
(08:53):
Republican House speaker locked the doors to maintain a quorum.
I'm going to quote from the Central Ark and Daily article,
sucking the doors right now so that everybody in the
chamber will stay in the chamber. Shout at House Speaker
Sherman Packard, who later refused to let Democrats back in
to vote on the bill. It's just fucking like representative
politics is just snol children shouting at each other. I
(09:14):
want them to fight with canes. They should be fighting
with King.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Agreed, give them nerfs, give them give them all enough,
let them fight it out.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I would say ninety percent of the time nothing is,
at least from the reading I've done, nothing is achieved
except for a delay, which is not to say that
that's nothing. And also I do believe, like in the
case of the Democratic Party, I don't think what the
Texas Democrats are doing will stop the redistricting. Like the
Republicans are going to win this fight. It's worth fighting. Yeah,
I'm glad they're fighting it. However, very rarely is the
(09:44):
actual law stopped or is anything but a delay achieved.
One of the rare cases in which something more was
achieved is in twenty eleven, in Wisconsin, Democratic state senators
fled to Illinois as a protest against Governor Scott Walker.
He was attempting stript public workers of their union rights. Yeah,
and this, you know, this walkout was staged at the
(10:05):
same time as a mass pro union demonstration at the capitol,
and after several weeks they won a partial victory. Republicans
weakened the legislation, which is like significant, right, like the
fact that they actually got concessions over this, and sometimes
the delay can be significant. The same year that that
all went down in Wisconsin, Indiana Democrats also left for.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
For whatever reason ILLINOI is where you go if you're
doing this, No on wants to come get you know,
wants to go. No one's coming to Illinois.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It's I'd been to fuck Illinois and sorry, Illinois is
the hero of this story.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
We love you Illinois.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yeah, Chicago's five, Chicago's fied for whatever reason. This is
the state you go to if you're a Democrat doing
this in the modern era.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
If you're in Wisconsin, it's not a far away I guess.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Well, this is Indiana too, and also not very far away.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Yeah, it's also not far Yeah, they couldn't make it
to California.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
You know, it's further now that Texans are doing it. Yeah,
but Indiana Democrats left in two that an eleven to
prevent Republican law that would have stopped unions from levying
mandatory fees on union members, which would kind of make
could potentially make it impossible to do a union because
nobody wants to pay for a union. But everyone wants
won right, Yeah, every worker does.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
You want the union protecting you.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
You don't want to have to give up your money,
So it's the kind of thing you could I think
the Republican plan was use the natural greed that people
have in order to hamstring unionizing efforts.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Many such cases, and.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
The Democrats left, which left the House short of its quorum,
and threatened to stay in the other states until they
were promised that the bills would not be called. Republicans
successfully passed the bill, but they had to wait until
the next year. So again, every now and then you
ECO win out here or the site doing this eeks
out a win, and everyone does it, and everyone has
(11:54):
been doing it for more than one hundred and fifty years.
Nothing about this is new, with the exception of the
fact that they actually look to be pushing some serious
legal consequences. The most I've been able to find in
the history of this is what happened in eighteen seventy
where a number of people were arrested and held in
custody for a few weeks. Usually no one is arrested,
and usually the fines aren't even actually levy. Right now,
(12:16):
this does cost money. The last Texas walkout, Texas Democrats
were spending like ten grand a day on food and board,
you know, paying for their hotels or whatever, which was
I think Beato Ol'roor raised most of the money through
his pack, which is what.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Covered it a few hundred grand, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Like six hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
So you know this does cost money to do because
you've got to put these people up. But generally you're
not really hiding them. And generally the legal consequences are
more of a threat than a reality.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Right, and that might not be true in this most
recent year.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yes case, yes, and we're going to throw to you, Garrison,
but first, you know who does force serious life changing
legal consequences on people.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Jay Pritzk.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Yes, and the products and services that support this podcast,
which are entirely we're actually backed entirely by JB.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Pritzker from your mouth to God's ears, Robert not like
knowingly I stole his debit card, and boy, that guy
has a high daily spending let me tell you.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, but he has a lot of shadow companies.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Anyway, Thanks JB. Please don't change your password to your
online bank. Garrison, Hi, we're back.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
So, as Roberts said, Republicans in the Texas legislature are
trying to jerrymander Texas to increase their total power over
the state, proposing a redistricting map that would add five
more Republican seats and in an effort to prevent or
delay this. This past Sunday, sixty two Texas Democrats have
fled to Illinois to deny quorum in the Texas House,
(14:00):
and only twelve need to return in order for the
redistricting to go through, with the main goal right now
being trying to stay out of the state until November.
In terms of consequences, new House rules adopted back in
twenty twenty three after the twenty twenty one quorum, I
can impose a five hundred dollars fine per day for
(14:22):
missing lawmakers, not just from the governor.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
On Monday, the Texas House Republicans voted to issue civil
arrestaurants for the lawmakers, empowering the Sergeant of Arms and
the Texas State Troopers to locate, apprehend, and transport the
rogue legislators back to the capitol. Governor Greg Abot announced
he had mobilized the Texas Department of Public Safety to
return the Democrats to the chamber. Now, these warrants really
(14:45):
only apply within state lines. These are civil warrants. They're
not facing criminal charges though. Back in twenty and three,
during a similar quorum break due to gerrymandering efforts, federal
resources were used to track planes with suspect did rogue
Democrat lawmakers, and Abbott has already proposed trying to declare
their House seats vacant if they do not return, a
(15:08):
tactic which would probably prompt some lengthy legal battles and
require new special elections to take place to fill the seats.
So that still would like delay this process. That's not
a quick solution. But there has been some breaking news
as of this morning recording Thursday. On Thursday morning, Texas
(15:29):
Senator John Corbin announced that the FBI would now be
investigating and working to locate the Texas House Democrats, saying
in a press release, quote, I thank President Trump and
Director Patel for supporting and swiftly acting on my call
for the federal government to hold these supposed lawmakers accountable
for fleeing Texas. We cannot allow these rogue legislators to
(15:51):
avoid their constitutional responsibilities unquote. So the extent of the
FBI's involvement in tracking, down, locating, or apper the Democrats
is currently unknown. The FBI has declined to comment, but
this is something that's going to develop in the next week, which.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
They always do when ongoing case is.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Like sure if you email or whatever the FBI about
any ongoing case.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
This is what they do, period. It's been their policy
for forever.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, so it doesn't tell you anything, just saying that
in terms of, like, we do not know what the
extent of their involvement is going to be at this point, right, yeah, right,
and they might not even know either. Yeah. This could
just be a tech cashpitel TikTok.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Yeah, there's a good chance they're internally scrambling to like,
what are we gonna do?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Like, this would be unprecedented sending a federal law enforcement
arm to physically apprehend and return lawmakers. That is certainly
an escalation from using like federal resources to track planes
like they did in twos and three. This would be
a whole new ballgame.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
As I noted, it's uncommon for them to be arrested
inside the state by the sergeant at arms.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah sure, I mean, like arrest just means you know,
you'd like accompany them back to the capital or force
them to return to the capital.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You're staying here, You're not going to leave to the state.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Yeah, you've got a guy called Sogant Arms involved. It's
not serious, but even that's purely uncommon.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
No, I like most corm breaks fail because legislators just
choose to return, whether to do personal business, whether to
do political business. It takes a lot of discipline to
not return to your home for a period of like
three to six months.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, you get stuff to do.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Most people, a lot of people have what are called
familize famali's something like.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
That for media.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
I think it's a new concept. Yeah, we're still working
at kool Zone to get a handle on it. We'll
have a report on whatever that is.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So don't worry.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Yeah, they've got to get back to the policule or whatever.
But they haven't violated a federal law right lately.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
No, so federal, they'ven't violated a Texas law.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it's not a law.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
It is literally the governor saying I'm sending guys for you.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Yeah, this is some old timey parliamentarian shit.
Speaker 6 (18:07):
Yeah, and like you know, as I was saying, it's
like again, it is on. This could just be a
cash hotel TikTok op.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
But also I hate the way that sounds.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I what a fucking way to describe our federal law enforcement.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Oh it's a hinge.
Speaker 6 (18:20):
This is genuinely okay, I'm gonna take a very very
slight detour, which I said this before. But also, like,
the thing that gives me the most hope about all
of this is that, like, look, they found the right
winger to put in charge of the American secret police,
and he doesn't want to do his job because he
just wants to be a podcaster.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Hey, understand, you make me director the FBI, and I
promise to be more or less the same.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:44):
But you know, but if this is actually a thing
right and federal agents is only grabbing lawmakers out of Illinois.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
That is that's a big deal. Yeah, it's a massive escalation.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And that's why, as people fully supported by pritz Chris
private militia, we will be on the frontline defending the
Texas lav makers. That's right, saluting the Chicago flag.
Speaker 7 (19:05):
M hm.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yes, As as Governor, Pritzker recently stated blood for the
blood gods, skulls for the skull throne.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Classic Pritzker.
Speaker 6 (19:13):
And did you need to do some Pritzker not even
slander here, So just fuck you, tiny bit of fuck
you Pritzker news, which I was gonna talk about a
little bit anyways later, but U Pritzker has basically allowed
a bunch of hospitals in Chicago to stop covering gender
firmacare for minors, even though it's like illegal under Illinois
state law.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So fuck him for that, eat shit.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
Yeah we we we will unfortunately oppose the Kannie of
the Great Plains.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And what's the reasoning there? Has he given any.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
He was just like, oh, well they're gonna lose funding.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Ah, oh no, it is over yeah, okay, yeah, it's so,
it is over the threats.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
But like, yeah, a number.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Of states have been have been something similar is brewing
in Oregon right now.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
Yeah, we've we've yeah, this has been happening Oregon. We
we just had an episode about people resisting this in Pennsylvania.
This will be a continuing and ongoing struggle. But I
fuck you Pritzker, eat shit.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Like I do have two science stories for this middle
segment here. First one, I'm gonna call on everyone's I
don't know, probably my least favorite Kennedy RFRF Wow controversial. Yeah,
there's a lot of bad Kennedy's.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH
and FDA, HHS has the termine that mRNA technology poses
more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses. That's why,
after a extensive review, BARTA has begun the process of
terminating these twenty two contracts totaling just under five hundred
(20:52):
million dollars to replace the troubled mRNA programs, we're prioritizing
the development of the Sayer broader VACS strategies.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Sure, sure thing, sure thing, mister Kennedy. Oh Jesus fucking Christ.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah that sounds true, and not like we're throwing away
a holy grail of medical miracles.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Literally won the Nobel Price. Yeah yeah, yeah, So this
is this is some devastating news where he is is
removing twenty two contracts researchers and universities that are developing
new mRNA vaccine technology. And earlier in that video, so
I'm not going to play because it's just him basically lying,
but he was lying about how mRNA technology has been
(21:35):
ineffective against upper respiratory infections because it only targets a
single protein which not only becomes obsolete due to mutations,
but actually accelerates the mutation process and prolongs pandemics. This
is not true. You can know no, it's not true.
This is not true. And one of the most unique
aspects of m RNA technology is that the vaccines can
be developed at a much faster pace to be deployed
(21:58):
against mutations. And if a vaccine is not does not
one hundred percent prevent an infection, that doesn't mean they
still won't, like decrease the severity of symptoms. He is
trying to cote his his decades decades long like anti
vaccine advocacy in this like scientific language while actually just
(22:19):
like stripping away all of the funding and removing access
to two vaccines. And this is stuff that he promised
not to do. In his confirmation hearings. He said that
he would not take away vaccines yep. And he would
not change who's on the vaccine advisory panels. He has
done both of those things so far. Two months ago,
he fired all seventy members of the advisory panel. I
talked with Cave about this, and he replaced them with
(22:40):
eight anti vaxxers. And not only did he remove a
multi billion dollar contract from Deurna to continue mRNA vaccine research,
he now canceled these twenty two other contracts totally five
hundred million dollars of technology. People are going to die
and get sick because of these changes, yes, yeah, which
doesn't just affect like COVID and the flu, so it
also affects all of the other ways that mRNA technology
(23:04):
can be utilized. A lot of these research projects are
about expanding the possible use of this technology beyond upper
respiratory infections. So this sucks.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
Yeah, this is real bad ITV.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I am very nervous about the development of the HIV
vaccine and cancer vaccines, things that we were getting so
close to now being put into jeopardy because this fucking
clown is in charge of Health and Human Services.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
A ton of this is wor I've done at the
salkans Gean San Diego, Achile.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
It was reported earlier this week that some Republicans and
Trump himself might actually not be happy about this. And
Trump has a meeting scheduled with RFK Junior today to
discuss these cancelations, so we'll see where that goes. In
some other science news, Sean Duffy, interm NASA administrator who
(23:55):
also is the Secretary of Transportation, who directed his employees
to prioritize funding in grants towards towards demographics with high
marriage rates. He announced that he was expediating plans to
launch and operate a one hundred kilowatt nuclear reactor for
the Moon.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Great.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Look, there's a lot of people living on the Moon
and power outages have been a constant problem there, Garrison,
if this science fiction novel from the nineteen sixties is accurate.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I talk with a friend of mine who is an
anonymous NASA contractor. She gave a quote, quote I need
a cigarette unquote.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Great, because he just got fucked.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
It's also worth noting that all of this is coming
in the context of the largest really like the largest
cuts in the history of American science across the board
to anything that's actually like I'm gonna get's remotely doing science,
Like yeah, sorry, I just I just want to go on.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Especially space science, like Duffy's trying to manufacture this new
space race and prioritize like manned Moon, all while cutting
at least fifty percent all NASA science missions and just
like absolutely crippling NASA's capacity to actually develop technology. Now,
Duffy said at a press conference, and seeing this new
directive on Tuesday, quote we are in a race to
(25:15):
the moon, a race with China to the moon, and
to have a base on the moon, we need energy. Unquote.
Is that fucking nineteen fifty talk? What are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (25:27):
And that's the time when the greatness happened to Garrison.
They want to get back to that.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
The NASA contractor I spoke with said quote, NASA is
already down at least twenty percent of its workforce and
behind on its previously announced to lunar missions and objectives
see the Lunar Gateway and Artemis three. I just don't
immediately see a world where NASA does this successfully, even
if they go the route of contracting it out. If
the success, specifically the lack thereof of the commercial Lunar
(25:55):
Payload Services Program and the commercial LEEO Destinations program, has
any indication for how this will go, it will be
mirrored in failure and many years behind schedule at best. Unquote.
This new NASA directive from Shan Duffy calls for a
fission Surface Power Program executive to be named by the
end of August, whoill then implement yes, yes, who will
(26:18):
then impleant and oversee the project while reporting directly to
the NASA Administrator. The directive reads, quote, since March twenty
twenty four, China and Russia have announced, on at least
three occasions a joint effort to place a reactor on
the Moon by the mid twenty thirties. The first country
to do so could potentially declare a keepout zone, which
would significantly inhibit the United States from establishing a planned
(26:40):
Artemis presence if not their first unquote. And this is
I think a big part of why Duffy is wanting
to do this, and the contractor I spoke to said quote,
If they're able to extend some quote unquote exclusion zone
around a reactor on the surface where other countries aren't
allowed to land, it's not difficult to imagine that they
(27:01):
may try to use this to de facto claim areas
of the Moon for the United States unquote.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Hell yeah, we have colonized the Moon.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And there is even more troubling use cases. Part of
the directive reads that this would quote encourage dual use
civil and defense operational architectures, Yes, for deployed fission surface
power systems in coordination with interagency partners.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Moon base unquote. Space force finally getting its moment in
the sun on the Moon.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
I guess this really is just like the pure unspeakable
tragedy is unspeakable first version of colonialism, because it's like
the moon is the one place that is actually Tyrannullis
and there's nothing there and there's nothing to gain from
being there.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
There's just nothing. But you know, we got to colonize it.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
Yeah, but the sun ever sets on the American Empire
if you've got the moon on it as well, so
you got that going for you.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
It's just just it's just a pure drive of colonialism
detached from its actual like material motives.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Having failed to gain Greenland, we will pivot and take
the Moon instead.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I mean, you know, the Moon and Greenland are both
similarly habitable territories, so.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
It's true, but you can't do backflips in Greenland.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
So like, this is the plot of despicable meat.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Like that's what we're doing here, We're doing the plant
of despicable meat.
Speaker 9 (28:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Many science fiction movies have predicted this, Please send them
all to us.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yes, as was noted by Robert Heinland, the moon is
indeed a harsh mistress.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Wait, what is that I hear? Is that the tariff songs.
Speaker 10 (28:51):
Jazz, rock jazz po sorry, rocking.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Jazz, ah god, every time, every time, it's good.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Let's talk tariff tariffs. There are so many of them.
Speaker 6 (29:09):
The tariffs have gone into effect, So all right, we're
gonna do a full episode about this on Monday, because
there is so much tariff bullshit that it quite frankly
needs its own actual episode in which we're gonna be
talking about shit like, for example, the US has maybe
on accident, maybe on purpose, recognized the junta me and
(29:29):
mar is a legitimate government.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Do the tariffs stuff.
Speaker 6 (29:31):
We'reking about that on Monday because we don't have time
for that, Shita.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
What we instead have time for is.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
The just massive array of tariffs on a list of
countries so long that we just genuinely can't read them.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
All.
Speaker 6 (29:45):
Okay, this is a very very confusing raft of tariffs.
In a lot of ways, it's simpler than the other ones.
But okay, so so Persian And if the US runs
a trade deficit with you and you're not also in
one of the other special categories where we have imposed
a really high tariff on you, it's like fifteen percent.
If we have a trade surplus with the country we
imposed a ten percent tariff.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
This doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
Sure, Okay, So it's like in terms of the state
of motives of the tariffs, it doesn't make any sense
except in terms of like raising money, which these raised
very little actual money relative to like the amount of money.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
The US spends.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Right wing commentators have stated that the end goal of
this massive tariff program is to abolish income tax because
we can fund the government through tariffs. Actually great, yeah,
I just know that. No, you can't like this, No, this.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Is just yeah. At the same time, it said driving
the deficit into the fucking sky, like yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
And we've talked about the sort of riffs that this
has caused, with like the sort of true believer deficit
hawks versus these just completely unhinged fund the government with
tariff weirdos. But Comma, there have been a huge number
of countries. Then now we have fifteen percent tariffs on
we've also gotten a formal like announcement of the one
hundred percent tariffs on semiconductors unless you invest do some
(31:07):
kind of certificant investment in the US. It's deeply unclear
what the fuck that means. Uh, Apple hasn't pledged to
invest one hundred billion dollars in the US. There's this
very very weird thing on the right where like they
just they think that you can make iPhones here. You can't.
You just simply cannot. We you don't have the labor force,
(31:28):
you do not have the technology.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, but Tim Cook did just bribe Trump with a.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Nice plate of gold in the iPhone, a big old
ingot of gold.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So I thought it was a gold iPhone.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
There was some glass involved as well, No, it was
it was it was a plate that was on like
a gold like brick base. I love that.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Yeah, that's the way we do it. Now, we're exactly
decided under the radar.
Speaker 6 (31:53):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
You have to bribe the supreme ruler by giving gifts
of gold to grand good favor.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Oh god, it's like fucking smoke whatever. Like it has
this pile of gold that he's going to be sitting on.
It's going to be Scrooge mcducking in that ship by
the end of four years.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Oh, don't get us started on ducktails. Oh no, no, no,
no cure.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Yeah, that'll really inflate the length of this episode.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
That's what they call a layup in in sports ball.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, what's the tear us up to?
Speaker 6 (32:25):
They're calling me the fucking Wembin y'all, fucking a fucking
inflation shop blocking Fuck this we're talking about. We're talking
about ship infrastructure. People have been trying to develop like
the infrastructure developed ships for a long time now. The
Biden administration did this. The Chinese government isn't boring a
bunch of money into it. And it's basically impossible to
actually develop domestic ship infrastructure other than the kinds of
(32:45):
infrastructure that he US already has. Because the really short
version of it is that it's not just a technological problem,
and it is it's really hard to actually develop the technology.
This is why almost all of the direct production stuff
there trying to replicate basically just happens in Taiwan. It's
not just a problem of the technology is really hard.
It's a problem of the machines to make. The machines
(33:09):
that you need to make these things exist in like
one place in the world, in Switzerland, right. So in
order to actually scale up production of this, which is woild,
is in theory what these one hundred percent imported semi
conductor tariffs are supposed to do. Right, You have to
go up three layers of the supply chain, you have
to make the machines that make the machines that make
the machines that make the semi conductors.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Right, that's like the simplest way to explain it. We don't.
We can't fucking do that. Like Apple could throw a
fucking hundred billion dollars that what that would do?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Shit?
Speaker 6 (33:38):
Right, So they're chasing just a ghost. But you know,
our entire sort of like trade policy is just being
run by the just weird, fascist, miasmic phantoms of all
of these trade policy people. Now, it's also worth noting
that there's been you know, another I guess kind of
(34:00):
that's been enacted. Other than hilariously, the countries that tried
to negotiate what Trump got worse rates than the ones
who just waited until he imposed fifteen percent rate.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Generally, that's kod it's funny.
Speaker 6 (34:11):
But also so Trump has been threatening anyone who buys
oil from Russia and also I think Venezuela, though it
has been less for US on that with fifty percent tariffs.
Right now he's threatening India with fifty percent tariffs because
India has been buying oil from Russia that India's tariffs
are currently a twenty five percent. He is also just
straight up imposed to fifty percent tariff on Brazil for
(34:34):
refusing to release Bolsonaro. There's been some updates on that
front where Lula is just straight up refusing to do
direct talks at the US. Lula had an exclusive interview
with Reuters where he said, quote, we had already pardoned
the US interventions in the nineteen sixty four coup, said Lula,
who got his political striders. Listen, listen to the Lula
episodes we did, They're very good. More more Lula quote,
(34:56):
but this is now not a small intervention. It's the
president of the United States thinking he can dictate rules
for a sovereign country like Brazil. It's unacceptable. It's worth
noting that this is actually a pretty massive change for
like Lula specifically relations with the US. Lula actually had
very good relations with George Bush. But he is writing
a massive tide of of Brazilian anti American nationalism, and
(35:19):
he's attempting to spread this tide elsewhere.
Speaker 10 (35:22):
Right.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
He's been specifically saying that he's calling on organized resistance
from particularly India and China, but the rest of bricks,
which is a well, okay, bricks was originally a category
of assets that's now kind of a vaguely a political
alliance who's made members are Brazil, Russia, India, China, and
South Africa. It's unclear if this will happen, I kind
(35:43):
of I don't know, but Lula's the first person really
really seriously trying to organize resistance to this outside of
the EU. The EU's also under a thread of thirty
percent tariffs if they don't just sort of like see
the Trump's demands. But like you know, again, India also
negotiated ill with the US and then immediately got their tariffs,
like is now being threatened with fifty percent tariffs, so
(36:04):
you can't negotiate with him to escape this. So I
don't know, Lula, maybe this is the beginning of sort
of organized, like large scale organized terraff resistance to the
US being framed in this sort of like collective struggle
versus the US thing. That's an interesting political trend that
will be following as all of us continues. Okay, and
the rest of the unhinged amount of tariff news we're
(36:27):
going to be covering Monday, I will make a brief
note that the Yale Budget Lab is estimating like like
a twenty four hundred dollars increase for the average family
just in terms of like inflation prices for this especially
on things like clothing. They are specifically I think there's
a sane article puls so they're specifically talking about running
shorts and shoes and anything any goods from South Asia
(36:50):
massively increasing in price. You're talking thirty percent increases very quickly.
So yeah, Now, obviously all of this news is I
don't know, the stock market has kind of like accustomed
itself to tariff news. Yeah, but Comma, we've got a
really really bad job support last month.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
And well actually, well well I don't know if that's true.
I think the jobs report could be completely faked. Yeah,
who can say, Jesus, if the president says it, it
has to be true.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
A Biden did you have a Biden appointee?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
All crazy crazy The auto pen is issued to this
job's report.
Speaker 6 (37:30):
So yeah, Trump, Trump has fired the Commission of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics for releasing this report. We are
just we are just truly fully into the deep end
of shit.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Now, Like the report just showed that we didn't have
very positive job growths, and like anyone who's trying to
get a job right now can confirm that it's like
a nightmare.
Speaker 6 (37:51):
Yeah, and we're just like we're just like fully going
to be in Like, you know, it's unclear exactly how
fast American data collection capacity is going to degrade. It
is worth noting this is the thing that kind of
happens at the end of dictatorships when they really start
going to shit, is that they lose the ability to
trust their own cistical apparatus.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
I mean, like anything that happens that Trump just doesn't like,
you can claim it's fake and rigged, whether that's losing
an election, whether that's his good close personal friend Jeffrey Epstein,
or if that's a Bureau of Labor Statistics job report,
it's all rigged. It's all a hope.
Speaker 10 (38:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:25):
But to tie this back to Lula for a second,
I think it's actually really a really interesting historical parallel
that's worth noting that Lula's rise to political prominence came
off of a series of strikes that was held because
because a bunch of economists that were working with the
inside the Brazilian labor unions figured out the military dictatorship
of Brazil had been faking their inflation numbers, and like,
(38:47):
this is one of the things that caused the end
of the dictatorship. So you know, you can only lie
about the inflation rate for so long before like someone
goes like, hey, you've been lying about this the whole time,
and I don't know this.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
This, this has brought down military kidder just before. And
that's why we have to hold archive of our own
accountable for faking those inflation numbers.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I agree with you entirely, Garrison.
Speaker 11 (39:09):
I don't get paid enough for this. You've lost me
not following and yeah, that has been terriff talk. You
know what will continue to be available to our listeners
at an excellent price despite tariffs.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
The products and services that support this podcast.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
That's absolutely correct, Garrison, Well done. All right, we're back,
so bad And also back is the United Kingdom, where
(39:48):
a poll shows that more than half of Britain's think
there are more migrants in the UK illegally than legally.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
This isn't true, No, but feelings matter way more than facts.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
Je failings matter. They yes, they do. The actual data
even at the highest estimate of undocumented people shows that
this around ten times more foreign people who are in
the UK with documents. This is indicative of a broader issue,
right that the discussions having around immigration are nearly all
based on massive amounts of misinformation. Misinformation by a mission
(40:21):
was extremely common in legacy media until very recently, right like,
there was simply not people covering immigration in a serious fashion,
Like even in the Biden administration, the reporting that was
done was atrocious. This comes as the Labor government's disapproval
(40:41):
rating in the UK hit sixty seven percent in a
Yugo of pol which I think is very indicative like
what Labor did, right was try to adopt right wing
culture war positions to get people to vote for them,
and it does not work and it is not working
for them. You can look at their policies towards trans
people right there, and it's not buying them to favor
(41:02):
they wanted to moving back to the United States. Yon
sou Go, she's called Sue by her friends. It has
been released by Ice after being detained at a routine hearing.
A twenty year old young woman as a Korean national
South Korean evidently right and the daughter of a priest
so she's here on a visa as a dependent of
(41:24):
a religious worker. There are religious worker visas, and she's
here as a dependent. She is I believe in the
process of transitioning to a student visa. She had the
hearing her case wasn't like dismissed or evoked. She had
another hearing set for October. I claim that she overstayed
her visa, Her lawyer says, I claim, it's not true.
(41:46):
I'm particularly interested in this case because of the intervention
of the diocese, the Episcopalian Diocese of New York, and
so it was the Episcopalian Diocese of New York's legal
team who fought for her release. She was very quickly
moved to Louisiana. We know that is likes so do
this right. It likes to move people to places where
it feels like it has a favorable circuit court. The
(42:08):
Dioceit offical team was able to secure her release, but
they are still working on the release of a fifty
nine year old ProView and asylum seeker who has been
detained after having her court date moved up. So in
her CASEY said, hey, we've got a hearing that's opened up.
When don't you come in on Thursday and then detained her,
which is just reprehensible. It is really good. I think
that these big religious organizations are getting involved directly in
(42:32):
these cases, that they are taking on responsibility, that they're
using their pulpits as a place to oppose this. I
think that's good. I think, regardless of your stance, aren't
organized religion, you should be happy about that. These are
institutions that have power in this country. Talking of institutions
that have power, detainees in Florida's Alligator Alcatraz are being
(42:54):
denied their right to file court documents because federal courts
are claiming they're not under federal jurisdiction. State courts are
claiming they're not under state jurisdiction, which is fairly reasonable
given that they have not been charged with or accused of,
in many cases, any crimes in the state of Florida.
Right then, they're not being held. They were not detained
by well, sometimes they were detained the Florida law enforcement,
(43:16):
I guess, but only in their capacity to enforce federal
immigration law.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yes, with the special deputized NAT.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
Yes, it's yeah, it's deputies, which we're about to talk
about there have been some very funny outcomes of that.
This isn't it like I've seen it report as a loophole.
It's not a loophole. It's extremely fucking clear that they
were detained by the federal government for immigration reasons, and
they have every right to representation in immigration court right
that this is not a loophole. They're just denying people
(43:46):
their rights, and I think reporting it as a loophole
is entirely ridiculous. A judge has ordered a document showing
who is contracted by whom at the facility be produced
as part of a civil rights lawsuit. So what that
will do woul obviously document them. The fatal government it's
paying some of this. I know rich DeSantis had wanted
to use FEMA money for some of this breaking news.
(44:09):
So federal Judge Kathleen Williams has ordered that construction new
construction halt. They won't be allowed to do any new filling, paving,
or infrastructure building for the next fourteen days temporary pause.
They can still continue to hold people right, this is
not going to stop those people being denied their rights,
which is what sort of stake here. So we talked
(44:31):
a little bit about those Florida deputies right who have
been I guess secondid to ICE orgs. They've been crossworn
to do ICE work. ICE is recruiting very heavily right now.
I'm offering fifty thousand dollars sign on bonuses. It has
reduced a minimum age and it seems to have no
maximum age cap. From what I can tell, this Border
(44:53):
Patrol has been issuing all kinds of waivers for years, right,
for all kinds of things that it's supposed to have
as like standard for its recruiting. This isn't particularly new.
ICE has been known for a while. It's kind of
if you want to be a FED and go around
and carry a gun, and you can't get hired to
do gun stuff for the Fed to other agencies, ICE
is probably the place you're going to end up, right,
(45:14):
Like their standards are lower than other agencies.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
And now they're like specifically selecting for the most like
online unhinged right wing free to join their agency as
like a national police force. Yes, and that's like what
they're doing in their messaging online. And also some news
this week Dean Kane has has joined ICE. Yeah, yeah,
it's most likely in like a promotional capacity. But still
(45:42):
worth noting.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Yeah, you might get chased by middle aged superman. So
let's talk about what ICE is doing to recruit a festival.
It is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on big trucks.
We know Donald Trump himself, it's found a big truck,
so many pictures of him enjoying big trucks. Over the years,
Ice has spent one hundred and ninety six thousand dollars
on Ford raptors for recruiting purposes. The raptor, for those
(46:06):
not familiar, is like a tricked out F one fifty.
They were issuing raptors to field agents for a while.
They're not the best vehicles, like I've heard plenty of
agents complain about the raptism. Yeah, yeah know, And the
BP had a special like lowest possible trim of the
raptor that like they're popular now because people will buy
them used as government surplus and make them good. But
(46:28):
they yeah, the raptors they had didn't work too well.
They also bought a GMC Yukon for one hundred and
one thousand dollars, which is a very expensive GMC yukon.
I have also noted that ICE is recruiting from the
police who have been cross sworn into doing ICE enforcement.
This has resulted in some very funny beefs between agencies
(46:51):
including can I share this video? Can I screenshare?
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (46:56):
Yeah, let's that's what it's the video.
Speaker 12 (46:58):
And then what has happened is ICE has sent emails
to I don't know how many agencies, by no, several agencies.
I've talked to several sheriffs that their deputies have received
these this request and basically it's a recruiting tactic. It's hey,
we got your email, Now you got certified, and it's
something like, dear colleague, you showed an interest in this
(47:19):
and that, and we will let you know that we
are offering a fifty thousand dollars bonus paid ten thousand
dollars at a time, and it's for five years. Obviously, man,
is that not you know Biden handed feeds you. We
we went through all of that, took our time, utilizing
our local resoort, not ours yet, but local resources.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
And then they try to recruit you right out from.
Speaker 12 (47:40):
Undery using the very emails that we give you.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Finally they've found something bad. ICE is done. Yeah, this
is a new low. Even for uce.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Yeah, Sheriff Chip simmons that calling Ice out for that
poor form.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Sheriff Chip finally found something that shows this true depress
a compromised heart of Ice.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Where will they stop? Well, let's talk
about where they will stop or at least start spending.
Ice has been spending some money this week. Some of
this I think, like some of the sort of reporting
on ITFC isn't hugely responsible. So like I used to
signed a sole source contract with B two Technologies for example,
(48:23):
for quote licenses for the Inmate Identification of Recognition System
and the Mobile Offender Recognition Information System. They call these
IRIS and Morris based on their initials. Right, these are
for ers, so that's their enforcement and removal operations brands
BO two pitches. IRIS is being able to identify people
with no physical contact based on the tears in their IRIS.
(48:45):
This technology has been used by police for a while,
so you'll notice it was called the inmate identification So
the way they would obtain these Irish scans would be
scanning people who were detained. Right. CBP will also have
IRIS scans, so well, uscis right. This is one of
the pieces of biometric data that's sometimes collected from migrants
(49:07):
as part of their process and moving into the United
States and then getting their documents, et cetera. What Morris
will do is allow them to search a registry of
previous offenders. In twenty twenty four, Niagara County Sheriff's Office
were the first sheriff's office to add IRIS to their vehicles.
But I feel it reported as this is as a
(49:27):
CBP officer or ice officers are going to be scanning
people's irises with their phones. I don't see any evidence
of that technology existing either in the contract that the
government has or on the website for the company that
makes it. And guessing what this will do is if
they have somebody who, for instance, has previously been detained,
somebody who has done time and come out, then they
(49:50):
will use this to like as aware of identifying them
right when after they've detained them before they take them
to wherever. The big issue here, right, is that B
two owns this database of scans. So this database includes
Morris right, which is previous people who have previous offenders.
They have a sex offender registry within it. They also
have databases of seniors who are at risk for going
(50:13):
missing so that I think that's people with dementia that
people can voluntarily sign up to. And they have a
database of missing children as well. The A two interesting company.
They also they offer a bunch of services for detention companies.
They previously partnered with the support Our Sheriff's Foundation to
provide lower cost prescriptions to sheriffs and deputies. They're pretty
(50:33):
embedded in this law enforcement world. Other contracts they saw
for ice new tech solutions for fingerprint scanners. Again, fingerprint
information is routinely taken from migrants and many one people.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Getting green cards, people getting visas, people getting citizenship.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
Yes, yeah, anyone who has in any capacity and really
engaged with uscis like all those categories you mentioned, Garrison
will have already done this. They did also purchase gray Key,
which is more concerning, which is for breaking into cell
phones locked cell phones. Yes, it's for trying to get
around the lock on your cell phone. I've written about
GrayKey before for Input magazine Germany. The way they do
(51:11):
this is that they try and make a copy of
the cell phone and work on a copy so you
don't get locked to have of your cell phone. But
grey Key is an extremely nefarious piece of technology for
breaking into people's phones which you otherwise wouldn't be able
to access. So yeah, that is what I have for
ices spending spree this week.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
For our last story, I would like to also talk
about technology, but technology in the news some AI incidents
that have broken into people's news news gathering process. Former
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has shared a fake AI video
of AOC giving a speech in Congress calling out the
(51:52):
Sydney Sweety American Eagle ad as racist.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Damn it, I got to see this. Why does it
have to all be so stupid?
Speaker 9 (52:00):
I was tweeting today and saw a clip of AOC
saying that Sydney sweeneyad was racist, and so I replied
to it, and I said, why do you care about
this and ignore what matters most? Why in all the
times that you've called on Israel to stop, why have
you never told Hamas to stop, told Hamas to surrender?
(52:20):
Why would you ignore the Saint Louis attack on that
Jewish guy who had his car bomb. AOC tweeted back
and said, dude, that's a deep fake that Sidney sweetya ad.
You suck in so many words, and she was right.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
They got me.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
She was right, I suck.
Speaker 4 (52:42):
He has been owned.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
That's not bad, that's pretty good. That's funny.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, I just I just to cut off the clip there.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's the right place for it to go.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
On this AI video of AOC, it is clearly like
like in Boston into the video himself. This isn't AI
video from from chat gpt memes plus AI art on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
This is this guy is being elevated as a fucking journalist.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Jesus wept.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
He later said on on Newstation on his show They
Got Me Ai. It was really good and it did
seem like something she would say. I'm gonna now play
video in question to see if you think this is
something that AOC would say.
Speaker 13 (53:30):
Sidney Sweeney looks like an Aryan goddess and the American
Eagle jeans campaign is nazipaganda. I mean fuck watching that
sultry little temptress squeeze into a Canadian text small with
her bouncy little fun bags.
Speaker 5 (53:50):
Okay, it's oh my god, I don't know, no more,
no more episode.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
Oh man, what a one of our greatest journalists. You know,
AI really has to be you know, we've hit AGI
if it can if it can crack a mind as
keen as Chris Woma.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
It was really good and it did seem like something
she would say.
Speaker 10 (54:26):
Good.
Speaker 6 (54:29):
Don't even know her voice sounds unbelievable, unbelievable, some one
of the most union things I've ever seen.
Speaker 4 (54:39):
I didn't watch that, and then wonder why she hasn't
commented on hermas in the same breath treating indication of
where our country's at.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
That AI video is eighty seconds long. It gets so
much crazier, but we don't need to say anymore. The
other incident of AI in the news, former CNN Chief
Whiteous correspondent Jim Acosta interviewed in AI avatar impersonating a
school shooting victim.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
Oh, no, goodness.
Speaker 4 (55:04):
It's one of those things that like every town or
someone was doing.
Speaker 1 (55:08):
Yeah, yeah, yes, I caught this when it happened.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Here's a video.
Speaker 9 (55:12):
I would like to know what your solution would be
for gun violence.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
Great question. I believe in a mix of stronger gun
control laws, mental health support, and community engagement.
Speaker 12 (55:24):
We need to create safe spaces for conversations and connections,
making sure everyone feels seen and heard.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
It's about building a culture of kindness.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
And understanding.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
What do you think about that. I think that's a
great idea, Joaquin.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
That's not even an answer. That's not an answer.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
This is one of the goodest things I've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (55:42):
Create a culture of kindness and understanding.
Speaker 1 (55:44):
Yeah, that'll fix it.
Speaker 2 (55:45):
Thanks, incredible humanity.
Speaker 4 (55:47):
Not a person that's someone's child.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
That's not someone's child, all right, Jim Acosta.
Speaker 4 (55:52):
Rome is just a generic well now.
Speaker 2 (55:54):
It's like it's it's it's not a person.
Speaker 10 (55:56):
This is yeah.
Speaker 4 (55:57):
Yeah, but they've attempted to reanimate through cringe ji someone's
kid and they look like a character in It's a small.
Speaker 2 (56:04):
World ycause the parents are involved in this process. Jim
Acosta wrote on Blue Sky at four pm, I'll have
a one of a kind interview with Hakeem Oliver. He
died in the Parkland school shooting, but his parents have
created an AI version of their son for a powerful
message on gun violence. Unquote. You did not interview Jakim Oliver.
That's that's that's not him. You did not interview that person.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
No, you did not. You didn't interview anybody.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
You have helped to spread a fake puppet of someone
without their knowledge and consent, just as just as gross
is doing it for like movie actors right who who
have died. This is and you know, more more gross
actually actually like significantly more gross.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
Yeah, it didn't even suggest like it it wasn't even
like willing to be like ban AR fifteen's or whatever. Yeah,
like there was no nothing suggested here, Like I can't
believe how milk toast for a dead person who was
killed by an AR fifteen. It wasn't even willing this.
It was just like vaguely new gun control and also
(57:05):
a culture of kindness. But like can't even be specific
this ghoul that you've made.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
You're putting fake words in someone else's like death mask
mouth y'. Yes, it's so it's so unethical, Like I
don't even know what to say. It doesn't work at
CNN anymore, but my god, like this is not journalism
in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 4 (57:26):
No, I don't want to like punch down on the
and I don't understand, like I have no parents who
have lost children right through my work, I've talked to
lots of them, well, and i'd like to and I
understand the desire to get your kid back in some
form and if sure, whoever the fuck came to them
and said, we're going to make an AI of your
child so it can argue with journalists about gun control.
Is a fucking ghoul perival.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
No, the the fault here is on the people promoting technology,
and in effect, that's what Jim Acosta is doing here
as well.
Speaker 4 (57:54):
Yeah, totally no, because a journalist is totally irresponsible.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
And profiting off of it. It's so gross. So anyway,
that was our AI news to close the episode. Sorry,
we couldn't end on the aoc ad instead had to
end on a bit of a more more sour note.
Speaker 4 (58:10):
Yeah, I genuinely want to know where that aoc ad goes.
I'm gonna watch it.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
Oh, I'll send it to you, James. Yeah, okay, we
reported the news.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
We reported the news.
Speaker 7 (58:31):
It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources where it could happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
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