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Speaker 2: This is It Could Happen Here Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 2: news gaest covering what's happening in the White House, the
Speaker 2: crumbling world, what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis.
Speaker 2: This episode, I'm joined by Robert Evans, j I'm Stout
Speaker 2: and Sophie Lichtermann. Maybe maybe Sophie will decide to comment
Speaker 2: on some of this important, important news we have today.
Speaker 3: To bless us, and maybe Robert will decide to forgive
Speaker 3: you for jumping into giving the title of this show
Speaker 3: and not letting me say electile dysfunction or something like that.
Speaker 3: We no, I have not gotten over living. Let's talk
Speaker 3: about a pedophile. It's time for your Friday pedophile Update. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we call it the FREEO file minutes.
Speaker 2: I don't like that.
Speaker 4: It is free to callos SO.
Speaker 3: On August fifteenth, twenty twenty five, at eight thirty six
Speaker 3: Anno Meridian that means in the morning, the Las Vegas
Speaker 3: Metropolitan Police Department Office of Public Information put up a
Speaker 3: press release with the title eight child sex Predators arrested
Speaker 3: during undercover operation. Now, this was a report on a
Speaker 3: multi agency operation going after child sex predators that was
Speaker 3: headed by the Nevada Internet Crimes Against Children or ICY
Speaker 3: the AC Organization, which is a joint operation that involves
Speaker 3: a mix of There's some detectives from the Las Vegas
Speaker 3: Metropolitan to Police, there's some folks from the FBI Child
Speaker 3: Exploitation Task Force, and then I guess the ICAC has
Speaker 3: its own task force. I've never heard of this group before,
Speaker 3: but there's there's a number of other law enforcement agents involved,
Speaker 3: including North Las Vegas Police Henderson Police who actually posted
Speaker 3: declaration of arrest for the person that we'll be talking about.
Speaker 3: That's the Henderson, Nevada Police, Homeland Security Investigations, and the
Speaker 3: Nevada Attorney General's office. This was your standard sting to
Speaker 3: try and catch people who are attempting to have sex
Speaker 3: with kids, where you have undercover agents who are online.
Speaker 3: In this case, they were using an app called Pure
Speaker 3: and on WhatsApp. It looks like, as a general rule,
Speaker 3: these guys met the person that they thought was a
Speaker 3: minor on Pure and then took the conversation to WhatsApp
Speaker 3: to plan for an in person meeting where they then
Speaker 3: they you know, the whole what's that guy who used
Speaker 3: to do the TV show where he would bust pedophiles
Speaker 3: and there were some ethical problems with Chris Hansen. They'd
Speaker 3: have their Chris Hansen moment, right, No familiar with this,
Speaker 3: Oh man, it didn't go well. So the story that
Speaker 3: people have been hearing and that kind of went viral
Speaker 3: out of this is that one of these eight people
Speaker 3: arrested was tom Ardiam Alexandrovitch, who was a high ranking
Speaker 3: cybersecurity official. He was the director of one of the
Speaker 3: divisions of Israel's top cybersecurity agency. So you know, inn
Speaker 3: Israeli government official working in cybersecurity is one of the
Speaker 3: guys arrested. He was in town in Las Vegas for
Speaker 3: the black Hat convention, which is like a hacking convention,
Speaker 3: and like a lot of hacking conventions, over time, it
Speaker 3: has turned from a bunch of guys who do not
Speaker 3: like the Feds to just Feds, right, Like, I think
Speaker 3: that that's why the guy guy from israel cybersecurity agency
Speaker 3: is at this thing, hitten on so fed allegedly fifteen
Speaker 3: year olds. So this guy is arrested and then he
Speaker 3: posts bail at ten grand and he flies back to Israel,
Speaker 3: which gets a lot of people in an uproar. Obviously,
Speaker 3: anything involving officials of the Israeli government is receiving heightened
Speaker 3: scrutiny right now, what with the genocide, and also for
Speaker 3: a long time, there's a lot of evidence of special
Speaker 3: treatment being given to agents of the government of Israel
Speaker 3: by the United States government, and so people are like,
Speaker 3: is that what's going on here? Because this seems pretty
Speaker 3: fucked up. And I guess the first thing I should
Speaker 3: say is that it doesn't seem like he's being treated
Speaker 3: differently from anyone else in this sting. This is per
Speaker 3: statements made by the local government and by the Attorney
Speaker 3: General's office. This is the standard bail amount for this crime.
Speaker 3: And when people post bail for this crime, which is
Speaker 3: the standard amount of ten grand, there aren't conditions usually
Speaker 3: on the bail, which means it would not be standard
Speaker 3: to stop him from traveling or returning home. He's due
Speaker 3: to return to the United States in several weeks for
Speaker 3: the court proceedings to go on. So the short answer
Speaker 3: to this seems to be that, like, no, this is
Speaker 3: just kind of how the system works, and that might
Speaker 3: not be great, But he doesn't seem to have been
Speaker 3: given special treatment because he was an official of the
Speaker 3: Israeli government. Now, does that mean that that's going to
Speaker 3: prove to be what happens in the long run. No, because,
Speaker 3: among other things, he might just not come back to
Speaker 3: the US, and if the Israeli government is a party
Speaker 3: to that, and like there isn't any kind of like
Speaker 3: action taken to like force him to return to go
Speaker 3: through the legal process, then I'd say, yeah, there's something
Speaker 3: to be particularly upset about here. But I think the
Speaker 3: broader thing to maybe be upset about here is that
Speaker 3: guys can get caught for this and then have a
Speaker 3: no condition bail that allows them to flee the country,
Speaker 3: which might be a flaw in the system.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I'm a big innocent until proven guilty guy. I'm a
Speaker 3: big reasonable bail guy. But I'm also a big I
Speaker 3: don't know man. Maybe if the agent of a foreign
Speaker 3: government gets caught trying to fuck a child, they shouldn't
Speaker 3: be able to fly back home.
Speaker 4: Immediately after they bail out.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: To seems that it's a reasonable objection.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know, this is a classic case of
Speaker 3: you've got the story what actually happened here, got how
Speaker 3: it's interpreted online, and then you've got how it's being
Speaker 3: interpreted online by the stupidest person on the world, on
Speaker 3: the planet, in the planet, and in that planet that
Speaker 3: didn't work.
Speaker 4: Oh it'd be good if he was, wouldn't it in
Speaker 4: the molten cools?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be nice. You've got how the story
Speaker 3: is being interpreted by particularly bad journalists. Let's say that
Speaker 3: that's the nice way to put it. And I'm talking
Speaker 3: about Michael Tracy. If you're not familiar with Michael Tracy.
Speaker 3: He is ostensibly a leftist and anti authoritarian.
Speaker 4: He's the kind of guy.
Speaker 3: Who just sort of reflexibly if the US is involved,
Speaker 3: whatever is the worst case scenario for the US doing
Speaker 3: something is what's happening. During the invasion of Ukraine, he
Speaker 3: alleged that the US was sending troops into Ukraine. I
Speaker 3: think because he saw some guys outside of an embassy
Speaker 3: in Poland, some American soldier for.
Speaker 4: The marine details and some of the marine detail. It
Speaker 4: was like, we're getting ready to invade. That did not happen.
Speaker 3: Now, Michael Tracy has a sub stack of course cases,
Speaker 3: and he published an article titled was an Israeli pedophile
Speaker 3: really allowed to flee the United States? And I can't tell.
Speaker 3: He starts with like a whole paragraph about Jeffrey Epstein,
Speaker 3: and I can't actually tell what his stance is on this,
Speaker 3: And I don't really want he's talking about how people
Speaker 3: are eager to prove him wrong about Jeffrey Epstein. I
Speaker 3: have no desire to know what this guy thinks about
Speaker 3: Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2: Well, this is probably a Jeffrey Epstein was a secret
Speaker 2: massad agent type thing.
Speaker 3: Well, except for his whole argument here is that there's
Speaker 3: people are being incredibly unreasonable to think that this guy
Speaker 3: is guilty or to think that he probably did anything wrong.
Speaker 3: And the reason Michael Tracy suggests that Tom Alexandrovitch probably
Speaker 3: didn't do anything wrong is that the terms of the
Speaker 3: app Pure, which is where the authorities say he first
Speaker 3: got in contact with the officer pretending to be a child,
Speaker 3: requires you to be eighteen years or older. And in
Speaker 3: this substack to post the terms of service to be like, see,
Speaker 3: there is even what appears to be a rig the
Speaker 3: risk age verification process. To ensure that no minor gains
Speaker 3: access to the app, government issued documents must be submitted
Speaker 3: to ensure that only persons at least eighteen years of
Speaker 3: old are allowed on the app. And he's like, does
Speaker 3: this mean the government was faking documents? Was pretending to
Speaker 3: be a child to this app?
Speaker 4: Yet that's what they were doing, Well, they were pretending
Speaker 4: to be a triild Jeremary, Yeah, that's probably what they
Speaker 4: were doing.
Speaker 3: And the other thing what's really funny about this is like,
Speaker 3: that's his whole point is that the app requires them
Speaker 3: to be eighteen, so it's you know, the authorities must
Speaker 3: have been doing something fucked up and lying to the
Speaker 3: app for this to have happened at all. And this
Speaker 3: is just an example of Michael Tracy not reading the
Speaker 3: declaration of arrest, which he links in his article, because
Speaker 3: the declaration of arrest does say that, yes, this person
Speaker 3: got in contact with the undercover agent bearing the peer
Speaker 3: up and then the same sentence says and later WhatsApp
Speaker 3: with phone number dot dot dot and says that on WhatsApp,
Speaker 3: this is where they talked about the person in this
Speaker 3: case being a minor, and this is where they set
Speaker 3: up like to arrange a meeting. This is lee cybersecurity
Speaker 3: official was going to take them to circ the slay
Speaker 3: and had them bring a condom like That's all in
Speaker 3: the declaration of arrest. Now, obviously Alexandrovitch maintains his innocence,
Speaker 3: maintains he thought this person was eighteen all the entire time.
Speaker 3: All I've got here is the declaration of arrest. I
Speaker 3: don't have hard evidence, but per the source that Michael
Speaker 3: Tracy cites, like this is not just happening on pure
Speaker 3: This is as is often the case, by the way,
Speaker 3: when pedophiles go after kids, they meet them on whatever
Speaker 3: app and then take them to a second digital location, right, Like,
Speaker 3: that's just the way these things work. And that's really
Speaker 3: all I have to say about this. You know this,
Speaker 3: This is the kind of I mean, maybe keep an
Speaker 3: eye on this in case this guy doesn't go back
Speaker 3: and the Israeli government does hide him. But it's entirely
Speaker 3: possible that this will go the way court cases and
Speaker 3: this sort of thing are supposed to go. There's one
Speaker 3: other funny thing, considering this guy is a high ranking
Speaker 3: Israeli cybersecurity official. There's just like a list of you know,
Speaker 3: statements about like what Alexandrovitch said to detectives when he
Speaker 3: was being interrogated, you know this stuff like Alexander Alexandrovitch
Speaker 3: stated he did not know the numbers for the Israeli government.
Speaker 3: Alexandrovitch stated his family was an israel Alexandrovitch stated it
Speaker 3: was important he get numbers for his flight, and then
Speaker 3: Alexandrovitch stated his phone does not have a password but
Speaker 3: uses his right thumb print.
Speaker 2: No a biometric user, cybersecurity expert for the government.
Speaker 4: They're not sending the best people.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, your fucking thumb print, dude, Your fucking
Speaker 3: thumb print.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, it's just famous most secure possible access code.
Speaker 3: Anyway, that's all I've got for peta Friday tune in
Speaker 3: next week we'll have another pedophile for you. I'm sure
Speaker 3: of it. Oh yeah, here's ads. All right, we're back,
Speaker 3: and it is a pedophile free will. We can't guarantee that,
Speaker 3: I suppose, but we are hoping petera free zone from
Speaker 3: here on it. Talking of things which are incontrovertibly crimes,
Speaker 3: Israel has deliberately murdered for Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza.
Speaker 3: Among them was an us Are Sharif, a prominent correspondent
Speaker 3: for the network in Gaza. The IDF also killed correspondent
Speaker 3: Mohammed karka, cameraman Ibrahim Zaya, and driver in cameraman Mohammad
Speaker 3: Nofal Al Jazeera has named all of these people. The
Speaker 3: strike also killed two freelancers. One of them was mom
Speaker 3: And Aliwa and al Sharif's nephew, who was a student
Speaker 3: studying journalism for weeks before the liberate and pre meditated
Speaker 3: war crime to war crime under a Roman statute and
Speaker 3: also a violation of the Geneva Conventions because journalists are
Speaker 3: also civilians the idea of engaged in manufacturing consent for
Speaker 3: the strike. They did this three unit that nine to
Speaker 3: seven two magazine has reported on called the quote legitimization cell.
Speaker 3: You're always doing great when you have a unit called
Speaker 3: the legitimization cell. Yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 4: It's pretty fucked to quote from the piece which are
Speaker 4: link below. It has been a signed to identify guy
Speaker 4: as a based journalist. It could betray us undercover her
Speaker 4: mass operatives in an effort to blunt growing global outrage
Speaker 4: over Israel's killing of reporters. You should read this article
Speaker 4: like it goes through instances whether they have a very
Speaker 4: clear confirmation bias right, And the case of al Sharifhys
Speaker 4: is a pretty good example of how ridiculous this can be.
Speaker 4: They released this document, they tweeted it actually claiming he
Speaker 4: was in her mask from twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4: The document clearly wasn't original document, Like it was a
Speaker 4: PDF done up with like a navy blue background and stuff.
Speaker 4: It's laughable to think that they like captured this pdf somehow.
Speaker 4: It just doesn't line up. Even if we take that
Speaker 4: to be true, right, that he had been a member
Speaker 4: of her mask till twenty seventeen. That was eight years ago. Like,
Speaker 4: isn't the whole point of the thing that they're saying
Speaker 4: that they want people to stop being in hamas, like
Speaker 4: killing them because they want did that and I don't
Speaker 4: believe them. It still doesn't make sense right. They've done
Speaker 4: this in other cases with other Juras, specifically other Al
Speaker 4: Jazeera journalists. In July this year, the CPJA that's a
Speaker 4: committee to Protect Journalists if you're not familiar, warned that
Speaker 4: they were worried about an attack on al Scherif due
Speaker 4: to the increasingly detached from reality smear campaign being pursued
Speaker 4: against him by IDA spokesman a Vice Adray. For example,
Speaker 4: on the twentieth July, Adray accused him of being quote
Speaker 4: part of a quote false harmass campaign on starvation as
Speaker 4: he played footage of al Cherif crying after seeing a
Speaker 4: woman collapse from hunger on camera. Speaking about the campaign,
Speaker 4: al Cherif said it is not only a media threat
Speaker 4: or an image destruction. It is a real life threat.
Speaker 4: He said it's in his interview with CPJA, He also said,
Speaker 4: I live with the feeling that I could be bombed
Speaker 4: and martyred at any moment, my family is also in
Speaker 4: danger and his nephew was killed with him right in
Speaker 4: the air strike. When I think about like, I have
Speaker 4: colleagues I've worked with through are Palestinian who work in Gaza, right.
Speaker 4: I remember twenty twenty three October tenth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 4: I was in Syria, in Rajaba specifically, and I was
Speaker 4: sitting in a t shop because the Wi Fi and
Speaker 4: my hotel was nonexistent, and I wanted to check in
Speaker 4: on my friends, right who worked there. And I remember
Speaker 4: this guy helping me translate one of these videos in
Speaker 4: which you see a dead person in the blue press vest, right,
Speaker 4: and I was concerned that it might be someone I've
Speaker 4: worked with before, so I was trying to work out
Speaker 4: it with them, and he was saying in his video.
Speaker 4: At the funeral, people were saying that another journalist would
Speaker 4: take up the dead journalist camera and the flag jacket
Speaker 4: and keep reporting, which is very touching for me. But
Speaker 4: journalists and Gaza have been targeted by the IDF for
Speaker 4: a very long time, and this is one of many examples,
Speaker 4: and it's disgusting and reprehensible. That's about all I have
Speaker 4: to say on it should we turn to immigration for something.
Speaker 4: Colleague despondent and said, yeah, all right. USCIS US Citizenship
Speaker 4: and Immigration Services has issued a new guidance material to
Speaker 4: instruct offices in cases where they can use their discretion
Speaker 4: to look at whether the person has quote endorsed, promoted,
Speaker 4: or supported, or otherwise espoused the views of a terrorist
Speaker 4: organization or group, including those who support or promote anti
Speaker 4: American ideologies and activities, anti Semitic terrorism from skipping a
Speaker 4: bit here, and anti Semitic ideologies. This discretion can be
Speaker 4: used in extension of stay cases, change of status cases,
Speaker 4: reinstatement or f or M non immigrant status, and certain
Speaker 4: employment authorization requests, they say in the memo. The USCIS
Speaker 4: Policy Manual also lists other instances where discretion could be used.
Speaker 4: These include TPS, Temporary protected status, humanitarian parole partition to
Speaker 4: classify an alien as a fiancee of a US citizen,
Speaker 4: asylum and refugee status. So I looked up what the
Speaker 4: quote anti American activities were. There's a footnote right. The
Speaker 4: footnote links to iron A three one three a Immigration
Speaker 4: Naturalization Act. Most of the anti American activities are things
Speaker 4: which already had a bar to naturalization, and most of
Speaker 4: those pertain directly to being a member of the Communist Party,
Speaker 4: like a literal card carrying member of the literal Communist
Speaker 4: Party right capital C, Capital P. The USO had a
Speaker 4: bar on naturalization for people who are members of the
Speaker 4: Communist Party for some time. I believe they still have
Speaker 4: a bar on naturalization for people who were members of
Speaker 4: the Nazi Party pre visa waiver I should say not
Speaker 4: actually a visa when people from Europe were coming to
Speaker 4: the United States, you'd have to answer a short questionnaire.
Speaker 4: One of the questions was about whether you or anyone
Speaker 4: related to you had been a member of the Nazi Party.
Speaker 4: I remember like once being some German people in Europe
Speaker 4: and they were telling me they'd had to answer this
Speaker 4: question entering the United States. So the anti American activities
Speaker 4: is one that's been getting the most attention, but it
Speaker 4: does specifically footnote to the communist stuff, which is again
Speaker 4: something that has been US policy for a while. What
Speaker 4: I'm more worried about is stuff about anti Semitic terrorism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that means one, you've shared a pro Palestine
Speaker 2: post on social.
Speaker 4: Media, Yeah you say genocide bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that can mean so many things that as we've
Speaker 2: already seen, like we've seen some of this stuff already
Speaker 2: be enforced. This is new guidance material, but we've seen
Speaker 2: reports coming from people trying to enter the country, you're
Speaker 2: trying to get visas that show that this is happening
Speaker 2: for like months ever since, like you know, like March,
Speaker 2: I started to see a lot of stuff regarding either
Speaker 2: pro Palestinian statements or like posts or campus protests that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the f visa I mentioned there is it's a
Speaker 4: non immigrant student visa right for full time students. So
Speaker 4: like that is the one where we've seen students have
Speaker 4: to turn over as social media handles, a social media
Speaker 4: can't be locked. It's very easy to see how these
Speaker 4: two things line up. Yeah, and as a guest said,
Speaker 4: like people, they have always been able to use their discretion.
Speaker 4: This is just guidance on how they should use it,
Speaker 4: but they have been using it for some time. The
Speaker 4: administration has also moved the goalpost for naturalization. So naturalization
Speaker 4: is becoming a citizen of the United States. Right, there
Speaker 4: is a requirement that people who naturalize as citizens have
Speaker 4: quote good moral character. Previously, the way they did this
Speaker 4: was there were bars for certain crimes right murdered genocide,
Speaker 4: something called aggravated felony, which is something that only exists
Speaker 4: in immigration law. Going forward, they're changing to, I guess,
Speaker 4: a more holistic idea of what a good moral character
Speaker 4: might be. I'm going to quote again. Going forward, USCIS
Speaker 4: offices must account for an alien to positive attributes and
Speaker 4: not simply the absence of misconduct in evaluating whether or
Speaker 4: not an alien has met the requirement for establishing GMC.
Speaker 4: That's a good moral character. The officer must take a
Speaker 4: holistic approach in evaluating whether or not an alien seeking
Speaker 4: naturalization has affirmatively established that he or she has met
Speaker 4: their burden of establishing that they are worthy of assuming
Speaker 4: the rights and responsibilities of United States citizenship.
Speaker 2: The worthy What does that mean? You have to prove
Speaker 2: to an officer that you're a good person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how so, yes, by the officer's definition, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean this is this is guys for
Speaker 2: like discretionary enforcement. So I don't like the word holistic here.
Speaker 4: I don't. Yeah. They is literally asking him to take
Speaker 4: into account everything they know about this person and then
Speaker 4: just make a call. Is this someone you want to
Speaker 4: have as your neighbor, you know, like, I don't know
Speaker 4: what the oh I mean, I can guess how this
Speaker 4: might manifested. It's worth noting that as DHS goes, USCIS
Speaker 4: officers tend to be the least right wing right CBP
Speaker 4: and I, so the much higher proportion of people who like,
Speaker 4: for instance, they had some issues with getting people vaccinated
Speaker 4: and CBP that kind of stuff right, indicators that people
Speaker 4: might be sort of down this conser piracy pipeline. We
Speaker 4: also learned this week that Todd Blanche directed federal cops
Speaker 4: to arrest Mayor rasp Baraka outside of a detention center
Speaker 4: in New Jersey in May. We noticed because of body
Speaker 4: cam footage. We don't have the footage, but the footage
Speaker 4: is reported on in court documents, and the footage a
Speaker 4: DHS official says, quote, we are resting the mayor right now,
Speaker 4: per the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. Anyone
Speaker 4: that gets in our way, I need you guys to
Speaker 4: give me a perimeter so I can cuff him. So
Speaker 4: that the agent talked on the phone and then gave
Speaker 4: this statement. Right, So, it seems that the deputy ag
Speaker 4: there with the one who gave the order to arrest
Speaker 4: rasp Baraka right, Ice has also arrested a cop. This
Speaker 4: is our little moment of like a harp pond cup violence,
Speaker 4: top pond cup violence. Yeah. John Luke Evans was a
Speaker 4: reserve officer for the Old Orchard Beach Police Department in Maine.
Speaker 4: The police chief of Orchard Beach, who's called elist Chard,
Speaker 4: said that the department had used e Verify to check
Speaker 4: if he could work legally, right, which is the thing
Speaker 4: that you are supposed to do. He Verify. It's a
Speaker 4: database run by the Department of Homeland Security. I think
Speaker 4: it's also in combination with another department that allows you
Speaker 4: to verify if somebody can work legally in the United States. Right.
Speaker 4: Tritian McLaughlin characterized this as reckless, which is weird because
Speaker 4: the hs who she's speaking on behalf of other ones
Speaker 4: who put that information into the database. It's possible that
Speaker 4: someone entered at something in wrong at some point, right,
Speaker 4: someone put in a wrong number, they switched an O
Speaker 4: for a zero, or something like that. This came to
Speaker 4: light because Evans attempted to make a firearm purchase and
Speaker 4: he filled out his forty four to seventy three and
Speaker 4: the eighty f then notified Ice that a non citizen
Speaker 4: who wasn't eligible for firearms ownership had attempted to purchase
Speaker 4: a firearm, and that was how Ice came to detain him.
Speaker 4: He is being allowed to leave the USA Volunteers. He's
Speaker 4: not being deported, he's not being charged with the attempting
Speaker 4: to make the firearm purchase, which he could be charged with,
Speaker 4: and the City of Orchard Beach has going pretty hard
Speaker 4: in his defense. They've released some elements of personnel file,
Speaker 4: but none of them that pertained to his immigration status.
Speaker 4: They're sticking by their claim that they believe he was
Speaker 4: eligible to work in the USA, ISA claiming I guess
Speaker 4: DHS now claiming that his visa expired in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 4: which was years before he began working at the police department.
Speaker 4: He was a seasonal reserve officer and he had been
Speaker 4: working since earlier this year.
Speaker 2: Before we go on break, I want to do a
Speaker 2: quick update on the Texas Democrats who fled the state
Speaker 2: to delay or prevent the gerrymandering. And after their two
Speaker 2: week walkout, the Texas House has now reached quorum once
Speaker 2: again and a vote on the new redistricting map, which
Speaker 2: would add five Republican congressional seats. Is slated for Wednesday,
Speaker 2: August twentieth, which is the day that we are recording.
Speaker 2: After Democrats returned to the capital from their walkout, they
Speaker 2: were subjected to twenty four to seven surveillance by the
Speaker 2: Texas Department of Public Safety, and in order to leave
Speaker 2: the House chamber, they had to sign what the Democrats
Speaker 2: are calling quote unquote permission slips, agreeing to surveillance in
Speaker 2: their just everyday life.
Speaker 1: Is that why? I think it was a collier slept
Speaker 1: at her.
Speaker 2: Desk one person's I think a state senator refused to
Speaker 2: sign the slip and stayed.
Speaker 4: In the Capitol overnight.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, The Texas House Minority Leader Jeen Wu made
Speaker 2: a statement saying, quote, we killed the corrupt special session,
Speaker 2: was stood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation, and rallied Democrats nationwide
Speaker 2: to join this extential fight for fair representation, reshaping the
Speaker 2: entire twenty twenty six landscape. Unquote. There's a very celebratory
Speaker 2: tone here, which is slightly odd to me because this
Speaker 2: vote is still probably going through.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they kind of lose, this.
Speaker 2: Is going to get voted in. Yeah, Now who has
Speaker 2: said that the Democrats are going to challenge the redistricting
Speaker 2: maps in court even if they are able to pass
Speaker 2: through this House vote. And as we know, the courts
Speaker 2: are the last bastion for democracy and will save us all.
Speaker 2: We suspected that this whole walkout is more performative than
Speaker 2: anything else and would not actually lead to than killing
Speaker 2: this map. And instead of remaining out of the state
Speaker 2: longer for a like undeterminate amount of time, possibly until November,
Speaker 2: they have returned and quorum is in the chamber.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's it's like, it's not nothing, but it's
Speaker 3: like the next just it's one step up from nothing.
Speaker 2: It's the most democrat thing to do.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, but why why only do half of what
Speaker 1: was necessary?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Sophie, you you're asking this question because you didn't
Speaker 3: grow up in Texas.
Speaker 1: I went to the Democratic National Convention. I understand the
Speaker 1: half effort.
Speaker 4: Here's the reality.
Speaker 3: Texas Democratic Party exists to disappoint you.
Speaker 4: That's why, that's why all this is happening.
Speaker 1: I just feel like the entire Texas Democratic Party is
Speaker 1: just like a Bedo O'Rourke. H Like, not literally, but
Speaker 1: the concept of Beto O'Rourke.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all it's all there. Never never put your
Speaker 3: faith in Texas and any part of Texas and you'll
Speaker 3: be disappointed less. I've been telling people this for a
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the second thing you told me.
Speaker 3: Every year. Democrats in other parts of the country every
Speaker 3: couple of years get like excited. It's the Charlie Brown
Speaker 3: syndrom where they're like, oh my god, Texas might be
Speaker 3: about to flip or something otherwise, good Ted Ted Cruz
Speaker 3: is going to get forced out. We're finally going to
Speaker 3: have something good happen in Texas politics. And every time,
Speaker 3: every time that football gets pulled away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's it's feels not great that the minority
Speaker 2: leaders kind of patting themselves on the back for taking
Speaker 2: basically a two week vacation to Illinoising California and then
Speaker 2: returning and having this go through. So, I don't know,
Speaker 2: we'll see this develops. The California is promising to do
Speaker 2: their own redistricting to equal out the amount of like
Speaker 2: map changes, both adding five more seats for the respective parties.
Speaker 1: It's annoying.
Speaker 2: It's just annoying. It's just annoying.
Speaker 4: Like a nice piece of performance. So I guess you
Speaker 4: know what else is annoying things.
Speaker 2: That I don't think they're annoying at all. I value
Speaker 2: each and every advertiser.
Speaker 4: Garrison actually personally vets all of our advertisers, so you
Speaker 4: can reach out to them.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I agree, this is canon. Now, if
Speaker 3: you're ever unhappy with an advertiser, find Garrison's personal phone
Speaker 3: number and and hit him up.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, oh god, time to go into
Speaker 1: blocking spree.
Speaker 2: All right, we are back Putin. I guess puts a guy.
Speaker 1: That That's actually how I would describe the meeting between
Speaker 1: a Trump and Putin and Alaska Putin.
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, that's pretty much how it went. They had,
Speaker 2: they had a little meeting.
Speaker 1: There are some insane conspiracy theories that he sent a
Speaker 1: body double.
Speaker 4: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 2: There's always insane conspiracy theories supported.
Speaker 1: From BBC News actually, which I find funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad that BBCs is on the is on
Speaker 2: the pulse of of theories spreading online.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, no.
Speaker 3: And and people are just now figuring out again that
Speaker 3: whenever world leaders travel to foreign countries for summits. At
Speaker 3: this level, they take their poop back with them And yeah,
Speaker 3: I saw an article being like, is it true, did
Speaker 3: Putin really take his poop back? And yes, they all
Speaker 3: do because they don't want it to get analyzed to
Speaker 3: find evidence of health issues. Like the president has his
Speaker 3: poop taken home every time you go overseas.
Speaker 4: This is just the way things are.
Speaker 2: Frankly, I think if we're able to get the Putin poop,
Speaker 2: you can make a clone of put and then that
Speaker 2: could be the body show we use it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: stuff that like the fifties of CIA still existed, as
Speaker 2: they still.
Speaker 4: Had the juice.
Speaker 3: It'd be a lot more fun.
Speaker 2: You would be doing in that really unethical human cloning
Speaker 2: project where you have this like shambling like undead corpse
Speaker 2: of that we can profim Christ. But that's basically how
Speaker 2: the meeting went.
Speaker 5: Sorry for derailing my bad, no, because the meeting is
Speaker 5: kind of enough burger. At this point, there was reports
Speaker 5: that Putin basically ranted to Trump about how Ukraine's always
Speaker 5: has been a part of Russia and the meeting didn't
Speaker 5: really go anywhere. Putin ignored a question on if he
Speaker 5: would quote stop killing civilians, so Yeah, that's basically how
Speaker 5: the whole how the whole debacle went. And I think
Speaker 5: it's really indicative that like a day or two after
Speaker 5: this happened, Trump had the Zelensky meeting two point zero
Speaker 5: in the White House, which went much better than the
Speaker 5: previous Zelensky meeting, and Trump was a lot more friendly
Speaker 5: with silenskily this time around.
Speaker 3: Apparently Zelensky has been going around other European leaders getting
Speaker 3: advice on how to like talk with it Trump.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he gave him, gave him a letter which which
Speaker 2: Trump Trump really appreciates and likes. The uh started by
Speaker 2: thanking uh, thanking the first Lady for a letter as well.
Speaker 2: So there's always like little polite gestures that Trump really enjoys.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: He likes to be like honored and venerated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so indulged in that war of a fairly a
Speaker 2: fairly spiffy all black suits. I liked it. It's a
Speaker 2: good it was a good suit. So it's but it
Speaker 2: is it is very indicative if you look at like
Speaker 2: how the last Selenski meeting went and then after Trump
Speaker 2: was around putin for like a few hours, how how
Speaker 2: how Trump's mood was noticeably different around Zelenski this time around,
Speaker 2: So we'll see. I don't think we're gonna have any
Speaker 2: conclusion to the conflict in Ukraine anytime soon based on
Speaker 2: how these two meetings went. There was there was reporting
Speaker 2: that they were trying to set up a meeting between
Speaker 2: Putin and Zelensky, though that has since been denied. It
Speaker 2: sits this constant like back and forth, like like it
Speaker 2: has been the past, like two four years.
Speaker 3: But Trump is going to bring an end to the war.
Speaker 3: He's the peace president, kind of get a Nobel Prize.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you know that Trump's ended six wars? Six, seven,
Speaker 2: six or seven? Wow?
Speaker 4: Wow, it's I love it.
Speaker 3: I love it when you can't keep track of how
Speaker 3: many wars you ended.
Speaker 2: I got one other story I would like to discuss.
Speaker 2: I'm sure James will have some comments on this as well,
Speaker 2: on a series of unfortunate ICE actions, including the first
Speaker 2: instant that I'm aware of where federal agents have shot
Speaker 2: their firearms during an enforcement operation at least as of
Speaker 2: the Trump administration two point zero. On Saturday morning, August sixteenth,
Speaker 2: in San Bernardino, a family was pulled over by massed
Speaker 2: federal agents in what DHS has since claimed was a
Speaker 2: quote unquote targeted enforcement operation. As Customs and Border Protection
Speaker 2: approached the vehicle, the family inside stread of recording on
Speaker 2: their cell phones and asked for identification. When the family
Speaker 2: refused to roll down the windows of the car, federal
Speaker 2: agents smashed windows on both sides of the vehicle and
Speaker 2: reached inside. At this point, the driver pulled the car forward,
Speaker 2: and federal agents shot at the vehicle three times before
Speaker 2: the car sped away. I'll play the video here for posterity.
Speaker 4: Yeah, do you want what do you want?
Speaker 2: Identification? You can't do So those three pops at the
Speaker 2: end were the three gunshots.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a wild one.
Speaker 2: The driver told NBC Los Angeles, quote, I had to
Speaker 2: protect my life and my family unquote.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's worth noting. I guess these agents like the
Speaker 4: more uniform than some.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have badges visible on plate carriers.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They did not establish much communication between themselves and the
Speaker 2: family as they approached the vehicle. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: like yelling back and forth.
Speaker 4: Yeah. You can hear the man telling his son they
Speaker 4: don't open it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The father is telling his kids in the car not
Speaker 2: to roll down the windows, not to open the doors
Speaker 2: as the federal agents asked for the car to be opened,
Speaker 2: and then they initiate force. The man here has lived
Speaker 2: in the US for twenty three years and does not
Speaker 2: have legal status as to adult sons who are in
Speaker 2: the vehicle are both US citizens, according to Javier Hernandez,
Speaker 2: the executive director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice,
Speaker 2: who has spoken about this incident on behalf of the
Speaker 2: family to local press. DHS gave a statement to NBC
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. Quote, in the course of the incident, the
Speaker 2: suspect drove his car at the officers and struck two
Speaker 2: Customs of Voter Protection officers with his vehicle on quote,
Speaker 2: saying that because the driver tried to quoteunquote run down
Speaker 2: the agents, a CPB officer was forced to quote discharge
Speaker 2: his firearm in self defense unquote. So that is the
Speaker 2: justification that they are using, is that this vehicle was
Speaker 2: moving in the direction of office and officers acted in
Speaker 2: self defense by shooting at the car.
Speaker 4: That doesn't seem to line up with the video that
Speaker 4: we just saw.
Speaker 2: No, the cell phone footage from inside does not show
Speaker 2: officers being hit by the vehicle. It could be the
Speaker 2: case that you can see that one of the officers
Speaker 2: reaching into the car. You can see if the car
Speaker 2: was pulling away, his arm may have the door. Like
Speaker 2: the officers are standing next to the car in the video,
Speaker 2: it's not clear that there's any officers placed in front
Speaker 2: of the vehicle.
Speaker 4: So yeah, his foot could have got run over. Maybe
Speaker 4: if he's like leaning standing there close to the.
Speaker 2: Car, the car may have bumped officers. It does not
Speaker 2: appear like this man I was trying to quote unquote
Speaker 2: run over the police.
Speaker 4: In fact, he was driving away from them. Yes.
Speaker 2: The family says that the federal agents refused to identify
Speaker 2: themselves and did not provide a judicial warrant that DHS
Speaker 2: has refused to answer whether agents had warrants, and after
Speaker 2: the shooting, the driver called the San Bernardino Police Department
Speaker 2: to report that massman pulled his car over, broke windows,
Speaker 2: and shot at him and his family. Police came to
Speaker 2: his house and spoke with the driver, but did not
Speaker 2: arrest the man because California police cannot legally assist federal
Speaker 2: agents with immigration enforcement, according to a statement from the
Speaker 2: police department, DHS made a statement criticizing the police for
Speaker 2: not taking the driver into custody. Quote. This reckless decision
Speaker 2: came despite the subject's outright refusal to comply, and his
Speaker 2: wounding of two federal officers has yet another tragic example
Speaker 2: of California's pro sanctuary policies that shield criminals instead of
Speaker 2: protecting communities. En quote, this is.
Speaker 3: What we're calling wounding.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: The severity of the two officers alleged woundings has not
Speaker 2: been specified. Police later returned to the home along with
Speaker 2: ICE and Homeland security investigations, but the family did not
Speaker 2: let them enter as they did not have a warrant,
Speaker 2: though police made one non immigration related arrest outside of
Speaker 2: the home as community members rallied to other in support
Speaker 2: of the family. As of two days ago, the DHS
Speaker 2: has said that quote the suspect remains at large.
Speaker 4: Christ This is a needless escalation that put people in danger.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, what else is there to say? Though, Like
Speaker 3: it's bullshit. This is not an excuse to discharge a weapon.
Speaker 3: This isn't count as wounding. These people should never been
Speaker 3: pulled over in the first place. But you know what
Speaker 3: we are where we are, this is the way ice works.
Speaker 4: Yeah, then this will probably happen again. I guess, like,
Speaker 4: I'm mildly surprised if Sam Benardino police did not detain
Speaker 4: the man on suspicion of assaulting a federal agent, which
Speaker 4: is something that they could detain him for. It's not
Speaker 4: immigration crime. Yeah, and that is an extremely broad defense,
Speaker 4: and one doesn't have to know the person's a federal agent,
Speaker 4: for example.
Speaker 2: So I guess, like where, We'll see how this develops. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's still unclear what's going to happened to this man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll check for an update next week. A few days before,
Speaker 2: on Thursday, August fourteenth, a man fleeing in ice rate
Speaker 2: at a home depot in Monrovia, California, was hit and
Speaker 2: killed while attempting to cross the two to ten freeway
Speaker 2: on foot. Local activists say that during the same raid,
Speaker 2: ice hit someone in the leg with one of their
Speaker 2: vehicles and that person was taken into custody.
Speaker 4: This is tragic, right, Yeah. The reckless use of vehicles
Speaker 4: in LA was remarkable, and I've covered a good deal
Speaker 4: of protests and a good deal of places. The use
Speaker 4: of vehicles in an extremely dangerous way by police was notable.
Speaker 4: When I was out there covering the protests. I think
Speaker 4: it was in June. It was something that in certainly
Speaker 4: was very concerning to me. So it would not shock
Speaker 4: me if people had been hit by an ICE vehicle.
Speaker 4: But yeah, this is a tragedy. And again and like,
Speaker 4: because the stakes are taking everything in someone's life away
Speaker 4: from them, we're going to see this happen more often.
Speaker 2: Right, No, it can cause people to do brash, run
Speaker 2: safe things like attempt to cross the busy freeway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the two tens are very busy freeway always.
Speaker 2: Now, it's extremely tragic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is yeah, really sad. So Ed Sauce reporting
Speaker 4: that a student out of California, Benjamin Guerrero Kruth, who
Speaker 4: had just turned eighteen, just begind a senior year of
Speaker 4: high school, was detained by immigration authorities from walking his dog.
Speaker 4: One of his former teachers visited him and mentioned that
Speaker 4: he had overheard He had told her that he had
Speaker 4: overheard ICE agent talking about receiving a fifteen hundred dollar
Speaker 4: bounty for making his arrest.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, like in some promotional videos from DHS and ICE,
Speaker 2: they've been boasting about bonuses not only for signing on
Speaker 2: for this recruitment ry that they're doing, but also like
Speaker 2: cash bonuses for immigrants getting arrested and deported. And there's
Speaker 2: been multiple clips of of of of agents like talking
Speaker 2: about this or like you know, talking about I wonder
Speaker 2: how much of a bonus we're going to get for
Speaker 2: these batch of arrests. So this is this has been
Speaker 2: something noticed in multiple states. I've heard of this in Florida,
Speaker 2: and this sounds like it's in California.
Speaker 4: You said, yeah, California.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So this is this is a pattern, and
Speaker 2: it's not even very glorified bounty hunting, because it's not
Speaker 2: really glorified but essentially essentially bounty hunting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that might be why we're seeing some of these
Speaker 4: like insane arrests right of people who would never normally
Speaker 4: expect to see.
Speaker 1: We reported the news there.
Speaker 2: We reported the news. We reported the news. It could
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Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.