WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 199 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:03.080 Also media. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:05.720 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.440 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.680 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.480 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.040 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.000 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.759 there's going to be nothing new here for you, But 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:24.520 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:29.639 What's up, y'alls. 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:33.360 Your favorite cousin again, prop is in the building? Yeah, 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.280 saying well in your earbuds or speakers, however the hell 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:41.120 you listen it is your favorite cousin is here. I 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:43.120 am going to assume that that is the truth, and 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:45.920 since you can't answer me, we just gonna go with that. 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:48.280 It's been a while since I tapped in with y'all. 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.479 I ruined your music festivals and then told you about 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:57.160 your municipalities and your waters. Somebody reached out to us, 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:00.360 who you know, gestures wildly. We have not been able 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:02.720 to get back to her, but about how she was 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:05.479 a part of an effort to non privatize the water 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.360 inside of her neighborhood and district and they won. So 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.920 shout out to you. We apologize if you've you know, 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.880 our job has not been boring since the start of 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:20.640 twenty twenty five. But today I'm gonna bring you some blackness, 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.480 some genuine blackness, and then some This has to be 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:26.000 a black conversation. 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.560 Because you might of facts are racist. 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:34.720 I have to approach it like this because crime has 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:40.200 become a color mute term in the era of Trump. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:45.000 It kind of always has been, but it's really obvious 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:51.560 now with the National Guard being unleashed onto the streets 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:55.680 of Washington, d C. There's some sort of clearly obvious 0:01:55.680 --> 0:02:01.320 conflation between the houseless population, poverty, crime black folks. Like, 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.080 it's all kind of like one thing with this food, 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:08.160 which is not rocket science for y'all, it's just you 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:10.000 know what he talking about. You know how I know 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.720 this how he thinks is because whenever he talks about 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:18.200 black people supporting him, he talks about criminal reform, because 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.480 apparently that's what all black people care about. Only just 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.239 like you know, when he say immigration, he mean Latino 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.360 and the whole not feeling safe is just because you know, 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.079 the crime that the houseless population of DC have is 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:31.760 being ill. 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.120 That's the crime because they No one has ever given me. 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:39.320 A legitimate reason as to why not having a place 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:40.200 to stay as a crime. 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.440 Hell, you know, Margaret kill. 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:46.919 Joined him have this whole joint about loitering and loitering 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:50.640 laws like truancies. Why I'm getting ahead of myself. The 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:55.520 point is the crime is that you exist. So today 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.799 I want to talk to y'all about something that y'all 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.640 already know, which is it's never. 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:02.359 Been about the crime. 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:03.799 All right. 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.760 Now, First of all, some stuff that don't matter. Y'all 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:09.360 still following Drake. I don't know if y'all like, Okay, 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.440 my crowd is following Drake. Let me stop making a 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.160 difference between us. But listen, so you know, Drake's suing 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.600 UMG and his label over you know, not like us, 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.720 and just proving that he's not like us anyway. The 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:26.120 new thing in this man's lawsuit he is he's the 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:29.239 man in UMG. Bring evidence over to push the teeth thing? 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:31.240 What do I mean by to push the teeth thing? 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.079 When push the t came at him, which we can 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.320 all agree if you in the rap, he won also 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.200 shout out the clips. So when you go back to 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.720 the push the teeth time, this is the back to 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:46.160 back and I'm charged up that time. He was like, Yo, 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.880 I'm gonna show y'all the emails, and y'all bring in 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.320 the emails from when you guys were suppressing Push the 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:56.120 T's stuff, when you guys were like making sure that 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:58.520 like it got copyright claimed and stuff getting off the 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.440 streamers and pulled down all this. Say, man, you helped 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:05.520 me suppress this man's music when Push the Tea came 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:08.840 after me, Why y'all don't do it with not like us, 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:15.040 which means your corny ass you just told on yourself. 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:17.320 Oh so Push It was right. 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.840 So what you're saying is in you trying to take 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:25.000 down Kendrick You done snitched on twenty eighteen? You right, Okay, 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:29.360 So because you had to label interfere with this battle fam. Now, 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.240 if you want to hear some more like real just 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.719 rapping ass rappers, there's this great battle that was going 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:40.080 on between Joey Badass and Ray Vaughn and then somehow 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.880 it became a triple with this dude named Daylight and 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:48.200 this other brother named Reason. These were some really really 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.800 dope bars. Now Absol got into the middle of it. 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.920 But now Apsol Rhapsody and Joey are going on tour, 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.400 which sucks because I'm on the same management team as 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:00.560 all of them and I ain't on that tour. I 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.400 wish I was, though it'd be a rap and rapping tour, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.640 But I definitely don't do the numbers they do anyway. Today, 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.960 you know, in light of like I said, the Feds 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:14.960 in DC, Trump keep claiming these emergency cases that gives 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.520 him these powers to do these different things. And as 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:22.600 a side note, remember when J six happened and he 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.120 was like, well, Nancy Pelosi should have called in the 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.560 National Guard. Shan't call in the passional Guard? What was 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.680 President Trump's supposed to do? Well, I would think what 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.080 He's doing now, because they used to say these same 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.840 people that was arguing that Trump ain't had a power 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.440 to stop it, meaning he didn't have the power to 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.599 call in the national Guard, are also praising him right 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.560 now for using his presidential power to call in the 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.559 National Guard. Boy, I tell you, racism make you dumb 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.200 as hell. But in light of this, despite all evidence 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:59.520 showing that the crime rate has dropped thirty percent in DC, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:04.560 this man still keeps talking about the crime wave and 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.159 the safety or the lack of safety that people feel 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:11.239 in DC. Now, I'm gonna let Bridget do a full 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.000 episode on really what's going on in Chocolate City? My 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.440 mama from DC. You know, my whole mama side of 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:20.159 the family still out there. So I used to spend 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.560 every other summer in DC. Now, don't get me wrong, 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:30.040 being down thirty percent is absolutely positive. But DC ain't safe. 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.000 Now it depends on what part you in. 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:35.320 See. That's the thing about crime statistics. 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:37.800 But before I get into crime statistics, I need to 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:39.080 talk about the concept of crime. 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:39.520 Period. 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.680 This will be no surprise to y'all because you listen 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:44.640 to Cools on media. 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:46.240 Crime is made up. 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:54.760 Now, criminal crime, I think it's very important to understand 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.320 that it is a social construct. Now what do I 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:03.560 mean by that? But on me is it's situational? Right, 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.520 How the same act can mean two different things. Now, 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:11.280 this is a conceptual thing that obviously our felt experience 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:12.800 is a little more real. 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:14.680 But let me give you an example. 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.640 Let a disaster hit, a hurricane, an earthquake, a flood. 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.400 If I go into that grocery store and get some bread, 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:27.480 am I looting or scavenging? Am I stealing or surviving. 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.960 And the answer is depends on what color you are. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.480 Crime is a social construct. Because if that's the case, 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:39.320 how is George Zimmerman still walking? Having said that, one 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.920 could take this argument and go super bonkers on it 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.640 and say the same thing about pedophilia, Like, who's to 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.840 say that what Epstein did is a crime? Because, like 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.160 you said, crime is a social construct. Here's my answer 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.200 to that, it's social because we live in a social 0:07:55.640 --> 0:08:00.520 souci it t fam. Although borders are made up, so 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.920 is money, and sow are driver's licenses. Of course, there's 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.920 no force field at the forty ninth parallel that separates 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:11.640 Canada from America. However, we have decided that before you 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.120 get behind the wheel of a car, you better have 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.360 passed some sort of examination for us to know that 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.440 you're safe enough to drive behind this You could physically 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:27.400 drive this car, but we live in a society that says, hey, homy, 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:28.560 I need you to make sure. 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:31.120 We need to have some sort of due diligence. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.040 We have decided, as a species that is self aware 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:39.319 that our children matter. 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:41.520 Their safety is important to us. 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.240 The person standing next to you has the right to exist, 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.480 whether you like that person or not. They have the 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:52.160 right to exist. You cannot hold them against they will. 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:57.240 That's heybeas corpus, apparently unbeknownst to Christy Nole, who clearly 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.560 don't know what hate be as corpus means as all 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.240 the time it what is criminal and what is lawful 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:08.000 is something that we've agreed upon in our social contract. Now, we, however, 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.160 live in a modern secular democracy, which says that we 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.000 have a say in what becomes laws or not so 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.200 and got to just lay down and let you just 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.200 call stuff a crime that ain't a crime or that 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.960 shouldn't be a crime. Now, speaking of what is and 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.679 isn't a crime, here's the thing. Black people have been 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:30.040 telling you the answer for a long time, specifically rappers. Okay, Now, 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:34.640 I saw a TikTok about this, and it's very irresponsible 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.640 of me that I can't remember the hommy's name and 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.600 I can't you know, you get the suggested, you know, 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:44.640 or yeah, just stuff pop in like before you I 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:49.160 cannot find brad Brush TikTok black Man, super brilliant. But 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:54.320 he reminded me of some lyrics that Freeway said that 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:58.640 captures the point of what we're trying to make I 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.000 love his dude's TikTok Man, God, I gotta find it. 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:02.960 Hopefully, Hopefully I'll find it and put it in the 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:03.520 show notes. 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.760 But Freeway's verse with a song with jay Z, says, 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.160 we still hustle till the sun come up. Crack a forty. 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.960 When the sun go down, it's a cold winter. Y'all, 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.320 niggas better bundle up. I bet it's a hot summer. 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.120 Grab an onion just to rock it down. You hot, 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.560 Now listen up, follow me. You don't know the cops 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:25.480 soul purposes to lock us down. 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:27.040 Throw away to key. 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.360 But without this drug shit, your kids ain't got no 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:32.280 way to eat. 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:33.120 Huh. 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.560 We still trying to keep mom smiling because when her 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:41.280 teeth stops showing and her stomach start growling, then the 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.800 heat start flowing. If you from my hood, you know 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:50.720 you feel me keep going, the sneaks start leaning and 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.560 the heat stop working, then my heat start working. 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.200 I'm gonna rob me a person. Okay, now listen. 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:03.439 These are the lyrics that Little Bruh quoted in his TikTok, 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.040 and the point he's making, which is the same point 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:11.880 I'm making, is that he's talking about the solutions to crime. 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.280 Like he said it right there, like I just want 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.120 my mom to smile. My kids don't have any other 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:20.959 way to eat. And then he says, when the heat 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.560 stopped working, then my heat start working. 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.000 I'm gonna rob me a person. It is resources. 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.480 But again, follow what this brud trying to tell you 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:39.439 is that you putting law enforcement in our neighborhoods doesn't 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.040 fix anything. Does you follow? Does what we're saying? He's like, no, 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.880 you just want to lock us up. That is not 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:52.760 solving the problem. The problem is I'm hungry, My mama's hungry, 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.720 my kids are hungry. My sneaks start leaning. What he's 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:58.920 talking about is this tennis shoes as sneakers, they're leaning. 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:00.880 You know, when you walk on your sneakers too much 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:02.360 in the back of your shoes in the back house, 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.880 start running around the side, then it start thinning out, 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.320 so it's like the back of your shoe just looks uneven. 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:09.719 That's when your sneaks are leaning. This is what he's 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.760 trying to say. My stomach is rumbling. Had we had 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.680 better funded schools, had we had more opportunities, He was like, 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.480 I'm robbing this person because there is no other option. 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:24.440 Now, are there other options? 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.320 Maybe, But if you gonna do the math, listen, this 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:32.520 is simple economics. If you want to make one thousand 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:38.760 dollars tonight because the rents do tomorrow, you go over 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.000 to Spanish Jose's house. Spanish Jose say, hey, listen, you 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:43.920 ain't got to do nothing. Just put this bag in 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.400 your back seat and drive the park slope, drop it 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.320 off a comeback. Or you can go work twenty dollars 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:56.120 an hour at McDonald's. Ain't no uncles with endowments and 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:58.680 check this out. Let me push you even further, even 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.360 if you are smarty autar, even if you're a smart one. 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.360 The government just told Harvard that they can't recruit in 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.200 my neighborhood even if I got the grades for it, 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:10.000 because that's woke shit. 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:11.840 So what you want? What the fuck you want me 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:12.120 to do? 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:16.000 Now here's the premise of what I'm talking about, which is, 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:18.720 we know the solutions. 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:20.400 It's never been about crime. 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:24.679 Okay, but let me talk about some folks, some black 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.200 folks who do care about the solution, who do care 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.679 about crime, Because if we're talking about crime in our 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.760 urban areas, who the fuck do you think the crimes 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.440 are against and see that's the part that makes me 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:36.920 so mad. 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:38.240 When I be talking to these people. 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.520 You think we don't care because who are these crimes 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:43.720 getting carried out against. 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.080 You think we happy to see all them police. 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.439 One would think if it worked, we would be happy 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:50.960 to see all these police in our streets. 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.320 But you know what, the shit don't help. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:55.880 Okay, what I'm gonna do in the rest of this 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:01.720 show is prove to y'all, based on decades of research, 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.560 what does reduce crime. 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:06.640 We're gonna link all the things in the bio. 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:08.120 I knew I had to come my a game if 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.480 I'm going on the cap and Year, because these some 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:13.760 of the smartest people like y'all. Listen, the people on 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:17.360 this show, y'all. Y'all is like real journalists. I'm just 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.360 a rapper that knows how to explain shit. So I 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.120 needed to make sure that I had my ducks in 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.360 a row. So I'm about to show y'all a trillion 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:31.360 examples of where if you really from these blocks, if 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:34.040 you really do care about the welfare of black people, 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.080 then maybe you should listen to black people. See and 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.480 let me bring in my trans community here because they 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.040 problem with you this to be honest with y'all, I'm 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.640 gonna be transparent, which this is part of what radicalized 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:50.520 me whilst really started to understand the trans experience is 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.400 because the shit they say about us is the shit 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:55.840 they say about you. 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.320 Your crime is we just don't like you around. 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:01.720 At the end of the day, all these laws against 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.960 trans people is really just because you just think they gross. 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.960 And so with us, it was just like you, like, 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:12.600 what is redlining, discriminatory practices in jobs? 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.960 You just don't want us around. What is white flight? 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:17.760 You just don't want us around? 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.360 And your justification of this is this made up ass 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.720 word name crime and that you care that crime matter. 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.920 But Nikki, you don't. Okay, I'm getting getting ahead of myself. 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:40.520 Let's take a break. All right, here we go. I've 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.760 calmed down. So the first thing you want to think 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.520 about is how crime is reported, right in the ways 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.800 for which it's reported, and then the geographical locations that 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:56.040 we're talking about. So when you say the crime in Washington, DC, 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:01.800 it's not like the crime happens in an even distributed thing, 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:07.040 like it's not all of DC. If you will, there's northeast, northwest, southeast, 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:13.640 south southeast and southwest now due to gentrification. Southeast which 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:18.479 is where Anacostia is and was at one time the 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:21.080 sort of mecha of just like Black DC of chocolate 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.040 cy Chocola Cy's, The whole city was chocolate forever. Like 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.080 I said, I noticed because I spent every other summer 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.360 there and my mama from there. But like Southeast, DC 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.320 is the last non gentrified area. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:33.880 Now do you. 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:38.720 Think it's thugs sitting on the National Monument sipping forty ounces? 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.600 No, you out there with the tourists sipping macha. 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:47.160 So in one sense is when you say crime has 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:52.880 dropped thirty percent, it's like thirty percent since when? 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:53.920 Okay? 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:59.280 And is it averaged across all of DC or are 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:03.320 you talking about in its areas where things like carjackings, 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.960 homicides and stuff like that happen right now? Remember what 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.119 I talked about a long time ago, at least on 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:14.119 my show. Hopefully y'all remember this that the crime rates 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:18.520 in America is always a weird situation because we don't 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.600 live in America. You live in your city, so maybe 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.080 it is going crazy in your own local neighborhoods, so 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:27.960 you feel like, damn this place is wild. Or maybe, 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.720 like I said, maybe you're in like Northwest Portland, you 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.920 know what I'm saying, Like you know over there off Gleason, 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.000 you feel me in like it's nice, you know what 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.359 I mean, Like you don't never see a single But 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.359 if you live over there in Chinatown next to Voodoo Donuts, Dog, 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.800 you seem like you walking over zombies. 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:44.320 I don't know. 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:49.000 What I'm trying to say is sometimes the statistics can 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:53.840 be deceiving. Now Granny and them who you know, bought 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.360 their house a long time ago. They see the graffiti 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.040 on the wall and they think, you know, YadA YadA, 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.840 the boys like loitering outside. How do you fix it? Well, 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:08.879 allow me to introduce it to Philadelphia, which coincidentally is 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:10.040 where Freeway is from. 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.159 So the data is pretty clear, you know. 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:17.040 If you look at the Violent Crime Reduction Report, it's 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:19.080 literally it's at the Department of Justice. 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:21.159 You can read it yourself. 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:26.480 It tells you exactly what has worked to drop homicide, 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.560 violent crime, carjacking, theft. 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.200 It tells you what has worked what has not worked. 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.200 A simple google right. 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.119 And the intro of this is this is a violent 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.720 crime reduction between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty five, 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:45.560 and it says for the past three years, the Justice 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:50.320 Department has been executing comprehensive strategies to reduce violent crime 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:57.359 rooted in local communities, and we're seeing trends in the 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.679 form of crimes being prevented and live saved. According to 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.600 available data from twenty twenty three, murder, rape, robbery, and 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:10.560 aggregated assault is in a considerable decline and nearly ninety 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.439 major cities across the country violent crime has continued to 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:18.240 drop during the last six months of this year compared 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.359 to the same period last year, including a seventeen percent 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:27.040 decreasing homicides. This is the Deputy Attorney General Monkyo on 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:32.320 September seventeenth, twenty twenty four. Now, to keep it very 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:36.200 real again, violent crime rates being up and down are 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:37.440 obviously relative. 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:38.200 Now. 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.639 One thing was, well, we were in a pandemic, so 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:46.760 there's that, right. Another thing is it's almost like how 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:49.399 everybody was complaining again that crime was up. It is 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:53.760 like y'all forgot the nineties existed, like I'd lived it, 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:58.959 and baby, this ain't nothing, you know, the actual fear 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:06.520 of pain and suffering. This pales in comparison we live 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:09.800 in a great place in relation to what we went 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.920 through in the eighties and nineties. Now again we're talking 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:19.600 national trends right again in your local neighborhood. 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.880 It may be a green light afvenent. I don't know. 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:23.880 I'm just saying for you to. 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.320 Say that our country's becoming a cesspool means you not 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:32.680 reading the data. According to the Conversation, it's like independent journalist. 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:37.119 This author, her name is Katerina g Roman. She's a 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.159 professor of criminal justice at Temple University and as a 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:44.199 side note, at Temple University, Mahomie Timothy, he's teaching a 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:45.560 class on Kendrick. 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.920 Lamar and his lyrics and hip hop and justice. 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:49.720 I actually spoke at his class a couple of times, 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:51.720 so that was pretty dope to hear what he's doing. 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:53.440 But now check this out. 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.680 According to her writing, it says that the Pennsylvania spends 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:02.280 roughly two hundred thousand dollars a year for each juvenile 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.800 it incarcerates. According to the twenty twenty one report from 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:11.159 a bipartisan Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice Track Force, that's fifty times 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:15.400 the cost to deliver evidence based family therapy that would 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.399 prevent kids from going into the justice system in the 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:20.880 first place. I'm gonna tell you before I even read 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:23.760 the rest of this, because I lived it. We just 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:27.679 be bored. It ain't nothing to do. There are no opportunities. 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.600 When the heat stopped working, then my heat start working. 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.720 In Philadelphia, juvenile incarceration involves the confinement in City ran 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:40.639 Philadelphia Juvenile Services and other residential placements facilities. Young people 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:44.520 leave these facilities with lower chances of graduating high school, 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:49.119 freed mental health, and the higher likelihood of re arrest 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:50.080 or being shot. 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:53.480 Can I again, please speak from my own experience. 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.800 When you go into these juveniles cases, you have to 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:59.679 pick a location of people that you would be You'll 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.800 pretend even if you don't run with them, even if 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:04.800 you don't know them niggas outside of here. When y'all 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.439 get outside, y'all may never have talked again. But in here, 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:10.280 even if you went in there over some stupid like 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:13.360 shoplift and some damn spray paint, whatever the case may be, 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.080 you now got to run with the people that got 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.000 your same skin tone and are from your part of town. 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:22.960 You have to kids don't go in being members of gangs. 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.040 You have to join one to stay alive. Now check 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:30.720 this out. When you get out. Part of the terms 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:36.040 of your probation is you can't be around certain criminal 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:40.840 festivities or activities or people with criminal records. 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:41.800 Where you're gonna go. 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:45.960 If I just happen to live on sixtieth Street next 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.760 to my uncle, I just live here. You mess around, 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:52.600 go visit your granny house and then got a report 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:56.760 to your PO. You've been fragnized with known gang members. 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:00.280 You're probably going back. The shit don't work, y'all. But 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:01.920 what does now? 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:02.919 Again? 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:06.040 Back to this article, drawing from about thirty five years 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:08.280 of work in Philadelphia and other cities to understand what 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:12.000 makes neighborhoods safe for I believe the surist returns home 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:15.480 from prevention strategies aimed at young people who are not 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:20.080 yet immersed in robbery, shootings and gun activities. So they 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:23.080 give some examples of the things that they've done. First 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:27.400 of it is a school based case management In Barthrom 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:30.439 High now in southwest Philly, John Bartram High Schools has 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:34.280 a youth violence reduction initiative that launched in twenty twenty three. 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:39.000 It was designed by former school safety chief in Philadelphia 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:44.480 now Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, School Safety Offer Programs 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:50.400 Manager Ken Rosa, and criminal justice researcher Brandy Blasco and. 0:23:50.400 --> 0:23:51.919 This person that wrote the article. 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:55.440 Students who have been involved in fights or show other 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.520 risk factors of violence and street gang involvements are referred 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:02.600 to this pro The initiative's core idea is simple, earn 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:06.440 students trust through consistent, credible mentorship, and step in when needy. 0:24:06.840 --> 0:24:13.320 Stepping in means teaching conflict resolution skills, running engaging workshops, 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:16.480 buying a meal, intervening when a fight is brewing or 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:19.399 a student is on the verge of being expelled. Each week, 0:24:19.520 --> 0:24:23.960 a team of administrators, counselors, school safety officers, and community 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:27.840 outreach workers, most of whom are based in the school, 0:24:28.280 --> 0:24:33.200 review the participants progress tracks, follow through referrals, and coordinate 0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:38.919 communication with family, school and staff. This is a tightly managed, 0:24:39.400 --> 0:24:44.159 relationship driven safety net that gives students quicker access to 0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:49.440 help make school climates calmer and safer. This seems so obvious. 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:51.440 You just need somebody you trust. 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:54.360 Listen. One of the things even. 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:57.440 In my own house, my own life, was I knew 0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:01.280 my neighbors and my neighbors knew me, and if they 0:25:01.320 --> 0:25:04.400 call me outside standing with the wrong people, I knew 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:10.120 they was gonna tell mama. Sometimes, since they're teenagers, they 0:25:10.160 --> 0:25:14.040 don't have conflict resolution skills. All they know is to 0:25:14.080 --> 0:25:17.800 pop off. You ever been angry, You don't think kids 0:25:17.840 --> 0:25:20.680 be angry. Your teacher in there asking you about your 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:23.359 algebra homework, your stomach rumbling. I ain't got shit to 0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:25.960 say to her because I'm hungry. And sometimes it's just 0:25:26.000 --> 0:25:29.520 the meal. Sometimes it's just knowing somebody cares. Sometimes it's 0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:32.600 just you feel like I know. I've experienced it too. 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:34.439 I feel like it's not even they ain't even know no 0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:37.960 reason to explain my position to you, because you're not 0:25:38.040 --> 0:25:40.639 gonna believe me, or you just gonna call the police. 0:25:41.440 --> 0:25:42.240 I taught a kid. 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:44.639 I've said this story so many times, who used to 0:25:44.680 --> 0:25:47.399 show up late in class? When I used to teach, 0:25:47.680 --> 0:25:50.480 you show up late in class maybe three to four 0:25:50.520 --> 0:25:52.800 times a week, always had his homework in his hand. 0:25:53.200 --> 0:25:55.080 You've tarty that many times were supposed to call a 0:25:55.119 --> 0:25:57.280 truancy officer. Ain't no way in the world I'm calling 0:25:57.280 --> 0:26:00.800 a truancy officer because that mean they Mama gonna have 0:26:00.840 --> 0:26:03.480 to pay a twenty five hundred dollar fee number one 0:26:03.560 --> 0:26:08.159 and number two. Now he got a record. All I did, guys, 0:26:08.840 --> 0:26:11.800 I just asked him, why are you late every day? 0:26:12.280 --> 0:26:16.119 He say, because he trusts me. My daddy'd be drinking 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:17.800 too much a night, so he can't get up and 0:26:17.840 --> 0:26:21.840 take us to school. So I take my brother to 0:26:21.920 --> 0:26:25.160 school first and then come here. 0:26:26.200 --> 0:26:28.480 And this is just the time I get here. I 0:26:28.600 --> 0:26:29.359 never marked him. 0:26:29.240 --> 0:26:33.840 Thwarty, since all you do is ask, right, which leads 0:26:33.840 --> 0:26:37.920 me to the second thing, the power of credible caring adults. 0:26:38.320 --> 0:26:41.320 It's real simple. You got people that care, you got 0:26:41.359 --> 0:26:44.840 food programs. All right, let me nerd it up again. 0:26:45.240 --> 0:26:45.600 Now. 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:50.040 According to the Youth Justice Services, Relationships, Rehabilitation, and the 0:26:50.080 --> 0:26:55.600 Reality of Young People Involved a metasynthesis of qualitative literature. 0:26:56.520 --> 0:27:03.040 This is a scholarly literature review dude results that says 0:27:03.080 --> 0:27:11.119 that just having an adult who you know cares, just 0:27:11.160 --> 0:27:17.960 having one that cared, changes significantly the chances of a 0:27:18.000 --> 0:27:19.640 student getting into a life of crime. 0:27:19.840 --> 0:27:21.640 But just knowing somebody care. 0:27:22.680 --> 0:27:24.959 I'm going to link in it again into these show notes, 0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:27.560 all of the data, all the stuff I've been looking at, 0:27:27.560 --> 0:27:29.840 so you can check it out yourself. I know, it 0:27:29.880 --> 0:27:33.160 seems like a gross oversimplification by the way that I'm 0:27:33.160 --> 0:27:34.080 just saying it right now. 0:27:34.240 --> 0:27:36.080 Usually you know what I'm saying. We was doing the 0:27:36.640 --> 0:27:37.640 it can happen here thing. 0:27:37.680 --> 0:27:39.439 I gotta be able to read this stuff out to you, 0:27:39.960 --> 0:27:42.240 but I can read a part of it. 0:27:42.240 --> 0:27:45.919 It says that that the themes. 0:27:45.560 --> 0:27:48.600 That broke out after interviewing one hundred and fifty kids 0:27:48.960 --> 0:27:52.879 is that young people reported first being pessimistic about entering 0:27:52.920 --> 0:27:57.000 these services, and their past experiences impacted their ability to 0:27:57.080 --> 0:27:58.840 trust and were initially. 0:27:58.400 --> 0:28:01.959 Cautious of professionals. But watch this. 0:28:02.760 --> 0:28:05.720 These were the themes and sub themes they felt valued 0:28:05.800 --> 0:28:09.280 and finding worth within their system. The reciprocal nature of 0:28:09.400 --> 0:28:13.399 understanding and respect these kids felt respected, the importance of 0:28:13.440 --> 0:28:16.960 having one good person, creating a secure base for expiration 0:28:17.080 --> 0:28:21.760 and development, and then showing a genuine care by going 0:28:21.840 --> 0:28:22.800 above and beyond. 0:28:22.880 --> 0:28:24.080 So basically, just. 0:28:24.160 --> 0:28:34.960 Be kind and it helps a student sixsed. 0:28:35.600 --> 0:28:37.400 Ain't that crazy? 0:28:37.880 --> 0:28:40.680 But at the end of the day, homicides in Philadelphia 0:28:40.720 --> 0:28:43.320 at the lowest level they've been in twenty five years. 0:28:44.040 --> 0:28:48.920 How it's long time and it takes effort. But next 0:28:48.960 --> 0:28:52.920 I want to talk about who the city of Baltimore. 0:28:53.440 --> 0:28:56.640 What is new? Mayor up there cooking? All right? 0:28:57.040 --> 0:28:57.360 Next? 0:29:08.120 --> 0:29:10.800 All right, we bike. Now Baltimore. 0:29:11.160 --> 0:29:13.240 I don't know if you know this, which I love 0:29:13.280 --> 0:29:15.560 about it, and of course you probably don't know about it. 0:29:15.480 --> 0:29:17.920 Because a black man did this. 0:29:18.440 --> 0:29:23.800 Baltimore's homicide rate has fallen forty percent. Now, Baltimore, you 0:29:23.880 --> 0:29:26.880 understand this is where the wire took place. Don't get 0:29:26.920 --> 0:29:31.960 me wrong about Baltimore. Baltimore active murder capital of a dog. 0:29:32.000 --> 0:29:37.719 Oh listen, Baltimore was active now. According to the Guardian, 0:29:37.800 --> 0:29:40.320 violent crime in America's big cities has been receiving since 0:29:40.320 --> 0:29:43.480 the pandemic for about two years, but even in comparisons 0:29:43.520 --> 0:29:48.960 Baltimore improvement is breathtaking. Fewer people have been killed in 0:29:49.040 --> 0:29:51.560 the city over the last seven months than any other 0:29:51.640 --> 0:29:56.360 particular period for fifty years. Here's the funny part. Mississippi 0:29:56.360 --> 0:30:00.080 talking about sending a National Guard up to DC. Do 0:30:00.120 --> 0:30:05.440 you help with the crime in DC? Meanwhile, Jackson, Mississippi, 0:30:05.440 --> 0:30:09.080 got a higher murder rate than DC. Right now, y'all, people, 0:30:09.200 --> 0:30:13.240 is weird. It's never been about crime. Now, back to Guardian. 0:30:13.840 --> 0:30:16.760 As of fifteen August, the running three hundred and sixty 0:30:16.760 --> 0:30:19.320 five day total for murders in Baltimore stood at one. 0:30:19.320 --> 0:30:20.840 Hundred and sixty five dead. 0:30:21.040 --> 0:30:23.520 Assuming the city remains at this pace, the murder rate 0:30:23.560 --> 0:30:28.640 will finish below thirty per ten thousand residents for the 0:30:28.680 --> 0:30:33.520 first time since nineteen eighty six. If it remains on 0:30:33.640 --> 0:30:37.640 pace since the first of January, it would have finished 0:30:37.640 --> 0:30:40.400 twenty twenty five at one hundred and forty three murders, 0:30:40.920 --> 0:30:43.200 a rate of about twenty five per one hundred thousand, 0:30:43.440 --> 0:30:47.640 the last scene in Baltimore since nineteen seventy eight. 0:30:48.640 --> 0:30:49.560 Now check this out. 0:30:49.680 --> 0:30:52.440 Y'all may not remember this, but y'all remember Freddie Gray, 0:30:52.880 --> 0:30:56.040 the boy that got killed in the back of the 0:30:56.080 --> 0:30:57.840 police holding tank. 0:30:58.360 --> 0:31:00.920 See, that's what happens when you just bring into a place. 0:31:01.280 --> 0:31:03.960 It ain't about the crime though, back to the Guardian, 0:31:04.760 --> 0:31:07.640 since twenty fifteen, there has been here in Baltimore, this 0:31:07.680 --> 0:31:11.880 acknowledgment that the equity needs to be the priority. 0:31:12.240 --> 0:31:12.520 Right. 0:31:12.640 --> 0:31:16.520 Mayor Brown said the riots were as much about the 0:31:16.600 --> 0:31:19.960 conditions of poverty as it was about Gray's death. I 0:31:20.000 --> 0:31:23.680 hope you hearing that people losing their homes and foreclosures 0:31:23.720 --> 0:31:29.240 to water bills, for example, as they were about police brutality. 0:31:29.880 --> 0:31:32.520 But the heavy handed response to the cops to the protests, 0:31:32.520 --> 0:31:37.920 failed to hold the police accountable for misconduct, right, viscerating 0:31:38.000 --> 0:31:41.640 the relationship between the Baltimore police and the public. Baltimore 0:31:41.680 --> 0:31:45.640 State Attorney Marion Moseley laid murder. 0:31:45.440 --> 0:31:47.480 Charges on the officers. 0:31:46.880 --> 0:31:51.000 Involved in Baltimore's police union, closed ranks and response, eviscerating 0:31:51.000 --> 0:31:55.600 the relationship between the police and politicians, and serious scandals 0:31:55.760 --> 0:31:58.840 at the city Hall and the state's attorney offers, and 0:31:59.200 --> 0:32:03.440 the failure of Moseley's charges to result in convictions. 0:32:03.920 --> 0:32:04.880 Violence skyrocket. 0:32:06.440 --> 0:32:11.120 Here come this young brother, Brandon Scott, young black man. Right, 0:32:11.720 --> 0:32:14.120 he's a former city council member. Right, he's been a 0:32:14.160 --> 0:32:16.280 long observer of the violence, you know what I'm saying. 0:32:16.440 --> 0:32:19.320 And before he became the mayor in twenty twenty, then 0:32:19.760 --> 0:32:25.720 he implemented what he's calling a comprehensive three pillar approach. 0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:26.680 Right. 0:32:27.240 --> 0:32:31.200 The first pillar is called public health approach to violence. Right. 0:32:31.440 --> 0:32:35.560 The second pillar is community engagement and interagency coordination. 0:32:36.240 --> 0:32:39.400 Right. The third pillar is evaluation and accountability. 0:32:39.760 --> 0:32:39.960 Right. 0:32:40.280 --> 0:32:43.000 So, like I said in the beginning, it starts with 0:32:43.560 --> 0:32:47.440 the community, all right. So check this out again from 0:32:47.440 --> 0:32:50.640 The Guardian against Baltimore's police budget topping a half a 0:32:50.720 --> 0:32:53.600 billion dollars, the largest police budget per capital of any 0:32:53.680 --> 0:32:56.760 large city in the USA. The political establishment gave its 0:32:56.840 --> 0:33:01.040 new millennial mayor room to experiment with fifty million dollars 0:33:01.040 --> 0:33:04.400 of Washington's money. So they took that budget that was 0:33:05.040 --> 0:33:08.360 a half a billion, gave him fifty million, right, And 0:33:08.400 --> 0:33:10.840 since Trust was like solo, the first step was to 0:33:10.840 --> 0:33:14.160 get everybody aboard. So he took that money the cops, 0:33:14.160 --> 0:33:17.120 the hospitals, the jails, the school the social services, the 0:33:17.160 --> 0:33:20.160 state Department, the Feds, and he appointed this dude named 0:33:20.200 --> 0:33:23.120 Richard Worley Oh who is the city police commissioner in 0:33:23.200 --> 0:33:27.480 June twenty twenty three. Wesley was a lifelong Baltimore officer, 0:33:27.600 --> 0:33:31.080 picked in part to bring the rank and file in 0:33:31.240 --> 0:33:36.120 line with Scott's anti violence program. Scott emphasizes partnerships as 0:33:36.120 --> 0:33:39.520 an important part of the process. Now, he took other 0:33:39.560 --> 0:33:42.760 federal grants, and he gave the money to the people 0:33:42.760 --> 0:33:44.240 that actually do the services. 0:33:45.240 --> 0:33:46.600 He ain't just keeping for them. 0:33:46.920 --> 0:33:49.760 Now here's the thing cuts my mouth to say it, 0:33:49.800 --> 0:33:51.720 But if you are going to stop violence in the 0:33:51.760 --> 0:33:54.680 situation that we live in, the cops got to be involved. 0:33:55.040 --> 0:33:57.400 Because most of the time, the cops are the problem. 0:33:57.800 --> 0:34:03.240 It's always punishment in prison with them. They only come 0:34:03.360 --> 0:34:06.600 with a stick when something already happened. So you got 0:34:06.600 --> 0:34:08.000 to get them on the table, and you got to 0:34:08.040 --> 0:34:11.080 get them at the table with somebody that's gonna be 0:34:11.120 --> 0:34:12.600 willing to be held accountable. 0:34:12.640 --> 0:34:13.960 And remember that's pillar three. 0:34:14.239 --> 0:34:16.879 Now now far being for me because I don't live 0:34:16.880 --> 0:34:17.440 in Baltimore. 0:34:17.480 --> 0:34:19.279 Would I ever shill for no mayor like this. 0:34:19.680 --> 0:34:22.040 I'm just telling you what the data say is and 0:34:22.520 --> 0:34:26.200 I got family in Baltimore. Now, what Scott said is 0:34:26.320 --> 0:34:30.239 again we focus on the individuals and groups that are 0:34:30.239 --> 0:34:33.320 most likely to be the victim or perpetuator of violence. 0:34:33.640 --> 0:34:37.200 We go to them. Listen, they knock on doors. 0:34:37.640 --> 0:34:41.160 There's a social worker that comes to the door with 0:34:41.280 --> 0:34:45.640 a letter from the mayor that says, yo, you're trying 0:34:45.640 --> 0:34:48.240 to be a part of this, and they're only targeting kids, 0:34:48.640 --> 0:34:52.120 are families that they know got low poverty rates and 0:34:52.200 --> 0:34:54.719 high chances of crime. You looking for the people who 0:34:55.000 --> 0:34:58.920 are most likely gonna fall a victim, to perpetuating it 0:34:59.440 --> 0:35:01.839 or receive you get because remember how we started this 0:35:01.880 --> 0:35:04.320 whole thing before you think we don't care about crime, 0:35:04.640 --> 0:35:07.720 we're the ones that's happening too, so, he says. Quote 0:35:07.880 --> 0:35:13.200 Curtis Palomero, who runs the youth violence prevention nonprofit RAKKA 0:35:13.280 --> 0:35:16.279 in Baltimore, says, we're talking about young people with the 0:35:16.320 --> 0:35:19.000 elevated risk. We're not talking about the young person that 0:35:19.040 --> 0:35:21.279 says FU to his teacher or tells his mom and 0:35:21.680 --> 0:35:23.400 dad or grandpa he don't want to do X y Z. 0:35:23.560 --> 0:35:26.480 We're talking about kids who have literally probably have two tracks, 0:35:26.840 --> 0:35:29.239 jail and death. He knocks on the door while the 0:35:29.320 --> 0:35:32.320 cop is carrying met the mayor's letter, and as often 0:35:32.360 --> 0:35:35.080 as not he has to knock on a dozen doors 0:35:35.120 --> 0:35:38.520 before he gets a chance. Why cause niggas don't trust 0:35:38.520 --> 0:35:44.000 the cops right, Why would they? But since there's no 0:35:44.160 --> 0:35:48.600 single thing that is preventative, trust must be built. Right 0:35:49.640 --> 0:35:51.440 moving on in this article, there are two types of 0:35:51.440 --> 0:35:53.880 people that are most vulnerable, nasays, the people in their 0:35:53.920 --> 0:35:57.279 early twenties who are feuding over trivial matters someone looked 0:35:57.280 --> 0:36:00.440 at me wrong, somebody bumped in as somebody right, or 0:36:00.480 --> 0:36:03.200 other people who are in the drug game more around. 0:36:03.800 --> 0:36:06.879 The violence that has to do with other criminal enterprises 0:36:07.400 --> 0:36:11.520 are so much more calculated. Critically, it's not every young 0:36:11.600 --> 0:36:16.360 person with Instagram beef, and not every stand down neighborhood 0:36:16.360 --> 0:36:19.400 street dealer that rises to their attention. The risk factors 0:36:19.719 --> 0:36:25.560 creates a reasonable, articulatable, illegally defensible basis for contact, which 0:36:25.600 --> 0:36:28.120 means you're not being hunted by the cops. 0:36:28.400 --> 0:36:30.719 Do you understand the piece I would have felt hit. 0:36:30.800 --> 0:36:32.960 I known that since I wasn't involved in none of 0:36:32.960 --> 0:36:34.960 this shit, they may not be coming up to me. 0:36:35.400 --> 0:36:39.760 You've already calmed my nervous system down right. There's another 0:36:39.800 --> 0:36:42.960 story about a young man who was recovering after a 0:36:43.000 --> 0:36:46.680 gunshot and in this life coach Nigga from a youth 0:36:46.760 --> 0:36:50.520 advocate program approached him and Jalen said, this is This 0:36:50.600 --> 0:36:52.839 man said, he just had been in the wrong part 0:36:52.840 --> 0:36:55.040 of West Baltimore at the wrong time. Now, most of 0:36:55.120 --> 0:36:58.040 us who grew up like this, that's true. He wasn't 0:36:58.160 --> 0:37:01.279 especially receptive to this first life life coach at all. 0:37:01.320 --> 0:37:02.720 He said, I thought there was a catch. 0:37:03.120 --> 0:37:05.360 I thought I'd have to pay them back in the future, 0:37:05.440 --> 0:37:07.640 because when the police do it to you, that's exactly 0:37:07.640 --> 0:37:08.120 what it is. 0:37:08.320 --> 0:37:09.640 You got to pay them back later. 0:37:10.080 --> 0:37:14.080 But this person is funded by the city to just 0:37:14.160 --> 0:37:16.680 be a life coach, I ain't asking you to snitch 0:37:16.719 --> 0:37:19.279 on nobody. I ain't asking you to make yourself put 0:37:19.320 --> 0:37:23.080 yourself in danger. Outside is somebody who understands what it's 0:37:23.160 --> 0:37:26.160 like to live out here. This life coach says, it's 0:37:26.200 --> 0:37:29.839 about follow up. Today, they might say get the fuck 0:37:29.840 --> 0:37:32.239 out of here tomorrow. They might be wanting some services. 0:37:32.640 --> 0:37:35.200 It might be something tragic that happens and they need change. 0:37:35.239 --> 0:37:38.480 Like I said, my mother's not smiling no more. I 0:37:38.560 --> 0:37:41.319 need a way to pay my mama's life bill. Can 0:37:41.360 --> 0:37:45.359 you help me with that? Here's what's crazy. Yes, I 0:37:45.360 --> 0:37:48.600 can help you with that. We have services. Why because 0:37:48.640 --> 0:37:52.840 I'm talking to the other departments. Right on the law side, 0:37:53.239 --> 0:37:59.200 here's the prevention. They dismissed thirty four percent of non 0:37:59.320 --> 0:38:04.480 violent charge. I was a non violet offender. It was graffiti. 0:38:06.120 --> 0:38:08.080 Just make me pay the fine, Like it's fine. I 0:38:08.080 --> 0:38:11.080 gotta pay the fine. I don't care. Right, you have 0:38:11.239 --> 0:38:13.320 like a nickel bag of weed in your pocket. You 0:38:13.440 --> 0:38:16.479 looking at five years. The shit is not working. That's 0:38:16.520 --> 0:38:19.279 over policing. But if the district attorney look at you 0:38:19.320 --> 0:38:21.960 and say, nigga's some weed man, get the fuck out 0:38:21.960 --> 0:38:23.960 of here. Go take care of your mama. Matter of fact, 0:38:24.000 --> 0:38:25.600 I want you to talk to this brother over here. 0:38:25.600 --> 0:38:28.000 You're gonna help get your plumber's license. Oh so there's 0:38:28.120 --> 0:38:35.240 job placement, right. There's all that, and then finally evaluation. Listen, 0:38:35.960 --> 0:38:39.759 you got a carrying adult, you got services available to you, 0:38:40.320 --> 0:38:43.680 and you know if somebody in this program, if any 0:38:43.719 --> 0:38:46.279 of these law enforcement, these city people act the fuck up, 0:38:46.400 --> 0:38:47.760 there are consequences. 0:38:48.040 --> 0:38:50.600 That is pillar three. I'm gonna link all this stuff 0:38:50.640 --> 0:38:51.000 to you. 0:38:51.040 --> 0:38:54.800 There's a four year evaluation, and you will get fucking fired. 0:38:55.120 --> 0:38:58.359 If I know that if you treat me right, something 0:38:58.400 --> 0:39:01.280 gonna happen to you. I might think a little. Listen, 0:39:02.000 --> 0:39:05.319 the heat stopped working, so my heat start working. But 0:39:05.400 --> 0:39:09.560 if my stomach is full, and the bills are paid, 0:39:10.160 --> 0:39:12.680 and there's after school programs that go to and I 0:39:12.800 --> 0:39:15.080 know these old people around me are gonna trust me 0:39:15.160 --> 0:39:18.120 when I tell them stuff. When I'm dealing with situations 0:39:18.400 --> 0:39:21.200 that may or may not be out of my control, 0:39:21.560 --> 0:39:23.520 when I got big homies pressing me to do this, 0:39:23.640 --> 0:39:25.399 and there's somebody I could trust that I could talk 0:39:25.440 --> 0:39:28.319 to that's not gonna turn me into a snitch, because 0:39:28.360 --> 0:39:30.799 you ain't telling the cops just to get them to 0:39:30.880 --> 0:39:33.520 give me information about a crime that happened over there. 0:39:33.560 --> 0:39:35.640 That's not what's happening right now. You are trying to 0:39:35.680 --> 0:39:38.960 prevent the violence. You're not trying to catch a criminal. 0:39:39.280 --> 0:39:42.359 You're trying to prevent criminality, and it's at a fifty 0:39:42.440 --> 0:39:46.080 year low. But sure, go and send the National Guard. 0:39:47.360 --> 0:39:52.560 Now listen. Obviously this ain't the system. I won't, but 0:39:52.600 --> 0:39:54.080 it's the system we got. 0:39:54.239 --> 0:39:55.400 This is not ideal. 0:39:55.840 --> 0:39:59.400 You would never see me shill for no police department 0:40:00.320 --> 0:40:07.040 or mayor, but cities like Philly in Baltimore are proven. Nigga, 0:40:07.120 --> 0:40:11.400 if you just care and you spend money on trusted 0:40:11.480 --> 0:40:19.000 sources and provide resources, the crime it drops itself. Seems 0:40:19.000 --> 0:40:23.120 so simple. But you know what do we know? We're 0:40:23.160 --> 0:40:26.080 just black people and all this tells me what we 0:40:26.239 --> 0:40:30.080 already knew. It was never about crime, ever, because there's 0:40:30.160 --> 0:40:33.760 research that shows what actually works in reducing crime. 0:40:34.120 --> 0:40:39.399 What this about? You just think we're you and you're 0:40:39.400 --> 0:40:40.239 a white supremacist. 0:40:40.239 --> 0:40:41.600 You just want a white world and you think it's 0:40:41.640 --> 0:40:43.400 cool to have military in our streets. 0:40:43.640 --> 0:40:47.120 Don't get me wrong, you didn't invent that. You was 0:40:47.160 --> 0:40:47.640 in Trump. 0:40:48.120 --> 0:40:50.760 You know how I know you ain't invent that because 0:40:50.800 --> 0:40:53.360 there's an amendment in the Constitution. 0:40:55.239 --> 0:40:56.839 That says that we don't want to. 0:40:56.840 --> 0:41:00.920 Live in a world where the military is on every corner, 0:41:01.280 --> 0:41:02.400 but apparently you do. 0:41:03.480 --> 0:41:05.240 It's clearly not about crime. 0:41:26.000 --> 0:41:28.719 Welcome to it could happen here a podcast about a 0:41:28.719 --> 0:41:32.279 world on fire and how to put it out. I'm 0:41:32.280 --> 0:41:37.440 your host, Nia Wong. The world is fucked. It's the 0:41:37.480 --> 0:41:41.279 one thing everyone agrees on in the vacuum of a 0:41:41.320 --> 0:41:45.799 defeated Democratic Party and a hideously unpopular fascist takeover that 0:41:45.880 --> 0:41:50.320 is nevertheless on the march ideologies VI for the mantle 0:41:50.360 --> 0:41:54.520 of resistance to the fascist purge, Sir on mom Donnie's 0:41:54.560 --> 0:41:58.319 victory in New York represents a resurgent social democracy in 0:41:58.400 --> 0:42:02.040 the streets. Everyone from the roles to communists to anarchists 0:42:02.080 --> 0:42:06.040 are fighting against ice and the National Guard occupations. To 0:42:06.080 --> 0:42:10.160 get our bearings in the swirling vortex of ideology, let 0:42:10.239 --> 0:42:13.280 us check in slightly further to the right, but still 0:42:13.320 --> 0:42:16.480 firmly in the grounds of liberalism, on a new movement 0:42:16.920 --> 0:42:22.920 called abundance. What is abundance? Brust into Prominence by a 0:42:22.960 --> 0:42:27.719 book in March twenty twenty five simply called Abundance by 0:42:27.800 --> 0:42:32.640 liberal stalwart Asracline and Derek Thompson, who was well known 0:42:33.440 --> 0:42:37.120 futures people like Matthew and Glycias. They argue that growth 0:42:37.200 --> 0:42:40.160 is good. They argue we should make more things. They 0:42:40.280 --> 0:42:42.600 argue we should have bold visions of the future with 0:42:42.960 --> 0:42:46.720 to quote Malcolm Harris's description in The Baffler, desalinated ocean 0:42:46.760 --> 0:42:51.120 water flowing from the taps, skyscraper farms, growing our food indoors, 0:42:51.560 --> 0:42:56.440 and quote star pills manufactured in space, clean air, and 0:42:56.719 --> 0:43:01.759 super fast planes. Think big, think fastest, solve problems by 0:43:01.800 --> 0:43:05.680 building more. They even have a new magazine run off 0:43:05.680 --> 0:43:09.279 of Substack called The Argument, which is supposed to be 0:43:09.400 --> 0:43:13.280 about bringing these new ideas to the left. It includes 0:43:13.640 --> 0:43:18.840 Social Democratic stalwart Matt Prunek Isn't that nice? Semaphore, and 0:43:18.920 --> 0:43:22.000 the reporting on the launch of The Argument wrote, quote 0:43:22.400 --> 0:43:25.839 many of The Argument's writers have supported or, in Thompson's case, 0:43:25.920 --> 0:43:29.680 authored The Ideas of Abundance, a recent book advocating for 0:43:29.760 --> 0:43:33.640 reforms to improve government deficiency, lower the cost of housing, 0:43:34.000 --> 0:43:38.399 and improve public transportation, among other initiatives. And those sound 0:43:38.480 --> 0:43:41.239 like good things, don't they. Let's take a look at 0:43:41.280 --> 0:43:46.759 who's funding The Argument. It's funded in part by Emergent Ventures, 0:43:47.280 --> 0:43:51.480 which was created by the Coke Brothers work can'tas Center 0:43:51.640 --> 0:43:56.319 with seed money from Peter Keel Wait what they have 0:43:56.320 --> 0:43:59.560 a conference every year? They had one in twenty twenty four. 0:44:00.040 --> 0:44:02.920 The twenty twenty five conference was last week. Who was 0:44:03.000 --> 0:44:07.280 speaking the Appondance Conference twenty twenty five? Speakers include Charles 0:44:07.360 --> 0:44:12.200 Lehman from the right wing Manhattan Institute, an organization founded 0:44:12.200 --> 0:44:17.000 by Ronald Reagan's director of the CIA. Well, let's hear 0:44:17.080 --> 0:44:22.040 him outs, Let's see what he thinks. Lehman advocates what 0:44:22.160 --> 0:44:27.040 he calls deportation Abundance witches his plan to make a 0:44:27.280 --> 0:44:34.839 more efficient deportation machine that could actually deport every undocumented 0:44:34.880 --> 0:44:35.640 person in the US. 0:44:35.719 --> 0:44:36.359 Wait what? 0:44:37.400 --> 0:44:40.719 This conference is also sponsored by the Koch Families organizations 0:44:40.840 --> 0:44:45.160 Stand Together. It includes speakers from the American Enterprise Institute, 0:44:45.800 --> 0:44:48.840 one of the co sponsors of the event, did another 0:44:49.000 --> 0:44:53.560 conference with special guest Kevin Roberts, the guy who wrote 0:44:53.560 --> 0:44:57.160 Project twenty twenty five. Isn't this supposed to be a 0:44:57.239 --> 0:44:57.960 liberal movement? 0:44:58.360 --> 0:45:00.120 Oh no, what's coming here? 0:45:01.719 --> 0:45:04.520 Can Abundance really be funded by all these right wing 0:45:04.560 --> 0:45:09.480 billionaires and tech fascists? Oh no, as you may have 0:45:09.560 --> 0:45:13.359 guessed from the title, most of today's episode is going 0:45:13.400 --> 0:45:16.680 to be about what the people behind Abundance actually want, 0:45:17.200 --> 0:45:21.040 and it's not what you or I want. It is 0:45:21.960 --> 0:45:26.000 what Peter Teal wants, what Mark Andrieson wants, what jd 0:45:26.160 --> 0:45:30.600 Vance wants. In a sense, it is what Donald Trump wants. 0:45:31.200 --> 0:45:33.960 Because Abundance as an ideology is an attempt by the 0:45:33.960 --> 0:45:37.000 tech oligarchs to take over the left the same way 0:45:37.040 --> 0:45:40.279 they took over the right, and that makes the ideology 0:45:41.160 --> 0:45:46.120 extremely dangerous, as we are going to unfailed. This project 0:45:46.239 --> 0:45:51.120 is directly tied to many of the worst people in 0:45:51.160 --> 0:45:53.560 this country right now. It is tied to Peter Teal, 0:45:53.640 --> 0:45:55.560 It is funded by Peter Teele. It is funded by 0:45:55.560 --> 0:45:59.360 Mark Urson, who is another effectively Tea Ali, who believes 0:45:59.360 --> 0:46:01.279 in most of this, if not all, of the same 0:46:01.320 --> 0:46:06.080 things that Heel does. These ideas are normally unacceptable on 0:46:06.120 --> 0:46:09.680 the liberal left, but because Abundance is wrapped in the 0:46:09.719 --> 0:46:15.480 ideology of liberalism, because it wears the faces of liberal 0:46:15.480 --> 0:46:19.719 star warts like Ezra Kleine, it can be smuggled in 0:46:19.719 --> 0:46:22.879 in a way that leaves the left and liberalism as 0:46:22.920 --> 0:46:26.960 a whole subsceptible to broad ideological capture by the very 0:46:27.000 --> 0:46:31.120 same tech fascists we are all trying to oppose. Before 0:46:31.200 --> 0:46:37.040 we fully get into what the funders of abundance actually want, 0:46:37.840 --> 0:46:42.440 let's talk a little bit about what the ideology of 0:46:42.520 --> 0:46:47.400 abundance is. The very very basic ideology of abundance is 0:46:47.440 --> 0:46:49.840 that we need more things, we need to build more, 0:46:50.239 --> 0:46:52.640 and that government regulations are standing in the way of 0:46:52.680 --> 0:46:58.319 building things. Now, if this sounds suspiciously Reaganite to you, 0:46:58.480 --> 0:47:02.560 that's because, in a sense is asra client describes this 0:47:02.760 --> 0:47:06.880 as the progressive supply side economics. Now, supply side economics 0:47:06.880 --> 0:47:10.800 famously is Reagan's thing. You will note that basically everyone 0:47:10.880 --> 0:47:14.840 across the entire political spectrum, at least sort of when pressed, 0:47:14.880 --> 0:47:17.960 will agree that supply side economics simply does not work. 0:47:18.400 --> 0:47:22.239 But let's hear them out. I think another way to 0:47:22.360 --> 0:47:25.960 understand what abundance is and why it works the way 0:47:25.960 --> 0:47:28.160 that it does is to look at it in the 0:47:28.200 --> 0:47:31.840 context not of American political ideology and debates, but of 0:47:31.920 --> 0:47:36.120 Chinese political debates. Now, Chinese political debates have for most 0:47:36.160 --> 0:47:39.480 of the last decade, really decade and a half, taken 0:47:39.520 --> 0:47:42.640 the form of arguments about either increasing the size of 0:47:42.680 --> 0:47:46.760 the pie or splitting the pie more evenly. On the left, 0:47:47.160 --> 0:47:51.080 you have a case for redistribution right, for higher taxation, 0:47:51.239 --> 0:47:54.880 for higher welfare benefits, for giving people things from the 0:47:54.920 --> 0:47:57.640 states and redistributing it from rich people to the poor. 0:47:58.760 --> 0:48:01.040 On the rights, you have grown the pie which argues 0:48:01.080 --> 0:48:03.759 that instead of redistributing wealth, we should simply grow more 0:48:03.800 --> 0:48:07.359 wealth and that wealth will trickle down to everyone else. Wait, 0:48:07.440 --> 0:48:10.600 this is just Reaganism again. It's it's all Reaganism. This 0:48:10.680 --> 0:48:12.600 is This is the very frustrating thing about abundance is 0:48:12.600 --> 0:48:15.520 that when you actually go past the language they're using 0:48:15.560 --> 0:48:17.040 and you look at what they think will happen, it's 0:48:17.320 --> 0:48:20.280 just trickle down economics. Again, It's just trickled down economics, 0:48:20.320 --> 0:48:23.120 and abundance is on the right wing side of it. Now, 0:48:23.520 --> 0:48:25.960 you know, there are definitely arguments for places where we 0:48:26.040 --> 0:48:28.520 do in fact need to build more things, right, and 0:48:28.560 --> 0:48:33.480 this argument has become particularly prominent with the rise of yembiism, 0:48:34.000 --> 0:48:36.879 and like, yeah, I don't know, building more houses is good. 0:48:36.920 --> 0:48:41.799 I mean it was literally a demand of the Hungarian Revolution, right, Like, yeah, 0:48:41.840 --> 0:48:46.360 we need more of it. But Comma, we need to 0:48:46.400 --> 0:48:51.520 be very very careful here because the way that abundance 0:48:51.800 --> 0:48:55.399 structures its arguments, and the ways that, for example, a 0:48:55.440 --> 0:48:59.480 really really vulgar version of yembiism has been deployed by 0:48:59.480 --> 0:49:02.920 these people in order to just sort of wholesale opposed 0:49:02.920 --> 0:49:06.280 government regulations. And we're not just talking about things here 0:49:06.440 --> 0:49:11.399 like eliminating zoning requirements, right. We are talking about, as 0:49:11.760 --> 0:49:16.040 we'll get into later, the people behind this movement wants 0:49:16.440 --> 0:49:19.359 to create their own city states and special economic zones 0:49:19.360 --> 0:49:23.799 where no government regulations supply. But the fundamental argument here 0:49:23.840 --> 0:49:28.000 is that lifting government restrictions on production will increase the 0:49:28.000 --> 0:49:30.200 size of the market, and because price is just supply 0:49:30.239 --> 0:49:33.879 and demand, prices will fall because there's more supply. None 0:49:33.920 --> 0:49:36.719 of this is how markets actually work. One of the 0:49:36.719 --> 0:49:39.800 crucial insights of anthropology is that markets are not simply 0:49:40.600 --> 0:49:44.600 neutral objective forces that function according to precise mathematical laws. 0:49:45.160 --> 0:49:49.719 They are socially constructed, even in neoclassical economics, by their 0:49:49.760 --> 0:49:54.680 own logic. Price is not just supply and demand. That's 0:49:54.680 --> 0:49:59.600 something that's only true in perfectly competitive markets, and perfectly 0:49:59.600 --> 0:50:04.839 competitive markets do not exist. They probably cannot exist, but 0:50:04.880 --> 0:50:06.680 they do not exist in the real world, and they 0:50:06.680 --> 0:50:09.920 do not represent something like the housing markets in the 0:50:09.960 --> 0:50:14.480 real world, markets are defined by power. Neoclassical economist attempt 0:50:14.480 --> 0:50:18.759 to explain the role of power in markets through monopoly. Right, 0:50:18.960 --> 0:50:20.719 you know, you can look at monopoly and monops Andy, 0:50:20.800 --> 0:50:22.080 there are a bunch of very different things that they 0:50:22.080 --> 0:50:26.120 think are sort of deviations of this perfect competitive market 0:50:26.280 --> 0:50:30.319 where people band together to build power and thus are 0:50:30.320 --> 0:50:33.560 able to distort what the perfect free market should be doing. 0:50:34.360 --> 0:50:39.239 And this is a feature of basically every market that 0:50:39.360 --> 0:50:42.960 actually exists. Right, There aren't perfectly competitive markets. They all 0:50:43.000 --> 0:50:46.400 have power in them, and they all have degrees of 0:50:46.480 --> 0:50:49.960 monopoly to use a sort of Marxian term in them 0:50:50.040 --> 0:50:53.719 as well. Now do you know what else has a 0:50:53.760 --> 0:50:56.960 degree of monopoly? That's right, it is the products and 0:50:57.080 --> 0:51:10.560 services that support this podcast. So what does this actually 0:51:10.560 --> 0:51:10.879 have to. 0:51:10.840 --> 0:51:12.480 Do with abundance? 0:51:13.920 --> 0:51:16.640 Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, I 0:51:16.760 --> 0:51:20.680 explained rent on this show, and this is specifically here 0:51:20.920 --> 0:51:23.680 rent in the context of what you pay to your landlords. 0:51:23.680 --> 0:51:26.280 I promise this will circle back to this will circle 0:51:26.320 --> 0:51:27.920 back to sort of abundance the mbeism. 0:51:27.920 --> 0:51:29.640 In a second I. 0:51:29.560 --> 0:51:31.759 Attempted to explain rent by drawing on the work of 0:51:31.800 --> 0:51:36.080 the legendary Venezuelan anthropologist Fernando corneal To argue that the 0:51:36.120 --> 0:51:38.600 rent that we paid to our landlords functions similarly to 0:51:38.719 --> 0:51:42.160 oil rent. Reprice is not set by supply and demand, 0:51:42.880 --> 0:51:46.560 but instead by the social power of oil producers. Now 0:51:46.800 --> 0:51:51.239 people got very, very mad at me for this, but 0:51:51.320 --> 0:51:54.160 the long derier of history has vindicated me. In the 0:51:54.200 --> 0:51:57.239 real world, it turns out I was right. The most 0:51:57.239 --> 0:51:59.840 powerful example of this in the housing market is the 0:51:59.840 --> 0:52:02.560 case a Real Page, a service that allowed landlords to 0:52:02.560 --> 0:52:05.600 get recommendations on their pricing based on information from all 0:52:05.600 --> 0:52:09.560 the landlords who submitted their data, thus creating an algorithmic 0:52:09.640 --> 0:52:13.319 machine for price fixing. This got bad enough that even 0:52:13.360 --> 0:52:16.520 the Biden Just Department got involved. Here's from the Department 0:52:16.560 --> 0:52:18.719 of Justice's lawsuits against Real Page. 0:52:19.040 --> 0:52:19.560 Quote. 0:52:19.880 --> 0:52:23.560 Real Page acknowledged that its software is aimed at maximizing 0:52:23.600 --> 0:52:27.480 prices for landlords, referring to its products as quote driving 0:52:27.560 --> 0:52:31.759 every possible opportunity to increase price, avoiding the race to 0:52:31.840 --> 0:52:36.640 the bottom in down markets, and quote a rising tide 0:52:36.719 --> 0:52:39.920 raises all ships. A Real Page executive observed that its 0:52:39.960 --> 0:52:44.040 products help landlords avoid competing on the merits, noting quote 0:52:44.080 --> 0:52:47.440 there is a greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially 0:52:47.520 --> 0:52:50.000 trying to compete against one another in a way that 0:52:50.080 --> 0:52:53.680 actually keeps the entire industry down. A Real Page executive 0:52:53.719 --> 0:52:56.919 explains to a landlord that using competitor data can help 0:52:56.960 --> 0:52:59.600 identify situations where a landlord may have a fifty dollars 0:52:59.680 --> 0:53:01.960 increase a seat of ten dollars increased for the day. 0:53:02.680 --> 0:53:06.200 Another landlord commented about Real Page's product, I always liked 0:53:06.200 --> 0:53:09.000 this product because your augurithms used proprietary data from other 0:53:09.040 --> 0:53:14.200 subscribers to suggest rents in terms that's classical price fixing. Now, 0:53:14.719 --> 0:53:18.920 I was derided for arguing that landlords would ban together 0:53:19.040 --> 0:53:22.520 use in the social power to prevent rents from falling 0:53:22.719 --> 0:53:25.040 even with the units sit an empty, And it turns 0:53:25.040 --> 0:53:28.200 out I was right the whole time. They were doing 0:53:28.520 --> 0:53:31.920 exactly that. It turns out, in the actual real world 0:53:32.000 --> 0:53:34.719 of the market, all of these companies on all of 0:53:34.719 --> 0:53:37.239 these landlords had found a way to ban together in 0:53:37.360 --> 0:53:40.080 order to use their social power and use the information 0:53:40.200 --> 0:53:45.080 in their possession to fix the price of rent. Here 0:53:45.239 --> 0:53:48.960 is from Reuters, drawing from yet another lawsuit, this time 0:53:49.400 --> 0:53:53.880 from the Attorney General of DC. A monthly report from W. C. 0:53:54.120 --> 0:53:56.960 Smith in twenty twenty two showed the company had increased 0:53:57.000 --> 0:53:59.759 revenues per unit by four point six to four point 0:53:59.760 --> 0:54:06.040 seven percent despite decreased occupancy levels. According to the lawsuit, 0:54:06.480 --> 0:54:09.920 so what is that saying. That is saying that the 0:54:10.000 --> 0:54:13.880 actual number of people in these apartments is decreasing, the 0:54:13.960 --> 0:54:18.000 number of apartments staying open that have no one in 0:54:18.040 --> 0:54:22.000 them is increasing, But the price is not going down, 0:54:22.560 --> 0:54:26.160 even though there's more supply, the price is still going up. 0:54:26.600 --> 0:54:29.760 Why is the price still going up? Well, well, well, 0:54:30.080 --> 0:54:33.560 the Justice Department calls this price fixing large scale collusion 0:54:33.680 --> 0:54:37.000 to disrupt the functioning of the perfectly normal competitive market. 0:54:37.719 --> 0:54:41.279 The anthropologist for Nando Coronel, as I argued before, calls 0:54:41.320 --> 0:54:44.760 it absolute rent, rent extracted by virtue of the social 0:54:44.800 --> 0:54:48.920 power of the landowner. As I wrote in that episode, quote, 0:54:49.080 --> 0:54:51.920 absolute rent does not obey the law of supply and demand. 0:54:52.320 --> 0:54:54.560 It is the product of social power, of the power 0:54:54.600 --> 0:54:57.920 of landownership itself and the organization of the landowning class. 0:54:58.239 --> 0:55:00.560 And they're backing by the state, and it's b militaries 0:55:00.560 --> 0:55:04.200 and police. And this causes economists attempting to use supply 0:55:04.239 --> 0:55:07.520 and demand to explain rent to get very very important 0:55:07.520 --> 0:55:12.880 events very wrong. Morris Aedelman, the famous oil economists, predicted 0:55:12.880 --> 0:55:15.279 in nineteen seventy two that the price of oil was 0:55:15.320 --> 0:55:19.160 going to collapse based on over supplying competition. Instead, it 0:55:19.200 --> 0:55:23.640 increased four hundred percent between nineteen seventy three and nineteen 0:55:23.680 --> 0:55:27.400 seventy four because oil producers banned together to exercise their power, 0:55:27.440 --> 0:55:31.360 and their organization, known as OPEK, became a genuine world power. 0:55:31.840 --> 0:55:35.080 As Coroneial put it, quote, the sharp increase of nineteen 0:55:35.120 --> 0:55:37.359 seventy three and nineteen seventy four and oil prices did 0:55:37.360 --> 0:55:40.359 not result from a world shortage oil. It was rather 0:55:40.719 --> 0:55:43.920 the outcome of a long historical process by which OPEK nations, 0:55:44.280 --> 0:55:47.520 acting as landowners, developed a means to extract a rent 0:55:47.520 --> 0:55:50.040 on the basis of their ownership of the oil fields 0:55:50.440 --> 0:55:53.560 and absolute rent in addition to the differential rents they 0:55:53.600 --> 0:55:56.400 had collected in the past. In nineteen seventy three, a 0:55:56.400 --> 0:55:59.239 set of converging political and economic conditions helped establish their 0:55:59.239 --> 0:56:02.120 collective ability to restrict the world's supply of oil. With 0:56:02.200 --> 0:56:05.440 this power, OPECK felt entitled to set the market price 0:56:05.440 --> 0:56:08.239 of oil, thus freeing the level of rent from the 0:56:08.280 --> 0:56:12.440 previous constraints of market price. Now rent itself, absolute and 0:56:12.520 --> 0:56:15.200 differential would determine the market price of oil. 0:56:16.040 --> 0:56:16.680 What does that. 0:56:16.640 --> 0:56:21.560 Sound like, Oh, it sounds like Real Pages price fixing algorithm. 0:56:21.960 --> 0:56:24.920 Why does it sound like Real Pages price fixing algorithm. 0:56:25.480 --> 0:56:29.000 It's because in the real world, markets are not neutral 0:56:29.040 --> 0:56:33.360 institutions that operate according to neutral laws. Their institutions created 0:56:33.520 --> 0:56:36.920 and enforced by the state. Landlords can check up your 0:56:36.920 --> 0:56:40.400 rent because they wield collective power together and have the 0:56:40.440 --> 0:56:42.920 ability to use the state to drag you out of 0:56:42.960 --> 0:56:46.480 your home at gunpoint. Abundance is, to a large extent, 0:56:46.719 --> 0:56:50.400 an attempt to harness widespread discontent over the price of goods, 0:56:50.400 --> 0:56:53.520 the price of rent, the price of food, and argue 0:56:53.560 --> 0:56:55.919 that you can simply produce more and this will make 0:56:55.960 --> 0:56:58.600 all of the prices go down. As we've seen here, 0:56:58.680 --> 0:57:00.480 as long as the social power is held by the 0:57:00.520 --> 0:57:05.319 rent extractors, they can simply set their own price. None 0:57:05.400 --> 0:57:07.840 of this is addressed in abundance, and there's a simple 0:57:07.920 --> 0:57:12.239 reason for that. The people funding the abundance agenda are 0:57:12.280 --> 0:57:16.600 the very same people profiting from their social power. So 0:57:16.720 --> 0:57:19.320 let's talk about the money. I'm going to be quoting 0:57:19.360 --> 0:57:22.240 here from a report from Prospect, which is very good. 0:57:22.720 --> 0:57:27.000 The Institute for Progress IFP, which co hosted Abundance twenty 0:57:27.080 --> 0:57:29.720 twenty four and is listed as a key institutional partner 0:57:29.760 --> 0:57:33.360 by the Inclusive Abundance Initiative, has a bevy of corporate ties. 0:57:33.920 --> 0:57:37.120 In twenty twenty two, IFP received one hundred and ten 0:57:37.240 --> 0:57:41.600 thousand dollars from FAI and has fai's executive director on 0:57:41.640 --> 0:57:45.200 its board. Now, FAI is the Foundation for American Innovation. 0:57:45.360 --> 0:57:48.000 I'm going to read this is also an Abundance co host, 0:57:48.320 --> 0:57:51.520 which is very funny. I am going to read a 0:57:51.600 --> 0:57:54.200 quote from Kate Willett, who has also done some excellent 0:57:54.200 --> 0:57:57.440 reporting on this, and she describes how the FAI hosted 0:57:57.440 --> 0:58:01.320 another conference in twenty twenty four called rebootquote the quote. 0:58:01.360 --> 0:58:04.760 Surprise guest of the conference was Kevin Roberts, president of 0:58:04.800 --> 0:58:07.520 the Heritage Foundation in chief architect of twenty twenty five. 0:58:09.120 --> 0:58:11.280 Now back to the Institute for Progress. Part of what's 0:58:11.320 --> 0:58:13.320 going on here, right is that this is an increadin, 0:58:13.320 --> 0:58:15.440 you know. And what I'm trying to emphasize by how 0:58:15.440 --> 0:58:18.160 confusing this whole thing is, is that Abundance is composed 0:58:18.200 --> 0:58:21.080 of a series of think tanks and weird institutes that 0:58:21.120 --> 0:58:23.919 are all tied into a bunch of tech money. Right, 0:58:24.360 --> 0:58:27.760 keeping the acronym straight is very difficult. You do not 0:58:27.880 --> 0:58:29.920 need to hold all of them in your head. The 0:58:29.960 --> 0:58:32.000 other thing that you need to understand about this right 0:58:32.360 --> 0:58:35.240 is if you look at who is co hosting these conferences, 0:58:35.240 --> 0:58:37.520 and who was behind these books, and who was behind 0:58:37.560 --> 0:58:41.320 these media outlets, a very very clear picture starts to emerge. 0:58:42.480 --> 0:58:44.600 I'm gonna go back to quoting from Prospect. One of 0:58:44.640 --> 0:58:47.560 the funders of the Institute for Progress was Emergent Ventures, 0:58:47.960 --> 0:58:50.720 which is a product of the Coke Back Mercantis Institute 0:58:50.720 --> 0:58:54.120 at George Mason University. Emergent itself was launched by a 0:58:54.160 --> 0:58:56.720 grant from Peter thel Peter Thial is a right wing 0:58:56.760 --> 0:58:59.080 billionaire with a vast influence network at the intersection of 0:58:59.080 --> 0:59:03.760 technofuturism anti democratic thought, who has called technology an alternative 0:59:03.800 --> 0:59:06.840 to democratic politics small d democratic by the way, he 0:59:06.920 --> 0:59:10.720 means the concert of democracy to quote unilaterally change the world. 0:59:11.240 --> 0:59:14.080 Vice President elect J. D. Vance is a known scion 0:59:14.280 --> 0:59:18.160 of Peter Thiel. Let's look at the Chamber of Progress, 0:59:18.400 --> 0:59:21.720 another one of the groups that is heavily involved in abundance. 0:59:22.480 --> 0:59:25.760 Chamber of Progress, which self identifies its work as part 0:59:25.800 --> 0:59:29.160 of a growing abundance policy movement, is a trade group 0:59:29.200 --> 0:59:33.120 started with Google seed money by Google alum Adam Kovakovich. 0:59:33.360 --> 0:59:37.760 Kovakovic proudly touts his college activism, leading an effort to 0:59:37.920 --> 0:59:41.760 cross a United farm Worker's picket line. The Chamber of 0:59:41.800 --> 0:59:48.040 Progress's partners red funders include A sixteen Z Circle, Coinbase, Google, 0:59:48.240 --> 0:59:53.080 Kraken Ripple, Wai Mo, and Dreesen Horowitz or A sixteen 0:59:53.200 --> 0:59:56.440 Z is, a venture capital firm heavily invested in Ai 0:59:56.560 --> 1:00:00.880 and Crypto co founder Merchandrisen believes the technology solution to 1:00:00.920 --> 1:00:04.720 every problem. He's also on Meta's board. He is also 1:00:04.880 --> 1:00:08.040 a theolite tech fascist. This is it, in some sense, 1:00:08.080 --> 1:00:11.960 a very very interesting collusion of forces. Right, we have 1:00:12.240 --> 1:00:14.080 the Koch Brothers, who are, you know, sort of the 1:00:14.240 --> 1:00:19.680 ancient libertarian right side of Republican dark money. They are, 1:00:20.040 --> 1:00:24.040 you know, the people who have traditionally funded right wing 1:00:24.080 --> 1:00:26.840 movements in the past. They are the tea party people. 1:00:27.080 --> 1:00:30.080 They are, you know, they are sort of the boogeyman 1:00:30.200 --> 1:00:32.560 under the bed for anyone who has wanted to make 1:00:32.600 --> 1:00:36.680 the world a better place for a very very long time, 1:00:37.520 --> 1:00:42.280 and they and their organizations are working with the emergent 1:00:42.360 --> 1:00:46.080 tech fascist rights you know, people like people like Mark Andreeson, 1:00:46.120 --> 1:00:49.400 people with Peter Teel, and these are the organizations that 1:00:50.240 --> 1:00:52.360 have gotten in bed together in order. 1:00:52.160 --> 1:00:52.600 To do this. 1:00:53.360 --> 1:00:56.000 Now, these people have a bunch of absolutely hideous beliefs. 1:00:56.000 --> 1:00:58.760 We're not even going to get in to the eugenics here, 1:00:59.040 --> 1:01:02.440 but like these the people funding this thing are huge eugenesis. 1:01:02.800 --> 1:01:05.000 We literally do not have time to do all of 1:01:05.040 --> 1:01:08.720 the eugenic shit associated with this, because if I were 1:01:08.760 --> 1:01:11.439 to actually do the eugenic I mean we talked about 1:01:11.440 --> 1:01:14.280 some of like Mattie and gleciass bullshit on this podcast earlier, 1:01:14.280 --> 1:01:16.720 but like if I actually went through and did this, 1:01:16.720 --> 1:01:19.640 this episode would be like twelve hours long. I am 1:01:19.680 --> 1:01:23.480 going to cover this sort of Network States peer theolite 1:01:23.480 --> 1:01:27.480 eugenics circle at some point later. That is a forthcoming episode. 1:01:28.120 --> 1:01:29.400 But yeah, for. 1:01:29.400 --> 1:01:34.200 Now, here are these ads hopefully are not eugenics. 1:01:34.280 --> 1:01:35.400 Woo. 1:01:46.200 --> 1:01:49.880 So let's get back to who I think are really 1:01:49.960 --> 1:01:53.800 the two primary villains of this story, and that is 1:01:54.040 --> 1:01:56.560 Peter Theal and Mark Entrieson, who are two of the 1:01:56.560 --> 1:02:00.400 most dangerous people in the entire world. Teal and Reason 1:02:00.480 --> 1:02:03.800 are fascists who believe the state should be a corporation 1:02:04.280 --> 1:02:08.120 run by the tech elite. They do not believe in democracy, 1:02:08.160 --> 1:02:10.600 and particularly thel has said that democracy is the enemy 1:02:10.600 --> 1:02:11.040 of freedom. 1:02:11.720 --> 1:02:11.919 Right. 1:02:12.840 --> 1:02:15.080 When these people talk about running the state like a business, 1:02:15.080 --> 1:02:18.280 they mean that there should be an unaccountable fucking philosopher 1:02:18.360 --> 1:02:22.920 CEO king, and that there shouldn't be democracy. A common 1:02:23.000 --> 1:02:26.120 feature of this, and you know, the physical manifestation of 1:02:26.160 --> 1:02:29.680 this thing is an idea called the network state, and 1:02:29.720 --> 1:02:32.600 a very common theme of the founders of Abundance is 1:02:32.600 --> 1:02:36.680 their support for the network state, both as a concept 1:02:36.800 --> 1:02:38.560 and in terms of building them. So what is the 1:02:38.560 --> 1:02:41.320 network state? The network state is, to a large extent, 1:02:41.360 --> 1:02:43.960 the thing I've just been describing, Right, The version of 1:02:44.000 --> 1:02:46.800 it that they pitch is that these are like they're 1:02:46.840 --> 1:02:49.920 like opportunity zones, right, they are these like tech cities, 1:02:50.200 --> 1:02:52.880 you know that will eventually become like real states that 1:02:52.920 --> 1:02:55.960 are that are based off of special economic zones where 1:02:56.240 --> 1:02:58.520 you know, special economic zones are like the normal regulations 1:02:58.560 --> 1:03:00.040 of the state do not apply. So you can and 1:03:00.200 --> 1:03:02.480 you know, do whatever you want, right, you can we 1:03:02.520 --> 1:03:07.120 can build prosperity by having no government regulations and run 1:03:07.160 --> 1:03:13.520 everything through corporations. These network states would be again actual 1:03:13.760 --> 1:03:17.880 straight up corporations that own and control territory and run 1:03:17.920 --> 1:03:23.240 it as the state. These states are already coming into existence. 1:03:23.280 --> 1:03:27.960 Maybe the most important prospera a corporate city for profit 1:03:28.120 --> 1:03:30.800 in hont Duras that is run by a corporation, again 1:03:30.840 --> 1:03:33.320 in a special economic zone where the state does not apply. 1:03:33.400 --> 1:03:35.880 It does not have a mayor, it has somewhat appointed 1:03:35.880 --> 1:03:39.240 by the corporation who runs the city. This is happening 1:03:39.280 --> 1:03:42.600 all over the world, particularly in developing countries, where it 1:03:42.680 --> 1:03:46.600 is being pushed by all of these just absolutely demonic 1:03:46.640 --> 1:03:49.800 tech cools, and they're also being started in attempts at 1:03:49.840 --> 1:03:52.600 being started to run them in the United States. I'm 1:03:52.600 --> 1:03:55.800 going to quote here from Shanley's venture capital blog, venture 1:03:55.800 --> 1:03:58.280 Capital Status, which is a very very good resource on 1:03:58.720 --> 1:04:01.840 the network state, which will be covering more fully later, 1:04:01.960 --> 1:04:04.520 because we don't have time to do much more than 1:04:04.760 --> 1:04:09.240 a brief introduction to their ideas here. In Soleerro County, California, 1:04:09.360 --> 1:04:13.240 a cartel of venture capitalists associated with Andreas and Horowitz, 1:04:13.600 --> 1:04:18.480 which is again a mark Entrecent's firm bought up over 1:04:18.640 --> 1:04:23.640 sixty five thousand acres of rich, fertile farmland and using 1:04:23.760 --> 1:04:27.800 secretive and threatening methodologies including suing local farmers, they plan 1:04:27.920 --> 1:04:32.000 to build a city with weapons, developments and manufacturing, aerospace 1:04:32.040 --> 1:04:36.760 and robotics companies, shipbuilding homes, and schools. This network state 1:04:36.880 --> 1:04:40.400 is called California Forever. Also in California, there has been 1:04:40.440 --> 1:04:44.120 a discussion by network state operatives of taking over Presidio 1:04:44.200 --> 1:04:47.280 in San Francisco, and there is a network state planned 1:04:47.280 --> 1:04:50.560 in Somona County. Its founder is a quote former promonist 1:04:50.640 --> 1:04:57.160 venture capitalists. These are the same people funding Abundance. Here's 1:04:57.200 --> 1:05:00.400 from Kate Willet again, one of the California Forever millionaires. 1:05:00.440 --> 1:05:03.919 California Forever is again the name of the network state 1:05:03.960 --> 1:05:05.640 they want to set up by buying a bunch of 1:05:05.720 --> 1:05:09.760 land in Soledo County. One of the California Forever billionaires, 1:05:09.880 --> 1:05:14.240 Patrick Collison, the CEO of Stripe, looms large in abundance world. 1:05:14.880 --> 1:05:17.920 Along with open Philanthropy. He donated to fund a one 1:05:18.040 --> 1:05:21.400 hundred and twenty million dollar Abundance grant tied to Ezra 1:05:21.520 --> 1:05:25.640 Klein's book release. Coulson is a key backer and inspiration 1:05:25.760 --> 1:05:28.560 for the Institute for Progress, the think tank which works 1:05:28.600 --> 1:05:32.600 closely with others in the Abundance network, including the Abundance 1:05:32.640 --> 1:05:36.680 twenty twenty four conference. The goal of the network state 1:05:37.240 --> 1:05:40.160 movement is to accelerate the destruction of the United States 1:05:40.200 --> 1:05:44.120 and create these corporate network states in their wake. They 1:05:44.200 --> 1:05:47.920 want the world to be composed of these networks of 1:05:48.080 --> 1:05:53.360 venture capital tech corporations, run and ruled by them by 1:05:53.400 --> 1:05:57.600 the tech elite for profit. These are the people that 1:05:57.680 --> 1:06:02.120 are funding all of the fucking movements. These are the 1:06:02.120 --> 1:06:04.760 people funding the argument. These are the people funding the 1:06:04.800 --> 1:06:09.480 Abundance Conference. These are the people that people like Ezrakline 1:06:09.520 --> 1:06:12.960 have been brought in to run cover for. These are 1:06:13.080 --> 1:06:17.040 Trump people. They are the forces behind jd Vance. They 1:06:17.080 --> 1:06:20.440 want to inflict their vision of tech fascism on the world, 1:06:21.200 --> 1:06:25.240 but they are hideously popular in power. In order to 1:06:25.280 --> 1:06:28.440 achieve their regenda, they cannot simply rely on their incredible 1:06:28.440 --> 1:06:33.160 hegemony on the right. They need you, They need your 1:06:33.280 --> 1:06:37.400 buy in. They need the support of good and kind 1:06:37.400 --> 1:06:40.680 hearted liberals who they can radicalize into TRUMPI and tech fascists. 1:06:41.400 --> 1:06:44.000 This is their opening gambit, and they've played it well, 1:06:44.560 --> 1:06:46.760 but there is still time for them to fail. There 1:06:46.800 --> 1:06:49.280 are still time for us to build a future built 1:06:49.400 --> 1:06:52.560 by us and for us, by and for each other, 1:06:53.080 --> 1:06:56.040 based on mutual aid and the benefit of all of 1:06:56.160 --> 1:07:01.320 worlds without death squads and ice, of world ruled not 1:07:01.480 --> 1:07:06.360 by corporations but by us. The fight for that world 1:07:07.360 --> 1:07:09.680 he can's here and now. 1:07:26.880 --> 1:07:29.600 Welcome to it could happen here a show about things 1:07:29.640 --> 1:07:34.600 falling apart. One such thing frequently falling apart is any 1:07:34.720 --> 1:07:40.200 notion of privacy or digital privacy. Ever, encroaching surveillance is 1:07:40.200 --> 1:07:42.920 one of the biggest global issues affecting free expression and 1:07:42.960 --> 1:07:47.160 a free press, both directly through surveillance technology but also 1:07:47.280 --> 1:07:51.760 by chilling speech. I'm Garrison Davis, and this past week, 1:07:52.280 --> 1:07:56.520 news has swept the Internet that ICE is using software 1:07:56.560 --> 1:08:00.560 from an Israeli company called Paragon, which allows ICE or 1:08:00.680 --> 1:08:07.160 DHS to secretly hack into any smartphone, break encryption, access messages, 1:08:07.400 --> 1:08:11.040 track real time location, and turn your iPhone or Android 1:08:11.280 --> 1:08:15.680 into a walking listening device, all of which sounds very 1:08:15.720 --> 1:08:20.160 scary and some of which is true, though some of 1:08:20.160 --> 1:08:24.719 these claims are exaggerated or even likely false based on 1:08:24.920 --> 1:08:28.600 what we can currently infer from published research. Due to 1:08:28.720 --> 1:08:33.560 legitimate fears, we live in a world of surveillance paranoia, 1:08:33.680 --> 1:08:37.320 which can lead to surveillance myths. This is a core 1:08:37.400 --> 1:08:42.080 function of the Panopticon. People should take ICE's new enhanced 1:08:42.120 --> 1:08:47.240 smartphone surveillance capacity seriously, but to adequately do so requires 1:08:47.280 --> 1:08:51.519 an accurate understanding of the threat model, which we will 1:08:51.560 --> 1:08:54.960 get into later this episode with some help from the 1:08:55.160 --> 1:08:59.920 Electronic Frontier Foundation. But first let's address the news where 1:09:00.120 --> 1:09:03.639 the aspect of this story what has actually changed recently? 1:09:04.360 --> 1:09:08.640 DHS first contracted with the US branch of Paragon in 1:09:08.680 --> 1:09:12.880 September of twenty twenty four for two million dollars, but 1:09:13.000 --> 1:09:16.479 later that October the contract was put on hold thanks 1:09:16.479 --> 1:09:19.479 to a Biden executive order restricting a government use of 1:09:19.560 --> 1:09:23.320 foreign spyware, and ever since then the contract has been 1:09:23.320 --> 1:09:27.719 frozen pending a compliance review. But then on September first, 1:09:27.840 --> 1:09:32.080 twenty twenty five. Just last week, investigative journalist Jack Paulson 1:09:32.400 --> 1:09:35.839 reported that the stop work order affecting the Paragon contract 1:09:36.080 --> 1:09:39.840 had quietly been lifted, allowing Ice to follow through on 1:09:39.880 --> 1:09:44.200 the contract and start using Paragon's spyware technology, most likely 1:09:44.360 --> 1:09:50.439 including their flagship product, Graphite. What is Graphite? Great question 1:09:51.400 --> 1:09:55.360 one that I felt underqualified to fully answer myself. So 1:09:55.520 --> 1:09:58.200 I spoke with an expert, Cooper Quentin of the digital 1:09:58.240 --> 1:10:02.000 rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation. You'll hear from him 1:10:02.080 --> 1:10:03.520 throughout the episode. 1:10:03.960 --> 1:10:05.320 My name is Cooper Clinton. 1:10:05.400 --> 1:10:08.839 I am a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 1:10:09.120 --> 1:10:12.599 There I do a lot of different things. 1:10:12.640 --> 1:10:14.920 Most specifically for the purposes of this talk, I do 1:10:15.000 --> 1:10:19.360 malware research on malware that targets activists, journalists, and civil society. 1:10:19.760 --> 1:10:25.320 So Graphite is a type of spyware that is able 1:10:25.400 --> 1:10:29.280 to read your messages from your phone the same way 1:10:29.320 --> 1:10:31.880 that you or you know, maybe a cop could if 1:10:31.920 --> 1:10:34.920 they had physical access to your unlocked phone, right. 1:10:35.400 --> 1:10:37.679 That is the main capability that it has. 1:10:37.760 --> 1:10:40.920 According to the reporting published by Citizen Lab, its main 1:10:41.000 --> 1:10:45.439 job is to hook into WhatsApp and into other encrypted 1:10:45.520 --> 1:10:48.920 chat apps and just read the messages in those apps, 1:10:48.960 --> 1:10:51.960 like in the messages you've already sent and any future 1:10:52.000 --> 1:10:53.040 messages that you send. 1:10:53.720 --> 1:10:56.240 That's really it's the that's the meat of Graphite. 1:10:56.680 --> 1:10:59.960 Something that sets paragone apart from their fellow is ray 1:11:00.080 --> 1:11:03.360 Le competitors is that Paragon has marketed itself as the 1:11:03.760 --> 1:11:07.680 ethical choice for spyware. One of their early investors in 1:11:07.760 --> 1:11:11.920 Israeli firm called Red Dot wrote quote Paragon builds best 1:11:11.960 --> 1:11:16.799 in class cyber intelligence software to empower democratic countries, providing 1:11:16.840 --> 1:11:21.320 cutting edge capabilities that make the world safer unquote. On 1:11:21.479 --> 1:11:24.839 their US website, Paragon says that they are quote unquote 1:11:25.120 --> 1:11:29.519 empowering ethical cyber defense and that they provide customers with 1:11:29.600 --> 1:11:34.120 quote ethically based tools, teams, and insights to disrupt intractable 1:11:34.160 --> 1:11:39.600 threats unquote. Though they use the term cyber defense on 1:11:39.680 --> 1:11:45.080 their US site, Paragon's startup page reads quote Paragon is 1:11:45.120 --> 1:11:49.520 an offense focused cyber company using digital intelligence for smartphone 1:11:49.560 --> 1:11:54.120 and internet surveillance solutions. The company applies strict moral restrictions 1:11:54.160 --> 1:11:57.880 on itself, limiting its extraction of information from targeted devices 1:11:58.240 --> 1:12:02.799 to conversations on chat apps. Paragon works solely with police 1:12:02.800 --> 1:12:06.200 forces and intelligence agencies that meet the standards of an 1:12:06.280 --> 1:12:12.160 enlightened democracy, which includes only thirty nine countries unquote. One 1:12:12.160 --> 1:12:15.000 of Paragon's senior executives told Forbes in twenty twenty one 1:12:15.080 --> 1:12:17.519 that they would only sell their technology to governments that 1:12:17.600 --> 1:12:21.880 quote unquote abide by international norms and respect fundamental rights 1:12:21.880 --> 1:12:26.959 and freedoms, and that quote authoritarian or non democratic regimes 1:12:27.040 --> 1:12:32.000 would never be customers. Unfortunately, Paragon was not pressed on 1:12:32.520 --> 1:12:37.679 what their definition of authoritarian regimes includes. In recent reporting, 1:12:37.680 --> 1:12:40.559 there's been a lot of misconceptions about the capabilities of 1:12:40.680 --> 1:12:45.679 Paragon's main product, Graphite. The Guardian wrote, quote By essentially 1:12:45.720 --> 1:12:48.639 taking control of the mobile phone, ice can not only 1:12:48.720 --> 1:12:51.840 track in individuals whereabouts, read their messages, look at their photographs, 1:12:52.080 --> 1:12:55.360 but also open and read information held on encrypted applications 1:12:55.360 --> 1:12:58.479 like WhatsApp or signal. Spyware like Graphite can also be 1:12:58.560 --> 1:13:01.920 used as a listening device through manipulation of the phone's 1:13:02.000 --> 1:13:06.479 recorder unquote. But research into Graphite by the surveillance watchdog 1:13:06.520 --> 1:13:11.160 group Citizen Lab has not indicated that graph Fight has 1:13:11.240 --> 1:13:14.400 all these capabilities or tries to quote unquote take control 1:13:14.720 --> 1:13:18.439 of the entire device. But other tech journalists have since 1:13:18.600 --> 1:13:23.160 parroted The Guardian's unfounded claims that Graphight fully takes over 1:13:23.200 --> 1:13:26.280 a phone and can record audio through the microphone. 1:13:26.640 --> 1:13:30.840 This is actually less full featured than other spyware we've 1:13:30.840 --> 1:13:34.880 seen in the past, like NSL groups, Pegasus spyware. Other 1:13:35.240 --> 1:13:37.560 types of spyware that I've seen tend to have a 1:13:37.600 --> 1:13:40.840 lot more capabilities. Right, they have the capability of like 1:13:40.920 --> 1:13:45.519 turning on GPS location tracking, the capability to turn on 1:13:45.600 --> 1:13:46.200 a hot. 1:13:46.000 --> 1:13:47.599 Mic, to do all these other things. 1:13:47.680 --> 1:13:50.960 And this seems as far as as far as Citizen 1:13:51.000 --> 1:13:54.320 Lab has reported to not be present within the graphie 1:13:54.360 --> 1:13:58.759 maware and I think this is because Paragon has presented 1:13:58.800 --> 1:14:02.599 themselves as kind of being the quote unquote responsible malware 1:14:02.680 --> 1:14:06.120 manufacturer rate and they're like like trying to minimize the 1:14:06.120 --> 1:14:08.880 amount of data they collect. It doesn't mean they couldn't 1:14:08.880 --> 1:14:11.559 add this stuff in the future, but that's the gist 1:14:11.560 --> 1:14:13.360 of it. It's actually, you know, kind of a very 1:14:13.439 --> 1:14:16.639 stripped down malwur. I don't want to minimize like how 1:14:16.680 --> 1:14:19.680 impactful it would be for this mawur to get all 1:14:19.720 --> 1:14:21.880 of your messages, right, Like that could have a huge 1:14:21.920 --> 1:14:25.200 impact for people. But we don't need to make up 1:14:25.479 --> 1:14:30.439 capabilities that our adversary has, especially under fascism, right, like 1:14:30.560 --> 1:14:33.160 we can we can just work with the capabilities that 1:14:33.200 --> 1:14:33.920 we know they have. 1:14:34.840 --> 1:14:37.760 A lot of reporting and discussion of graphite and Paragon 1:14:38.000 --> 1:14:41.120 frame it as an equivalent to nsoss by where Pegasus, 1:14:41.720 --> 1:14:44.960 which has been banned in the United States for four years. 1:14:45.400 --> 1:14:49.040 Pegasus seeks to completely hijack the target device more broadly, 1:14:49.479 --> 1:14:54.680 similar to guardians claims about graphite, but by forcing this comparison, 1:14:55.040 --> 1:14:59.280 people might be inadvertently boosting Paragon's brand with free marketing 1:14:59.400 --> 1:15:01.840 by making the product ought to be something that I'm 1:15:01.840 --> 1:15:04.960 sure Paragon would like to have people think it is, 1:15:05.640 --> 1:15:09.240 but doesn't actually equate their realistic threat model, similar to 1:15:09.280 --> 1:15:14.160 how predictions of an evil super intelligent AI actually currently 1:15:14.320 --> 1:15:17.440 serve to boost the stock price of AI companies. 1:15:17.800 --> 1:15:19.719 I think a lot of people are doing the work 1:15:20.000 --> 1:15:24.320 for these companies that are aligning themselves with fascism, right, 1:15:24.400 --> 1:15:28.200 And I don't think it's a great trend actually, Right, 1:15:28.320 --> 1:15:33.519 Like people are assuming that you know, Palenteer is sort 1:15:33.520 --> 1:15:37.120 of watching everything, right, and it really Palenteer is just 1:15:37.400 --> 1:15:42.960 like fancy visual graphing software essentially, right, Like the danger 1:15:42.960 --> 1:15:46.439 of Palenteer is combining these two government databases, right, this 1:15:46.600 --> 1:15:50.000 malware the GRAPHI maware, right, Like, yeah, it's it's not good, 1:15:50.120 --> 1:15:53.520 but you know it's not magical, right, it's not omniscient. 1:15:53.600 --> 1:15:56.080 It's not able to you know, I don't know, go 1:15:56.120 --> 1:15:58.519 eat the fridge out of your food and you know, 1:15:58.600 --> 1:16:00.320 beat up your dad or something. You know. 1:16:00.560 --> 1:16:03.960 Well, now we're talking now, now that's a good app. 1:16:04.720 --> 1:16:07.640 If only, if only tech bros could solve such social problems. 1:16:08.200 --> 1:16:10.080 No, no, they would never no. 1:16:10.400 --> 1:16:12.640 But yeah, you know it's not it's not a magical right, 1:16:12.640 --> 1:16:14.680 and we don't need to do their work for them, right, 1:16:14.720 --> 1:16:16.880 We don't need to do their myth making for them. 1:16:17.000 --> 1:16:17.160 Right. 1:16:17.439 --> 1:16:20.000 A bigger threat to the majority. 1:16:19.680 --> 1:16:24.599 Of people in the US is getting your phone seized 1:16:24.640 --> 1:16:25.280 by the cops. 1:16:25.479 --> 1:16:26.200 Right, totally. 1:16:26.400 --> 1:16:30.080 There's nothing this maur can do, according to public reports, 1:16:30.080 --> 1:16:31.800 at least that the cops can't do if they get 1:16:31.840 --> 1:16:33.080 hold of your unlocked phone. 1:16:33.200 --> 1:16:37.080 Right. Having faced idea or fordit pass code is much 1:16:37.120 --> 1:16:41.519 more dangerous to your digital security. Yes, as an average person, 1:16:41.640 --> 1:16:43.680 even as it like an anaged person, like going to 1:16:43.720 --> 1:16:44.320 a protest. 1:16:44.640 --> 1:16:47.560 Yes, yes, absolutely absolutely. 1:16:48.000 --> 1:16:51.559 You know, Celebrate, which is the machine that police plug 1:16:51.560 --> 1:16:53.160 your phone into to make a copy of all the 1:16:53.240 --> 1:16:55.920 data on it, is much more dangerous to the. 1:16:56.360 --> 1:16:58.920 Average American than the paragont is. They're much more likely 1:16:58.960 --> 1:16:59.640 to encounter that. 1:17:00.240 --> 1:17:02.599 This is more of a niche gripe, but one that's 1:17:02.640 --> 1:17:06.599 still important. There's been claims that quote ice can now 1:17:06.760 --> 1:17:11.240 hack any phone and break encryption, but graphite doesn't actually 1:17:11.240 --> 1:17:14.840 a quote unquote break encryption. It's not going after the 1:17:14.960 --> 1:17:19.920 encryption on Signal or WhatsApp. Instead, Paragon tries to circumvent 1:17:20.240 --> 1:17:22.640 end to end encryption by trying to gain access to 1:17:22.720 --> 1:17:26.360 content on a target device once it's been unencrypted by 1:17:26.360 --> 1:17:30.879 an application like WhatsApp for the user to read. Similar 1:17:30.880 --> 1:17:33.120 to how if you have push notifications on for an 1:17:33.120 --> 1:17:36.960 application like Signal. If the police seese your phone and 1:17:37.040 --> 1:17:41.640 push notifications display messages from Signal, that doesn't mean the 1:17:41.680 --> 1:17:46.040 police have quote unquote broken signals encryption. Now, in order 1:17:46.080 --> 1:17:49.000 for Graphite to extract messages from your phone, it needs 1:17:49.040 --> 1:17:52.839 to get onto your phone in the first place. Graphite 1:17:52.880 --> 1:17:55.599 is just the implanted code that can read and extract 1:17:55.600 --> 1:17:59.000 your messages. First, it needs to get onto your phone 1:17:59.240 --> 1:18:02.679 via what's called an exploit, which is usually a message 1:18:02.720 --> 1:18:05.439 sent to a phone number or a WhatsApp account that 1:18:05.520 --> 1:18:09.160 attacks a vulnerability in your phone's code to gain permissions 1:18:09.200 --> 1:18:12.840 to load the Graphite onto the messaging apps. Graphite and 1:18:12.960 --> 1:18:17.160 the exploit are two separate programs that work together, but 1:18:17.360 --> 1:18:20.120 exploits need to be frequently changed to keep up with 1:18:20.200 --> 1:18:25.160 software security updates, and that's expensive. You need different exploits 1:18:25.200 --> 1:18:30.440 for Android and iOS Paragon has been using zero click exploits, 1:18:30.720 --> 1:18:33.559 meaning the owner of the phone doesn't have to manually 1:18:33.720 --> 1:18:36.680 click a link or intentionally download a file for the 1:18:36.720 --> 1:18:40.280 exploit to try to gain permissions on the device. You 1:18:40.320 --> 1:18:42.320 don't have to click or do anything. You just have 1:18:42.360 --> 1:18:45.519 to receive the message and then the spyware gets to work, 1:18:45.760 --> 1:18:49.160 which is very scary. But this technology cannot be deployed 1:18:49.200 --> 1:18:52.280 on mass because of how expensive and specific it needs 1:18:52.320 --> 1:18:53.719 to be in order to work. 1:18:54.040 --> 1:18:55.960 The other thing that I think is missing a lot 1:18:55.960 --> 1:18:58.720 from the conversation about Graphite in particular. 1:18:58.680 --> 1:19:01.840 Is that the malware is just the program. 1:19:01.479 --> 1:19:03.679 That runs when it gets on your phone, and first 1:19:03.960 --> 1:19:08.120 before they can install Graphite, they have to get onto 1:19:08.160 --> 1:19:10.920 your phone through some sort of exploit. If your phone 1:19:10.960 --> 1:19:12.760 is up to date and fully patched, this will have 1:19:12.800 --> 1:19:14.800 to be as zero day exploit, which means it's an 1:19:14.840 --> 1:19:18.559 exploit that has had zero days for Apple or Google 1:19:18.680 --> 1:19:21.600 or whoever to fix it because it is unknown to them. 1:19:22.000 --> 1:19:25.759 And these exploits cost millions of dollars right now. Paragon 1:19:25.880 --> 1:19:27.880 is not going to pay that millions of dollars for 1:19:28.000 --> 1:19:31.840 each person they're exploiting, but there is a large per 1:19:32.000 --> 1:19:35.000 person cost to ice for each person they're going to exploit, 1:19:35.040 --> 1:19:39.120 because Paragon doesn't want to blow their zero day, which 1:19:39.160 --> 1:19:51.160 costs them millions of dollars to either buy or develop themselves. 1:19:53.080 --> 1:19:55.519 Welcome back. I'd like to get into a little bit 1:19:55.560 --> 1:20:00.000 of Paragon's backstory and how they've grown as a company. 1:20:00.000 --> 1:20:03.120 Farragon was founded in twenty nineteen by former Israeli Prime 1:20:03.120 --> 1:20:06.920 Minister A hood Brock and A hood Schnorsen, a former 1:20:06.960 --> 1:20:12.080 commander of the IDF's cyber warfare unit, basically Israel's equivalent 1:20:12.120 --> 1:20:16.960 of the NSA called Unit eight two hundred three. Other 1:20:17.080 --> 1:20:21.679 Paragon co founders are also ex Israeli intelligence. The startup 1:20:21.720 --> 1:20:24.439 got early financing from a Tel Aviv investment fund called 1:20:24.560 --> 1:20:28.680 Red Dot Capital. The Paragon also received backing from American 1:20:28.760 --> 1:20:32.280 venture capital. In twenty twenty one, Forbes reported that the 1:20:32.320 --> 1:20:36.120 Boston based Battery Ventures had invested between five to ten 1:20:36.200 --> 1:20:40.519 million in Paragon. Bloomberg Capital has also supported the company. 1:20:41.280 --> 1:20:44.479 In twenty twenty two, Paragon launched a US subsidiary and 1:20:44.520 --> 1:20:48.080 started recruiting former US Feds to help break into the 1:20:48.160 --> 1:20:52.160 American market. The New York Times reported that the DEA 1:20:52.400 --> 1:20:55.240 has used graphite as far back as twenty twenty two. 1:20:55.920 --> 1:21:00.000 Former CIA assistant director John Finbar Fleming became the exis 1:21:00.000 --> 1:21:03.880 executive chairman of Paragon US in January of twenty twenty four, 1:21:04.160 --> 1:21:08.080 according to his LinkedIn. In December of twenty twenty four, 1:21:08.320 --> 1:21:13.280 Paragon was acquired by AE Industrial Partners for nine hundred 1:21:13.400 --> 1:21:17.759 million dollars. AE Industrial Partners is a Florida based private 1:21:17.760 --> 1:21:22.519 equity fund with a specialized security portfolio. Once they bought 1:21:22.520 --> 1:21:28.560 Paragon emerged with another AE asset, the cybersecurity company red Lattice. 1:21:28.920 --> 1:21:31.800 Back in twenty twenty one, Paragon had about fifty employees. 1:21:32.439 --> 1:21:35.720 Now it has over five hundred. In June of twenty 1:21:35.760 --> 1:21:38.759 twenty five, they were hiring one hundred and fifty more. 1:21:39.360 --> 1:21:43.000 Just a week ago, executive chairman John Finbar Fleming shared 1:21:43.040 --> 1:21:47.360 a recruitment post that red Lattice was hiring quote emerging 1:21:47.520 --> 1:21:53.439 and offensive cyber engineers unquote. Next, let's discuss the biggest 1:21:53.560 --> 1:21:56.760 case study of graphite being deployed that we know of. 1:21:57.280 --> 1:22:00.559 On January thirty first, twenty twenty five, Meta, this encrypted 1:22:00.600 --> 1:22:05.040 messaging app WhatsApp, sent a notification to ninety accounts that 1:22:05.080 --> 1:22:09.000 their smartphones were suspected of being targeted by spyware, which 1:22:09.040 --> 1:22:13.120 has since been traced to the Paragon product Graphite. People 1:22:13.120 --> 1:22:17.080 targeted were journalists, human rights activists, and members of civil 1:22:17.120 --> 1:22:21.599 society across Europe and the Mediterranean, but primarily based out 1:22:21.600 --> 1:22:26.920 of Italy. This was a zero day and zero click exploit, 1:22:27.280 --> 1:22:30.799 meaning it both attacked of previously unknown vulnerability and required 1:22:31.040 --> 1:22:35.120 zero user interaction to infect the device. At first, the 1:22:35.160 --> 1:22:40.240 Italian government denied knowledge, but Paragon canceled two contracts with 1:22:40.439 --> 1:22:45.200 customers in Italy and a parliamentary oversight committee later confirmed 1:22:45.400 --> 1:22:49.400 the Italian government was using Paragon technology for spyware attacks 1:22:49.439 --> 1:22:54.080 against c migration activists. One thing that's interesting to me 1:22:54.240 --> 1:22:56.439 is that we talk about this technology is being very expensive, 1:22:56.560 --> 1:22:59.240 verily individual. They have to individually target you. But then 1:22:59.280 --> 1:23:02.479 you see ninety people on WhatsApp and you're like, that's 1:23:02.600 --> 1:23:04.880 that's a lot of people can talk about how this 1:23:04.920 --> 1:23:07.920 attack was like structured and what we've learned from it. 1:23:08.360 --> 1:23:12.040 For sure, ninety people is a lot of people for 1:23:12.160 --> 1:23:15.719 such a targeted attack, although it's you know, in terms 1:23:15.760 --> 1:23:19.519 of most malware, like most commercial maer, ninety people would 1:23:19.560 --> 1:23:22.479 be a very very small attack, right, Like it wouldn't 1:23:22.520 --> 1:23:23.240 be worth your time. 1:23:23.320 --> 1:23:25.479 So, you know, it depends on the scale of things. 1:23:25.800 --> 1:23:29.400 I don't know what the scale of Italian civil society is, right, 1:23:29.479 --> 1:23:32.679 but ninety people is likely, I think a small fraction 1:23:32.880 --> 1:23:34.879 of the whole of Italian civil society. 1:23:35.000 --> 1:23:35.160 Right. 1:23:35.600 --> 1:23:40.240 But yeah, those so those people that were targeted by Paragon. 1:23:40.320 --> 1:23:41.880 The ones that we know about. 1:23:41.960 --> 1:23:46.120 You know, one was a Italian anti fascist journalist, right, 1:23:46.200 --> 1:23:48.360 I think another there were a couple of other journalists 1:23:48.360 --> 1:23:52.880 that were covering migration issues, and you know, just a 1:23:53.120 --> 1:23:57.800 sort of a large swath across Italian civil society. So 1:23:57.880 --> 1:24:01.680 the way they were targeted was on WhatsApp. They were 1:24:01.680 --> 1:24:04.000 added to a group and then they were sent a 1:24:04.040 --> 1:24:07.519 malicious PDF which they didn't even have to open, and 1:24:07.560 --> 1:24:09.639 they didn't have to approve being added to the group. 1:24:10.200 --> 1:24:13.080 But as soon as that malicious PDF was received by 1:24:13.120 --> 1:24:17.040 their WhatsApp app, but by their WhatsApp client, the WhatsApp 1:24:17.080 --> 1:24:20.520 client processed the PDF and it contained code which exploited 1:24:20.560 --> 1:24:24.639 WhatsApp and allowed Graphite to start running. So Graphie doesn't 1:24:24.640 --> 1:24:27.840 actually install anything. To get a little bit technical, Graphite 1:24:27.840 --> 1:24:31.120 only runs in memory of the phone, right, it only 1:24:31.160 --> 1:24:35.120 runs in the like temporary ram so to speak. Okay, right, 1:24:35.160 --> 1:24:37.960 So rebooting the phone would have cleared out of the 1:24:37.960 --> 1:24:40.479 graphite infection and they would have had to reinfect the person. 1:24:40.640 --> 1:24:42.000 Interesting, right in this case. 1:24:42.160 --> 1:24:45.719 Yeah, it's possible that in the future Paragon will find 1:24:45.760 --> 1:24:50.040 a way to make graphite persistent. But it does make 1:24:50.120 --> 1:24:53.040 it more stealthy, It makes it harder to detect, it 1:24:53.040 --> 1:24:57.000 makes it harder to forensically analyze. For people like citizen 1:24:57.080 --> 1:25:00.720 Lab and like eff if it just runs in them sure, right, 1:25:00.800 --> 1:25:03.280 so it kind of makes sense that they would want 1:25:03.320 --> 1:25:05.600 to keep running it in memory, even though rebooting it 1:25:05.640 --> 1:25:07.960 would clear out the infection because you can just reinfect 1:25:08.000 --> 1:25:08.400 the person. 1:25:08.840 --> 1:25:11.639 Even like like developers like WhatsApp or like Apple might 1:25:11.680 --> 1:25:14.960 have a harder time, like yeah, realizing that they've been attacked. 1:25:14.960 --> 1:25:17.240 If it can get cleared out so quickly, I guess. 1:25:17.320 --> 1:25:21.000 Yeah, absolutely absolutely, And in this case WhatsApp, they'd realized 1:25:21.040 --> 1:25:24.040 they had been attacked, they quickly figured out the pattern, 1:25:24.240 --> 1:25:29.000 and you know, to their credit, warned everybody immediately. Often, 1:25:29.080 --> 1:25:32.000 the only way I think people will find out they've 1:25:32.000 --> 1:25:36.040 been you know, infected by this spywere is if WhatsApp 1:25:36.200 --> 1:25:39.599 or you know, somebody else maybe Apple warned you. That's 1:25:39.640 --> 1:25:42.800 not great, but it is, but it is better than 1:25:42.800 --> 1:25:45.080 the alternative where they just don't warn you at all. 1:25:45.240 --> 1:25:48.599 Right after the targets were notified of the spyware attack, 1:25:48.960 --> 1:25:53.200 some including journalists and migrant refugee activists in Italy, agreed 1:25:53.200 --> 1:25:56.599 to participate in a forensic analysis of Graphite by citizen Lab. 1:25:57.120 --> 1:26:00.640 They found that Paragon spyware had spread from one to 1:26:00.680 --> 1:26:04.280 at least two other apps on the device. In April 1:26:04.320 --> 1:26:07.120 of twenty twenty five, we got forensic confirmation of Graphite 1:26:07.120 --> 1:26:11.600 spyware on iPhone with a zero click exploit attacking I message. 1:26:11.840 --> 1:26:14.439 Citizen Lab was able to analyze the devices of a 1:26:14.479 --> 1:26:17.960 prominent European journalist who requested to remain anonymous, and an 1:26:18.000 --> 1:26:21.719 Italian journalist linked to the previous cluster of attacks in Italy. 1:26:22.200 --> 1:26:25.880 iPhone is slightly harder to target than your average Android, 1:26:26.200 --> 1:26:29.080 but certainly not impervious to this sort of attack, as 1:26:29.080 --> 1:26:32.200 we've seen from these examples in Europe. To date, citizen 1:26:32.280 --> 1:26:38.080 Lab has also identified suspected Paragon deployments in Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel, 1:26:38.160 --> 1:26:42.280 and Singapore. Though the encrypted messaging app signal is not 1:26:42.479 --> 1:26:45.960 mentioned in the citizen Lab reporting. Their analysis did find 1:26:46.000 --> 1:26:48.839 that graph Fight had the capability of going after several 1:26:48.920 --> 1:26:52.080 different messaging apps, and it's probably safe to assume that 1:26:52.200 --> 1:26:55.040 Signal would be one of the apps that Paragon would 1:26:55.080 --> 1:26:58.880 want to extract messages from. We don't have much information 1:26:59.120 --> 1:27:03.880 about this spy where targeting Signal, possibly because Signal does 1:27:03.880 --> 1:27:07.160 not have as large as an international user base compared 1:27:07.200 --> 1:27:11.040 to other apps like WhatsApp, I Message or Telegram, despite 1:27:11.120 --> 1:27:15.400 Signal being much more secure. So what can you do? 1:27:15.920 --> 1:27:19.960 Though Graphite might not be the total phone hijacking super 1:27:20.120 --> 1:27:22.960 spyware that the Guardian and others claim it to be, 1:27:23.400 --> 1:27:27.360 it still poses a significant security threat. Some basic digital 1:27:27.400 --> 1:27:31.519 security precautions apply here. Get into a habit of regular 1:27:31.680 --> 1:27:37.040 digital cleaning. Remove unnecessary content from your device, save space. 1:27:37.680 --> 1:27:41.519 Old photos can be uploaded to an external encrypted hard 1:27:41.560 --> 1:27:45.600 drive in question. If you really need years of messages 1:27:45.680 --> 1:27:49.639 stored on your phone, use an encrypted chat app like Signal, 1:27:49.680 --> 1:27:53.200 which has disappearing messages, so that there isn't a large 1:27:53.240 --> 1:27:56.920 backlog of communications that could be suddenly accessed by a 1:27:56.960 --> 1:28:01.360 hostile actor. Be very wary of cloud back They're often 1:28:01.360 --> 1:28:03.840 one of the least secure aspects of your digital life. 1:28:04.240 --> 1:28:07.639 Especially if they are unencrypted, And though it won't deter 1:28:08.000 --> 1:28:11.639 zero click exploits, it's still best practice to avoid clicking 1:28:11.920 --> 1:28:14.880 mysterious links or downloading files and photos is sent to 1:28:14.920 --> 1:28:18.479 your phone. Another tip is to regularly reboot your phone. 1:28:18.680 --> 1:28:21.200 Contrary to claims that once your phone has been targeted 1:28:21.200 --> 1:28:25.560 by graph its now compromised forever something called malware persistence, 1:28:26.000 --> 1:28:31.080 to our current knowledge, rebooting can wipe Paragon's exploits. It 1:28:31.120 --> 1:28:33.679 does not appear that Paragon spyware is at the moment 1:28:34.040 --> 1:28:37.800 reboot persistent, and it seems that rebooting would actually remove 1:28:37.840 --> 1:28:38.919 it from the phone. 1:28:39.240 --> 1:28:42.120 My reading is that rebooting it would remove. 1:28:41.880 --> 1:28:44.320 The malware from your phone until you were re exploit, 1:28:44.400 --> 1:28:46.840 which so you know, if you just reboot and you 1:28:46.880 --> 1:28:49.960 don't update, or you know, the zero day isn't out yet, right, 1:28:50.479 --> 1:28:52.000 they're just going to run the exploit again. 1:28:52.080 --> 1:28:52.200 Right. 1:28:52.320 --> 1:28:53.760 I think it's a fair bet that they're just going 1:28:53.760 --> 1:28:55.960 to run the exploit again, But it would be. 1:28:55.960 --> 1:28:58.200 Enough to get it off for that time, right, And 1:28:58.280 --> 1:29:01.720 I mean, I think as far as the mitigations, my 1:29:01.800 --> 1:29:04.519 friend recommends that people like reboot their phone every every 1:29:04.520 --> 1:29:06.320 morning when they're brushing their teeth, right, and I don't 1:29:06.320 --> 1:29:09.559 think it's a bad bit of security hygiene. 1:29:10.040 --> 1:29:11.679 If these guys are going dude, in fact. 1:29:11.560 --> 1:29:13.640 You might as well make it, you know, more of 1:29:13.680 --> 1:29:15.519 a headache for them, right, You might as well make 1:29:15.520 --> 1:29:17.960 it more costly to them, because there is going to 1:29:17.960 --> 1:29:19.519 be a charge to them for each time they have 1:29:19.560 --> 1:29:20.400 to reinfect you. 1:29:20.479 --> 1:29:20.639 Right. 1:29:21.040 --> 1:29:24.559 But yeah, it's certainly I think overblown to say that. 1:29:24.960 --> 1:29:26.519 You know, once it's on your phone, it's on your 1:29:26.560 --> 1:29:28.880 phone forever. There's you know, you just got to, you know. 1:29:28.840 --> 1:29:31.640 Throw your a thousand dollars phone in the trash and 1:29:31.680 --> 1:29:32.519 go buy another one. 1:29:32.640 --> 1:29:34.960 Like, no, you can, you know, if you don't feel safe, 1:29:35.000 --> 1:29:37.720 just rebooting it, right, like a factory reset, that would 1:29:37.760 --> 1:29:40.080 be the next step, right, I think that would That 1:29:40.120 --> 1:29:41.400 would most likely get rid. 1:29:41.360 --> 1:29:44.200 Of any persistence mechanisms that were installed. 1:29:44.400 --> 1:29:46.800 I'm not familiar with any iOS mawer certainly that would 1:29:46.840 --> 1:29:48.240 survive a factory reset. 1:29:48.760 --> 1:29:51.439 But probably the most important thing besides using signal is 1:29:51.479 --> 1:29:55.160 to keep your phone software updated. That's the simplest and 1:29:55.240 --> 1:29:58.600 best way to make it harder for spyware like graphites 1:29:58.680 --> 1:30:01.160 to make it onto your phone in the first place. 1:30:01.560 --> 1:30:05.120 Out Of date software has many more known vulnerabilities to attack. 1:30:05.640 --> 1:30:09.639 For extra protection, enable lockdown mode on iPhone or Advanced 1:30:09.640 --> 1:30:11.240 Protection on Android. 1:30:11.680 --> 1:30:15.120 So the reason it's important to keep your phone up 1:30:15.120 --> 1:30:18.360 to date and always install the latest security updates, even 1:30:18.400 --> 1:30:19.800 if it's a pain in the ass, and I know 1:30:19.840 --> 1:30:23.759 it's a pain in the ass, is because this makes 1:30:23.880 --> 1:30:27.000 an attacker have to use zero day exploits. So, if 1:30:27.000 --> 1:30:29.759 you have an old version of the software on your phone, 1:30:29.760 --> 1:30:35.320 there are known exploits. Known exploits are you know, more 1:30:35.439 --> 1:30:36.559 or less free? 1:30:36.880 --> 1:30:39.799 Right? They are already out there, they are already burned. 1:30:39.880 --> 1:30:42.320 They do not matter, right, like the company already knows 1:30:42.360 --> 1:30:42.760 about them. 1:30:43.000 --> 1:30:47.160 An exploit loses basically all of its value as soon 1:30:47.400 --> 1:30:50.040 as you know the company knows about it and it's patched. 1:30:50.160 --> 1:30:51.599 Right, So if you. 1:30:51.680 --> 1:30:53.439 Have out of date software on your phone, if you 1:30:53.439 --> 1:30:56.320 have out of data software in a computer, it changes 1:30:56.360 --> 1:31:00.200 the entire economics of attacking. Right, It's basically free for 1:31:00.280 --> 1:31:03.160 me to exploit your phone at this point, and I 1:31:03.280 --> 1:31:04.960 you know, I will exploit it as many times as 1:31:04.960 --> 1:31:06.880 I want, and I don't care if that exploit is burned. 1:31:06.920 --> 1:31:09.800 I don't care if you find it, because again it's free, right. 1:31:10.240 --> 1:31:13.439 Zero A exploits for especially for Apple for like you know, 1:31:13.920 --> 1:31:19.320 Android pixel phones, for for Graphene, the alternative Android OS 1:31:19.320 --> 1:31:20.120 not graphite. 1:31:20.200 --> 1:31:24.000 This has been giving me real problems lately. Zero a exploits, 1:31:24.040 --> 1:31:27.800 meaning exploits that the manufacturer does not know about and 1:31:27.840 --> 1:31:31.519 has not had a chance to patch, cost millions of 1:31:31.600 --> 1:31:35.599 dollars for these platforms, and a zero click exploit where 1:31:35.720 --> 1:31:39.080 where the victim doesn't have to interact with it at all. Right, 1:31:39.080 --> 1:31:40.760 I don't have to click a link, I don't have 1:31:40.800 --> 1:31:41.439 to do something. 1:31:41.439 --> 1:31:44.759 You just send me, you know, a PDF, an infected 1:31:44.800 --> 1:31:48.640 PDF or a magic file, right or something, and my 1:31:48.720 --> 1:31:49.559 phone is infected. 1:31:50.000 --> 1:31:53.360 Those are the most expensive above all, Right, those. 1:31:53.400 --> 1:31:55.599 Those are sort of the Those are the golden ticket 1:31:55.880 --> 1:32:00.599 for malware companies, right a million, These cost million dollars 1:32:00.600 --> 1:32:03.040 And if you burn it, right, if it gets caught, 1:32:03.080 --> 1:32:06.599 like like you know what happened with WhatsApp and citizen 1:32:06.640 --> 1:32:10.200 lab in Italy, right, that's millions of dollars. 1:32:09.840 --> 1:32:11.639 Down the drain for para con. 1:32:12.000 --> 1:32:14.320 You know, they're going to pass that on to the 1:32:14.320 --> 1:32:18.160 Italian government to ice to whoever their contractors are. Right, 1:32:18.600 --> 1:32:22.080 So keeping your front up today totally changes the economics 1:32:22.800 --> 1:32:25.559 of running a malware attack against you, right, like anybody 1:32:25.560 --> 1:32:28.160 can run, you know, out of their office old you know, 1:32:28.360 --> 1:32:31.679 end day, right more than zero day malware attacks against 1:32:31.720 --> 1:32:33.439 any me, right Like, those are cheap. But if your 1:32:33.439 --> 1:32:36.679 stuff is patched, no, it's gonna it's it's It totally 1:32:36.800 --> 1:32:38.479 changes the entire game. And you've got to be doing 1:32:38.520 --> 1:32:41.360 really good work for ICE to to want to burn 1:32:41.400 --> 1:32:42.320 that much money on you. 1:32:42.920 --> 1:32:46.040 All these tips can make it considerably harder and more importantly, 1:32:46.520 --> 1:32:50.400 extremely expensive for this spy work to get onto your device. 1:32:51.040 --> 1:32:54.680 These exploits could only be deployed against individual targets, and 1:32:54.720 --> 1:32:59.280 that gets quite expensive. Just because ICE could theoretically hack 1:32:59.320 --> 1:33:02.000 your phone, that doesn't mean that your phone is necessarily 1:33:02.080 --> 1:33:05.599 at a high risk of being hacked by ICE. Who 1:33:05.640 --> 1:33:08.920 are the possible targets for graphites bywear Who is at 1:33:09.000 --> 1:33:12.840 higher risk? Journalists who report on ICE and immigration, people 1:33:12.840 --> 1:33:17.280 who work for immigration advocacy organizations, immigration lawyers, as well 1:33:17.320 --> 1:33:21.439 as high profile activists. It goes without saying that anything 1:33:21.520 --> 1:33:24.679 you do on your phone or on the Internet carries 1:33:24.720 --> 1:33:38.200 a level of inherent risk. We'll close this episode with 1:33:38.360 --> 1:33:42.080 a longer segment from my interview with Cooper discussing who's 1:33:42.120 --> 1:33:45.960 at the most risk of ICE using Paragon software and 1:33:46.040 --> 1:33:51.360 more of Cooper's recommended surveillance mitigation practices. This is not 1:33:51.360 --> 1:33:53.719 something that can be deployed at a protest and sweep 1:33:53.800 --> 1:33:56.719 up you know, thousands of people. This does go after 1:33:56.840 --> 1:33:59.439 like individuals because of its cost and the way that 1:33:59.479 --> 1:34:02.120 it needs to be deployed. Yeah, who are the people 1:34:02.120 --> 1:34:04.840 that you would say are most at risk of this? 1:34:05.080 --> 1:34:06.479 Like is this here like your. 1:34:06.360 --> 1:34:09.800 Local like you know, food not bombs organizer, or like 1:34:09.840 --> 1:34:10.960 an immigration lawyer? 1:34:11.040 --> 1:34:11.639 Like? Right? 1:34:11.880 --> 1:34:14.599 Who should be concerned? I guess and and take take 1:34:14.640 --> 1:34:16.080 this threat like more seriously? 1:34:16.800 --> 1:34:23.000 Definitely, I think people who should be concerned are I mean, 1:34:23.040 --> 1:34:25.360 you hit the nail on the head, right. The people 1:34:25.400 --> 1:34:28.160 that should be concerned about this are people who have 1:34:29.320 --> 1:34:32.439 you know, been a special pain in. 1:34:32.400 --> 1:34:34.559 The ass for ICE and basic heure. 1:34:35.240 --> 1:34:39.880 Right, you know, people who might be under HSI investigation. Right, 1:34:40.000 --> 1:34:44.799 people who you know have been threatened by the president 1:34:44.880 --> 1:34:47.599 or by Pam Bondi you know specifically, right, like had 1:34:47.640 --> 1:34:52.400 their name called out specifically, right, People who are you know, 1:34:52.640 --> 1:34:56.559 very loud, very active, right, like the sort of leaders 1:34:57.160 --> 1:34:58.360 what's the term tall poppies? 1:34:58.439 --> 1:34:58.559 Right? 1:34:58.640 --> 1:35:02.639 Like the people that are really have their heads sticking 1:35:02.640 --> 1:35:04.559 out right in a way that's like very public and 1:35:04.680 --> 1:35:07.280 very well known. If you have risen to the level 1:35:07.280 --> 1:35:10.920 where like Calm Homan knows your name personally, right, that 1:35:11.000 --> 1:35:14.360 makes it a pretty good chance that you know, you 1:35:14.439 --> 1:35:16.759 might become a target with this, right, Like that's that's 1:35:16.760 --> 1:35:17.759 who we're talking about. 1:35:18.160 --> 1:35:19.680 Well, and like as we've seen in Italy, like that 1:35:19.760 --> 1:35:23.919 can that can include like like anti fascist journalists, Yeah, definitely, 1:35:24.120 --> 1:35:28.320 people who work for like migrant human rights organizations, yes, 1:35:28.840 --> 1:35:32.479 high profile activists. And I think like there's a real 1:35:32.520 --> 1:35:34.519 concern with with you know, trying to comprise the phone 1:35:34.560 --> 1:35:36.960 of journalists because of how journalists like talk to sources. 1:35:36.960 --> 1:35:39.759 The journalists might have information about like other people besides 1:35:39.800 --> 1:35:42.479 the journalists on their phone, and they may be targeting 1:35:42.640 --> 1:35:44.840 through the journalists, but trying to get after other people 1:35:44.840 --> 1:35:47.479 who they're talking to. Same thing with like immigration lawyers, 1:35:47.520 --> 1:35:50.880 and like there is real concern about harm spreading from 1:35:50.880 --> 1:35:53.400 those factors. And I think that's why if you are 1:35:53.439 --> 1:35:55.640 in those sorts of like roles that like like a 1:35:55.720 --> 1:35:58.519 human rights organization, a journalist, or a lawyer, you need 1:35:58.560 --> 1:36:02.680 to be like extra careful about keeping your phone updated 1:36:03.080 --> 1:36:07.400 regularly engaging in like digital hygiene, having disappearing messages, maybe 1:36:07.479 --> 1:36:10.840 putting on lockdown mode onto your iPhone, be very ware 1:36:11.080 --> 1:36:15.120 of being added to mysterious group chats. These are just 1:36:15.479 --> 1:36:19.120 general practices that are I think worthwhile to like engage in, 1:36:19.479 --> 1:36:21.280 whether or not you're actually gonna get tuck targeted by. 1:36:21.160 --> 1:36:24.839 This, absolutely, and I want to especially single out lockdown 1:36:24.880 --> 1:36:29.440 mode there, Like, we are not aware of any infections 1:36:29.720 --> 1:36:35.120 of anymour right, Pegasus, Graphite Right, any others that have 1:36:36.320 --> 1:36:40.200 managed to successfully infect an iPhone on lockdown mode. So 1:36:40.360 --> 1:36:42.920 if you are worried about this, lockdown mode is the 1:36:42.960 --> 1:36:45.960 single most effective thing you can do to protect yourself 1:36:46.000 --> 1:36:48.000 against this mour right, is go turn on lockdown mod. 1:36:48.000 --> 1:36:48.919 If you're on Android. 1:36:49.160 --> 1:36:51.840 I think Google calls it advanced protection mode. 1:36:51.960 --> 1:36:53.519 Yeah, yeah, advanced protection mode. 1:36:53.720 --> 1:36:58.600 So advanced Protection mode used to be not very comprehensive, 1:36:58.720 --> 1:37:01.800 and I think like with the new Android update with 1:37:01.920 --> 1:37:04.519 Android sixteen that came out, you know, I think like 1:37:04.600 --> 1:37:08.840 last week or something, it's now much more comparable to 1:37:09.320 --> 1:37:12.840 lockdown mode. So you know, I highly recommend churning that 1:37:12.880 --> 1:37:13.879 on if you're on Android. 1:37:14.000 --> 1:37:15.799 All my homies love lockdown mode. 1:37:16.120 --> 1:37:19.760 Yes, yes, that is the number one protection right. 1:37:20.280 --> 1:37:24.000 The other The other thing I strongly recommend always and 1:37:24.080 --> 1:37:26.800 I be this drum like every day is turn on 1:37:26.840 --> 1:37:30.040 disappearing messages. If you're on Signal or WhatsApp, go turn 1:37:30.080 --> 1:37:33.280 on disappearing messages, right because this is good against you 1:37:33.320 --> 1:37:35.040 know a lot of different things, right, Like this is 1:37:35.080 --> 1:37:38.679 good against celebrate as well as pigass, as well as 1:37:39.120 --> 1:37:42.080 grab me. Right, Like if the messages are gone by 1:37:42.120 --> 1:37:45.080 the time you get infected, there's no way to recover those, right, 1:37:45.160 --> 1:37:48.360 You're minimizing your footprint. Right, ye, go delete old chats 1:37:48.479 --> 1:37:50.479 right like if you if you get a second right, 1:37:50.520 --> 1:37:53.120 like we've all Google has trained us to all be 1:37:53.280 --> 1:37:56.160 digital hoarders, right and keep depending How will you are 1:37:56.160 --> 1:37:57.360 twenty years of email. 1:37:57.120 --> 1:37:58.120 Ten years whatever? 1:37:58.160 --> 1:37:58.280 Right? 1:37:58.439 --> 1:38:03.080 Never never delete? Right, And that's don't ignore them, ignore Google. 1:38:03.120 --> 1:38:05.240 Google doesn't want you to delete things because they want 1:38:05.280 --> 1:38:07.880 to use all that data for selling you ads. 1:38:07.920 --> 1:38:09.320 Right, delete everything. 1:38:09.080 --> 1:38:11.120 I want more underwater data set. 1:38:11.120 --> 1:38:15.559 Yes, yes, exactly, delete everything. Delete your files, you know, like, 1:38:16.280 --> 1:38:18.120 get rid of those old group chats, right, get rid 1:38:18.160 --> 1:38:19.799 of those old chats that you don't need anymore. 1:38:20.080 --> 1:38:22.080 You need to be like that lawyer in death notes. 1:38:22.680 --> 1:38:26.040 Delete yes, delete. 1:38:26.720 --> 1:38:27.799 The death note referenced. 1:38:31.120 --> 1:38:35.160 Do you wanna plug Citizen Labs slash EFF and tell 1:38:35.160 --> 1:38:37.599 people where to find both your work and then also 1:38:37.640 --> 1:38:41.519 other people who are doing research into graphite And like, 1:38:41.560 --> 1:38:44.120 you know, if you've been suspected of being targeted by 1:38:44.200 --> 1:38:47.680 you know, maybe a notification how you can participate in 1:38:47.720 --> 1:38:50.400 forensic analysis to help everyone be more secure against this 1:38:50.439 --> 1:38:50.920 in the future. 1:38:51.400 --> 1:38:52.080 Yeah, for sure. 1:38:52.160 --> 1:38:55.599 So one of the best ways to find out you've 1:38:55.600 --> 1:38:59.240 been targeted by state sponsor malware is to get a 1:38:59.400 --> 1:39:02.880 notification from Apple or Google or WhatsApp or some other 1:39:03.040 --> 1:39:07.080 large company that you have been targeted by state sponsored malware. Typically, 1:39:07.240 --> 1:39:10.599 these notifications don't contain much more information than we believe 1:39:10.640 --> 1:39:12.880 you've been targeted by a nation of state or by 1:39:12.880 --> 1:39:15.000 state sponsor maware. But if you do get one of 1:39:15.000 --> 1:39:18.960 those notifications, take it very seriously, you know, reach out 1:39:19.000 --> 1:39:22.639 to access now or to EFF or to Citizen Lab 1:39:23.160 --> 1:39:25.439 and let us know, right, and we will. 1:39:25.280 --> 1:39:26.680 Help figure out what's going on. 1:39:26.840 --> 1:39:30.200 Right, Like this is this is the number one indicator, 1:39:30.280 --> 1:39:33.320 right because like this malware is usually fairly stealthy, right, 1:39:33.439 --> 1:39:36.160 Like it's not actually, but you know, I don't know 1:39:36.200 --> 1:39:41.479 flashing you're infected on your screen, right, But yeah, citizen 1:39:41.520 --> 1:39:45.040 Lab is always doing amazing work. I'm a fellow there, 1:39:45.120 --> 1:39:46.880 so I get to work with them sometimes, which is 1:39:47.000 --> 1:39:51.120 very exciting. They are based out of the Monk School 1:39:51.120 --> 1:39:54.599 of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and their 1:39:54.600 --> 1:39:56.960 website is CitizenLab dot org, where you can find a 1:39:57.000 --> 1:39:59.960 lot of really excellent research on the types of threat 1:40:00.120 --> 1:40:01.519 the target civil society. 1:40:01.800 --> 1:40:05.800 Er erm, I have citizen Lab dot c A. Oh, 1:40:06.000 --> 1:40:06.839 but I'm Canadian. 1:40:06.960 --> 1:40:11.120 You are probably correct. I can never remember. 1:40:11.160 --> 1:40:13.639 The as a Canadian. I was very I was very 1:40:13.640 --> 1:40:16.960 put off by you erasing our nation's history, of our 1:40:17.040 --> 1:40:20.120 of our coveted dot c A. We love, we love 1:40:20.120 --> 1:40:20.800 our dot c A. 1:40:21.080 --> 1:40:22.880 I am not trying to start a war with Canada. 1:40:23.240 --> 1:40:26.920 Uh well, many many people are, so. 1:40:27.320 --> 1:40:29.479 Listen, I'm firmly on the side of Canada and the 1:40:29.479 --> 1:40:32.960 war against Canada. Okay, please take me in lease. 1:40:34.360 --> 1:40:38.840 Yeah, your solidarity is a is a noted So citizen 1:40:38.920 --> 1:40:39.360 lab dot. 1:40:39.360 --> 1:40:41.800 Org actually redirection cism Lab dot c So we were 1:40:41.800 --> 1:40:44.559 both right there you go, or you were maybe more right. 1:40:45.280 --> 1:40:48.840 So yeah, citizen Law and yeah, they're they're really fantastic, 1:40:49.160 --> 1:40:51.320 A lot of really good research going on there at 1:40:51.360 --> 1:40:54.840 e FF dot org, the Electronic Frontier Foundation where US 1:40:54.840 --> 1:40:59.040 based nonprofit been around for thirty five years defending civil 1:40:59.080 --> 1:41:02.880 liberties as they intersect with technology. So a lot of 1:41:03.040 --> 1:41:05.320 a lot of free speech work, a lot of you know, 1:41:05.400 --> 1:41:08.920 privacy and Fourth Amendment work. And we also have a 1:41:08.960 --> 1:41:12.280 really excellent set of guides called the Surveillance Self Defense Guides, 1:41:12.320 --> 1:41:14.759 which are at SSD dot e FF dot. 1:41:14.680 --> 1:41:16.840 Org, which I highly recommend people go and check out. 1:41:16.920 --> 1:41:21.439 It's the most sort of evergreen guide for defending yourself online. 1:41:21.439 --> 1:41:23.280 A lot of the problem with the online security guides 1:41:23.280 --> 1:41:24.960 that they get out of date very quickly, and we 1:41:25.040 --> 1:41:28.120 have a totally whole, full time person dedicated to making 1:41:28.120 --> 1:41:29.720 sure that our guides stay up to date. 1:41:29.840 --> 1:41:31.479 I'll put a link in the description. 1:41:31.720 --> 1:41:32.880 Yeah, and we're a nonprofit. 1:41:33.320 --> 1:41:35.400 Members support a nonprofit, so you know, if you like 1:41:35.439 --> 1:41:37.200 to work, throw us a few bucks. We work for 1:41:37.280 --> 1:41:40.439 tips and yeah. Are the chief places that I'm at 1:41:40.439 --> 1:41:42.280 that I want to plug? Only other thing to plug? 1:41:42.320 --> 1:41:44.280 I guess you can follow me on social media. I'm 1:41:44.800 --> 1:41:48.840 at cooperq dot com on blue Sky and cooper q 1:41:49.120 --> 1:41:52.240 at Masto dot hackers dot town on Mastodon. 1:41:52.760 --> 1:41:56.599 Hell yeah, yeah, all right, well, thank you so much. 1:41:56.800 --> 1:41:58.559 Thank you for the work you do at a e 1:41:58.720 --> 1:42:00.360 FF and Citizen Lab. 1:42:00.479 --> 1:42:00.840 Thank you. 1:42:01.120 --> 1:42:03.040 Yeah. I guess we should alwas throw away our phone 1:42:03.120 --> 1:42:05.439 since there's no way to use our phone safely anymore. 1:42:05.600 --> 1:42:08.479 I mean, throwing away our phones isn't a terrible idea. 1:42:09.600 --> 1:42:11.000 That's why I bad. You know what I could be 1:42:11.080 --> 1:42:11.800 onto something I. 1:42:12.040 --> 1:42:15.519 Think for our own sanity just in general. 1:42:15.840 --> 1:42:17.920 No, I think they're making us more connected, and I 1:42:17.920 --> 1:42:20.439 think they're making us more stable. 1:42:21.520 --> 1:42:24.479 They are making us more connected, that's for sure. In 1:42:24.520 --> 1:42:27.200 that I get five billion notifications per day, if that's 1:42:27.200 --> 1:42:28.080 what connected means. 1:42:28.120 --> 1:42:51.040 Yeah, all right. 1:42:47.520 --> 1:42:49.360 Hello everyone, and welcome to say it could happen here. 1:42:50.000 --> 1:42:53.000 My name is Dan el Kerd. I'm a writer, analyst, 1:42:53.080 --> 1:42:56.960 and researcher of Palestinian and Arab politics. I'm an associate 1:42:56.960 --> 1:43:00.280 professor of political science and a senior non resident fellow 1:43:00.360 --> 1:43:03.600 at the Arab Center Washington. What a wild time in 1:43:03.600 --> 1:43:06.200 the Middle East? Am I right? I mean not to 1:43:06.240 --> 1:43:09.599 be flippant, that's putting it mildly. Today before I recorded, 1:43:09.880 --> 1:43:13.200 Israel bombed the capital of Katar, Doha, in an assassination 1:43:13.240 --> 1:43:16.960 attempt against Tamas leadership. They bombed in a residential area 1:43:17.320 --> 1:43:22.120 in the middle of the city, surrounded by nurseries, schools, businesses, 1:43:22.640 --> 1:43:24.920 and you know people. I have a lot to say 1:43:24.960 --> 1:43:27.800 about Arab Israeli relations historically and what's happening on that 1:43:27.880 --> 1:43:31.559 front today and the sometimes shared interests of Arab regimes 1:43:31.600 --> 1:43:33.880 with the Israeli state. So stay tuned for a deep 1:43:33.920 --> 1:43:36.920 dive episode on that topic soon. Today, I want to 1:43:36.920 --> 1:43:40.280 talk about the issue of Palestinian statehood. It's been in 1:43:40.320 --> 1:43:42.840 the news quite a bit these days. A number of 1:43:42.880 --> 1:43:46.439 different countries have expressed a willingness to recognize Palestine as 1:43:46.439 --> 1:43:49.320 a state. In July, for example, France announced it would 1:43:49.320 --> 1:43:52.400 recognize Palestinian statehood, and it was soon joined by a 1:43:52.439 --> 1:43:56.639 number of other countries, Canada, Malta, Belgium, the UK. Kir Starmer, 1:43:56.680 --> 1:43:58.920 the Prime Minister of the UK, actually made it into 1:43:58.960 --> 1:44:02.080 an explicit threat. Basically, we will recognize the state of 1:44:02.120 --> 1:44:05.400 Palestine if the Israelis don't agree to a ceasefire. I'd 1:44:05.400 --> 1:44:08.000 like to underscore the absurdity of that comment for a second, 1:44:08.040 --> 1:44:09.080 but we'll get. 1:44:08.960 --> 1:44:10.439 Back to that one. 1:44:10.600 --> 1:44:13.440 For all these countries, they say that they are recognizing 1:44:13.439 --> 1:44:16.920 Palestine as a state because they desire a two state solution. 1:44:17.760 --> 1:44:21.599 Their condition for recognizing Palestine as a state also includes 1:44:22.040 --> 1:44:26.120 Hamas being completely out of the picture quote demilitarized in 1:44:26.120 --> 1:44:29.920 the language of French President Macron, as NPR reported back 1:44:29.920 --> 1:44:33.960 in August first, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Karney also said 1:44:34.040 --> 1:44:37.559 that the Palestinian authority needs to hold elections in this scenario, 1:44:37.880 --> 1:44:41.360 but one that excludes Hamas. So all of these recent 1:44:41.400 --> 1:44:45.439 announcements are coalescing around the same conditions. I guess the 1:44:45.479 --> 1:44:48.519 big deal here is that these are major powers, France 1:44:48.560 --> 1:44:50.960 and the UK who have veto power in the UN 1:44:51.040 --> 1:44:55.360 Security Council, for example. So the plan to recognize Palestinian 1:44:55.439 --> 1:44:57.639 statehood has gotten a lot of press and attention. 1:44:58.439 --> 1:45:00.160 But the thing is a one. 1:45:00.120 --> 1:45:03.200 Hundred and forty five countries already recognize Palestine as a state. 1:45:03.720 --> 1:45:07.320 Palestine was given observer status at the UN in twenty twelve, 1:45:07.600 --> 1:45:10.280 and the Palestinian authority has been working for quite some 1:45:10.400 --> 1:45:14.080 time to get more recognition internationally and to be able 1:45:14.120 --> 1:45:16.840 to use the international legal system to advocate for themselves. 1:45:17.600 --> 1:45:23.160 So what does this recognition actually mean a state that 1:45:23.360 --> 1:45:28.080 is occupied entirely by another and is currently undergoing ethnic 1:45:28.080 --> 1:45:30.880 cleansing at different levels of severity in all parts of 1:45:30.880 --> 1:45:35.639 its territories. What state is actually being recognized here? What 1:45:35.680 --> 1:45:39.240 does statehood mean in the context of occupation and ethnic cleansing. 1:45:40.200 --> 1:45:42.400 It might help to go back to the Oscilocords that 1:45:42.439 --> 1:45:45.920 were signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization the PLO, and 1:45:45.960 --> 1:45:48.479 the State of Israel. This was the first time that 1:45:48.560 --> 1:45:52.080 Israel and the Palestinians agreed to something directly. A stipulation 1:45:52.160 --> 1:45:56.160 of the OSCOLO Accords was mutual recognition, meaning Israel would 1:45:56.160 --> 1:45:59.360 recognize that the PLO was the representative of the Palestinian people, 1:45:59.800 --> 1:46:03.200 and the PLO would recognize Israel's right to exist. This 1:46:03.400 --> 1:46:07.160 was later criticized as uneven by Palsaidinian negotiators such as 1:46:07.160 --> 1:46:11.720 Hannan Ashroi, because the PLO was already internationally recognized as 1:46:11.760 --> 1:46:15.639 the representative of the Palestinian people. So her argument more 1:46:15.680 --> 1:46:19.520 recently has been they accepted Israel's control for getting recognition 1:46:19.600 --> 1:46:22.479 in return. The US ambassador to Israel at the time, 1:46:22.560 --> 1:46:25.559 Daniel Kurtzer, concurred with that assessment, saying to The New 1:46:25.640 --> 1:46:28.320 York Times that the OSCLO agreement was full of holes. 1:46:28.840 --> 1:46:32.200 The mutual recognition was asymmetrical, and that was to hurt 1:46:32.200 --> 1:46:35.040 the Palestinian negotiating position for years to come. 1:46:35.320 --> 1:46:35.879 End quote. 1:46:36.479 --> 1:46:39.519 Nevertheless, the Osclo Accords of nineteen ninety three are widely 1:46:39.600 --> 1:46:42.360 understood to be the attempt to bring about a two 1:46:42.360 --> 1:46:45.759 state solution of some kind, and it's been the framework 1:46:45.800 --> 1:46:49.320 that many international powers have paid lip service to ever since. 1:46:50.160 --> 1:46:53.280 By the way, September twenty twenty three marked the thirty 1:46:53.360 --> 1:46:56.040 year anniversary of the accords, we all know what happened 1:46:56.080 --> 1:46:59.360 October seventh, just a few days later. The thing is, 1:46:59.800 --> 1:47:04.240 the also framework didn't say two states. The Alsco Accords 1:47:04.280 --> 1:47:08.120 just said that they would continue negotiations on some eventual 1:47:08.320 --> 1:47:12.640 final framework. Now Palestinians wanted a state, of course, and 1:47:12.680 --> 1:47:16.920 the Israelis were committing to negotiations. So the Palestinians were 1:47:16.920 --> 1:47:19.120 told to start building up a sort of state, a 1:47:19.200 --> 1:47:22.759 quasi state in parts of the occupied territories, to start 1:47:22.760 --> 1:47:26.120 governing themselves in particular ways, and this was called the 1:47:26.120 --> 1:47:29.599 Palestinian National Authority. I talked about this at more length 1:47:29.600 --> 1:47:32.320 than the episode for it could happen here titled Palestine's 1:47:32.320 --> 1:47:35.200 Stolen Future. So if you're interested, you can listen to 1:47:35.240 --> 1:47:39.519 that one. The Also Accords split the occupied territories into 1:47:39.560 --> 1:47:43.400 three parts, Area A, B, and C, all of which 1:47:43.479 --> 1:47:46.599 remained under the Israeli occupation's control, but still there were 1:47:46.600 --> 1:47:49.439 some differences between them. In Area A, which is less 1:47:49.479 --> 1:47:51.439 than twenty percent of the land, that's where a lot 1:47:51.439 --> 1:47:54.240 of the urban centers are, the Palestinian Authority was allowed 1:47:54.280 --> 1:47:57.680 to function, build and run institutions of governance. So if 1:47:57.680 --> 1:47:59.960 you go to Ramalo, for example, you'll see big bil 1:48:00.000 --> 1:48:04.719 buildings with Palstinian Authority insignia. An Area B the Palstein 1:48:04.760 --> 1:48:08.080 and Authority had partial access, and an Area C, which 1:48:08.120 --> 1:48:11.760 is the majority of the territories, the Palstien Authority was 1:48:11.920 --> 1:48:15.320 and continues to not be allowed to function, But the 1:48:15.360 --> 1:48:18.120 PA did use this as an opportunity to create the 1:48:18.160 --> 1:48:23.040 basis of a state, creating ministries, beginning of parliament, writing laws, 1:48:23.680 --> 1:48:29.520 and importantly creating security forces. Throughout all this, Israel maintained 1:48:29.560 --> 1:48:34.560 military control over the entire territory, and Israeli settlements continued 1:48:34.560 --> 1:48:38.519 to expand. So what the Israeli has got out of 1:48:38.560 --> 1:48:41.920 the Also Accords was they got out of providing certain 1:48:41.960 --> 1:48:45.840 services and they let Palestinians do that for themselves. But 1:48:45.920 --> 1:48:48.800 they didn't actually seed meaningful control over any part of 1:48:48.840 --> 1:48:53.920 the territory. Now it's important to pause here. An occupying 1:48:53.960 --> 1:48:58.360 force is obligated under international law to provide services to 1:48:58.400 --> 1:49:02.000 the population it occupies and to return the land to 1:49:02.080 --> 1:49:06.880 the sovereign the occupy people as soon as possible, As 1:49:06.880 --> 1:49:10.719 the European Society of International Law notes, quote, the nineteen 1:49:10.760 --> 1:49:14.719 oh seven Haigue Regulations, the nineteen forty nine Fourth Geneva Convention, 1:49:15.120 --> 1:49:18.600 and modern body of international human rights instruments contain a 1:49:18.680 --> 1:49:23.480 number of provisions which protect the lives, property, natural resources, institutions, 1:49:23.880 --> 1:49:27.280 civil life, fundamental human rights and latent sovereignty of the 1:49:27.280 --> 1:49:30.840 people under occupation, while curbing the security powers of the 1:49:30.880 --> 1:49:35.840 occupying power to those genuinely required to safely administer the occupation. 1:49:38.280 --> 1:49:43.360 And if the occupier occupies indefinitely, then it's not really 1:49:43.360 --> 1:49:46.679 an occupation anymore, is it. Again? As the European Society 1:49:46.680 --> 1:49:50.680 of International Law notes, the concept of prolonged occupation may 1:49:50.720 --> 1:49:53.879 well become a legal guise that masks a de facto 1:49:53.960 --> 1:49:58.200 colonial exercise and defeats the transient and exceptional nature which 1:49:58.240 --> 1:50:02.600 occupations are intended to be end quote, but that is 1:50:02.640 --> 1:50:06.200 exactly what has continued before and after the Ascol Accords. 1:50:16.520 --> 1:50:19.639 The Asco Accords never ended, the occupation never gave back 1:50:19.720 --> 1:50:23.640 land to Palestinians. All it did is strip the occupier 1:50:24.000 --> 1:50:26.800 of its responsibility under the guise of working towards a 1:50:26.840 --> 1:50:30.599 two state solution. And really, anybody who has looked at 1:50:30.600 --> 1:50:33.439 what has transpired honestly would say that there has always 1:50:33.479 --> 1:50:36.360 been a mismatch between what the Israelis wanted and we're 1:50:36.400 --> 1:50:39.400 willing to give, and what the Palestinians wanted. Even to 1:50:39.479 --> 1:50:41.880 the degree of what both sides meant when they set 1:50:42.000 --> 1:50:45.439 state has always been mismatched. So I'll explain what I mean. 1:50:46.040 --> 1:50:50.840 Palestinians have always wanted a legitimate state. What does that mean. Well, 1:50:51.080 --> 1:50:55.440 a state has sovereignty, It has control over its own territory, 1:50:55.760 --> 1:50:57.880 it has the monopoly on the use of violence within 1:50:57.920 --> 1:51:01.200 its boundaries. That's the most basic definition of state sovereignty. 1:51:02.040 --> 1:51:06.200 Israel never intended for any of that. Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, 1:51:06.439 --> 1:51:09.000 who signed the Oscio Accords, in his final address to 1:51:09.000 --> 1:51:11.759 the Kanesset before he was assassinated by a right wing Israeli, 1:51:12.320 --> 1:51:15.280 clearly stated that what was on offer for the Palestinians 1:51:15.720 --> 1:51:19.600 was something quote less than a state. Yitzak Rabin was 1:51:19.600 --> 1:51:22.719 in the Labor Party. But again, if people are being honest, 1:51:22.840 --> 1:51:26.880 this is a bipartisan position Israel. Israeli political leaders have 1:51:27.120 --> 1:51:30.639 at best offered something less than a state, and at 1:51:30.680 --> 1:51:35.840 worst offered surrender or annihilation. I'm not being hyperbolic here. 1:51:36.479 --> 1:51:39.559 Bezdals Mootrich of the Religious Zionist Party, who is now 1:51:39.560 --> 1:51:43.719 the Finance Minister, has for years actively promoted his quote 1:51:43.720 --> 1:51:47.320 decisive plan, which has become the policy of the state today. 1:51:48.000 --> 1:51:51.599 The plan proposes that one any Palestinian who was willing 1:51:51.640 --> 1:51:55.360 and able to relinquish the fulfillment of his national aspirations 1:51:55.720 --> 1:51:58.520 would be able to stay and live as an individual 1:51:58.560 --> 1:52:01.600 in the Jewish State, not as a citizen. And two, 1:52:01.920 --> 1:52:05.680 any Palestinian who is unwilling or unable to relinquish his 1:52:05.920 --> 1:52:10.960 national aspirations will receive assistance from them to immigrate to 1:52:11.040 --> 1:52:14.240 one of the Arab countries. So essentially, what he's saying 1:52:14.320 --> 1:52:17.160 is Palestinians have to either give up and be a 1:52:17.240 --> 1:52:23.280 subject or leave, surrender or transfer. The US as a 1:52:23.320 --> 1:52:27.120 supposed mediator and third party has not really straight from that. 1:52:27.880 --> 1:52:31.560 Sovereignty has always been approximated with self governance from the 1:52:31.640 --> 1:52:35.479 United States perspective. Jared Kushner, for example, in his Peace 1:52:35.520 --> 1:52:38.559 to Prosperity plan, which was the lynchpin of Donald Trump's 1:52:38.560 --> 1:52:42.160 Israel Palestine proposer back in the first Trump administration, invokes 1:52:42.160 --> 1:52:45.599 the idea of sovereignty, only to insist that it should 1:52:45.640 --> 1:52:48.880 no longer be the crux of negotiations. According to the 1:52:48.920 --> 1:52:53.000 Trump administration quote, the notion that sovereignty is a static 1:52:53.120 --> 1:52:57.280 and consistently defined term has been an unnecessary stumbling block 1:52:57.439 --> 1:53:01.960 in past negotiations, and this amorphous concept is best put 1:53:02.040 --> 1:53:07.519 aside to focus on pragmatic and operational concerns. Ironically, the 1:53:07.600 --> 1:53:10.920 liberal version of a two state solution espoused by every 1:53:10.960 --> 1:53:16.320 democratic administration, essentially envisions the same endpoint, a Palestinian entity 1:53:16.960 --> 1:53:22.360 demilitarized and subordinate to Israel's economic and security concerns. But 1:53:22.880 --> 1:53:25.840 Palestinians want a state. They want a state in the 1:53:25.880 --> 1:53:28.320 full meaning of the term, and that state has to 1:53:28.360 --> 1:53:31.479 be legitimate, not only internationally, but in the eyes of 1:53:31.479 --> 1:53:36.240 the Palestinian people. Political scientist Tanya Alberts argues that sovereignty 1:53:36.400 --> 1:53:39.639 is an identity of states. It's constituted by the norms 1:53:39.640 --> 1:53:43.639 of international society. States are recognized as sovereign if they 1:53:43.680 --> 1:53:47.400 achieve self determination for a group of people. The fact that, 1:53:47.479 --> 1:53:51.000 on rare occasions, the international system has refused to recognize 1:53:51.080 --> 1:53:55.280 certain political entities as states, specifically because they had violated 1:53:55.280 --> 1:53:58.880 the right of self determination, highlights how we now think 1:53:58.880 --> 1:54:02.960 of political authority. So, for example, the international community did 1:54:03.000 --> 1:54:06.120 not recognize Rhodesia as a state because it violated the 1:54:06.160 --> 1:54:09.240 self determination of the black majority in that country, even 1:54:09.280 --> 1:54:13.160 though white people in Rhodesia did exercise material control over 1:54:13.160 --> 1:54:16.960 that country. In other words, the state's right to sovereignty 1:54:17.400 --> 1:54:21.599 must flow from some sort of legitimacy. A state rules 1:54:22.120 --> 1:54:26.800 because society approves. This doesn't mean that every sovereign state 1:54:26.840 --> 1:54:31.080 is democratic, but simply that states derive their status from 1:54:31.120 --> 1:54:34.680 the citizens buy in, and because the state claims to 1:54:34.720 --> 1:54:38.120 represent the will of maybe a certain ethnic or civic identity, 1:54:38.520 --> 1:54:41.400 it's understood as an executor of the law enacted by 1:54:41.440 --> 1:54:45.640 the people who are sovereign. So sovereignty then should also 1:54:45.680 --> 1:54:49.800 be understood as the ability of people who consider themselves 1:54:49.800 --> 1:54:53.080 of that place to exercise control over territory and have 1:54:53.120 --> 1:54:57.560 a say in its future. Populist movements, secessionist movements, and 1:54:57.640 --> 1:55:01.240 other movements that challenge a certain state, sometimes popular sovereignty, 1:55:01.880 --> 1:55:05.640 legitimizing their assertions with reference to their historical legacy or 1:55:05.640 --> 1:55:10.200 continuity or indigenity, even in the absence of a representative state. 1:55:10.800 --> 1:55:15.600 And Palestinians are one such group. They've struggled not merely 1:55:15.680 --> 1:55:19.000 for the right to exist, but also for political control 1:55:19.640 --> 1:55:23.200 in state institutions that represent and uphold their national identity. 1:55:24.000 --> 1:55:28.880 And the legitimacy of their sovereignty claim stems not only 1:55:28.960 --> 1:55:32.280 from their long ties to the territory, but also from 1:55:32.320 --> 1:55:36.080 the fact that they have long conceived themselves as a nation, 1:55:36.840 --> 1:55:38.960 a nation that has never ceded its demand for a 1:55:39.000 --> 1:55:44.240 sovereign state with the promise of subjugation, subsistence, or integration 1:55:44.320 --> 1:55:49.240 into another state. So, to make us very clear, Palestinians 1:55:49.280 --> 1:55:52.880 want the state that is sovereign. They certainly don't mean 1:55:52.920 --> 1:55:57.000 self governance. And Palestinians, after thirty years of OSLO that 1:55:57.080 --> 1:56:00.480 has only left them worse off, certainly don't want to 1:56:00.520 --> 1:56:04.640 go back to trying the same process again. So when 1:56:04.720 --> 1:56:07.920 these countries recognize Palestine as a state as a way 1:56:07.920 --> 1:56:12.200 of pretending to pressure for the two state solution. They're 1:56:12.240 --> 1:56:15.000 not saying anything about what happens to the territories that 1:56:15.040 --> 1:56:18.720 are currently being wiped out, like literally all of Gaza 1:56:19.000 --> 1:56:21.760 and even parts of the West Bank. They're not saying 1:56:21.800 --> 1:56:26.440 anything about Israeli settlements, They're not saying anything about reparations. 1:56:26.840 --> 1:56:30.200 And because of that, some Palestinians have argued that these 1:56:30.240 --> 1:56:34.760 statehood recognition things are a cynical ploy to distract from 1:56:34.800 --> 1:56:38.520 the inaction of these countries on addressing the genocide in Gaza, 1:56:38.640 --> 1:56:42.840 basically pretending to act without actually doing anything. Palestinian analyst 1:56:42.920 --> 1:56:46.360 Main Nobani said this to NPR recently. Quote in the end, 1:56:46.560 --> 1:56:50.720 simply recognizing Palestinian statehood is a low cost option. It 1:56:50.760 --> 1:56:54.560 may placate that domestic audience demanding action, while doing very 1:56:54.560 --> 1:56:57.920 little to actually change the situation on the ground end quote. 1:56:58.840 --> 1:57:03.080 Others have argued even further that not only are these 1:57:03.520 --> 1:57:08.400 declarations of recognition a cynical ploy to distract, but they 1:57:08.480 --> 1:57:11.840 may even be a sort of trap. Legal expert and 1:57:11.880 --> 1:57:15.800 professor nouraa At and international lawyer and professor shad Haamuri 1:57:16.160 --> 1:57:18.280 wrote for Jidlia on this, which I'll link in the 1:57:18.280 --> 1:57:21.440 show notes. They argue effectively that the best thing to 1:57:21.440 --> 1:57:24.120 come out of this is a challenge maybe to the US. 1:57:24.520 --> 1:57:25.000 Quote. 1:57:25.360 --> 1:57:29.480 The greatest promise of this renewed statehood bid, the most 1:57:29.480 --> 1:57:32.440 recent push being in twenty eleven twenty twelve, is a 1:57:32.560 --> 1:57:36.080 united front to challenge US and transigent support for Israel 1:57:36.280 --> 1:57:41.480 end quote. However, they also point out that quote states 1:57:41.520 --> 1:57:44.240 do not need to recognize Palestine to end the occupation, 1:57:44.520 --> 1:57:48.040 to end the genocide and advance Palestinian self determination. They 1:57:48.160 --> 1:57:53.120 argue that states quote need decisive will to impose arms 1:57:53.120 --> 1:57:56.280 and energy embargoes and trade with an investment in Israel 1:57:56.920 --> 1:58:00.800 unseated from the UN, hold Israeli war criminals and complicit 1:58:00.840 --> 1:58:04.520 corporations accountable in their national courts, and arrest Prime Minister 1:58:04.560 --> 1:58:18.120 Benjamin Nataniehu in compliance with the ICC's arrest warrant end quote. 1:58:19.880 --> 1:58:23.960 So the bit for statehood doesn't solve problems. It only 1:58:23.960 --> 1:58:27.640 gives states the fig leaf to actually delay solving problems. 1:58:28.200 --> 1:58:31.800 On top of that, it risks empowering illegitimate and corrupt 1:58:31.880 --> 1:58:36.440 Palestinian leadership in any future negotiations. I'm talking a leadership 1:58:36.560 --> 1:58:40.040 that includes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who eighty percent of 1:58:40.080 --> 1:58:43.600 Palestinians polled said they want him to resign and an 1:58:43.600 --> 1:58:47.680 institution like the Palestinian Authority that only fifteen percent of 1:58:47.720 --> 1:58:51.280 Palestinians are satisfied with, according to the latest polling as 1:58:51.560 --> 1:58:55.560 at the Hamorine quote. The terms of the High Level 1:58:55.640 --> 1:58:58.959 International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine, 1:58:59.040 --> 1:59:01.880 convened in New York, led by France and the Kingdom 1:59:01.920 --> 1:59:05.960 of Saudi Arabia confirm these risks. The Palestinian Authority is 1:59:06.000 --> 1:59:10.360 glorified in at least seven clauses entrusted with governing the state, 1:59:10.840 --> 1:59:15.080 effectively paving the way for a police state alongside a 1:59:15.080 --> 1:59:19.280 settler colonial entity end quote. None of the talk of 1:59:19.320 --> 1:59:24.160 recognizing Palestine amid all of these conditions and stipulations ever 1:59:24.240 --> 1:59:27.200 say anything about the power imbalance between the two parties 1:59:27.640 --> 1:59:30.360 or address the root causes of conflict now. On the 1:59:30.440 --> 1:59:33.920 other hand, political scientist Paul Post, writing for a World 1:59:33.920 --> 1:59:39.240 Politics Review, says, quote, recognition isn't just theater. Recognition is 1:59:39.280 --> 1:59:42.920 a long standing legal institution that has the important function 1:59:43.000 --> 1:59:47.200 of identifying major actors in the international system, and for policymakers, 1:59:47.400 --> 1:59:50.680 recognition is the looseness in the rules that allows them 1:59:50.680 --> 1:59:53.520 to use recognition not only to identify actors but also 1:59:53.600 --> 1:59:57.960 to express opinions about them or to secure concessions from them. So, 1:59:58.280 --> 2:00:03.480 from his perspective, these declarations of recognition are meaningful in 2:00:03.520 --> 2:00:07.960 some shape or form. Here's my take. Statehood recognition is 2:00:08.000 --> 2:00:12.040 not meaningless. In fact, it's probably dangerous in this current moment, 2:00:12.560 --> 2:00:15.320 because what it's trying to do is to cement the 2:00:15.320 --> 2:00:19.960 conflict in its place. These countries recognizing Palestine want to 2:00:20.080 --> 2:00:24.080 hurry the current Palestinian leadership into accepting a state and 2:00:24.200 --> 2:00:27.240 name only that is not sovereign. They want to force 2:00:27.280 --> 2:00:29.600 the Israelis to the table to do that, and they 2:00:29.640 --> 2:00:32.640 want these conditions to become the precedent for future negotiations. 2:00:33.600 --> 2:00:37.560 And we see signs of this in other ways. For example, 2:00:37.920 --> 2:00:42.560 the international community and regional powers pressured Palestinian President Mahmoud 2:00:42.640 --> 2:00:47.000 Abbass into changing the rules of the PLO's internal governance 2:00:47.600 --> 2:00:50.360 in order to appoint a successor because they were afraid 2:00:50.360 --> 2:00:52.720 he was going to keep over, and he appointed a 2:00:52.800 --> 2:00:56.200 very unpopular figure named sen richech as I wrote for 2:00:56.240 --> 2:01:00.280 The Guardian alongside palestiniancially and activist Pablo of ABUFOM. In 2:01:00.360 --> 2:01:03.960 May of this year. Abbas also expanded the Central Council 2:01:04.000 --> 2:01:07.200 of the PLO and appointed friendly people to it. All 2:01:07.240 --> 2:01:10.880 of this shows that the international community, in pressuring the 2:01:10.920 --> 2:01:16.040 Pastinian leadership in these directions, has no interest in democratic 2:01:16.240 --> 2:01:18.080 buy in, in actually getting the buy in of the 2:01:18.080 --> 2:01:23.200 Palestinian people, really thinking that a legitimate negotiation would ever 2:01:23.240 --> 2:01:28.560 be sustainable under these circumstances. This state of affairs, these 2:01:28.600 --> 2:01:32.200 schemes where international powers try to ignore what the Palestinian 2:01:32.200 --> 2:01:35.720 people want yet again, is the reason Palestinians don't really 2:01:35.800 --> 2:01:40.200 have any hope in any solution. In polling on one state, 2:01:40.360 --> 2:01:44.720 two states, etc. Forty seven percent prefer the two state 2:01:44.800 --> 2:01:48.280 solution based on the nineteen sixty seven borders, fifteen percent 2:01:48.400 --> 2:01:51.720 prefer confederation between the two states, and fourteen percent of 2:01:51.720 --> 2:01:54.680 Palestinians prefer the establishment of a single state with equality 2:01:54.680 --> 2:01:57.920 between the two sides. Twenty four percent of Palestinians polled 2:01:58.200 --> 2:01:59.960 said that they did not know or did not want 2:01:59.920 --> 2:02:04.160 to answer. Also, when asked about the public's support or 2:02:04.160 --> 2:02:07.960 opposition to specific political measures to break the current political deadlock, 2:02:08.680 --> 2:02:13.400 sixty eight percent of Palestinians supported joining more international organizations 2:02:13.920 --> 2:02:18.080 but still fifty percent supported resorting to unarmed popular resistance, 2:02:18.440 --> 2:02:22.000 forty six percent supported a return to armed intefaldo, and 2:02:22.080 --> 2:02:24.960 forty two percent supported the dissolution of the Palstinian authority. 2:02:25.440 --> 2:02:28.240 Twenty six percent supported abandoning the two state solution and 2:02:28.240 --> 2:02:31.720 demanding one state for Postinians and Israelis. What this sort 2:02:31.720 --> 2:02:36.520 of polling shows is that Palestinians now understand very clearly 2:02:37.040 --> 2:02:40.800 that the international system is screwing them over, international law 2:02:41.080 --> 2:02:43.720 hasn't been able to help them, and that the solutions 2:02:43.720 --> 2:02:46.680 for a two state solution being proposed with all of 2:02:46.680 --> 2:02:49.960 these conditions won't ever actually get to two states and 2:02:50.040 --> 2:02:53.839 won't give them real sovereignty. The mass protests and actions 2:02:53.880 --> 2:02:56.800 that took place in twenty twenty one Palestinian activists called 2:02:56.800 --> 2:02:59.840 this the Unity Uprising or Intefalda, showed that this has 2:03:00.040 --> 2:03:03.480 always been about sovereignty. In the unit Intofada of twenty 2:03:03.520 --> 2:03:08.000 twenty one, Palstinian activists spoke of a shared struggle against 2:03:08.040 --> 2:03:12.600 Israel's continued erasure of Palestinians. Palestinians living under Israeli rule 2:03:12.760 --> 2:03:16.200 across the country, whether they had citizenship or they didn't, 2:03:16.600 --> 2:03:19.600 rejected the old style of politics. They rejected what they 2:03:19.640 --> 2:03:23.120 saw as artificial fragmentation and they insisted instead on their 2:03:23.200 --> 2:03:27.720 national identity and shared struggle. As a result, at that time, 2:03:27.760 --> 2:03:31.560 we witnessed an extraordinary amount of organizing across the Green line, 2:03:31.600 --> 2:03:35.200 so in the territories and in Israel with Palestinian citizens 2:03:35.240 --> 2:03:38.560 of Israel, and it was a way of reclaiming Palestinian sovereignty. 2:03:38.880 --> 2:03:42.480 The same activists in groups involved in the Jerusalem neighborhood 2:03:42.480 --> 2:03:47.400 of Sheesharrah linked up with those organizing in Haifa and Umlfahim. 2:03:47.720 --> 2:03:50.640 They built on these connections to launch campaigns over and 2:03:50.680 --> 2:03:55.040 over in Massafarieta, the Knapbub and much more. Sovereignty has 2:03:55.120 --> 2:03:59.720 always been an animating demand for Palestinians since before October seventh, 2:03:59.840 --> 2:04:02.560 and that's surely on everyone's minds now that the war 2:04:02.640 --> 2:04:05.960 in Gaza has extended this long. So the takeaway here 2:04:06.080 --> 2:04:10.200 is recognition isn't the solution. Statehood may not even be 2:04:10.240 --> 2:04:12.360 the solution, at least not in the terms they're offering. 2:04:13.120 --> 2:04:14.440 Sovereignty has always. 2:04:14.200 --> 2:04:17.800 Been what the demand is and these pushes for recognition 2:04:18.280 --> 2:04:22.160 miss that point. Yet again. That's it for me. Thank 2:04:22.160 --> 2:04:25.000 you for listening to another Palestine episode, and I'll be 2:04:25.080 --> 2:04:25.920 back with more soon. 2:04:26.400 --> 2:04:26.760 Take care. 2:04:41.400 --> 2:04:44.800 This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly 2:04:44.840 --> 2:04:47.320 newscast covering what is happening in the White House, the 2:04:47.360 --> 2:04:50.040 crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison 2:04:50.120 --> 2:04:53.840 Davis today I'm joined by Sophie Lecterman, Robert Evans, and 2:04:54.040 --> 2:04:57.080 James Stout. This episode, we are covering the week of 2:04:57.360 --> 2:05:01.480 September fourth to September eleven events. 2:05:01.200 --> 2:05:05.960 Never wait, remember what, never forget, whichever one of those 2:05:05.960 --> 2:05:06.760 were supposed to do. 2:05:07.560 --> 2:05:11.040 So we had a very big news week already, and 2:05:11.120 --> 2:05:14.840 then a very big piece of news happened yesterday when 2:05:14.840 --> 2:05:19.560 we usually record Executive Disorder, but this is Thursday. We 2:05:19.600 --> 2:05:23.120 waited a little bit to get some more information before 2:05:23.200 --> 2:05:25.520 we talk about this story, which will probably be the 2:05:25.840 --> 2:05:30.360 biggest story of the week, the assassination of Charlie Kirk. 2:05:31.000 --> 2:05:34.840 So on Wednesday, September tenth, at Utah Valley University at 2:05:34.880 --> 2:05:39.560 around twelve twenty three pm Mountain time, Charlie kirk was 2:05:39.600 --> 2:05:43.640 shot during a campus event. It was a big outdoor event. 2:05:43.800 --> 2:05:46.839 The crowd, I mean, there's some good footage of elevation 2:05:46.920 --> 2:05:48.520 of the size of the crowd it was. It looked 2:05:48.560 --> 2:05:51.720 like several thousand people who had shown up to I 2:05:51.760 --> 2:05:54.600 think it did all. It seemed like largely supporters, but 2:05:54.640 --> 2:05:58.040 there was certainly a mix of supporters and protesters around. Yeah, 2:05:58.280 --> 2:06:01.440 and yeah, Kirk was shot one from a distance of 2:06:01.640 --> 2:06:04.360 I think the right now. The best estimate is around 2:06:04.360 --> 2:06:08.360 one hundred and fifty yards. I mean that's precise, not accurate, 2:06:09.080 --> 2:06:10.960 because people are kind of basing it on just sort 2:06:11.000 --> 2:06:14.600 of like looking at the images and doing like that. 2:06:14.760 --> 2:06:16.480 Perhaps the satellite estimation right. 2:06:16.440 --> 2:06:18.480 Right, But that does seem credible based on what I've seen, 2:06:18.520 --> 2:06:20.960 about one hundred and fifty yards or so, Yeah, which 2:06:21.000 --> 2:06:23.560 is not long range. That's not like short range. It's 2:06:23.600 --> 2:06:27.320 like low medium range for a rifle. And they found, 2:06:27.480 --> 2:06:29.880 or at least the FBI is saying they found the rifle, 2:06:29.960 --> 2:06:32.200 and the pictures show it to be an extremely normal 2:06:32.240 --> 2:06:35.360 looking bolt action hunting rifle. Kirk was shot once in 2:06:35.400 --> 2:06:38.240 the neck. It hit his brain stem. You can kind 2:06:38.240 --> 2:06:40.400 of tell by the way his arms moved after he 2:06:40.480 --> 2:06:44.080 was shot, so he probably lost consciousness immediately and he 2:06:44.160 --> 2:06:46.320 was declared dead about two hours later at the hospital. 2:06:46.400 --> 2:06:50.640 But that's largely because that tends to be how it's handled. 2:06:50.680 --> 2:06:53.480 When somebody is shot like this, they don't like to 2:06:54.160 --> 2:06:57.960 announce their death immediately, even if they died immediately, Like 2:06:58.040 --> 2:07:00.320 that's just kind of it's best pret you want to 2:07:00.360 --> 2:07:02.760 make sure you've contacted the family and everything like that. 2:07:02.880 --> 2:07:05.000 So that's what happened. 2:07:05.600 --> 2:07:08.480 Yeah, and his case of family were present I think 2:07:08.720 --> 2:07:09.880 at the at the event. 2:07:10.960 --> 2:07:13.160 I mean, I'm sure some of them, but there's yeah, 2:07:13.160 --> 2:07:15.440 like not ever like they would have probably wanted, Like 2:07:15.480 --> 2:07:18.120 I doubt his parents or whatever were all there or whatever, 2:07:18.160 --> 2:07:20.280 like even if his wife and kids were sure. 2:07:20.360 --> 2:07:21.280 Yeah, totally makes sense. 2:07:21.320 --> 2:07:24.440 Yeah, yeah, yeah, those are the facts that we can verify. 2:07:24.440 --> 2:07:27.200 And there's actually fairly little besides this other than some 2:07:27.320 --> 2:07:31.440 time stuff that we can verify perfectly. Like they're currently 2:07:31.480 --> 2:07:34.520 saying that about eleven fifty two am Mountain time the 2:07:34.520 --> 2:07:38.320 shooter arrived near campus, because they do have some videos 2:07:38.360 --> 2:07:40.920 of the person they think was the shooter. There were 2:07:40.960 --> 2:07:43.400 at least two people who were taken into custody right 2:07:43.480 --> 2:07:46.000 after the shooting who proved not to be the guy, 2:07:46.120 --> 2:07:48.320 and I think they were just grabbing people like it 2:07:48.680 --> 2:07:51.160 did not They did not seem to be any good reason. 2:07:51.200 --> 2:07:52.480 One of them had a pellet rifle. 2:07:52.960 --> 2:07:56.720 The first guy started shouting after the shooting and I'll 2:07:56.760 --> 2:08:00.000 do it again, and this prompted him to be detained, 2:08:00.360 --> 2:08:03.640 but was later found to not be a legitimate suspect 2:08:03.680 --> 2:08:04.200 in the shooting. 2:08:04.760 --> 2:08:07.760 No, because he was right next to the shooting. Yeah, 2:08:08.080 --> 2:08:11.920 had no weapon, nothing. So I mean, those are the 2:08:11.920 --> 2:08:14.800 facts as they stand right now. The photo that has 2:08:14.840 --> 2:08:17.920 been released of the guy they think did it looks 2:08:18.000 --> 2:08:22.040 like about eighty percent of the male population of Utah 2:08:22.640 --> 2:08:28.120 clean shaven, but otherwise he looked just as nondescriptives like 2:08:28.200 --> 2:08:30.520 this dude takes his hat off, maybe shaves his head 2:08:30.840 --> 2:08:33.400 like it would not be wildly difficult for him to 2:08:33.880 --> 2:08:35.960 hide because he does not look like. 2:08:35.960 --> 2:08:39.480 Pretty greeny pictures not as clear as something like the 2:08:40.360 --> 2:08:41.560 healthcare CEO shooting. 2:08:41.640 --> 2:08:45.680 Yeah, and the FBI did offer a reward of up 2:08:45.760 --> 2:08:47.720 to one hundred thousand dollars for information. 2:08:48.640 --> 2:08:54.560 We do know that, Yeah, which points towards the usefulness 2:08:54.560 --> 2:08:57.080 of the tips they have been getting so far. Exactly. 2:08:57.480 --> 2:08:58.000 Yeah. 2:08:58.080 --> 2:09:01.320 Yeah, the rightfle is for anyone interested. It looks they 2:09:01.360 --> 2:09:02.360 thought it was a mauser. 2:09:02.680 --> 2:09:06.200 I guess it didn't look like one from the photos 2:09:06.200 --> 2:09:08.880 that they released, but maybe that maybe that was yet again, 2:09:08.960 --> 2:09:11.080 not the gun, because the FBI has said a lot 2:09:11.080 --> 2:09:12.760 of things and then backtracked on it. 2:09:12.840 --> 2:09:16.360 Yeah, the New York Post has a picture of a 2:09:16.400 --> 2:09:20.560 sporterized Spanish mouser with a composite stock. 2:09:20.640 --> 2:09:22.000 Have you seen that one, Robert. 2:09:21.800 --> 2:09:24.560 Yes, that's the one I saw that. It looked like 2:09:24.600 --> 2:09:26.920 a savage to me. But is that is that a 2:09:26.960 --> 2:09:30.160 sportized eight millimeter that was rebarrel the thirty eight six? 2:09:30.480 --> 2:09:31.320 That would be my guess. 2:09:31.320 --> 2:09:33.080 The Spanish mousers the only one I'm aware of that 2:09:33.120 --> 2:09:35.440 has the bolt turned down in that way. Good idea, 2:09:36.040 --> 2:09:38.600 but that it's not a great picture. It could also 2:09:38.640 --> 2:09:39.600 be something else. 2:09:39.680 --> 2:09:42.840 Because it just looked like any hunting rifle on a 2:09:42.880 --> 2:09:45.040 store rack the photo that I saw. 2:09:45.240 --> 2:09:47.440 Yeah, Yeah, No, I think it's someone has done a 2:09:47.480 --> 2:09:48.520 sported job on it. 2:09:48.680 --> 2:09:49.000 Yeah. 2:09:49.320 --> 2:09:53.960 What's somewhat interesting about that, like, other than just being adweeb, 2:09:54.520 --> 2:09:58.160 is that potentially one could acquire a gun like that 2:09:58.840 --> 2:10:01.600 without having filled out forty four to seventy three form 2:10:01.680 --> 2:10:05.200 right like an FBI background check. I know they will 2:10:05.280 --> 2:10:07.240 if they have the weapon, they will certainly be pursuing 2:10:07.240 --> 2:10:09.640 trying to trace that as one of the ways they're 2:10:09.640 --> 2:10:13.520 trying to locate the shooter. Yes, so if this person's 2:10:13.640 --> 2:10:16.000 either a relative could have acquired it before it was 2:10:16.080 --> 2:10:18.360 necessary to do a forty four to seventy three yes, 2:10:18.960 --> 2:10:22.280 or I think with curios and relics in some states, 2:10:22.520 --> 2:10:25.680 or antique weapons, you don't have to do a background check. 2:10:26.160 --> 2:10:28.920 No, and you don't have to do a background check. 2:10:29.000 --> 2:10:31.480 I mean, face to face sales are I believe legal 2:10:31.520 --> 2:10:34.800 in Utah. Yes, private, face to face sales are legal 2:10:34.840 --> 2:10:35.440 in Utah. 2:10:35.680 --> 2:10:36.000 Okay. 2:10:36.160 --> 2:10:38.240 So if this guy bought Basically, what that means is 2:10:38.280 --> 2:10:40.360 if this guy just bought a gun in cash from 2:10:40.440 --> 2:10:43.280 a dude, there's not a record of that, although said 2:10:43.360 --> 2:10:44.520 dude might come forward. 2:10:44.680 --> 2:10:44.960 Sure. 2:10:45.240 --> 2:10:48.000 That said, the fact that this is a sportized old 2:10:48.120 --> 2:10:50.480 mouser means this could be a gun that's put in 2:10:50.520 --> 2:10:53.120 the family a while that he's sportalized, in which case 2:10:53.160 --> 2:10:54.880 there's absolutely no record of it. 2:10:55.280 --> 2:10:55.520 Yeah. 2:10:55.760 --> 2:10:57.920 Yeah, definitely, I'm guessing. 2:10:58.240 --> 2:11:00.440 I've seen people call it a high powered rifle and 2:11:00.480 --> 2:11:02.280 stuff like, just just be aware it's kind of an 2:11:02.280 --> 2:11:02.760 old gun. 2:11:03.560 --> 2:11:04.360 It's an old gun. 2:11:04.440 --> 2:11:06.280 I mean, if it's thirty, If it is thirty at six, 2:11:06.400 --> 2:11:08.120 I would say that's a high power cartridge. 2:11:08.280 --> 2:11:08.600 No it is. 2:11:08.680 --> 2:11:09.760 That's a big round. 2:11:09.960 --> 2:11:12.640 But yeah, it's a full size rifle cartridge for sure. 2:11:12.680 --> 2:11:14.720 People hunt deer with thirty at six all the time. 2:11:14.800 --> 2:11:16.960 It's an extremely normal hunting rifle. 2:11:17.600 --> 2:11:20.800 Yeah, like probably top five most common kinds of rifle 2:11:20.840 --> 2:11:22.240 for someone to have in this country. 2:11:22.360 --> 2:11:24.600 And that was bolt action hunting rifle was my assumption 2:11:24.680 --> 2:11:26.760 as soon as I saw the video, because the guy 2:11:26.800 --> 2:11:30.720 fired one shot, and it's relatively uncommon for people who 2:11:30.760 --> 2:11:35.120 are shooting in mass crowded public situations like this to 2:11:35.240 --> 2:11:38.720 limit themselves to a single round, which it just suggests 2:11:38.800 --> 2:11:41.160 number one, like a bolt action, which I also thought 2:11:41.200 --> 2:11:43.560 was likely because they didn't leave any amo behind. Yeah, 2:11:43.560 --> 2:11:45.520 and if he was firing something like an AR, those 2:11:45.560 --> 2:11:48.920 can fling brass so widely that you can't easily catch it, 2:11:49.520 --> 2:11:51.879 like if you're especially if you're trying to escape immediately 2:11:51.880 --> 2:11:55.080 after shooting. And yeah, I would guess. I'm seeing a 2:11:55.120 --> 2:11:58.480 lot of people online obviously conspiracy start. I'm seeing so 2:11:58.520 --> 2:11:59.960 many people say like this had to have been a hit, 2:12:00.240 --> 2:12:01.680 This was a professional, Only a. 2:12:01.560 --> 2:12:03.040 Professional could have done this. 2:12:02.960 --> 2:12:07.160 This trump distracting from Epstein. This was the massage that 2:12:07.280 --> 2:12:11.560 this was any number of unhinged theories around this event. 2:12:11.720 --> 2:12:14.400 And I will say right now as pertains the competence 2:12:14.640 --> 2:12:17.360 of the shooter, anyone who had picked up a gun 2:12:17.400 --> 2:12:20.240 for the first time couldn't have easily done this. Like 2:12:20.280 --> 2:12:22.960 I doubt this as someone who was new to firearms, 2:12:23.480 --> 2:12:26.440 but anyone who like shot a deer once or twice 2:12:26.440 --> 2:12:29.640 a year could have made this happen. Anybody who went 2:12:29.680 --> 2:12:32.320 to the range, you know, once or twice a month 2:12:32.480 --> 2:12:35.160 for a while, could have gotten competent enough to make 2:12:35.200 --> 2:12:37.240 a shot like this very easily. 2:12:37.360 --> 2:12:39.840 Very doable for like hobbyist shooters, which there are many 2:12:39.840 --> 2:12:41.840 of in the United States, and any other in Utah. 2:12:42.360 --> 2:12:44.440 I would be shocked if like less than about eighty 2:12:44.480 --> 2:12:47.480 percent of the adult male population of Utah could have 2:12:47.520 --> 2:12:48.280 made this shot. 2:12:48.520 --> 2:12:48.720 Right. 2:12:48.800 --> 2:12:50.800 You do not need like military training, You do not 2:12:50.920 --> 2:12:52.400 need to be a veteran to make this shot. 2:12:52.680 --> 2:12:53.400 Absolutely not. 2:12:53.960 --> 2:12:57.360 And I think it's very irresponsible to see so many people, 2:12:57.400 --> 2:13:00.960 like including people who had journalists Spec eighteen like that. Like, 2:13:01.000 --> 2:13:03.400 I know that generally firearms are not covered well in 2:13:03.400 --> 2:13:05.920 the US media despite being ubiquitous here, but like in 2:13:06.000 --> 2:13:08.240 cases like this, it's okay no to no, but it's 2:13:08.280 --> 2:13:09.680 better to be quiet if you don't know. 2:13:10.520 --> 2:13:12.800 Yes, the other thing I guess we should get into 2:13:12.880 --> 2:13:15.080 is in terms of the escape and what we know. 2:13:15.520 --> 2:13:20.760 This is also not something that necessitates fucking Navy seal training, right, Like, Yeah, 2:13:20.800 --> 2:13:25.560 you're a white, clean cut guy in fucking Salt Lake City. 2:13:25.640 --> 2:13:27.560 If you have a bag that you can hide your 2:13:27.560 --> 2:13:29.840 gun in and you get down, maybe throw on a 2:13:29.880 --> 2:13:32.640 different jacket or something like that over your shirt or 2:13:32.760 --> 2:13:36.440 change shirts, walk away, get to your car, drive off. 2:13:36.720 --> 2:13:38.800 Very hard for them to track you. Salt Lake City's 2:13:38.840 --> 2:13:41.440 not New York. It's not blanketed in cameras, not like 2:13:41.520 --> 2:13:45.040 New York. There's not a massive police presence for this rally, 2:13:45.080 --> 2:13:48.320 and there certainly wasn't a massive police presence doing concentric 2:13:48.400 --> 2:13:50.520 circles around the rally. This was not like a fucking 2:13:50.600 --> 2:13:53.000 the President's in town and the Secret Service is walking 2:13:53.000 --> 2:13:54.600 everything down for two miles. 2:13:54.480 --> 2:13:57.880 And Charlie's own security tends to stay close to him 2:13:58.040 --> 2:14:00.840 at the event. They're not set up with giant perimeters. 2:14:01.240 --> 2:14:03.040 No, because none of them expected something like this. 2:14:03.680 --> 2:14:06.760 Yeah, I'm sure that Charlie Kirk has received threats before, 2:14:06.840 --> 2:14:09.480 But yes, I mean, there's only so much a private 2:14:09.480 --> 2:14:10.600 individual can do. 2:14:11.000 --> 2:14:14.080 Right In these situations, he often wears a bulletproof vest. 2:14:14.160 --> 2:14:15.600 Yes, a really Yeah. 2:14:15.720 --> 2:14:18.280 Yeah, there's only so much a private individual can do, 2:14:18.600 --> 2:14:21.280 And there's only so much you can do if you're 2:14:21.280 --> 2:14:26.440 holding an event outside, Yeah, like to stop somebody who's 2:14:26.480 --> 2:14:29.280 got us a scoped rifle from getting on top of 2:14:29.280 --> 2:14:32.360 a roof, right Like. I'm sure his family is firing 2:14:32.400 --> 2:14:36.000 their current security right now, obviously, But I really don't 2:14:36.040 --> 2:14:38.360 know what they could have done, like what his personal 2:14:38.400 --> 2:14:41.880 security could realistically have done, other than say, don't do 2:14:41.960 --> 2:14:43.200 an event outside, Charlie. 2:14:43.360 --> 2:14:43.760 Yeah. 2:14:44.080 --> 2:14:47.680 A few other notes that we should touch on. On 2:14:47.880 --> 2:14:54.720 Thursday morning, some unverified information related to the ongoing investigation 2:14:54.880 --> 2:15:01.520 notes leaked online through fellow campus to be Stephen Crowder. 2:15:02.000 --> 2:15:05.959 Stephen Crowder shared an internal memo which contained unverified information, 2:15:06.600 --> 2:15:11.280 which reads in part quote atf another law enforcement located 2:15:11.280 --> 2:15:15.880 an older model imported Mouser thirty odd six caliber bolt 2:15:15.880 --> 2:15:18.480 action rifle wrapped in a towel in a wooded area 2:15:18.640 --> 2:15:21.160 near the campus. The location of the fire room appears 2:15:21.160 --> 2:15:24.320 to match the suspect's route of travel. The spent cartridge 2:15:24.480 --> 2:15:27.960 was still chambered, in addition to three unspent rounds in 2:15:28.000 --> 2:15:32.240 the top Fed magazine. All cartridges have engraved wording on 2:15:32.320 --> 2:15:38.680 them expressing transgender and anti fascist ideology unquote. So this 2:15:38.880 --> 2:15:42.080 claim linking the shooting to transgender and quote unquote anti 2:15:42.160 --> 2:15:46.000 fascist ideology, whatever that means, spread around the internet like 2:15:46.120 --> 2:15:49.920 wild as expected, though a few hours later, The New 2:15:50.040 --> 2:15:53.400 York Times reported quote according to a preliminary internal report 2:15:53.440 --> 2:15:56.720 circulated inside the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 2:15:57.040 --> 2:16:00.400 federal and local officials recovered ammunition with the show tutor's 2:16:00.480 --> 2:16:03.520 rifle that appeared to be engrave with statements expressing transgender 2:16:03.560 --> 2:16:07.320 and anti fascist ideology. But a senior law enforcement official 2:16:07.360 --> 2:16:11.120 with direct knowledge of the investigation cautioned that report had 2:16:11.120 --> 2:16:15.360 not been verified by ATF analysts, did not match other 2:16:15.440 --> 2:16:18.440 summaries of the evidence, and might turn out to have 2:16:18.480 --> 2:16:23.040 been misread or misinterpreted. In fast moving investigations, such status 2:16:23.040 --> 2:16:26.080 reports are not made public because they often contain a 2:16:26.120 --> 2:16:29.680 mixture of accurate and inaccurate information unquote. 2:16:29.960 --> 2:16:30.880 Yes and again. 2:16:31.160 --> 2:16:34.720 When that person with the pellet rifle was arrested, Cash Betel, 2:16:34.800 --> 2:16:37.280 director of the FBI, posted on Twitter, we have the 2:16:37.320 --> 2:16:40.520 man who killed Charlie Kirk. And then had to post 2:16:40.600 --> 2:16:43.960 like an hour later. Nope, which is not a thing 2:16:44.000 --> 2:16:47.080 you saw with previous directors of the FBI. For a 2:16:47.120 --> 2:16:47.800 good reason. 2:16:48.280 --> 2:16:52.720 Yeah, like that their handling of this has been pretty unorphodox. 2:16:53.640 --> 2:16:56.240 No, And I can see why a fucking Stephen Crowder 2:16:56.240 --> 2:16:58.280 fan in the ATF would want to get that out 2:16:58.280 --> 2:17:01.760 immediately totally actually, because he probably knew at some point 2:17:01.760 --> 2:17:03.800 that's going to get corrected. But what matters is it 2:17:03.840 --> 2:17:05.440 gets out for some degree of time. 2:17:05.800 --> 2:17:07.840 Yeah, and then that bakes into the reality of a 2:17:07.840 --> 2:17:09.320 certain number of people forever. 2:17:09.879 --> 2:17:10.199 Yeah. 2:17:10.320 --> 2:17:12.720 Right, And that's what matters. Whether or not it's true. 2:17:12.840 --> 2:17:14.480 We don't know yet. Is it true or not? 2:17:14.720 --> 2:17:15.960 Right? We simply don't know. 2:17:16.840 --> 2:17:21.480 Heyesus Garrison. This is just a short update. On Thursday evening, 2:17:21.879 --> 2:17:26.119 law Enforcement gave a press conference where Utah Governor Spencer 2:17:26.280 --> 2:17:31.760 Cox cautioned against quote unquote a tremendous amount of disinformation 2:17:32.640 --> 2:17:36.680 circulating online about the killing of Charlie Kirk and specifically 2:17:36.720 --> 2:17:41.480 cited boughts from China and Russia which were encouraging violence 2:17:41.560 --> 2:17:47.039 and instilling disinformation into discourse around the shooting. Now, while 2:17:47.040 --> 2:17:49.959 there certainly have been many on the left who have 2:17:50.160 --> 2:17:53.040 been joking or even celebrating this shooting. 2:17:53.160 --> 2:17:54.760 Oh yeah, lots of people. 2:17:55.120 --> 2:17:58.760 Rhetoric from the right has been similarly violent, with calls 2:17:58.800 --> 2:18:03.039 to do mass violence or purge the Democrats or people 2:18:03.080 --> 2:18:05.040 on the left. I'm going to play video of the 2:18:05.040 --> 2:18:08.440 White House released late Wednesday night of Trump giving a 2:18:08.560 --> 2:18:10.360 statement on the shooting. 2:18:10.760 --> 2:18:13.720 It's a long past time for all Americans and the 2:18:13.760 --> 2:18:18.119 media to confront the fact that violence and murder are 2:18:18.160 --> 2:18:23.279 the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree, 2:18:23.360 --> 2:18:26.879 day after day, year after year, in the most hateful 2:18:26.920 --> 2:18:31.280 and despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical 2:18:31.360 --> 2:18:36.280 left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and 2:18:36.360 --> 2:18:41.280 the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of 2:18:41.600 --> 2:18:46.560 rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing 2:18:46.560 --> 2:18:50.800 in our country today, and it must stop right now. 2:18:52.000 --> 2:18:55.199 My administration will find each and every one of those 2:18:55.240 --> 2:18:59.680 who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence 2:18:59.720 --> 2:19:03.720 and voting, the organizations that funded and support it, as 2:19:03.760 --> 2:19:08.640 well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, 2:19:08.959 --> 2:19:10.279 and everyone else who. 2:19:10.120 --> 2:19:12.240 Brings order to our country. 2:19:12.640 --> 2:19:16.120 From the attack on my life, in Butler, Pennsylvania last year, 2:19:16.640 --> 2:19:19.480 which killed a husband and father, to the attacks on 2:19:19.800 --> 2:19:23.760 ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a healthcare executive 2:19:23.800 --> 2:19:26.879 in the streets of New York, to the shooting of 2:19:27.040 --> 2:19:31.480 House Majority leaders Steve Scalise and three others. Radical of 2:19:31.640 --> 2:19:36.039 political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken 2:19:36.120 --> 2:19:37.120 too many lives. 2:19:37.840 --> 2:19:40.840 The Trump assassin was not left wing. 2:19:41.560 --> 2:19:43.920 Now he was a registered Republican. 2:19:44.680 --> 2:19:48.119 There's currently no indication of the political alignment of this 2:19:48.280 --> 2:19:51.320 shooter whatsoever. Just because they killed Charlie Kirk does not 2:19:51.480 --> 2:19:54.440 mean that this was a left wing ANTIFA super soldier. 2:19:54.879 --> 2:19:57.680 Charlie Kirk has had a memafied status on the Internet 2:19:57.720 --> 2:20:00.720 for the past few years, which is encouraged vitriol and 2:20:00.800 --> 2:20:03.480 threats from those on the extreme right as well as 2:20:03.560 --> 2:20:04.280 the far left. 2:20:04.640 --> 2:20:08.199 Yeah, he's particularly disliked by like the hardcore anti Semites 2:20:08.200 --> 2:20:09.320 on their right, and. 2:20:09.280 --> 2:20:13.279 The Grapers have long had fun with making threats against 2:20:13.360 --> 2:20:15.840 Charlie Kirk and the quote unquote groper war, which we 2:20:15.840 --> 2:20:18.520 don't have time to get into. But it's not just 2:20:18.640 --> 2:20:23.520 Trump's worrying statement there promising a degree of crackdown. Jesse 2:20:23.600 --> 2:20:27.959 Waters on Fox has claimed quote, We're gonna avenge Charlie's death. 2:20:28.080 --> 2:20:28.360 Yep. 2:20:29.320 --> 2:20:32.320 Here's a clip of Jesse Waters on Fox News last night. 2:20:32.760 --> 2:20:36.280 Trump gets hit in the ear, Charlie gets shot dead. 2:20:37.720 --> 2:20:41.160 They came after Kavanaugh with a rifle to his neighborhood. 2:20:41.400 --> 2:20:45.080 They went after Musk's cars. They just shot two Jews 2:20:45.080 --> 2:20:46.200 outside the embassy. 2:20:47.400 --> 2:20:48.080 Think about it. 2:20:48.280 --> 2:20:50.439 Scalice got shot, barely survived. 2:20:51.520 --> 2:20:52.119 It's happening. 2:20:52.240 --> 2:20:56.800 We've got transshooters, the got Riots and la They are 2:20:56.879 --> 2:20:59.480 at war with us. Whether we want to accept it 2:20:59.600 --> 2:21:02.720 or not, they are at war with us. What are 2:21:02.760 --> 2:21:05.800 we going to do about it? How much political violence 2:21:06.120 --> 2:21:08.640 are we going to tolerate? And that's the question we're 2:21:08.640 --> 2:21:12.040 just going to have to ask ourselves now. Charlie would 2:21:12.120 --> 2:21:15.960 want us to put as much pressure on these people 2:21:16.000 --> 2:21:16.800 as possible. 2:21:17.160 --> 2:21:18.039 Dana nailed it. 2:21:18.520 --> 2:21:22.520 This is unacceptable and has to stop, and it has 2:21:22.600 --> 2:21:23.600 to stop now. 2:21:24.040 --> 2:21:25.560 And everybody's accountable. 2:21:25.720 --> 2:21:29.000 And we're watching what they're saying on television and who's 2:21:29.040 --> 2:21:33.360 saying what the politicians and the media and all these 2:21:33.520 --> 2:21:37.760 rats out there. This can never happen again. It ends now. 2:21:37.920 --> 2:21:41.440 Greg's right again. This is a turning point. 2:21:41.080 --> 2:21:43.840 And we know which direction we're going he made a 2:21:43.879 --> 2:21:44.400 turning point. 2:21:44.480 --> 2:21:48.400 Joe huh, Yes, that's Jesse Waters doing a turning point. Time. 2:21:48.680 --> 2:21:53.280 Also, the use of rats to refer to other people is, 2:21:54.080 --> 2:21:57.360 I know, it's giving like radio milklan vibes. 2:21:57.600 --> 2:22:01.840 It's also worth noting Republican Repersentative Clay Higgins from Louisiana 2:22:02.040 --> 2:22:04.279 is saying that he's seeking to have social media companies 2:22:04.320 --> 2:22:07.800 place lifetime bans on users who celebrated the assassination. 2:22:08.720 --> 2:22:13.280 It's not just Jesse Waters calling for war. Other commentators 2:22:13.320 --> 2:22:16.680 are employing very similar rhetoric, including Alex Jones and Steve Bannon. 2:22:16.840 --> 2:22:17.680 We're in a war. 2:22:18.800 --> 2:22:20.800 The Latins was saying, put a bulls on Trump at 2:22:20.800 --> 2:22:22.440 Bullson As supporters. 2:22:22.160 --> 2:22:26.960 Charlie Kirk's a casualty of war? Would war in this country? 2:22:27.840 --> 2:22:30.800 Chaia Wrtcheck tweeted on the lips of TikTok account quote 2:22:30.879 --> 2:22:35.000 this is war. The Oathkeeper founder Stuart Rhodes announced on 2:22:35.040 --> 2:22:37.640 Info Wars that his militia would be reforming to help 2:22:37.720 --> 2:22:39.679 with security at right wing events. 2:22:40.000 --> 2:22:41.160 Great, oh gosh. 2:22:41.320 --> 2:22:43.959 It was a good Wired article Wednesday night, which collected 2:22:44.240 --> 2:22:47.040 various cost of violence among the right in the aftermath 2:22:47.040 --> 2:22:50.120 of the shooting. Quote. Ed Martin, US pardon attorney and 2:22:50.160 --> 2:22:52.879 former acting with Stornay for DC wrote on Twitter, quote 2:22:53.240 --> 2:22:56.560 for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, 2:22:56.720 --> 2:23:00.520 says the Lord. Citing Romans twelve nineteen, Elon must posted 2:23:00.680 --> 2:23:03.720 the left is the party of murder, then quoted a 2:23:03.760 --> 2:23:06.320 post blaming the left wing and mainstream media, as well 2:23:06.360 --> 2:23:08.640 as figures like Gavin Newsom for radicalizing people against right 2:23:08.680 --> 2:23:12.320 wing figures like Kirk. Katie Miller, who works with Moscat 2:23:12.400 --> 2:23:14.920 Doge and is the wife of Stephen Miller, wrote on 2:23:15.240 --> 2:23:18.520 x that even liberals condemning violence quote have blood on 2:23:18.560 --> 2:23:20.480 their hands. You could be. 2:23:20.600 --> 2:23:20.880 Next. 2:23:20.959 --> 2:23:24.199 Influencer and unofficial Trump advisor Laura Lumer posted on Twitter, 2:23:24.480 --> 2:23:28.080 the left are terrorists. Christopher Ruffo, a conservative activist who 2:23:28.080 --> 2:23:31.520 popularized the demonization of critical race theory, suggested in a 2:23:31.600 --> 2:23:34.080 Twitter post that the radical left was responsible for the 2:23:34.080 --> 2:23:38.160 shooting and urged the US government to quote infiltrate, disrupt, arrest, 2:23:38.160 --> 2:23:40.800 and incars rate all those who are responsible for this 2:23:40.920 --> 2:23:45.840 chaos unquote. There's many, many more. This is after the 2:23:45.920 --> 2:23:50.400 right has long celebrated certain types of political violence. 2:23:50.520 --> 2:23:51.920 Oh yes, constantly. 2:23:52.080 --> 2:23:54.920 Yeah, like that old guy in Panama who shot a 2:23:55.000 --> 2:23:59.480 protester blocking the street. The entire right rallied behind that man. 2:24:00.080 --> 2:24:03.840 Kirk himself has embraced Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed 2:24:03.879 --> 2:24:08.240 two people after a plastic bag was thrown in the 2:24:08.320 --> 2:24:12.280 direction of Kyle Rittenhouse. Kirk was vocally supportive of the 2:24:12.320 --> 2:24:15.560 man who tried to attack Nancy Pelosi in her home 2:24:16.080 --> 2:24:17.959 and did attack pol Pelosi. 2:24:17.560 --> 2:24:21.320 Yes, specifically specifically urged his audience to bail him out. 2:24:21.560 --> 2:24:25.120 It was like not even two months ago that Minnesota 2:24:25.160 --> 2:24:29.439 state senator and her husband were killed. Political violence exists 2:24:29.560 --> 2:24:33.279 across the spectrum. This is not a left wing problem. 2:24:33.320 --> 2:24:34.760 This is an American problem. 2:24:34.959 --> 2:24:35.439 Yeah. 2:24:35.480 --> 2:24:39.000 I mean the vast majority of political of terrorist attacks 2:24:39.000 --> 2:24:41.520 that are politically motivated in the US are right wing 2:24:41.879 --> 2:24:43.840 like and have been for the last several decades. 2:24:43.920 --> 2:24:46.760 Per the FBI, in the twenty twelve to twenty twenty one, 2:24:47.240 --> 2:24:51.360 fifty five percent of murders tied to political streamism came 2:24:51.600 --> 2:24:55.640 from white supremacy fourteen percent, anti government six percent to 2:24:55.680 --> 2:24:59.360 other right wing twenty percent, Islamist four percent left wing, 2:25:00.240 --> 2:25:03.800 and the white supremacy fifty five percent are far right Nazis. 2:25:04.440 --> 2:25:04.800 Yeah. 2:25:04.959 --> 2:25:07.800 In terms of like who did this? Yeah, I think 2:25:07.840 --> 2:25:10.440 we touched on Grouper's a little bit. We should probably 2:25:10.440 --> 2:25:14.160 talk a bit more about the kind of online feud 2:25:14.240 --> 2:25:18.119 between a chunk of Nick Fuintes's fan base and Charlie Kirk. 2:25:18.560 --> 2:25:20.720 It was certainly more prominent a few years ago. As 2:25:21.080 --> 2:25:23.400 Kirk has himself has moved further to right, has adopted 2:25:23.400 --> 2:25:26.959 great replacement theory, the feud kind of dissipated, but it 2:25:27.000 --> 2:25:31.400 certainly was like a legitimate thing in the right for years. 2:25:31.680 --> 2:25:34.400 Yes, to the extent that that's a number of folks 2:25:34.440 --> 2:25:36.760 that kind of have suspected that, like maybe that's who 2:25:36.800 --> 2:25:37.039 did it. 2:25:37.120 --> 2:25:38.640 Again, we really have no idea. 2:25:38.720 --> 2:25:41.000 I'm just bringing this up to make the point that, like, 2:25:41.560 --> 2:25:44.080 there's a variety of reasons why this guy could have 2:25:44.120 --> 2:25:46.039 done this, why this person could have done this, including 2:25:46.480 --> 2:25:48.920 could be an Epstein related thing. Right, there's a lot 2:25:48.920 --> 2:25:51.000 of anger at figures who kind of bought into the 2:25:51.040 --> 2:25:54.240 Trump line that we're done now with the Epstein stuff. 2:25:54.360 --> 2:25:56.880 There's no way to know, and I think that's kind 2:25:56.920 --> 2:25:59.800 of where we have to end that part of artist 2:26:00.320 --> 2:26:03.320 here is we don't know why this was done, and 2:26:03.360 --> 2:26:06.640 to extent, it doesn't matter if it comes out tomorrow 2:26:06.800 --> 2:26:09.680 that this guy was like a White House staffer working 2:26:09.720 --> 2:26:12.279 for Donald Trump who did it because he thought Charlie 2:26:12.320 --> 2:26:14.879 Kirk had disre Like if some crazy shit like that happened, 2:26:14.920 --> 2:26:17.080 it wouldn't change at all the way that they're talking 2:26:17.120 --> 2:26:20.040 about this shooting, right, like it just doesn't matter, Like 2:26:20.879 --> 2:26:23.440 we are where we are with them, and they're saying 2:26:23.480 --> 2:26:25.520 a lot of the same stuff like that, this is 2:26:25.560 --> 2:26:29.240 an escalation in rhetoric, but it's not a massive escalation 2:26:29.280 --> 2:26:31.760 in rhetoric over the way they've been talking about fucking 2:26:32.040 --> 2:26:33.720 the people, changing light, like the. 2:26:34.040 --> 2:26:36.560 Crocker barrel logo logo, we have to go to war, 2:26:36.800 --> 2:26:37.360 we have to. 2:26:37.320 --> 2:26:38.520 Go to war, We're at war. 2:26:38.800 --> 2:26:40.960 I was thinking about that when you said that, like 2:26:41.560 --> 2:26:43.560 the lips of TikTok had tweeted that we were at war, 2:26:43.640 --> 2:26:45.640 Like you could probably go back and see dozens of 2:26:45.640 --> 2:26:48.759 other instances almost exactly the same statement. 2:26:48.760 --> 2:26:52.040 Right, And is this something that could lead to mass 2:26:52.080 --> 2:26:54.520 Could this be because I've seen people comparing this guy 2:26:54.959 --> 2:26:58.520 like Charlie Kirk to Horst Wessel, who was a Nazi, 2:26:58.640 --> 2:27:01.160 was literally a pimp, was a member of the Nazi 2:27:01.160 --> 2:27:03.200 brown Shirts who was murdered and it became a huge 2:27:03.280 --> 2:27:05.440 rallying cry for the Nazi Party, right, they made a 2:27:05.440 --> 2:27:07.520 song about him. It was a big deal. I think 2:27:07.520 --> 2:27:10.039 that's kind of a very silly comparison. For one thing, 2:27:10.760 --> 2:27:13.600 Horse Wessel is meaningful because he was killed before the 2:27:13.680 --> 2:27:16.880 Nazis came to power, and they used his death in 2:27:17.000 --> 2:27:19.720 order to get to power, and Trump is in power. 2:27:19.760 --> 2:27:23.800 If you're not aware, they don't need to invent excuses 2:27:23.840 --> 2:27:26.240 either to like crack down on the left or no, 2:27:26.480 --> 2:27:30.640 or carry out their policies. They're already doing that. I've 2:27:30.680 --> 2:27:33.640 seen people go into complete panic mode because they're gonna 2:27:33.640 --> 2:27:37.880 be like, they're gonna use this this shooting to now 2:27:37.920 --> 2:27:42.280 do terrible things, as if they're not already doing terrible things, 2:27:42.320 --> 2:27:44.520 Like they don't need to wait for events to happen. 2:27:44.600 --> 2:27:47.720 They are more than willing just to do whatever they 2:27:47.720 --> 2:27:48.800 want when they want to. 2:27:49.280 --> 2:27:54.760 Yes, that is exactly like, that's exactly what I would 2:27:54.800 --> 2:27:59.240 tell you. And in terms of like comparisons, I don't 2:27:59.240 --> 2:28:01.800 even think it's super useful to try to compare this 2:28:01.959 --> 2:28:06.039 to specific figures from fucking German history, because there's. 2:28:05.840 --> 2:28:09.280 Really not America in twenty twenty five. Yeah, there's a 2:28:09.360 --> 2:28:13.400 viral TikTok of a man talking about the Book of Mormon, 2:28:13.879 --> 2:28:16.240 like like seconds after the shooting. 2:28:16.040 --> 2:28:18.440 Standing next to where Kirk died, and we now know 2:28:18.480 --> 2:28:20.720 that he stole a bunch of shit from the booth 2:28:20.720 --> 2:28:25.160 that was covered in blood to sell it online. Like this, 2:28:25.160 --> 2:28:27.600 this is all of the books of the America in Germany. 2:28:27.640 --> 2:28:29.320 You won't find anything like that in it. 2:28:29.879 --> 2:28:33.680 Yeah, Like a better historical comparison we will see, right, 2:28:33.800 --> 2:28:38.320 might be Jose Carvo, whose death did immediately sort of 2:28:38.720 --> 2:28:40.920 was one of the things that accelerated the start of 2:28:40.959 --> 2:28:43.720 the Spanish Civil War, I guess, yeah, But even then, like, 2:28:43.800 --> 2:28:47.440 no one was tiktoking and grabbing much that was stained 2:28:47.480 --> 2:28:48.280 by his blood. 2:28:48.720 --> 2:28:51.520 No, And there's no you can like say, like, oh, well, 2:28:51.560 --> 2:28:56.240 this figure's assassination preceded this kind of violence, but like, okay, 2:28:56.360 --> 2:28:59.480 was that figure a guy who did what Charlie Kirk 2:28:59.560 --> 2:29:01.480 did and was connected in the way that No, like 2:29:01.520 --> 2:29:03.879 this is an American thing, this is new. Yeah, this 2:29:03.920 --> 2:29:06.240 is a novel. His moment in history, and we don't 2:29:06.240 --> 2:29:09.800 know what's going to happen. I'm not saying, don't you 2:29:09.879 --> 2:29:13.200 know if you're the kind of person who has been 2:29:13.200 --> 2:29:17.120 worried about right wing violence accelerating. You shouldn't be less 2:29:17.160 --> 2:29:19.560 worried right now, and I think that's a good thing 2:29:19.600 --> 2:29:22.600 to be worried about. There's been a spree of bomb 2:29:22.600 --> 2:29:26.960 threats called into like historically black colleges today and DNC 2:29:27.120 --> 2:29:30.680 headquarters last I checked. I don't think anything actually has 2:29:30.720 --> 2:29:33.440 been done, but it makes sense. It's an anger reaction 2:29:33.680 --> 2:29:35.760 from the right. You know, you've got some people who 2:29:36.000 --> 2:29:38.320 woke up pissed off this morning and decided to call 2:29:38.320 --> 2:29:41.520 in some bomb threats. Apparently we'll see you know who 2:29:41.520 --> 2:29:45.160 the culprits were there. But I didn't want to touch 2:29:45.200 --> 2:29:47.000 on something else that I've seen in the wake of 2:29:47.040 --> 2:29:48.640 all this that is pretty novel. But we should do 2:29:48.680 --> 2:30:03.480 an ad break first, all right, coming back, I wanted 2:30:03.520 --> 2:30:06.080 to talk briefly about the way AI is being used 2:30:06.720 --> 2:30:12.480 by civilian investigators to try and crack this caper. People 2:30:12.520 --> 2:30:15.360 have been using AI to enhance the images that the 2:30:15.440 --> 2:30:20.039 FBI released of the maybe shooter. Again, we don't even 2:30:20.120 --> 2:30:22.119 know that that guy's the shooter because they fucked up 2:30:22.640 --> 2:30:26.640 very badly on this initially, but people have been using 2:30:26.680 --> 2:30:28.880 to like clarify and we know that the AI is 2:30:28.920 --> 2:30:31.720 doing a bad job because again he's wearing a distinctive shirt. 2:30:31.720 --> 2:30:34.879 People found the shirt online and when the AI was 2:30:34.959 --> 2:30:38.680 like solidifying the image on the shirt, it did it wrong, 2:30:38.959 --> 2:30:40.880 Like it put like a silhouette of a man on 2:30:40.920 --> 2:30:42.199 there that wasn't on there. 2:30:42.000 --> 2:30:44.400 Like it like you can also submit the same image 2:30:44.440 --> 2:30:47.160 to like five different AI imaging programs and get five 2:30:47.360 --> 2:30:50.520 wildly different results for what the face quote unquote looks like. 2:30:51.040 --> 2:30:53.680 And I just brought that up because I haven't seen 2:30:53.720 --> 2:30:56.000 that happen before with one of these things. And it 2:30:56.080 --> 2:30:58.199 was like, oh, okay, cool, that's a fun new. 2:30:58.440 --> 2:30:59.760 This is gonna be something we'd have to deal with 2:30:59.760 --> 2:31:04.000 now for every single right preceding event in absolutely, yes, 2:31:04.560 --> 2:31:08.440 whatever this hellscape of the American century of humiliation looks like. 2:31:08.680 --> 2:31:08.960 Yes. 2:31:09.360 --> 2:31:11.840 The other thing I wanted to bring up is, within 2:31:12.000 --> 2:31:14.560 about like two to three hours after Kirk was killed, 2:31:15.000 --> 2:31:17.240 and after again it had been announced that he was dead, 2:31:17.560 --> 2:31:20.520 people were asking Grock is this video? Because the video 2:31:20.600 --> 2:31:24.200 was spreading wildly of him dying on everywhere. Really, but 2:31:24.240 --> 2:31:27.560 people asked on Twitter, they asked grok elon Musk's AI 2:31:27.720 --> 2:31:31.000 is this real? And the response that was posted initially 2:31:31.160 --> 2:31:34.320 was Charlie Kirk takes the roast in stride with a laugh. 2:31:34.400 --> 2:31:37.240 He's faced tougher crowds. Yes, he survives this one easily. 2:31:37.320 --> 2:31:39.720 And then someone responded, Grok, he got shot through the neck. 2:31:39.760 --> 2:31:41.959 What are you talking about? And Grok responded, it's a 2:31:42.000 --> 2:31:45.000 meme video with edited effects to look like a dramatic shot, 2:31:45.440 --> 2:31:48.760 not a real event. Charlie Kirk is fine, he handles 2:31:48.840 --> 2:31:52.520 roasts like a pro. So again, I bring this up 2:31:52.640 --> 2:31:56.360 just because this is going to only become more of 2:31:56.400 --> 2:31:59.960 a factor in the immediate wake of shootings and terror 2:32:00.080 --> 2:32:03.640 to tax and disasters. Is people going to AI's for 2:32:03.800 --> 2:32:07.880 information about the validity of videos, about the validity of threats. 2:32:07.920 --> 2:32:11.200 And what scares me is not this didn't do any damage, right, Like, 2:32:11.240 --> 2:32:14.160 this doesn't didn't hurt the man hunt for the killer. 2:32:14.200 --> 2:32:18.400 It didn't like do anything. It's just ridiculous. But let's 2:32:18.400 --> 2:32:21.720 say you've got videos of a disaster ongoing, I mean, 2:32:22.320 --> 2:32:25.760 like a fucking natural disaster coming or whatever, and people 2:32:25.800 --> 2:32:28.680 are being told to leave their homes and somebody asks 2:32:29.000 --> 2:32:31.440 the fucking groc hey do I need to hear I'll 2:32:31.480 --> 2:32:33.960 plug this video and it'll tell me if the storm's 2:32:33.959 --> 2:32:35.880 going to hit my house or if I can stay here, 2:32:36.160 --> 2:32:38.160 people are gonna do shit like that, like. 2:32:38.160 --> 2:32:39.160 That's gonna happen. 2:32:39.240 --> 2:32:45.600 Yeah, you're right anyway, just as heads up. Ah, that's bleak. Yeah, 2:32:46.320 --> 2:32:47.320 that's pretty terrible. 2:32:47.520 --> 2:32:47.920 All right. 2:32:48.000 --> 2:32:49.800 Well that's that's I think all we got to say 2:32:49.840 --> 2:32:50.039 on this. 2:32:50.680 --> 2:32:54.000 Yeah, we'll keep updating you is we learn more. I'm 2:32:54.000 --> 2:32:56.160 sure this will be developing over the weekend. 2:32:56.320 --> 2:32:58.760 Yeah, this is going to keep being a major story. Well, 2:32:58.840 --> 2:33:01.200 I'm sure we'll do a dedicated episode on it next week. 2:33:01.440 --> 2:33:02.440 Yeah. 2:33:02.760 --> 2:33:05.360 Something else that happened on Wednesday, the same day as 2:33:05.400 --> 2:33:09.640 the Charlie Kirk assassination, was a school shooting in Colorado. 2:33:10.280 --> 2:33:14.600 Two students were shot before the shooter killed himself. Police 2:33:14.680 --> 2:33:17.120 have said, quote, we are looking at a mode if 2:33:17.160 --> 2:33:19.360 we don't have one yet. He was radicalized by some 2:33:20.120 --> 2:33:23.000 extremist network in the details of that will be down 2:33:23.000 --> 2:33:25.680 the road, and we wanted to give you that much 2:33:25.800 --> 2:33:28.400 about maybe a mindset for him. Unquote. 2:33:29.120 --> 2:33:33.160 Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess it's just a marking 2:33:33.200 --> 2:33:36.000 of what kind of shootings Americans are aneured to and 2:33:36.120 --> 2:33:39.160 not school shootings that's business as. 2:33:39.080 --> 2:33:43.000 Usual, especially if it's just a regular white male teenager. 2:33:43.400 --> 2:33:43.920 Yeah. 2:33:44.080 --> 2:33:46.400 Yeah, we'll be kind of following that one as well 2:33:46.520 --> 2:33:50.560 to see what it's online radicalization was. Yeah, they've already 2:33:51.600 --> 2:33:55.080 found so early, but yeah, it's pretty tragic that two 2:33:55.080 --> 2:33:56.640 school shootings happened in a day. 2:33:57.400 --> 2:34:00.280 It was reported in multiple outlets last week that the 2:34:00.320 --> 2:34:04.520 Department of Justice was considering restricting gun ownership rights for 2:34:04.600 --> 2:34:08.199 transgender Americans in the wake of the Minneapolist Catholic school 2:34:08.240 --> 2:34:12.039 shooting last month. This was first reported by the Diggity Wire, 2:34:12.160 --> 2:34:15.359 who quoted the source inside the Justice Department saying, quote, 2:34:15.520 --> 2:34:18.640 Individuals within the DOJ are reviewing ways to ensure that 2:34:18.760 --> 2:34:23.160 mentally ill individuals suffering from gender dysphoria are unable to 2:34:23.200 --> 2:34:27.080 obtain fire arms while they are unstable and unwell unquote. 2:34:27.400 --> 2:34:30.840 CNN said that their sources described the proposal for a 2:34:30.879 --> 2:34:35.160 transgun ban as quote preliminary in nature, and since then, 2:34:35.280 --> 2:34:37.600 the DOJ and the Trump administration have not made any 2:34:37.760 --> 2:34:42.400 clear statements confirming or denying this reporting. A DOJ spokesperson 2:34:42.520 --> 2:34:45.360 acknowledg THEES reports with the statement, reading, quote, the DOJ 2:34:45.560 --> 2:34:48.520 is actively evaluating options to prevent the pattern of violence 2:34:48.520 --> 2:34:51.600 we have seen from individuals with specific mental health challenges 2:34:51.640 --> 2:34:55.600 and substance abuse disorders. No specific criminal justice proposals have 2:34:55.680 --> 2:34:58.840 been advanced at this time. Unquote. Trump declined to answer 2:34:58.840 --> 2:35:02.080 a question about it possible transgun ban last Friday. This 2:35:02.280 --> 2:35:06.440 is something right wing influencers have been advocating for years now. 2:35:06.879 --> 2:35:07.480 Yeah. 2:35:07.560 --> 2:35:11.360 On September fifth, the NRA made a statement reading, the 2:35:11.360 --> 2:35:14.039 Second Amendment isn't up for debate. The NRA supports the 2:35:14.040 --> 2:35:18.080 Second Amendment rights for all law abiding Americans to purchase, possess, 2:35:18.120 --> 2:35:20.240 and use firearms. The energy does not and will not 2:35:20.280 --> 2:35:24.680 support any policy proposals that implement sweeping gun bands that 2:35:24.800 --> 2:35:28.440 arbitrarily strict law abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights 2:35:28.440 --> 2:35:32.600 without due process. Yep, which you know is consistent with 2:35:32.680 --> 2:35:36.240 the NRA's messaging four years because the Lion is the 2:35:36.360 --> 2:35:38.760 recent messaging yet definitely Yeah, well, I mean the lion 2:35:38.800 --> 2:35:40.440 has been for as long as I have been a 2:35:40.480 --> 2:35:44.280 gun owner, which is twenty years now from the NRA 2:35:44.879 --> 2:35:46.279 that after the Civil Rights movement. 2:35:46.560 --> 2:35:46.760 Yeah. 2:35:46.840 --> 2:35:51.160 Yeah, registration and like laws forcing people to register their. 2:35:51.080 --> 2:35:54.119 Guns, and like gun control laws in general. 2:35:53.840 --> 2:35:57.879 Are that restrict at all access to firearms are a 2:35:58.000 --> 2:36:01.600 prelude inevitably to mass confiscation. Right, Like that has been 2:36:01.640 --> 2:36:03.840 the that has been the line for a long time. 2:36:04.120 --> 2:36:06.920 This does not surprise me. Yeah, No, the stance doesn't. 2:36:06.959 --> 2:36:09.760 The fact that they said something publicly during this does. 2:36:09.840 --> 2:36:13.440 Because the NRA has been quiet a lot when there's 2:36:13.480 --> 2:36:15.680 an issue, like, for example, that the shooting the Filando 2:36:15.720 --> 2:36:19.040 Castile right, who was legally carrying a concealed firearm when 2:36:19.080 --> 2:36:21.960 the police murdered him in his car. They kept pretty 2:36:21.959 --> 2:36:25.039 fucking quiet about that. So I am a little surprised 2:36:25.040 --> 2:36:27.400 that they said something. But what they're saying is is 2:36:27.520 --> 2:36:29.400 very consistent with other shit they've been saying. 2:36:29.720 --> 2:36:33.920 Yeah, there's no current legal mechanism that exists for them 2:36:33.959 --> 2:36:36.800 to do this. They would have to invent or heavily 2:36:36.840 --> 2:36:39.680 alter the current weight that gun rights can be taken away, 2:36:39.680 --> 2:36:43.160 which is right now through individual court cases where a 2:36:43.280 --> 2:36:48.040 judge finds an individual person quote unquote mentally deficient. Yeah, 2:36:48.080 --> 2:36:50.880 and it's highly unlikely that the gun lobby will support 2:36:50.879 --> 2:36:55.080 any policy proposals that start adding certain diagnoses to a 2:36:55.160 --> 2:36:59.640 list that excludes you from gun ownership, because sure you 2:36:59.840 --> 2:37:03.039 if you add gender dysphoria, Now, that might not be 2:37:03.080 --> 2:37:05.720 a huge problem to many on the right, But let's 2:37:05.800 --> 2:37:10.360 say a Democrat administration and Democrat House and Senate come 2:37:10.400 --> 2:37:13.000 into power. Now there was this precedent that you can 2:37:13.120 --> 2:37:16.680 add diagnoses to take away gun rights, which would enable 2:37:16.920 --> 2:37:20.440 adding things like depression or PTSD, which a lot of 2:37:20.560 --> 2:37:24.560 veterans have. And this is like the slippery slope that 2:37:24.600 --> 2:37:26.920 the NRA warns about, So it makes sense that they 2:37:26.959 --> 2:37:31.280 would be taking this stance. Similarly, I don't necessarily see 2:37:31.280 --> 2:37:34.680 a very clear path for them to restrict HRT through 2:37:34.720 --> 2:37:38.640 this mechanism. SIS people, including a lot of men who 2:37:38.640 --> 2:37:43.480 own guns, take testosterone and CIS women take estrogen, so 2:37:43.640 --> 2:37:46.560 that would be a very tricky way to handle this. 2:37:46.720 --> 2:37:49.000 I think the only way they could again would be 2:37:49.040 --> 2:37:53.640 if they try to restrict en mass like the prescription 2:37:53.840 --> 2:37:58.119 of hormones specifically to people with gender dysphoria or trans people, 2:37:59.000 --> 2:38:01.280 which is difficult for a lot of reasons, but would 2:38:01.360 --> 2:38:04.280 provide it like a pretext for Okay, these people are 2:38:04.320 --> 2:38:07.560 now taking stuff an illegal substance, and you can go 2:38:07.680 --> 2:38:11.280 after people with guns for that. But I feel like 2:38:11.600 --> 2:38:14.320 I don't know how you would judicate that how you 2:38:14.440 --> 2:38:17.840 like force like the federal government does not theoretically have 2:38:17.879 --> 2:38:21.480 the ability to force the medical community to say nobody 2:38:21.879 --> 2:38:24.000 who's got generous for you gets hormones. 2:38:24.040 --> 2:38:24.160 Ever. 2:38:24.240 --> 2:38:26.080 Again, Yeah, I mean, you could maybe do something through 2:38:26.120 --> 2:38:27.600 the FDA, but I don't see how you could do 2:38:27.640 --> 2:38:29.200 it just to trans people and. 2:38:30.040 --> 2:38:33.400 How right, like, how would you keep it legal for 2:38:33.440 --> 2:38:36.400 all of Joe Rogan's friends, and that's just like through 2:38:36.440 --> 2:38:39.240 the FDA, right, I don't I literally just don't know. 2:38:39.400 --> 2:38:40.840 Yeah, I'm not super familiar with that. 2:38:41.120 --> 2:38:43.120 But this is obviously something that we will keep an 2:38:43.160 --> 2:38:45.400 eye on. This is this is like a possibility that 2:38:45.400 --> 2:38:49.800 we've discussed the right wanting to enact for years now, 2:38:50.320 --> 2:38:53.160 and the fact that the DOJ might even have some 2:38:53.400 --> 2:38:58.040 people in there who are doing preliminary considerations. It obviously 2:38:58.160 --> 2:39:02.080 is a worrying sign of the general position on trans 2:39:02.200 --> 2:39:03.560 rights and transgund rights. 2:39:03.680 --> 2:39:06.959 Yeah, for our immigration update this week, I want to 2:39:06.959 --> 2:39:11.119 start by talking about the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court 2:39:11.160 --> 2:39:14.240 confirmed in its case that CBP and more permanently ICE 2:39:14.840 --> 2:39:18.680 can continue their policy of racial profiling. This overturned a 2:39:18.760 --> 2:39:21.600 lower court judges ordered that prohibits them from stopping someone 2:39:21.600 --> 2:39:24.920 in Los Angeles based on ethnicity alone. It didn't just 2:39:24.959 --> 2:39:27.520 look at ethnicity, It said that it prohibits them from 2:39:27.600 --> 2:39:30.800 using either one or a combination of four factors, which 2:39:30.840 --> 2:39:33.680 were a parent race, their accent, or their use for 2:39:33.800 --> 2:39:37.440 non English language, their job. Their jobs that tend to 2:39:37.480 --> 2:39:40.160 have a higher proportion of undocumented people. Right, they get 2:39:40.240 --> 2:39:44.200 construction and some agricultural jobs. And their presence at a 2:39:44.240 --> 2:39:47.520 certain place again right, places like a home depot or 2:39:47.959 --> 2:39:51.440 a farm garrison. Smiling at how I correctly pronounce the 2:39:51.480 --> 2:39:54.600 word defo there. CBP has always been able to profile 2:39:54.640 --> 2:39:56.400 you at the border. Right, that's kind of what they do. 2:39:56.720 --> 2:40:00.720 There was a nineteen seventy five Supreme Court decision that 2:40:00.760 --> 2:40:04.359 one is called USA versus Bridnion. I think it's BRIDNIONI 2:40:04.520 --> 2:40:08.920 like Italian Brigni ponce. That decision looked a roving traffic 2:40:09.000 --> 2:40:13.200 stop up hearing. I lives in San Clemente. And in 2:40:13.240 --> 2:40:17.080 that case, the CBP had stopped someone not a checkpoint, 2:40:17.320 --> 2:40:19.280 but while sitting by the side of the highway in 2:40:19.320 --> 2:40:23.360 their vehicle, and they had done so solely based on 2:40:23.400 --> 2:40:27.839 the apparent ethnicity of the driver. That was ruled unconstitutional, 2:40:28.200 --> 2:40:30.520 and the standard that offices needed to have was quote 2:40:30.640 --> 2:40:36.160 reasonable suspicion that pertains to roving stops, which is kind 2:40:36.200 --> 2:40:39.080 of what Ice is doing in La right. CBP officers 2:40:39.080 --> 2:40:41.800 have also previously been sued, more recently for using a 2:40:41.879 --> 2:40:44.520 language as a sold basis for the tension, like if 2:40:44.520 --> 2:40:47.320 you're speaking Spanish, yeah, exactly, that was the case, right, 2:40:47.360 --> 2:40:50.480 it's pseudo and Hernandez versus US Customs and Border Protection. 2:40:50.840 --> 2:40:52.240 That one was in Montana. 2:40:52.280 --> 2:40:55.600 The ACLU of Montana sued them to Spanish speaking ladies 2:40:55.600 --> 2:40:58.400 were speaking Spanish in a store. They actually said hello 2:40:58.440 --> 2:41:01.200 to a board of drill agent in Englis, who proceeded 2:41:01.200 --> 2:41:03.320 to detain them on the basis that not many people 2:41:03.400 --> 2:41:04.680 speak Spanish in Montana. 2:41:05.000 --> 2:41:08.039 I think the name is from Spanish, like Montagna, but 2:41:08.120 --> 2:41:08.800 maybe I'm wrong. 2:41:09.280 --> 2:41:14.080 The State Department has also issued guidance that non immigrant 2:41:14.240 --> 2:41:19.320 visa applicants can now only schedule interviews in their own country. 2:41:19.720 --> 2:41:22.680 So this is a further burden for people seeking visas 2:41:23.520 --> 2:41:25.800 to come to the United States. Right Previously, you could 2:41:25.840 --> 2:41:30.520 do it another US embassy or consulate for instance. You know, 2:41:30.680 --> 2:41:34.640 if you were let's say French but resident in Spain, 2:41:34.920 --> 2:41:38.280 you could apply at the consulate or embassy there. Right 2:41:38.840 --> 2:41:42.959 now you have to go to your country's embassy. In 2:41:43.000 --> 2:41:46.920 some cases, there are designated embassies or consular places for 2:41:46.920 --> 2:41:49.160 for national states where the US has no embassy or 2:41:49.240 --> 2:41:52.080 similar presence, like a US hasn't got an embassy in 2:41:52.120 --> 2:41:55.240 Afghanistan right now for pretty obvious reasons, right, So I 2:41:55.240 --> 2:41:57.279 believe it's such a lama bad for those people. 2:41:57.040 --> 2:41:58.120 For example. 2:41:58.720 --> 2:42:01.360 Finally, I want to get onto the case of the 2:42:01.440 --> 2:42:04.120 dozens of watermelon children who came to the US and 2:42:04.160 --> 2:42:07.120 accompanied by adults they are related to and who the 2:42:07.160 --> 2:42:10.240 Trump admin attempted to deport over the Labor Day weekend. 2:42:10.560 --> 2:42:12.840 Sometimes I don't like the phrase ou accompanied miners because 2:42:12.879 --> 2:42:14.879 maybe they are accompanied by someone who's just not in 2:42:14.920 --> 2:42:17.200 their family, right that people have taken care of them 2:42:17.240 --> 2:42:21.080 on the journey, almost certainly, and I've seen this myself, 2:42:21.480 --> 2:42:23.120 and so I don't know the idea that they're not 2:42:23.160 --> 2:42:26.320 just walking alone, but they are not with their relatives, 2:42:26.400 --> 2:42:31.000 right if undertaking this journey themselves. So Judge Sparkle sugno 2:42:31.080 --> 2:42:34.440 Nan temporarily halted their removal in the early hours of 2:42:34.520 --> 2:42:38.200 Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend. This is an extremely 2:42:38.320 --> 2:42:42.359 unusual decision, right, but the judge decided it was warranted 2:42:42.400 --> 2:42:44.840 because not doing so would put the children in potential 2:42:44.959 --> 2:42:51.160 extreme danger. The government categorically attempted to remove these children, 2:42:51.360 --> 2:42:54.760 like very quickly and literally got them out of bed 2:42:54.920 --> 2:42:57.119 right like, we've got these little children out of beds 2:42:57.120 --> 2:42:59.440 in their foster homes and attempted to shove them on 2:42:59.440 --> 2:43:02.920 a plane to Guatemala. Their attorney literally ran onto the 2:43:02.959 --> 2:43:06.520 tarmac at the airport to tell flight control personnel that 2:43:06.560 --> 2:43:08.600 they were likely in violation of a court order if 2:43:08.600 --> 2:43:11.960 they allowed the plane to take off. It couldn't be 2:43:12.040 --> 2:43:14.280 more last minute than this, right, They were literally working 2:43:14.320 --> 2:43:18.440 all night. Judge Tim Kelly now has to rule on 2:43:18.480 --> 2:43:22.039 the legitimacy of the government's claims. The claim the government 2:43:22.120 --> 2:43:25.520 makes here is that it was quote reuniting children with 2:43:25.640 --> 2:43:29.200 parents abroad, not deporting them, and that would mean the 2:43:29.280 --> 2:43:32.280 children don't have the statutory protections that they do if 2:43:32.280 --> 2:43:35.360 it were being deported as quote unquote unaccompanied miners. 2:43:35.440 --> 2:43:35.640 Right. 2:43:36.400 --> 2:43:39.279 Previously, the government had made the claim that the children's 2:43:39.320 --> 2:43:42.880 parents wanted them to be returned. It's dropped that claim 2:43:42.920 --> 2:43:47.400 after Router's published a Guatemalan government document which completely refutes 2:43:47.400 --> 2:43:49.520 that none of the children's parents seem to want them 2:43:49.560 --> 2:43:52.640 to come home. So what the government is claiming here 2:43:52.720 --> 2:43:57.320 is that the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is under HHS, 2:43:57.760 --> 2:44:01.760 is moving the children, not the Department of Homeland Security. 2:44:02.360 --> 2:44:07.320 So they're not being deported, they're being reunified with their families. Yeah, 2:44:07.440 --> 2:44:11.720 that's a pretty sketchy claim. Meanwhile, the kids are in shelters. 2:44:12.200 --> 2:44:14.920 Many of them were in long term foster care and 2:44:14.959 --> 2:44:18.200 have been now removed from that environment, and they're in shelters. 2:44:18.920 --> 2:44:22.240 Law Fare, which is an online publication, has a pretty 2:44:22.240 --> 2:44:24.480 good account of the courtroom exchange that I've linked in 2:44:24.480 --> 2:44:27.640 the notes. I also several people have asked about this, 2:44:27.680 --> 2:44:29.600 so I should talk about it. I wanted to talk 2:44:29.640 --> 2:44:34.080 about the Hyundai plant in Georgia. I don't know what 2:44:34.160 --> 2:44:36.840 to call this raid. Yeah, in Georgia, I guess raid 2:44:36.920 --> 2:44:40.880 is the right word. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, Like more than 2:44:41.000 --> 2:44:44.199 three hundred South Korean workers were attained. 2:44:43.879 --> 2:44:46.200 At the plant. They should be going home today. 2:44:46.280 --> 2:44:49.080 They were supposed to go home yesterday, but there were 2:44:49.080 --> 2:44:52.000 some delays so far. ICE has claimed that these people 2:44:52.040 --> 2:44:55.959 were working without proper authorization and Slash or but not 2:44:56.000 --> 2:44:59.840 in the US with proper authorization, their lawyers have claimed, 2:45:00.120 --> 2:45:04.480 and The Guardian has foundly documents that confirm that many 2:45:04.480 --> 2:45:06.600 of them had B one visa status. 2:45:07.160 --> 2:45:09.720 B one is like you can do some work on 2:45:09.760 --> 2:45:10.200 a B one. 2:45:10.280 --> 2:45:12.680 It also can be just an extended term tourist visa 2:45:13.520 --> 2:45:16.120 and you can do certain jobs but not other jobs, 2:45:16.280 --> 2:45:18.520 and you still get paid at home where you were 2:45:18.520 --> 2:45:20.680 on to B one, which seems to be what these 2:45:20.720 --> 2:45:23.800 people were doing. Right, Like, they can supervise construction on 2:45:23.800 --> 2:45:25.600 a B one, but you can't do construction, and it 2:45:25.600 --> 2:45:27.600 would make sense for people who are very expert in 2:45:27.600 --> 2:45:31.560 the construction of these highly technical buildings to supervise that construction. 2:45:32.280 --> 2:45:34.920 It seems that they were in the country to supervise 2:45:35.480 --> 2:45:37.920 the setting up of this car plant. 2:45:38.200 --> 2:45:41.920 Correct, Yeah, most South Koreans can also get est visa waivers, 2:45:41.959 --> 2:45:44.080 which like it's not exactly the same, but it's kind 2:45:44.120 --> 2:45:45.880 of a ninety day B one visa. 2:45:46.560 --> 2:45:49.000 So there are some people who cannot. 2:45:48.680 --> 2:45:51.120 Right like, if they have been cremated of crimes in 2:45:51.160 --> 2:45:53.760 such that they'd have to go through the B one process. 2:45:54.080 --> 2:45:55.400 But it seems very. 2:45:55.320 --> 2:45:57.720 Unlikely at least that that they were not in the 2:45:57.800 --> 2:46:01.959 country without any documentation and because like that would be 2:46:01.959 --> 2:46:03.560 a stranging to do when they can get a best 2:46:03.560 --> 2:46:06.480 of visa waiver. What's really weird about this is the 2:46:06.520 --> 2:46:10.840 state of Georgia has invested millions, if not billions, in 2:46:10.920 --> 2:46:14.480 bringing this plant to Georgia. Right, it has created a 2:46:14.520 --> 2:46:18.800 significant economic boost. Something like ninety percent of the products 2:46:18.800 --> 2:46:21.640 that go into the car come from there. So there 2:46:21.640 --> 2:46:24.560 are lots of small businesses and local businesses that have 2:46:24.600 --> 2:46:29.440 started up to provide this factory with the goods it needs. 2:46:29.959 --> 2:46:31.640 You know, there are all the other services that come 2:46:31.680 --> 2:46:35.000 with that. Right, Like, it's brought economic benefit to the region. 2:46:35.360 --> 2:46:38.039 I know the state has spent more than three hundred 2:46:38.120 --> 2:46:43.000 million on improving the roads. Apparently they've deepened ports in 2:46:43.080 --> 2:46:47.040 some regions to allow larger, larger ships to arrive. It's 2:46:47.080 --> 2:46:51.240 bought in over twelve billion investment, more than eight thousand jobs. 2:46:51.800 --> 2:46:54.920 It's received massive tax breaks. It's going to total over 2:46:55.120 --> 2:46:58.039 two billion dollars according to reporting that are link to 2:46:58.680 --> 2:47:04.880 in the notes. Yet, Georgia State Police blocked off roads 2:47:04.920 --> 2:47:08.080 as part of the raid, and it was Georgia Department 2:47:08.080 --> 2:47:11.720 of Corrections buses that took people away. This seems an 2:47:11.720 --> 2:47:15.400 odd choice for Kemp. Brian Kemp, right, Georgia governor. He's 2:47:15.400 --> 2:47:19.400 not Trump's favorite. Maybe he's trying to become Trump's favorite, 2:47:19.720 --> 2:47:24.039 but previously even Republicans in Georgia have been very behind this. 2:47:24.280 --> 2:47:26.400 I mean, Garrison, you lived in Georgia for a bit, right, 2:47:26.560 --> 2:47:29.280 this was a thing that, yeah, the Republicans has supported, 2:47:29.360 --> 2:47:31.680 a way to revitalize a place where there wasn't much 2:47:31.720 --> 2:47:33.119 economic opportunity before. 2:47:33.400 --> 2:47:35.840 Well, and this follows the whole point of Trump's tariffs. 2:47:35.840 --> 2:47:39.040 We're trying to bring, Yeah, manufacturing to the United States. 2:47:39.240 --> 2:47:43.760 You have these specialized workers to help supervise the construction 2:47:43.920 --> 2:47:46.920 and managing of equipment. They get this plant up and running. 2:47:47.440 --> 2:47:49.600 And even if you're even if you're doing that, even 2:47:49.600 --> 2:47:52.400 if you're bringing manufacturing back to the States, somehow you 2:47:52.480 --> 2:47:57.119 still get bitten, Yeah, big time, bitten by the Trump horse. 2:47:57.240 --> 2:47:58.400 I guess yeah. 2:47:58.480 --> 2:48:00.840 I mean it does sort of line up with this 2:48:01.000 --> 2:48:04.039 working closer to the Feurer hypothesis, right that you have 2:48:04.120 --> 2:48:06.600 these counter valent impulses and everyone's just trying to do 2:48:06.680 --> 2:48:09.400 things that they think Trump will like, and kind of 2:48:09.560 --> 2:48:12.520 sometimes those can directly contradict each other, as is happening here. 2:48:12.520 --> 2:48:14.920 There's not really a coherent policy platform. 2:48:15.640 --> 2:48:17.840 No, they're just so focused on trying to get like 2:48:17.920 --> 2:48:21.120 the base numbers up, to get the number of deportations 2:48:21.160 --> 2:48:22.160 higher than it's ever been. 2:48:22.480 --> 2:48:22.920 Yeah. 2:48:23.200 --> 2:48:25.600 And therefore, and you have this this sort of series 2:48:25.640 --> 2:48:28.640 of impulses which motivate Trump is and one of which 2:48:28.680 --> 2:48:30.480 is deport as many people as possible. 2:48:30.560 --> 2:48:30.760 Yeah. 2:48:31.000 --> 2:48:35.960 Another is broadly bring manufacturing jobs back to America, but 2:48:36.040 --> 2:48:39.360 not if foreign people are helping supervise the construction. I 2:48:39.360 --> 2:48:43.400 guess Understandably, South Carea is very upset. More so, I 2:48:43.440 --> 2:48:46.000 think because these are like middle class professionals who have 2:48:46.040 --> 2:48:49.680 been detained. Right, they appear to have negotiated a voluntary 2:48:49.720 --> 2:48:53.240 departure for these people, which it's not like a voluntary 2:48:53.240 --> 2:48:55.400 departure like you came on toil they Disney landed, you're 2:48:55.440 --> 2:48:57.440 going home on the plane. It can still have long 2:48:57.520 --> 2:49:00.480 term consequences. But the hope there is that that won't 2:49:01.120 --> 2:49:03.520 make it harder for these people to get US visas 2:49:03.560 --> 2:49:05.960 in the future. They have to come back, because obviously 2:49:06.280 --> 2:49:08.680 it's going to be very hard for this company to 2:49:08.680 --> 2:49:10.760 build a plant in Georgia if they can't bring any 2:49:10.800 --> 2:49:12.040 of their staff to Georgia. 2:49:13.120 --> 2:49:14.720 Yeah, that is about all I have. 2:49:15.240 --> 2:49:18.039 I'm going to keep looking, especially this Georgia story, see 2:49:18.040 --> 2:49:21.560 if it develops any further, and if it's worthy of 2:49:21.560 --> 2:49:22.240 a whole episode. 2:49:22.280 --> 2:49:23.760 We'll we'll do a whole episode on that. 2:49:24.240 --> 2:49:29.760 Speaking of Georgia, the long delayed Cop City reco case 2:49:30.000 --> 2:49:34.480 has finally made some progress in the courts. I have 2:49:34.640 --> 2:49:39.120 been working on the final scripted piece of my Cop 2:49:39.160 --> 2:49:42.800 City coverage for basically this whole summer. I've been slowly 2:49:42.840 --> 2:49:44.959 chipping away at it. Part of the reason why I 2:49:44.959 --> 2:49:48.360 have not finished that yet is because essentially the whole 2:49:48.840 --> 2:49:52.800 court case, like the sixty one defendant Rico case, got 2:49:52.840 --> 2:49:57.480 reset in May. They changed judges, and that has delayed 2:49:57.480 --> 2:50:00.520 an already long delayed case even further. I was waiting 2:50:00.600 --> 2:50:02.760 to see a little bit of the results of the 2:50:02.760 --> 2:50:04.520 court case, or at least get a better indication where 2:50:04.520 --> 2:50:06.240 the court case is going to go before I finish 2:50:06.360 --> 2:50:09.879 that final piece. And we're going to get that final 2:50:09.920 --> 2:50:12.240 piece out properly in the next six month or two here, 2:50:12.959 --> 2:50:16.320 but I will give this small update because it's pretty substantial. 2:50:16.800 --> 2:50:20.440 This past Tuesday, September ninth, the defense successfully argued that 2:50:20.520 --> 2:50:24.519 the State Attorney General's office did not have the jurisdictional 2:50:24.520 --> 2:50:28.520 authority to prosecute the sixty one defendants under the state's 2:50:28.600 --> 2:50:32.600 reco statute. This was due to simple procedural error in 2:50:32.600 --> 2:50:35.480 neglecting to first ask Governor Brian Kemp if the AG's 2:50:35.520 --> 2:50:38.160 office could prosecute the case. Judge Farmer found that the 2:50:38.200 --> 2:50:40.520 AG does not have the authority to prosecute Count one 2:50:40.720 --> 2:50:44.040 of the Rico indictment, which is the racketeering and conspiracy 2:50:44.080 --> 2:50:49.160 charges affecting sixty one people. So without the sweeping Rico 2:50:49.320 --> 2:50:53.160 charges in golfing the sixty one defendants, just five defendants 2:50:53.240 --> 2:50:56.000 would be left with Count two of the indictment, the 2:50:56.040 --> 2:51:00.760 domestic terrorism charges, which the AG does have the authority prosecute, 2:51:01.120 --> 2:51:05.440 and Count three, which is the arson charge, which Judge 2:51:05.440 --> 2:51:09.080 Farmer indicated could be thrown out on a similar technicality 2:51:09.160 --> 2:51:13.480 as the racketeering and conspiracy charges. This is still heavily 2:51:13.720 --> 2:51:16.760 in flux. The prosecution is going to appeal this decision, 2:51:17.360 --> 2:51:20.800 and it's unclear how this ruling will affect how the 2:51:20.840 --> 2:51:24.440 rest of the Copcity case will unfold, as removal of 2:51:24.520 --> 2:51:28.520 the Rico charges kind of undermines the rest of the indictment. 2:51:29.120 --> 2:51:32.400 On Wednesday, they were arguing about the constitutionality of George's 2:51:32.400 --> 2:51:35.120 domestic terrorism statute, which has never been tested in course before, 2:51:35.520 --> 2:51:37.600 so a lot of this case is currently up in 2:51:37.600 --> 2:51:40.760 the air, but this is a positive sign for the 2:51:40.879 --> 2:51:46.760 defendants at this point. One brief RFK Junior update. I 2:51:46.800 --> 2:51:51.680 guess RFK Juniors soon to be released autism report from 2:51:51.879 --> 2:51:56.520 HHS is reportedly going to include the claim that use 2:51:56.560 --> 2:52:01.279 of tailanol during pregnancy could cause autoism in children. 2:52:01.720 --> 2:52:02.720 Jesus Christ. 2:52:03.040 --> 2:52:07.640 This is not believed to be true by reputable medical authorities, 2:52:08.360 --> 2:52:11.400 but the report is set to release some time in September. 2:52:11.480 --> 2:52:14.680 It was announced like months ago when Aarvika Junior said 2:52:14.720 --> 2:52:17.800 that by September we will finally know the cause of 2:52:17.840 --> 2:52:21.440 autism quote quote, And it seems the report is still 2:52:21.520 --> 2:52:24.480 churning away but set to be released this month, and 2:52:24.520 --> 2:52:26.680 it will include a few other claims, which we will 2:52:26.680 --> 2:52:29.279 report on in more detail once the report is actually out. 2:52:29.360 --> 2:52:32.000 But the Wall Street Journal got this little heads up 2:52:32.120 --> 2:52:35.240 about the Thailand all inclusion in the report. 2:52:35.879 --> 2:52:36.560 Fantastic. 2:52:37.400 --> 2:52:40.400 So I heard from somebody who is waiting on their 2:52:40.440 --> 2:52:43.160 work permit. A Kurdish woman who came to the United 2:52:43.200 --> 2:52:48.080 States to claim asylum from Turkey from Northern Kurdistan, and 2:52:49.680 --> 2:52:51.560 because she doesn't have a work permit yet and she's 2:52:51.560 --> 2:52:54.160 gonna be waiting for her work permit. Sometime she's asking 2:52:54.200 --> 2:52:56.600 for help to cover her basic sort of day to 2:52:56.720 --> 2:53:00.000 day expenses. And this is a thing that people often 2:53:00.040 --> 2:53:03.240 find themselves in a situation. Right, they have come here, 2:53:03.600 --> 2:53:05.320 done all the documentation, but it can take a long 2:53:05.320 --> 2:53:07.400 time to get their work permit, and without friends or family, 2:53:07.480 --> 2:53:08.080 it can be very. 2:53:07.959 --> 2:53:08.480 Hard for them. 2:53:09.800 --> 2:53:14.720 The website is gofund dot me slash DA thirty nine 2:53:15.000 --> 2:53:19.680 F seven D zero B. We'll have that link in 2:53:19.680 --> 2:53:23.040 the show notes as well. If you'd like to email us, 2:53:23.080 --> 2:53:25.120 you can do so. The way to do it is 2:53:25.160 --> 2:53:28.280 to reach out to cool Zone tips at proton dot me. 2:53:28.720 --> 2:53:30.240 That is an encrypted email address. 2:53:30.720 --> 2:53:33.320 All that means is that you will have to also 2:53:33.440 --> 2:53:35.240 use an encrypted email address if you like it to 2:53:35.280 --> 2:53:37.359 be end to end encrypted. 2:53:38.120 --> 2:53:54.600 All right, and here's some ads. We're back and I 2:53:54.640 --> 2:53:58.359 guess it's time to drop some bars about Jeffrey Epstein. 2:53:58.840 --> 2:54:00.240 Somehow Epstein has returned learned. 2:54:00.520 --> 2:54:02.960 Yeah, that's that joke. It always gets old. 2:54:04.240 --> 2:54:06.440 So one of the big pieces of news this week 2:54:06.520 --> 2:54:09.680 before the thing that we started the episode with, I mean, 2:54:09.680 --> 2:54:13.400 this was the story before that happened, is that, as 2:54:13.400 --> 2:54:17.040 a result of the ongoing investigation into Epstein and whether 2:54:17.120 --> 2:54:19.880 or not you know how involved was Trump, how involved 2:54:19.879 --> 2:54:24.560 were Democrats? What do we care that the book, the 2:54:24.600 --> 2:54:28.359 first fifty years birthday book, that that drawing that Trump 2:54:28.800 --> 2:54:32.600 is accused of having done, where he signed his name 2:54:32.680 --> 2:54:37.000 as the pubic care of a very obviously young girl 2:54:37.879 --> 2:54:40.520 with a poem that seemed to hint at child molestation. 2:54:41.440 --> 2:54:45.600 That the whole book that Epstein had has has been 2:54:45.840 --> 2:54:49.040 released to Congress and is now public right now. 2:54:49.120 --> 2:54:51.720 We did Democrats on the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the 2:54:51.760 --> 2:54:55.080 Epstein birthday book from Jeffrey Epstein's estate once the estate 2:54:55.160 --> 2:54:57.440 made a statement saying that they have the book and 2:54:57.440 --> 2:54:59.320 wouldn't cooperate with a subpoena. 2:54:59.400 --> 2:55:02.680 And there's a a bunch of news articles summarizing it. 2:55:02.720 --> 2:55:04.879 If you want to read the thing for yourself, just 2:55:04.959 --> 2:55:08.840 google document cloud Jeffrey Epstein fiftieth Birthday Book, and the 2:55:08.879 --> 2:55:09.640 whole thing is in there. 2:55:09.680 --> 2:55:09.880 Yeah. 2:55:10.120 --> 2:55:13.320 Right, I would say, like just the kind of slight devotion, 2:55:13.440 --> 2:55:16.720 I guess between this and Charlie kirkshooting, maybe. 2:55:16.440 --> 2:55:18.520 You don't need to give yourself a break. 2:55:19.200 --> 2:55:20.160 I'm not saying you should. 2:55:21.000 --> 2:55:22.640 I just wanted to let people know where they can 2:55:22.680 --> 2:55:25.000 get to the original source if they don't want to 2:55:25.000 --> 2:55:27.600 have it mediated by a media, right. 2:55:27.560 --> 2:55:28.600 It's always good to do that. 2:55:29.080 --> 2:55:30.960 We're going to mediate it for you now. 2:55:31.080 --> 2:55:31.280 Yeah. 2:55:32.200 --> 2:55:34.119 So it opens, as far as I can tell. The 2:55:34.240 --> 2:55:37.160 first well, I mean, there's there's a list of contents. 2:55:37.280 --> 2:55:41.560 The prologue is written by Gilan Maxwell. Then there's letters 2:55:41.560 --> 2:55:44.760 from the family, Paula Seymour and Marco I guess your relatives. 2:55:45.160 --> 2:55:47.640 Then it's split into Brooklyn. So there's friends of his 2:55:47.720 --> 2:55:51.760 from Brooklyn who are Warren Eisenstein, neutral, I don't know 2:55:51.760 --> 2:55:54.880 who that is, Terry Kafka. Very funny that there's a 2:55:54.920 --> 2:55:59.280 Kafka involved, doctor Stephen Levy, and Michael Bookoles. The next 2:55:59.480 --> 2:56:03.000 section is all girlfriends, their letters from girlfriends. All of 2:56:03.000 --> 2:56:05.240 those names have been blacked out for reasons that should 2:56:05.280 --> 2:56:08.959 be obvious. The section after that is children. God almighty, 2:56:09.000 --> 2:56:11.400 I don't know whose kids because this is blacked out too, 2:56:11.840 --> 2:56:14.760 but oh boy. Yeah, and then we get to the 2:56:14.760 --> 2:56:17.080 section that is friends. That is all the letters from friends, 2:56:17.160 --> 2:56:20.600 and the friends are Leon Black is on there, Bill 2:56:20.640 --> 2:56:24.360 Clinton is on there, Alan Dershowitz is on there. The 2:56:24.400 --> 2:56:26.240 dersh himself. 2:56:25.800 --> 2:56:29.720 Is the letter is really unsettling. 2:56:29.959 --> 2:56:32.600 Yeah, Donald Trump is in there. We'll get to that 2:56:32.640 --> 2:56:34.680 in a second. Yet, Donald Trump is in there, obviously 2:56:35.040 --> 2:56:38.199 these are not. Morton Zuckerman is on there, Leslie Wexner 2:56:38.440 --> 2:56:41.160 is on there. So a number of like very prominent 2:56:41.160 --> 2:56:43.440 people unknown is at the very end. I don't know 2:56:43.760 --> 2:56:46.000 like that. That's like literally how the book listed it. 2:56:46.120 --> 2:56:48.640 So they just have a letter from someone who's presumably 2:56:48.720 --> 2:56:50.320 his friend but didn't put a name. 2:56:51.160 --> 2:56:53.840 I mean, it's it's a smart move if you're doing 2:56:53.879 --> 2:56:55.480 things which you have federal crimes. 2:56:55.720 --> 2:56:57.959 And then after that you've got the letters from scientists 2:56:58.040 --> 2:57:00.600 friends of his, which include people we brought up on 2:57:00.640 --> 2:57:03.640 my episode about a bioscience company who pretends that they're 2:57:03.640 --> 2:57:08.240 cloning dire wolves and Martin Noak are both on here, 2:57:08.320 --> 2:57:11.280 so that's great, oh good. And then after that, I 2:57:11.360 --> 2:57:14.440 just noted girlfriends is like the third group of people 2:57:14.480 --> 2:57:16.400 who had letters, and all those names were blacked out. 2:57:16.400 --> 2:57:20.480 But then under science there's another section that's girl dash 2:57:20.560 --> 2:57:24.160 friends that's longer, and all of those names are blacked out. 2:57:24.520 --> 2:57:29.800 No fucking idea what that is supposed to meet. But upsetting, Okay, it's. 2:57:29.640 --> 2:57:30.680 No good whatever it is. 2:57:30.959 --> 2:57:34.120 Yeah, anyway, There's some more names on there, but they're 2:57:34.160 --> 2:57:40.160 not super relevant. Gilan Maxwell's prologue is handwritten, or at 2:57:40.200 --> 2:57:42.560 least the note in front of it is handwritten. I 2:57:42.600 --> 2:57:44.800 know you will enjoy looking through the book, and I 2:57:44.840 --> 2:57:48.280 hope you will derive as much pleasure looking through it 2:57:48.320 --> 2:57:52.240 as I did putting it together for you. Happy birthday, Love, 2:57:52.360 --> 2:57:57.160 Gilan Maxwell. So that's the prologue. One of the first pictures, 2:57:57.200 --> 2:57:59.400 I mean, the first picture in the book is Jeffrey 2:57:59.400 --> 2:58:04.039 Epstein's standing around with a bunch of soldiers. They look like, 2:58:04.440 --> 2:58:07.800 I mean, I would guess from some African country. They're 2:58:07.840 --> 2:58:11.160 all in a camo pattern that's not immediately familiar to me. 2:58:11.640 --> 2:58:15.440 And yeah, I can't fully read what it says down here. 2:58:16.080 --> 2:58:18.280 Some of the line say something about a president and 2:58:18.440 --> 2:58:21.000 the Secret Service to greet you. I don't know who 2:58:21.040 --> 2:58:23.720 these soldiers were that Jeffrey's standing around. I kind of 2:58:23.720 --> 2:58:26.040 want to know, but it's a weird photo to start. 2:58:26.480 --> 2:58:29.360 And then immediately after that is Jeffrey Epstein's cub scout 2:58:29.400 --> 2:58:33.320 graduation photo. They've got that in there. It's just a 2:58:33.320 --> 2:58:36.000 bunch of like pictures of Epstein throughout his life. Like 2:58:36.040 --> 2:58:38.160 that's kind of how this thing opens before we get 2:58:38.200 --> 2:58:41.480 down to the letters. Yeah, one thing I wanted to 2:58:41.520 --> 2:58:44.080 get at there. So there's on page fifty seven there's 2:58:44.080 --> 2:58:46.240 a photo of Jeffrey Epstein wearing a weird shirt with 2:58:46.240 --> 2:58:48.080 a bunch of handprints on it when he was younger. 2:58:48.720 --> 2:58:51.920 That's just titled girls on my Boat. We picked up 2:58:51.959 --> 2:58:54.440 girls on beach, went out on boat. I tell them 2:58:54.480 --> 2:58:56.800 with knife in my hand, to take suits off. But 2:58:56.879 --> 2:58:59.680 Warren tells me, don't worry. His name is Jahan. He's 2:58:59.720 --> 2:59:02.320 just joking. He lives at so and so I tell 2:59:02.360 --> 2:59:05.440 Mark to throw him into water. He did no idea 2:59:05.720 --> 2:59:08.720 what the fuck that's about. But like a lot of 2:59:08.720 --> 2:59:11.600 it's like that is like very upsetting stories that are 2:59:11.600 --> 2:59:16.039 handwritten crudely, I think, and often by Gillan. But yeah, 2:59:16.080 --> 2:59:20.480 it's it's it's like pretty deeply upsetting stuff. Okay, I 2:59:20.920 --> 2:59:22.840 do kind of want to read this Bill Elks letter. 2:59:23.440 --> 2:59:25.920 It just starts with it's no secret that Jeffrey appreciates 2:59:25.959 --> 2:59:28.360 beautiful women that not many people know. He can create 2:59:28.400 --> 2:59:29.959 them at a thin ware air, as he did in 2:59:30.040 --> 2:59:31.560 Iowa in nineteen eighty eight. 2:59:32.520 --> 2:59:36.280 Good to give a place in times that are illegal. 2:59:36.640 --> 2:59:39.279 Yeah, this guy says that he was managing the money 2:59:39.320 --> 2:59:43.520 of a family who lived in Fairfield, Iowa. Hog farming 2:59:43.600 --> 2:59:45.560 is a serious industry there, and many people feel there 2:59:45.600 --> 2:59:46.959 is more than a little truth in the saying that 2:59:47.000 --> 2:59:48.720 it's hard to tell the difference between the girls and 2:59:48.760 --> 2:59:52.320 the hogs in southeast Iowa. Jeffrey came to Fairfield to 2:59:52.400 --> 2:59:56.240 check in on their investigation on their investment opportunities. He 2:59:56.320 --> 2:59:58.520 asked about the nightlife and we could only laugh as 2:59:58.520 --> 2:59:59.959 we dropped him off at the local motel. 3:00:00.000 --> 3:00:00.160 Well. 3:00:00.160 --> 3:00:01.680 The next morning, a group before of us picked up 3:00:01.720 --> 3:00:03.240 Jeffrey to give him a tour of the area. At 3:00:03.240 --> 3:00:04.959 our first stop, we parked in front of a bookstore. 3:00:04.959 --> 3:00:07.280 As we were getting out of the car, a spectacular, tall, 3:00:07.280 --> 3:00:09.520 blonde woman suddenly came out of the store, walked directly 3:00:09.600 --> 3:00:11.680 up to Jeffrey and announced, I am new to this area. 3:00:11.800 --> 3:00:14.200 What's going on? It turns out she was a sales 3:00:14.240 --> 3:00:17.360 representative for a firm solling academic brand and athletic clothing. 3:00:17.360 --> 3:00:20.640 She was literally driving through Iowa visiting local campuses. Jeffrey 3:00:20.680 --> 3:00:23.040 invited her to join us and did his magic. Within 3:00:23.080 --> 3:00:24.879 a few hours, he had invited her to return to 3:00:24.879 --> 3:00:27.600 New York with him for the weekend. Yeah, a lot 3:00:27.640 --> 3:00:33.199 of stuff like that. We should probably read Dershowitz's letter. 3:00:33.560 --> 3:00:37.000 Yeah, yeah, what seck, Yeah, you can do that. 3:00:37.560 --> 3:00:42.120 Okay, here's Dershowitz's Who was that Man with Epstein? Is 3:00:42.200 --> 3:00:44.760 the title of the letter. Inquiring minds are asking who 3:00:44.800 --> 3:00:46.920 is that man with Epstein? Jeffrey Epstein is, of course 3:00:46.959 --> 3:00:48.880 one of the world's most famous men, a household name 3:00:48.920 --> 3:00:51.280 throughout the planet. His picture has appeared on the cover 3:00:51.320 --> 3:00:53.640 of every magazine in the world. Everyone knows his story, 3:00:53.640 --> 3:00:56.240 from his humble roots on Coney Island to his rise 3:00:56.280 --> 3:00:57.800 to one of the most envied public figures in the 3:00:57.840 --> 3:01:00.000 Western world. But what is he doing flying to Africa 3:01:00.160 --> 3:01:03.480 with an obscure former politician from Hope, Arkansas. Who is 3:01:03.480 --> 3:01:05.400 that politician? And why would Epstein have picked him for 3:01:05.440 --> 3:01:08.600 the coveted seat on his private jet. Vanity Unfair was 3:01:08.600 --> 3:01:10.480 determined to get to the bottom of this mystery man 3:01:10.520 --> 3:01:12.600 and to reveal the story behind the story. Normally, we 3:01:12.600 --> 3:01:14.680 would not pry into the private life of an obscure 3:01:14.760 --> 3:01:17.720 Arkansas politician, particularly one who has tried so hard up 3:01:17.800 --> 3:01:20.320 to now so successfully to keep his private life to himself. 3:01:20.560 --> 3:01:22.880 But the moment this obscure man stepped under the Epstein jet, 3:01:22.920 --> 3:01:25.360 he became fair game for probing inquiry. Why would a 3:01:25.360 --> 3:01:27.680 man like Epstein, who can pick and choose his companions 3:01:27.680 --> 3:01:30.080 from princes to professors, select a flying companion from the 3:01:30.120 --> 3:01:32.360 Ozark Mountains. To be sure, he was a Rhodes scholar, 3:01:32.560 --> 3:01:33.960 but we all know how easy it is to get 3:01:33.959 --> 3:01:36.320 a roads if you're from Arkansas. There must be something else. 3:01:36.400 --> 3:01:40.119 Vanity Unfair decided to snoop around this obscure politician reluctantly 3:01:40.120 --> 3:01:42.480 agreed to be to an interview on the express condition 3:01:42.520 --> 3:01:44.320 that it was completely off the record. This is what 3:01:44.360 --> 3:01:47.480 he told us, and then it's blank. The letter ends. 3:01:48.040 --> 3:01:52.160 It comes with a note yes, reading Dear Jeffrey, As 3:01:52.200 --> 3:01:54.480 a birthday gift to you, I managed to obtain an 3:01:54.520 --> 3:01:57.760 early version of the Vanity Unfair article. I talked them 3:01:57.760 --> 3:02:02.040 into changing the focus from you to Bill Clinton. As 3:02:02.080 --> 3:02:04.400 you will see from the enclosed excerpt, Happy birthday in 3:02:04.400 --> 3:02:05.080 best regards. 3:02:05.320 --> 3:02:09.720 And then there's a fake Vanity Unfair article. Yeah or cover? 3:02:10.640 --> 3:02:12.520 Yeah? That who is Jack the Ripper? 3:02:12.720 --> 3:02:12.840 Was it? 3:02:12.920 --> 3:02:16.480 Jeffrey Epstein? Al Qaeda in South America? Financed by Epstein 3:02:16.640 --> 3:02:19.280 Jeffrey Epstein stole my heart in another courtroom dispatches. It's 3:02:19.320 --> 3:02:22.440 like really crudely animated, but yeah, yeah, I mean it's 3:02:22.520 --> 3:02:26.120 it's what do you even say? Oh, there is a 3:02:26.240 --> 3:02:29.320 quote the fat on the Vanity Fair cover attributed to 3:02:29.320 --> 3:02:31.520 Epstein that says life is a pure flame and we 3:02:31.600 --> 3:02:34.320 live by an invisible sun within us. So I guess 3:02:34.360 --> 3:02:35.760 that's a Jeffrey Epstein original. 3:02:35.920 --> 3:02:37.160 Wow, how profound. 3:02:37.280 --> 3:02:39.440 Before we talk about the Trump letter, there's this one 3:02:39.520 --> 3:02:42.720 other image I didn't like to discuss this what I 3:02:42.720 --> 3:02:47.360 can only described as a grooming themed drawing Oh God 3:02:47.400 --> 3:02:50.680 yeah to him as part of its birthday card, depicting 3:02:50.760 --> 3:02:54.400 Jeffrey Epstein in nineteen eighty three giving balloons in a 3:02:54.440 --> 3:02:59.599 lolly pomp to three young children girls like children, children. 3:02:59.480 --> 3:03:02.920 And importantly, his pockets are turned out out and the 3:03:02.959 --> 3:03:05.600 pants he's wearing are like patched and old. He's clearly 3:03:05.680 --> 3:03:08.480 poor in this. In nineteen eighty three, by the way, 3:03:08.520 --> 3:03:10.800 he was working as a tutor and a teacher, like 3:03:10.920 --> 3:03:13.680 he was teaching kids at private schools like, So that's 3:03:13.680 --> 3:03:14.720 what's represented here. 3:03:15.400 --> 3:03:18.280 The other section of the drawing is in two thousand 3:03:18.280 --> 3:03:21.720 and three and has Jeffrey Epstein sitting on the beach 3:03:21.920 --> 3:03:24.040 with four women touching his body. 3:03:24.640 --> 3:03:28.440 One woman is very clearly touching his genitals and has 3:03:28.600 --> 3:03:30.480 JE tattooed on her ass. 3:03:30.920 --> 3:03:33.400 Jeffrey Epstein's jet is flying above. 3:03:34.080 --> 3:03:36.400 You know it's his jet because the actual in number 3:03:36.520 --> 3:03:38.680 of his real jet is written on the side of 3:03:38.720 --> 3:03:39.120 the jet. 3:03:40.360 --> 3:03:42.600 And on the beach he is on a lawn chair 3:03:42.680 --> 3:03:48.760 outside of what sort of resembles Trump's Marlago resort in 3:03:48.879 --> 3:03:51.959 terms of the architectural style, the arched doorways, the tiered 3:03:52.040 --> 3:03:54.600 structure and lay out of the palm trees, and the beach. 3:03:55.040 --> 3:03:59.760 This building does not match his house in Florida, or 3:03:59.800 --> 3:04:03.560 his house in the Southwest, or his house on the island, 3:04:03.640 --> 3:04:08.400 which appears very different with blue roofing. I'm not saying 3:04:08.440 --> 3:04:11.640 this necessarily is mar A Lago, but if I were 3:04:11.680 --> 3:04:14.360 to try to draw mar A Lago from memory, it 3:04:14.480 --> 3:04:18.520 might look something like this. There's certainly a resemblance which 3:04:19.120 --> 3:04:19.720 is notable. 3:04:20.360 --> 3:04:23.200 Yeah, we should talk about literally. The next photo from 3:04:23.280 --> 3:04:28.520 this is a picture of Jeffrey Epstein holding a check 3:04:28.600 --> 3:04:32.480 for twenty two thousand dollars to him from Donald Trump. 3:04:33.320 --> 3:04:36.480 There's three people posing next to him. One of them 3:04:36.760 --> 3:04:39.400 is a woman whose face is blacked out. There's also 3:04:39.440 --> 3:04:41.920 another woman with her face blacked out behind them. But 3:04:42.000 --> 3:04:43.800 the man who's sitting next to the woman at what 3:04:43.840 --> 3:04:46.320 looks like a dinner table does not have his face 3:04:46.360 --> 3:04:46.880 blacked out. 3:04:46.920 --> 3:04:47.680 I don't know why. 3:04:48.240 --> 3:04:51.040 And it says on this Jeffrey is showing early talents 3:04:51.080 --> 3:04:54.120 with money and women cells fully depreciated. And then the 3:04:54.200 --> 3:04:56.720 name of the woman who is being sold is blacked 3:04:56.760 --> 3:04:59.920 out to Donald Trump for twenty two five hundred dollars. 3:05:00.480 --> 3:05:03.360 Shoot early people skills too. Even though I handled the deal, 3:05:03.440 --> 3:05:05.600 I didn't get any of the money for the girl. 3:05:05.920 --> 3:05:07.679 So pretty sickening. 3:05:07.520 --> 3:05:12.440 Joke, Yeah, yeah, genuinely like nauseating literally, yeah, like him 3:05:12.480 --> 3:05:15.560 holding up a check Donald Trump gave him for a girl. 3:05:15.520 --> 3:05:18.520 Like a fake novelty check signed by someone who's not Trump, 3:05:18.640 --> 3:05:21.520 just someone signing Donald Trump, not Donald Trump's signat JEM. 3:05:21.640 --> 3:05:25.680 But people joking. It's a bit about Jeffrey selling a 3:05:25.720 --> 3:05:28.920 woman to Trump four twenty two five hundred dollars? 3:05:29.160 --> 3:05:32.520 Was this a fully depreciated Is that the phrasing used, 3:05:33.000 --> 3:05:37.199 That is the phraseated? Yes, yes, yeah, it's fucking disgusting. 3:05:38.040 --> 3:05:40.760 And then we get down to the original Trump letter, 3:05:40.800 --> 3:05:42.160 which we've talked about on the show. 3:05:42.400 --> 3:05:43.080 We've read it to you. 3:05:43.120 --> 3:05:46.160 This is the one where's Donald says it's framed as 3:05:46.160 --> 3:05:49.080 a conversation between them, and Donald says, enigma's never age. 3:05:49.120 --> 3:05:52.560 Have you noticed that anyway? The only thing noteworthy about 3:05:52.560 --> 3:05:54.680 this is now we have the drawing of the woman. 3:05:54.800 --> 3:05:59.240 It's drawn around the script, and it's I would say, 3:05:59.320 --> 3:06:03.640 pretty clear a pubescent girl. Like there's breasts drawn on. 3:06:03.640 --> 3:06:05.800 Their breasts do not look fully developed, and they do 3:06:05.879 --> 3:06:08.880 not look they're not large like no, and the position 3:06:09.000 --> 3:06:13.080 of them is higher. They look like underdeveloped breasts. 3:06:13.200 --> 3:06:15.560 Yes, it looks like a drawing of a young girl, 3:06:15.760 --> 3:06:17.480 like of a child. 3:06:17.640 --> 3:06:22.160 It's so much more creepy than anyone who like tried 3:06:22.200 --> 3:06:24.039 to draw what this might have looked like, has like 3:06:24.080 --> 3:06:26.600 previously imagined like they were all drawing you know, like 3:06:26.840 --> 3:06:31.240 conventionally attractive like adult female bodies. This is much more creepy. 3:06:31.280 --> 3:06:34.520 Now I will say, it doesn't look like his signature 3:06:34.560 --> 3:06:35.959 is meant to be pubic care here. 3:06:36.200 --> 3:06:38.879 It's in a similar position. But you know this is 3:06:39.000 --> 3:06:42.440 this is a very abstract drawing. Yes, his signature is 3:06:42.560 --> 3:06:44.840 just his first name, Donald, which he signs a lot 3:06:44.879 --> 3:06:47.720 of personal notes with not his full Donald Trump's signature. 3:06:48.080 --> 3:06:50.879 Trump is maintaining that he did not sign this, that 3:06:50.959 --> 3:06:53.640 this is a forgery. He is unaware of this letter, 3:06:53.760 --> 3:06:57.480 even though the signature matches other signatures from him around 3:06:57.480 --> 3:07:01.000 this time. And this just feels like a very Donald 3:07:01.040 --> 3:07:04.360 Trump thing to do. Yeah, and is worded similarly to 3:07:04.440 --> 3:07:07.520 how he talked about women in this era. He now 3:07:07.800 --> 3:07:09.760 makes statements being like I don't talk this way all 3:07:09.840 --> 3:07:12.680 my everyone who knows me knows I don't talk this way. 3:07:13.320 --> 3:07:15.640 And if you watch like clips from Donald Trump in 3:07:15.680 --> 3:07:18.160 the early two thousands talking about women, it is this 3:07:18.240 --> 3:07:21.840 type of language. It is. It is very gross. Yeah, 3:07:21.879 --> 3:07:24.360 Like everyone remembers the Howard Stern clip, like come on. 3:07:24.640 --> 3:07:26.560 Right, oh yeah, No. 3:07:27.440 --> 3:07:30.280 It's also worth noting one of the last things in 3:07:30.320 --> 3:07:34.440 the book is recipe for like chocolate chip chip cookies. 3:07:34.480 --> 3:07:36.440 I try to figure out who put the recipe in there, 3:07:36.440 --> 3:07:38.640 but their name is blacked out. They're right under Henry 3:07:38.680 --> 3:07:42.039 Rossofsky and read above Les Wexner. I don't know who 3:07:42.480 --> 3:07:45.480 put that chocolate chip cookie recipe in here, but I 3:07:45.640 --> 3:07:47.280 might try to make those cookies. 3:07:48.680 --> 3:07:51.640 The epsteine biscuit I wouldn't eat those. 3:07:52.080 --> 3:07:52.879 Yeah. 3:07:52.920 --> 3:07:55.959 A few other things before we close this episode related 3:07:56.000 --> 3:07:59.959 to Epstein. On September, fifth House Speaker Mike Johnson told 3:08:00.080 --> 3:08:06.040 reporters that Trump was actually a secret FBI informant tasked 3:08:06.080 --> 3:08:08.720 with taking down Jeffrey Epstein. 3:08:08.959 --> 3:08:12.279 I hadn't heard it did a great job. Yeah, Well, I'm. 3:08:12.120 --> 3:08:15.120 Saying that when Epstein did as a hoax, it's a terrible, 3:08:15.160 --> 3:08:17.240 unspeakable evil. He believes that himself when he first heard 3:08:17.240 --> 3:08:18.720 the room where kicked Hm out of Mildago, who was 3:08:18.720 --> 3:08:21.520 an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down. 3:08:21.800 --> 3:08:24.080 The President knows and has great sympathy for the women 3:08:24.120 --> 3:08:26.640 who suffered these unspeakable arms. It's detestable to him, and 3:08:26.720 --> 3:08:28.920 I've spoken about this as recently as twenty hours ago. 3:08:29.400 --> 3:08:32.160 This should be documents that could that could corroborate that. Onment, 3:08:32.240 --> 3:08:33.400 imagine what think. 3:08:33.959 --> 3:08:38.320 The temver eighth Mike Johnson walked back his FBI informant comments, 3:08:38.760 --> 3:08:41.800 telling reporters he was referring to what epstein victims attorneys 3:08:41.800 --> 3:08:44.680 has said that Trump was quote willing to help law 3:08:44.760 --> 3:08:47.279 enforcement to go after the guy who was a disgusting 3:08:47.360 --> 3:08:50.040 child abuser as at trafficker. All the allegations. That's what 3:08:50.080 --> 3:08:52.560 they heard. I don't know if I used the right terminology, 3:08:52.760 --> 3:08:55.600 but that's common knowledge, and everybody knows that I was 3:08:55.600 --> 3:08:58.119 repeating what has been common knowledge for a long time. 3:08:58.400 --> 3:09:00.879 The President was helpful in trying to get Epstein for 3:09:00.920 --> 3:09:05.200 the law enforcement to go after Epstein unquote great stuff 3:09:05.560 --> 3:09:10.720 from Mike Johnson share. A day later, Whitehouse Press Secretary 3:09:10.760 --> 3:09:13.800 Carolyn Levitt confirmed that Trump was not, in fact an 3:09:13.840 --> 3:09:19.280 FBI informant. One other weird Epstein story from this week 3:09:19.440 --> 3:09:22.920 is how the DOJ has been beefing with James O'Keeffe's 3:09:22.959 --> 3:09:24.760 Project Veritas. 3:09:25.160 --> 3:09:25.720 Yeah. 3:09:26.080 --> 3:09:31.200 Project Veritas did a operation against a DOJ employee in 3:09:31.240 --> 3:09:35.520 which they recorded him saying this. Those files do exist. 3:09:36.080 --> 3:09:39.760 Yeah, thousands and thousands of Page five still redactor every 3:09:40.400 --> 3:09:44.440 Republican or conservative person in those files. 3:09:44.640 --> 3:09:47.480 Leave all the liberal democratic people in those files. 3:09:48.120 --> 3:09:50.520 I mean they visited that Maxwell person. 3:09:50.879 --> 3:09:53.240 Yeah, and also involved got. 3:09:53.200 --> 3:09:57.920 Transferred to a minimum security Quiston series, which is against 3:09:57.959 --> 3:10:01.400 BOP positive because it's just a so he's a committed 3:10:01.440 --> 3:10:01.920 sex minter. 3:10:02.480 --> 3:10:04.279 The offer or something to keep about. 3:10:04.120 --> 3:10:07.359 Yet, that was the acting Deputy Chief of the Office 3:10:07.360 --> 3:10:11.879 of Enforcement operations Joseph Schnitt telling a stranger about the 3:10:12.040 --> 3:10:15.840 FBI and DOJ's handling of the Epstein files. 3:10:16.640 --> 3:10:20.480 The DOJ responded to O'Keefe saying, quote, Joseph schnid had 3:10:20.480 --> 3:10:23.200 no role in the department's internal review of Epstein materials. 3:10:23.200 --> 3:10:25.080 He has confirmed as much to leadership, and we plan 3:10:25.120 --> 3:10:27.160 on publishing his written statement to that effect when we 3:10:27.240 --> 3:10:29.879 have it. In his words, the comments he made were 3:10:29.920 --> 3:10:33.200 based on quote what he learned in the media, and 3:10:33.280 --> 3:10:36.840 he has quote no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Miss 3:10:36.920 --> 3:10:40.480 Maxwell other than what was reported in the news unquote. 3:10:41.240 --> 3:10:45.920 And then Schnitt used the Department of Justice X account 3:10:46.320 --> 3:10:49.600 to post a what it could be described as like 3:10:49.640 --> 3:10:55.240 an Apple Notes apology statement with thirty percent battery displayed 3:10:55.320 --> 3:10:59.520 on his phone. When he talks about he talks about 3:10:59.600 --> 3:11:03.280 meeting a quote woman named Skyler on Hinge a dating 3:11:03.320 --> 3:11:07.080 gap in July twenty twenty five. Her profiles no longer findable. 3:11:07.400 --> 3:11:10.840 We had two dates. She gave no clues that she 3:11:10.920 --> 3:11:14.440 was a reporter or recording car dates. Had I clue, 3:11:14.480 --> 3:11:16.680 the first date would have ended immediately and there would 3:11:16.720 --> 3:11:19.480 have never been a second one. My profile indicated I 3:11:19.520 --> 3:11:22.640 did quote unquote government work, but did not specify for 3:11:22.680 --> 3:11:25.320 which agency. I never discussed what I do at DOJ. 3:11:25.920 --> 3:11:28.400 The comments I made were my own personal comments on 3:11:28.440 --> 3:11:31.320 what I've learned in the media and not from anything 3:11:31.480 --> 3:11:36.680 I've done or learned via work. Incredible the United States government, everybody. 3:11:36.920 --> 3:11:41.240 Yeah, and James O'Keeffe out there with the journalism first trap. 3:11:41.280 --> 3:11:44.000 I guess I wonder if it's is it a one 3:11:44.040 --> 3:11:47.400 party consent? This is in DC, right, I don't believe 3:11:47.520 --> 3:11:48.760 DC is one party consent. 3:11:48.920 --> 3:11:51.440 Yeah, that I would be shocked. I'm not sure how 3:11:51.440 --> 3:11:53.560 O'Keefe pulls all this stuff off legally. 3:11:53.680 --> 3:11:56.120 He could get in trouble for this one. Yeah. 3:11:56.200 --> 3:11:58.199 My understanding would be just to be clear for people 3:11:58.200 --> 3:12:01.160 who want in on the jog, and like in most 3:12:01.200 --> 3:12:03.480 states of the Union, I think you need both people's 3:12:03.520 --> 3:12:07.119 consent to record a conversation. You could argue, I guess 3:12:07.120 --> 3:12:09.800 he didn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy sitting out there, 3:12:09.800 --> 3:12:13.320 but I think this is very clearly a clandestine recording. 3:12:13.560 --> 3:12:15.680 Oh wait, no, no, no, sorry, d d C is 3:12:15.680 --> 3:12:20.240 a one party consents area. Dam Okay, well there you go. Wow, Okay, 3:12:20.400 --> 3:12:21.600 I did yet I did not know that. 3:12:21.879 --> 3:12:22.080 Yep. 3:12:22.160 --> 3:12:23.640 So well he's safe. 3:12:23.760 --> 3:12:26.440 Yeah, I guess if that date was in DC. You 3:12:26.520 --> 3:12:28.200 got to look if the date was in DC. A 3:12:28.280 --> 3:12:31.160 lot of jurisdictions around there bumping up. But yeah, that's surprising. 3:12:31.200 --> 3:12:32.080 No, he's good. 3:12:32.400 --> 3:12:36.200 All right. Well, I think that's all we have for 3:12:36.240 --> 3:12:38.119 this week, which is a lot. This was a massive 3:12:38.160 --> 3:12:41.600 news week. This is an extra long episode, but sometimes 3:12:41.640 --> 3:12:42.360 that happens. 3:12:42.640 --> 3:12:44.560 Congratulations on making it this far. 3:12:45.040 --> 3:12:49.199 Yeah, and may every day be a new wonderful secret 3:12:49.360 --> 3:12:53.200 as no. Donald Trump told Jeffrey Epstein. 3:12:53.160 --> 3:12:54.480 Stop him to turn it off. 3:12:54.760 --> 3:13:02.080 We reported the news, We reported the news. 3:13:04.360 --> 3:13:07.520 Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:13:07.600 --> 3:13:09.480 from now until the heat death of the universe. 3:13:10.240 --> 3:13:12.760 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 3:13:12.920 --> 3:13:15.960 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:13:16.040 --> 3:13:19.640 coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 3:13:19.680 --> 3:13:23.280 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can 3:13:23.320 --> 3:13:25.640 now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly 3:13:25.680 --> 3:13:26.800 in episode descriptions. 3:13:27.120 --> 3:13:27.959 Thanks for listening.