Speaker 1: Cold Zone Media.
Speaker 2: This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly
Speaker 2: newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world,
Speaker 2: and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today,
Speaker 2: joined by Mia Wong and James Stout. This episode, we
Speaker 2: are covering the week of March twenty fifth to April.
Speaker 1: First, and so we're all gonna do silly things that
Speaker 1: aren't really news. No, we're not going to do it
Speaker 1: when I love it when outlets do that.
Speaker 2: This comes out Friday, This comes out Friday, it's over.
Speaker 2: It's done.
Speaker 1: Normal Fish of April Day for all this French people
Speaker 1: out there now.
Speaker 2: With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, I know everyone's gonna
Speaker 2: get tired of election news, but there is some very
Speaker 2: important voting that needs to happen in these next few weeks,
Speaker 2: because it could happen here. Another show called Behind the
Speaker 2: Bastards and James's excellent series Migrating to America have been
Speaker 2: nominated for Webby Awards. You know the Emmys. Yeah, they're
Speaker 2: like those, except they're.
Speaker 3: For the Internet.
Speaker 2: But they're just as serious, more serious. Some people are
Speaker 2: saying the Internet's obviously is more real than television.
Speaker 3: No one watches TV anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the Emmy's people who want boom is
Speaker 1: people are saying.
Speaker 2: So this is. This is obviously very exciting and voting
Speaker 2: lasts until April sixteenth, m There will be links in
Speaker 2: the show notes to vote for the three nominations that
Speaker 2: we have here at Coolson Media. Migrain to America is
Speaker 2: nominated for the Limited Series and Specials Podcast Documentary category.
Speaker 2: Find the Bastards is the podcast features for experimental and
Speaker 2: Innovation and it Could Happen Here is also nominated under
Speaker 2: the limited Series category under News and Politics. It's kind
Speaker 2: of confusing to navigate the website because there's just so
Speaker 2: many categories, but those three links will be there below,
Speaker 2: and we will continue to be talking about what is
Speaker 2: arguably the most important election of our lifetimes in these
Speaker 2: next few weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Pokemon, go to those links and vote for us.
Speaker 2: Even if you see that you know we might be ahead,
Speaker 2: stay in line, you cannot leave. We will not let
Speaker 2: trump Land by ms now come on steal our spot
Speaker 2: as number one. So stop the steal, do not let
Speaker 2: trump Land win. Vote it could happen here April sixteenth
Speaker 2: up until the sixteenth.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Very often vote early, foot off, vote with
Speaker 1: your spary man address.
Speaker 4: Look, vote vote very early, vote often. The great slogan
Speaker 4: of my of my home state of Illinois.
Speaker 2: Everyone take this liberal direct action very seriously. Let's start
Speaker 2: with some actual news. Getting serious here. Christy Nomes, husband
Speaker 2: was outed as what I'm going to call a sissy
Speaker 2: cross dresser with an interest in quote unquote bimboth occasion.
Speaker 2: Gnome as governor, signed a joint state letter attacking trans
Speaker 2: writes there's so much gendered angst among these conservatives projection, etca,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Representatives for Nome released a statement after this
Speaker 2: news dropped. Quote Missnome, which is interesting. Quote Missnome is devastated.
Speaker 2: The family was blindsided by this, and they ask for
Speaker 2: privacy and prayers at this time.
Speaker 1: Yeah cool.
Speaker 4: I think I think we need to we need to
Speaker 4: expand the right to arm bears to the right to
Speaker 4: arm dogs. This is my final statement on this matter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a great month for the Nomes. After
Speaker 1: she joined this Shield of America's task force, which so
Speaker 1: far has existed for less than a month and already
Speaker 1: bombed the wrong country once.
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In other important news, four hundred and thirteen thousand, seven
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety three KitKat bars were stolen in transit
Speaker 2: from Italy to Poland.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you get that statistic, is that four hundred
Speaker 1: and thirteen, seven hundred and ninety three four finger bars
Speaker 1: or is that one hundred thousand and you're counting each
Speaker 1: finger separately.
Speaker 2: No, it's each packaged bar, including some of the new
Speaker 2: limited edition Formula one and Chunky bars.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's been a thing in the UK for like
Speaker 1: twenty years, Kitkatch.
Speaker 2: This is a new version. This is a new version,
Speaker 2: according to a press release from KitKat. Okay, So if
Speaker 2: you want to argue with KitKat.
Speaker 1: I think what you're seeing is is called cool Britannia.
Speaker 1: It's a phenomenon by which British culture is slowly taken
Speaker 1: over the world.
Speaker 2: This is twelve tons of KitKat bars that were stolen.
Speaker 2: Their whereabouts are currently unknown. An on duty Secret Service
Speaker 2: agent assigned to Joe Biden shot himself while at the
Speaker 2: Philadelphia airport last week. Look, the lines are bad, but
Speaker 2: come on, it's not that that this was a negligick discharge.
Speaker 2: While the agent was traveling through the airport in an
Speaker 2: unmarked car. Jill Biden was not in the imedate area
Speaker 2: at the time of the shooting. Last weekend, Trump signed
Speaker 2: an executive order to start paying TSA agents as the
Speaker 2: Senate and House failed to agree on a DHS funding bill.
Speaker 2: Congress has adjourned for two weeks as the shutdown continues
Speaker 2: to set new records for the longest in any federal
Speaker 2: agency's history. Quick update here, literally as we were recording,
Speaker 2: House Republicans caved and agreed to the Senate bill to
Speaker 2: fund DHS except for ICE and CBP, which Republicans will
Speaker 2: be trying to fund later in a reconciliation bill. But
Speaker 2: as of Wednesday afternoon, it looks like Congress has finally
Speaker 2: reached a funding package for the rest of DHS. Politico
Speaker 2: has reported that acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has been
Speaker 2: hospitalized at least twice for stress related issues. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: while working to implement Trump's immigration policy.
Speaker 1: I think it's specifically like because they're shouting him for
Speaker 1: not hitting the targets.
Speaker 2: Right, because Stephen Miller has been calling lions, yelling at him,
Speaker 2: quote unquote, yelling about not hitting certain immigration targets yes,
Speaker 2: and Trump has yet to endorse still still yet to
Speaker 2: endorse anyone in the Texas run off between John Cornyn
Speaker 2: and Ken Paxton. Early reports indicated Trump would back corn
Speaker 2: In the incumbent, but recently Paxton has been seen meeting
Speaker 2: with Trump at Mora Lago and what have been reported
Speaker 2: as quote unquote positive meetings.
Speaker 1: A Russian oil tanker has dogged in Cuba after the
Speaker 1: United States allowed it to break the blockade on the island.
Speaker 1: As we reported last week, it's been a massive shortage
Speaker 1: of oil in Cuba. This will alleviate that slightly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: A US marine, probably former US Marine now if not
Speaker 1: very shortly to be former US marine, has been charged
Speaker 1: with federal offensive after allegedly selling millions of rounds of ammunition,
Speaker 1: including one which isn't normally available for civilian purchase, and
Speaker 1: javelins in Arizona. Javelin yeah, yeah, Just for those those
Speaker 1: who are not familiar javelin, I'm not talking about like
Speaker 1: a spear here, I'm talking about a guided anti tank missile.
Speaker 4: Oh shit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, who was he trying to sell it to?
Speaker 1: So he selled them to two people who acted as
Speaker 1: brokers are two unindicted co conspirators, and then they seld
Speaker 1: them to other people and an undercover agent was able
Speaker 1: to purchase some of the ammunition. Guy's name is Andrew
Speaker 1: paul A Marius. He was indicted by grand jury this week.
Speaker 1: He was an ammunition tech at Pendleton. But he brought
Speaker 1: them to Arizona to sell. And at this time, about
Speaker 1: two million rounds are not recovered. Great, it's not clear
Speaker 1: if there are still javelins in circulation. Basically, they don't
Speaker 1: know where the javelins are. They lost, they recovered a javelin,
Speaker 1: they don't know if they would cover all the.
Speaker 4: Java so put potentially there are just anti tank rockets
Speaker 4: out there.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, Wait a minute, they're with the Kitkats.
Speaker 2: That's it's a joint operation.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's how they stop that large Kitcat truck they
Speaker 1: hit hit the vehicle with javel in. The Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: one of those growth operations. You know, you get one javelin,
Speaker 1: you strike a KitKat vehicle, you sell the Kitcats. Now
Speaker 1: you got two javelins. You hit the mars bar vehicle. Right,
Speaker 1: this is capitalism in action.
Speaker 4: Hmm.
Speaker 1: And then let's let's return to Arizona where normal things happen.
Speaker 1: Also in Arizona, a grand jury has indicted a man
Speaker 1: for material support for a foreign terrorist organization after he
Speaker 1: allegedly sold weapons that he intended to provide to the
Speaker 1: cjn D and CDs and cartels and cart A lot So,
Speaker 1: two of the larger Mexican cartels. Right, these are two
Speaker 1: groups that were listed as fdos by the Trump administration
Speaker 1: very early on last year. Lawrence Gray, sixty five was
Speaker 1: a federal firearms licensee. He owned a shop called Grips
Speaker 1: by Larry. He sold fancy grips for nineteen elevens. He
Speaker 1: was already facing a raft of weapons charges after selling
Speaker 1: a fifty caliber barrett A semi auto belfed and of
Speaker 1: course a thirty eight Super nineteen eleven pistol to a
Speaker 1: confidential informant. The thirty eight Super nineteen eleven pistol. Well,
Speaker 1: the reason I say, of course, is because any time
Speaker 1: people get busted for illegal weapons sales in the Southwest,
Speaker 1: there always seems to be a thirty eight Super nineteen
Speaker 1: eleven involved. That they're very much like a status gun
Speaker 1: in organized crime in Mexico because certain calibers are less
Speaker 1: available there. Thirty eight Super is pretty most like uniquely
Speaker 1: associated with that market. Like it always seemed to that
Speaker 1: pops up in busts and he was selling fancy grips,
Speaker 1: some of which had symbology, which sometimes is used by
Speaker 1: organized crime groups in Mexico. Anyway, this is the first
Speaker 1: time I've seen a material support for terrorism charge for
Speaker 1: one of these cartels who were recently designated as ftos,
Speaker 1: so that was interesting to me. Finally, Israel has passed
Speaker 1: a law allowing the death penalty for murder that it
Speaker 1: uses a phrase quote with the intent of rejecting the
Speaker 1: existence of the state of Israel. It appears to be
Speaker 1: a binary system of punishment.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: It seems that the death penalty is only going to
Speaker 1: pertain to Palestinian people here. Yeah, it's worth noting that
Speaker 1: the Palatinians is the West Bank tried in military courts
Speaker 1: and they face a very high conviction rate. Often people
Speaker 1: will admit, I think we can safety say that they
Speaker 1: admit under duress in conditions it would not generally be
Speaker 1: considered applicable with justice.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: This is I mean, this is an apart our legal
Speaker 1: system on top of everything else. Right, Israel previously haven't
Speaker 1: had the death penalty. Other than for certain war crimes,
Speaker 1: which is and of itself quite amusing given the stuff
Speaker 1: we will talk about later in this very episode.
Speaker 4: One of the really bleak things about this is, oh, God,
Speaker 4: Ben Vier, who's been who's the Minister of National Security,
Speaker 4: the unbelievably unhinged right winger who's been campaigning for this law,
Speaker 4: has been going around with a bunch of his parliamentary
Speaker 4: factions wearing yellow noose pins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is their thing.
Speaker 4: And in support of this. So it's really truly cannot
Speaker 4: be clearer what this is about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that's there, like their version of the market,
Speaker 1: I guess, like the branding of their movement is is
Speaker 1: this news pin?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's it's.
Speaker 4: It's it's it's it's specifically, it's the thing that they've
Speaker 4: replaced the like the ribbon they were wearing for the
Speaker 4: hostages has now just been replaced.
Speaker 1: With the noose with the news. Yeah, where you discus
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: There is one more little thing I'd like to mention.
Speaker 2: There was a Daily Mail article that went viral, Oh
Speaker 2: the best news coming from the Daily Mail that carried
Speaker 2: the headline quote bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk did
Speaker 2: not match rifle allegedly used by suspect Tyler Robinson. God.
Speaker 2: So this article is reporting on emotion filed by the defense,
Speaker 2: characterizing findings that are still yet to be fully resolved
Speaker 2: from the ATF. This does not mean that a different
Speaker 2: gun was used. What it means is that the ATF
Speaker 2: was maybe unable to positively match the bullet fragments to
Speaker 2: the gun, which does not mean that this was a
Speaker 2: negative match. This did not come from that gun, but
Speaker 2: that the fragments could not be positively linked to the
Speaker 2: gun against his emotion filed by the defense doing what
Speaker 2: they need to do, which is legally defend this man,
Speaker 2: like that is that is their job? Yeah, and that
Speaker 2: is what they are doing. The characterization of this motion
Speaker 2: by the Daily Mail is designed to drive a clickbait
Speaker 2: and it's being used to encourage this sort of conspiracy
Speaker 2: around the charliekirk shooting, that there was this like other
Speaker 2: currently unknown shooter, possibly foreign ties. That it's a very
Speaker 2: very popular thing right now on the internet.
Speaker 1: The grassy meal theory of Charlie kirkshit.
Speaker 2: Yes, that basically like a Masad agent where was hiding somewhere?
Speaker 2: And yeah, and Tyler Robinson is a Patsy Tyler Robinson
Speaker 2: obviously innocent until proven guilty. This is going to get
Speaker 2: settled in court. But the characterization of the early findings
Speaker 2: by the ATF through the Daily Mail was a bit misleading.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they daily fail.
Speaker 4: And also I think it's worth mentioning that like this
Speaker 4: kind of bullet matching stuff is just as a forensic science,
Speaker 4: and this is true of a lot of the sort
Speaker 4: of forensic sciences that are used in used in courts.
Speaker 4: Like I think Robert has talked on Behind the Bastard's
Speaker 4: about like a bunch of like the fire pattern stuff.
Speaker 4: This is kind of in the same category as that,
Speaker 4: in that it's not very good even.
Speaker 3: To begin with.
Speaker 4: And so what we have here is a bad mischaracterization
Speaker 4: of a report of like an incomplete analysis from a
Speaker 4: not very good piece of forensic technology that's being used
Speaker 4: to do conspiracy because it makes money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we will certainly follow this case as it actually
Speaker 2: riches trial, as there will be.
Speaker 3: Many interesting things that come out to the course of
Speaker 3: that trial.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's begin by talking about immigration with this.
Speaker 1: Brad Land more or less broke this right on his
Speaker 1: social media accounts. The United States Department of Justice, via
Speaker 1: the United States Attorneys Obviously in New York, has admitted
Speaker 1: that it was misguided by ICE attorneys in asserting that
Speaker 1: they could detain migrants in immigration court. There was a
Speaker 1: memo right, an ICE guidance memo that they relied on.
Speaker 1: The memo they now say should have applied to other courts,
Speaker 1: but not to the Executive Office of Immigration Review. The
Speaker 1: declaration came in a New York court suit filed by
Speaker 1: the ACLU on behalf of advocacy groups which had challenged
Speaker 1: at courthouse arrests. That's been happening for about a year now,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure most people are aware. In the filing,
Speaker 1: the USDJ said quote this error, however, was not caused
Speaker 1: by a lack of diligence and care by the undersigned attorneys.
Speaker 1: The undersigned was specifically informed by ICE at the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five ICE guidance applied to immigration courthouse arrests. In addition,
Speaker 1: we discussed and obtained the approval of assigned ICE Council
Speaker 1: before filing every brief in this case and making any
Speaker 1: oral representations to the court and the plaintiffs. We also
Speaker 1: transmitted copies of the Court's orders transcript to the September second,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five oral argument and plaintiff's filings to ICE
Speaker 1: Council throughout its litigation. Based on our discussions with ICE today,
Speaker 1: this regrettable error appears to have occurred because of agency
Speaker 1: attorney error. So what you've got there is a US
Speaker 1: attorney basically saying, like, not my fault, ICE attorney's fault.
Speaker 1: Relatively unusual statement.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 1: Obviously, we've seen them attempts to kind of split the
Speaker 1: executive branch before in these legal filings. Right, we saw
Speaker 1: we saw this happen in some of those cases in Minnesota,
Speaker 1: and then the judge rejected that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The ACLU, in a letter of response, noted the wide
Speaker 1: reaching consequences here, and it's asked for fourteen days to
Speaker 1: consider what to do next and file in motion the
Speaker 1: memo in question. Right, This ICE guidance memo said the
Speaker 1: quote civil immigration enforcement actions in or near court houses
Speaker 1: when they have credible information that leads them to believe
Speaker 1: the targeted aliens alien brackets s IS or will be
Speaker 1: present in a specific location. It said those were permissible. Right. DHS, however,
Speaker 1: has said that there will not be a change in
Speaker 1: their policy going forward. It's unlikely that they will stop
Speaker 1: until they are told by a court to do so. Right,
Speaker 1: So what it seems here is that the ICE attorney
Speaker 1: has for some reason reconsidered, perhaps because of this ongoing
Speaker 1: case in New York, what they had said there, and
Speaker 1: now attempted to walk back something that they have been
Speaker 1: doing for a year. This will not change the fact
Speaker 1: that people who have probably been arrested in those courthouses.
Speaker 1: I have no doubt many of them have already been
Speaker 1: deported from the United States. Right, many more of them
Speaker 1: will have suffered material damage if they have not been deported,
Speaker 1: because they will have been detained in horrific conditions. Right,
Speaker 1: We've seen more photos today from inside immigration and attention.
Speaker 1: Immigration detention has always been horrific. It continues to be horrific.
Speaker 1: We can't make those people whole again in a meaningful way.
Speaker 1: But what it means going forward we will keep reporting.
Speaker 1: Another deportation story. I want to talk about a deportation
Speaker 1: flight on Monday landed in Mianma. The flight also stopped
Speaker 1: in Thailand, and it is the fifth such deportation flight
Speaker 1: that I'm aware of. I know of two that were announced.
Speaker 1: These have not been previously reported, but in March of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. At the time was a state administration council.
Speaker 1: The Mianmar military dictatorship is going through the process of
Speaker 1: changing its clothes and pretending to be a civilian government
Speaker 1: right now, that doesn't matter for this story. In the
Speaker 1: second of March twenty twenty five, the illegitimate government of
Speaker 1: Myanmar announced that it had received two individual deporties, one
Speaker 1: on each flight. In April and May of that year,
Speaker 1: they received more, so we now believe that twenty two
Speaker 1: people had been deported up to this Monday. More people,
Speaker 1: it appears from this flight, have been deported on Monday.
Speaker 1: The last deportation flight resulted in the deporties being detained
Speaker 1: and tortured by miaan Mar's brutal military intelligence. The flight
Speaker 1: was a bordered jet owned by Journey Aviation and it
Speaker 1: returned via Sydney to the United States of America. The
Speaker 1: United States has been trying to counsel the temporary protected
Speaker 1: status for Burmese people for some time, but even with
Speaker 1: a TPS, it's worth noting that people, some people have
Speaker 1: been convicted of crimes and for other exceptions, can still
Speaker 1: be deported the hunter said in a press release last year, quote,
Speaker 1: the MEANMAGU meant is cooperating with the relevant US federal
Speaker 1: entities in verifying and accepting deportees to Mianma. This and
Speaker 1: some other things a Trump administration have done. They've tried
Speaker 1: to characterize it a de facto recognition of their right
Speaker 1: to rule the country. Yeah, very clearly, the reason that
Speaker 1: they're talking about these deportations is because they're flexing that. Hey,
Speaker 1: the US government is talking to us downstream effects. I
Speaker 1: think the world is nargely not taking that seriously. But
Speaker 1: nonetheless they are using that, whether it's for external internal signaling.
Speaker 1: The last time has happened according to me Ama now
Speaker 1: the deporties were taken straight to the on Tarpi Interrogation Center,
Speaker 1: and last time it was mostly ethnically Koren or Chin people.
Speaker 1: So these are not people. It's a majority ethnicity, right,
Speaker 1: The majority ethnicity, the ethnicity that comprises most of the
Speaker 1: armed forces is or certainly most of the high ranks
Speaker 1: of the armed forces are Bama people. If people want
Speaker 1: to listen to more about me and Ma, Robert and
Speaker 1: I have made two very extensive series about that, we
Speaker 1: will link to talking of torture. Here are some advertisements
Speaker 1: which are like torture for your ears.
Speaker 2: Some people actually like torture.
Speaker 1: Just to clarify Garrison, I don't think this is the
Speaker 1: kind that people like.
Speaker 2: Some people might like those ads. There is a huge
Speaker 2: industry of watching vintage advertising on YouTube, just like like
Speaker 2: edits together of like old ads. People love that stuff. Weird,
Speaker 2: weird nostalgic capitalism. Brain.
Speaker 1: It is funny to look at the old ads. When
Speaker 1: I was doing my archival research, I'd find like nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties and nineteen thirties ads and you're like, oh, what
Speaker 1: you're selling is drugs, but so true.
Speaker 2: So true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like the two kinds of early nineteen hundreds
Speaker 4: ads are drugs and you should buy this because it
Speaker 4: has a swastika on it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's just like some form of racism in marketing.
Speaker 3: Well, what's theayed racist in like nineteen oh five? I
Speaker 3: mean kind of yeah.
Speaker 1: And guys, it's a British simple originally, guys, it's fine.
Speaker 2: Let's return to our name's sake and discuss two executive orders.
Speaker 2: As the voting restriction bill dubbed the Save America Act,
Speaker 2: continues to stall in Congress. Trump's attempted to take matters
Speaker 2: into his own hands by signing a new executive order
Speaker 2: quote ensuring Citizenship of Verification and Integrity in federal elections.
Speaker 2: This order directs DHS, USCIS and the Social Security Administration
Speaker 2: to create a quote state citizenship list of individuals confirmed
Speaker 2: to be United States citizens who will be above the
Speaker 2: age of eighteen at the time of an upcoming federal
Speaker 2: election and who maintain a residence in the subject state unquote.
Speaker 2: And this citizenship list will then be used to compare
Speaker 2: to state voter rules. The list will be derived from
Speaker 2: quote Federal citizenship and Naturalization records, Social Security Administration records,
Speaker 2: the DHS Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements data, and other
Speaker 2: relevant federal databases.
Speaker 3: Unquote.
Speaker 2: James, do you want to talk about this idea of
Speaker 2: having like a list of citizens, because this is I
Speaker 2: think something we've we've mentioned before. How there to this
Speaker 2: point hasn't really been like a single list of US citizens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you can obtain United States citizenships through a
Speaker 1: number of means, right, Yeah, So these would exist in
Speaker 1: different agencies, and generally there has been like a hostility,
Speaker 1: a well founded like hostility to to this kind of
Speaker 1: overarching government like in out list, right, not least because
Speaker 1: they will screw it up monumentally.
Speaker 2: That could have devastating consequences in a fact, not just
Speaker 2: your ability to vote, but as we have seen through
Speaker 2: the as to your vice enforcement, your ability to remain
Speaker 2: in the United States.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and just every part of everyday life, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: not at least to add that, like one of the
Speaker 1: one of the ways you can obtain United States citizenship
Speaker 1: is through being in a world tribal citizen. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that consulting tribal citizenship, world don't.
Speaker 2: There was nothing about that in the in the order.
Speaker 4: I legitimately do not think the people who are pushing
Speaker 4: this understand that that's a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't think about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not. It's not a group of
Speaker 1: people who they care about.
Speaker 2: Right. Earlier today, during the Supreme Court oral arguments on
Speaker 2: birthright citizenship, which which Trump attended for ninety minutes and
Speaker 2: then and then left because he wasn't happy with the
Speaker 2: way I was going, Gorsich asked the Seasons Solicitor General
Speaker 2: if he thinks Native Americans are birthright citizens under their test,
Speaker 2: to which these listener General replied, ah, I think so,
Speaker 2: and then said I'll have to think that through. Oh
Speaker 2: my fucking god. He later indicated that they probably would.
Speaker 2: But this just shows that they aren't really like thinking
Speaker 2: about all these sorts of things. It's not necessarily like,
Speaker 2: in that case, trying to be intentionally harmful. It shows
Speaker 2: just that they're not even like thinking about these sorts
Speaker 2: of things that could have really really devastating effects if implemented. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: which is like an odd part of the Trump administration
Speaker 2: has like not everything bad they're doing is necessarily has
Speaker 2: every single specific implementation.
Speaker 3: Pathway in mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but when implemented is like still is still devastating
Speaker 2: to people's lives.
Speaker 4: I want to say one thing about the birthright citizenship thing.
Speaker 4: Josh Chafitz, who's a professor of law at Georgetown Law
Speaker 4: Law in Politics, had a very good point about this,
Speaker 4: which I think is worth making, which is like, part
Speaker 4: of what's going on here is that the trumpministration is
Speaker 4: trying to carve out like a specific thing called birthright citizenship.
Speaker 4: That's like a thing that you get if you have
Speaker 4: two immigrant parents. But birthright citizenship is a citizenship that
Speaker 4: every single person in the US has. Yeah, it's everyone's
Speaker 4: there's no there's no distinction. There's not like a different
Speaker 4: kind of citizenship you get if you have two immigrant
Speaker 4: parents versus if you have like parents that were like
Speaker 4: born in the US. Right, Like it's all one thing.
Speaker 4: Every single person in the United States has the same
Speaker 4: kind of citizenship. But the moment you start trying to
Speaker 4: like hack apart different people citizenship right, you try to
Speaker 4: you try.
Speaker 3: To like you know, like like make there be like.
Speaker 4: Classes of of how you're a citizen through like this
Speaker 4: whole birthright citizenship complaint that they're doing right, and to
Speaker 4: be like, oh, well, just these people who were like
Speaker 4: born to immigrants are birthright citizens right. That's one of
Speaker 4: the ways you start getting into these like fucking hideous
Speaker 4: issues of like okay, are people with tribal membership like
Speaker 4: you know, residencies like citizens right. It's like all of
Speaker 4: the stuff is like downstream with this effect to like
Speaker 4: cut citizenship apart.
Speaker 3: That needs to just be.
Speaker 4: Resisted, like from the fundamental thing of there is not
Speaker 4: a different category of people called look like birthright citizens
Speaker 4: that's every single person in the US.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unless they naturalized, right, unless you're a naturalized citizen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and what's' naturalized? Yeah yeah, And even then you're
Speaker 3: still just a citizen.
Speaker 1: Then you become a citizen, you just go into the
Speaker 1: citizen bucket as well.
Speaker 3: Then you are now citizens.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, And the moment you cut that apart, like
Speaker 4: it's terrible, terrible things happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty twenty four and made the episode as Robert
Speaker 1: and Sophie in which we discuss potential at tax on
Speaker 1: citizenship and potential ways of Trump, and we get into
Speaker 1: the birth right citizenship and the we get into where
Speaker 1: it comes from and the fact that this is not
Speaker 1: an issue about which there has been legal debate. You
Speaker 1: will now see articles being like the debate about birth
Speaker 1: right citizenship. That is, people pulling things out of their
Speaker 1: ass to create two sides on an issue which has
Speaker 1: been settled for quite literally decades, if not centuries.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, I will probably.
Speaker 1: Trying to do something else on birth right citizenship. The
Speaker 1: reason I haven't done a lot is because there isn't
Speaker 1: a great deal to say. Yeah, like, birth right citizenship
Speaker 1: is a thing in the United States that has been
Speaker 1: a thing in the United States for a very long time.
Speaker 5: It's just in the constitution just says that since that, Yeah,
Speaker 5: there are some people who want to take it away,
Speaker 5: and it's specifically like we did that after we ended
Speaker 5: chattel slavery, right like for a very good reason. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and pushing back on the things we did after we
Speaker 5: ended chattel slavery is bad actually, But yeah, I will
Speaker 5: maybe I'll do another episode because I know we've picked
Speaker 5: up a lot of new listeners since then.
Speaker 2: Now, Trump's new executive Order on citizenship verification for elections
Speaker 2: also states, quote, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish
Speaker 2: procedures to allow individuals to access their individual records, as
Speaker 2: well as to update or correct them in advance of elections.
Speaker 2: Unquote unclear how this is going to work, if it
Speaker 2: even is going to work. It's still not clear that
Speaker 2: this executive order will actually be implemented as written because
Speaker 2: of potential constitutional violations. But you know, this would be
Speaker 2: in an attempt to address some of the some of
Speaker 2: the pretty big issues that we're saying about someone maybe
Speaker 2: a citizen and not show up as a citizen in
Speaker 2: these databases for a number of reasons, whether it's because
Speaker 2: they were naturalized or even in some cases where granted
Speaker 2: citizenship through one of their parents after being in the
Speaker 2: sole legal custody of that parent, who is a US
Speaker 2: citizen before this individual is eighteen. This is called the
Speaker 2: Childhood Citizenship Act of two thousand, which makes a permanent
Speaker 2: resident become a citizen if they're living with a US
Speaker 2: citizen parent and things like that. Citizenship kind of rolls
Speaker 2: over from permanent residency without ever actually having to become naturalized,
Speaker 2: and getting that added to any kind of database doesn't
Speaker 2: really happen by itself. You have to then apply for
Speaker 2: proof of citizenship like a passport or a certificate. So
Speaker 2: there's all these sorts of weird instances where someone is
Speaker 2: a citizen but it may not show up in these
Speaker 2: sorts of records, including social security records.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I should just clarify that, like, not all tribal
Speaker 1: members are necessarily US citizens, but tribal membership document sometimes
Speaker 1: be used, like Garrison was saying, right, as a way
Speaker 1: to prove United States citizenship. It's just more than one
Speaker 1: hundred years now since the Indian Citizenship Act of nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty four, Right, there may still be people alive today
Speaker 1: who were made citizens by that act but would not
Speaker 1: have any particular documentation that's personal to them to show that.
Speaker 2: The executive order also writes that the Attorney General will
Speaker 2: investigate and prosecute state officials, local officials, individuals, and public
Speaker 2: or private entities who issue federal ballots to individuals not
Speaker 2: eligible to vote, or aid an a bet the printing, production, shipment,
Speaker 2: or distribution of ballots to those ineligible to vote.
Speaker 1: That's what we call a chilling effect.
Speaker 2: The second half of the order takes on vote by
Speaker 2: mail by instructing the Postmaster General to initiate a proposed
Speaker 2: rule making that requires states to submit lists of voters
Speaker 2: who will be provided mail in or absen zee ballots
Speaker 2: at least sixty days before an election, and that the
Speaker 2: USPS shall not transmit any ballots for anyone not on
Speaker 2: this state citizenship list. Now, all of this is intended
Speaker 2: to take effect before the midterm elections, with the DHS
Speaker 2: instructed to establish the infrastructure necessary to compile, maintain, and
Speaker 2: transmit the state citizenship list within ninety days. Though this
Speaker 2: executive order may very well be blocked by courts for
Speaker 2: being an unconstitutional breach of presidential power, the followut of
Speaker 2: this will be determined in the next few weeks as
Speaker 2: states and legal entities prepare lawsuits. Let's talk about one
Speaker 2: other executive order. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that
Speaker 2: a key section of the executive order quote ending taxpayer
Speaker 2: subsitization of biased media, is unconstitutional. In this order, Trump
Speaker 2: instructed all federal agencies to cut funding to PBS and NPR.
Speaker 2: The judge in this case wrote that the President can
Speaker 2: criticize reporting from such outlets and fund programs that promote
Speaker 2: specific perspectives and impose limits on funchal grants, but under
Speaker 2: the First Amendment, the government cannot use the power of
Speaker 2: the purse to quote, punish or suppress disfavored expression by others,
Speaker 2: writing that both the Supreme Court and the DC Circuit
Speaker 2: Court have repeatedly observed that one quote may not deny
Speaker 2: a benefit to a person on the basis that infringes
Speaker 2: his constitutionally protected freedom of speech, even if he has
Speaker 2: no entitlement to that benefit unquote. The judge rights that
Speaker 2: the Executive order quote does not define or regulate the
Speaker 2: content of government speech or ensure compliance with the federal program,
Speaker 2: nor does it set neutral and germane criteria that apply
Speaker 2: to all applicants for a federal grant.
Speaker 3: Program.
Speaker 2: Instead, it singles out to two speakers and on the
Speaker 2: basis of their speech, bars them from all federally funded programs.
Speaker 2: It does so, moreover, without regard to whether the federal
Speaker 2: funds are used to pay for the nationwide interconnection systems
Speaker 2: which serve as the technological backbone of public radio and television,
Speaker 2: to provide safety and security for journalists working in war zones,
Speaker 2: to support the Emergency broadcast system, or to produce distribute music,
Speaker 2: children's or other educational programming or documentaries unquote. Now, besides
Speaker 2: setting a good legal precedent, this ruling won't have much
Speaker 2: in terms of immediate effects because the Corporation for Public
Speaker 2: Broadcasting was dissolved last month after being defunded by the
Speaker 2: Republican controlled Congress. That's not being reversed, but this ruling
Speaker 2: could make it less difficult for PBS and NPR to
Speaker 2: receive money in the future, either from Congress or some
Speaker 2: federal agencies.
Speaker 1: What's that sound, Oh? No, someone desecrating the legacy of
Speaker 1: the clash by singing there were a song with different lyrics.
Speaker 2: Jazzy jasp.
Speaker 3: Seriously, though, I'm still angry to be fair to buy
Speaker 3: entrance music. The class desecrated themselves by making that song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with the moment they released that song. Yeah, Joe
Speaker 1: Strummer cried when they played that a song during Desert Storm,
Speaker 1: and if he was alive today he would be crying again.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, okay, we actually do have tariff news. Was the
Speaker 4: first tariff news in a while. But when we last
Speaker 4: spoke about the Supreme Court nullifying the Liberation Day terroiffs
Speaker 4: and a significant chunk of the tariffs that Trump had
Speaker 4: been putting into effect, we said that there wasn't a
Speaker 4: plan really to get tariffree funds out and that it
Speaker 4: really hadn't been addressed other than by dissenting Supreme Court members.
Speaker 4: We are sort of starting to see what that looks
Speaker 4: like after a series of rulings from trade courts. Right now,
Speaker 4: it is a fiasco. So the government has set up
Speaker 4: a portal through which you can get relief now after
Speaker 4: it after it was sort of forced to by the court.
Speaker 4: The implementation of this has been delayed several times because
Speaker 4: the government didn't have time to actually get it out.
Speaker 4: A bunch of the portal is not built yet. The
Speaker 4: government is claiming that it is going to take more
Speaker 4: time to build a whole bunch of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I bet.
Speaker 4: Now this is a catastrophe because they're they're dealing with
Speaker 4: about one hundred and a bit over one hundred and
Speaker 4: sixty six billion dollars of tariff money.
Speaker 3: But they have to pay back plus interest.
Speaker 1: It's interest, that's funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah, plus interest. This is the whole thing. Right, they
Speaker 3: have to do interest on all of this, which is
Speaker 3: a nightmare.
Speaker 1: It's the interest of crewing while they bungle setting up
Speaker 1: this quest based site or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's still going every second. The interesting thing is
Speaker 3: ticking on this.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to quote here from Bloomberg Brandon Lord,
Speaker 4: executive director of the Trade Program's Directory of the Customers Agency,
Speaker 4: who are the people who are sort of running all
Speaker 4: this is also part of why it's such a disaster
Speaker 4: because there's like seventeen different agencies that are like working
Speaker 4: on this, right, So some of it's like the Trade
Speaker 4: Program rector like at the Customs Agency, but there's also
Speaker 4: just there's different parts of the Customs and Customs and
Speaker 4: Border Patrol that's dealing with all of this stuff. Quote
Speaker 4: wrote that more than twenty six thousand importers who paid
Speaker 4: one hundred and twenty billion dollars. In the challenge, terrorists
Speaker 4: were registered to receive electronic refunds. So far, the government
Speaker 4: has said that payments could take up to forty five
Speaker 4: days to review. I would bet that it takes longer
Speaker 4: than that, because again, the portal hasn't.
Speaker 3: Been written, hasn't been like made yet. But partnerspate are
Speaker 3: still being built.
Speaker 2: I'm sure those doge guys are on.
Speaker 3: I'm sure the.
Speaker 2: Everest thing up running in no time. I'm sure they
Speaker 2: vibe code their way to a perfectly functioning portal.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be so good. And again I kind of
Speaker 4: ouside how much fatastrophe this is. The government has said
Speaker 4: in court that they're portals set up for two thirds
Speaker 4: of the Bundy, right, there's still another third that they're like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know, we're working on it. Who knows when
Speaker 4: it's gonna happen. So there's just again like a third
Speaker 4: of hundred sixty six billion dollars that they don't even.
Speaker 3: Plan to refund. Amazing.
Speaker 4: Now, now this is not even the messiest part of this, right.
Speaker 4: There's a very good piece in the conversation from Peter R. Krabb,
Speaker 4: who's the professor of Finance and Economics at Northwestern Nazarene
Speaker 4: and University, and also Alis and Graham Larson, who's assistant
Speaker 4: professor of criminal Justice at the same university, and they
Speaker 4: point out that it's not actually as simple as okay,
Speaker 4: you have a you have a item on your balance
Speaker 4: sheet that is the tariff payments for these companies because
Speaker 4: for example, you know, okay, so if you were doing
Speaker 4: like FedEx, for example, they use right, FedEx has like
Speaker 4: a number right because they just they passed the cost
Speaker 4: directly on to the consumers. However, Costco didn't do that.
Speaker 4: Costco shifted the cost around internally. So it's actually very
Speaker 4: complicated for them to figure out how much money they
Speaker 4: like the paid on these terrafts because it was read
Speaker 4: a bunch of around a whole bunch of stuff. They
Speaker 4: also like changed the way that they were structuring deliveries
Speaker 4: and stuff internally, and there were so there are a
Speaker 4: whole bunch of different lawsuits from these companies to try
Speaker 4: to get their tariff money back because a lot of
Speaker 4: these were going on before the actual formal refund process
Speaker 4: was started. So this is like this is another rolling catastrophe.
Speaker 4: There's also consumer lawsuits of consumers people who bought shit
Speaker 4: who want refunds for the teriffs because they were forced
Speaker 4: to pay the costs of it. Now, because this is
Speaker 4: the United States of America, there's another layer of this,
Speaker 4: which is there are a whole bunch of companies where
Speaker 4: there are there are these investment firms who have come
Speaker 4: in and said, hey, we will buy the rights to
Speaker 4: your tariff money for a fraction of the money, and
Speaker 4: we will guarantee that you get this money now, and
Speaker 4: then we will pay ourselves with the tariff money that
Speaker 4: we got back.
Speaker 3: So now you have investment firms who are buying up
Speaker 3: pools of this tariff money.
Speaker 4: And I bet, from spending a bunch of time last
Speaker 4: week in the trenches of the two thousand and eight
Speaker 4: financial collapse, Mollie, I bet they're gonna start selling security.
Speaker 3: He's fixed off of these pools of tariff money.
Speaker 2: So this, oh my head ache.
Speaker 3: This is great. What's what I gotta say on the
Speaker 3: tariffy on? Oh, it's so good.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm just excited to receive my refund from all
Speaker 2: of the Jay fashion I ordered from Japan, which I'm
Speaker 2: sure I'll be personally receiving thanks to this.
Speaker 3: Hey, you know, Here's here's the thing. Here's the thing.
Speaker 4: The one truly beautiful part of the US legal system
Speaker 4: is that you can sue someone for twenty dollars of damages.
Speaker 4: That number has never been changed. It is the one
Speaker 4: truly beautiful part of the United States of America is
Speaker 4: that you, Garrison David almost certainly could sue the government
Speaker 4: for that money.
Speaker 2: That's funny. Yeah, I'm not doing that shit.
Speaker 3: Go too which work.
Speaker 1: No, the GoFundMe link for Garrison's constitutional lawyer.
Speaker 4: If if someone takes a forty dollars bill from you,
Speaker 4: you can go fucking sue them in car.
Speaker 3: That's funny, It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Just tag Garrison at I write okayybsky dot app yeah,
Speaker 1: and then just say hi, I am a constitutional lawyer.
Speaker 1: I would like to represent you in court. Read the
Speaker 1: twenty dollars thank you?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: Oh and by the way, by the way, the one
Speaker 4: last thing I want to notice, on a somewhat serious note,
Speaker 4: is that this entire catastrophe is just for one specific
Speaker 4: set of authority that Trump was using to put terriffs
Speaker 4: into place. There are a whole bunch of other ones
Speaker 4: that he's been doing now that will also get challenged
Speaker 4: that will have their own refund processes where we will
Speaker 4: go through this.
Speaker 3: Entire mess again with different things.
Speaker 4: So it's great, great things happening for international trade as
Speaker 4: we yeah, increase the price of fucking oil to like
Speaker 4: two hundred dollars a barrel, and I don't know, finally
Speaker 4: get our Calvin and Hobbes eight dollars gasoline.
Speaker 3: It's great. Long live the cycler. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The national price of gasoleene is now at four bucks,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: And that's why they call him the affordability President.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, yes, and wee checks on the egg prices though,
Speaker 1: because that's how we do things now.
Speaker 4: Expensive a shit, expensive shit, James, Yeah, not cheap.
Speaker 1: Let me divert new listeners to are a famous Chickens
Speaker 1: episode circa twenty twenty three and which they can learn
Speaker 1: more about keeping poultry at home. Talking of catastrophes, I
Speaker 1: would like to continue to talk about the war on Iran.
Speaker 1: The President truthed this week that he was prepared to
Speaker 1: attack desalination and power plants in Iran if the state
Speaker 1: did not comply with his demands. Jesus in his truth,
Speaker 1: he said, I will skip remarking on capitalization as his
Speaker 1: house style, because as well as these were Carfan Hour,
Speaker 1: the United States of America is in serious discussions with
Speaker 1: a new and more reasonable regime to end our military
Speaker 1: operations in Iran. Great progress has been made, but if
Speaker 1: for any reason a deal that's not shortly reached, which
Speaker 1: it probably will be, and if the Hormu Strait is
Speaker 1: not immediately open for business, we will conclude a lovely
Speaker 1: stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all
Speaker 1: of their electric generating plants, oil wells, and Khag Island.
Speaker 1: Probably all this is sick desalinization plants, which we have
Speaker 1: purposely not yet touched. This will be a retribution for
Speaker 1: our many soldiers and for others that Iran has butchered
Speaker 1: and killed over the old regime's forty seven year reign
Speaker 1: of terror. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Speaker 1: President Donald J. Trump, as a reporter NBC pointed out
Speaker 1: targeting civilian infrastructure, it is a war crime.
Speaker 8: Their international law, Striking civilian infrastructure like that is generally prohibited.
Speaker 8: Why is the President threatening what would amount to potentially
Speaker 8: a war crime with the US military. How do you
Speaker 8: square that with the administration repeatedly saying that the US
Speaker 8: does not target civilian Look.
Speaker 6: The President has made it quite clear to the Iranian
Speaker 6: regime at this moment in time, as evidenced by the
Speaker 6: statement that you just read, that their best move is
Speaker 6: to make a deal or else. The United States Armed
Speaker 6: Forces has capabilities beyond their wildest imagination, and the President
Speaker 6: is not afraid to use them. That's not what I said, Garrett.
Speaker 6: And you're saying the word potential for a reason because
Speaker 6: I'm sure sure some experts are telling you that in
Speaker 6: your ear to try to ask me that question. Of course,
Speaker 6: this administration in the United States Armedforces will always act
Speaker 6: within the confines of the law. But with respect to
Speaker 6: achieving the full objectives of Operation Epic Fury, President Trump
Speaker 6: is going to move forward unabated, and he expects the
Speaker 6: Iranian regime to make a deal with the administration.
Speaker 1: It should be noted that Iran has said that it
Speaker 1: is not negotiating directly with the United States, then negotiating
Speaker 1: to a third party. What is largely missing from this
Speaker 1: discussion is that Israel has been doing this stuff already. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Israel has not limited its war crimes to its bombing
Speaker 1: of Iran. Right it has been on a war crimes
Speaker 1: freeze for several years, and that is an extension of
Speaker 1: a war crime speed that he has been arguably on
Speaker 1: for several decades. Yeah, Israel attacked to desalinate some plant
Speaker 1: on the seventh of March. Very briefly, the Israeli press
Speaker 1: attempted to report that the UAE had done this. The
Speaker 1: UAE had to issue a statement essentially saying like, we
Speaker 1: would never attack the people of Iran, while we disagree
Speaker 1: with the state of Iran, while that you've been like
Speaker 1: outwhoked by the UAE, but them saying like it's no
Speaker 1: way to attack the Iranian regime to force Iranian people
Speaker 1: to die for lack of water. It is a perfectly
Speaker 1: reasonable and just statement.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Officially, both the IDF and the US government have denied
Speaker 1: this strike, but the combination of like several factors, including
Speaker 1: this incredibly rapid disinformation campaign, strongly point to this being
Speaker 1: an IDF joint Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also who else, Like what what are you too? Bobbed it?
Speaker 3: Like you what are you going to do?
Speaker 1: Lately? Yeah, there have been there have been attempt to
Speaker 1: several attempts over the last month to to to suggest
Speaker 1: that like other Golf states, have done things when when
Speaker 1: they're politically inconvenient. This, as far as I'm concerned, very
Speaker 1: very likely to be an IDF situation. This point is
Speaker 1: something that we've talked about for more than a month now,
Speaker 1: but I just want to make it really clear that
Speaker 1: the US and Israel very clearly have very different goals
Speaker 1: in it run. I think that sometimes we see this
Speaker 1: this very puerile analysis has taken hold on the left
Speaker 1: in the United States right, which suggests that Israel is
Speaker 1: entirely driving the bus here, that they cajoled the United
Speaker 1: States into doing this war and they're telling the United
Speaker 1: States what to do, when and where and how. I
Speaker 1: think that's a very juvenile way of understanding this. Hawks
Speaker 1: in the United States have wanted war with Iran for decades.
Speaker 1: Trump talked about it in his first term. Trump also
Speaker 1: still clearly harbors resentment for Obama quote unquote getting bin
Speaker 1: Laden and wants a sort of similar commander in chief win.
Speaker 1: His confidence was significantly bolstered after the Venezuela operation, and
Speaker 1: he thought he could affect a regime change here quickly
Speaker 1: and then extract tribute from a client's day, as he
Speaker 1: appears to be doing from Delsea and Venezuela now right,
Speaker 1: this has not worked so far in Iran. Israel, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, has continued with his own campaign, which
Speaker 1: is an extension of what we have seen it doing
Speaker 1: in Gaza, what we are seeing it doing in Lebanon,
Speaker 1: which seems to be to cripple any state in the region,
Speaker 1: any population in the region that opposes it. Right, but
Speaker 1: it genuinely seems that its goal here is to leave
Speaker 1: itself sort of the only functioning quality in the region
Speaker 1: and to destroy any other armed actor with very little
Speaker 1: concern for the loss of innocent life. The United States
Speaker 1: in the last week has lost signific aviation resources after
Speaker 1: Iranian ballistic missiles struck and air based into Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: They damaged at least one E three A wax aircraft
Speaker 1: and then a handful of KT one thirty five air
Speaker 1: to wear refueling aircraft. This is not in a significant loss.
Speaker 1: This is half a billion dollars of aviation wiped out
Speaker 1: in a single strike. And these are not aeroplanes that
Speaker 1: the United States has a large number of.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: Iran also hit a cuated tanker this week. A drone
Speaker 1: seem to have hit it off the coast of Dubai.
Speaker 1: It caught fire, there was potential for an oil spill,
Speaker 1: but what I'm seeing at the time where according this
Speaker 1: is has not been once so far, Yeah exactly. I
Speaker 1: mean every war is an ecological disaster, but this one
Speaker 1: could re a particularly remarkable one. And then I just
Speaker 1: do briefly want to mention the economic impacts of course,
Speaker 1: like it will be very hard to be living on
Speaker 1: this planet right now and not noticee economic impacts. But
Speaker 1: the Republic of the Marshall Islands has declared the state
Speaker 1: of emergency and begun fuel rationing that the strictly limiting
Speaker 1: the use of government vehicles. I have reached out to
Speaker 1: the government to presidency. You can hear my reporting from
Speaker 1: Republican the Martial Islands, including an interview with the then
Speaker 1: president in twenty twenty three. That's another series that we've
Speaker 1: made here on it could happen here that I'm going
Speaker 1: to see if we can get someone from the RMI
Speaker 1: on for an interview, because I think some of these
Speaker 1: small island nations right where everything has to be shipped
Speaker 1: in the cost of fuel can make things extremely difficult
Speaker 1: for people just trying to eke out an existence. There
Speaker 1: in a place that the United States nuked despite never
Speaker 1: raising the word and anger against us.
Speaker 2: Finally, our last few stories this episode starting with a
Speaker 2: Tale of Two Bombing Plots, American classic, truly the American
Speaker 2: tradition that just won't die. My brother and sister have
Speaker 2: been indicted after allegedly planting and improvised explicit device outside
Speaker 2: of McDill Air Force Space in Tampa, Florida, on March tenth,
Speaker 2: before fleeing to China two days later. After planting the bomb,
Speaker 2: the brother allegedly alerted officials by calling nine to one
Speaker 2: to one, but the explosive went undiscovered for nearly a week.
Speaker 3: It did not detonate. Huh.
Speaker 2: The sister was arrested after returning from China, and she's
Speaker 2: charged with evidence tampering and being an accessory after the fact.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors alleged that she helped clean and sell the car
Speaker 2: used to plant the bomb and asked chat GPT how
Speaker 2: to obtain a Chinese visa and transfer properties in her
Speaker 2: brother's name, and searched for Chinese schools for her brother
Speaker 2: to attend. Her brother is still suspected to be in China.
Speaker 4: Look, I am stunned that these people didn't accidentally blow
Speaker 4: themselves up.
Speaker 2: Well, the reason why is because it's actually very hard
Speaker 2: to build a bomb.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, I guess. I guess.
Speaker 4: Well, because when you're trying to build a bomb, there's
Speaker 4: three outcomes, right, there's one you failed to build a
Speaker 4: bomb to you either succeed to build a bomb, or
Speaker 4: fail to build a bomb and it blows you up,
Speaker 4: or you successfully build a bomb.
Speaker 3: As sets, building a bomb.
Speaker 4: Is like that the hardest, and it's you're pretty likely
Speaker 4: to blow yourself up or fail to build a bomb.
Speaker 3: So I guess, I guess I never got.
Speaker 4: To the threshold a bomb building where it would blow
Speaker 4: themselves up because they just didn't produce it viable device.
Speaker 2: In this next bombing plot, the suspect did actually construct
Speaker 2: what could be considered a bomb. Oh good Lord, that
Speaker 2: could have been used in what's being reported on as
Speaker 2: an assassination plot. Last Thursday, a New Jersey man, Alexander
Speaker 2: Heifler was arrested as a part of a plot to
Speaker 2: firebomb the home of pro Palestinian activists nerden Kiswani Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: Alexander Heiffler is a member of the JDL six one
Speaker 2: three Brotherhood, a new offshoot of the terrorist group the
Speaker 2: Jewish Defense League, which has been active at Palestine protests
Speaker 2: in New York the past few years. This is a
Speaker 2: Zionist extremist group that has been designated in the past
Speaker 2: by the FBI as extremist group. According to the criminal complaint,
Speaker 2: Heifler was in a group video call with an undercover
Speaker 2: officer last February in which he asked about receiving training
Speaker 2: quote for how to use the instruments that were not knives, guns,
Speaker 2: or crossbows for quote unquote self defense. That's an odd,
Speaker 2: odd phrasing in the complaint, cross not okay.
Speaker 3: Things that aren't those things not okay.
Speaker 2: Great things happening here, and Heifler later specifically mentioned that
Speaker 2: he was looking for somewhere to throw molotovs oh boy.
Speaker 2: The undercover sent Heifler a message via an encrypted messaging
Speaker 2: application stating, Hey, let's talk about that in person. Don't
Speaker 2: say that on here. Heifler responded, don't use the M word.
Speaker 2: Copy that the M word, apparently being molotov. Incredible operational
Speaker 2: security happening year. The next day, the two met in person.
Speaker 2: Heifler told the undercover that molotovs were easy to make,
Speaker 2: and they discussed targeting the home of pro Palestinian activist
Speaker 2: ner Dean Kiswani. Heifler talked about needing to obtain fake
Speaker 2: license plates and told the undercover that he had an
Speaker 2: escape plan to flee the country. At the end of April,
Speaker 2: Mayor Zoramumdani clarified online that Heifler intended to flee to Israel.
Speaker 2: Great to quote Heifler in their criminal complaint quote, I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 2: if we wanted to go after Kiswani, we have Kiswani's address,
Speaker 2: so it's like that that would be easier if you'd
Speaker 2: be more comfortable with that. Drive down to Kiswani's home,
Speaker 2: middle of April, no IDs, no phones in and out
Speaker 2: unquote Great. A few weeks later they met up again
Speaker 2: and drove to Kiswani's home to conduct surveillance. Heifler told
Speaker 2: the undercover that he had done tests with a molotov
Speaker 2: and a DNA kit from a pharmacy, and because his
Speaker 2: DNA showed up on the test, they should wear gloves
Speaker 2: during the attack. A real genius at work.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: The plan was to build twelve molotovs and throw several
Speaker 2: at the home and two at cars parked outside. Heifler
Speaker 2: mentioned having an address they could hide out before he
Speaker 2: would then flee to Israel. On March twenty sixth, they
Speaker 2: met at Heifler's home to start making the molotovs, and
Speaker 2: after the assembly, law enforcement searched the home and Heifler
Speaker 2: was arrested and has since been charged with unlawful possession
Speaker 2: and making of a destructive device.
Speaker 4: Great stuff. I very glad they didn't pull this off.
Speaker 4: And also, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: You know something like this. It is interesting that this
Speaker 2: was a joint with the FBI, that the current FBI
Speaker 2: was was doing like a sort of sting operation like
Speaker 2: this with the Jewish Defense League. Is interesting. That is
Speaker 2: that is something that I think people may not have expected.
Speaker 2: The undercover was part of the further of this plan
Speaker 2: in some ways. I don't know. We don't know if
Speaker 2: this guy would have done this exact attack if not
Speaker 2: planned with the undercover. But this guy was very, very
Speaker 2: clearly willing and able to hurt and possibly kill this
Speaker 2: pro Palestinian activist, a very prominent one at that. Lastly,
Speaker 2: let's talk about Pink News and the Idaho bathroom bill.
Speaker 3: Oh my fucking god. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So earlier this week I released an episode and an
Speaker 2: accompanying article online on what I've dubbed the trans panic
Speaker 2: clickbait economy. My reporting goes through a series of misleading
Speaker 2: viral claims about the attacks on trans people from the
Speaker 2: Trump administration and Red States that have been recently flooding
Speaker 2: the zone and overwhelming the senses with an endless stream
Speaker 2: of forecast to doom. These viral claims are usually based
Speaker 2: on some irresponsible reporting designed to drive in an engagement
Speaker 2: rather than inform about the very real dangerous trans people
Speaker 2: are facing. This kind of clickbait treats every horrific potentiality
Speaker 2: as an inevitable eventuality, undermining our capacity to accurately assess
Speaker 2: risk and effectively dedicate resources to oppose pressing threats. One
Speaker 2: of the key outlets profiting from the panic clickbaita economy
Speaker 2: right now has been Pink News in LGBTQ news outlet,
Speaker 2: which we learned last month is pivoting to a quote
Speaker 2: unquote reporter free newsroom.
Speaker 4: Incredible and just We're one of the most Aurelian things
Speaker 4: I've ever heard.
Speaker 3: Just holy fuck, just just on a base level of
Speaker 3: like just oh my reporter free newsgroup.
Speaker 2: Because of this change, one of the journalists there I've
Speaker 2: already quit, with four others possibly being laid off shortly.
Speaker 2: The sort of editorial department of pink News is now
Speaker 2: being taken over by their social media content creation wing
Speaker 2: and some of like the editorial staff, which are repackaging
Speaker 2: press releases and stealing the work of other journalists, including
Speaker 2: some other journalists who may be engaging in this sort
Speaker 2: of misleading reporting attempting to drive their own engagement. Then
Speaker 2: pink News is using that framing to drive their own engagement.
Speaker 2: That's why this sort of panic economy is a whole economy.
Speaker 2: It feeds on itself now. On March thirtieth, Pink News
Speaker 2: published an article that went viral online that claimed Kentucky
Speaker 2: was quote to pass a bill that would declare trans
Speaker 2: people mentally ill unquote, as well as prohibiting trans people
Speaker 2: from teaching in schools. But a report from an actual
Speaker 2: Kentucky based journalist named Olivia Croft for the outlet Queer
Speaker 2: Kentucky clarified that no such bill was going to pass.
Speaker 2: The push for a bill declaring trans people as mentally
Speaker 2: ill was by a single Republican state senator named Gex
Speaker 2: Williams Jesus Christ. So yeah, pause there, Deax Williams and
Speaker 2: Gex could not even accomplish the first step in the
Speaker 2: legislative process, getting the set in committee assignment for this
Speaker 2: prospective bill. Gex then tried to turn his failed bill
Speaker 2: into a floor amendment slapped onto a separate bill that
Speaker 2: was expected to pass, but such an amendment still requires
Speaker 2: a vote on approval separate from the vote to pass
Speaker 2: the bill itself. Olivia Croth reported that this amendment does
Speaker 2: not have such support from other legislators and that Gex
Speaker 2: was expected to withdraw his amendment for breaking Senate rules
Speaker 2: on piggybacking failed bills onto different bills as an amendment,
Speaker 2: And even if this amendment somehow got through, the bill
Speaker 2: would then need to be sent back to the state
Speaker 2: House for approval and would spark a huge fight that
Speaker 2: the legislature does not have time for because the legislative
Speaker 2: season is now wrapping up. So after this article from
Speaker 2: pink news was fact checked by this really good journalist
Speaker 2: doing doing important reporting in Kentucky, pink News then deleted
Speaker 2: this article and the viral posts plugging it. But any
Speaker 2: corrections to this false story do not spread nearly as
Speaker 2: far as the initial panic inducing claim. And like that's
Speaker 2: crucial here because the night that this article went out
Speaker 2: on pink News, literally my entire feed was full of
Speaker 2: dozens and dozens and dozens people all quote tweeting this
Speaker 2: pink News story. And the fact check and the fact
Speaker 2: that pink News deleted this is not going to get
Speaker 2: spread in that same way now. Misleading stories like this
Speaker 2: distract from the very real attacks Republicans are waging in
Speaker 2: Red states, one of which one of a few was
Speaker 2: on Monday, the governor of Idaho signed a new bill
Speaker 2: into law that criminalizes trans people using the bathroom that
Speaker 2: matches their gender, including bathrooms in private businesses. A first
Speaker 2: defense would be a misdemeanor with punishable by up to
Speaker 2: a year in prison. Second offense within five years would
Speaker 2: be a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
Speaker 2: And this would be prison housed based on quote unquote
Speaker 2: biological sex at birth, which leads to abuse of trans inmates.
Speaker 2: This is the most extreme bathroom but that this nation
Speaker 2: has seen so far, the most restrictive affecting private businesses,
Speaker 2: and this is sort of very very intense criminal punishment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's also worth noting in ways there are
Speaker 4: very plea trans people are also just criminalized at an
Speaker 4: extremely high rate, and these felony charges would count for
Speaker 4: Idaho's three strikes law, which is a fucking nightmare. This
Speaker 4: and we also got the Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday
Speaker 4: which applies a significantly stricter level of scrutiny to any
Speaker 4: ban on conversion therapy, which is probably going to end
Speaker 4: up killing a whole bunch of conversion therapy bans across
Speaker 4: the country, which, by the way, eight to one ruling,
Speaker 4: so a bunch of liberal justices also fucking agreed with this. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I like that shit is like actually happening. And then
Speaker 4: meanwhile we have this like haddock slop bullshit that people
Speaker 4: are using to get money, and it's incredibly frustrated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes it harder to actually evaluate the news
Speaker 2: as it's happening and trust certain news from certain sources,
Speaker 2: because we all know that these attacks are real, Like,
Speaker 2: there are real attacks going on that are really bad,
Speaker 2: but we do need to focus on the ones that
Speaker 2: actually are real. As opposed to a single state Senator's
Speaker 2: amendment to a bill which is never going to pass,
Speaker 2: taking up all of the oxygen one night. Meanwhile, literally
Speaker 2: that same day, a bill like this Idaho bathroom bill
Speaker 2: is being signed by the governor.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, on that note, I think that does it for
Speaker 2: us here at it could happen here.
Speaker 4: Put a transgirl on your couch, I guess, especially also
Speaker 4: now trans people from Idaho who are going to be
Speaker 4: fleeing and presumably believe very large numbers.
Speaker 3: And great and good.
Speaker 2: We reported the news.
Speaker 3: We reported the news.
Speaker 7: It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 7: in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.