Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2: This is It could Happen here Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 2: news cast covering what's happening in the White House, the
Speaker 2: crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis.
Speaker 2: Today I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, and Robert Evans.
Speaker 2: This episode, we're covering the week of January twenty first
Speaker 2: to January twenty eighth. Massive snowstorm across most of the country,
Speaker 2: at least the real parts of the country, which is
Speaker 2: the East coast in the south. Now and wow, there
Speaker 2: is a lot of snow. It makes me feel kind
Speaker 2: of like a penguin just walking off to the mountains
Speaker 2: by myself, weathering the weather. Finally, I feel akin to
Speaker 2: the President, who is now also a suicidal penguin.
Speaker 3: At the wrong end of the globe.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, as soon as they start the remigration,
Speaker 2: they're going to be deporting penguins stuff.
Speaker 3: Greenland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's held in a military detention camp off of Greenland,
Speaker 2: now that we might own a tiny bit of our
Speaker 2: military base. Still very unclear what the details of that
Speaker 2: Greenland deal are.
Speaker 5: No, he just wanted to be able to say he
Speaker 5: made a deal and I don't know if it's going
Speaker 5: to be any different than the status quo was before,
Speaker 5: but he'll claim victory and so will his supporters, and
Speaker 5: we'll all move.
Speaker 6: On as we kind of already have.
Speaker 5: Yep, there's too much other bullshit going on.
Speaker 3: That is the motto for twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: Some of that bullshit is the third immigration enforcement related
Speaker 2: shooting in Minneapolis in just three weeks, James, do you
Speaker 2: want to start with that?
Speaker 7: So, yeah, I was in Minneapolis. I was actually just
Speaker 7: in Minneapolis Airport when this happened. On Saturday of this week,
Speaker 7: Alex Pretty was shot by two CBP agents in Minneapolis Well.
Speaker 7: He was filming an immigration raid in which ICE agents
Speaker 7: attempted to pursue someone into a donut shop that seemed
Speaker 7: to have locked the doors. Pretty seemed to be trying
Speaker 7: to assist a woman who had been pushed to the
Speaker 7: ground by agents. When the agents grabbed him, maceed him,
Speaker 7: beat him, disarmed him, and then shot him several times.
Speaker 7: Pretty he was thirty seven. It was a Veterans Affairs
Speaker 7: ICY UNICE and when this confrontation with immigration agents began,
Speaker 7: he was legally carrying a sig P three twenty handgun
Speaker 7: concealed inside his waistband. I can go on and summarize
Speaker 7: the video for anyone who hasn't seen it. It's obviously
Speaker 7: quite distressing, so you know, if you're gonna watch it,
Speaker 7: just know that you're gonna see someone die. Video shows
Speaker 7: several agents beating Pretty. This one grabs a handgun from
Speaker 7: his inside waistband holster. Very quickly after this, ten shots
Speaker 7: are fired by at least two agents. You can hear
Speaker 7: at one point an agent shouting gun, gun, He's got
Speaker 7: a gun. Yeah, And then in the after mark, another
Speaker 7: video shows agents asking where is the gun? So it
Speaker 7: doesn't appear that the agent who cleared Pretty's gun informed
Speaker 7: the other agents that that had happened.
Speaker 2: Though the agent that first fired at Pretty was standing
Speaker 2: right behind the agent that disarmed him and is literally
Speaker 2: like looking down at where the gun is being removed
Speaker 2: as he then seconds later starts shooting.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Pretty falls to the ground. Then more agents fire on
Speaker 2: his body as it lays flat on the ground.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: The CBP initial use of force review, which was sent
Speaker 7: to Congress today, suggested that on Wednesday, Yeah, this is Wednesday,
Speaker 7: the twenty eighth, two agents fired, so we know at
Speaker 7: least two agents fired right where it's not entirely clear.
Speaker 7: I don't think if all of these were CBP agents,
Speaker 7: but at least one of the agents who fired shots
Speaker 7: was an eight year CBP veteran. Then a range safety officer,
Speaker 7: Greg Bavina has declined to identify them because he said
Speaker 7: that would be doxing.
Speaker 3: That's not what that word usually means.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 7: DHS has claimed that Pretty had two extra magazines on
Speaker 7: his person, but I haven't seen any evidence of that.
Speaker 7: What they provided was a photograph of a sig P
Speaker 7: three twenty with a red dot site and the slide
Speaker 7: lock backed clearly on the front seat of a vehicle
Speaker 7: with two charge courts next to it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 7: That's that's not normally how evidence is treated in a crime.
Speaker 7: That it's an unusual way to go about that put in.
Speaker 7: The DHS Secretary Christie Nome, has told reporters that Pretty
Speaker 7: attacked and impeded law enforcement and was brandishing his weapon.
Speaker 3: Videos don't show that.
Speaker 7: The only time that you see his weapon is when
Speaker 7: it is removed by the agent who takes it out
Speaker 7: of this waistband.
Speaker 2: Pretty appears to be holding his black cell phone for
Speaker 2: the entirety of this interaction.
Speaker 8: Yep.
Speaker 7: And it's very clear that it's a cell phone, right
Speaker 7: CBP as inches obviously from the phone in his face. Yeah,
Speaker 7: there is no reasonable claim.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 5: As a rule, throughout the interaction, there was never any
Speaker 5: confusion that would have led them to believe he had
Speaker 5: a gun in his hand or to be unaware that
Speaker 5: he had been disarmed. Yep, there's no argument for that.
Speaker 5: You can't make a case for that reasonably. People will
Speaker 5: do unreasably. I don't care.
Speaker 7: The allegation that he attacked members repeated by FBI Director
Speaker 7: Cash Patel in the interview he gave to Fox News.
Speaker 3: I'm going to give a little video of Nomes claim.
Speaker 9: This individual impeded the law enforcement officers and attacked them.
Speaker 9: State the facts as they unfolded on the street today.
Speaker 9: We were doing a targeted operation against an illegal criminal,
Speaker 9: and this individual came with a weapon and dozens of
Speaker 9: rounds of ammunition and attacked them. And these agents took
Speaker 9: action to defend their lives and to defend the lives
Speaker 9: of the people around them, and it acted according to their.
Speaker 3: CPP.
Speaker 7: Commander at Large potentially no longer Commander at Large, Gregory
Speaker 7: Bavino claimed that Pretty had assaulted federal agents, and throughout
Speaker 7: a press conference at Baveno, Gave referred to Pretty as
Speaker 7: a suspect and the people who killed him as victims.
Speaker 7: Lavina also claimed that Pretty planned to quote, massacre law enforcement.
Speaker 10: Was he simply walking by and just happened to walk
Speaker 10: into a law enforcement situation and try to direct traffic
Speaker 10: and stand in the middle of the road and then assault,
Speaker 10: delay and obstruct law enforcement? Or was he there for
Speaker 10: a reason? Did he fall victim to that violent and
Speaker 10: heated rhetoric by a mayor Fry, a governor Waltz. Look, Dan,
Speaker 10: they're trying to portray board of all agents and Ice
Speaker 10: agents as Gestapo, Nazi and many other words. Did this
Speaker 10: individual fall victim as many others have that type of
Speaker 10: heated rhetoric.
Speaker 8: I want to stay focused on this incident right now,
Speaker 8: because what you were saying is that he went there
Speaker 8: to try to stop this law enforcement operation. All of
Speaker 8: the video that we have seen shows him documenting it
Speaker 8: with his cell phone, which is a lawful thing to do.
Speaker 8: And the only time he seemed to interact with law
Speaker 8: enforcement is when they went after him, when he was
Speaker 8: trying to help an individual who law enforcement pushed down.
Speaker 8: So where do you have the evidence to show that
Speaker 8: he was trying to impede that that law enforcement operation.
Speaker 10: Sure, Dana, First, he was there in the scene. He
Speaker 10: was in the scene actively impeding and assaulting law enforcement
Speaker 10: to the place that's not illegal.
Speaker 8: He wasn't impeding it. He was filming it, which is
Speaker 8: a legal thing to do in the United States.
Speaker 10: And Dana, let's let's don't freeze frame adjudicate this now.
Speaker 10: He was there for a reason, and that reason was
Speaker 10: to impede law enforcement. To you here, and here's a
Speaker 10: good point, Dana, is the fact that de escalation techniques
Speaker 10: were utilized during this action. Those de escalation techniques, whether
Speaker 10: it was physically trying to remove them from that law
Speaker 10: enforcement scene, that active law enforcement scene in which law enforcement.
Speaker 7: I wanted to include a little bit more there because
Speaker 7: I feel like that's one of the few times we've
Speaker 7: seen him not just able to deliver.
Speaker 5: His right where someone's pushed a little Yeah exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, and there's a thing in the video that
Speaker 6: I think is really effective where you know, you can
Speaker 6: hear him lying about the video and then the video
Speaker 6: is playing next to it, and you can just see
Speaker 6: what is happening, and then he's just saying shit.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a good piece of a television news go.
Speaker 7: So that's not the worst piece I've seen. Yea, him
Speaker 7: saying they used the escalation techniques as you watch, half
Speaker 7: a dozen guys makes him in the face and then
Speaker 7: beat him.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is.
Speaker 7: I mean, there's this line I think a lot about
Speaker 7: in chapter seven of nineteen eighty four, which was the
Speaker 7: party told you not to believe your eyes and ears.
Speaker 7: It was their final most important command. I mean, I
Speaker 7: don't if they sayn't that, then I don't know what
Speaker 7: he is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yeah, they don't even try to convincingly
Speaker 2: lie at this point.
Speaker 5: Like they just keep to the narrative that has been
Speaker 5: set at the top.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well not even in this case at the top. It
Speaker 5: was kind of set at like the upper middle ycause
Speaker 5: the top has been backing off from this narrative at
Speaker 5: least a little bit.
Speaker 2: We'll get to the kind of back and forth in
Speaker 2: a sack. But I mean it's very clear from this
Speaker 2: that they just consider blowing a whistle to be impeded,
Speaker 2: like that's that's all the justification that they need.
Speaker 3: Stay considered his presence there.
Speaker 6: As long as you are physically presence there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, anything you do that they don't like is assaulting
Speaker 5: an officer at this point, Yes.
Speaker 6: It's kind of a minor point.
Speaker 2: But also his pronunciation of gestapo.
Speaker 3: He does that every time.
Speaker 6: It's like, dude, we can we know, we know. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's like he's wearing that coat.
Speaker 2: He's wearing the come on and yeah, no, it's it's
Speaker 2: it's it's pretty insane.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I love the articles that are like, no, he's just
Speaker 5: wearing traditional old style military coat. It's not a stuff
Speaker 5: foker guys.
Speaker 7: Come on, man, I've seen a lot of Border patrol agents, guys.
Speaker 5: No one else wears that coat. He picked that coat
Speaker 5: because of how it looks.
Speaker 7: Ye, to my knowledge, that's not a uniform piece for
Speaker 7: the Border patrol.
Speaker 5: Oh and he's never been in the military. Yeah you
Speaker 5: know what he is and is a secret police unit anyway. Sorry, yeah, no,
Speaker 5: I think it's it's worth eating that one. I want
Speaker 5: to talk about this ACLU lawsuit, right So, in sworn testimonies,
Speaker 5: which are part of this ongoing lawsuit, multiple witnesses said
Speaker 5: pretty did not brandish or draw his handgun.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 7: I have read a statement from DHS about what happened,
Speaker 7: and it is wrong. The man did not approach the
Speaker 7: agents with a gun. He approached him with a camera.
Speaker 7: He was just trying to help a woman get up,
Speaker 7: and they took him to the ground.
Speaker 3: One set. Another witness, a doctor, was prevented from performing CPR. Quote.
Speaker 7: None of the ICE agents who were near the victim
Speaker 7: were performing CPR, they said. Agents did mind did the
Speaker 7: physician's license, which evidently they did not have right. They
Speaker 7: just ran out of their house in their pajamas. Their
Speaker 7: testimony continues, quote, I could tell the victim was in
Speaker 7: critical condition. I insisted the ICE agents let me assess him.
Speaker 7: They appeared to be operating. Und the assumption that these
Speaker 7: people ICE, some of them were CVP. I should just
Speaker 7: say that. They also noted that agents quote appeared to
Speaker 7: be counting his bullet wounds. Yeah, Jesus, there is video
Speaker 7: that shows him doing bizarre things to his remains that
Speaker 7: are not within the remit of trauma care or first
Speaker 7: to aid in my experience in training, which is pretty
Speaker 7: significant when it comes to like this exact scenario.
Speaker 2: The documents that released today, so that they placed the
Speaker 2: chess seals on him.
Speaker 7: They were placing chess seals on him. Yeah, that might
Speaker 7: explain it. It looks like they're sort of pulling up on
Speaker 7: his shirt.
Speaker 2: I mean, this whole again, this whole incident is very
Speaker 2: very clearly documented.
Speaker 3: With video multiple angles.
Speaker 2: After the shooting, an agent is like on top of
Speaker 2: his body, screaming for scissors to cut off his clothing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then later they placed chess seals. According to that
Speaker 2: document that was released to Congress.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we have not to carry sciss in your first
Speaker 7: day kit when you're outraualmushes, but mine equivalent, I guess.
Speaker 5: I mean, these guys don't know what they were doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's the thing, right.
Speaker 7: Bavina also noted in his press conference that the agents
Speaker 7: were still at work, but they had been redeployed for
Speaker 7: their safety. Outside of the Twin Cities. Following the shooting,
Speaker 7: a vigil was held and there were protests, including some
Speaker 7: armed presents. In the protests, Minneapolis Police Department attempted to
Speaker 7: hold the space, both to keep the vigil away and
Speaker 7: the earlier that day they had refused to leave when
Speaker 7: told to do so by federal police. Later that night,
Speaker 7: they deployed extensive lesleithor munitions to clear the vigil.
Speaker 2: Let's go on ad break and then return to discuss
Speaker 2: the back and forth characterization of the shooting from Trump's cabinet.
Speaker 6: We are back.
Speaker 2: The day after the shooting, Cash Pattel went on Fox
Speaker 2: News to say that it is against the law to
Speaker 2: bring a firearm to a protest.
Speaker 3: Nope, here's a clip.
Speaker 11: I guess Christy said, you cannot bring a firearm loaded
Speaker 11: with multiple magazines to any sort of protests that you want.
Speaker 11: It's that simple. You don't have that right to break
Speaker 11: the law and incite violent That's wrong.
Speaker 2: In Minnesota, it is not against the law for permit
Speaker 2: holders to carry I firearm well attending a protest. And
Speaker 2: it's arguable whether what Prattie was doing is even a
Speaker 2: quote unquote attending a protest. These sorts of spontaneous mobilizations
Speaker 2: against ICE are not like a formalized we are protesting
Speaker 2: in this location at this point. It's not a protest rally.
Speaker 2: Its community mobilizations. The term of protest is going to
Speaker 2: be applied a little bit loosely.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: The DJs statement three hours after the shooting made this
Speaker 2: claim quote, this looks like a situation where an individual
Speaker 2: wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement unquote.
Speaker 2: This is the phrase that Bavino said verbato at the
Speaker 2: press conference on Saturday following the shooting. Miller said something
Speaker 2: similar on Twitter as he was tweeting at Democrat politicians. Quote,
Speaker 2: it would be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement
Speaker 2: and a domestic terrorist tried to assassinate federal law enforcement.
Speaker 2: Christyome also had a press conference the day of the
Speaker 2: shooting where she said, quote, when you perpetuate violence against
Speaker 2: a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to
Speaker 2: resist and perpetuate violence, that is the definition of domestic terrorism.
Speaker 2: This individual, who came with weapons and ammunition to stop
Speaker 2: a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed
Speaker 2: an act domestic terrorism unquote. But by Monday, the White
Speaker 2: House began softly backtracking previous detests claims about the shooting.
Speaker 2: Press Secretary Carolyn Levit so that she has not heard
Speaker 2: President Trump characterized pretty as a domestic terrorist. That same day,
Speaker 2: Fox and Friends asked DOJ attorney Todd Blanche about whether
Speaker 2: Preddy committed domestic terrorism, and he replied, like this, with.
Speaker 12: All your respects ser My question is more pointed, do
Speaker 12: you believe your colleagues may have gone farther? You are
Speaker 12: an attorney at DOJ eighteen us CO twenty three thirty one.
Speaker 12: It has a legal definition of domestic terrorism, and it
Speaker 12: doesn't appear to most of the country that have watched
Speaker 12: the available video. And we'll see if there's bodycam video.
Speaker 12: I'd love to know if that's going to come out,
Speaker 12: if there was such a thing, but it does not
Speaker 12: appear to have met that definition of domestic terrorism. So
Speaker 12: I'm just sort of wondering how you in the DOJ
Speaker 12: are viewing whether your colleagues may have gone too far.
Speaker 13: Look, don't I don't think anybody thinks that they were
Speaker 13: comparing what happened on Saturday to the legal definition of
Speaker 13: domestic terrorism. What we saw was a very violent altercation,
Speaker 13: and I am not going to prejudge the facts. You're right,
Speaker 13: there's a bunch of video that's out there. There's a
Speaker 13: bunch of video that we haven't seen yet, in the
Speaker 13: minutes leading up to what happened and in what happened afterwards.
Speaker 13: And you're right to the extent there's bodycam or other
Speaker 13: videos that witnesses are still providing to us, So I'm
Speaker 13: not describing it as anything except for a tragedy.
Speaker 2: That's pretty pretty wild. Two days after Christina tried to
Speaker 2: literally give a definition of domestic terrorism at a press
Speaker 2: conference and then dooj Attorney's just claiming, no, it's not
Speaker 2: the real legal definition of domestic terrorism. Yeah, this word
Speaker 2: is just a rhetorical tool for the administration to deploy
Speaker 2: at Well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we just were using it because we killed a
Speaker 5: guy and we wanted to shut down discussion.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And when we didn't stick landing because there were multiple
Speaker 7: angles on video, now we got to find something else.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and we just did this, like how many weeks
Speaker 6: ago was the No.
Speaker 2: I mean, this whole incident shows how vital documenting interactions
Speaker 2: like this can be, and how much public opinion is
Speaker 2: something that is not just fully fully dictated by administration statements,
Speaker 2: like they tried to deploy a narrative which, after enough
Speaker 2: circulated documented footage contradicted public opinion of this incident formed
Speaker 2: in pretty strong opposition to the administration's claims.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this has penetrated into a lot of places that
Speaker 6: are under ordinary circumstances either extremely apolitical or very conservative. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I am trying to remember, honestly, the last event that
Speaker 6: I saw between this and twenty twenty, and like the
Speaker 6: George Floyd uprising that had this kind of penetration into
Speaker 6: mainstream on political society. I remember one of the biggest
Speaker 6: things that I saw was this moment of oh, actually,
Speaker 6: this specific shooting has gone to a point where it's
Speaker 6: reaching people who normally would never hear about this stuff.
Speaker 6: Was There's an NFL commentary named Kurt Warner who used
Speaker 6: to be very famous quarterback. The only thing he ever
Speaker 6: talks about is quarterback play in football. This is the
Speaker 6: only thing he ever does. I'm not one hundred percent
Speaker 6: sure about this, but when I looked back, I couldn't
Speaker 6: find him saying anything about George Floyd. And Kurt Warner
Speaker 6: came out and gave a statement about how this shooting
Speaker 6: was a horror and that the administration was lying about it.
Speaker 6: And you saw this sort of rattling through again very
Speaker 6: very conservative sports circles, which again this NFL circle specifically
Speaker 6: where this kind of stuff never really penetrates. This weekends,
Speaker 6: you know, as as this sort of murder was happening,
Speaker 6: the NFC and AFC Championship games were going on in
Speaker 6: the sort of immediate wake of this. And these for
Speaker 6: people who don't follow FOOTBA at all, these are the
Speaker 6: after the Super Bowl. These are this is the semifinals.
Speaker 6: The winner of these two games goes to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 6: These are the second most important games of the entire
Speaker 6: NFL season, and fans at both of these games booed
Speaker 6: the national anthem, a thing I have never heard of
Speaker 6: before at a this is a football game. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, right,
Speaker 6: like the beginning of most football games, there's a bunch
Speaker 6: of troops holding the flag and people. They didn't do
Speaker 6: this in twenty twenty. They were booing the national anthem.
Speaker 6: So one of these games was being played in Denver
Speaker 6: and the other one was being played in Seattle, And
Speaker 6: in the game in Seattle, the Fox broadcast kept cutting
Speaker 6: out the national anthem because people kept chanting fuck Ice,
Speaker 6: So they would just literally be cutting the audio anytime
Speaker 6: that happened. And this just kept happening to the entire
Speaker 6: course of this. I have never seen anything like this
Speaker 6: breakthrough into sports like this. It's been breaking into There's
Speaker 6: a whole bunch of story about just random groups on
Speaker 6: a reddit, we're sort of breaking through into where you're
Speaker 6: getting statements from like, oh god, I wish I remember
Speaker 6: who on Blue Guys saw this from, but the person
Speaker 6: who runs the subreddit where that's like playing your cat's
Speaker 6: butt like bongo drums.
Speaker 5: This. Yeah, I'm glad they finally spoke up. Honestly, you know.
Speaker 7: We've all been waiting, but like I saw this in
Speaker 7: spaces where we're like like climbing forums or climbing subreddits, like.
Speaker 5: No, because they just shot a nurse in the head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: This is the second time they did it. And the
Speaker 6: thing to me that I think is really significant about
Speaker 6: this happening at NFL games, Right, one of the two
Speaker 6: teams that was playing in the game in Denver is
Speaker 6: the New England Patriots. Right, the New England Patriots are
Speaker 6: famously very very close to Trump as an organization, their
Speaker 6: owner is very close to Trump. So I had remembered
Speaker 6: a story from last year about so the Patriots have
Speaker 6: a jet that is the Patriots Jet that they fly
Speaker 6: all their players around in that is has giant letters
Speaker 6: the Patriots on it, that is technically run through a
Speaker 6: charter company. But you know, I remember last year there's
Speaker 6: a story about how their jet was doing flights to
Speaker 6: Guantanamo Bay.
Speaker 5: Sure that makes sense for the Patriots yet, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, right. This is the kind of organizations that we're
Speaker 6: dealing with here, right. And while I was looking into
Speaker 6: the story about the Patriots jet being used to do
Speaker 6: things to move apparently not detainees to g but apparently
Speaker 6: just military people on supplies, which they do a lot,
Speaker 6: I found a completely unrelated story about a different Patriots
Speaker 6: jet in during the Biden administration doing deportation flights to Hunduras.
Speaker 6: And this isn't considered an ideological thing. Oh, that's just funny,
Speaker 6: Like this is the kind of conservatism you're dealing Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, And I mean this is technically it's the
Speaker 6: contractors you're doing this, but you know, it's it's the
Speaker 6: plan with the Patriots logo on it. And they were
Speaker 6: doing deportation flights under Biden like four years three or
Speaker 6: four years ago. And now people are booing the national
Speaker 6: anthem enchanting fuck ice. A lot of the stuff that
Speaker 6: we've talked about and we're going to talk about about
Speaker 6: the way the Trump administration has been backing off of
Speaker 6: this is because they have been forced to watch the
Speaker 6: entire country go, holy shit, you just murdered this guy
Speaker 6: and then lied about it. You just executed him in
Speaker 6: the street, yeah, and light about it.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think the lying and you can just see them.
Speaker 6: And this is also the second time they've done this
Speaker 6: in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: Like the lying thing is, like I think for a
Speaker 2: lot of people, that's the really insulting thing. It's obviously
Speaker 2: a tragedy to have someone be killed by federal law
Speaker 2: enforcement like this. Yeah, but it's just the blatantness of
Speaker 2: the lying, I think is what really activated people here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because this is for years they've skirted by on
Speaker 5: the situations like the written house thing where you can
Speaker 5: kind of see what happens, but depending on what you
Speaker 5: bring into it ideologically, that can look like two different things, right,
Speaker 5: depending on where whether you think those protesters are dangerous
Speaker 5: or not or whatever like that. That's a video that
Speaker 5: like everyone saw the same video and took something different
Speaker 5: out of it. Yeah, that's not the case with this video,
Speaker 5: or really with the Renee Good video for most people,
Speaker 5: and it's really jarring for them, most people who were
Speaker 5: not political, because that's what we're talking about is like
Speaker 5: the sheer number of people who do not normally wait
Speaker 5: into this stuff or were making a comment. They would
Speaker 5: see one of these videos that is much more like
Speaker 5: if you're just kind of coming in and watching it,
Speaker 5: it's kind of unclear what's happening, and they would go, oh,
Speaker 5: it's another big com I'm just not going to get
Speaker 5: involved with it. People are arguing about what this is.
Speaker 5: Let them argue, I'm going to go on with my life.
Speaker 5: This is very clear what's happening, very clear that they're lying,
Speaker 5: and it's just upsetting. It's deeply upsetting to even people
Speaker 5: who don't normally think about this shit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think part of that too is also
Speaker 6: you know, there were a lot of people who didn't
Speaker 6: get involved with the Renee Good shooting because you know,
Speaker 6: even then people were still like, oh, well, maybe it's complicated.
Speaker 6: But once you've seen the second shooting in two weeks,
Speaker 6: where the line from the administration is exactly the same
Speaker 6: and you have video images again, Yeah, that's how you
Speaker 6: get someone like Kurt Warner, who is a faith family
Speaker 6: football guy. He's very open about being a Christian, is
Speaker 6: very open about he doesn't talk about politics, but he's
Speaker 6: very obviously conservative in a way that he doesn't think
Speaker 6: is political. Yeah, and he looks at this and goes,
Speaker 6: holy shit, they murdered this guy and the government's lying
Speaker 6: about it. And that's a kind of breakthrough moment in
Speaker 6: all of this.
Speaker 7: I've seen a lot of stuff from like folks in
Speaker 7: the gun community, like who you wouldn't normally expect to
Speaker 7: be critical of the Trump administration being critical, Yeah, because
Speaker 7: the Trump administration has come out with just like insane
Speaker 7: they're repeating like anti Second Amendment talking points.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 7: I also saw his name is Tony Thomas, but he
Speaker 7: was previously the commander of Special Operations Command, right, has
Speaker 7: been sharing and unfortunately AI quote unquote enhanced photo of
Speaker 7: the shooting.
Speaker 11: God.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that I need to talk a little bit about there,
Speaker 5: but please continue.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's remarkable that you've got someone whose job has
Speaker 7: been killing people for the United States government, right, who've
Speaker 7: retired to a role in an investment back. It doesn't
Speaker 7: normally make statements in public about immigration policy, but like, again,
Speaker 7: this one is kind of broken containment, right, Like they
Speaker 7: saw the police shoot a man in the back multiple
Speaker 7: times in broad daylight from multiple angles, and Yeah, this
Speaker 7: one's been really hard for them, just been.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: One of the things that you know, when you talk
Speaker 6: about sort of Reddit as a sighte of this, right,
Speaker 6: one of the things on the front page a Reddit
Speaker 6: for a while that day was just a thing from
Speaker 6: like r slash pics where it's a picture of a
Speaker 6: frame in this shooting and then it's a picture of
Speaker 6: a Nazi officer with a gun to the back of
Speaker 6: the head of a prisoner they're about to shoot, and
Speaker 6: it's almost identical frame for frame, And that's the kind
Speaker 6: of thing that's just going around on like the front
Speaker 6: page of Reddit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, part of what I think is happening here is
Speaker 5: they got very convinced that their ability to kind of
Speaker 5: just brute force their own reality over what actually happened,
Speaker 5: and m maybe they gambled too hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So much of this story is like the ultimate
Speaker 2: conservative nightmare of the government, like physically disarming you, executing you,
Speaker 2: and that sequence of events is I think also in
Speaker 2: part what has created this pretty consistent turnaway from the
Speaker 2: Trump administrations and the DHS. It's like initial statement on
Speaker 2: what happened here, which the administrations themselves have started to
Speaker 2: roll back on after the public rejected this claim that
Speaker 2: they kept making on him being like a terrorist, him
Speaker 2: intending to mastercre law enforcement, all these things that they
Speaker 2: have no way to actually prove. On Tuesday, Stephen Miller
Speaker 2: told CNN that they are quote evaluating why the CBP
Speaker 2: team may not have been following White House approved protocol
Speaker 2: and that the initial statement from DHS following the shooting
Speaker 2: was quote based on reports from CBP on the ground unquote.
Speaker 2: On Wednesday, the DHS spokespersent TRITICHA McLoughlin repeated this claim
Speaker 2: on Fox Business.
Speaker 5: A Secretary Nome accused Alex Prette of being a domestic terrorist.
Speaker 9: Is the administration standing by that language?
Speaker 14: So initial statements were made after reports from CBP on
Speaker 14: the ground that was a very chaotic scene. We know
Speaker 14: that our ice law enforcement are facing rampant violence against them,
Speaker 14: a highly coordinated campaign. So that is why this investigation
Speaker 14: is so important so we can get accurate facts to
Speaker 14: the American people.
Speaker 2: Trump has denied that Preddi was acting as an assassin
Speaker 2: and has called the shooting a quote unquote very unfortunate incident,
Speaker 2: But he has continued to say that Preddy should not
Speaker 2: have been carrying a gun.
Speaker 6: Quote. You can't have guns. You can't walk in with guns,
Speaker 6: you just can't unquote.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus has been pretty impressive. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I'll say that, Like generally, right, like, especially organized gun
Speaker 7: owner groups in the United States tend to align very
Speaker 7: heavily with conservative politics. They have been like reinforcing that
Speaker 7: what pretty was doing was in no way legal. It
Speaker 7: should no way need to you being killed.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: As of Wednesday, we do know now that the Border
Speaker 2: Patrol agents involved in the killing of Alex Preddy have
Speaker 2: been placed on administrative leave. Around January twenty sixth, Trump
Speaker 2: struck some kind of deal with local officials, namely Mayor
Speaker 2: Frey and Governor Tim Walls. Local officials have said that
Speaker 2: quote unquote some federal agents would begin leaving Minnesota. Bonvino
Speaker 2: is expected to return to California, with The Atlantic reporting
Speaker 2: that he's been stripped of his quote unquote Commander at
Speaker 2: Large title and has been locked out of government social
Speaker 2: media accounts. Tom Homan has arrived in Minneapolis to take
Speaker 2: over immigration enforcement operations, and local Minnesota law enforcement have
Speaker 2: ramped up their policing of protests, especially outside of hotels
Speaker 2: where ICE and Border Patrol agents have been staying.
Speaker 6: And it's important to note as as you're seeing a
Speaker 6: lot of stories about sort of ICE pulling out of
Speaker 6: Minneapolis and you know, an administration roll back because of
Speaker 6: the sort of Bovino movement. Everyone that I have talked
Speaker 6: to in Minneapolis, and this is a fairly large number
Speaker 6: of people, have all told me that everything on the
Speaker 6: ground remains the same. The raids are continuing, and they
Speaker 6: want to make sure that everyone understands that the raids
Speaker 6: are continuing and that the same kinds of things that
Speaker 6: ICE in the Border Patrol have been doing up until
Speaker 6: this point are continuing to happen under I guess quote
Speaker 6: unquote new management.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I think they may have withdrawn some Border Patrol agents, right,
Speaker 7: but the bulk of the people they deployed were actually
Speaker 7: ICE agents. They to my knowledge, have not been withdrawn home.
Speaker 7: And it is not exactly a like a liberal figure
Speaker 7: when it comes to deportation. To build it mildly, it
Speaker 7: might be like a change in the outward appearance that
Speaker 7: the practice of what's going.
Speaker 3: On that has not changed.
Speaker 2: Do we want to just have any kind of final
Speaker 2: discussion on that AI enhanced image that's been circulating.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, So I mean there's an AI enhanced image,
Speaker 5: and this is when I posted this. I've seen people
Speaker 5: comment that like, oh, it's more disinformation from the fascist.
Speaker 5: This is the opposite of that. Yeah, someone AI enhanced
Speaker 5: a still frame from the video because there's a question
Speaker 5: as to whether or not when one of the ICE
Speaker 5: agents disarmed Preddy, did he actit negligently discharge his firearm
Speaker 5: into the ground, and did that maybe spook them and
Speaker 5: cause the remaining chain of events. I don't think it's clear,
Speaker 5: And the video is not super clear as to whether
Speaker 5: or not the gun is firing. It's kind of grainy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't know that yet.
Speaker 5: So and like the new AI enhanced version, you literally
Speaker 5: see like a tongue of fire coming out of the
Speaker 5: barrel of the gun and then a full round of
Speaker 5: five to five six seems to be exiting.
Speaker 3: Well, like with the casing, let's just make shit up.
Speaker 5: It looks like it has the casing. It looks not
Speaker 5: like a firing gun looks And the text on this
Speaker 5: is this is from the AI info twitter account. An
Speaker 5: enhanced video of a man who disarmed Alex Preddy shows
Speaker 5: the show's gun allegedly misfiring. His ICE agent runs with it.
Speaker 5: Which has also been said to have spooked other agents
Speaker 5: into firing. AI video also enhances the visuals of the bullets.
Speaker 5: It would be clearly visit to the human eye.
Speaker 6: It's like, I didn't hit shit, you had to fight you.
Speaker 6: You had the digital quivalent of a five year old
Speaker 6: scribbling on it.
Speaker 5: And you know, I don't know, Maybe I guess this
Speaker 5: could be them trying to be like, oh, it wasn't
Speaker 5: the federal agent's fault. It's those damn sig P three
Speaker 5: twenties that spooked everybody. Yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 3: Like number one.
Speaker 5: AI can't enhance, yeah things, nothing can enhance a photo
Speaker 5: that's not a thing that's real. You can't just like
Speaker 5: add details to a photo that weren't in in a
Speaker 5: way that's different from just photos shopping them in. And
Speaker 5: that's what AI did. Someone said, add visuals of a bullet,
Speaker 5: and they did, and it's bad. It looks like a
Speaker 5: fucking sparkler is stuck in the end of a handgun. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but yeah, it's just shit like this. That's just going
Speaker 5: to be everything, Like every clash, every murder, every controversial
Speaker 5: thing that happens, there's immediately going to be a bunch
Speaker 5: of different AI slot videos and analysis, and what scares
Speaker 5: me most or not even scares me. What I think
Speaker 5: is the biggest problem isn't even just the straight up
Speaker 5: disinfo video. It's the stuff where people are claiming, look,
Speaker 5: I did some research using this AI and it revealed
Speaker 5: this thing that isn't immediately visible to the naked eye,
Speaker 5: but this is clearly what really went on. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: how that's going to supercharge fucking conspiracy theories about stuff,
Speaker 5: and how the response when people are like, but the
Speaker 5: AI didn't enhance anything, will just be like, you're not
Speaker 5: smarter than an AI, you don't know, Like that's that's
Speaker 5: the kind of thing where it's just got to be annoying,
Speaker 5: Like the truth ecosystem is already so damaged. I certainly
Speaker 5: wouldn't say that this is going to definitely make everything worse,
Speaker 5: but it's going to make everything more annoying.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I've seen this image that you
Speaker 2: were talking about, but I've seen a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: other like AI enhanced images of the shooting. It's specifically
Speaker 2: like the moment where where or like around the time
Speaker 2: that the agents are firing into the back of pretty
Speaker 2: and it's mostly like AI sharpened images, but taken to
Speaker 2: such an extreme extent that literally one of the heads
Speaker 2: of the border patrol agents is just missing.
Speaker 5: You know what. I wouldn't call that enhanced, but I'd
Speaker 5: say it's an improvement.
Speaker 2: You have to like kind of like look for it
Speaker 2: because because of how much movement is in the night,
Speaker 2: of course, but I've seen I've seen this the AI
Speaker 2: hnts like like still from the Pink Jacket.
Speaker 6: Lady of the shooting.
Speaker 2: I've seen this image spread all around by people showing
Speaker 2: like how how like brutal this looks, and it you
Speaker 2: don't need to spread this AI sharpened version with the
Speaker 2: with that with the head missing, like there is like
Speaker 2: regular skills that maybe are a little bit more fuzzy,
Speaker 2: but they actually are are real. And you've seen a
Speaker 2: few other like AI altered images spreading around around this shooting. Specifically,
Speaker 2: there's been like AI altered images of Alex pretty that
Speaker 2: like slightly changes his like facial proportions that have been
Speaker 2: used at some like memorials have been have been spreading
Speaker 2: on the Internet, and that sort of stuff has been
Speaker 2: incredibly frustrating just to see the sort of proliferation of
Speaker 2: these of these AI images into like the news cycle.
Speaker 5: I shared the enhanced image.
Speaker 6: That looks really bad.
Speaker 5: It's really bad.
Speaker 6: That's like, that's like.
Speaker 3: Wow, I've not seen that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like a kindergartender. It's unreal. You don't need
Speaker 6: to do this like that. People that have seen the
Speaker 6: footage knows what happened. You don't need to spread these
Speaker 6: fake images like public opinion is already formed on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll go on ad break again, but I think
Speaker 2: to close this section, I'll I'll play the short clip
Speaker 2: from the Minnesota timber Wolves game, which is which is
Speaker 2: a basketball game, I believe, Yeah, which they held a
Speaker 2: moment of silence for pretty and people chanted Towards the end,
Speaker 2: I'll shorten the moment of silence for the audience, but
Speaker 2: you can take a listen.
Speaker 4: Here are the traffic laws of Alex Purty that occurred
Speaker 4: yesterday in Minneapolis. We extend our love, support, and Heartfield's
Speaker 4: sympathies to Alex's family friend in our community during this
Speaker 4: difficult time. Please join in honoring the life and memory
Speaker 4: of Alex Pritty with a moment of silence.
Speaker 6: All right, we're back.
Speaker 2: After the shooting on Saturday, Chuck Schumer said that Senate
Speaker 2: Democrats would not be advancing a House approved appropriations bill
Speaker 2: with the currently included DHS funding Right now, the Senate
Speaker 2: is considering a six bill spending package that was narrowly
Speaker 2: approved by the House thanks to seven Democrats, and now
Speaker 2: Senate Deems are seeking to separate out the DHS bill
Speaker 2: and advance the five others. These six annual spending bills
Speaker 2: are set to expire on January thirty first. If at
Speaker 2: least some Democrats don't sign on to the bills by Friday,
Speaker 2: there will be a partial government shutdown on Wednesday. Schumer reiterated,
Speaker 2: quote until ICE is properly rained in and overhauled legislatively,
Speaker 2: the DHS funding bill doesn't have the votes to pass
Speaker 2: the Senate unquote. Possible immigration enforcement concessions that Democrats are
Speaker 2: pushing for include, but are not limited to, independent investigations
Speaker 2: into the recent shootings, mandating judicial warrants for immigration arrests,
Speaker 2: mandating body cams, requiring agent identification, no masks, no arrest quotas,
Speaker 2: no roving patrols, and restricting border patrol agents to the
Speaker 2: US border.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I want to address I've actually addressed the
Speaker 7: roving patrols before, and that the evidence standards for stops
Speaker 7: on those patrols. I'm not going to do that, but
Speaker 7: I do want to address this last one right with
Speaker 7: the quote unquote US border god. So, in the statute,
Speaker 7: border patrol is supposed to operate within a reasonable distance
Speaker 7: the United States border, which they interpret to be a
Speaker 7: one hundred mile distance. Now, when you are thinking of border,
Speaker 7: you might be thinking of land borders, but remember this
Speaker 7: also includes ocean borders. They interpret the Great Lakes to
Speaker 7: be international waterways, and thus it begins one hundred miles
Speaker 7: from the shore of the Great Lakes. For context, that
Speaker 7: still doesn't get you into Minneapolis, right, You're looking at
Speaker 7: a bit further. One hundred and fifty miles was the
Speaker 7: shortest line I could draw on a map. People seem
Speaker 7: to be operating under the misapprehension that this includes airports,
Speaker 7: and it does not, And I keep seeing this repeated online,
Speaker 7: and then people keep telling me the statue is actually
Speaker 7: very clear on what does and does not constitute a border,
Speaker 7: and it's talked about external borders and airports are not
Speaker 7: included in this Border patrol does not operate within one
Speaker 7: hundred mile radius of every international airport in the United States.
Speaker 2: Really unclear if Democrats will be able to get some
Speaker 2: of these things. Yeah, Obviously pushing for more training has
Speaker 2: its limits. The people involved in the shooting had years
Speaker 2: and years of training and gave the training. In some case,
Speaker 2: they were doing what they were trained to do. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but there's other stuff in here, like like mandating body cams,
Speaker 2: which though Border Patrol currently has body cams. ICE in
Speaker 2: Border Patrol they have body cams, they're not required to
Speaker 2: always have them on. This will be seeking to change that.
Speaker 2: Other things like requiring the identification of agents deployed, not
Speaker 2: wearing masks, not having arrest quotas. These would significantly change
Speaker 2: the way that ICE operates on the ground. Possibly the
Speaker 2: most important thing that they are seeking here is the
Speaker 2: emphasis on judicial wards as opposed to this administrative warrant
Speaker 2: that ICE has been using as its primary justification the
Speaker 2: past few months.
Speaker 7: I think we should refer to those I've been called
Speaker 7: the administry of warrants. I think a better I guess
Speaker 7: down to use is the Form two fifteen, because that's
Speaker 7: what it is. It's a form that they filled out
Speaker 7: right like, it's not a warrant in any meaningful sense
Speaker 7: of the word yeah. But yeah, just noting that because
Speaker 7: that's a change I'm going to be trying to implement
Speaker 7: in my work going forward.
Speaker 2: The last Minneapolis related story for this episode, which is
Speaker 2: mostly Minneapolis episode I Guess Yeah, is based on a
Speaker 2: CNN report that has claimed that federal agents encountered Alex
Speaker 2: Pretty a week prior to killing him. Pretty is said
Speaker 2: to have been driving and stopped his car when he
Speaker 2: witnessed ICE agents chasing a.
Speaker 6: Family on foot.
Speaker 2: Pretty began shouting and blowing a whistle before agents tackled
Speaker 2: Pretty and broke one of his ribs. Party was later
Speaker 2: released on the scene. DHS has told CNN that they
Speaker 2: have no record of this incident, though an anonymous source
Speaker 2: told CNN that Pretty was a known and identified protester
Speaker 2: to federal officials on the ground, quoting CNN quote. Earlier
Speaker 2: this month, the DHS official in Minneapolis sent a memo
Speaker 2: to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations officers assigned
Speaker 2: to the state on a temporary duty, asking them to
Speaker 2: use a form to input information on protesters and agitate.
Speaker 2: It is unclear whether the new intake form was used
Speaker 2: to share Pretty's information. It's also not clear whether federal
Speaker 2: agents who encountered Pretty on Saturday recognized him before they
Speaker 2: confronted him.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's definitely HSI that has been doing the federal
Speaker 7: stuff that involves citizens, I guess, right, like when they
Speaker 7: are investigating and detaining people. I know Pam Bondi is
Speaker 7: there today again and it has posted pictures of people
Speaker 7: who are detained with HSI officers, which is not a
Speaker 7: usual thing to do. But yeah, HSI, for whatever reason,
Speaker 7: they're kind of using as their like surrogate FBI in
Speaker 7: these instances.
Speaker 2: Jason, you can also speak on the sort of like
Speaker 2: surveillance of protesters quote unquote agitators that Feds have been
Speaker 2: doing on the ground based on what you saw in Minneapolis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's thank you, Gay. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So, like I was at the Whipple Building, right, the
Speaker 7: Whipple Building being the federal building in Minneapolis where they
Speaker 7: are taking people who are being detained and where ICE
Speaker 7: and CBP are deploying out of every day, right. I
Speaker 7: would say that because there was a protest on Friday
Speaker 7: as part of a general strike and I noticed they
Speaker 7: look like CBPO ICE right then they had like what
Speaker 7: I would describe with tactical helmets and gear on, but
Speaker 7: using DSLR cameras to take pictures of people protesting. They
Speaker 7: were in vehicles and they were shooting. I can't remember
Speaker 7: they had the door or the window to allow them
Speaker 7: to take photographs. But I noticed, like that is an
Speaker 7: effort at surveillance, right, It is not unreasonable. I know, Garrison,
Speaker 7: you also have this video which happened in Maine, right
Speaker 7: of an agent more or less saying this, But it's
Speaker 7: not unreasonable to think that there is surveillance of people
Speaker 7: who are engaging in First Amendment protected activities.
Speaker 2: Yes, and there has been some desire among ice officials,
Speaker 2: including Tom Hollman, who went on Fox News earlier this
Speaker 2: month to say that he's pushing for a database quote
Speaker 2: where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding, and
Speaker 2: assault were going to make them famous unquote. So this
Speaker 2: news that Alex Preddy had been preview identified in some
Speaker 2: way by federal law enforcement follows an incident last Friday
Speaker 2: where a federal agent in Maine photographed a legal observer's
Speaker 2: car and said, quote, we have a nice little database,
Speaker 2: and you're now considered a domestic terrorist.
Speaker 6: I'll play this clip here.
Speaker 3: It's not illegal to record.
Speaker 4: Exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what we're doing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, why are you taking my information down because we
Speaker 6: have a nice little database. Oh good, and now you're
Speaker 6: considered domestic terrorists.
Speaker 5: Were videotaping you? Are you crazy?
Speaker 2: Georgia McLaughlin has told CNN that there is quote no
Speaker 2: database of quote unquote domestic terrorists run by the Department
Speaker 2: of Homeland Security unquote.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I want to say something about this main video, which
Speaker 6: is that I've been seeing a lot of people circulating
Speaker 6: this is Oh, there's new repression tactics happening here. They're
Speaker 6: going to show up to people's houses. This has been happening.
Speaker 6: I mean, I know it was happening in Chicago. It
Speaker 6: probably was happening in la I just don't remember off
Speaker 6: the top of my head. But the stuff that's happening
Speaker 6: here where these people take pictures of your face is
Speaker 6: not new at all. It's not some kind of new
Speaker 6: innovation in these repression tactics. Like, obviously be careful, but
Speaker 6: this is not a reason that everyone suddenly needs to
Speaker 6: be afraid that there's like a giant crackdown coming. They've
Speaker 6: been doing this the whole time, and so far it
Speaker 6: really hasn't Like it sucks, but it hasn't stopped Minneapolis,
Speaker 6: hasn't stopped Chicago.
Speaker 2: No, they're trying to intimidate you stop doing this, Like
Speaker 2: that is the point of this agent walking by and
Speaker 2: joking about how you're now a domestic terrorist. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: that's not actually real. That is a way to scare
Speaker 2: you into not showing up the U based on the
Speaker 2: idea that if you do, they'll take a picture of
Speaker 2: you and now you get added to this domestic terrorist database.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is it possible that they're making like some kind of
Speaker 2: catalog of pictures of protesters that they can maybe use
Speaker 2: for reference in the future to build a case against someone,
Speaker 2: or if they arrest someone, they can look to see
Speaker 2: if they've been at previous protests. No, that's not impossible.
Speaker 2: That is something that they've been doing for quite a while.
Speaker 2: It's sudden that anti fascists to do against like Proud
Speaker 2: Boys back in the day, where you just document a
Speaker 2: lot of people at a protest and then maybe eventually
Speaker 2: the information will become useful. Right, That is not like surprising,
Speaker 2: but like I've seen some pretty outrageous claims going viral
Speaker 2: that like after Preddy had this encounter with law enforcement
Speaker 2: previously where they broke his rib that Preddy was then
Speaker 2: specifically targeted in the following weeks, Like, there is no
Speaker 2: information for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have no evidence to prove that.
Speaker 6: There's no information that this database led to him being
Speaker 6: intentionally targeted by federal agents on the ground, that is
Speaker 6: just speculation at this point. Yeah, there's no evidence of that,
Speaker 6: and there's no evidence that this is like a new
Speaker 6: kind of campaigna repression. And I want to be very
Speaker 6: clear about this. If you are spreading this as a
Speaker 6: you need to be afraid now because there's a new
Speaker 6: thing that's happening. You are doing their job. You are
Speaker 6: spreading the fear that this is an intimidation that this
Speaker 6: is designed to do, so please stop doing this.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think, like I understand that for a lot
Speaker 7: of people, any form of activism is very new and
Speaker 7: everything seems scary. But this is one of those times
Speaker 7: when you need to check what you're doing because as
Speaker 7: Mia said, right, this has the legal term is a
Speaker 7: chilling effect. Right, Like the government generally courts a fan,
Speaker 7: the government should should not do things that have a
Speaker 7: chilling effect on first Amendment protected to speak. That's absolutely
Speaker 7: what the government is trying to do. You don't have
Speaker 7: to help them or not the government, but that particular agent,
Speaker 7: I should say, acting at work, saying he's building a database, right,
Speaker 7: that is what that is trying to do is to
Speaker 7: have a chilling effect.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean I would argue the government's also doing this,
Speaker 6: you know, calling every legal observer domesti terrorists.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I guess, yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 5: So we should mention this just so we don't leave
Speaker 5: it out. Although we don't have a ton to say
Speaker 5: at the moment about this, but like the day before
Speaker 5: we recorded this, on the twenty seventh of January, I
Speaker 5: believe Elan Omar was doing a town hall in Minneapolis
Speaker 5: where she is a representative, and was assaulted by a
Speaker 5: man named Anthony James kashmir Zak, who was a fifty
Speaker 5: five year old. He was carrying what looked like a
Speaker 5: syringe but without a needle, just like a like a
Speaker 5: large syringe, like the kind you'd used to like give
Speaker 5: medicine to an animal or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, an irrigation syringe, right, and it.
Speaker 5: Was filled with some kind of off brownish yellow liquid.
Speaker 5: I don't think we know what it was. It apparently
Speaker 5: was foul smelling, obviously, and he ran up screaming you
Speaker 5: must resign, and sprayed some of it at her. I
Speaker 5: don't know how much God on her. He was tackled
Speaker 5: very quickly by a security guard. Omar seemed to be
Speaker 5: squaring up and ready to fight him, which was you know, expected,
Speaker 5: given like the kind of shit she's had to deal with, right,
Speaker 5: she's had to be a very tough person. She doesn't
Speaker 5: seem to be injured. I don't think there's any evidence
Speaker 5: that the liquid or whatever was something that caused or
Speaker 5: is likely to cause health issues, which I mean doesn't
Speaker 5: make it not assault. It just I don't think she's
Speaker 5: currently in any times you're thankfully. Yeah, there's been a
Speaker 5: chorus of denunciations about the attack on her from a
Speaker 5: bunch of other elected leaders. I know people have said
Speaker 5: that like it's been ignored, but at least it hasn't
Speaker 5: been from other people in the House.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of folks, including some Republicans, who have
Speaker 5: made comments on it, just because none of them like
Speaker 5: the thought of having shit sprayed on them. I think, yeah, Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 5: we don't know a ton about this guy and why
Speaker 5: he did other than that he presumably hated illin Omar, right,
Speaker 5: and that he wanted to get her to quit her
Speaker 5: job or otherwise armor in some way. We don't really
Speaker 5: know much about this guy. There's some people talking about
Speaker 5: the fact that his kids seem to be on the left. Well,
Speaker 5: he's clearly not. As if that's weird, it's not. If
Speaker 5: your dad is the kind of crazy asshole who will
Speaker 5: spray poison on elin Omar hit a town hall, I
Speaker 5: can see how maybe you've become the opposite of him.
Speaker 5: But yeah, that's about all we know at the moment.
Speaker 6: I do want to mention Trump's comment on it, where
Speaker 6: Abe's News asked Trump if you'd seen the video, and
Speaker 6: oh yeah, Trump said, quote, No, I don't think about her.
Speaker 6: I think she's a fraud. I really don't think about that.
Speaker 6: She probably had sprayed herself knowing her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you said that like a guy he thinks about
Speaker 5: her constantly.
Speaker 6: Hey yeah, yeah, really hideous stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Producer Sophie here with a quick pickup, as we did
Speaker 1: not have this information at the time of recording. This
Speaker 1: is as of January twenty twenty six. Per AP News quote,
Speaker 1: the Justice Department has charged a man who scorted apple
Speaker 1: sided vinegar on Democratic Representative Omar at an event in Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: According to court papers made public Thursday, the man arrested
Speaker 1: for Tuesday's attack, Anthony kasmar Zak, faces a charge of
Speaker 1: forcibly assaulting, opposing, impeding, and intimidating Omar. According to a
Speaker 1: complaint filed in federal court, authorities determined that the substance
Speaker 1: was water and apple cider vinegar. According to an affidavitkasmar
Speaker 1: Zakh sprayed Omar.
Speaker 6: With the liquid. He appeared to say, quote she's.
Speaker 1: Not resigning, You're splitting Minnesota's apart end quote the affi
Speaker 1: David says. Authorities also say that kasmar Zak told a
Speaker 1: close associate several years ago that quote somebody should kill
Speaker 1: end quote Omar quote. Documents say kasmar Zak appeared briefly
Speaker 1: in federal court Thursday afternoon. His attorney told the judge
Speaker 1: her client was unmedicated at the time of the incident
Speaker 1: and has not had access to medications he needs to
Speaker 1: treat Parkinson's disease in other serious conditions he suffers from
Speaker 1: US Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster ordered that Kazmarzak remain in
Speaker 1: custody and told officials he needs to see a nurse
Speaker 1: when he's transferred to the Sherburne County Jail end quote. Again,
Speaker 1: that is via AP News.
Speaker 7: So I want to very briefly update people on Rejava.
Speaker 7: The bfkey bassing for a whole episode. We will do one.
Speaker 7: I've been in Minneapolis.
Speaker 5: It's kind of a lot going on right now.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and me you may have noticed, but this is
Speaker 7: a very important right, Like, horrible things are happening. So
Speaker 7: the STG that's a Syrian Transitional Government Ahmed al Sharha
Speaker 7: Jiulani's government right and the SDF Syrian Democratic Forces which
Speaker 7: includes the YPG and YPGA, the armed forces that defend Rashava,
Speaker 7: have signed a fifteen day extension to their ceasefire. But
Speaker 7: both sides are accusing the other of widespread violations of
Speaker 7: the ceasefire. Both of them are right, like I've seen
Speaker 7: a lot of videos of ceasefire violations. Ceasefire was internationally mediated,
Speaker 7: likely by the US, and likely because of huge concerns
Speaker 7: around the escape of Islamic State prisoners. There was an
Speaker 7: attempted is suicide bombing in Iraq yesterday as we record this,
Speaker 7: that's the first time I can remember one of those
Speaker 7: happening in a while that the person was apprehended. But
Speaker 7: the US, I know, has been transferring detainees from the
Speaker 7: prison near Jusseka, and they're transferring them to US facilities
Speaker 7: in Iran. Created it doesn't the prince of the detainees
Speaker 7: is not the thing that is going to make the
Speaker 7: US support their allies in Rasjavo or their former allies
Speaker 7: in their SDF for I guess I should say now
Speaker 7: that the US once again, it is not going to
Speaker 7: be a good friend to the Kurdish people. Trump has
Speaker 7: also truthed that Iraq should not appoint Nurial Malachi as
Speaker 7: its next prime minister. In his Truth, he said, quote,
Speaker 7: I am hearing that the great country of Iraq might
Speaker 7: make a very bad choice by reinstalling Nuriel Malachi as
Speaker 7: prime minister. Last time Malachi was in power, the country
Speaker 7: descended into poverty and total chaos that should not be
Speaker 7: allowed to happen again because of his insane policies and ideologies.
Speaker 7: If elected, the United States of America will no longer
Speaker 7: help Iraq. And if we are not there to help
Speaker 7: Iraq has zero chance of success, prosperity or freedom.
Speaker 3: Make Iraq great again, yess ch.
Speaker 5: First off, I mean Molikey does suck.
Speaker 3: He's a really bad guy. Yeah, this is not like
Speaker 3: yay Malachi po. But this ain't the way to go
Speaker 3: about doing that.
Speaker 5: No, I mean just the whole we will cut all
Speaker 5: ties and support to Iraq thing. When everything happening, there
Speaker 5: is still downstream of us fucking with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did this.
Speaker 7: We spent twenty fucking years killing people in a rack.
Speaker 7: Like you don't just get to be like oh yeah,
Speaker 7: and like the idea that we were doing regime change.
Speaker 7: But when the regime isn't and the one that we like,
Speaker 7: that people act and I was like, we're doing regime
Speaker 7: change again, Like obviously the whole thing was a fraud
Speaker 7: and a lie.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, still is.
Speaker 7: Yeah, very concerned for my friends all the parts of
Speaker 7: Curtis dannergy. The peace process between the PKK and Turkeys
Speaker 7: is falling apart, and state violence in Iran is still
Speaker 7: absolutely repugnant scale right, Yeah, a pretty tough time in
Speaker 7: that part of the world.
Speaker 3: I thinking of them.
Speaker 6: So finally, I want to give a brief update on
Speaker 6: my story from last week about this attempt to and
Speaker 6: FED independence and this att to sort of do an
Speaker 6: investigation into the chairman of the Federal Reserve. So earlier today,
Speaker 6: as we were recording this, we got the result of
Speaker 6: the Fed's vote about what they were going to do
Speaker 6: with interest rates. There's a whole episode about that. Go
Speaker 6: listen to that if you want air send what this is.
Speaker 6: But the FED, instead of cutting rates as the administration
Speaker 6: has wanted, has decided to hold interest rates at the
Speaker 6: same level, which was what was expected out of the
Speaker 6: Federal Reserve before Trump started putting even more pressure on them. However,
Speaker 6: we did not get any updates from anyone at the
Speaker 6: Federal Reserve about this Department of Justice investigation or any
Speaker 6: of the Trump pressure that's been being put on the
Speaker 6: Federal Reserve. So we'll keep you updated as the situation evolves,
Speaker 6: but all we got was a very normal interest rates
Speaker 6: are being held at the same level.
Speaker 7: We will include our list of mutual aid fundraisers for
Speaker 7: Minneapolis again in the show notes for this episode.
Speaker 3: Would you like to donate, put a transfer on your
Speaker 3: couch yep and if you.
Speaker 7: Want to email us Cool Zone Tips at proton dot me.
Speaker 3: Use a proton mail addresses.
Speaker 4: Send it.
Speaker 3: We reported the news. We reported the news.
Speaker 6: It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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