Speaker 1: Whats been in my Shapiro's did we do that already?
Speaker 1: Do not enough? If we did not enough? If we did,
Speaker 1: this is behind the bastards. And you know what that
Speaker 1: introduction means. It's another reading Ben Shapiro's marvelous book Episode Baby,
Speaker 1: the episodes that everybody loves except the people who hate them.
Speaker 1: The talented Mr Shapiro, The talented Mr Shapiro talking about
Speaker 1: Benny's book True Allegiance, which I think I can say
Speaker 1: is like if the Koran and the Bible had a baby,
Speaker 1: and then that baby fell off of a ski lift
Speaker 1: and hit its head on a pile of rocks several times.
Speaker 1: And then that baby tried to join the military but
Speaker 1: was told no because it had too much of a
Speaker 1: history of severe head injuries. And then that baby tried
Speaker 1: to write a screenplay about joining the military, but then
Speaker 1: that screenplay was turned down being terrible. And then that
Speaker 1: baby became a right wing grifter for I don't know,
Speaker 1: twenty something years and then wrote a fiction book, It
Speaker 1: would be True Allegiance. That is Ben Shapiro's background. Is
Speaker 1: That is Ben Shapiro's back, that's his origin story. Ski
Speaker 1: lift accident survivor Ben Shapiro every word. That's why he
Speaker 1: cares about that, and that's why he stopped growing. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think we've all established you can't be Shapira, but
Speaker 1: I didn't, but I did. It's fine, it's where we are.
Speaker 1: Is the is the he's a result of starting to
Speaker 1: be a conservative pund at age sixteen. Yeah. Perhaps the
Speaker 1: only things I mean, I'm just gonna say it. The
Speaker 1: only thing sixteen year old should be allowed to do
Speaker 1: is join the Marine Corps and drink alcohol. That just
Speaker 1: those two. We shouldn't even let him go to school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no school and nothing like that. Just drunk and trunk.
Speaker 1: We don't need shrunken, drunken teenage marines. Yeah you want
Speaker 1: Tom wasted. Uh. So we're back. We're back talking Benny
Speaker 1: Shaps in his book. We ended with uh with combat
Speaker 1: General Bret Hawthorne talking to his friend, the token Muslim
Speaker 1: who isn't a terrorist and I think the only Muslim
Speaker 1: who's not a terrorist that we meet. Um. And now
Speaker 1: we're moving to a President Prescott chapter. So when we
Speaker 1: last left President yeah, he just had his nine eleven moment,
Speaker 1: cruelly wearing a windbreaker. Uh in a disaster site. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now all right, you have got to be kidding me
Speaker 1: with this, Mark Prescott said, his eyes bulged, his face
Speaker 1: had turned beat red. I'm trying to hold the country
Speaker 1: together and you're out there fucking supporting the enemy by
Speaker 1: targeting Muslims. How am I supposed to counter the act?
Speaker 1: He's oh good, he's talking to Brett Hawthorne. So, if
Speaker 1: you remember earlier in the book, Brett Hawthorne made people,
Speaker 1: forced people to illegally use racial profiling, which did not
Speaker 1: work or return any usable intelligence. And now the president
Speaker 1: is angry because that has been released to the media. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's weirdly presented as an argument for racial profiling while
Speaker 1: being being an example of why it's bad. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not weird for Ben though, Oh no, not weird, completely
Speaker 1: consistent with his inconsistent Yeah, yeah, not writing and thinking
Speaker 1: part for the course on this book. In this book,
Speaker 1: I'm sure this will change. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that I find so fun about President Prescott is that
Speaker 1: he's written like a like an over the top movie villain,
Speaker 1: like a sniveling, like selfish coward, but all of the
Speaker 1: actual things he does as president are perfectly reasonable. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you want to have it. You have a job's program,
Speaker 1: you call him a national guard to deal with a
Speaker 1: nuclear attack, like the evil President Prescott, that guy angry
Speaker 1: at jobs program, yelling at an active duty general for
Speaker 1: forcing police to racially profile people for no effective purpose,
Speaker 1: like a dictator, disgusting, making it a forty hour work week,
Speaker 1: refusing to invade Mexico. The whole thing about Mexico that
Speaker 1: the whole plot of this is that the American needs
Speaker 1: to invade Mexico after they get nuked by Iran. God,
Speaker 1: it's so forgettable, it really is. I've lost the thread
Speaker 1: several times, Like that's like potentially, like oh that's like
Speaker 1: that's a story. Yeah, Like I don't know what that's about,
Speaker 1: but okay, but like it's so forgettable, it's gone fair
Speaker 1: already forget This year's pokes a lot of holes in
Speaker 1: my brain. So informated. But this is not memorable enough
Speaker 1: to latch on. No, So the only thing that's memorable
Speaker 1: are the characters themselves. Like combat General Brett Hawthorne, who
Speaker 1: has this chapter opens, is sitting on the couch watching
Speaker 1: the prejudent president rage at him. Oh good, we've got
Speaker 1: a real classic Ben Shapiro sentence here, all right, let's
Speaker 1: get let's let's get so many Sophie. On the way
Speaker 1: to the hotel, comma, the secret service agents had been
Speaker 1: utterly silent, um semi colon. They refused to answer any
Speaker 1: of his questions. Comma give him any information at all.
Speaker 1: Periods on the way to the hotel, comma, the secret
Speaker 1: service agents had been utter least silent, semi colon. They
Speaker 1: refused to answer any of his questions common give him,
Speaker 1: comma give him any information at all. So that's not
Speaker 1: even a full sentence. There's on the way to the hotel.
Speaker 1: You don't need a comma there no on the way
Speaker 1: to the hotel. Hey, I'm sorry, I don't need to
Speaker 1: it's in all of the like it's it's basically two
Speaker 1: incomplete sentences that he'd stitched together into one. Still not
Speaker 1: a grammatically correct sentence, and the only thing he's getting
Speaker 1: across on the way to the hotel. The secret service
Speaker 1: agent said nothing bam like that. That's the point. You
Speaker 1: don't and I mean, the last bit doesn't conclude. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of comma use that you're supposed to have
Speaker 1: exercised around grade three, fourth grade. You know, I think
Speaker 1: when you're doing your little grammar workbooks. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think the conclusion put a line through it is that
Speaker 1: we need to criminalize comma usage, band the comma to
Speaker 1: absolutely clear. He's like, I know that semi colon's exist,
Speaker 1: therefore I'm going to replace periods with the semi Cohen's.
Speaker 1: Like anyway, it is. It is fun that Ben has
Speaker 1: the same attitude towards ending his sentences that the United
Speaker 1: States has towards ending the war in Afghanistan, which is
Speaker 1: never do it telling. So the Secret Service doesn't answer
Speaker 1: his questions, but Brett figures out they must have picked
Speaker 1: up Hassan. How else could they have found him at
Speaker 1: Omari's who's that like, guy, who's the big Muslim? He
Speaker 1: liked leading care Right, the anti Islamophobia charity, but in
Speaker 1: this they're working with the terrorists. Uh yeah, you can't
Speaker 1: trust charity. You can't trust it. Not a Muslim charity.
Speaker 1: Prescott continued to yell. I elevated you, I made you,
Speaker 1: I saved you, and this is how you reward me.
Speaker 1: Brett could feel the anger building. He flexed his fist,
Speaker 1: then let it go, an old trick Ellen had taught
Speaker 1: him to take his mind off his temper. It wasn't working.
Speaker 1: Tell me, I expect an answer. What were you thinking?
Speaker 1: I gave you back your life, no, Brett said, softly, dangerously,
Speaker 1: I signaled you. I told you to hit the building.
Speaker 1: Prescott scoffed, disbelieving. You can't be serious. You wanted me
Speaker 1: to start a war with Iran, after Iraq, after Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: We just finished pulling the troops out. For God's sake,
Speaker 1: we got you, didn't we That wasn't the goddamn point.
Speaker 1: So again, this guy's the bad guy for not wanting
Speaker 1: to start a new war. Can't believe him. I don't
Speaker 1: think you need to add the word disbelieving after using
Speaker 1: the verb scoffed. Yes, yes you could. That's another classic
Speaker 1: thing that you should get over in seventh grade creative writing.
Speaker 1: Is like, Okay, he's scoffed because he doesn't believe them.
Speaker 1: You don't have to tell us. That's like saying he
Speaker 1: uh he said, speakingly, Yeah, he spoke wordingly. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: they argue about this for a while at Prescott's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I could kick you out of the military. Yeada, YadA,
Speaker 1: been or not been? Brett says, go ahead, I'd love
Speaker 1: to tell the press just why you did. Because you
Speaker 1: couldn't keep this country safe. You weren't willing to make
Speaker 1: the tough choices like invading a rod keep the country safe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: by escalating military action. So the president threatens that if
Speaker 1: he doesn't keep his mouth shut, he'll have federal charges
Speaker 1: drawn up against him for violating Uh that a mom
Speaker 1: who's a terrorist civil rights um has been thinks civil
Speaker 1: rights are a bad thing. As a general, will I think,
Speaker 1: yeah and yeah. The Brett yeah tells him like, hey,
Speaker 1: Mr President, you know, if you'd listen to me, all
Speaker 1: of those people who who were blown up in America
Speaker 1: would be alive today. Um. Prescott reached down to the
Speaker 1: coffee table and picked up the remote control. He flipped
Speaker 1: the channel to CNN, where the anchors continue to gush
Speaker 1: over Prescott's big speech. General, he said, I can afford
Speaker 1: a few public relation hits right now, rally around the
Speaker 1: flag effect and all that you'll be seen as an
Speaker 1: ungrateful rube looking to hit back at the man who
Speaker 1: saved you. Your time is over, General, get out of
Speaker 1: my sight. So yeah, tough but fair, tough but fair. Um,
Speaker 1: I do love that after a nuclear attack on the
Speaker 1: United States. CNN is talking about the President's speech and
Speaker 1: and nothing else, like no, it's no, it's it's tan
Speaker 1: suit right, Yeah, they'd be talking about radiation probably, so
Speaker 1: are you kidding? Rachel Maddow would latch onto that. Um,
Speaker 1: so Prescott woke from it. So I guess Prescott has
Speaker 1: a nap after meeting with the General and he wakes
Speaker 1: up to see Prescott woke from his nap an hour
Speaker 1: later to Tommy Bradley's face written across it was panic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's it's just panic was written across his face or
Speaker 1: something like that. Don't why why are you always so
Speaker 1: indirect Ben, like exactly right? Yeah, Mr President? Panic? Sorry
Speaker 1: it's yeah yeah. So okay. So the President gets the
Speaker 1: news that Reverend Jim Crawford is assassinated. Uh, and they're
Speaker 1: blaming it on the white supremacist of white supremacist group
Speaker 1: with ties to terrorist Mama who solo dad? Are are
Speaker 1: are Clive and Bundy but Latino woman? Um Above the
Speaker 1: chiron ran the footage of the continuing riots in the
Speaker 1: streets of Detroit. Then the anchors cut to some strong
Speaker 1: john young black man named Leavon Williams they built him
Speaker 1: as protest leader. Yeah, yeah, here we go. He's calling
Speaker 1: people to rise up, YadA YadA, forth so forth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh so we have been writing what he thinks, CNN says.
Speaker 1: Law enforcement sources tell us that Solidad Ramirez, the fugitive
Speaker 1: wanted and wanted in connection with the bombing of government
Speaker 1: offices in Sacramento, California, earlier this year, was spotted during
Speaker 1: the chaos and the aftermath of the Crawford assassination, entering
Speaker 1: the police station. Sergeant Ricky O'Sullivan, who had just been
Speaker 1: cleared in Malone's killing, is missing as well. And yeah,
Speaker 1: like law enforcement is not going to tie that to anyway.
Speaker 1: It's whatever Ben needs this to work. She was seen
Speaker 1: walking into a law enforcement office but is also missing.
Speaker 1: She was seen breaking into a police station to free
Speaker 1: the cop who killed the dead eyed black boy. I
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of threads here. Yeah, Okay, this
Speaker 1: all checks out. Yeah yeah, so the c the whole
Speaker 1: reason for this extended digression where he attacks CNN is
Speaker 1: because the CNN anchor says, everybody's waiting to hear what
Speaker 1: the president is going to say. Um so, uh. Prescott
Speaker 1: talks with his assistant about like, all right, what are
Speaker 1: we gonna what are we gonna say? Uh? Seems to
Speaker 1: me you've got two choices. One is to allocate resources
Speaker 1: from New York to these various cities. We've got governors
Speaker 1: beginning to call asking for help from the FEDS. They
Speaker 1: want some of the Guard members we've brought back here
Speaker 1: in their states. President Prescott shook his head. No bad imagery.
Speaker 1: You remember, Ferguson, you put guns on the street. You
Speaker 1: might as well tell the media you're a racist looking
Speaker 1: for street warfare. Next option we parlay with whom Bradley
Speaker 1: pointed at the TV we're seeing in flat Okay, so
Speaker 1: now now, now, now the black terrorist is going because
Speaker 1: it's just like a like process like okay, I see
Speaker 1: what he's trying. Here we go. You know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: sure we've discussed when this book was written. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: shocked it's as recent as Ferguson, Like this feels like
Speaker 1: the work of someone you know, a first draft you
Speaker 1: wrote in college. No, No, this is post Ferguson. And
Speaker 1: he's been a professional writer for a decade or more
Speaker 1: when he writes this book, and clearly has not had
Speaker 1: professional editors for most of that time. Um, it is
Speaker 1: fun to me that that the Prescott's like, Okay, we
Speaker 1: should talk to this leave On guy and his assistance, Like, well,
Speaker 1: the FBI knows that he's got connections to organized crime,
Speaker 1: and the President's like, yeah, so did Big Jim. That
Speaker 1: didn't stop anybody from like sainting him, which is just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, all of the civil rights leaders in Ben's
Speaker 1: world are connected directly to organized crime, just like all
Speaker 1: of the Muslim community leaders are connected to a terrorism.
Speaker 1: But the terror the actual terrorists who blow up a
Speaker 1: government building are Ben's heroes, although would tell you that
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City bombing was of course, had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with conservatism. Um, it's very good fun fun. In
Speaker 1: another classic Shapiro moment, even though this is President Prescott's chapter,
Speaker 1: we're now with Levi on we have a we have
Speaker 1: a couple of couple of spaces in between paragraphs, and
Speaker 1: we're we're back with lev Only overnight, Levin had become
Speaker 1: de facto mayor of the city without the force of
Speaker 1: National Guard to back them. The local police had fallen
Speaker 1: into a standoff position with the protesters, but Mayor Burns
Speaker 1: refused to authorize action to push Levan and his men
Speaker 1: out of the building, believing that such action would be
Speaker 1: too provocative. So Levan's got runners going between different positions
Speaker 1: in the city, YadA YadA. He's he's without National Guards soldiers.
Speaker 1: Obviously they can't put down these protests. The poor, disarmed
Speaker 1: cops have no ability to two do anything. Um. I
Speaker 1: guess they're occupying the police station now, which is would
Speaker 1: be dy rad um. Yeah. Levin didn't know the exact
Speaker 1: extent of his power yet. Of course, Mayor Burns said
Speaker 1: that eventually things would be put back under control. He
Speaker 1: put in a request to the governor, and the governor
Speaker 1: had put in a request to the fence. But soon
Speaker 1: enough things would calm down. In the meantime, he urged
Speaker 1: patience and restraint. Lev On, on the other hand, called
Speaker 1: for action. He humored every reporter, gave a quote to
Speaker 1: every journalist. He trotted out Kendrick Malone's mother as often
Speaker 1: as possible, making his own case for authority bulletproof on
Speaker 1: the back of her grief. Levan's long term plan, he
Speaker 1: told the media, was justice. He didn't define it and
Speaker 1: they didn't have to know. He meant to run for
Speaker 1: office on the back of his organized resistance. It had
Speaker 1: worked for Mary and Barry Big Jim had said it
Speaker 1: would work for Levan Williams. All that changed At four am. Ah,
Speaker 1: he gets a call from the president. Um. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's see what the okay. The President's assistant is like, Oh,
Speaker 1: we just want to tell you how much we admire you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for tamping down the violence. Levon grins because,
Speaker 1: of course the violence is all his fault, um, not
Speaker 1: the coops killed people. Uh Um. Okay, Mr Bradley, I
Speaker 1: really appreciate the sentiment. What can I do for you? Well,
Speaker 1: leave On It's like this, we couldn't admire your stand
Speaker 1: on social justice more particularly in the wake of this
Speaker 1: tragedy with Jim Crawford. I know you and he were
Speaker 1: close friends. The President wants to ask you for a favor.
Speaker 1: Please keep your followers from committing acts of violence. That's
Speaker 1: how this works. Yeah, and leave On reasonably says, I
Speaker 1: can't control what everybody does. It's a passionate time. Um,
Speaker 1: and they're like, yeah, just do your best. And he says,
Speaker 1: in order for me to keep my credibility with my people,
Speaker 1: they're going to need the President to say something in solidarity.
Speaker 1: They're going to need to know that he endorses our
Speaker 1: movement for justice. They turned out for him at the
Speaker 1: polls and they know he's with them, but they need
Speaker 1: some sort of sign. They're going to need him to
Speaker 1: pledge to stop police brutality against our people. They're going
Speaker 1: to need his promise to reopen the Ricky oh Sullivan case.
Speaker 1: Bradley coughed, we could do most of that leave on,
Speaker 1: but that last one that's out of our hands. We
Speaker 1: don't control the d o J. Well, then we might
Speaker 1: have a conflict here. I've got a lot of very
Speaker 1: angry people, and they're very angry for a reason. You
Speaker 1: do control the d o J. Like that is the
Speaker 1: executive anyway, whatever you you appoint the attorney, generally you
Speaker 1: have some power in this. Yeah, there's some there's some
Speaker 1: there's some power going on there. Yeah. Uh So the
Speaker 1: President tells tells Levan that he has another idea that
Speaker 1: might serve both of our interests, but he's going to
Speaker 1: have to trust the President, and Levin asks how long
Speaker 1: and he says, not too long, you'll see something in
Speaker 1: the news. Um. So they asked him to hold off
Speaker 1: for forty eight hours and then they're gonna they're gonna
Speaker 1: give him a sign. So, uh, I guess we'll see
Speaker 1: what that is not in the next chapter because it's
Speaker 1: And we're back to El Paso and Ellen who has
Speaker 1: has been Shapiro the General's wife who has been, but
Speaker 1: unlike Ben's wife, she loves her husband. Should we take
Speaker 1: a break before we go into this chapter? Appate? You
Speaker 1: know who does love their husbands bombs? Yes, Raytheon loves
Speaker 1: husbands and wives. That's why it shows up at so
Speaker 1: many weddings. Love school buses too. Okay, this is dard.
Speaker 1: What about what about hospitals? So such a Raytheon could
Speaker 1: not support hospitals more. Anyway, here's some ads, and we're back.
Speaker 1: So we're in El Paso with Allen um oh, and
Speaker 1: they're invading Mexico. Okay, alright, alright, oh boy. First paragraph
Speaker 1: the Apache attack. Helicopters veered low over sad Guarez and
Speaker 1: fired and fired directed rockets at a small duplex on
Speaker 1: the outskirts of the city. It went up in flames.
Speaker 1: Governor Davis watched the real time broadcast, yelping is the
Speaker 1: duplex disappeared in a puff of smoke and fire. There
Speaker 1: goes one of the bastards. He smiled. That bastard was
Speaker 1: one of the leaders of the Warez cartel, just hanging
Speaker 1: out in the duplex across the border. Yeah. So it
Speaker 1: starts with the Governor of Texas sending an Apache Tech
Speaker 1: helicopters to bomba city in Mexico. Jesus. Uh, that's very fun. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Texas National Guard attacks helicopters just start strafing vehicles
Speaker 1: and built bombing buildings. Um, that's cool, very cool. Yeah
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, about time. The night was so yeah he
Speaker 1: he the governor invades Mexico. Uh, and it goes great.
Speaker 1: The night was quiet, quietest it had been for months,
Speaker 1: by which I mean nothing happens on the border. The
Speaker 1: next day, though, residents of El Paso woke to a
Speaker 1: terrifying site, a National guardsman hanging dead from a billboard
Speaker 1: in the center of town. Painted in broad black letter
Speaker 1: were the words plata oplomo, silver or lead. In other words,
Speaker 1: pay us or die. Governor Davis wasn't in the mood
Speaker 1: to pay. It's also weird to send a message to
Speaker 1: the National Guards. What for what? Yeah? For what what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? You want to not be invaded
Speaker 1: by the national The governor wasn't in the mood to pay. Well,
Speaker 1: this seems like a threat against the entire United States.
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's a lot that's complicated here that
Speaker 1: doesn't track. Yeah, it makes no sense because nothing Ben
Speaker 1: says does. Um. Yeah, so that governor orders a full
Speaker 1: scale investigation. I think we know who did it, but okay,
Speaker 1: um yeah. And it turns out now there's rumors of
Speaker 1: a drug cartel in the city. Rumors of a drug
Speaker 1: cartel in El Paso. Huh that's shocking. Um yeah, so
Speaker 1: uh clearly, and for whatever reason, Ellen is the one
Speaker 1: heading up the investigation. Who is I think his his
Speaker 1: public affairs officer is now controlling a military investigation of
Speaker 1: the cartel murdering a soldier in El Paso. Ellen acted swiftly,
Speaker 1: placing National Guard troops in the local police centers, increasing
Speaker 1: security along the border. How is that hurt? How does
Speaker 1: she have that authority? Because you didn't want to introduce
Speaker 1: a new character, Yeah, we have established what she does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like public relations for the governor. Yeah, that's not
Speaker 1: what this I guess now she runs the next feminist.
Speaker 1: She's a feminist. She could do whatever she wants. She's
Speaker 1: one of those classic pr ladies slash commander of the
Speaker 1: National Guards police operations. She's a multi hyen. Yeah. For
Speaker 1: ten hours, the border patrol had caught two men attempting
Speaker 1: to flee into Mexico. After questioning, Ellen had them detained
Speaker 1: and definitely pending further investigation into their activities the night
Speaker 1: of the hanging, and she redoubled eplements to the border
Speaker 1: to stop any further infiltrations and deter any attempts by
Speaker 1: collaborators to escape into Mexico. Sounds out of her pay grade.
Speaker 1: It really does. Sounds out of the governor's pay grade.
Speaker 1: To be honest, this is not really governor ship. All
Speaker 1: of it was good policy, none of it made for
Speaker 1: good pictures on the front pages around the country, and
Speaker 1: Ellen was stunned by the magnitude of the coverage. The
Speaker 1: media coverage exploded with protest on the other side of
Speaker 1: the real Grand nothing but women and children. As the
Speaker 1: sun came up, at least a hundred women stood carrying
Speaker 1: toddlers and babies, waving their hands and screaming for the
Speaker 1: National Guard to let them cross. The National guardsmen stood
Speaker 1: their ground. They didn't point their weapons Ellen and Davis
Speaker 1: had agreed there would be no such activity, both for
Speaker 1: both moral and media reasons, but they looked threatening enough
Speaker 1: in their uniforms. Young strong, square Jawed. I hate this
Speaker 1: book so much. It's so bad. It's very bad. And also, like,
Speaker 1: have you seen National Guards soldiers been. They're they're just
Speaker 1: like dudes and ladies. Like they're half of them are
Speaker 1: middle aged. It's like their weekend job. They're not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: jaws as far as I can see. Yeah, Like it's
Speaker 1: very funny. It's very funny that, like the good policy
Speaker 1: is confronting people trying to cross a border to see
Speaker 1: their families with a line of soldiers and that that's
Speaker 1: that's the heroism is having the soldiers is on its way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course when this happens, this completely predictable protests
Speaker 1: from shutting down all border pro traffic and invading Mexico.
Speaker 1: When that happens, the media gets involved, but obviously not
Speaker 1: because it's a meaningful story. One of the biggest media
Speaker 1: magnates in Mexico owned several major media outlets in the
Speaker 1: United States. Ellen wasn't surprised at the number of cameras
Speaker 1: showing up. Obviously this was a big story. Still, she
Speaker 1: resented the intrusion. There's been zero cameras for the murdered
Speaker 1: National guardsmen, but get a few dozen women crying on
Speaker 1: the border with their kids, and the media had a
Speaker 1: field day. I don't believe there were zero cameras for
Speaker 1: a murdered National guards but executed by a cartel after
Speaker 1: an invasion of Mexico. Go. She complains that someone's tipped
Speaker 1: off the cameras. Um, and that's the reason they're reporting
Speaker 1: on the invasion of Mexico and the human to It's logical, right,
Speaker 1: what are the reasons would there be to report on that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't hard to gather who had tipped off the cameras.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest magnates in Mexico owned several major
Speaker 1: media outlets in the United States. That guy, that guy
Speaker 1: for reporting that news to the invasion of Mexico. Hey, hey,
Speaker 1: I know we would never cover this normally, but because
Speaker 1: I'm your boss, I want you to film some of
Speaker 1: the American invasion of Mexico lamestreamingdient. Yeah, And of course
Speaker 1: Ellen notes that the murdered National guardsmen hadn't gotten any cameras.
Speaker 1: It's also like, no it would have been the number
Speaker 1: one story in the country. Uh like, okay, yeah, whatever whatever.
Speaker 1: Um so, yeah, the cameras find find their way to
Speaker 1: Ellen for comment. We will maintain the security of the
Speaker 1: people of Texas, she said. Our immigration services have not
Speaker 1: screened any of the people out there were so most
Speaker 1: of them are wonderful people who want to come here
Speaker 1: and work and build a life without taxpayer help. We
Speaker 1: simply don't know who they are, and without screening them,
Speaker 1: we're not going to open our borders to anybody who
Speaker 1: wants to cross. We have the body of a national
Speaker 1: guard has been hanging from a billboard that tells the
Speaker 1: story of what we get when we don't check those
Speaker 1: who crossed the border. And it's telling that he does
Speaker 1: have to invent a thing, right like, in order to
Speaker 1: justify shutting down the border. And it's basically he's basically
Speaker 1: saying the thing that Trump ran on. Right. I'm sure
Speaker 1: some of them are wonderful people. I mean, this book
Speaker 1: came out two months before Trump was elected. Yeah, yep,
Speaker 1: they're the same person. Um. Yeah, the headlines hit almost immediately. Oh,
Speaker 1: this should be good. Texas Governor's top aid says immigrant
Speaker 1: women children post security threat. I might posit that the
Speaker 1: top store would be Texas Governor's top aid controlling li
Speaker 1: terry investigation into murdered soldier. Yeah yeah, that's a better headline. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um yeah. She should have known better than to give
Speaker 1: him any material they could misuse. And again, what material
Speaker 1: wouldn't they have missed used? She vowed to ignore any
Speaker 1: calls coming from a media number. Um yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: it works, right. I know there's probably some sort of
Speaker 1: caller idea the media, the media, the media is calling me, yes,
Speaker 1: scam likely media number. Yeah. So it's this is the
Speaker 1: third the tertiary story in the news. The number one
Speaker 1: story is that New York got blowed up. The number
Speaker 1: two story is the riots, the BLM style riots all
Speaker 1: over the country. And I guess number three is America
Speaker 1: invades Mexico but they're not showing any of it, just
Speaker 1: the president's speech, no no, and until they get the
Speaker 1: tip mm hmm, and that the Mexican miller terry doesn't
Speaker 1: do anything because they don't want to fight with the
Speaker 1: National Guard, and they secretly like the cartel being cleared out,
Speaker 1: so they're okay with being invaded by the good guys.
Speaker 1: Each day, small groups of National Guards been raided ciadad Guarez,
Speaker 1: usually by motor vehicle convoys across the border. The cartel
Speaker 1: members had picked up on the nature of the offensive
Speaker 1: action and it inserted themselves into heavily civilian areas, cutting
Speaker 1: down on the ability of Texas forces to strike without
Speaker 1: facing the prospect of urban warfare. Now more dangerous search
Speaker 1: and destroy emissions have been authorized. The American side of
Speaker 1: the border remained quiet until it wasn't. Oh good, so
Speaker 1: we're going to get a border massacre because obviously invading
Speaker 1: Mexico sparks more violence in the US and stopping all
Speaker 1: those moms from getting across their families doesn't. Again bench
Speaker 1: Para making the point that he refuses, Yeah so, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: a bunch of protesters get shot dead eventually twenty six people. Um,
Speaker 1: everyone figured it for a drug cartel. It then the
Speaker 1: footage came out. Ellen saw it on the evening news
Speaker 1: as a network anchor. In toned what you were about
Speaker 1: to watch is very graphic. Younger viewers are advised not
Speaker 1: to watch. She cut to a grainy, close range video
Speaker 1: of a man in a National Guard uniform from behind
Speaker 1: walking up to a group of tents. Get out of
Speaker 1: our the National guardsmen said, in a thick Texas accent,
Speaker 1: get out of are you little? And then he uses
Speaker 1: a racial slayer for Mexican people. Um, which, okay. A
Speaker 1: few children, rubbing their eyes came scurrying out of their tents,
Speaker 1: their mother's following. Seeing the barrel of a gun, they
Speaker 1: raised their hands. The screen went white with the fired shots,
Speaker 1: flash after flash, again and again. When the night vision calmed,
Speaker 1: the smoking bodies of two dozen in instants lay on
Speaker 1: the ground. Um. So, yeah, I guess. I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: somebody posing as the National Guard to make them look bad, right,
Speaker 1: Ben wouldn't have a National guardsman. Sure, I bet it's
Speaker 1: Leon or something. I'll give I'll give Bencham credit if
Speaker 1: it actually is. If he's actually making the point that no,
Speaker 1: there's racists in the National Guard. They totally murdered children
Speaker 1: in this, you know. But I don't think that's what
Speaker 1: I say. Yeah, I think I think I might take
Speaker 1: a pet against that doesn't feel like what we're building
Speaker 1: to here. So the governor is angry at her, angry
Speaker 1: at his aid that he put in charge of the
Speaker 1: invasion of Mexico. Um, which I would be angry at
Speaker 1: this too. Um, perhaps he shouldn't have invaded Mexico in
Speaker 1: the bull offense in my book, I would say, so,
Speaker 1: I didn't write this book. Might also literally be treason
Speaker 1: to give an unelected aid control of the National Guard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like it's a crime, right. Um, so the
Speaker 1: governor's news story if everything else wasn't going on. Sorry continue, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Bubba of course tells him that the President's yelling
Speaker 1: at him. Um, but not over the invasion of Mexico.
Speaker 1: Over this, which I think the yelling would have started.
Speaker 1: I would have think that the President would have sent
Speaker 1: into federal agents to arrest the governor of Texas for
Speaker 1: invading a sovereign nation. Um, I didn't ellen, gripped your fists.
Speaker 1: I didn't ask for this, Bubba. I did it as
Speaker 1: a favor to you, some favor, he said. I've got
Speaker 1: two dozen dead kids and their mama's and a boy
Speaker 1: in a National Guard uniform responsible for all of it,
Speaker 1: A boy I kept here in Texas instead of sending
Speaker 1: him to New York like Prescott wanted me to. Do
Speaker 1: we know who the little bastard was? Yes, she answered,
Speaker 1: we do. Um, Okay, cool, His name because it's bad.
Speaker 1: He's bad. He's bad. Uh so he's it's a soldier,
Speaker 1: a sergeant named James Easton, McLawrence and Davis is like,
Speaker 1: don't they all have three names? I guess that like
Speaker 1: serial killer thing? Um? Oh boy. She passed him a
Speaker 1: photo of a young man in a National Guard uniform.
Speaker 1: His eyes were open a shade too far, bright blue
Speaker 1: and off putting. His mouth was slack. Mclaurence joined the
Speaker 1: Guard after dropping it out of high school and getting
Speaker 1: his g e d. Not a stellar candidate for higher rank,
Speaker 1: barely at the bottom rung. He's full active weight. How
Speaker 1: is he full active duty and in the National Guard?
Speaker 1: That doesn't make any sense, Ben, do you not know
Speaker 1: the National Guard works? Doesn't sound like he does. He's
Speaker 1: full active duty. He joined the National Guard, he's full
Speaker 1: active duty. No, then that's active duty Army. That's not
Speaker 1: the National right. Yeah. Also, they're saying this guy's bottom rung,
Speaker 1: but he's a sergeant, which is not the bottom not
Speaker 1: not a bottom is actually a role with a lot
Speaker 1: of responsibility where you're often in charge of significant number
Speaker 1: of lives. I think you're just supposed to go with it,
Speaker 1: don't question him just right about this stuff? Right, what
Speaker 1: you know, not what you fantasize about. Noah, keep it
Speaker 1: to your like live journal. So the governor asks what
Speaker 1: that set this guy off? And uh, Ellen gives three possibilities.
Speaker 1: One is that he hated illegal immigrants because his dad
Speaker 1: lost his job at a manufacturing plant that moves south
Speaker 1: of the border. Uh. And another is that he was
Speaker 1: paid by cash by the cartels. And another is that
Speaker 1: he's quote just crazy simple as that useful information. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's I mean classic have been to like start with, Oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe he's angry because his dad lost his job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: racism does not actually enter into that at all. Really, Um,
Speaker 1: that's interesting have been because wide wide range we can
Speaker 1: get racism, we can get there a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of shades. So, uh, Davis is
Speaker 1: sending Ellen to New York. Now, I guess she's botched
Speaker 1: the job of commanding the army to invade Mexico. So
Speaker 1: Bubba's I don't know, may be gonna put like the
Speaker 1: agriculture secretary in. Well, what's she gonna do in New York?
Speaker 1: She's going to talk to the president. Um, because the
Speaker 1: president wants to humiliate Bubba Davis in front of the
Speaker 1: entire country. Quote, Hell, he could have a local d
Speaker 1: a down here drop charges against me. Is that they're
Speaker 1: frog walking me when I get off the plane. It's
Speaker 1: a setup. Ah. So Bubba doesn't want to get arrested
Speaker 1: for invading Mexico. Uh. And so he's sending Ellen too
Speaker 1: because she won't get arrested. They won't touch you because
Speaker 1: of Brett. Um, that's fun. Um. And Ellen's like, well,
Speaker 1: but the president hates my husband, and the governor says,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter your husband's a national hero. He's not
Speaker 1: going to arrest you. Um. Ellen had to admit that
Speaker 1: the idea appealed to her. She hadn't seen Breton nearly
Speaker 1: a year now, and she'd missed him awfully. Every time
Speaker 1: they flashed his face across the television. Her chest ached
Speaker 1: from missing him so much. What do I say to Prescott?
Speaker 1: She said, you tell that son of a bitch that
Speaker 1: we're not going to back down off the border, not
Speaker 1: for him or anybody. And if he asks you about mclaurence,
Speaker 1: you tell him we're investigating. Turned down any federal offers
Speaker 1: for help. We don't need the feds down here mucking
Speaker 1: up our operation. Not your choice, not your choice. Also,
Speaker 1: it's the crime off the rails in this book, I
Speaker 1: mean it's it is a crime of a U. S.
Speaker 1: Serviceman in a foreign country. At no point would that
Speaker 1: be the jurisdiction of Texas law enforcement. They would have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this legally, they can't. It would
Speaker 1: be like the FBI or somebody would not be local
Speaker 1: police in any way. That's just not how the government works.
Speaker 1: But what if it is, Yeah, like all those full
Speaker 1: time active duty National guardsmen and the full active duty
Speaker 1: part of the National Guard that's active duty, but not
Speaker 1: the army. Yeah, um, this is also this is unimportant.
Speaker 1: But if you've already written a couple of sentences about
Speaker 1: how she missed him terribly or awfully, she was an
Speaker 1: awfully choice of words. Um, after you've done that, you
Speaker 1: don't need to say when watching them on TV, her
Speaker 1: chest ached from missing him so much. Ye, just your chest? Why,
Speaker 1: I'll get it. I can. I can put two and
Speaker 1: two together. Whenever she saw him on TV, her chest ached.
Speaker 1: I understand why. It's because she missed him so much.
Speaker 1: You don't even have to say she missed him. You
Speaker 1: could say The idea of seeing brettig an appeal to
Speaker 1: her been nearly a year every time she saw him
Speaker 1: flash on TV, her chest ached, and the reader using
Speaker 1: his brain for her brain, all laid out for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not like You're not trying to convey a complicated emotion
Speaker 1: she misses her husband, and like, especially after reading the
Speaker 1: rest of the book so far, I get it. I'm
Speaker 1: all caught up with her feeling. Yeah, basic human emotion.
Speaker 1: Um okay, so uh yeah, okay. So Ellen does immediately
Speaker 1: point out that cross border murder falls under federal jurisdiction,
Speaker 1: and the governor says he's busy, he won't mind, and
Speaker 1: it'll allow him to save face, to put me up
Speaker 1: for public scourging. I'll be the bad guy's southern hick
Speaker 1: who won't let the sweet faced yankee down here to
Speaker 1: fix things. That's what the media is looking for anyway, Right.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't send a Yankee. There's FBI offices in Texas.
Speaker 1: They would send someone from the El Paso FBI whose
Speaker 1: job is to investigate murdered Americans in Mexico. That's a
Speaker 1: thing that they do, right, it's the Yankees. They gotta
Speaker 1: sit a yankee down to Texas. There's no Texans in
Speaker 1: the FBI carpet bagging fed Oh man, what's your end game?
Speaker 1: She's had said in game, Darlin, this thing here has
Speaker 1: been going on since the Alamo. There's no end game,
Speaker 1: just a game that won't end anyway except us holding
Speaker 1: our ground. You're cutting and running, but don't worry you
Speaker 1: just Yes, the invasion of Mexico over cartels is the
Speaker 1: same as the Alamo. Remember, and games, a game that
Speaker 1: won't end, like cut one of those. Yeah, dude, Like
Speaker 1: I can't even he didn't have an editor. Oh, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: There's no way. And if you at what, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: probably his dad, well, someone he really likes and and
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel comfortable speaking up to his boss. I
Speaker 1: think that's my guess. Yeah, so Ben's Brett or sorry,
Speaker 1: Ellen agrees to go to New York. Uh, and she's
Speaker 1: sitting in the National Guard terminal at the airport, which
Speaker 1: might exist. I don't know, I've never I don't know
Speaker 1: that the National Guard has not impossible, Okay, sure, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe, um is that a thing that exists? Cody?
Speaker 1: Are you trying to find out? What are you fact checking? Ben?
Speaker 1: Um So As she's sitting there waiting to fly to
Speaker 1: New York, she gets a call from a number she
Speaker 1: doesn't recognize, so she uh picks up um to at
Speaker 1: least hear what the media had prepared. At worst, she
Speaker 1: could give a no comment, so she goes back on
Speaker 1: her promise to not pick up from the media. But
Speaker 1: it's not the media. It's Brett. Honey, don't come to
Speaker 1: New York. He sounded winded. Horse, Brett. What's going on?
Speaker 1: I can't say for certain yet, Just don't come to
Speaker 1: New York. Something bad is going down. How you know that?
Speaker 1: No time to explain. The line went dead. It's probably time, Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably for too long would have gone on. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: you know it's bad because he doesn't tell her he'd
Speaker 1: take a bullet for you. Baby. It's just there's so
Speaker 1: many like cryptic messages this woman gets from her husband.
Speaker 1: I would be sick of it. Yeah, finish your sentence.
Speaker 1: Finish your sentence. Don't just like hang up and tell
Speaker 1: me not to do something. And I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's time to take a break for stops.
Speaker 1: You know, speaking of taking a bullet for you, We've
Speaker 1: already done it. These products would take a bullet for you,
Speaker 1: haven't we We did that months ago. Well, here's some
Speaker 1: fucking ads anyway, you God damn Yankees, rank Libs, yank
Speaker 1: lib Feds, and we are become returned. So next chapter
Speaker 1: is a solidad chapter. Who is remember the terrorists Aimon Bundy,
Speaker 1: but a Latino woman so that no one can call
Speaker 1: Ben racist? Smart covering your tracks? Yeah, they camped outside
Speaker 1: the city, no fires, no lights. They'd separated after Detroit
Speaker 1: split up to avoid being followed. They set the rendezvous
Speaker 1: for Nashville three days later. Sola Dad recommended that they
Speaker 1: wind their way through several states to throw any would
Speaker 1: be trackers off the scent. She took Ezekiel west and south.
Speaker 1: Aidan took Ricky east and doubled back through Kentucky. Nearly
Speaker 1: all the men made it. A few apparently decided they'd
Speaker 1: had enough after Detroit, after seeing their faces on television
Speaker 1: labeled white supremacists. They took off for the hills. So
Speaker 1: it Dad told them to ditch all their electronic gear
Speaker 1: to make for the northern border. If they could, they
Speaker 1: flee into Canada to and seemed like what a bunch
Speaker 1: of gun nuts would do. Okay, Um. The ones who
Speaker 1: were left looked like they've been through a war. Eddie
Speaker 1: was the worst, fat So as they all called him,
Speaker 1: had taken a tire iron to the gut and gotten
Speaker 1: stomped at the center of the crowd. He'd been in
Speaker 1: and out of consciousness ever since, his fever spiking radically
Speaker 1: just before hitting camp, as he Kiel told Sola Dad,
Speaker 1: he'd started twitching and then gone quiet. When Aidan and
Speaker 1: Ricky drove in, Solidad motioned them over, they put down
Speaker 1: their kickstands, turned off the hogs loves calling motorcycles hogs,
Speaker 1: literally slapping. I think he's been on a motorcycle. I
Speaker 1: think he wants to have been on a motorcycle, but
Speaker 1: I don't know that. I think he's been on a motorcycle.
Speaker 1: We can all fill in the blank. Yeah, moped, he
Speaker 1: can write a moped. He could write a moped. He
Speaker 1: shouldn't write a moped. Our big boy vehicles, UM, and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I wouldn't want been to. Yeah, we're a
Speaker 1: big girl. Just not a Been Shapiro. Uh, I'm just
Speaker 1: looking if there's a Been Shapiro on a motorcycle picture
Speaker 1: because there's so many shameful swords and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's a little gun. Um m m, all right,
Speaker 1: what we got do we have? Do we have been
Speaker 1: Shapiro on a motorcycle? Um? No, I'm not. I'm not
Speaker 1: seeing it. Yeah, there is, he does have that. He
Speaker 1: does own a leather jacket your right coding. If the
Speaker 1: motorcycle pick existed, it would be online. He would would
Speaker 1: be the first response. It would be the saddest thing
Speaker 1: that anyone's ever seen. Um. But Ben is a little
Speaker 1: bit too smart to be pictured on a motorcycle. So
Speaker 1: he gets his motorcycle kicks by calling him hogs every
Speaker 1: tiet chance he gets. Um, just an embarrassed for him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So their friend Fats So who's dying is in a coma.
Speaker 1: And once they all get back together, Aiden, who's the
Speaker 1: former fed who murdered a bunch of other Feds for
Speaker 1: her asks, do we have anybody who knows anything about medicine?
Speaker 1: She shook her head. We need to get him to
Speaker 1: a hospital. I do love this is I don't think
Speaker 1: Ben meant it, but this is the most accurate part
Speaker 1: of the book, because that is the thing all of
Speaker 1: these like right wing militias have is like none of
Speaker 1: them are medics, like none, None of them ever bring
Speaker 1: medical supplies. None of them take care of each other. No,
Speaker 1: they rely on Antifa to take care of them at protects. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that part is pretty pretty on brand. Um. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: they decide they've got to take him to a hospital. Um,
Speaker 1: and Aiden's like, he's not gonna live anyway, and Sola
Speaker 1: Dad gets angry, Um, we're not going to leave him
Speaker 1: to die. YadA, YadA, YadA. Um okay, so, um, they're
Speaker 1: having a big fight. Um, and Aiden's angry because he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to risk everybody's lives. Um. So, but Sola
Speaker 1: Dad's like, I've got to make I gotta make the hall.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm I'm the boss. Um. So she calls
Speaker 1: for Ezekiel, who's the token black eye in the militia,
Speaker 1: give me a hand with this man. She leaned over
Speaker 1: the body, felt the heat emanating from the burning skin.
Speaker 1: She gripped him around the biceps, put her back into it,
Speaker 1: and moved him nowhere. Embarrassed, she gripped him tighter, pulled again.
Speaker 1: When she looked up, Ricky gotta go with her legs.
Speaker 1: She's got to use her legs. She wants to move.
Speaker 1: That's putting your back into it. That's bullshit. Sorry. So
Speaker 1: the cop who killed the dead eyed black boy helps
Speaker 1: and it's like, we gotta get him help. Nobody's gonna
Speaker 1: die for me ever again, Um, no one died for you.
Speaker 1: You killed somebody, Yeah, you shot, you shot a person
Speaker 1: to death, a child. It's just some That's how he's coping.
Speaker 1: That's what he's telling himself. Yeah, um okay. So they
Speaker 1: get the guy they dropped Fats so off at an
Speaker 1: emergency room. Um, and they have, uh, the black guy
Speaker 1: stay with him because he's the only person without a
Speaker 1: national face in the group. Um cool, Um yeah, do
Speaker 1: do do? I've been way too much time on this. Huh.
Speaker 1: This is just like a boring book. It is. It
Speaker 1: is a boring book, Like and they she so Ben
Speaker 1: starts this next it's like a full page that starts
Speaker 1: with like they dropped him off at the hospital and
Speaker 1: Ezekiel stayed with him. And then after that, the next
Speaker 1: like six paragraphs are her talking with Ezekiel will he
Speaker 1: tells her she's going he's going to stay behind and
Speaker 1: stuff like. It starts by explaining what happens and then
Speaker 1: walks through it all slowly, um like a bad writer.
Speaker 1: Back to the action. The headlights from the hogs carved
Speaker 1: a three progged gash into the darkness, carved to gash.
Speaker 1: Oh to one side of Sola dad Ricky Road to
Speaker 1: the other. Aiden. The night was silent except for the
Speaker 1: rumbling of the engines, the murky smell of the murky
Speaker 1: smell of the trees. How do like somebody who hates trees?
Speaker 1: What is murky smell? How is something smell murky? Well,
Speaker 1: he grew up in a haunted marsh, so he has
Speaker 1: a different association, same swamp creature. You are right, Katie,
Speaker 1: Oh my god of the trees. I wish everyone could
Speaker 1: see our faces, just so disgusted. I'll be making the
Speaker 1: face and I'll look over and Cody's making the exact
Speaker 1: It's just confusing. Oh god, Okay, So the start of this,
Speaker 1: they're driving through the forest in Tennessee, and so what
Speaker 1: Dad thinks about how awesome she is and how awesome
Speaker 1: it is that they're doing this and like super Brad
Speaker 1: that wear a bicycle a motorcycle militia. Um uh, Aiden,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I dragged you into this, she yelled at last.
Speaker 1: Sorry he grinned, I've been waiting for this all my life,
Speaker 1: something to fight for. She glanced over at Ricky. His
Speaker 1: mouth was set in a tight line, his gaze focused
Speaker 1: on the dark horizon. Nothing left to fight for, said Ricky,
Speaker 1: you guys know what you're up against? That's incoherent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So she apologizes out of the blue. She apologizes to
Speaker 1: Aid and then it's like, I'm sorry I drag you
Speaker 1: into this, and he's like, why are you sorry? I've
Speaker 1: been waiting for something to fight for my whole life.
Speaker 1: And then Ricky's just says, nothing left to fight for?
Speaker 1: You guys know what you're up against. That's not that's
Speaker 1: completely nonsensical. He's trying to be cool and sparse with
Speaker 1: the language, and it's just ineffective. Yeah, it's just it's
Speaker 1: just didn't coherent. Nothing's been Yeah, the thing to fight
Speaker 1: for is hard. Yeah, they're fighting for something. Why why
Speaker 1: would you say anyway? That's yeah. So Ricky says, they're
Speaker 1: not gonna let us go. They say we killed Jim Crawford.
Speaker 1: They say we're white supremacists. Sola Dad said, do I
Speaker 1: look like a white supremacist? White supremacy comes in many forms,
Speaker 1: direct quote MSNBC today, they're nuts. I know, I know,
Speaker 1: I know. Oh he's so mad, he's so mad. Nuts
Speaker 1: but effective? Oh boy? Um. Also, when she's mentioned three
Speaker 1: times this chapter that all of their electronics are off,
Speaker 1: when did he watch MSNBC? Are you having time on
Speaker 1: your hog? Yeah? Ben, I'm sure how many times hog
Speaker 1: is used in this chapter? I actually do want to
Speaker 1: know how many times the word hog is used in
Speaker 1: this book entirely? Only four? Okay, only four matches. Oh
Speaker 1: so they're all in this chapter. Okay, how many times
Speaker 1: is the word motorcycle used? That's a good question, Cody. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: that's a fair, fair ratio. You impressed, you impressed us.
Speaker 1: Very good job. Yeah, point to you, Ben. Okay. So
Speaker 1: they're talking, that's very boring talk that uh okay. Um.
Speaker 1: So they talk about how their revolutionaries and then comparing
Speaker 1: themselves to the founding fathers. Sola Ed says, if it's
Speaker 1: good enough for Benjamin Franklin, it's good enough for me.
Speaker 1: You do realize, Ricky said Riley Franklin took off for
Speaker 1: some French who horring during for most of the Revolutionary War.
Speaker 1: It's thundered overhead and the clouds opened up ship. She
Speaker 1: heard Aidan say just what we needed. Yeah, okay, it's raining,
Speaker 1: YadA YadA. Oh there's something solid ahead of them. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think that the man has found them, so they
Speaker 1: get off the road. It's a military drone okay, Um,
Speaker 1: too small to be anything else. They could be looking
Speaker 1: for someone, for someone out wait. Military drones are very
Speaker 1: small okay. Anyway, Um, so the drone. He's thinking of
Speaker 1: the little little drones you can get for the park.
Speaker 1: The drone. Couldn't they see it? Even it couldn't be
Speaker 1: It couldn't be more than ten tho fet from the
Speaker 1: ground during a rainstorm, which I don't think you're going
Speaker 1: to see a drone in that those conditions in a motorcycle.
Speaker 1: But okay, whatever, Um, oh it's a predator drone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those aren't. Those are giant. Those are the size of
Speaker 1: a car, not a small drone. Okay, whatever, it doesn't
Speaker 1: do any research. Perspective is off. Oh the drone is
Speaker 1: on Aiden and they fire a missile. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: drone does a missile strike on these guys, um and
Speaker 1: it blows her off of her motorcycle. Uh, she peeked
Speaker 1: over the hedge. The first twenty ft of trees had
Speaker 1: been completely obliterated. The embers of the splintered burning trees
Speaker 1: floated through the air on the ground. It's rear wheel spinning.
Speaker 1: Solidde could make out the twisted metal of Aiden's bike
Speaker 1: near it. Comma, she could see what looked to be
Speaker 1: a white lump of flesh. Period a mangled arm. That's
Speaker 1: the next sentence. Just a mangled arm, a torn fragment
Speaker 1: of a maroon scarf she had handed him to wipe
Speaker 1: off the handlebars. Is the sentence after that? Yeah, not
Speaker 1: sentences and commas Sometimes then there make them full sentences,
Speaker 1: you know. She saw a mangled arm, Comma, a torn
Speaker 1: fragment of a maroon scarf she'd handed aidan earlier. You know,
Speaker 1: something like that, anything like that. She felt an arm
Speaker 1: on her shoulder. Get to your damn bike, Ricky shouted
Speaker 1: into her ear They're coming back around. She tried to
Speaker 1: get to her feet, but her left leg wouldn't respond.
Speaker 1: Looking down, she could see the black ooze of blood
Speaker 1: creeping through her pants. Ricky swung her roughly onto his back.
Speaker 1: He pushed himself on the cycle. He cranked the throttle
Speaker 1: aiden she moaned, son of a bitch. Behind him, the
Speaker 1: drone dropped to attack altitude. All right, son of a
Speaker 1: son of a bitch? Good good reading. Yeah, I'm still
Speaker 1: just like really bored. I know, like stuff going on,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if it's the plot or like
Speaker 1: how it's written or both. It's horrible, just everything leading
Speaker 1: up to this point. Yeah, yeah, it's not like we
Speaker 1: don't really like these people are talking about how they're
Speaker 1: like the new Founding Fathers, but like, her grievances are
Speaker 1: very unclear, right, like she doesn't pay your taxes, and
Speaker 1: so they murder a bunch of Feds and then they
Speaker 1: break a cop out of prison on the other side
Speaker 1: of the country. And I don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they're doing. What are they fighting for?
Speaker 1: And we don't see any of them really express an
Speaker 1: ideology like yeah, vague and just yea the vague, like
Speaker 1: fighting fighting for something? Yeah, okay, what what I mean?
Speaker 1: You freed the cop you think is innocent, even though
Speaker 1: he admits he shot the boy. Um, and you blew
Speaker 1: up a federal building because they came at you for
Speaker 1: not paying taxes. Uh, what's what's the ideology? Though? It
Speaker 1: vague so that people could fill in their own idea
Speaker 1: all gs and relate to it. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that he trusted, like the aesthetics right there on motorcycles
Speaker 1: and they have guns obviously they're the good guys, and
Speaker 1: like their opposition to like the Obama of it all,
Speaker 1: and just like yeah, these sort of vague signifiers and
Speaker 1: markers like oh they're yeah, the motorcycles in the wind,
Speaker 1: the murky trees. Yeah, the murky trees. It's amazing. What
Speaker 1: does that mean? Nothing, Sophie means nothing. Okay, So uh.
Speaker 1: The lev On chapter opens with revealing, you know, how
Speaker 1: the President had been calling him and been like, you
Speaker 1: chill out for a couple of days. I got a
Speaker 1: secret for you. Turns out the secret is that they
Speaker 1: were blowing up that cop and the terrorist mama with
Speaker 1: the drone. Um. So the President seems to think they
Speaker 1: killed all three of them, and that's what he tells
Speaker 1: levi On. Um. So that's great. Uh yeah, So just
Speaker 1: so you know, leave On, the President is very proud
Speaker 1: of what you've done there. You've kept people under control
Speaker 1: in a bad situation. Won't be forgotten. About that, sir
Speaker 1: Levon Coft, I can only keep them tamped down for
Speaker 1: so long that people are agitated about that attack. Still
Speaker 1: with Sullivan being dead, that helps. But they think the
Speaker 1: mayor is a shill for white privilege. It's just not
Speaker 1: how you say it, a chill, not a shill for
Speaker 1: white privilege. That's not really a term anyone would use.
Speaker 1: But well, I guess some people maybe are some people so, um,
Speaker 1: I aw, he's got these like weird buzzword grievance things
Speaker 1: that he's just gotta dip it in and that's what
Speaker 1: it is, yep. Um. So, I'd be curious to know
Speaker 1: how many times to talk about intersectionality in this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it come up yet. But so what
Speaker 1: levi On is asking the President for is the ability
Speaker 1: to remake the police department and put his own people
Speaker 1: in there. Um and for the President to throw his
Speaker 1: support behind that. Um. So I guess that's that's that's
Speaker 1: what he's proposing. Um. And uh, yeah, they talk about
Speaker 1: this in a conversation. I don't think we need to
Speaker 1: go all the way through uma YadA, yeah da yaha.
Speaker 1: Uh and yeah, the President says all right, yeah, Well
Speaker 1: let's I'll pressure the governor to give you the police
Speaker 1: of Detroit. Within days, the applications began piling up on
Speaker 1: Levan's desk. He'd moved over to the Mayor's office, taking
Speaker 1: up virtual residents there along with his secret political weapon, Regina. Alone,
Speaker 1: he meets with the police union. It doesn't go well.
Speaker 1: The man was old school blue and he didn't want
Speaker 1: to hear about changes to the department. He pointed out
Speaker 1: that they all had contracts leave on enjoying his new
Speaker 1: found power. Let the man stew for a few minutes.
Speaker 1: Then he told them they had every intention of honoring
Speaker 1: the contracts. There just might be a few more cops
Speaker 1: writing desks. The new boys, he said, would take over
Speaker 1: the streets. No more Ricky of Sullivan's. Now things were
Speaker 1: running smoothly, though. Levan slotted personal interviews with each of
Speaker 1: the possible new officers. Each was slotted for ten minutes. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Levin worked at the committee appointed by So, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: he's just putting a replacing the police with his guys. Um, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's fine. Um. He writes a new directive for the
Speaker 1: police that they're not allowed to use racial profiling, which
Speaker 1: of course, uh is bad um. When told of the
Speaker 1: new strictures, dozens of new of dozens of officers quit
Speaker 1: right away. Good riddance, Levin told the mayor, less pensions
Speaker 1: for you to pay. When Billy Barton walked into Levan's
Speaker 1: new office and slapped down a list of four hundred
Speaker 1: officers willing to quit over the new standards, Levin looked
Speaker 1: him dead in the eye. Well, he said, I suppose
Speaker 1: it can't be helped. Changed has casualties. The media viewed
Speaker 1: Levin's new standards is groundbreaking. Rachel sensitivity, they said, had
Speaker 1: never been used as an actual policing criterion. But nowhere
Speaker 1: was that criterion more necessary than Detroit. Had Rickie O'Sullivan
Speaker 1: been hot and held accountable under these standards, Levan said,
Speaker 1: Regina standing beside him, perhaps Kendrick would still be alive today.
Speaker 1: Showing attitude to police officers is something that Detroit cops
Speaker 1: should have understood had he been properly trained. Don't call
Speaker 1: our kids thugs just because you don't understand the experiences
Speaker 1: they've had growing up. They've seen cops pull over their
Speaker 1: dad's dragged them off to jail. We have an entire
Speaker 1: generation of missing men in our community. Sensitivity is the key. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's why hundreds of cops quit, which scans now,
Speaker 1: but Ben is framing all of this as as bad
Speaker 1: as bad. Remarkable about this yeah yeah, um, so he
Speaker 1: changes the rules that anyone convicted of a non violent
Speaker 1: felony could be considered to be a police officer. Um
Speaker 1: and yeah, which is also He's like, why why should
Speaker 1: having sold pot disqualify you from me? Exactly? Yeah? Um
Speaker 1: more cops resign at this. The final blow to the
Speaker 1: police enrollment standards came in the area of education. The
Speaker 1: standard for the department had always been a high school
Speaker 1: degree or equivalent. Now, with the applications pouring in, Levon
Speaker 1: had to face the fact that not enough applicants had
Speaker 1: graduated from high school. Many had dropped out. Again, he
Speaker 1: cited racial disparities and changing the policy, explaining that every
Speaker 1: trainee would be given remedial education necessary to do the job.
Speaker 1: How can you expect people to work their way up
Speaker 1: the ladder if we don't give them the chance to
Speaker 1: get on the first rung. He's just being very reasonable here,
Speaker 1: and also like, yeah, tons of police departments except G E.
Speaker 1: D S. It's not uncommon. Yes, like people who don't
Speaker 1: have the education provide free education to police officers. Sounds good.
Speaker 1: Hid violent felons make them racially sensitive. Yeah, this guy
Speaker 1: is the bad guy. Uh so he gets he gets
Speaker 1: a cover on time. And one of the things that's
Speaker 1: frustrating about this is there's no clear understanding of how
Speaker 1: much time is passing because Levan is completely remaking a
Speaker 1: major cities police department and he winds up on the
Speaker 1: cover of time is the new face of law? How
Speaker 1: is this happening so Fastically the mayor yeah, and I
Speaker 1: and then he's yeah, he said okay, but then at
Speaker 1: the end of it he says that this all happens
Speaker 1: within forty eight hours. No, uh, I mean if only. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was like it was boring reading like hearing about
Speaker 1: it because it was written in that way where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so this is like like you're just describing like a
Speaker 1: paragraph of month or something. Yeah, it's two days book.
Speaker 1: Makes How much do we have left of this book?
Speaker 1: The pace we are of the way through? Well, that's
Speaker 1: not enough. No, it's not painful, it's not Shall we
Speaker 1: save the rest for another day? Yeah? I think think
Speaker 1: one more episode in us, and I think next episode
Speaker 1: will finish this book and our next chapter will be bad.
Speaker 1: Oh thank god. But also the people in other scenes
Speaker 1: in other places, and yeah, it was literally anyone. Much
Speaker 1: like Ellen, I've missed bread Hawte. Whenever he's not talked
Speaker 1: about on the page, written about on the page, my
Speaker 1: heart aches from him not being on the page. And
Speaker 1: when his name is mentioned, my heart thumps faster because
Speaker 1: his name was mentioned and we miss him bread Hawthorn. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: this feels like a good spot to endit. Cody Plugables. Yeah, guys,
Speaker 1: chuck us out with our other show where You're ever
Speaker 1: and Cody even more news is the name of the
Speaker 1: podcasts and some more news his name of a show
Speaker 1: on YouTube that you can watch. Hell yeah, and our
Speaker 1: twitter's dr Mr Cody and Katie stole A crushed it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're at Bastard's pot on Twitter on Instagram. That's the end.
Speaker 1: That's the end of the episode. Take a bullet for
Speaker 1: your baby, bread all right,